2011 E90 M3 (Re)Build aka Rear Quarter Panel R&R (The M3 drift wrecker)

[M3Crasher]

Alright so here's the story. I borrowed my Dad's car without his permission, took it drifting for my first time and crashed it. Everyone was right. The end.

Just kidding, here's the real story. I apologize for not posting the progression as it was going on, but I didn't have a computer at the time.

Yes, that's right. I have an M3 but no computer. I had to justify buying the computer with the fact that after I did my exhaust I needed a reflash.

Anyways, I'm sure many of you have seen this:

It looks pretty awful obviously. Common consensus is that this is Daddy's car and I wrecked it because I don't know what I was doing.

The only part that's true is that I don't know what I'm doing, I never do.

I come from a road race background, and by background I mean maybe a collective 2 seasons of autox, 3 HPDEs (I was in DE3), and I have been to Skip Barber Formula school. This is not a lot, but I do have a solid understanding of car control.

It was a total lapse of judgment on my part. I don't really know what I was thinking when I let the car go the way I did. I do know that I shouldn't have let my friends peer pressure me into letting them clown car (they progressively added more and more people each run, all of which went fine). By letting them do that, I put them in danger, so I do regret that part.

In Car Footage:

I do not regret crashing my car though. I am not a drifter, I planned on using this outing as an outlet to practice past-limit car control. I wanted to go once, then start time attacks right after.

I had no idea my crash would turn out to be so big.

Moving on with the story...

I do in fact own this car. I have the title in my drawer. I saved 4 years for it, starting in college. A bulk of the money obviously came from a full time job once I graduated. I don't have a lot of left over money because my priorities are all wrong; I spend all of it on my car, as well as driving it.

This meant after crashing it, it was me who had to fix it. Paying someone else to do the job would have be prohibitively expensive for me. A lot of this was a learning process, so bear with me.

So I started obviously with door removal




Interior door card removal. Without a service manual, a lot of this is kind of hard to figure out.



Side skirt removal



Fully remove back seats, unplug necessary electronics (defroster, airbag module, taillight)



Taillights out




Bumper cover is off


Trunk is next


Stupid rear glass is hard to take out without destroying it


Well that was easy


Removing this urethane was a pain, needed to bring down most of it to allow the glass to sit properly when its reglued, and also more importantly to find the spot welds.



Time to gut the trunk




Drilled out every spot weld, removed panel


Stomping the old panel back into roughly the the shape it used to be



Artwork time



Mark up the cut lines onto new panel




Cut to size


Spot welded in place, finish welds to connect the seams.


I understand proper BMW technique for this is to use pop rivets and sealing material of some sort to prevent corrosion. I went with the old fashioned method, sorry if that angers anyone.

I put the car back together, and took it to a friends house for help with paint.



Primered


Clear!


Lots of wet sanding


Cut, buffed, polished, clay barred and waxed


Wasn't planning on doing this again, but for the sake of getting back on the horse...here is my return to drifting.

CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW VIDEO (facebook video isn't supported for embed)


Car is now straight piped with a tune fyi

Thanks for reading!

[tinman831]

Props for tackling that repair job at home.

[M3Crasher]

Originally Posted by tinman831

Props for tackling that repair job at home.

Thanks, it took me a pretty long time, and was quite the learning experience (I haven't done bodywork before)

[dj_dub]

Props for driving it like you stole it and props for staying committed and fixing it yourself! Great job dude...nice to see a happy ending out of all this!

[s85e90]

Awesome repair for the garage as that's a big job. Paint looks sick too for blending. Good luck with it !!

[s85e90]

Was the rear suspension and inner 1/4 okay? That was a nasty hit. Again props for a nice job and keep it clean now!

[duvinclunk]

Jeez. Installing my radar detector made me want to punt my side mirror off, can't imagine tackling this! Well done.

[Erie Von Otto]

Excellent!

[8_is_enough]

Major props for the DIY work, and working hard for you passion

[Brian0473]

I always love a DIY and this one was big. Kudos to you!

And kudos for sticking with your plans for the car - I think some of us forget these things are cars engineered for speed and fun.

[Shredicus]

Damn dude, props.

[h4nh]

props for posting that you're the guy that failed in drifting video. lol

good job on fixing it though.

[Konig]

Wow. I've laughed at your video before, but respect for fixing that yourself. Did you at least monetize your Youtube video to try to recover some of the damage? Haha

[dozaiya]

i bow down to this diy

[M3Crasher]

Originally Posted by s85e90

Was the rear suspension and inner 1/4 okay? That was a nasty hit. Again props for a nice job and keep it clean now!

Luckily the thing I hit hard was a tire, therefore much of the actual impact energy wasn't as bad as you would think. The airbags didn't even go off.

The door was what actually took the brunt of the damage (try lifting one up if you take one off one of these cars...must weigh about 100 lbs, which is not an exaggeration.

The suspension was fine, the inner 1/4 (or wheelhouse) had a small dent. I shaped it back to where it should be with a hammer and dolly. Sorry I forgot that part, I took a lot of pictures to help me put it back together. Not many of them have the finished result.

Pre-fix

Originally Posted by Konig

Wow. I've laughed at your video before, but respect for fixing that yourself. Did you at least monetize your Youtube video to try to recover some of the damage? Haha

Unfortunately, it was not my video. It was the guy who was shooting the event's footage. He is a nice guy, and for him to dedicate his time for free to cover these events to give us cool pictures and videos to take home is great. I'm happy his channel is finally getting the attention it deserves.

And thanks everyone!

[roastbeef]

props for coming on here and owning it. great job, and welcome.

[e92livin]

Wow, nice job on the repair!

[e92ben]

Wow!! Awesome diy man great job!

[pkimM3r]

good fix. its different with ppl in the car

[IcemanM]

Echoing everyone else's sentiments....Great job with the fix! Looks like the car came back together beautifully. Use it in good health!

[swifty]

I laughed at the original thread and now thoroughly impressed.

[Patrón]

and this will not show up on carfax....
nice job on the repair.