JackBenny's 1991 318is Project

[jackbenny]

Small update today. (I told you they would come more often ;) )

I had to climb in the attic to get a friend at work my old E30 steering rack as his is leaking. This requires moving the E21 which is no small feat as the battery is dead. Conventional wisdom would dictate, "hey dummy, go get a new battery so you can drive the damn thing." Alas, I did not heed the advice coming from that annoying cricket on my shoulder and preferred to listen to the little horned guy that says laziness should prevail. I backed the E21 by pushing it, climbed into the attic and grabbed the steering rack. While I was there I grabbed the rear door cards so I could play with them. Pushing the E21 sucks so I jumped it and put it back in place. With that done, the wife at the grocery store and a beer in hand, I decided to play with the rear door cards.

Stripping the leather was boring so I took no pictures. The aftermath however left me pondering.





I wanted to keep a similar theme as the front door cards, using similar proportions, etc. I hung the panel in the back and made some marks after looking at the front panel with the door closed. With the marks established, I made a sketch of the material to be removed.



Since there will be no back seat, the arm rest was useless. The extra width at the front was necessary to have things line up appropriately. This is a two piece panel and will require some thought when assembling it. But for now I tore at it with the dremel and made a big hole.



It's a very rough cut but I did that so I had extra material that would allow me to straighten and smooth it all. Laying over the carbon fiber looks pretty good too.



The carbon will need to be trimmed along the top to allow it to fit properly. But for now it should give me an idea what it will look like in the car.



It should come down lower when I trim the carbon and line up better with the side cards.



Now to get the other side done and measure for the alcantera order!

[bejbis]

Nope. I left it and the bumpers in the barn. The bumpers need some repair, especially the back. It's cracked in several places but I think we can plastic weld it.

Im not 100% sure on this one, but there are 2 late model e30's at barrys u pull it over here in mobile. I think one of them has a pretty decent rear bumper on it. There is also a late model e30 at pullapart as well.

I will probably hit up barrys on Wednesday. Ill let you know if there is a clean bumper on one of them and if you want it i can pull it for you.

-Dan

[jackbenny]

Im not 100% sure on this one, but there are 2 late model e30's at barrys u pull it over here in mobile. I think one of them has a pretty decent rear bumper on it. There is also a late model e30 at pullapart as well.

I will probably hit up barrys on Wednesday. Ill let you know if there is a clean bumper on one of them and if you want it i can pull it for you.

-Dan

I think the existing bumper is salvagable and the bent up mounts might make it more difficult to fit a new one but for the right price, the skin would save me time. Let me know the cost and I might have you grab it.

Since I'm leaning toward the M42 in the E21... if they have a 6 cylinder E21 at the yards, I definitely would like the front subframe. Keep an eye out for me? ;)

Thanks Dan

[FreedS4]

An absolutely brilliant build! I look forward to seeing it complete.

[Civilian]

Read through this build last night. Fantastic! The detail and work put in is outstanding! I hope it's all well through the rest. Good luck and congrats on becoming a father!

[jackbenny]

Read through this build last night. Fantastic! The detail and work put in is outstanding! I hope it's all well through the rest. Good luck and congrats on becoming a father!

Thank you. Update coming this weekend. Lots of cleaning up wire harnesses and prepping the interior. Alcantara ordered today and I should be getting some goodies from Blunt pretty soon.

[brokEe30]

Thank you. Update coming this weekend. Lots of cleaning up wire harnesses and prepping the interior. Alcantara ordered today and I should be getting some goodies from Blunt pretty soon.

I need my fix. Beautiful build. Congrats on the little one. When you planning on starting the e21?

[jackbenny]

so the update is a little late. truth be told, i was tired last night after huffing paint all day sunday so i went to bed early. luckily, I got some photos uploaded and can update the thread.

Going through the photos I was a bit disappointed because it appears I didn't do very much this past week. The fact of the matter is that I was out in the garage every night after work and all day saturday and sunday. That being said, let's go through some progress.

I continued working on the door cards. I acquired a file and some rougher sandpaper so it would take less time to straighten the massive hole I cut in the panel. At the same time, I sanded the back of the panel so it would sit flat against the carbon fiber panels.



The results are better but still need a little tweaking. With so much fiberboard removed the panels are pretty flimsy. I will most likely coat them with fiberglass resin to stiffen them up and fill in those little areas where the slots were along the interior edge.

The way the back panels are put together has the upper and the lower section essentially stapled together. With the center removed, this doesn't really work very well. I needed the panel to be in a finished orientation while I straightened the cut lines so I had to improvise.





A piece of scrap and some glue enabled me to put the panel together so I could sand it. I will probably use some fiberglass mat to make a more permanent bond.



Once I was satisfied with the LH side of the car's panels, I started to attack the right hand side. The process was the same as before but once the hole was cut out, I clipper the LH and the RH sides together so I could ensure the hole was the same Left to Right.



The sander and the file made quick work of the trim and voila, I had two symmetric panels.



This weekend I ordered the remaining alcantara for the interior. I will need some closed cell foam to place underneath the material and I should be ready to wrap these panels. I still have the Rear RH side panel to cut and match up.

Like most 20 year old cars, the engine bay wire harness was pretty ... sad. I decided to remove the wire wrap from the car harness (lights, horn, etc), check for any breaks and re wrap it using the same style friction tape. I found some with Grainger and grabbed a few rolls. I personally like the friction fabric tape and recognize it's not everyone's taste, but it does make the engine bay look better and protects my ancient wire harness.



