MyE28.com

Small update, did some more work yesterday. My plan has been to roll the rear quarter panels, and weld them to the inner fender rather than make a new lip for the inner. Not OEM, but I'd rather have the extra clearance in case I find some nice wider/lower offset wheels in the future, I dont want to have to cut or bend metal to make em fit. I borrowed a fender roller from a friend, and quickly jacked the old subframe and trailing arms into place. Unfortunatley, my suspicions were confirmed, when I tried using the roller, I quickly realized the outer quarter panel just flexed outwards rather than folding the flange. This is because the outer was not welded to the inner. A fairly foreseeable issue, so I quickly abandoned the fender roller, removed the subframe, and reverted to the trusty hammer and dolly. Started the fold with pliers and then slowly went back and forth with the hammer. Turned out just how I wanted, and there wasnt much, in some places no, overlap between the outer lip and the inner. I also noticed higher up in the wheel well a plug in an access hole, so it should be easier for me to absolutely hose some pain into the fender lip, and later hose wax in there for rust proofing. Anyway heres some pictures!

Folded

IMG_0597 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Slight gap to the inner fender. I'd love to say I had this perfectly planned, calculating the bend radius of the outer flange, but I basically cut out the inner flange up to where it was solid, and it happened to line up well. Nice to get some luck now and again.

IMG_0599 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Welded

IMG_0600 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Close up, and you can see the access plug which I will use for paint/wax

IMG_0601 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Thats all for now, Will try to get this ground down next week, and I have to make a couple little filler pieces to close off the front and rear ends of this seam. Don't want to leave any caps for water/mud, I know with the welding in the area, I'm susceptible to corrosion as it is, don't need to encourage it!

Another update! Got the arch welds ground out, filled the ends in and seam sealed, so that's sorted. Shifted my attention to the rear subframe. Plan is to get the rear suspension pieces powedercoated, then they can be reassembled, whilst they are out being coated, my plan is to paint any baremetal with POR15, undercoat it with something, and then paint it beige. The shop has a bunch of Wurth Underseal, not the SKS variety, so I thought Id spray some as a test, see if it is acceptable or if I need to order some SKS. both are black, so would have to have a top coat laid on so it looks close to stock. 

Back to the subframe. I bought a bracket kit from Satisfied Incorporated, the Ireland Engineering kits just seemed a bit pricey, and arent without some fitment issues. So I thought I'd try these out. Overall, I'm fairly happy with them, but certainly needed some grinding and fitting. The Camber adjustment slots were not long enough to overlap with the factory height. My method of install was to cut off one bracket at a time, and fit the adjustable bracket in a position that mimics the factory location. Theory being I can always set it to the same place it was, and camber can go more positive from there, to cancel out the effects of lowering, and the toe can go either way. The brackets didnt fit very tightly to the subframe in a few places, necessitating either weld fill, or leaving a strip of old bracket to weld to. the slots are a little oversize, I would guess 1/2" rather than 12mm, and this means there isnt much of the bushing spacer in contact with the bracket. I think it will be fine, but I'd rather a tighter adjustment slot. My plan is to have large washers under the bolts and nuts, and once I have the alignment set, I'll tack the washers to the brackets so theres no chance of them slipping in the slots. Ramble over, on to the photos.

Used a spacer from an old trailling arm bushing to set the distance.

IMG_0677 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Tacked

IMG_0678 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0679 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Getting to this point, all 8 tacked in place, took far longer than I had thought! But even with a lot of adjustment available, I wanted to be fairly accurate with their placement. I'll admit, they arent 100% perfect, a couple were a bit tight on the spacer, and not 100% square, but overall I'm not unhappy with the result,

Also used my spare arm for confirmation of fit throughout the process. This arm is bent, but not between the bushings, but where the hub attaches to the arm, so it's fine for this function.

IMG_0676 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Yesterday I got the reinforcement brackets welded on as well

IMG_0778 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0779 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I decided to grind down the welds, they were pretty decent looking, but I had ground out all the other welds holding the brackets on, so kept it consistent. I ended up seam welding the bracing plate between the diff mount and the subframe. I think some peope add extra bracing here for big torque applications, but I just finished the welding where the factory left spaces.

