Previously...

There's something about old cars that just make them a blast to drive. Knobs and switches have real tactile feel, the doors shut solidly, and the old leather has an old world smell to it. Some months ago I stumbled onto an craigslist ad for a 1990 BMW 325i and ended up picking her up the next morning. I introduced the car in my previous blog here: My New to Me 1990 BMW 325i E30.

To recap, the body was in great great shape and the interior was even better however, the paint was worn down to the primer in some areas. Most of the paint's damage seemed to have been caused by parking the car in the same spot repeatedly while the sun's UV eventually turned the clearcoat to dust. Despite these little things, the car drove well and the motor fired up without any issue, that's two checks for the win column if you ask me!

Blurry as hell photo over here of the back seat.

The first drive back

I drove her like a madman on the way home, but don't be fooled by those words... this dog couldn't get out of its own way en route to the scrap yard. This is a 0-60 in 10 seconds kinda SLOW. The kind of slow where you wonder how the previous owner treated the motor. And the more I drove it, the more I realized the motor was worn out and how there was a leak in the exhaust getting louder with each stomp of the pedal. That's when you realize what kind of mess you got into. While it is something that can be fixed, it's still a hassle. Somehow along the experience of driving this thing back to my garage, I managed to forget it was 28+ years old.

Since the paint needed to be redone, out came the sander and many nights working late after work. It was a hard grind to physically work for 5-6 hours a night each day of the week. I'm mentally tired after work and then I go to sleep physically tired as well, but the work had to be done, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the car (nor would I be writing this for you guys!)

There was a mix of air tool sanding and block sanding to get a nice level surface ready for paint. At this point, I didn't know how I would approach painting it, or what color I wanted to go with. The reality is, if you think too much, you end up not doing anything at all. Prep work is required no matter how you do it, so I decided to just press on forward and figure it out along the way.

Here is where things got a bit tricky. Let me give you a bit of background about my painting skills

1. I've painted various motorcycle parts.
   End of List.

Real smart right? Well... they said that a good paint job is 90% prep work, so off I go to prepare the working area... I scooted everything to sides to see how much space I would get if I cleaned up the tornado of a mess I had... and I severely underestimated how much space I could get in my workshop/garage. The car fits, but I would have no where to maneuver my spray gun and hose. At this point in time, the doors and sunroof were already off the car and I had to keep the car locked in my workshop, not that anyone would really steal this thing.

What do I do now? I don't have the space to paint the car and I needed to get the car back on the road ASAP. There's only ONE solution. Wrap the car in Vinyl. This will get interesting because I know nothing about Vinyl....stay tuned!