Stellar Paintworks

Something super satisfying about bike parts, especially older bikes. The colours, the decals, just enjoyable. Set a challenge on this one as the owner did his research and the original colour wasn’t available. On various forums people were using car colours close to so we went through a list of codes and did some spray outs. Nothing had the right flip on the angle. After many spray outs we mixed a colour completely removing any metallic and was just pearl content and the match was near perfect to original, one very pleased owner. Panels were prepped by the owner and finished by ourselves in custom base, cleared then flow coated using 505-00

You won’t be seeing this one for sale

Not thrilling, visually great pics but more to highlight what we’re up against. We’ve got this mk2 Jaguar shell in with us. I can’t say too much about it but the back story is the owner paid (a lot of) money for this shell to be welded up, panels fitted, all the original parts etc provided. What he’s been giving after having his vehicle ‘recovered’ is absolutely not what fits that description. Panels that are not correct, don’t fit, incomplete welding, welding of panels in totally the wrong place. We are currently reworking all this to get it to a stage before we can remove all the external products and start again.

Insurance job on this Jensen SP after being side swiped in Europe. Not always easy to repair these older vehicles as they’ve had so much paint and filler from previous work. Took us quite a few layers to get to the metal to pull out all dents and line up the swage lines. Plus the spray out cards matching older colours.
With this we removed the door and used NOVOL for Classic Car UK spray filler before refitting and blocking. We then used spectral 305-00 which is a high build epoxy filler primer as opposed to an acrylic high build. The epoxy will give a better barrier over the older products and decrease the chances of sinkage over time.

I know someone commented when we were doing the work on this velvet blue M3 to post pictures of the car when it was done but we never did.
Think Oxford Green is still winning best colour but this with the yellow calipers and sat like this is up there.

Well worth a watch this video I feel for those who are curious about why prices are what they are.
I don’t know the team here personally but we know mutual people and share the same products/processes.
I’ve tried to get many things in various forms of explaining in words over the last 12mths but this video is a real honest perspective from ourselves in the trade.

How much does it really cost to Paint my Classic Car? We take a look at what really goes into the costings of Classic Car body restoration - and why it is different to accident repair Bodyshop work - and whats u...

I never posted any pics of the E30 before going off to be built up. That shape, those arches, these will just keep looking better and better as time goes on

🌐www.stellarpaintworks.com
📪 [email protected]
🌍 Buckinghamshire

Congratulations Simon at T5 Kustom Vanz on best paint at the MK1 Golf Owners club annual event and allowing us to be part of your project.

Fresh Silbergrau with a lovely dollop of NOVOL for Classic Car UK premium flow clear. On the home straight with this one now. This job has been an absolute pleasure, from seeing the transformation to dealing with the owner, everything has gone how it should. Going to look so good come collection date

One roof installed. Really impressive quality and fitment. All panels and the body are prepped, colour time next

🌐www.stellarpaintworks.com
📪 [email protected]
🌍 Buckinghamshire

Once the welding was completed the rest of the car was stripped down ( front and rear screens are now out), the bonnet was taken back to bare metal and epoxy primed prior to small bit of filler work, new inner wings inside epoxy primed also. The car when it came to us looked tired but thats because it was still running the original paint o/s and just the one paint job on the n/s due to the historical damage. This meant prep work was quite minimal, a coat of epoxy sealer then 3 coats of NOVOL for Classic Car UK hybrid filler primer. This is going to be one very tidy M3. Big job next on the list that needs to be right.

Double E46 M3 post this morning. I’ve posted up jacking points repair and sill repairs earlier (this is the same car) and these are the arches.
Inner arches as standard needed replacing. We’ve then carried out the CSL mod and slightly pulled the arch arch as the plan is wider spilt rims eventually. Outer arches were in pretty good shape, just some small replacement in the corners. Inner arch new metal and welds now have epoxy primer on them. We can now seam these up, prep the inner arches and get them coated in spray sealer and body colour

Both rear jacking points on the e46 M3 done. These will be epoxy primed when doing the inner arches before replicating the factory finish

With all the welding work on the E9 complete the body and panels are now in .uk hybrid epoxy primer in preparation for filler work

🌐www.stellarpaintworks.com
📪 [email protected]
🌍 Buckinghamshire

When we discuss jobs with customers we always stress that our estimates are based on previous experiences and what we visually see, but that every car is different/unique and hidden issues often (always) occur. You need good customers with an understanding of this and a realistic mindset to work with and were lucky most of the time that’s the case.