IMG_0780 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0781 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

This is the lot of parts going for a nice semigloss black powder coat. Thought about painting them with POR15, but I'd use a ton of it, and my friend gives me a good deal on powdercoating Anyway.

IMG_0782 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

 

Nice job! I added similar adjustability to my E30 rear subframe last winter - it was a ton of work!

Got back at it this weekend, started out the day just cleaning up surface rust under the back, to prepare for POR15, and then I got sidetracked. Figured I should sort out the rear valance now, so then i dont burn off POR behind it and have to re do it later. I had the valance cut off a parts car, and figured I could make the bumper delete look cleaner. Started here

IMG_0803 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

This one was easy because it was just a straight even section

IMG_0804 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Corners were a little trickier as I had to taper the filler piece to the corner, but they turned out fine

IMG_0805 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0806 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

While I was under there I kept looking at the swaybar mounts, they were pretty rusty and thin, and thought, if I leave these, theyre gonna fail at the worst time, and you dont really wanna weld in there when the fuel tank is back in. Or at least I dont want to. So I made up some replacement centre sections and welded them in. Looks like the brackets had been reinforced previously.

IMG_0807 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Filled in the marker light holes too, so one evening this week I can do some paint under there, and then investigate my undercoat options. We have some WURTH underseal cans I could use, black, and then overcoat with SEM beige Ecoat. If the underseal is too thin, or too far off on texture, I'll investigate ordering some SKS underseal, but Id rather use what we already have, not wait for another product. We will see. We have a sprayer with a hose extension so I will endeavour to get undercoat into all the nooks and crannies I can, and then wax after final paint.

IMG_0808 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Minor update, last weekend I got the two diffs and assorted parts painted in preparation for reassembly. My other parts are done from powder coating, just need to pick them up. Have some Wurth undercoat coming, we can't get the SKS undercoat here in Canada, so i'm trying their rubberized underseal. It's paintable, so hopefully I can get a respectable match, not really looking to do the entire underside, just where all the welding is. Once thats done, I can install the fuel and brake lines, and assemble all the suspension to the subframe and get this car rolling again.

IMG_0830 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0831 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

This weekend I went down and picked up a parts car from AlpinaPat here on the forum. It has a really nice hood, and the doors are fairly decent, so between them and what I have from other cars, I should be able to put together a decent set. I'm sure theres more parts I'll keep as spare, before it moves on to another home. It also has some 16" style 5s that I would like to use on my car. Thanks again to Patrick for making it an easy pick up!

IMG_0851 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Some more progress, I finally got some undercoat from Wurth. The forum consensus seems to be the SKS underseal being the best texture match for the OEM undercoat. Unfortunately our Wurth Canada rep cannot get the product, and I'm not looking for a side quest to get some up here. I want the car to be fixed well, but we aren't doing concours here. So I settle on their paintable rubberized undercoat. I'm spraying it partially over the existing undercoat where it remains, and over the POR15 which I applied over my repairs. My thinking is, worst case that the undercoat doesnt stick perfectly, the POR15 is still completely adequate for rust protection. The car wont be seeing winter again, so I'm fairly confident this will be just fine. I had some difficulty getting our Wurth spray gun to spray properly, but got there in the end. Before I started I thought, maybe I should clean the rest of the underbody before touching in the areas that need it. What a horrible messy job. Ended up soaked from the waist up. I used Castrol Super Clean, a stiff brush and then rinsed with an air powered siphon gun. The results, to me, were more than acceptable. And it means I wont be spraying over dirt where I blend the new undercoat to the old. The Wurth Paintable Rubberized Underseal turned out decent, I could probably have dialed in the pressure and other settings to perhaps get the texture closer to factory, but i didnt want to waste much product doing that, I only got two 1L containers, and though it isnt an exact match, once it's all beige I think I will be happy with the result. And if I'm not, thats too bad, because I'm not redoing it! 
IMG_0889 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0890 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0893 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0894 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0895 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0896 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr


I followed up the undercoating process today with the SEM EZ Coat Tan paint that seemed to be the forum choice for matching the OEM beige undercoat. It took a decent amount to cover the black, which wasnt unexpected, so now that i'm happy with the colour match, I have to order a few more cans to get everything done. I focused on the areas where the brake/fuel lines run, so if I need to wait a while for the paint to show up, I can at least proceed with that part of the job.

