Cleaning a 37-Year-Old Chassis - V12 BMW E31 850i - Project Marseille: Part 9 (Patreon)

Direct link - https://youtu.be/dpm6mWcrZIY


Aloha from a beach in Maui! Part 9 of project Marseille!


This episode didn't go according to plan. The chassis of the E31 is in magnificent condition, no rust, just dirty, making a perfect candidate for proper transformation, and my goal was to make it as close as possible to new. The basis was perfect for that!


Dry ice is obviously a way to go, but I couldn't do this in the Dojo, the amount of dirt and dust that flies around when dry ice blasting is insane and it would ruin the shop. 


A subscriber from Stuttgart reached out, he has a detailing shop and does dry ice blasting and offered to do project Marseille. The communication with him was great, and I decided to take the car to him, even though it was painful and problematic to transport the car 3 hours away without any axles. I purposely stripped the car all the way so everything can be accessed and cleaned.


Upon arriving to his shop, it quickly became evident that he was primarily interested in just promoting his business on YT, and not doing a thorough job. We spent more time taking breaks and him showing me his drifting YT videos than actually working. He commented how he recognized that people in Germany are more interested in getting the job done, then to have it done perfect, in other words half assed. This goes against everything I do and believe in. 


The detailing service he offers, is one of those quick, one-day polishing places. You saw what Gyeon did with Alpina, proper paint correction can take a whole week, like it did with project Rottweil. 


Anyway, we finished early, around 5 pm and I had to head back home to work on the Maserati. 

At that point, I wasn't happy with the results, and I pointed out to him all of the areas that were left untouched and dirty and that needed to be cleaned up. He said he had 50 kg more of dry ice and he'll get that done tomorrow. This was Monday, the car stayed with him until Saturday when it was picked up and delivered back to the Dojo, so he had a plenty of time. It took me a whole day to sneak the E31 under engineless Maserati and put it back on the lift.


Once back on the lift, disappointment. Everything I discussed with him prior to bringing the car and before leaving on Monday, was not done. The car was still very much dirty and unfinished. I would've achieved better results cleaning it by hand and not moving it from the lift in the first place. I had to spend more time myself going over the entire car again, cleaning it by hand to get it to an acceptable condition.

I told him I couldn't do a good promotion for this type of work, and decided not to mention him at all. I sent him money to cover the costs he had. Even though not up to my standard, the work was done and it was only fair. It's unfortunate it ended that way, but we simply weren't a right match.


The chassis is now clean and good for reassembly, but I'm far from happy with the engine bay and I'll have to hire a mobile dry ice blast to come and go over it again. Now that it's free of dirt, it's safe to blast it in the shop.


Anyway, didn't want to make a long post, but I figured explanation was in order.


I'm back home in about a week, and then project Phoenix will come your way soon! Mahalo!