A while back, YouTuber Mat Armstrong began an incredible ambitious project, fixing a crashed and heavily damaged F90 M5. An F90 M5 isn’t an E36 3 Series, it has a mountain of complex electric components and a far more advanced chassis. So when he started digging into his crashed car, he realized that the project might be a bit too tall of a task to finish. However, he soldiered on and now he’s made his third video documenting the difficulties of his crashed M5.
In previous videos, he showed how badly the strut tower was damaged, with a big hole in it. He also showed the engine running but with rigged coolant lines, due to smashed radiators. In this video, Armstrong has the engine full out, which reveals a few more problems of its own, and shows how to fix the body panels.
Fixing the front body panels actually ended up being easier than he initially thought. The separate panels that make up the front end of the crash structure are fastened and bonded together and then have a sealant over the fasteners. So grinding the sealant off, undoing the fasteners, and slowing prying the bonded panels apart (after heating the panel bond adhesive with a blowtorch) did the trick. Then, BMW sells each panel separately, so Armstrong was able to buy every panel needed and put it all back together.
He was even able to get the strut tower off in one piece with the same process, something that seemed insurmountable when he first saw the car’s damage. That must have been a good feeling, as he was initially very afraid that the strut tower damage was going to ruin the project. It’s also pretty fascinating to see how the various metal panels are bonded, riveting, and screwed together. Armstrong did a great job of taking what initially seemed like an impossible task, learning it, getting the right parts and tools, and getting the job done. He could have given up when it initially seemed too difficult to tackle but a little can-do attitude helped get the job done.