Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

I've been looking at the first rust repair patch I made with a critical eye and gritting my teeth. The welds are awful and there's a lot of heat warping. I tried to beat it into shape but it would rather rip the seams that I ground too thin than stretch into new shape.


I decided it was time to revisit the spare wheel well. I cut off quite a bit larger piece to get ride of all my previous failures and to cut away the paint drain hole completely. Earlier I had decided to cut it a little weirdly.


I had to shape the center recess and the stiffening ribs. When shaping sheet metal I basically beat it with a hammer long enough that it starts to resemble what I had in mind. Sheet metal brake, bead roller and a couple other tools would make the job quite a lot easier but at the moment I have no place for such. I should educate myself on handheld sheet metal tools, though.






Patch seems to fit okay:



The difference to earlier is not so evident in the pictures but in real life they are like night and day. But don't worry, I won't get into downward spiral of redoing all my previous work. I did pick up things pretty quickly and the repair I made after this is still okay in my eyes. This concludes all the rust repair work in the rear part of the car. When I get all the bare spots painted I'll start mocking things up and building exhaust and such.

[Skarpa]

In case anyone is interested, this is how I plan to locate stuff in the engine bay:


Brake fluid reservoir will be a remote one. Brake fluid and hydraulic fluid reservoirs may need switch places since hydraulic fluid reservoir is so tall. Hydroboost pressure regulator and bomb will go under the main cylinder next to the fuel filter. Yellow circle marks where I plan to have a fitment issue. I haven't mocked up anything yet but after studying pictures online I don't think there's any chance the master cylinder and intake rubber boot will fit. Any good ideas are received with much gratitude. Here's a couple possibilities I've come up with so far:

- Tilting the engine towards the exhaust side - Since I'm already short on space with the exhaust manifold, I'd like to avoid that.

- Fiber airbox - I'd prefer using stock box for now since that's what I already have. If I go with fiber box I'd still like to use the stock air filter and the MAF.

- Shorter main cylinder - People have used shorter master cylinders with the vacuum boosters, for example Mk3 Golf one. I need to check if the hydroboost booster will accept a different master cylinder. It might help a little, the hydroboost one is long.

- Modifying the airbox - I could replace the rubber boot with a welded aluminum cone that's shaped to clear the main cylinder and leave just a short bellow or a piece of hose between the cone and the MAF.

- Offsetting or tilting the booster and the master cylinder to left - Almost forgot this one. By modifying the pedal frame and the brake pedal, it should be possible to move the master cylinder to left to give at least a couple centimeters of space. Tilting would be even easier.

[Skarpa]

Some minor progress. I haven't found time to go to garage but I have prepared some parts as evening pastime. The hydroboost hydraulic reservoir was pretty rough-looking.


I tought about having it re-plated but then I came conclusion that such a big yellow zinc chromated pot wouldn't visually fit next to an M52 "plastic motor" as it's called in Finnish. (well, the original "plastic motor" is the M50) So instead I sanded the reservoir and gave it a coat of primer and a couple coats of satin black rattle can. I also replaced all the sealings and the filter.




As my second project I replaced the 2.65 ring gear in my lsd with a 2.93 one and assembled the lsd unit with an extra plate pair.






Here's a good video to help getting all the parts in correct order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVG-RUfXo4Q

After I paint the diff housing and the bearing covers it's time to explore the fascinating world of bearing pre-tension and tooth contacts.

[MatRacer]

it's time to explore the fascinating world of bearing pre-tension and tooth contacts.

Been there... One thing that someone local recommended me that was very helpfull was to grind the old pinion bearing outer ring so you can fine tune you pinion depth without messing with press fitting and removing outer ring over and over...

Have fun ! :p

[Skarpa]

Been there... One thing that someone local recommended me that was very helpfull was to grind the old pinion bearing outer ring so you can fine tune you pinion depth without messing with press fitting and removing outer ring over and over...

Have fun ! :p

I will, thanks for the tip :up:

[Skarpa]

Minor updates continue. I wasn't quite happy with the unnecessarily two-partitioned large dirty windshield washer container so I got much smaller replacement unit.






But I wasn't happy with that either. Rectangular container looks out of place behind the headlight and on the battery shelf it is potentially conflicting with the M3 plastic cover or the M52 diagnostics plug that I plan to mount there. Then I realized I already have a compact container that fits the engine bay perfectly. I just need to get rid of the main washer fluid container and leave only the intensive cleaning one. It holds about one liter of fluid which is plenty for a summer car. So I split the containers with saw, trimmed the edges and did some cleaning until I was left with this:


I left a tab and drilled a hole in it for a second mounting point to keep it fixed firmly. I'm happy with the result. I'll just replace the beat up and broken cap and it will be golden. For brake fluid I got this remote reservoir which will sit out of the way atop the left wheel well or right next to it. I guess I'll use a T-branch to rob the fluid for the clutch from the hose for rear brakes. It's very hard to find a low remote reservoir with three hose connectors.


While I was in the mood for tinkering I went through the engine wiring harness, marked all the necessary wires for the C101 connector and removed all the needless ones. I'll use the E30 four cylinder cover for the wiring harness.


All the removed wires on top. I believe I will shorten the wires going to the main connector when converting to E30 plug but not before test fitting the harness. I will also shorten the needlessly long wires for the relays when I see where they fit.


I have some more wiring harness work waiting for me. One box contains the original very limited body wiring of 316 while the other one contains the wiring harness of a facelift four door 325i with all the bells and whistles.


