Our Cars
Special Contributor
Old-timer freshen up
It’s been a while since I did anything with my 1994 BMW 318Ti Compact, but this time it’s finally had the round of bodywork it needed. Aerosol can blow-ins are all very well but you can’t beat a proper job.
It all started in August 2021 – having just had a pair of very good used E36 wings painted by Matt at Body Motor Works and fitted them to replace the OKish – though ageing – originals. A coming together with another car pushing into a traffic queue saw some exchange of paint but nothing tragic. I wasn’t that bothered and would have left it until such time as I was going to get the car painted anyway. Things rumbled on between insurance companies (I’m with the excellent Footman James on a classic policy) and it looked like everyone involved had given up.
Not so – the other party had their car repaired on the sly and it had gone on a 50/50 basis, but my underwriter had failed to inform me – the first I knew was when my renewal came through.
Long story short, I had my car fixed at their expense (it’s only fair, right?) and because they’d messed up there is no mention of this on my record.
So, Matt quoted for the job which was to paint the front bumper corner, wing and door – plus blend into the back wing. I put a bit extra in the pot and had both bumpers fully painted along with the stone chipped bonnet and mirror casings.
I took the BMW down to Body Motor Works where I spent a couple of days stripping it down, rubbing down, doing a few minor repairs and so on. Just removing and stripping an E36 front bumper is a good three hours work.
The day before I was due to take the car in – a Sunday then – the clutch slave cylinder decided it had lost the will to live. The clutch pedal went straight to the floor and the reservoir was empty.
Nobody had one in stock, so it was a quick blat to the workshop in theCM Project Fiat Panda 100HP to remove a slave cylinder from a BMW Z3 gearbox I removed a fortnight before – the same gearbox that landed on my hand when removing, resulting in a trip to A&E and a few stitches.
My mate John who works at Sytners came by with a trolley jack and axle stands and within 15 minutes, the used alloy body sla
