[Ben1987]

Hi guys I've been lurking on the forum for just over a year and have learnt a lot from you guys so I thought it was time to introduce myself properly and start a build thread. I'm a painter in a body shop so I've always been lucky enough to do most things on my cars myself ! This is my second bmw previously had a e46 325ci but on the arrival of our first child it was decided that my pride and joy was not "practical"( as my wife put it ) anymore. So I went on my hunt for my next bmw had to be a 4dr so it had to be the e90 good mileage and a diesel.
So I bought the car last January when she was looking quiet sorry for its self. It's a 320d se with 65000 on the clock.The car had car park dents and looked like someone had stood on the roof! So full repairs and a respray were in order.

Ready for primer

In high build primer

All ready to go in the booth

In base coat looked quiet good in Matt Monaco blue lol

All lacquered and shiny


So this took about 3 weeks of late nights and weekends to get to this point but the hard work wasn't over. It was time for a full flat and machine polish which consists of sanding the whole car down in p1500 to remove any imperfections in the paint then going over the whole car again with p3000 then p6000 to remove the 1500 scratches. It was then time for the machine polish which gives you arm ache after 4 hours lol




So I never really liked the se bumpers so I bought genuine Msport bumpers and all the grills and fogs to fit

So it was on to the interior it was beyond dirty the beige carpets were almost black so it had several steam cleans ! And the leather a proper clean don't think it had ever been done



Next on my list was the walnut trim, I went for a metallic black as I like the piano black look but when it's dusty it would annoy me to much lol the metallic helps hide the dust!
Close up of the trim

So this is the car when I had finished and how it stayed for the next 10 months after promising the wife that I wouldn't change this car.



Then I got bored again a set of eibach pro sport springs came up so I picked them up and installed them luckily they were fairly straight forward to install after reading several DIY guides first. I had been looking at wheels for months and I couldn't decide what to go for I really liked the alpina d3 deep multi-spokes but I didnt have a spare couple of grand so I went looking for something similar. I decided on a set of e38 style 32 staggered 8j and 9j rears, I hadn't seen any e90s with them on so I thought it would be good to try something different. So I found a set on on ebay I did a full refurb on them to get them looking mint again as they were quiet corroded, and put them on last weekend so this is how she stands today I'm really pleased with how they look on the car, ideally would like to get the back slightly lower but that's a job for another weekend. Sorry for the pic quality they're only iphone pics but I'm hoping to get out and get some decent pics when the weather pics up!




Thanks for looking!!

[timp7748]

Looks great.

[Kassim786]

Good effort pal !!

Looks the dogs danglies

Ps super jealous you can paint you're self

[D_Boi]

Excellent work and clearly very fortunate that you have a talent in the field you work in..... Can't wait to see what the future holds.

[AWBimmer]

Beautiful mate, lovely colour and wheels too! Nice OEM+

[Ben1987]

Thanks guys I know how lucky I am especially as I know how much paint work costs I've been looking into lci headlamps miss having the halos hoping to find a cheap set of pre lci lamps as I quiet fancy taking them apart and trying to upgrade to Halos myself doesn't look an easy job tho !

[E90325iM-SPORT]

fantastic job !

[Scoff123]

The paintwork looks top notch, well done on getting such a great result!
Any more pictures of the interior trim fitted as I haven't considered metallic black and totally get the piano + dust = lol

[BoondogUK]

Love the colour! Another in the Monaco Blue club!

[Ben1987]

Originally Posted by Scoff123

The paintwork looks top notch, well done on getting such a great result!
Any more pictures of the interior trim fitted as I haven't considered metallic black and totally get the piano + dust = lol

Only got a couple of pics of the trim off my phone but you get the idea

[AzRiz]

Great start man! Car looks really fresh after the respray and those wheels suit it pretty well

[DuckySpud]

That respray and the work after make the finish look amazing! Like the wheel choice too, I would personally prefer 19" wheels but that's me being picky haha, the actual style works really well