My '73 Roundie Revival [BMW 2002]

[StealthiE30]

WOW you have mad some amazing progress thus far! Cant wait to this 2002 finished. Good work dude!!! :bow:

[CubbyChowder]

^^totally agree

Got back to work on the fender. This thing is taking a lot longer than I anticipated, but I've grown to expect that with every aspect of this build so I'm at peace with it. I'm sure every fender from here on out will take half as long as the previous one.

However, I was not so at peace earlier when I started working on the inner wheel well area. I wanted to weld it back to the fender so it can all be connected again, like it's supposed to be. I started hammering it a bunch, cutting it into sections so it'd be easier to bend and then started welding it to the fender. This proved to be the hugest bitch ever and was very frustrating since I had to basically curl up inside the wheel well area with my huge welding mask which got caught on everything and I had to push the metal with one hand while I welded with the other haha I was a mess. It wasn't really working out at first, but I eventually started getting the hang of it. I didn't finish this area today because I got sooo over it, I'll finish it next time I go up so I can grind it down, hit it with some seam sealer and be done with it. Sorry for the rant, this is the area:



Decided to work on a different section of the fender since it all has to be done anyways. This is the rear area of the fender, which has a gap between the MK1 fender and the '02 body:



Started grinding away at a piece of metal little by little until it fit the gap perfectly, ended up with this:



Tacked it in:



Welded it up:



And ground it down. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, it cheered me up a bit from being all flustered with the inner fender area haha. I cut the bottom too to flow with the body:





This is what the bottom of that area looked like:



So I wanted to fill that gap with metal so it flowed well:



Welded it up, ground it down, and ended up with this. Needs a little more work but I think it's pretty much there:



So next time I go up, I will be focusing on the front of the fender where the bottom meets and make it flow well with the body (sorry I keep saying "flow" so much haha). It looks like this:

[semaj4712]

Thank you! I shoot with a Canon T2i with Magic Lantern firmware installed. Majority of these pics were taken with the stock 18-55mm but lately I've been shooting with my 50mm f/1.8 (which are the noticeably better looking pictures with more depth of field). I decided I'm going to start using the 50mm more, I just love the way the pictures look.

Oh nice, yes 50mm = less glass > than zoom, primes always look great

[CubbyChowder]

Alright got a little bit of work done today. Mainly just grinding away at the welds, lots and lots of grinding.

But first I had to deal with this area. The MK1 fender had a little section which bulged out a bit, so I had to cut that out because it wouldn't work with the '02 body. So there was a gap:



So I had to make this janky little piece of metal, it actually fit in the gap perfectly:



Welded up, looks kind of rough. Whatever, still learning:



So then I started grinding down the welds:



Hit it with a flap disk, this whole process took forever:




Then I brought the fender down to bare metal in preparation of filler and primer, the black paint that was originally on there chipped off really easily, so I don't trust it:





It looks kind of rough in the pictures, but I really think getting it to look good is totally doable. I want it to look as if it came that way from the factory, so we'll see what happens.

[deutschman]

Nice!

[freeride53]

Looks SOOOOOOO sick.

[CubbyChowder]

Time for an update, this is a good one :)

First off, got to work on this area:



Got it all down to bare metal and rust free:



And primered. Now all I have to do is get the engine bay prepped and primered and the front end will be ready for the engine and paint!:



Then I finally reached a point in my build which I've really been looking forward to, I decided it was time to get started on the fenders. All this paint/rust removal was getting really tedious and unexciting, so I needed to do something exciting haha. I whipped out my grinder and got to work. Decided it'd be best to start off by hacking off the original fender lip:



And off it goes, no turning back now!:



Had to cut out a small rusty section in the inner wheel well, I will weld in new metal shortly:



Mocked up the MK1 fender. I measured everything by eye haha it just seems to work best for me sometimes:



Started cutting more:



Got everything lined up, it all looked good, so I started welding small sections:



Took my time and only welded in really small sections so it took forever. I got it all done though, and it's a bit rough in some places, the whole process was surprisingly difficult:




Then I couldn't help myself, I had to mess around with the wheels and see how it would look. I'm super hyped on it, I think it's going to look awesome. Possible aired out bagged stance? :D:



More realistically, the stance would be more like this if I end up going static. Still pretty awesome to me:



While I was working on the fender, my dad wanted to help out, so he started disassembling the engine and washing it down. I'm not going to rebuild it, just replace all the seals and gaskets and whatnot. Check out our modern engine hoist haha we're getting a proper one very soon:






Getting excited now!

[CubbyChowder]

don't let your dad sell that benz! god what i'd do for a rust-free w108, a v8 one too!


i like your peektures, and the scale of the work you're doing. can't wait to see more. ps.. you know this thing deserves better than diamond racing steelies.

He's liking the car more and more as he drives it and fixes little things here and there. He'll probably keep it for a long time.

Thanks and yeah I know it deserves better wheels haha I explained that in my post when I first bought them. I figured I'd get them for now while I'm building the car and run them for a while and I can always upgrade down the road. I originally bought a set of BBS RM's that I was going to rebuild with bigger lips but I ended up getting scammed and it was a huge mess, so I settled on these for the time being until I can afford and focus on a better set of wheels

[evandael]

don't let your dad sell that benz! god what i'd do for a rust-free w108, a v8 one too!


i like your peektures, and the scale of the work you're doing. can't wait to see more. ps.. you know this thing deserves better than diamond racing steelies.

[CubbyChowder]

Just in, more parts and supplies.

Pictured are two OEM BMW front control arms with bushings pressed in, one outer tie rod assembly for the passenger side, some flap disks and wire wheels (I love Harbor Freight :)):

[CubbyChowder]

got to this thread a bit late, but its looking good! great job

Thank you!

[e30shmobberr]

got to this thread a bit late, but its looking good! great job

[CubbyChowder]

I must commend you sir on the great photography, even in shots of simple things your attention to detail is great...what camera do you shoot on?

Thank you! I shoot with a Canon T2i with Magic Lantern firmware installed. Majority of these pics were taken with the stock 18-55mm but lately I've been shooting with my 50mm f/1.8 (which are the noticeably better looking pictures with more depth of field). I decided I'm going to start using the 50mm more, I just love the way the pictures look.

[semaj4712]

I must commend you sir on the great photography, even in shots of simple things your attention to detail is great...what camera do you shoot on?

[CubbyChowder]

small lame update today. Didn't do too much.

Replaced the input shaft seal on the trans today. Here is the cover taken off with the seal out:




Put the new seal in and torqued everything down and it's good to go:




Then I filled it with some Redline MTL:



I read online somewhere that it takes a little under a quart to fill up the trans, which I soon discovered definitely isn't the case. Upon searching it again, I found that it actually takes 1.6 quarts, so I had to order another quart. Learning everything online sucks sometimes haha I'll just have to wait it out and fill the rest when I get it. No biggie.

Then I took out the control arms to replace the bushings. Before:



After:





The bushings were pretty shot and the control arms themselves were pretty beat up as well. I decided that I'm going to sell the OEM bushings that I bought for them and just buy whole new control arms. It's really not that much more expensive and the bushings come pressed in already. So I made yet another order with Blunt for some control arms and an outer tie rod assembly since the passenger side was toast. Blunt Tech is taking all of my money :)