IMG_0898 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I also got my subframe, trailing arms, backing plates and springs back from powdercoating, I had some extra time today so I pressed in the new subframe bushings.

IMG_0899 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0900 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

That does it for today. I'll look for more beige paint tomorrow, theres a place I overlooked locally that I need to check out, worst case I order more off of amazon like I did for this can. 

The undercoat looks great! I don't envy the job of cleaning the underside!!!

 


Thanks Pat, it would be slightly nicer on your lift, but you just resign yourself to being muddy and wet, and then continue on. One piece of gear I’d recommend to anybody who is doing a large amount of cutting or grinding is a full face respirator. I have a 3M model, but having the full shield is way better than safety glasses. I also notice a big difference having the breathing protection. When I was young and dumb and didn’t want to look soft to the old guys at the shop, I didn’t wear any mask, but I started having coughing issues lying down at night, after a day of heavy metal work. Not worth those effects. And it kept the water off my face in this circumstance which was excellent. 




 

Very nice work. Inspiring. 
I hate wearing respirator. My least favourite safety gear. I ended up buying a positive pressure grinding/welding mask. Extremely expensive, but it's the only way I could make myself take care of my lungs.  

Lovely work!!!

Thanks for the support! Yes the respirator can be uncomfortable, but I've found it better than the half mask respirator and safety glass combo I was using before. Tig, your builds are among the top on this forum, and I've gone back and used many of your photos for reference. You've done a lot for this forum.

Today was a pretty big day for me. I actually got to put parts back on the car, permanently, and they actually looked good, not just more bare metal, or used sections etc. 3 or 4 years ago I ordered BMW original fuel and brake lines, as a fuel line leaking was the impetus to take the car off the road. I had sectioned in a couple pieces of rubber hose temporarily, but I knew the brake lines were just as rusty and the car wasn't safe anymore. At one point I was just going to do the lines, but quickly decided to either not bother, or fix the rest. The fuel lines came pre bent, and though not a perfect match for the old ones (I have a used set from the first donor car I got), they ended up where they needed to go, and were mostly parallel. The brake lines came in straight lengths, the right side being slightly longer. It took some time, but the lines were fairly malleable, so most of the bends were done with my thumbs, only some of the closer together bends near the ends did I use a bending tool. No, I did not get them perfect, but they connected up and I'm overall happy with the result. If somebody else is doing this, I recommend having an enormous open area, so when you're trying to bend and match the new and old lines,  you can swing the straight section of line all around and not hit anything.

IMG_0916 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Zip ties help to keep things tracking together as you go

IMG_0917 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I had plastic guides from two cars, so ended up with more than enough that werent cracked or broken. I later found a bag of brand new BMW ones I guess I ordered at the same time, but forgot to use. So if somebody is looking for some....

IMG_0918 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Finally something that looks good

IMG_0919 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

IMG_0920 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

You can see some of the misalignment here....oh well

IMG_0921 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I realized as I was running these that this part of the wheel well really will need to be green. The small section I wont be able to paint green where the lines are will be beige. Again, not ideal, but in the overal scheme of things I'll live

IMG_0922 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Sorted my fasteners. Top shelf is mostly from the subframe/Differential disassembly, bottom shelf is other parts of the car and misc. bolts from the donor car

IMG_0923 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Brand new pump and filter

IMG_0924 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Finished off the day cutting vent hoses to length, installing the heat shields, and testing the two intake pumps. The one that works is on the uglier of the two hangers, looks like it was replaced at some time as it has a long sock filter rather than a rigid rectangular one. I have one more in tank pump in the shed, maybe I'll test it too and see if one sounds smoother running than the other. 

IMG_0925 by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Today really made the project feel real. Even though I'm generally confident about my abilities and the scope of the project, it's nice to have some milestones where its like yea, I'm gonna get this done.

