Project Alta Vista - Early 318i

[marshallnoise]

In case someone wants to know, I am starting an 89 325i Cirrusblau metallic project here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=321336. Planning on parting this car out.

[marshallnoise]

Annnnnd, I am reversing course again. Going to restore the 89 Cirrus Blau and steal parts off this car to do it. I made a pro/con list and of the parts I was going to pull off the 89 and put on the 85, it would be easier to fix up the 89 and part out the 85.

So this early is going to be parted. Not many folks want earlies and I understand.

[marshallnoise]

Ohhh! And I scored a 228mm flywheel off a 2002tii m10 motor for $40 shipped from upstate New York. Thanks Jon from bmw2002faq.com.

For the drivetrain part of the swap, I still need the correct throwout bearing and an m20 Sachs HD clutch kit. Need to figure out the shifter situation. The Getrag 260/265 info is pretty well documented, but not when using the Getrag 240. No worries.

[marshallnoise]

New parts car: 1989 Cirrus Blau Metallic 325i

I picked up a good deal on an 1989 Cirrus Blau Metallic 325i that had the front end stripped and no engine/transmission/driveshaft. Save for a few interior pieces, the car is relatively complete.

It has the whole front suspension, steering rack, decent wheels, ABS, good left door, tan door cards, tan carpet, great headliner (that's mine!), great glass and seals. It has no tail lights, bumpers or rear seat.

The plan is to raid the parts I want/need off the car and sell the rest. I will post up another thread for that in the for sale section.

Initial plans for what I want off the car:

• Rear subframe for disc brake conversion; with open 3.73 diff
• All glass and seals
• Headliner and lighting up there too
• Window regulators and maybe central locking system
• 325i Motometer cluster

Maybe more.

Pics to follow.

[marshallnoise]

JK! I am keeping the car. The 89 Cirrus Blau Metallic car I picked up for a great price is just too incomplete...

Today, I replaced the whole front strut assembly out and put in the 91 318is setup in. Wow, what a difference.

I also went through the rear brakes and replaced the parking brake cable that broke. That was a pain in the ass. But it is done and the original shoes and cylinders are just fine. Besides, I am going to drop out the whole subframe and swap in the 89 325i rear subframe in its place. No reason to do the upgrades to the old model.

I also finished up the battery relocate and that is done and working.

Pics...





The old tired busted stuff.

[marshallnoise]

Just to update on the primer/crappy spray paint junk that mitchlikesbikes was referring to:

phreshkid's post: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/show...0&postcount=32

The link in his thread that urged him to try the graffiti remover: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/vie...er=asc&start=0

I tried goofoff and no dice. So next stop is the graffiti remover after I look through that thread.

Edit:

So check this crap out!

Went to Home Depot and spent about $20 on stuff on the hood. Wound up using just the gloves, the steel wool and the graffiti remover. You can see in the zoomed out pic what I was working with. The white stuff really loaded up the steel wool which was 0000. I did have some 00 that I used and it really took the white paint off without loading up too much. So that will be the plan of attack with the rest of the car.




And after about an hour and going through the whole left fender, hood and right fender, I am amazed at the result.



The right fender was a fender I picked up at the yard. It was sprayed with plastic-dip and I took Goof-off to strip it down. After I was done, I bolted it on (still needs some aligning) and washed it down. Then I go after the residue with this stuff and well...here are the results.


I think that the plastic-dip didn't do it any favors.

At any rate, I have the next couple of days off so I will spend some more time stripping the crappy whatever you call the paint job off.

[marshallnoise]

home depot sells some stuff called "graffiti remover". the gentleman with the "i bought surf racks and they came with a 1600" build thread used it to remove a big patch of primer from the side of his 2002 with great results. i would look into that!

goof off may be an option too

Oh dude great suggestions! I have some goofoff out in the garage right now I can test before going to work.

I will look into the graffiti remover too.

Thanks a ton for that. I was dreading using sandpaper on the whole car.

