ROUND 4! 88 Lachsilber / Cardinal IX coupe

[bradnic]

Death blow - maybe

In the end I may be kidding myself though - I haven't pulled the carpet yet. Lord knows what a mess is waiting there - the patch underneath is a dead giveaway.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Well I finally got around to pulling the carpet and padding to do a thorough inspection of the floorpan. I'm not a happy camper. There were a couple of small patches under the car that should have warned me. PO or their predecessor did a good job of hiding the rust damage, gluing 26 gauge steel sheet over alot of the rust spots and sealing everything up with a caulk gun.

Memo to self - NEVER buy an IX again without first pulling the seats and carpet.

I'm pretty devastated. This is way worse than what I was expecting. On the plus side the transmission tunnel looks intact. Unfortunately I have perforations on both front outside corners that have been covered with patches. By far the worst part is the passenger front floor pan though.

Passenger rear - not bad, but it was soaked with water.


Driver rear - 1st patch. Untreated steel (well I guess it's galvanized)


Driver's front floorpan area - soaked in water.


Driver's outside corner


And... the passenger front floor pan - note the long patch along the trans tunnel


Passenger outside corner - perforated


Pull the patch and .... disaster.


Could use some advice. Right now I assume she's beyond reasonable cost to salvage.

[bradnic]

6 month wait. inner rockers!! need to find a passenger repro outer as they are NLA. The current one's repairable, but seems to me it would be easier to just replace it.

[AWDBOB]

The same brake line was bad on my car!

Restoration looks great, man, keep up the good work!

[e30m3s54turbo]

Brad, I get to see your skills at work. It is great you are saving it. Subscribed!!!

[aberg83]

Nice! Subscribed!

[bradnic]

dealing with bad brake hard lines. pass rear brake line is leaking, turns out there's a slow drip in a rust area.

Hoping this is the only line with a major problem. Plan is for a complete fuel brake and fuel line replacement after the de-rusting work is done.

Well this turned into a bit of drama. More follows, but TL-DR version:

basically the rear lines appear to be rusted out from the inside, and if they get stressed or torqued in any way they break. you get a nasty little chain reaction too - you keep breaking the line you're connecting to, until you end up at an unreachable part of the car. bad news.

To be specific, the right rear hardline started seeping brake fluid near the outer rubber brake hose. Guess I must have cracked it when replacing the outside brake hose. I had picked up the required flaring tools and M1-3 fittings so I wasn't too concerned. I even found some coated steel 3/16" line at my local auto parts that was almost a perfect match for the OEM lines.

So went ahead, fabbed up and replaced the damaged line.


Unfortunately, when I got to the inside hose to tighten it down, the pipe it was connecting to broke. There was still enough of this inside hard line left to mate it up though, so I cleaned up the end that broke off and put a fitting on it. You can guess what went next - the other end of the same line broke, this time right at the 3 way fitting above the diff.

Fortunately a good bud has a lift and heated garage... so I drove her over, then pulled the cat back and exhaust shield to see if I could access the lines above the diff. The other side of the rear hard lines was still intact, as was the front to rear brake line. Since the 3 way fitting was bolted to the chassis I took a chance and successfully removed the broken fitting with a 6 point deep well and an extension. Definitely got lucky - could have easily gone differently, in which case I would have needed to pull the subframe and fuel tank.


Install of the replacement line was tricky due to poor access for a flare wrench to tighten. Still looks like absolute cr@p. camera focused on the ebrake cable instead of the brake lines unfortunately, but you can see the new line and fitting.


Can't wait to start de-rusting - check out the exhaust area. funny how the bottom of the driver trunk well is intact, but the side is rusted through..



Didn't want to put the rusty old cat back on again, so went ahead and installed the eberspacher I was saving for next spring.



So unplanned repair bullet dodged for the most part I guess, though the new exhaust goes through a winter right away which sucks.

[bradnic]

Yeah it's gone. Apparently some local dad bought it for their 16 year old...
Here's a pic of that car's rear underside:


sigh.

On this end, dealing with bad brake hard lines. pass rear brake line is leaking, turns out there's a slow drip in a rust area. picked up some copper/nickel line, fittings and tools. will post the results. just repairing the one line for now.

Hoping this is the only line with a major problem. Plan is for a complete fuel brake and fuel line replacement after the de-rusting work is done.

[E30 Wagen]

^Oh man, if I hadn't just bought another stupid eta I'd be all over that...

[bradnic]

SOOOO tempting.

If I had even a remote chance of finding a little/no-rust IX coupe shell I'd be all over it.

I found an unmolested, rust free 88 ix coupe. Zinno/black, loaded except for heated seats and ski bag rear seat. Decided to buy it and then changed my mind. I prefer Lachsilber on an IX.

If you're reading this you're clearly an IX guy. Get it while you can. Seller is out of town during the week so may take some time to get back to you.

http://nashville.craigslist.org/cto/4221102687.html

[audiquattrot]

Thanks dougie30! Much love involved.

My new inspiration for this car is audioquatrot's IX coupe:


Man he's got great taste. Definitely doing things right.

Lol. Thank you! I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress on yours!

[bradnic]

Thanks dougie30! Much love involved.

My new inspiration for this car is audioquatrot's IX coupe:

EDIT: I dropped the images as next post has them

Man he's got great taste. Definitely doing things right.

[dougie30]

damn good work and thanks for saving this thing!

[bradnic]

Scored a pair of silber front seats, so I now have enough material and parts to restore the fronts. Also have matched grey dye from leatherique so I'm in good shape interior wise.

pics of the left rear brake, bearing and suspension restoration. The new splash shield is in place too. I haven't re-done the subframe+bushings yet. plan is to get that blasted and powder coated.




brake pedal feel is still a bit spongy, and I had a really hard time bleeding the rears - in fact the left rear bleed screw on the original caliper was frozen solid. My guess is the rear brake lines are clogged. replacing the flex hoses didn't help much. may have to replace the brake hard lines and the master cylinder.

[bradnic]

anyone speak German? cool 325ix factory vid

awesome screen grabs - check out that brand new drivetrain! yum. this is definitely what I'm after.





Love this... The 88s still had diving boards but it's a hybrid config. i believe most of the sheet metal is face lifted, and I know the plastic bumper swap bolts right in. So maybe a euro bumper swap on a US 88 is not feasible. Does anyone know?

[bradnic]

L you are nothing but trouble dammit :-)
and you're gonna make me wait all weekend too.