Lude Generation

Some pics of the sunroof delete, this has been painted in abit of a rush as I needed to get the car on the road the next morning, I put some laquer on it this morning and it was an old can so came out abit pants and striped but I’ll try cut and polish see what it looks like tomorrow....

Done a few other bits, which I’ll get pics of tomorrow... because what’s a forum post without pictures ......................... a story

Ahh one more.... I also did this little Porsche fan boy mod .... what do we think??



Ohhhhh I also have got a new job in a European car specialist here in Australia and It’s a breath of fresh air

My new boss is a German master technician who cut his tests on Porsche Ferrari and Lamborghini so I’m learning abit and my bmw is getting little bits fixed finally

Oooo I'm loving the old Porks yeh I bet that garage is a joy to work in you lucky bugger!! I like the roof job, did you use filler around the edge of the sunroof?

It sure is nice to have a nice clean workshop with alll the tools ..
No not filler I used automotive body sealer from the inside and outside mate..

Had a couple of days off work this weekend gone so managed to cut and polish the whole car to get it looking abit better, sadly the roof was a rush job so no amount of cutting compound was getting it as shiny as the rest but I’m not bothered, function over form...

Here’s some pics of how she’s looking..










Fitted a carbon fibre radio delete panel too

oooo shiney white!!! i do like that SI badge that cf panel looks familar and thats the same sparco steering wheel i had in my escort, very nice

ANNUAL UPDATE TIME

I’ve been driving the old girl as my daily for the past 3 months, to and from work on my 60km a day commute (all highway km’s ) .

This has not been without its issues but nothing too bad for a 25 year old car..
Basically when I did the engine swap, I only put water in it, no coolant, this was supposed to be a temporary thing whilst the car got ran in and it was but I left the car sat in the garage whilst I did the body work... this was a mistake

All was well for the first few weeks but then I noticed a loss of coolant, found the rad cap to be leaking due to the seal being cracked and found a leak at the thermo valve under the throttle body... soooo fitted a new rad cap, looped the coolant lines away from the thermo valve and did coolant flush which showed the extent of the rust in the system but got it cleared out with fresh 50/50 mixed coolant, engine oil and filter change....

All was well but still had some excessive coolant loss, so did a pressure test, found the heater hose leaking badly at the joint into the firewall, fixed this with a new hose clamp, pressure test again to find a massive leak from the bottom hose into the rad, tightening the hose clamp fixed this, pressure test again to find a nasty leak from the iacv, removed valve to find it was completely corroded inside and the gasket/seal completely f@&*ked so resealed with silicone but decided to just loop the coolant lines to let the silicone dry properly... performed another pressure test and finally no more leaks so drove it and coolant level hasn’t moved at all so I’m not gunna bother disturbing anything again as it is it’s been fine like this for 3 weeks so jobs a good one...

I have got fun things in the works for the old girl too, to make the exterior a little more interesting... been busy with the sand paper and rattle cans again so another update soon

Ok so been a productive couple of weekends on the Lude..

Some may remember I bought these wheels ages ago..
Genuine semi-forged JDM goodness


The time finally came to give them abit of a refurb, now I thought the best route would be paint stripper... no it wasn’t

Paint stripper on

After paint stripper was brushed in and washed off
Now the picture doesn’t show as well but it was terrible, patchy where it didn’t get through the thick paint and where it made it to the bare metal the finish of the metal was very rough...
So I then rubbed it down to try smooth it out abit, then tech primed it but still looked like jobby so I hit it with some high build primer and rubbed it down again, this improved it but still jobby...


So with the rest I just rubbed them down by hand with some 120 and they came out much better


All 4 primed up


Also got my chargespeed front lip primed up ready for paint..


So today was the day for some colour..
And it shows the floors in the wheel I paint stripped quite badly

This was a learning curve but I’m not too bothered, 3 outa 4 ain’t bad




Look dark in the sun


Also got a lick of paint on the lip




In between coats of paint drying, I decided to clean up and fit my JDM wind deflectors I’ve had since I broke the bb1




I have taken a few pictures of the install of these as I’m thinking of doing a “how to” because they are attached in a pretty un-obvious way.

Anyway, I’ve ordered me some nice fresh rubber to go on my wheels in the form of some Federal RSR’s as they are reasonably priced “semi slicks”.


also......... BMW SPAM!!!

That's some epic work there bud, kinda like the door handle mod, lets hope no one pushes them away inside the door

wheels look great also, nice colour in the sun.

sol-lude wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 05, 2019 10:37 am

That's some epic work there bud, kinda like the door handle mod, lets hope no one pushes them away inside the door

wheels look great also, nice colour in the sun.

I never thought of that ya know...
cheers, can’t wait to fit the tires