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[Denny]

Great work on the pans... very impressive work :)

I 100% understand the sleepless nights... my first E30 did that to me too...the rust was much worst :(

[Saascat1]

looking great so far mate!

nice work

Thanks Guys.
I'm almost caught up to date, next post will be Racing Livery

[e30shmobberr]

looking great so far mate!

[kamotors]

nice work

[Saascat1]

Oops..........

Not sure what happened there. Was the right way up on my computer. Must be the "Down Under" thing.

[Saascat1]

So, all this looks like it's happening pretty fast.
I am still getting up to the present day from the beginning of the build, November 2011, and in some respects I have glossed over quite a bit of background work. Mainly 'cause it's not very interesting, or there were no photos taken and it would have been pretty dry reading.
The other thing I want to say is that I have the luxury of being able to periodically devoted weeks at a time to this project, I am currently on leave and am spending the next two weeks doing little else, as I have done for the past week. I consider myself very fortunate in this respect.

Anyway...........

After many, many hours of sanding and filling, and sanding and filling, and sanding some more. It was decided that a showroom shine and perfect lines were not going to destiny of this particular E30, rather, clean lines and the odd imperfection here and there. The nett result to judged as a whole, the sum of it's parts and not to be picked and poked and sneered at for flaws. After all, this is a race car i'm building not some show pony too precious to see the light of day.

The days of preparation came to an end, and it was time to see what dividends were to aid for the hours of toil.
My friend Bryan had said before we started to paint, "a woman can look great naked, but she looks better in lingerie". What he was trying to say was once the trim and wheels and lights and all the little things go back on, any small dints we might have missed would be disguised by the whole. Wise words, I was just going to cover them with stickers :D

So, undercoat........
Bryan on the Spray Gun, me on the Lens and being a good TA, moving the lights, and generally staying out of the way.




Now for some more sanding and then time for colour.
Gigidy gigidy

[Saascat1]

Time to delete the wheel well, no need for a spare at the track except in the pits.
I helped a mate replace his bonnet, hood for y'all in the northern hemisphere, and in return got to take the cutting wheel to the old one :D
A few careful measurements and this is what i got.

Now you see it......

Now you don't.....

What hole?

I retained the cross brace, although I trimmed it down a little, spot welded it in and then sealed both on top and underneath with construction grade exterior sealant (Sikaflex). I now have a piece of Ford Fairlane permanently attached to my car, probably be the best performing bit of ford in recent history.

From there went back to finishing of the Firewall.

Done, welded, sealed, stronger than ever. It is a great feeling knowing that the body is now structurally sound, watertight, and in one piece again.
Time for a Beer!

[Saascat1]

It was time to tackle the rusty floor pan and let me tell this had caused many a sleepless night. The rust was up the firewall and across the battery shelf. If you are not sure why this was such a problem, take a look in there sometime, there is quite a lot of complicated structural steel in there and not much room to swing a grinder, or error for that matter.
My friend Bryan and I decided that the best approach was to cut the section into two halves, do the floor first and then the firewall.
I drilled out all the spot welds on the 1/4 cut along each side of the chassis rail. Then cut the chassis rail from the bottom of the floor pan and separated them with an air chisel. I then cut down the outside of each chassis rail on the car, across the back end, along the side of the trans tunnel and back across the front. I gotta say I was shitting myself the whole way, I REALLY didn't want to fuck this up.
I then trimmed the "new" floor pan and left about 3/4" overlap for spot welds.
Bryan set to with his gasless MIG:
Again apologies for missing some photos.

and again,

[Saascat1]

Before the livery goes on, may I ask what the lovely light/pale green (?) color is?

Sorry If I spell this wrong, I've just finished putting colour on and didn't take note. But here goes: platatengrun-metalic. I know thats not right, but should get you in the right direction if you check BMW colour scheme. :)

In the light it was quite nice, just not very race car. It also was starting to crack the duco and peel in a few spots.

[e30_luv_]

Before the livery goes on, may I ask what the lovely light/pale green (?) color is?

[Saascat1]

Nice!

Thanks el

[el bimmer]

Nice!

[Saascat1]

IE to the rescue, again. sourced swaybar reinforcing plated and HD swaybar brackets, and with the help of a good mate got to work.


Also bought their motor mount reinforcing plates. These had to be modified slightly to get a good fit in the subframe itself, and then the holes provided for acces to the motor mount needed to be opened up a little with a die grinder to allow a socket in.



The finished product:

[Saascat1]

Thanks All for your kind words.

Once I had put aside the motor for now, I rearranged the area under my house, read "garage" and got my pride and joy out into the middle so I could get to work.
Up onto stands, wheels off and then tie rods disconnected, front sway bar disconnected, control arms removed, struts removed and finally, subframe out.


I had purchased a seal/rebuild kit for the power steering rack and took it to be rebuilt.
Now to see about re-enforcing the subframe.

[MattAvino]

real purty