Had to do the spring yard clean up yesterday, so I went in for a few hours this morning. Got the in tank pump swapped over to the least rusty hanger that I had. Looks like somebody had replaced it at some point, the two factory pumps I had were both dead. This is the one that was in the car, I had to cut the outlet pipe about .400" to raise the pump to the correct height. This pic was on the old, rustier hanger. I upgraded with a second zip tie when I swapped it over.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Once fitted with a new seal, the tank was ready to install

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Fed the vent lines through, cut the feed and return hoses to length, and connected the wiring. Went in fine which was nice as I was on my own at the shop. Topped off with a freshly coated cap.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Got some paint touch ups done on the undercoat, painted the rear and side parts of the spare tire well black, and one brake line hold down had a broken screw in it. It was a stainless fastener in it, so tough to drill, so I ground the broken shank down flush before drilling. The new fastener doesnt match the rest, but I'll live. I had the line eased away, but of course the carbide burr caught, and nicked the brake line. Not right through, but through the rubber coating and a bit into the metal. Obviously less than ideal, but I'm not too worried about it holding pressure. With the rubber coating the line is .200”. The area that got nicked measures. .190”. Of the .010”, the rubber coating has to be at least .005”. So only about .005” of metal missing. Compared to the flaky rusty old lines, I'm sure it will be more than adequate. I touched up the scar with some paint so it doesnt corrode, but I was still upset as it was the exact thing I was making an effort to avoid doing, and it still happened.

 

Pretty quiet in this "eye candy" section. Did you make any progress in May? I put a new trunk seal in my car, hopefully my trunk will stay dry now!

Has been quiet, here, but things have been happening! I reassembled the rear trailing arms with new bushings, which were pretty damn tough to install. Putting them in the freezer helped, but still had a 4 foot snipe on the vice handle to wind them in. I had visions of how to make a turnbuckle tool to brace the bushings together and put them in using the press, but decided I didnt want to spend time making that happen. Worked out fine. The rest of the reassembly, wheel bearings etc was straightforward. I forgot to get the handbrake adjusters zinc plated, so I cleaned them up and anti seized them. Nobody will ever see them again. I installed them in the subframe and was pretty pleased with how everything was looking.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

That positive feeling soon turned sour. The used subframe I had bought and modified, ended up being for an e23. It's a few inches wider than an e28/24 subframe, and I hadnt even considered that to be a possibility. It wasn't a malicious deception by the seller, I know he thought it was a 5er part, but it was still demoralizing. Especially as my goal that day was to get the car back rolling and tuck it away to make room for the summer rush in the shop. 

I dragged the rusty crusty old subframe and arms from out back, slapped it back in and rolled it back into the storage area. 

There was a happy resolution to the e23 subframe, when I contacted Satisfied Incorporated to order up another set of adjustable brackets, I told Erik why I was reordering, and he put me into contact with a customer with an e23, looking for an adjustable subframe. Brian was extremely happy to buy the subframe from me and it's safely in Florida now awaiting installation. Erik mentioned the slight issues I encountered installing the brackets, things not quite lining up etc could be because of the differences in the e23 subframe. I'll report back when I do another frame.

On that note, the parts car I picked up from AlpinaPat became ever more important. Up it went early Saturday morning a couple weeks ago

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

A few hours later it was out. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I took out the front struts too, which ended up being a bit of a waste of time. Should have been more aggressive with the screwdriver before pulling them. The spring seats disintegrated with enough prodding. Ah well, can't win em all! My plan for a while has been to ignore the front suspension, and detail it like the rear suspension when I eventually do something with the engine, but I wanted to get this phase of the refurbishment done first, have the car painted and back on the road, rather than taking it all apart now, and maybe not ever having the motivation to get it back together. But I bought some used Bilstein B6s, so I figure I'll do the front strut housings and springs up nice, so they dont have to come apart again later. It makes sense in my own head at least. Special mention to Chicagotrader92, who sold me the bilsteins, when they arrived the rears had what seemed to be the wrong spring seats, and he put me in touch with kojo96, who he had bought them from. kojo remembered he had messed with some e23 seats, and sent me the correct e28 spring seats free of charge. Stuff like that really is what makes forums like this special, and I appreciate all the awesome members on here.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Rear diff sold quickly, and much of the interior did as well, so that was kind to the wallet. Next steps are to modify this subframe, reassemble the two rear diffs I have apart, and then get back at the doors. My plan is to use the best of the parts car doors, and some other loose doors I've got around. Summer seems harder to find time to be at the shop on the weekend, but I'll try to keep picking away! 

