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"I Love the smell of Rustoleum in the Morning ..." Having Trunk Fun
Poor Man's Paint Booth
It's starting to get cold, nighttime is coming earlier each day. Since it's not cold enough to go ice climbing, and the racecar is still in the trailer awaiting a frame-pull, let's work on the '02 while I have the chance. I have a feeling that my planned wintertime project - major restoration of the bimmer - will be preempted for the 944 rebuild.
So let's get started. The trunk was in need of large amounts of Hot Monkey-Love (tm). Nothing major, but not something you want to show anybody. Vinyl all torn and dirty, paint (original) showing 30+ years of wear. Plus the gas tank could use some care, especially when looking from under the car.
Rehab consisted of pulling the fuel lines, dropping the gas tank, rehabbing it, redoing all the trunk panels with new vinyl, updating and cleaning up the wiring for the lights, battery and inertia kill switch, and repainting the interior, i.e. removing all bits, removing any rust, masking, priming and final painting in my little homemade paint booth.
Spare Tire well - Before
Minor surface rust and general grunginess
Inside the Paint Booth - don't tell OSHA!
I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express but I did wear a respirator.
Spare Tire well - After
Since large parts of the trunk were originally covered with undercoating, I figured my underdeveloped painting skillz combined with no pro painting tools would be adequate. This meant numerous cans of Rustoleum Appliance White Auto Body spray paint. All in all, it turned out pretty good. However the rest of the body/engine compartment will require either the investment in some good spray equipment or turning it over to pros (the most likely outcome).
Across from the spare tire well is the gas tank. I had some concerns here. BMW used a open cell foam as a gasket between the tank and the car frame (see brown foam bits on tank edges). This just sucked up water and held it, a perfect place for breeding rust bugs, a nasty species almost as ferocious as lipsticked pigs.
Another view of the tank and foam gasket, plus the general grungdiness of the trunk.
Yummy! Clean enough to eat off of - well, if you're a siberian husky wandering around the shop that is...stupid dogs
Well that cleaned up nicely - Let's go take a gander at the gas tank, I'm sure that's in primo shape.
Doesn't look any better from the other end either.
I don't have a media blast cabinet (Xmas is coming? Maggie?) but I do have a drill, wire brush, an Ipod and no more races to waste my shop time on. Get to work!
Many hours of scraping and wire brushing later ... first coat of black paint laid down.
Looks much better now!
This is the bottom of the tank, exposed to the road. Here a layer of rubberized undercoating is put on. It is actually black, but came out brown in the pic for some reason.
Final bottom coat - pull out the Rustoleum and the respirator - man that stuff atomizes. It seems more goes into the air than on any surface.
And the top of the tank gets a nice satin black finish even though it's hidden under a trunk panel. Nobody will see this - except on the internet - but I know it's there.
Gas Tank back home again and all hooked up.
The final update was redoing all the vinyl pieces and updating the wiring. The battery had already been relocated to the trunk, but the execution of this left much to be desired. This seemed to be a perfect time to add the TEP strut brace and battery mount, so off to the internet with credit card in hand. Shortly thereafter, a large box appeared in the garage.
Since this car isn't a daily driver, I also ordered a battery kill switch as an option.
Strut brace mounted. It's bolted to the shock towers which necessitated the shocks being removed to tighten it down. Glad I have a can of PB Blaster! The nice thing is when I finally get the car painted most of the old bolts have been either replaced or at least taken off and retightened with anti-seize. Did you notice the nice new vinyl mat it's sitting on? Sweet!
Mounted and wired up. The TEP strut brace is a nice piece of gear.
In the home stretch now. The last piece was recovering all the trunk boards with new vinyl. Here's a shot with both new and old together.
The final result. Lots of work, but I'm happy. And done in time to put my baby on the Dyno and find out what's really under the hood - other than something that leaks oil all over my garage floor. I find myself wandering out to the garage and popping open the trunk to enjoy the view. 'Tis a strange sickness this car disease.
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