I guess I'll use the 325i harness, remove the rear door wiring and make the necessary changes to accommodate to pre-facelift tail lights etc. I haven't quite made up my mind on the check control yet. It would be easier to just install one than to hack the wiring harness to delete it even though I've heard it's not that complicated. In my opinion the check control isn't that necessary piece of equipment and doesn't look great. I have a couple options when it comes to the head liner: Dark or beige head liner either without the front panel, with the front panel and check control or with blank front panel and no check control.

[butters]

I also replaced all the sealings and the filter.

Nice work so far. Question for you - how did you go about replacing the reservoir filter? I'm doing hydroboost as well, and it doesn't seem intuitively obvious when I open up the reservoir.

[Skarpa]

Nice work so far. Question for you - how did you go about replacing the reservoir filter? I'm doing hydroboost as well, and it doesn't seem intuitively obvious when I open up the reservoir.

There are a few different models of reservoir but the basic principle is the same. When you open the lid you can see an M8 nut on the center column. Open this and the strainer, filter and other parts will come out by lifting. Remember their order. I think the most common reservoir model has a round dome shaped strainer and under it a kind of a cup which contains the filter. Filter itself is a porous ring made of phenol resin. The ring is about 30 or 40 mm tall. My reservoir however had a cylinder-shaped strainer and a lower, about 15-20 mm tall filter ring plus a paper filter. Paper filter is no longer available from BMW but you can see the manufacturer's type number on it. I ordered the resin ring filter from BMW but either I had looked up a wrong part number or they sold me a wrong part because I got the tall ring. I ended up sawing it in half to get it to fit.

On the left you can see the parts inside of the reservoir


And here they are stacked minus the strainer that will be on top. The resin filter ring is at the bottom.

[Skarpa]

Where did you get that reservoir and the 90 degree fittings for the master cylinder? I've got an e32 booster and master cylinder I'd like to use but need a better remote setup.

EDIT: Ah, looks like those master cylinder fittings are the oem ones with the hoses cut off.

The reservoir is from a local speed shop but it's some generic international manufacturer's product. Find your local speed shop and see their selection or google "remote brake fluid reservoir". If you want to stay OEM, the 02's have a nice remote reservoir. It's just too tall for where I want to mount it. Yes, my elbow connectors are OEM (brand is Lucas) but you can also buy similar pieces from several manufacturers. I've cut off the original hoses and I need to trim off any remaining bits of hoses from them. I'll use PTFE brake hose between the reservoir and the MC.

[Skarpa]

I ground, cleaned, scuffed, cleaned and primered the bottom rear of the car. I also took time to clean all the previous rust spots. I'll put another coat of primer later to make sure it's well sealed this time. Then there's of course still the trunk side to go. But man there's a lot of work in that. If I had to choose my least favorite part of building a car it's the preparation for paint.

[Skarpa]

I've used a couple of evenings to go through the body main wire loom. It has been tedious because none of the connectors was marked and a big chunk of the loom was unwrapped into loose wires. Now I have most of the connectors marked and I've organized the wires into correct bundles and tied them temporarily with masking tape. I've also got rid of the rear door connectors. Central locking is still causing some head-scratching. This wire loom has had aftermarket remote control installed in it and for some reason the switches for the rear electric windows have been cut off quite brutally. As a result I have a few loose wire ends so I need to go through the wiring diagrams to sort that out. I will have the original remote control for the system and I think I'll install that and the lock motors in the wire loom and connect everything to make sure the central locking works as it should.

As for the check control I've come to conclusion to leave the wires untouched. That gives me the option to run check control in future if I feel like it. Having the check control connector dangle unconnected under the dash should cause no ill effect for the operation of lights or anything else.

[sparconl]

Hi Skarpa,

Fantastic build, absolute an example build for me.
I'm restoring a 325i convertible, also complete rearpanel ect.

What kind of 2k epoxy primer do you use?

[Skarpa]

Hi Skarpa,

Fantastic build, absolute an example build for me.
I'm restoring a 325i convertible, also complete rearpanel ect.

What kind of 2k epoxy primer do you use?

Thanks alot! It's always nice to provide useful information to someone else's project.

I've used a couple of brands: Body 989 and Valspar epoxy primer. The brand of the epoxy primer should not matter too much as long as it's good quality 2-component stuff. My current one is Valspar but the can is running out and I should buy more. I do however have at least 6 liters of Teknos Tecnoplast Primer 5 industrial primer left over from a work project so I'll probably move on to using that unless I find a reason not to. I'll probably go with industrial paint tinted as close to Zinnoberrot as possible in the bottom, trunk, passenger compartment and the engine compartment of the car. Industrial paints are quite a lot cheaper and at least as durable as car paints. However, they do lack in gloss and finish compared to car paints. Industrial paints make sense especially for me because I'll be able to buy them through the company I work for.

The weld-throug zinc primer I use is U-POL Weld #2.

[car_gal_jenni]

Great job on everything! I"ll be undergoing a similar chassis harness situation with my 89 coupe here before too long. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's good to know that other people have tackled this with some form of success.

Keep up the great work!

[Skarpa]

Great job on everything! I"ll be undergoing a similar chassis harness situation with my 89 coupe here before too long. I'm not looking forward to it, but it's good to know that other people have tackled this with some form of success.

Keep up the great work!

It's not too bad with the harness.It just takes some careful studying of the wiring diagrams and careful work. I really like the shrink sleeves with solder already inside when workin on car wiring. Wonderfully easy to use and provide fully waterproof butt connections.

It's been kinda slow on this front but there has still been some progress. I finished going through the body wiring harness. I replaced the rear light connections with early model ones and repaired any inconsistensies and corroded copper. Then I re-wrapped the harness with original style fabric tape. I didn't do the engine compartment side yet, though. I may still change wire routing there.

I also pressed in the bearings and the bushings in the rear trailing arms and slapped on some more primer on the body.