That sucks. It'd be just like me to do the same... fully restore something without noticing it's the wrong part. 

Glad you had a good resoultion though!

Yeah, mistakes happen to us all, and at least somebody benefits from the work that went into it!

Overdue for an update! Not a ton of progress, being summer and all, but some dribs and drabs. Got the second subframe modified, sent out for powdercoat. Disassembled the front struts, salvaged the ABS sensors, and sent them and the springs for powdercoating. Got all the associated hardware zinc plated as well. Should have those parts back this week. Got around to reassembling/resealing both my differentials. I did press out the pinion to check the bearings, all looked used but good. Tightened the pinion nut back to the marks I made. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Both filled with Redline 75W90 GL5. I realize the spare is overkill, just seemed like a good idea to refresh it while I was doing the one out of the car, and the LSD diffs are always worth something. Painted a few parts in preparation for reassembly. Once its rolling on it's refreshed suspension parts, I'll be getting it back into a bay in the shop, removing the doors, stripping all the parts and throwing the doors away, and then repairing the A pillar rust, and installing/adjusting the donor doors. Probably will have to be painted off the car, but I'll leave that up to the painter.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Goal is to have the car painted this winter/spring, and on the road next summer. I'd really like to have it ready for my fifth anniversary with my wife, and do a road trip together.

Nice work! The diffs look great with fresh paint, hardware and clean AL covers.

Did you already mention which ratios they are?

I had thought the one from the car was a 3.46, based on information from a previous owner, but both ended up being 3.25. Which honestly, probably is best for how ill use the car.

Well you won't have a problem selling the spare 3.25 LSD, all the E30 24V swap guys want that ratio diff and it fits E30 if you swap the rear cover, and output flanges.

Looking good!

The rear camber kit looks to have a larger range of adjustment than some other kits out there. This should be handy to get the suspension dialed in just the way you like.

Keep pushing!

Probably way more adjustment than I’ll ever use, but the price of the kit was good, just a decent amount of time installing it. 

Not a lot of interesting photos from this step, but I got one rusty green door stripped bare and removed. I’ll get the rest done, then I can hang the parts car doors and strip them for paint. The stainless trim and black trim around the windows was real pain the remove nicely. Hopefully it gets easier the more I do!

Been a while, but there has been some progress. Car is back out in the shop, so the last couple weekends I've made some progress. Doors, window rubbers, trunk lid etc were all removed from my parts car, so the rest of the shell/engine went to a local BMW breaker, so hopefully more of it can benefit somebody! Got the car moved before it got too cold and snowy, which is always nice. Back in the shop, it was time to get some of the suspension pieces off the shelf. Nothing like assembling nice refreshed parts. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Subframe went in without much of a fuss, found all the bolts I needed so far

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I was a little unsure about the Bilstein B6 combined with the H and R lowering springs. There is around an inch of free travel in the shock, which shows up as free play in the spring. My main concern is when its lifted, the spring might not reseat correctly at the top. I think I'm going to look into some helper springs to keep things engaged, or perhaps rig something up to keep the spring connected to the upper mount, so I only need to ensure the bottom seats correctly when lowering the car. It's a problem for another day, I decided to put them in for now, and move on. The lower seat is cocked in this photo as i had a zip tie holding it up to keep the spring in contact, making it easier to guide it in with one hand and start a nut with the other. I've elected to not reinstall the strut bar somebody had installed back there, as it made removing the shocks an absolute pain in the ass, and I don't know how much difference it could really make. Unlike at the front, it wouldn't make any direct geometry difference, as the shocks aren't directly impacting the geometry like the front struts. And i removed the front strut bar, i believe it was sold to tig over ten years ago, because it got in my way filling the oil up. The intended use of the car probably won't be improved with either bar at this point.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Axles went in easily, I have about 3 cars worth of axle bolts so I got to choose the nicest ones

