Roxy, the not project project 318is!

[Holland]

So this is where car repair adventure can take you. This is a Denso compressor remanned by me myself and I. Let me tell you, do not do this at home. You need about 4.5 hands to put the rotating assembly together, and in a garage with 105 degree heat, this sucked. This is not just a rattle can resto. All 5 double sided pistons, half bearing bearings, shaft, roller bearings, seals, and plates are new. The only gasket I had to reuse was the top line manifold gasket which is not only replaceable in the car but was not leaking. Bores were lightly honed so needless to say after I put this thing together, I filled it with oil, and spun this little beezy. This thing might as well be my baby at this point. She sucked and blowed, she seemed to make compression, she seemed mellow and in a good mood. At this point, full send. What is the alternative? Run a junk compressor. Time will tell if this thing actually works or just sits pretty. This is what M42 people have to go through apparently. All I did with my M10 was junk the AC and drive with the windows down. I doubt this thing would have made any cold air originally. It's not perfect but better, and that seems to be the theme with this car.



After fighting with the belt tensioner, much tap and die action later, it's in. In on all 4 mounts, manifold on, hot and ready like a $5 pizza. No issues with the clutch and coil, connector plugs right in.



New hardware and refreshed lines are in. This had better be worth it. Fresh engine with a gross compressor was not a good look. Now, the only thing left was supposed to be the worst part of this whole job, but I think I just got past it. One way ticket to underthedashboardland.

[Holland]

Home stretch on the AC rebuild, only need to remove half of the dash, but I did a dash swap on the 85 so no biggie. This right here is the case that holds the evaporator in the car. There is a bolt in the back where human hands can't reach well and it is NLA, so do not break it.



I ended up using two swivel sockets and a long extension in between like some form of Eiffel tower. Don't tell anyone but I did not put that bolt back in, this thing has 3 other bolts holding it on so it will be okay.

I took a picture to make sure I put the new expansion valve on the right way. It only goes on one way...



This is 35 year old foam doing what 35 year old foam does. It's like sand. Coarse, rough, and gets everywhere. I hate sand. Did not photo it, but I have a brand new unit going in so this thing is junk, would not want to try and flush this thing seeng what all has been in this system.



If you have not done the AC in your car, the evaporator will look just as bad as this, most if not all of our cars have cabin filters despite what RealOEM shows. This comes in through the cowl. Getting the new unit in was not a good time, those fins bend very easily, and not only is the DME harness completely in the way, the firewall insulation can only be removed by removing the dash so that is not happening. I fished the little guy in as best as I can only bending some fins hopefully, but It did go in without further disassembly. I took the new lower line and tried my best to replicate the best West Germany had to offer with the only insulating tape I had. A layer of Tesa tape topped with some 3M electrical tape.



Looks the same to me, lol. This is so you won't have a water feature in your glovebox. Nobody specifically says to do this but at this point, I am not wanting to take this back out so just to be safe... Naturally I also totally destroyed the firewall grommet getting the old line out, why would old rubber not hold up? So luckily FCP not only had one in stock, but I got it next day on a Sunday thanks to it being in their local Mesa warehouse and courier shipping. Suck it Amazon.

[Holland]

Last thing on the list is a recharge. This post is not that. I will likely take it to my old job (dealer) because they have an AC machine and can not only do an exact amount of freon, but also vacuum test and make sure I'm not completely incompetent. What I did here is far far more important right now. See, long long ago in a state far far away maybe, this car had a Morimoto headlight upgrade done. It works fine, wire routing could have been better, but from what I can tell, the installer was on the home stretch, had enough of working on cars, and decided to use a self tapping screw to install the relay bracket on the core support. Now it's biologically impossible for me to reinstall that rusty screw directly into sheet metal, so I had to make it better.





The bottom screw is a ground, so as much as it bothers me, for now I will leave it. I have some grommets and bolts left over from the AC kit that I did not use yet, so we will do something with them. I promise the Concours people will not notice after I am done. First I needed to make the small hole a bigger hole.



This grommet will be good, but I need to use a file to make a hole into a square.



bit of paint and boom.

[Holland]

Rusty bracket will not do, I make a new one... er I make this one pretty.



Lick of rust converter, primer, and SEM. I am are Concours now.

[Holland]

So, I am no propulsion scientist, but I do believe that this car has had some form of non-consensual contact on the passenger front at some point in its life. Not only is the valance tweaked, but this crack runs along the entire seam under the headlight and inner-fender panel. The washer reservoir mysteriously left the chat a long time ago.





So I do not know what this is? I am from the southwest, what is this??



In order to vanquish this mysterious brown stuff, I wire brushed, sanded, buffed, waxed, polished, waxed, primed, and am now waiting on 181 touchup spray.



Not perfect, but will be hidden, but definitely needed to be addressed. I decided I will be using the original bottle out of the 85 since I will be doing something different with that. Can you believe a clean that this thing is 40 years old? I also have the original white cap that is apparently more rare than goose teeth.