Once the skirts on this E46 M3 were removed as we’re doing arches and jacking points we noticed minor corrosion towards the front of the o/s sill and a lot more on the n/s around the front jacking point.

The O/S sill was cleaned up and left over night ,sheeted up, soaking in rust treatment gel leaving just some clean minor pitting.

The N/S when stripping started had filler around the the corrosion and with the wing off and back to bare metal signs of an old repair where the wheel has come back and hit the sill and inner wing when exposed. This had also involved a new outer sill section been welded in place and that’s what had started to fail.
We were unable to reuse this section as the corrosion was too bad and those who know these cars know you can not buy coupe sills unless from BMW which include up the posts etc and are very expensive.
You can however use aftermarket saloon sills which are not a direct fit but can be worked with and re shaped to fit.
Tony who is working on this vehicle has done a great job of reshaping and getting that new sill to line up.

Both sills were an added 2 days of work which again stresses the importance of a flexible budget.

Arches and jacking points next

Meanwhile…..in the deepest darkest corner of the workshop The E9 is just getting a final look over before going into NOVOL for Classic Cars Hybrid Epoxy primer. Trying to narrow 300 pictures into a few to post.

Carried out so far. Exterior bare metalled and straight into NOVOL for Classic Car UK bodywork primer. Cut out previous repairs that were half weld, half fibreglass. Tidy up previous repairs that were solid. Two new doors skins and door bottoms, complete rear panel, lower rear corners, lower rear screen panel.
The panels supplied were either genuine BMW or very good quality aftermarket ones making the job go a lot smoother. The L/H wing had been badly damaged when the car was imported from Sweden so this had to be repaired to match up to the new door skin.
Biggest hurdle so far was the R/H wing and front sill section had been incorrectly positioned before being welded in and also the swage line lost.
This had to be cut and repositioned to allow door alignment.

Overall a very solid example of an E9. We did expect some unforeseen work but more than we actually came across. So far so good

Next M3 in for surgery. So quite a bit to do on this car and I’m going to list the job spec below. I originally wanted to document the work with a camera and do a video for YouTube but realistically that’s not going to happen on this car as I have no prior experience of videos, editing, the equipment etc although it will be something we do in the future.
So I’m happy to open it up to suggestions for a way of documenting this project that will both be interesting and informative. I will be documenting these stages with pictures but any suggestions on how to get this across to those who’d like to know what’s involved then I’m happy to hear them.

Job spec:
Removal of roof and replace with full carbon fibre item.
Full carbon fibre front bumper along with new OE front wings.
Bonnet back to bare metal.
All jacking points reinforced and rot issues addressed.
Rear arch rot addressed which will be complete new inners and whatever is needed on the outer with CSL mod arches.
BBS RCII splits were due to be fitted but errors with the dimensions mean genuine CSL wheels for now.
Any rust issues we come across addressed.
New OE external trims
Full external and shut repaint in OE A08Silbergrau

Not a big job but a cool iconic hatch so had to share. Small dent and marks on the tailgate with some bubbling and issues behind the seam on the panel join

🌐www.stellarpaintworks.com
📪 [email protected]
🌍 Buckinghamshire

Well this was a nice surprise to wake up to Friday morning.

As I’ve previously posted numerous times, this isn’t an easy trade to be involved in. As fulfilling as it can be you are also having to ask someone to give up 000s of £’s they’ve worked hard for and deliver something that meets their expectations but also keeps your business running, pays your staff and makes it worth getting up in the morning for, a tricky balance.

We are just people who have the same good days, bad days, happy moments, tough times but we still have to try deliver through all that.

Most jobs go great and the customers are fantastic, some jobs go well over budget and can create tough conversations, some jobs just don’t go how you want from customers not being honest with want they want to mis management on our side.
It happens, it’s the nature of being human.

But when a customer goes out of their way to write how appreciative they are of what you’ve done for them it just lifts your mood, almost embarrasses you and makes you remember why you enjoy working these cars.

Thank you Bobby for your kind words, absolute pleasure to deal with.

Hi Cutters

I just thought i’d make an appreciation post to a bodyshop that has just completed some major essential works to my M3.

If you’re looking to save your E46 M3 from the dreaded rust that’s already starting to find its ways on the main areas -

Rear outer arches
Rear inner arches...