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I had to make new brake pipes, not a big deal, and I think I got the majority of the plastic clips in the correct place to hold the various sensor wires and the brake pipe

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Driveshaft installed

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I'm not completely sold on the cad plating on the callipers, but at least it can't flake off like paint, so I'm going to leave them be. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I wasn't going to do anything with the front suspension, but then I bought some used Bilsteins from Kojo96, and it didn't make sense to install them into shitty rusty housings. So they got disassembled and powder coated, and I won't be able to stand the rusty callipers going on, so I'll get those CAD plated to match the rears. So far i'm managed to convince myself to leave the restoration of the lower arms/subframe for a later date, if I have the engine out to do some upgrading there

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

So were back up to date on the car now. I will put in the heatshields, and I guess the exhaust can go on, and then I should start the car up and make sure it still runs. At that point, I'll have more shelf space to strip the rusty doors of their parts, and get rid of them, and then mount up the replacement doors, and adjust. At some point I have to get the front right frame rail pulled, a youthful mistake resulted in it being tweaked in and up a bit. I'm doing all this work, I want that straightened out, it should get rid of the slight pull it had. Somehow I see it turning into a pain in the ass, but I"m sure it will get done!

Last weekend we were busy with a friend's wedding, but I had tuesday off for Remembrance day up here, so I got a little bit more done on the car. I bought a stainless steel cat back section, but still need to reuse my downpipes/cat delete pipes. Everything was pretty rusty, and the downpipes were made by a local exhaust shop and were....adequate. I don't really want to do anything different, as down the road I might do headers, turbo, B35 swap all of which would require different exhaust work. So for now, I took a wire wheel to it all, and gave it a coat of high heat paint.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Today I felt like doing some metalwork, so I attacked a spot behind the passenger strut tower. there was a decent amount of rust, I cut well around it to get a decent sized patch in there. The layer underneath was solid, rusty and pitted, but not perforated. So a top layer repair was acceptable.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Welded and ground

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Friday after work I replace the RF brake hose bracket. It had gotten mangled in the curb incident of 2013, so I chopped it off the parts car I had. Pretty straightforward to replace. POR 15 on Friday, some seam sealer today, and I'll make it, and the strut patch some kind of green this week. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Did some sealer on the patch as well, after dusting it with primer some pinholes showed up and I didn't feel like chasing them with the welder

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Had a little more time before I had to go, so I installed the new seals and boots in the front callipers. Couldn't leave them rusty and shitty, so I got them plated. I'm sure I'll end up detailing the arms and steering knuckles, trying to reduce my work load, but it seems a shame to leave them as is.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

That's all for now! 

Nice progress, love the plating on the calipers

Thanks Pat, it's starting to come together. Friday afternoon I went down to the bodyshop with a frame machine that's just down the road from us, and they're pretty slow, so I said I'd bring the car in this week. So I had to get it running and driving again to get it there! I put the front struts in onto of the rusty old arms and knuckles. I think once I have to car back again, I'll drop the subframe, replace it with a good used one that I know is straight, and paint all the arms, zinc plate all the hardware, and have all the suspension looking as nice as the struts. But getting the frame fixed is a priority, the roads aren't snowy so driving it down the street won't be a big deal. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Brakes bled easily as did the clutch. Changed the oil in the engine and transmission as well,

by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Hard to see here, but above the lower control arm mount, the frame rail is slightly concave, where the arm pulled it inwards.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

This is a terrible photo of the inner side of that part, but you can sort of see how it is pushed inwards.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