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[mitchlikesbikes]

home depot sells some stuff called "graffiti remover". the gentleman with the "i bought surf racks and they came with a 1600" build thread used it to remove a big patch of primer from the side of his 2002 with great results. i would look into that!

goof off may be an option too

[marshallnoise]

I discovered that there is some decent paint underneath my car's weird Oakland Raider inspired two tone ugly paint job. I was power washing the drive way and decided to turn the nozzle to the car and see what would happen. Well what happened was that a bunch of over spray and chunks of the charcoal flat black started coming off.

So I did what any retard with 500 grit wet sandpaper would do and went at it.


I discovered a better looking Delphin Gray on the fender.

Before doing some reading about proper wet sanding grit I decided to go after the trunk lid and found out that 500 wet/dry is way too aggressive. I have effectively sanded through to primer. Whoops.





But if you look on the left side of the roundel, you can see where I switched up to 1200 wet/dry and kept the original color.

That being said, what do you think the best way to go after the rest of the car? Continue by hand? Rotary buffing tool with compound? I will research the best way to go. It would be nice to have a halfway decent looking car in the driveway for my neighbors to look at.

Oh and here is a pic of the passenger door. You can see the Delphin fender I replaced in this pic for contrast.




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[marshallnoise]

If you need anything for the swap, lemme know brotha! just got my parts car on the lift and pulling the crap out VERY soon!

Thank you my friend!

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[the imitator]

If you need anything for the swap, lemme know brotha! just got my parts car on the lift and pulling the crap out VERY soon!

[marshallnoise]

You have a killer project ahead of you my friend! No prob on the door lock. Glad it worked out.

Believe it or not, the wife is working on the garage. Its nice to get my tools under shelter.

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[mitchlikesbikes]

like the progress so far, thank you for throwing that link up for the door lock. i found it and used it a couple weeks ago to build my new lock.

in for progress and more pictures!


oh and tell your wife i said she needs to clean that garage :hitler:

[marshallnoise]

After the strong rains SoCal got a couple weeks ago, I discovered a leak in my trunk where I was going to be putting the battery. That wouldn't do. So I did some sleuthing and found out that my trunk was leaking where the hose goes into the vent piece. It was simply disconnected or not completely connected properly. The drain on the right side of the car that goes where the battery box is originates in the right rear of the sunroof. I grabbed my air compressor and shoved a bunch of air through the holes in the front and rear of the sunroof then did some testing. All of them were fine, except the right rear.

Here is what it looks like when it is put together correctly. Any variation on this theme is a problem and is probably an easy fix.

[marshallnoise]

The front end of my car around the hood has been kind of a mess. The grilles, hood and fenders all are kind of off. I posted a thread about it in body and got a few good comments about it. One was that the hood was kind of bent, another was that the fenders needed a simple realignment. Turns out there were a couple of things.

With the hood I bought a couple of weekends ago, I replaced the hood hinge mechanism because of this:


The bushings were all wasted and gone. Replacing this component definitely helped the action of the hood and the overall sturdiness of it.



And for folks who take this part off the car and forget how to put it back together...the tensioner springs go like so:




As for the other issue with the hood alignment, it gets a bit more complicated. The front of the car took a hit on the upper piece of the valence that connects the two front corners of each fender. The hit was more to the right side of the car as looking at it from the front (left if behind the drivers seat).


It pulled the front fenders in a bit and distorted the gap between the fender and the hood. As seen here:






I wound up replacing the front right fender because it was not salvageable (for my body work ability) and it had a shit load of bondo on the bottom near the door. It definitely straightened out the alignment of the hood to fender (because it hadn't been bowed via collision). No pics yet, sorry. But I took out that center valence piece and I am looking for a new one. Could be fixed but I want a straight piece with factory dimensions, not pounded out dimensions. :D

Speaking of pulling that piece out...who ever was the asshole in germany who thought it was a good idea to run the AC line through that mounting piece should be shot.


At any rate, I think the core support needs to be replaced or pulled out some. The right side of the car (left from standing in front of it) has the biggest issue. The hood is adjusted all the way forward and it is still a good 1/2" farther up the fender from flush. Looking engine bay near the sides of the radiators, you can see a slight bend/distortion of the core support on the right side of the radiator versus a straight shot on the left side of the radiator. No pics yet. I should pull the radiator to see more clearly that my hypothesis is correct.