New (to me) e53 Estoril blue return to glory and audio upgrade

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Hi all! Glad to be here, I have learned a lot already and hope to learn more.

Long story short, I purchased a 03 e39 touring mtek in August. I reconditioned her to my standards. At the end of August a person randomly contacted me and wanted to buy the car, I declined. He then offered double what I paid for her--SOLD, come get it.

I looked for a bit to try and find another one, but I couldn't find one that could be reconditioned to my standards. I started to search for an e53. I originally wanted a silver or white 4.6 or 4.8 with comfort seats, cold weather package, etc with dark interior--no tan. I looked at a few and then an Estoril blue 4.6 came up in Tulsa with low mileage(64k) and all of the other options that I wanted. I drove to Tulsa, inspected and purchased the car.

Here is my journey with the car--this took place over the course of about one month...

I first took it to my local indie for all maintenance to be completed (apline auto works in Memphis).

Car goes on jackstands to remove the front and rear bumpers for painting. The wheels are sent out for refinishing and I painted the calipers, wheel well liners, and cleaned all suspension components, etc:




As you can see in the picture there was quite a bit of marring from the previous owner-time for correction! I own a detail shop in Memphis--this is our specialty. Hello my fellow autopians! I am ebpcivicsi over there..


Here is a shot in progress--dent guy pushing the dents and my head technician correcting the paint:


I also replaced the mats, reconditioned the entire interior, which took about 4 days with the leatherique, etc taking a bit of time. The paint correction took about 4 full days as well.

After all of the correction, painting, etc. I also installed paint proetection to the bumpers after reinstalling them.










wheel wells are freshened up


I had them refinish the barrels too--drives me crazy when they are unfinished!


Interior:






With that done I turned my focus to the audio. The car was equipped with DSP, which IMO isn't *horrible* with everything turned off, but lacked full range clarity. The head unit also had some bad pixels so I decided to gut everything and start over.

I installed JL compnents in the front/rear doors, a JL 5 channel amp, JL stealth box, and a pioneer z130. I also put in a k40, not pictured.

Components going in--the crossovers had to be moved to another location for clearance, but you get the idea.






cargo area gutted...



Factory sub removed and ready for stealth box:


Factory compnents... BTW, is this stuff worth anything?


Stealth box in place:




All buttoned up:


Amp is mounted on the other side--this is before "clean up."


The sub created a bit of "rattle" so I used some foam-backed adhesive to help. It does help---*a lot*, but I think I will end up creating a hole in the panel with a speaker grill.






Door panels all back together---only had to replace a few clips




Head unit installed--what a PITA! It barely fits, no one makes a kit, and what I did find (my bimmer.net or something) is essentially a (nice) trim panel with no way to mount the unit--more fabrication! Anyway, here it is..








Good to have everything back together, thanks for looking and I look forward to being a contributing member around here!