After 16 Years, My E36 FINALLY Looks The Way it Should! (Total Restoration)

[Music] so [Music] if 17 year old me could see the way that his e36 has turned out here in 2022 i think he would lose his mind i'm having a blast building one of my dream cars no matter how basic that may be the e36 is finally coming together most of the details are done the exterior of the car is finished it drives amazing i am having an absolute blast with this car over the past couple of weeks and i've recorded most of the work that i put into it so i can take you guys along for the ride let me show you the work and how it's added up and how the car looks now because there's really not much left aside from the interior for us to call this car completely finished it's tough to decide where to even begin on this episode because if we look at clips from the last one we'll see that there's still a lot of work to be done for starters all of the panel gaps on the nose of the car are completely out of spec and following that we still need to install side view mirrors side skirts door glass a front lip and a whole lot more i decided to start with those panel gaps because it was really hard to look at the car knowing if i didn't correct them it would never look right i started by disassembling just the headlights in the nose panel itself and worked to correct each gap one by one but eventually i had to take apart the entire front of the car to get everything correct in fact i probably spent about three hours in total on this entire job and there's still a little bit left to be desired but i think it's pretty good for the time being it's a huge improvement over the way that it looked prior and i've got the hood and the fenders and the headlights more or less lined up the way they should be but eventually i'll take this to a body shop and have them make it perfect some of you definitely noticed the splitter and front lip in the previous shots and that's because i installed the turner motorsport splitter and skid plate kit installation was totally straightforward on this one and took only a couple of hours in its entirety while i haven't had it on track to say whether or not it works really well it's probably safe to assume that it does it seems really robust and i like the adjustability that's integrated into it it's very easy to move back and forth for road use or track use not to mention it totally transforms the way the e36 looks and this is exactly what this car has been needing for years on end it gives the car that ltw look and functionality to match that rear wing without costing thousands of dollars another item on our list is to get those m3 side skirts installed and my car being an early car means it never had side skirts whatsoever that means we've got to drill a lot of holes in the rocker panel and trust me that's terrifying to do when you've got fresh paint but i took my time measured everything out took care to make sure we don't deal with any rust in the future and it came out beautifully although the factory clips worked exactly as they should and the new oe side skirt gaskets finish out the look they bring the side of the car down to meet that front lip height and overall this thing is looking better and better with each and every change the e36 also needs its door handles installed but that's not nearly as simple of a process as it sounds on the surface the new handles come with lock cylinders installed and each cylinder comes with its own key and since i want my car to have a matching key set like it did originally i decided to retrofit my old lock cylinders into the new handles i spent some time disassembling my old ones and pulling the cylinders out the internet suggested this should be a very straightforward swap but needless to say it wasn't well if we look at these two lock cylinders we can tell that they are a bit different especially where it matters here at the end and they've got totally different cuts on them the dowel pin size is totally different and unfortunately i don't think that these are going to be interchangeable in the handles but i've been looking at it and i counted them they have the exact same number of wafers in them and so honestly i'm thinking about taking a page out of the lock-picking lawyer book and uh pulling them apart and seeing if i can swap all of the wafers from this cylinder into this one that might be a completely terrible idea and leave me with no working cylinders but i'm going to give it a shot why not now i couldn't find a tutorial on how to do this and i have been told that the wafers and springs inside of these are notorious for exploding out of the cylinders when you try to take them apart but i took my time laid everything out cleaned it up numbered and kept everything in order and i think i got a little bit lucky because everything went back together exactly as it should and the outcome left me quite surprised my original key and old wafers work perfectly inside of the new cylinder and new handle and when installed with the new handle surrounding gasket the entire thing looks fantastic i also finally got around to installing the door glass which was probably the most tedious task of this entire project so far i wish i had recorded it but instead you just get a highlight reel of the parts installed and they look great as well the brand new expensive door gaskets finish it out which brings us to the mirrors all right now let's quickly talk about my side view mirrors because i already know a lot of you guys are going to ask why i would put all of this time and effort into this car and not put the proper e36 m3 mirrors on it and i've got two reasons for that the first one is that i think e36 m3 mirrors look awful i mean the e36 is this incredibly boxy car the entire thing is designed with straight hard edges and e36 m3 mirrors are this round bulbous thing attached to the side i think they look really out of place i think the factory non-m mirrors look a lot better are they the best option no but until i find a set of heartgirl mirrors these are going to be on the car the second reason is once you notice you'll see that e36 m3 mirrors are different side to side and they are pitched at totally different angles and it looks really stupid and i'm sorry now that i have pointed that out to you guys you'll never be able to unsee it but it looks ridiculous i can't stand it it's all i see when i see those mirrors if you look at a car from front on i can't do it i'm not going to do it i can't stand them they're not going on the car i even have a paint match set that i could put on but it's not happening i'm embracing the non-m mirrors final decision now what's not a final decision are the led tail lights that i showed you in the last episode i still like them but i think that the factory ambers fit the theme of the build a lot better a factory oem plus styled car where the led tails stood out a little bit too much it's a good reminder that you can try things out and still change your mind and that's what happened with these i bought a set of rear window louvers from europe i thought that these might look quite cool on the car in an understated way and honestly the fit and finish of the part is decent it fits on the car rather well but after i got them test fitted well honestly i've decided it's a little bit too much overall i think if i