The complete repair, rebuild, repaint, and v8 swap of my early model sedan

[euroshark]

Great work! Your dedication is awesome.

[JGood]

You realize that you are going to completely freak out once this is done and you go around your first corner...LOL. That front end must have been flexing all over the place while driving. Its going to feel like a completely different vehicle when you get it back on the road........and I'm not refering to the motor.

Just out of curiosity, were you running a strut bar? If so, was it hinged or solid?

Haha, I know, I can't wait. It honestly didn't feel bad though, compared to my track car. It had identical suspension on it, and although it was 300lb heavier, it didn't feel all that bad. It did not have a strut bar. It will from now on!

Great work! Your dedication is awesome.

Thanks! Loving the Arrogant Bastard Ale avatar! That shit is great.

[JGood]

Removed the battery tray today. This frees up a bunch of usable room in the engine bay, to be able to work around the engine easier or possibly even allow room to mount something for the V8 swap. I think it looks cleaner as well.







Also fixed the cowl area cracks and rust, and cut out the old mangled and rusty engine wire harness hole. I'm considering closing this hole off and mounting the e34 DME box in the engine bay if I can find room.

Before:



After:

[JGood]

[MR 325]

Good lord.

[Wh33lhop]

...I'm freakin' out, man.

[bmwmech1]

Looks familiar...



That was mine about a year ago, lol! Mine ended up looking like an E30 ti before it started to go back together...

Garey

[JGood]

I was thinking about just cutting it straight down behind the wheel arch. 340ti FTW!

[Garageaholic]

Great job Justin. Learning a lot from the pics about the bodywork. Can't wait till you get started with the real meat of the project

[M-technik-3]

You're going insane man. This reminds me of Ian Powell's 2002 rebuild, you know the build.

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,50/page,viewtopic/t,268186/highlight,/

[FunfGan]

Awesome, good luck!

[Eecen]

It must hurt when you put your pants on in the morning. Dem balls.

[GDA]

Totally inspired by your can do attitude. Serious props.

I am a total novice at welding and fabbing up parts and seeing you go at it gives me the inspriation to keep attacking the difficult tasks I encounter on my own build.

Look forward to following the refresh and seeing the final result.

[JGood]

Thanks guys!

You can see the rust at the bottom of the C-pillar. That is where we welded the new 1/4 panel on years ago... it overlapped there and rusted between the layers. I'm going to attempt to salvage the 1/4 panel, since it's all just surface rust around the edges. Although they are available from the dealer for $300 (at least there were when I bought that one a few years ago), so I'm not afraid to go that route again.

The bigger problem is the severe rust on the inner wheel well/trunk floor seam that I found after removing the 1/4 panel. I can grab ahold of the rear bumper mount, and move it so much that the rear shock tower actually moves, you can see the shock moving around! Well, I did it in the front, no reason I can't do it again in the rear...

Merry Christmas!

[White325is]

Now is a perfect time to install some touring rear quarter panels. Muaha..
I got a maf, but no sensor. :/ I looked when I was at the jy the other day and they was all gone..
happy holidays. I think we all spent christmas working on our cars. :)