What a great trip to the Windy City for VintageFest!  We left the shop Friday evening with perfect cabrio weather surrounding us.  We grabbed some dinner at Portillo’s Hot Dogs (you must try their Italian Beef with hot and sweet peppers, dipped!) just south of the city before doing some night driving along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.   Luckily, we had Takashi, Chicago native, to lead the way around the city…and to open our eyes and delight our tastebuds with the best tiramisu I’ve ever had!  We will definitely be going back for more!   Saturday morning was a different story, as far as the weather was concerned.  Dark clouds slowly moved in carrying a few sprinkles, and eventually a downpour of “big ol’ fat rain” as Forrest Gump would say.  Despite the rain, we headed off to the event location and waited out the rain.  Luckily, the rain stopped before the event officially started.  And the cars arrived, and all was right again in Vernon Hills, IL.  To view our album at your leisure, click here.  Or simply enjoy the following slideshow!

Just like last year, we did Leatherique demonstrations, but this time we used the Baur’s back seat.  It was great to hear feedback from those who purchased Leatherique last year!  If you’re in need of Leatherique, give us a call or send us an email!  We also donated some Reggie’s Motorworks t-shirts and a 16-ounce Leatherique kit as door prizes for the day.  Speaking of the Baur, we were happy to be awarded 2nd place for Best e30!  Thank you to all those who voted for our bimmer! Enthusiast Apparel was even represented, and some of their cool shirts were door prizes too.  So despite the gray day, the event was a success, and we’d love to go back again next fall!  Thank you to Kent, Shari, and the Windy City BMW CCA for welcoming us!

In other news, it’s been another busy week at the shop.  Reggie’s painted a bonnet, deck lid, spoiler, and third brake light a sweet mauritius blau for a 1992 318i cabrio.  Here’s a look at the prep work done on the bonnet, where there was a slight dent on the passenger side in the front.  Stay tuned for photos of the finished product!

Reggie marks where to apply studs in order to pull out the dent where needed.

Then it’s time to use the stud welder!

Next, he uses the slide hammer to pull out the studs, thus pulling out the dent:

Just a look at the tools used for this part of the project:

Using a profile guage, he compares the shape/slope of each side of the bonnet to see if any more pulling is necessary:

After applying body filler, sanding, and high-build primer, he again compares the shape of this side to the other side:

Once the bonnet, deck lid, spoiler, and third brake light housing were sanded and prepped for paint, it was time to spray that beautiful metallic blue, maritius blau.

Stay tuned for more on this and our ’86 325 project!

We’ll be off to the Cruise-In shortly, and we hope that you can join us…the weather is perfect!

It’s Friday, which means it’s Cruise-In Friday.  Lately, we’ve not had much luck with the weather, but today is a different story!  The sun is shining, and it looks like we may have a slight chance for a bit of rain, but not for long.  So, we hope to see some of you tonight at Park Street!  Click here for all of the details.

We’ve been good and busy here at the shop, namely working on a sweet 1988 325i cabrio, which is coming along quite nicely.  For a look at all the bodywork that’s been done so far, click here.  Meanwhile, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite parts of this project so far.  As you may recall, last week we outlined the work to be done.  For a recap, click here.  Now on to the fun stuff!

This is the original antenna on the convertible.  Reggie was pretty excited about shaving this thing.   Now let’s see how he did it!

He removed the antenna mast and motor:

Next he used the grinder to remove the paint around the hole to prep it before a patch could be welded in place:

Here’s the result:

He then used a file to remove paint that was inside around the edges to get a clean surface:

Then it was time to configure a patch to fill in the hole:

Back to the grinder to cut out the patch:

Reggie lined up the patch and used this handy magnetic tool to hold it in place while he did a few tack welds:

This next image is one of my favorite photos of Reggie in action as he welds the patch in place:

Next, he used the grinder to smooth it out:

Voila!  This area will be ready to prep for paint after a little work with the hammer and dolly and some body filler!

Don’t forget to check out the rest of our photo gallery.  We’ll be adding more photos as the project continues!

If you’re on Facebook, we’ve recently added a Reggie’s Motorworks page, so be sure to check us out!

Have a great weekend!

It’s Friday again, and we’re back with some more rust repairs.  You may recall our posts about Black Beauty…well, she’s back for a little more TLC from Reggie’s Motorworks.  For a little history first, click here and here.  *EDITOR’S NOTE: Black Beauty has been a screen name for this great car, we’ve learned her real name is Eleanor. *

Here are the details of this multi-step process.  For a full gallery of images documenting this project, click here.

These are the two main areas that Reggie will tackle.  Watch out, rust, you’ve been warned!

Thanks to a customer/enthusiast, Russ (thanks, again!), we have a donor piece to help us out!

Reggie starts cutting away at the evil enemy that lurks in many a bimmer just like this…

Buh-bye, rust!

Reggie holds up the donor piece to see how it will look.

All the edges are made smooth and clean for better welding results.

This wire wheel came in very handy.

Cleaning the surface and edges, just watch the sparks fly!

View of the donor piece. As you can see, it had been patched together before.

Reggie will be patching these gaps for a seamless finish.

Magnets are very useful to line up these patch panels.  This allows Reggie to make some tack welds to secure them in place for more welding.

He used a dolly and hammer to match the curve here.

Pretty amazing results!

The new piece is also tack welded in place before being completely welded in position. The large gap seen in the photo below was better positioned before welding, but still had to be filled in a bit.  Luckily, this area will be covered in chip guard, as it would be very difficult to get as smooth as it would need to be otherwise.

Reggie grinds down the welds to make the surface as smooth as possible. Again, we’re not going to try to make this area show perfect.

Here’s a look at the welds made underneath this area.

Same goes for the smaller area.  Reggie welded the patch in place and then smoothed the entire area.

Here at Reggie’s Motorworks, we believe that less is more when it comes to bondo.  So Reggie used his stud welder, as seen here, to pull out low areas of metal, this requiring less bondo to fill the valleys.  Got it?  Good!  (To see more pictures of this, please click the link at the beginning of this post to see the full gallery for this project.)

The slide hammer pulls the studs out, which pulls the metal out, giving you the desired shape.

After the studs are ground away and the surface is smooth again, a nice coat of self-etching primer is applied.

The car is carefully masked to prevent any unwanted over spray of chip guard texture, base coat, and clear coat.  Here the chip guard texture is white.

Let the spraying of the base coat begin!

Black Beauty is getting a new ear, or mirror, rather.  Oh yes!  Now each area will be ready for the clear coat.

And now here the clear coat has been applied:

Once the paint has cured properly, Black Beauty will be rarin’ to get back on the road.

Hey all, this is Reggie. First, I want to thank my wonderful wife Stephanie for documenting this week’s project (and every project here on the blog).  I also want to thank the Smelser’s for letting me work on their beautiful 325ix (again:)). I  want to point out that what you see above is not a 100% perfect show quality repair.  I am not a body man by trade, nor am I professionally trained.  It could definitely be made laser straight with more time and effort, but due to the location of the area in question, I have opted to make it “good enough”. I am pleased with the repair, but of course will strive to make the metal work on the next project even better.