Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

Rear inner layers fixed and ready to be joined together.


And the whole inner side skirt done.


Then for the outer layer. Patch panel is only the skin so the braces for jacking points had to be welded inside.




There are also braces on the outside.


Skirt cut to shape and painted on the inside.


tack-welded to place. I checked the doorsill with the door.


And final welds






That was *a lot* of work.

PS. If anyone is wondering why the car is named Armo, it comes from the license plate. Armo is Finnish man's name. In English it translates into mercy or grace.
"May God have mercy for I have Armo"

[litu]

Cool project...I like so much premodel e30
This sound so interesting project, keep it comming

[rzerob]

Subscribed.

[Nisse Järnet]

A lot of work, good job!

[Skarpa]

Cool project...I like so much premodel e30
This sound so interesting project, keep it comming

A lot of work, good job!

Thanks. I'll try to keep it coming. The passenger's side of the floor was pretty much in same condition as the drivers side.





So the process for fixing was the same. First I cut off the side skirt and made braces for supporting it. Then I cut off the floor





I bought the complete passenger's side floor from a fellow hobbyist. It's in much better condition than my floor but alas, not as good as the one I used for driver's side.



The front corner was rusted also in the donor floor so I needed to make it from sheetmetal. I copied the shape from the other side.

[Skarpa]

Everything tidied up for the floor to go in.


However the donor floor needed some work as well.






One might ask if it would have been just as easy to repair the floor I had. And you know what - it probably would have. You never know, the donor floor looked good before close inspection. But anyway, here's the fixed floor.


Welded to place

[stonea]

Holy crap, great job. Gives me a lot of inspiration, keep up the good work!

[Skarpa]

Holy crap, great job. Gives me a lot of inspiration, keep up the good work!

Thanks! Will do.

Next it was the rear floor's turn. Same procedure.


Again the donor floor required some attention.


The seat fixing point was not bad but not rust-free either.


I drilled small holes for positioning and drilled open the spot welds. This time I had a spot weld drill so I didn't have to drill through.


At some points the floor panel had corroded a bit too deep for my liking so out with the brown stuff and in with the new.






I also cut off any rust from around the paint drain hole and welded it shut.


When doing this I had bought body adhesive and wanted to test it so I glued the bracket back to place.




Bracket was held with pop-rivets while the glue cures.

[Skarpa]

The same method I used for joining the floor to body at the overlapping seams.


Non-overlapping seams I of course welded. I cut the gap in the front a bit too wide but by that time I had already trained in welding a bit more so it wasn't a problem to close a wider gap.


"At home you just fill in any remaining gaps, sand it and apply paint. Here in studio kitchen we have limited broadcasting time so let me just take out this finished product I made earlier"

Almost looks like nothing is done

[WestCoastEta]

Serious props for deciding to bring this e30 back to life. Seems like a lot of e30 guys scrap cars for surface rust these days. I think it's great to see a neglected vehicle getting some love!

[Skarpa]

Serious props for deciding to bring this e30 back to life. Seems like a lot of e30 guys scrap cars for surface rust these days. I think it's great to see a neglected vehicle getting some love!

E30:s with good body are a disappearing resource especially here up North but they are still available. In retrospect I could have bought a much better car for the price I've put into this one. Not to mention time but it doesn't really concern me. Through this project I have learnt so much and I will honestly be able to say that I know my car inside out. I have no plans of selling this ever.

[petrolhead]

E30:s with good body are a disappearing resource especially here up North but they are still available. In retrospect I could have bought a much better car for the price I've put into this one. Not to mention time but it doesn't really concern me. Through this project I have learnt so much and I will honestly be able to say that I know my car inside out. I have no plans of selling this ever.

Good E30s aren't that common elsewhere either from what I see. Many people just POR15 theirs, and call it repaired.
Take apart pretty much any old barn find /90k km driven granma's E30.. and you'll find stuff to do on the bodywork. No matter what it looks on the outside. Keep it up, we'll see who gets their E30 first up the Riihivuori hillclimb :D

[Skarpa]

Good E30s aren't that common elsewhere either from what I see. Many people just POR15 theirs, and call it repaired.
Take apart pretty much any old barn find /90k km driven granma's E30.. and you'll find stuff to do on the bodywork. No matter what it looks on the outside. Keep it up, we'll see who gets their E30 first up the Riihivuori hillclimb :D

You have a bit of a headstart in that but we'll see ;)

When I had the passenger's side rear floor cut off I had good access to do some repair work for the drive shaft tunnel. The brace under the handbrake cables had started to rust. The pipes for handbrake cables were not great either.


I cut off the section where the brace is attached.






Then I formed new piece of tunnel from sheet metal and welded it in place.








The brackets for the heat shield also had rust starting to creep between them so I drilled them off.




No need to replace sheetmetal there. Also the heat shield brackets and the brace I cut off earlier didn't actually look bad. Just surface rust so I applied phosphoric acid and steel wire wheel to everything, welded shut the holes I drilled and painted everything.

[Skarpa]

Then I scuffed up the overlapping seams, cleaned them and glued the heat shield brackets back on.





I then took up cleaning the underside of the rear seat and had a look at all the brackets. Basically all of them need more or less work but otherwise the floor is ok so I could weld new handbrake pipes on.






I also welded on the brace under the pipes.

[Skarpa]

Today I learnt that what I've been calling side skirt is actually rocker panel. So next it was time to do the passengers side rocker. It was not quite as bad as the driver's side. Just a few patches for the inner rocker.











Everything painted and the inner brace glued to inner rocker


Outer rocker test-fitted


I glued the overlapping seams and welded the end to end seams. One important thing to note when replacing the rockers is that the original rockers are in two pieces. The rear quarter forms one part of rocker and the actual rocker panel is the front end. Both are fixed to the inner brace inside the channel, seen in previous pics. If you replace the rocker panel with a single piece as I have done, it must be attached to the inner brace as well to keep the body as rigid as it's designed to be. I marked the position, drilled holes to new rocker panel and plug welded it to the brace.


Everything lined up nicely when the door was closed. (bad pic)