A semi restoration (sans paint) of my '87 325i convertible

[jeenyus]

Nice dude! What gauge steel did you use with the stock floor panels? I'm in a similar situation and the flux welder is fine in my opinion. Sometimes hard to avoid but through on the stock panels, but just fine for floors I've thought so far.

[15Michaeljoseph]

Nice dude! What gauge steel did you use with the stock floor panels? I'm in a similar situation and the flux welder is fine in my opinion. Sometimes hard to avoid but through on the stock panels, but just fine for floors I've thought so far.

It was 18ga. cold rolled sheet which worked pretty nicely, still thin enough to beat around and shape by hand (no brakes or English wheels here!). We believe 18ga. is the original thickness for the floors and skins, anyway. Doing it with flux definitely takes practice, and burn through is a problem in thinner areas, but for the purposes of not spending a few hundred on a gas rig and worrying about renting/buying gas bottles/blowing up the garage, it can be dealt with. Just take your time, work through it, and clean the welds really well with a wire wheel afterward. Lap joints seem to be much less apt to burn through, but then a weld-through primer must be used. Most of the welds here are butt welds, aside from The Colossus™ (huge passenger firewall patch). The battery tray welds also had to be plug welded down to the skeleton below it as well. A copper backing plate is also a good thing to have on hand for burn through. Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[rzerob]

I am shocked that this was done with a flux core welder. I already thought you did a good job before. But now with this new information, you deserve major props.

[Das Delfin]

New handbrake cables, handbrake pads & hardware, rear wheel bearings, and trailing arm brake lines. My backing pads were still good.


New clips that hold the handbrakes to the trailing arms. One of mine was broken so I replaced them both. Also new sway bar bushings and end links


This is the tool I made to remove the trailing arm bushings. It's a length of 7/16 rod cut to length and oiled up with a series of nuts and washers and a 13mm socket to drive the old bushing out and into the 4" length of pipe with a notch cut out. It worked great and cost around $10. I put the new ones in with my bench vise, which was an endeavor in itself. Protip: periodically lubricate the threaded rod inside the vise.


Annnnnnnnd now that the rear suspension was resolved I finally pushed the car outside for the first time in 6 months

[rzerob]

None of your pictures are working.

[Das Delfin]

I replaced all the fuel hoses in the car and when I'd replaced the 12x18 one along the top of the tank that connects the low pressure fuel pump to the high pressure one, I ended up with a kink. This was the hose spec'd by realoem so I snapped a pic and went to find my old hose to compare. I took this pic before I massaged most of the kink out and posted it to r3v facebook hoping for an immediate answer.


and of course was treated to nothing but kindhearted and helpful responses by some of the friendliest people I could ask for. But at least I got my answer. This is a hose that realoem says correct for early 318i's and M3's. I bought one and when it came in was a dead match to my old hose. So if you're wondering, 16121178823 is the hose you want if you have a dual fuel pump system. I used oetiker clamps on everything save for the connections for the fuel filter, because that is supposed to be serviced more often than anything else.


I used the rest of my insulation on the floors


And then painted and installed my carpet. I don't have any pics of painting, but I vacuumed and cleaned it with a carpet cleaner, laid it on the garage floor on top of a giant ass box, and used the Duplicolor vinyl & fabric paint, followed the directions on the can, and it came out great. I used 5 cans in total, which turned out to be 6 or 7 total coats in alternating directions to get a uniform look. Original spec for my cardinal interior was dark gray but I bought black because it's BLACK and covers better. I let the carpet cure for a few days before putting it in the car. After the fourth day or so the paint smell had been repalced by the old bmw smell so we were good to go.

[Das Delfin]

None of your pictures are working.

Try it now. The new forum doesn't treat pics the same way as the old one and I'm trying to get a uniform look. It's being difficult.

[rzerob]

Try it now. The new forum doesn't treat pics the same way as the old one and I'm trying to get a uniform look. It's being difficult.

They are working now.

