Project finished - 'MY22' 318is - bare metal, nut and bolt restoration

[burkey001]

waiting for a spare day to go get my aircon bits installed and tick that off the list


scratching my head how the aircon lines are run, i wish i took better pictures of the before state.

[econti]

I will trust in the process. Making solid progress on it regardless

[burkey001]

better view of wrinkle AFM, now it has dried and bolted to the airbox... i think once you see the intake plenum, valve cover, the mason engineering strut etc in the same finish, and the MCS two way canisters mounting to the strut bar it will grow on you as a theme

[Melon]

That wiring put me to so much shame.

I'm not sold on the wrinkle finish AFM just yet, I'll reserve judgement until I see it all together in the car.

[burkey001]

Had some time over weekend to do a couple things…

Finished off some wiring. I had been leaving the AC part of the wiring for some time. No real reason, that’s just how it was.
Wired up the drier, the compressor and the temp switch




Been a while since I looked this, so I was glad I took the time to make some detailed wiring notes. Saved me





Finally got the aux fan situation sorted too. I had brought a new housing and a new fan blade before… and I was hoping one of these pieces would come with the motor… and they didn’t.
So i tracked down one of these from Schmiedmann. It’s not OE but it looks pretty close, except for the resistor unit.
I do not want to run a SPAL, even thought yes, I am aware that will work




Fan doesn’t look too bad, but the wiring is not where I’m at. But we can fix that…
3 different kinds of looming… very long cables

Shitty non mechanical solder joints on a brand new loom… all a bit lame

Cue after… Spec 44 wiring, twisted and loomed up to a new OE plug




But im a fool, because I lost the little rubber bushes that mount the fan to the condenser frame… so I gott go buy some.. grr…

Expecting new AC hoses soon, so should be able to wrap that stuff up soon enough

[burkey001]

Hi all
Few updates

The M42 pull down has begun. All its raging 12 HP will be ready soon enough


It’s surprising how overengineered ‘the mess under the intake is” when you take it all out a single unit


I don’t plan to make any mods to the engine. Just redo it OEM. Still on the fence about an S54, so lets just make the M42 like new again in the meantime.

For engine accessories, I have this idea that a mix of wrinkle black and satin black is going to be better than the raw castings… So here is a MAF covered in some very wet wrinkle paint.


Before I did that I cleaned up the casting a bit. Knocked off the mould lines, smoothed it over a little bit… not that you can really tell under wrinkle… but I know.



I don’t think im going to do all of the engine bay deadening, probably just this main firewall & trans tunnel bit. Trying to balance OE with some orange zest.



Fuel lines and fuel filter.
I have a little bit to do on the fuse box, wiring wise, as can be seen. Thinking to replace the C101 with something autosport and small… then hide it out the way… kind of mulling that over.



Started to put some accessories in the engine bay, for fitment and some colour considerations. All new BMW hardware is galvanised, all NOS is yellow zinc. Putting together what I’ve got to see whether that becomes an eyesore I will have to do something about.
I forget who asked, but re hardware, it’s all BMW bolts and nuts. Depending on the order… sometimes I get gal, sometimes zinc… so if that looks a bit muddled I will go get the whole lot done one colour.

[econti]

What did happen to the other car?

[burkey001]

Hi all,
Finally had some time to do some things to the car.
Have been steadily pulling the good bits off the old shell, cleaning, detailing and/or restoring them to reuse on the new shell. This is stuff like trans, diff, fuel tank, etc etc. I refreshed all this only some 5000km ago on the donor car – new fw/clutch, new driveshaft, new axles, new torsen diff etc so it was already pretty clean.


First out was the fuel tank, which I want to get powder coated black. No pic of the after but with the cosmoline cleaned off, it’s actually in good shape. I will get that balance tube replated (so much plating to do)



Gearbox cleaned up pretty good. Used an etch to give it the just cast look. I think it will pass muster


Then I paid attention to fuel and brake lines. These are the old ones, cleaned up and given some love and with new clips. I cant see I need to do new lines. Couple of stone chips in them, but whos really gonna see it… painting them would be a mistake… so OE it is







Lastly, the black chrome is growing on me. Think this is what im going to do



until next time :)

[burkey001]

How much time have you spent making sure your sockets/wrenches are perfectly clean before they touch a bolt on this car? lol

It's not entirely like that, but for sure there is no rush. As much about the process as the end result :)

Those seats are awesome man, great choice.

Thank you, I hope to have some updates shortly. I've been away and I got sent some progress shots and I need to go see one thing in particular. Not sure it's working. We'll see :)

damn just went through this whole thread. very nice work

Thanks :)

[Melon]

Those seats are awesome man, great choice.

[efficient]

damn just went through this whole thread. very nice work

[Pootis]

How much time have you spent making sure your sockets/wrenches are perfectly clean before they touch a bolt on this car? lol

[projectJTv4]

I just scrolled through all 11 pages and am amazed by all the work you put into this, it's such an incredible build. I had a quick question that I do not think was mentioned here, if it was, I apologize.

For your hardware, are you sourcing everything from BMW or using aftermarket equivalents?

[burkey001]

Pattern for the front seats is approved, huzzah. Took a lot of samples.
The front seat design will then inform the pattern and shape of the rear seats. which will influence the rear side pods which will then carry some themes forward into the front door trims.

Had some interesting chats about bringing in some Hofmeister kink influences into some of the patterning

This side bolster has been made in leather as the final sample and is pretty much good to go.





one thing will change is the treatment of transitions of directions / shapes. Rather than take a smooth radiused transitioned, its going to be more "one line in this direction, smaller radius and another straight line'

my thinking is that the car is quite angular, so we need to carry that theme through inside - sympathetically - but also it gives a cleaner definition to the elements of trim. like a well defined muscle maybe? Kind of more 'athletic' than just an amorphous shape.

i think about this stuff too much... it's a seat :)

nothing here is actually pinned down, its just overlaid the foam, will end up a little tigher and more defined anyway


the other interesting thing is that because the leather is full aniline and natural grain it has a lot of 'defects' in it which is doing the trimmers head in. The lack of a poly top coat and pattern embossing is exactly why I chose those leather. I want to see that it's a natural product. Just part of the charm of a properly natural product

[TeXJ]

I've reached out to all of my contacts high up in BMW about putting them back into production, doesn't look to be happening any time soon. Jon & I also found out who... and reached out the company that actually manufactures (or did) the last batch of E30 dashboards from BMW and offered to buy a very large quantity of them to put the tooling back into service. They never even replied to the emails.

That sucks to hear