I love stickers on race cars. But just adding stickers doesn’t make a car a race car. So do you add stickers or not? If headed to the track: absolutely. Stickers make you faster and can be used to hide all kinds of blemishes. But for your collector car? There’s always the risk that leaving …
Read more “Stickers on Race Cars: Expert Tips for Application and Removal”
The initial inspection turned up a Swiss-cheese rear sub-frame. A little rust is to be expected on a 17 year old car, but this was “returning to nature” type rust, not just some surface problem. Fortunately, good used parts are readily available and the whole thing is really held in place by only four bolts. …
If you have just about any older BMW or MINI, you’ve probably noticed how the seatbelt release buttons fade over time. Rather than replace or repaint, they can often be repaired with the tactical application of heat. Just be careful to not overheat or you’ll melt the button or the surrounding plastic. Also take care …
Ever wondered what it’s like to do a 40 hour detail on a $1500 car? Pressure wash, clay bar, steam clean interior, vac-extract, conditioner, paint correction, polish, rock chip repair, ceramic coat, and a little rust mitigation. 40 hours of work in 4 minutes.
For a car that’s been driven three-fourths of the way to the moon, the exterior is in pretty good shape. Down below is a different story. The rear sub-frame is very rusty with a quarter sized hole on one side. We had planned to add a larger rear sway bar which requires lowering the rear …
If you have an older sports car, especially a driver, just because it’s well worn, doesn’t mean it has to be worn out. Take the example of this 1997 Ferrari F355 I worked on earlier this month. This is a 39K mile, gated six speed spider which looks wonderful. When you opened the door however, …
Twenty one years after the start of my first MINI adventure, I decided to open a new chapter. My first MINI was a brand new 2004 R53 Cooper S which slowly evolved into a track car over about ten years. My second R53 was a slick-top 2006 model which I purchased in 2011 and set …
If you’ve ever attempted to remove petrified window film from an E46 coupe, you’ll know how hard it is to get the bottom 3 inches of glass with your scraper. You can try steam, heat, the trash bag method, or GooGone but chances are there will be this small bit you just can’t get without …
Sometimes there’s just nothing left to polish. This is especially true with cars from the 90’s. When the auto industry switched over to water-based clear coat paints, many of the earlier products started to fail before the new-car warranty even expired. The other area which caused problems was in door jams and trunks. The flexible …
Don’t let the condition of your leather steering wheel let down the rest of your interior. You would be surprised by what can be done to extend the life before you need a re-wrap. Here’s a before and after comparison on a BMW E46M3.