> (Arches, Jacking Points and Sill restoration specialists) Hi Cutters I just thought i’d make an appreciation post to a bodyshop that has just completed some major essential works to my M3. If you’re looking to save your E46 M3 from the dreaded rust that’s already starting to find its ways on the main areas - Rear outer arches Rear inner arches...

Those arches though 👌🏼

Never posted pictures of this before it left us. A lot of welding on this one. A lot of previous repairs that were so substandard. Painted down both sides as well as doing a smooth bay

E46 M3 jacking points. A common point of failure on these cars. Commonly they’re repaired and strengthened at the the same time. On this job we have used the strengtheners from WeldTech Bristol.
Once the sealer was stripped off the sunken damage to the jacking point wasn’t the only issue, the outer sill was too far corroded to reuse and getting a new outer sill for a coupe isn’t easy. We instead purchased 2 sills for a saloon as the underside section is the same but the curvature of the sill itself is different so we had to reshape the replacement sills to match. Once we had the correct shape sill we could pull the jacking points back down into place before welding in the strengtheners.
Once the welding was completed the new metal was epoxy primed before spray sealer to match in with the existing products.
This will be colour coded but done at the same time as the inner arches.

Velvet blue E46 M3 picture update. After getting the car up on the ramps and grinding back the sealer off the inner and paint in the outer arch it was clear the inners had completely gone both sides, yet the outers were solid. With some patience and care were were able to drill out the welds on the lip, cut the inners and separate two meaning no damage was major work would be needed to the outer.
New inners welded in, re welded to the outer lip as well as using 3m panel bond to seal any potential gaps. The lip was then folded back to factory spec (no CSL mod on this car). Next will be to epoxy prime the bare metal inner including brushing inside the ‘U channel’ before a thick bead of sealer in there ready for spray sealing everything as was from the factory.
I’ll post more picture as we go.

I’ve had some emails regarding the jacking points. I’ll also post pictures of our process for doing this and reply with a cost to those who have enquired.

Those Works Equips wheels. Stunning. The E21
has a bit of a new look for this year

I know recently the posts have been all ‘look at the stage of this’ but we’ll carry on that trend for this morning.
If you follow our page and are on various other groups it’s likely because you have a passion for cars and if that’s the case will have had some bodywork done or looking to have bodywork done you’ll have seen variations in prices. You’ll have also seen uneducated opinions/comments saying things like ‘shouldn’t cost that much’ or ‘body shops just rip you off’.

Leads us nicely onto this mk1 Golf we are doing. I went to see this car last year and had a complete repaint years ago but hadn’t seen the road since. I don’t know what the owner paid for it but years under a cover hadn’t done it any favours, plus there was obvious issues such as cracking appearing.

We gave an estimate to bare metal the car by hand then assess from there if any (they ALWAYS do) and how much welding was needed.

So break down of the findings, 🤦🏼‍♂️, and I’ve highlighted some pictures in green to show. So, bonnet, roof and scuttle were under so much filler and product I reckon we’ve shaved 100kg off the weight, the shocking thing is both the roof and bonnet were 2 of the best I’ve seen, pretty straight. Tailgate again pretty good.
Rear quarters, wow. So highlighted under another tub of filler is a previous ‘repair’. It appears the inner C pillar was cut open from the inside to gain access to the back of the panel, the outer quarter also cut open and a load of mig wire melted onto it. The inner C pillar, don’t need to weld that back up, few tack’s is enough and fill over it (I’ve highlighted the filler seeping through).
I’ll share the joys of the findings. This doesn’t include the front end which is equally interesting.

So, yes, to those who say it shouldn’t cost that much, i had mine done for a pack of fruit pastels and 10 pack of woodpecker, that’s a ridiculous estimate etc…a little reminder of general rule of thumb is you get what you pay for

Thought before this wing gets taken by the scrap metal collector I’d share something for those who’ve not had the wings off their E46 M3 or not worked on them. We get a lot of people emailing to say they have some slight bubbling on their wings and how much to repair them. So below is a pic of some average bubbling on the painted side you can see. The second picture is of what’s actually there. If you can see anything on the painted side it’s already too late, new wings.
Anyone who says they can be repaired, if you have done this and the repair was done over 2years ago and still not come through you have the magic touch and I’d love to hear how you did this.

Well, this week has thrown up some finds on a couple of cars. I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting to find the inner arch like this from the only visual defect on the outer being this.