I had to install the exhaust, which I knew was gonna be a pain. I wire brushed and heat painted the front pipes, they bolted up easily. When it came time to install the new stainless exhaust, I wasn't expecting a great fit, and I got what I expected. the first issue was the resonator hitting the driveshaft. This I put down to the muffler shop fabricated front pipes, so I did a bunch of torching and rebending to lower the resonator while keeping it level with the floor. Next issue was the hanger mounts being angled and uneven, more torching and bending. That sorted, the pipes towards the muffler were angled steeply towards the floor. More bending, getting them tucked up close to the underside of the subframe, and again, level. That got the muffler relatively well situated in between the tank and the spare tire well. I had to make an L bracket to connect to the factory rear hanger, which was fine. This left the exhaust properly hung, but the tailpipes are way out of whack. I'll sort those out when I get the car back, I need to level them, shorten them, and find some tips with rolled ends to install. I'll have to do those once I fit the euro bumper. 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr


Next up was putting some fuel in it, flushing the feed, then flushing the fuel cooler, and building pressure. No leaks, all good there. Cranked the engine with the fuel off, oil pressure light went out, so then it was time to fire it up. With fuel pressure primed, it started up like it had run the day before. Hadn't run in a couple years, so even though there was no reason it shouldn't run, it felt great to hear it again.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Drove it out of the shop, settled the suspension, and brought it back in. Put the rear on ramps and tightened the trailing arm bushings. I'll obviously have to set the toe and camber, but I want the frame sorted out first. 

I measured the front castor, its about 2* more negative on the bent side, so that accounts for the major pull. Hopefully sorted out soon! 

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

 

Car is at the body shop for the frame pulling, so I can't work on it until it's back. Luckily, I have some other things to work on. I believe the front subframe in the car is bent from the same incident that tweaked the frame, as the centre link does not sit parallel to the subframe. I think the idler arm mounting bracket is bent, angling the centre link. I have a spare subframe from a parts car, the steering box bracket is untracked, so I made up a reinforcement similar to the MWrench unit on the lathe, and welded it in. I'll get it, the sway bar and some spare steering knuckles powder coated.

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

When I get the car back i'll drop the subframe and steering box, paint the arms, disassemble the steering linkage and paint all those bits, and do another round of zinc plating. I also have a spare steering box that is nice and tight, so I'll paint it and install it with the refurbished subframe. I got a seal for the pitman shaft, so I'll put that in while it's out. The pinion seal seems to be NLA, and wasn't wet, so I'll leave that be. 

Got the car back a couple weeks ago, castor now measures within a few tenths of a degree side to side, so that's a great improvement. It torqued the sill seams a bit so I will have to do some straightening and resealing, but overall I'm happy I went down this road and got that corrected. Not really any photos of that work, but it was progress worth speaking of. 

Last week I tackled the licence plate light rust. It wasn't horrible, but it had some pretty deep pitting, so I decided to weld in some better metal. I had the rear clip from the parts car, so why not?

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Cut out

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Fitting

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Welded and ground

I also got some better condition euro bumpers from delphin euro in Australia. They have some issues, but were a decent price, and I can either rock the chrome as is, or wrap them. Couple dints in them but not the wavy disaster that the set I currently have are. One rust hole near the mounting bolt on the front bumper, I'll decide what to do with that in due course. Didn't take any great photos. Got some used foglights from him at the same time, I was going to just run the blanking plates, but the lights look way better

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Untitled by Warren Tomlinson, on Flickr

Yesterday I removed the other three doors, so now I have access to repair the passenger A pillar, and then hang/adjust my parts doors. Hang and repair the front fenders, and the car will be getting close to going in for paint. Should have some progress tomorrow.


 

You're making great strides, keep it up!

Jealous of your large tool kit and ability to make that steering reinforcement yourself on a lathe! I need to do that reinforcement on my E28 as well.

Was the frame straightening expensive?

Thanks Pat the support is appreciated! I’m very fortunate to have access to the shop for my own project. It’s a main perk of the job for sure, theres more money out there, but the work space is pretty unique. 

I’ll have some decent progress in the next couple days, pushing to get the last bits of rust dealt with, hang the doors and fenders and start talking about when it can go for paint. 

Frame straightening was pretty cheap, we have a good relationship with the body shop, he asked for $300 cash and that was fine for me. He’s likely going to be the one who paints it.