![]() Even with hours of blending, wet sanding, and clear coat application they just don't match. We had some BMW paint code matching spray paint cans on hand to paint the front headlight trim (and later the upper trunk handle) but it wasn't a good match for these two spots on the hood. There were some scratches along the sides we couldn't do much about, but two chunks of missing paint on the hood now became the biggest focal point on the car. I had always assumed we would have to replace the hood, as the front corner was caved in and the leading edge had a big dent in it. The hail dings in the roof and trunk were easy, but I simply couldn't get over how well he removed previous crash damaged to the left rear fender (completely gone) and the huge vertical crease in the driver's door (mostly gone). He took out 90% of the dents on this car in a day, and the results were quite amazing. The dents in the left rear fender were fairly significant but they are now GONE. So when he had a break in his schedule (a rainy day) he popped over to our shop to remove some dents from Jack Daniels. Well our newest tech, Donnie, has a twin brother, Kris, that does PDR work. We were buying it for a race car and had intended to always fix the dings during a paint job down the road. If you remember why we call this car "Jack Daniels" it was because it had a number of "whiskey dents" on the exterior when we bought it. You still get what you pay for, but at least it wasn't falling off now. It looks better than the dilapidated factory cover, for sure, and it went on easily. They come in a number of colors and diameter ranges, and I got the closest one that matched this car. So I went with a $21 leather cover that goes over just the outer 3/4 rim of the wheel. Time is money and even with a $150 "DIY" custom-cut wheel cover, that had to be stitched on and fitted, I couldn't afford to tie up my crew or myself putting one of these on. I briefly thought about a $150 kit that we could custom order and install in the shop, but after reading about horror stories of 10+ hours being burned trying to get it stretched, fitted, and stitched - and potentially still looking like crap - I hesitated. These ranged from as little as $10 (cheap slip-on cover) to as much as $400 (professionally die cut, stitched and installed leather cover). I spent too much time investigated the many options to have this wheel replaced or recovered. The factory leather cover was literally falling off the steering wheel, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. The trunk interior was shampoo'd and detailed. The matching black leather front seats (swapped in from the 330) were also cleaned and oiled. The leather rear seats were cleaned and conditioned. The sunroof mechanism ALWAYS breaks on the E46 chassis, given enough time, so at least now it is fully closed. ![]() The broken sunroof was manually wound down and sealed shut, permanently. He cleaned up the door panels making them look good as new. Brad got the old A-pillars off, removed all of the glue overspray, and installed gray panels sourced new from BMW. Some previous owner had tried a half-assed repair by gluing the fabric back to the A-pillar covers, but instead they smeared glue all over the windshield and their dirty paw prints all over the fabric. First up were the interior A-pillar coverings, which are almost always trashed on BMWs of this era. To make the sale easier and net the most of our investment back I made the call to fix a lot of little interior and exterior issues. No matter how nice we made it, at this point we would be losing money when we went to sell it - due to the mileage and dollars spent. I had made the worst mistake on this car when buying it - finding an example that needed too many exterior and interior repairs and with an odometer showing nearly 200K miles. All of the leaks, broken parts, and dash lights have been fixed. We have done a LOT of repair work on this car in the past year, to the point where I can sell this without shame to anyone. We've been back and forth on keeping or selling Jack Daniels, but either way, I couldn't let it be sold in its current condition. But as we have realized many times in the past, it is awful handy to have a "back up" street car for use when a "dual purpose" race/street car is in the shop undergoing updates or repairs. VISUAL IMPROVEMENTS ON JACK DANIELS, OUR 325CiĪfter we purchased the red 2001 330Ci, keeping the blue 325Ci didn't make a lot of sense. Lots more work and another event will be covered in my next update. There are two NASA events we have run since the last entry but I only had time to cover the April NASA event this time. I will briefly cover the 325Ci updates then jump into the 330 mods. Project Update for October 23, 2016: It has been 6 months since my last update here and we have done a LOT of work to both the red 330Ci (to make it a better race car) and the blue 325Ci (to make it a nicer street car).
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