didn't have the rear ltw wing they'd probably look pretty sweet but for now i'm gonna shelve them and save them for later speaking of shelves i've been sitting on this new inbox nardi e36 hub for years and it allowed me to install this indy 500 a teeway steering wheel it's an incredibly rare unit that my buddy trevor sold me probably five or six years ago and i think the three spoke styling of it will fit really well into the interior once we have all of our m-tech parts and pieces installed now i've mentioned that the interior is at mst upholstery getting finished but my buddy kyle hooked me up with a bunch of parts that are going to help us get it all tidied up and done once we get to that point so things like black handles for the roof and headliner things like black lights to go with the black headliner and even things like factory seat belt mounts mine were modified for the harness bar i used to have so now we can get shoulder belts back in i do have lap belts in there at the moment but this is a better option all in all this is really helpful he has set me up with good black door cards that i dropped off at the upholstery shop i've got to get him the the pocket panels to go in place he set me up with a really nice center console black plastic kick panel pieces the under dash panel just everything that i need to really finish out the interior i now have it all he set me up with all of this for a really fair price and i'm excited to have it all now and one final bit that i have for the interior of the car is this element fire extinguisher it's an awesome piece of safety equipment and a little bit of insurance while i'm getting the car tuned and all of the kinks sorted out i've had more than one friend have their car burned down to the ground on the side of the road and this is an attempt to make sure that doesn't happen here this thing packs 50 seconds of extinguish time which will put your average extinguisher to shame and to ice the cake the owner of the company is a regular commenter on these videos right here moving on the e36 does need a little bit of maintenance and it'll come as no surprise to any bmw owner out there that i'm talking about the cooling system bmw cooling systems are notorious for being awful bottom to top so i decided to replace the entire thing the water pump the thermostat the fan clutch you name it everything is new and it'll keep the e36 running nice and cool i do have a few other changes coming to the engine bay the biggest one coming in the form of a change to the intake system while i love the velocity stacks and the way that they sound being about 15 years older than when i first did the swap i'm ready for filtered air to enter the cylinder head i don't want to worry about sucking things in anymore i've got a carbon csl style intake manifold on the way and it should be here sometime within the next month so we'll revisit then i also want to redo the oil cooler because these brackets are definitely not up to par they were fine when i did this swap ages ago but this needs to be redone it's not satisfactory on the note of fixes e36 trunk latch panels are notoriously paper thin and after a lot of use the latch can become brittle and the sheet metal will crack this will make your trunk panel shake around as you're going down the road and oftentimes can make it tough to latch but a quick sheet metal reinforcement solved the problem and now i'm happy to say that the trunk with the big spoiler attached to it now latches as it should and since a bunch of you have asked about it let's take a second to talk about the paint color it's granite silver metallic and it is indeed the factory color for my car and as far as i'm aware it's a 92 and 93 base model 3 series color only my car was fully re-sprayed by my friend colin of axis paintworks in phoenix arizona and he did an incredible job there's no chance this car looked this good when it left the bmw showroom floor last weekend my friend blake hosted an event on march 6 or 3 6 day here in the united states it was a get-together for e36s in particular and the turnout was incredible there were close to 100 e36s there each one with a story to tell there was an authentic ltw or lightweight car and an authentic european e36 m3 gt both are a huge treat for e36 enthusiasts to see here in the united states but both are also somewhat unsurprising to see at a meet here in southern california it was an awesome event to get the e36 ready for and a great place to take it out for its first outing in ages most of the cars present were fantastic in quality and after the event a handful of us went back to the stance workshop and continued the e36 get-together in a much smaller fashion it was the perfect reminder for what weekend get-togethers are all about and it was the best possible way to cap a saturday friends together at the shop grilling steaks and talking shop but as good as that was nothing tops actually driving the car itself or better yet getting to see the car drive down the pch with my girlfriend behind the wheel it's not very often you get to see your own car while it moves and in this particular case it was fantastic the californian sunset made for perfect lighting and the relatively empty streets gave us the opportunity to get some unreal shots of the car in its natural habitat as a photographer by trade for more than a decade it was a real treat to get out and shoot my own car for once and with the video camera in hand it's an even bigger treat to get to share it with you guys the current state of the car has been a long time coming but this video feels like the perfect way to celebrate it and with a bit of luck it might just be the perfect way to celebrate achieving a hundred thousand subscribers on youtube too but only time will tell and with that this episode is a wrap i hope you guys have been enjoying the e36 project we've probably only got one episode left and that's installing all of the interior once mst upholstery is done with it so that we can actually call this project finished at least for all intents and purposes and i'm excited with this thing done it means i can finally show you guys the new project that's lurking there in the back of the shop should be a pretty big deal i'm also just excited to have this card done finished i get to use it however i want whenever i want and that's a big deal to me for all the reasons that i've explained many times before if you're enjoying the series make sure you subscribe leave a like on the episode if you enjoy it all that kind of stuff helps me out and of course i will catch you guys on the next episode which i'm pretty sure will be starting up the ferrari make sure you hit the bell so you don't miss the episode i'll see you guys then thank you as always for the support [Music] you

Channel: StanceWorks

Views: 110,495

Keywords: BMW E36, S54 E36, S54 swapped E36, Mike Burroughs, Mike Burroughs E36, StanceWorks E36, H&R, H&R Springs, Nitto Tire, Fikse Wheels, 6 speed E36, E36 M3, S54, naturally aspirated, E36 Suspension, E36 coilovers, E36 BBK, E36 budget big brake kit, E36 996 brakes, E36 Porsche BBK, E36 Brembo brake upgrade, E36 door mouldings, E36 restoration, E36 brake master cylinder, E36 Bumper trim, FCP Euro, E36 test drive, Granite Silver Metallic

Id: Rkx_f5nJd5o

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 15 2022