Turns out, a 225/50 tire fits. Who knew? I mounted up the remaining good tire on a wheel for a test fit. Sure enough. Not a lot of room left. But a 225/45 will definitely work. A 215 should be about perfect.
In addition to getting all of the stainless steel brake lines on tonight (thanks to MT Ghetto for the tool help!), I managed to finally reseat the front air dam. You'll also the work I did with the heat gun this weekend to get the bumper cover to lay back. Almost there ...
The grills are also all mounted back up.
I just need that remaining fog light to get here so I can get that put in.
My guess is that the reason that the front air dam was so tweaked is due to the underlying valance being out of whack. So while I got the spoiler to fit mostly flush with the bumper, there's still a noticeable gap on the passenger fender well. I'm tempted to take to it with Dremel, remove the excess material and glue the flange back on. But at this point, it doesn't rub the tire, so I'll leave be.
You'll also see a peak at the 5 spoke wheels I'll be running.
Not pictured is the trunk seal which turned out great. We'll see how it holds up when this thing is on the road and sees some rain. I also re-affixed the driver's fog light. It's not pretty, but it will work ...
Also, after letting some engine degreaser sit on the blown shock (pictured above), I did learn that it is in fact a Bilstein. Thought it is stamped with a BMW roundel which leads me to believe that it is OEM. So while not critical, I'll see how she rides and sits with the new sway bar links and tires on and make the call as to replacing the rear shocks.
Still waiting on the rear brake rotors, brake lining sensors and brake reservoir cap. After that, tires and I'm back in business!
