A friend of mine fell into a 1992 325xi with 149K miles on it. It had been sitting for 3 years after encountering some sort of electrical gremlin. He bought it for $1000.
I took the following pictures the day he got it to another friend's shop to see how bad it was mechanically (it wasn't bad at all; he spent about $1200 getting it 100% roadworthy including new tires; I drove it yesterday and it drives like new!).
The "Before" pictures:
The roof after cleaning, but before polishing
This door's not done yet:
Since I have the equipment and garage, and because I really want more experience and this would be a great car to "practice" on I volunteered to help my buddy clean up the finish.
Over the last two days we took my Flex 3401 and went at it. I started with an orange pad using Menzerna SuperGloss followed by Menzerna PO85Rd, followed by One Grand Blitz Wax.
I don't have any polishes specifically for single-stage paints, and I think the PO85RD is optimzied for clear-coat, but it did a fine job finishing up the very tired paint on this car.
We only had time today to do the main body panels. In addition I do not (yet) have a 3" buffer so we did not get into the nooks and crannies yet. So the plastic, the front valence, etc... are still needing to be done. The wheels are not yet detailed either.
Here's the "after photos".
The bonnet was has the best paint on the car. It came out extremely well!
Working on this car has given me valuable experience and practice. It also helped that I "taught" my friend how to do all this as well, because, as they say, "there is no better way to learn than to teach."
I took the following pictures the day he got it to another friend's shop to see how bad it was mechanically (it wasn't bad at all; he spent about $1200 getting it 100% roadworthy including new tires; I drove it yesterday and it drives like new!).
The "Before" pictures:
The roof after cleaning, but before polishing
This door's not done yet:
Since I have the equipment and garage, and because I really want more experience and this would be a great car to "practice" on I volunteered to help my buddy clean up the finish.
Over the last two days we took my Flex 3401 and went at it. I started with an orange pad using Menzerna SuperGloss followed by Menzerna PO85Rd, followed by One Grand Blitz Wax.
I don't have any polishes specifically for single-stage paints, and I think the PO85RD is optimzied for clear-coat, but it did a fine job finishing up the very tired paint on this car.
We only had time today to do the main body panels. In addition I do not (yet) have a 3" buffer so we did not get into the nooks and crannies yet. So the plastic, the front valence, etc... are still needing to be done. The wheels are not yet detailed either.
Here's the "after photos".
The bonnet was has the best paint on the car. It came out extremely well!
Working on this car has given me valuable experience and practice. It also helped that I "taught" my friend how to do all this as well, because, as they say, "there is no better way to learn than to teach."