[15Michaeljoseph]

Hey this build is cool and all but I think what your car really needs is the fiberglass body kit I have in my shed Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[iwantspeed]

nice work on this!

dont let project creep get to you.
i highly recommend completing one area on the car before jumping to the next. it will feel good getting one area completely addressed.

nice work on those steel sheetmetal patch panels. its cool learning different techniques and skills.

[Conrad311]

Great work! I’ve tried to beat that rust before and your doing it the right way for sure. Go big or go home! Keep it up!

Let us know how well your sound deadening works, I’ve considered putting it under my carpets before to help with exhaust drone/ tire noise.

[Das Delfin]

Thanks guys!

I'm not sure how much of a difference it'll make being that my car is a convertible, which is made mostly of noise and rattles even in stock form, but I had leftover material and didn't want to waste it. I also didn't want to use the stock downpipe heat shield so I used a sheet of aluminum on the bottom side to form an air gap, which paired with the noise/heat insulation inside the car

I took apart the IHKS to clean it and replace the blower flaps which I'd broken removing it from the car.


I also rewrapped the wiring harness. Or, most of it, being that I don't have a rivet gun and couldn't split the case in half. The rest of it is held together by a series of clips around the perimeter and isn't difficult to take apart.


I got the old gaskets off and replaced with new, which were $30 each from FCP. One of my straps had broken and I was able to source a good one from a friend's parts car. In the pic you can see that the rod connecting the recirc motor to the flap is actually connected to a broken flap. I used 2 part epoxy to glue that bit back together, and while I was at it, fixed a few other cracks I found in the other side flap.


I'd bought a brand new Behr blower motor and resistor a few years ago from Bavauto (RIP) so those went back in


And I found more things to glue in the back of my heater control panel. The plastic around the receivers for the retaining screws securing the temp control to the face plate had cracked, so we glued them back up!

[Das Delfin]

I would have rather sectionalized the build, but there were certain major areas that had to be removed together to fix problems underneath. For example, both the motor and interior had to come out to fix the rust in the firewall. My strategy was to disassemble the car from the front to the back, and then reassemble it from back to front. I put a great deal of thought into the order of operations, ie which parts had to be removed and replaced in the correct order, and the structure that plan provided kept me on track. The only part I've failed at is having to remove the brake booster like 6 times because I clocked it 180 degrees off or I forgot to attach a brake line clip or forgot to install the throttle cable. But at least it's not so much of a bitch anymore...

I put the heater box back in the car, rewrapped the wiring harness, and put the dash back in. My dash is cracked but I have a molded dash cap that I got for cheap so we'll try it out.


This meant I could finally put the heater box panel back on the car and wrap up the engine bay. I removed the sound deadening material and painted it to match the rest of the engine bay. It doesn't have the same glossy sheer as the rest and I suspect that's because I painted it a month after everything else. Oh well. It still looks 100% better than before.


I had a recurring brake fluid leak where the rear damper is so I had to pony up the cash and buy a brand new one of these. $58 later...


I painted the charcoal canister and installed it along with the power steering stuff. Assuming this piece fixed my brake fluid leak, the engine bay is ready for the motor...

[Das Delfin]

My dash is cracked af so I bought a dash cap earlier in the year when I found one for about 130 shipped brand new. That beats 300 for an uncracked dash that may just crack anyway down the line. The instructions say to glue the edges with the provided RTV and then let it sit for 4 hours. Mine was a tight fit so this is what we did! I used 32 of these lead batteries, borrowed from my work, to weigh the dash down overnight while the glue cured.


I forgot to put the steering wheel trim on when installing the dash and broke the ignition switch cramming it in, so I had to solder one of the wires back on. Here's a picture of the switch. The broken wire is underneath all the others, which was fun to deal with


So here's the dash right now. I need to install the radio and glove box stuff, but I can't do the glove box until....


Some friends came over and shit went down...

[Das Delfin]

This took a few hours to set up but the load leveler made it much easier than I initially thought. We were able to install the engine and tranny together, with the charcoal canister and power steering pump removed. The harbor freight load leveler didn't allow for the flexibility I wanted but we used the moving blankets to help the oil pan over the core support and then some cardboard to help the tranny into the tunnel. Here's a picture.


My friends who made this possible! Now I have a lot of buttoning up to do...