I worked from the fuse box to the ends. Is this the best way? Hell, I don't know, it's what I did.



I got some new wire tie down straps a while back so I wouldn't have to deal with those old crusty ones left in the bay.





I made a mistake here and wrapped the ground wire too far away from the ground post. This required unwrapping a good portion of the wire and rerouting the ground. I was mad at myself for doing that but took a breath and did the right thing and fixed it.



ABS pump wiring all tidied up.

I started matching the plugs to where they need to go by looking at the ETK and the Bentley manual. I got most of it but there are a few plugs I need to figure out. And yes, I am such a nerd that I took out my cheap ass label maker and labeled the plugs. Feel free to make fun of me at your leisure.

I happened to get a cheap heat gun on Friday and decided to finish tackling all the tar in the interior. I tried chipping out the tar when it was warm, when it was cold, when it was winding, etc... The heat gun is the way to do it. It goes very smoothly.





The plastic scraper did a pretty good job and didn't mar the paint. But you have a limited amount of time you can use it before it starts to melt as well. I had 2 on hand and it worked pretty well. There were a few spots that necessitated a metal scraper though.



Starting to amass a pile of crap here.



I have no insulation in the tunnel or the firewall. Seems pretty stupid to remove the tar then, right? I found some thermal insulation that I will put in the foot wells and the transmission tunnel. The car is going to be loud, but I'm ok with that. I mean i pulled the radio and all the wiring. I'm still looking at some lightweight solutions for "deadening" the sound. The carpet will be a material called Ozite. It's commonly used for speaker boxes. The durability isn't super great but if I run floormats, i think it will look fine. Plus, I though it looked great in Bob Cooper's white car. Suggestions for underlayment are as always welcome.

High on tar fumes, I decided to return to the wiring. More wire wrapping ensued.





This was before I corrected the ground wire.



Crossing over to the other side...



And the pile of spaghetti over here on the passenger side.



My first post on this forum ever was to buy some euro smilies from Euro3. They've been sitting on a shelf forever and I wanted to see what they looked like on the car. I mean they're only held on with three screws, why not? David was also kind enough to send me some euro grills too.



I love the look but those grills are a little ratty and the trim rings on the lights are flaking pretty bad. I guess I need to address that.


Am I going to run HID? most likely I will but I will wire it up in this configuration first to make sure it works and then add the HID later on.



Here I have corrected the ground wire arrangement.



And here I have wrapped the passenger side wires as well.





Did I mention that I had some sort of severe ADD this weekend and kept jumping back and forth between different jobs? No? Hmmmm, what was I talking about?



Gotta change it up so it feels like you're getting somewhere, right?

[jackbenny]

For the lights I elected to repaint the trim rings black not silver. I've seen some painted black and I liked the look. It has the lenses surrounded by the grill and the silver doesn't pop out to distract you. No? OK, I made that up but I do prefer the black. I proceeded to clean and strip the trim rings. They just pop right of the lights.



Yes it's a bit textured which was the finish I was seeking.

Since I was going to paint some black stuff, might as well prep the rest of the grill and maybe that euro plate filler have had sitting around.



Your eyes don't deceive you, the kidneys are in the pile too. They are beat up pretty bad so I decided to paint them black. If I don't like it, well I can buy some new ones.



Trim rings painted





grill parts...



and a plate filler...



So as I was high on paint, I hit church with the wife and then dinner and finally bed. Today I came back from work and couldn't resist seeing what the grill would like on the car. One thing led to another and...







Nonetheless, I am quite pleased with the results.

So there's this week's update. Like I said the pictures don't really give an indication of how long I was working out there but I'm feeling pretty good about it. Just about all interior items are ordered...including the new seats but I'll save that for when they arrive.

Next weekend will begin the wetsanding. I'm hoping to get this thing fired up before June!!!

Thanks for looking

[jackbenny]

Sorry guys but imageshack is pissing me off as it uploaded the full version of these pics. I will try and fix it so it doesn't take so long to load the page. Hopefully by tomorrow. <EDIT> I fixed them for those poor souls still using a modem out there.

[iwantspeed]

I love the front end
its coming together.

[Ray Smoodiver]

Awesome updates!

Didn't see it mentioned, but did you strip the harness of the wires that you no longer needed?

[flipper325es]

Josh,

To remove the adhesive that was holding the interior anti-vibration tar panels, 3M adhesive remover and a heat gun work well. Use plenty of clean rags, and avoid the fumes as much as you can.

BMW uses friction tape on the interior harness, but all exposed exterior sections are wrapped in heat shrink tubing -- engine compartment and stuff under the rear of the car. Friction tape holds stuff together, but it doesn't protect well against the elements. Electrical tape is better here.

If the car spent any time in a climate with real winters, you may want to examine each exposed electrical connector -- headlights, bumper lights, turn signals, radiator and AC switches, diff speed sensor, etc. If the wires and/or connectors are corroded, this is the time to replace them.

Keep up the good work!

Alex

[phenryiv1]

Your eyes don't deceive you, the kidneys are in the pile too. They are beat up pretty bad so I decided to paint them black. If I don't like it, well I can buy some new ones.



Trim rings painted





Nonetheless, I am quite pleased with the results.

How hard was it to seperate the rings from the plastic, and how did you re-attach them?

[jackbenny]

Josh,

To remove the adhesive that was holding the interior anti-vibration tar panels, 3M adhesive remover and a heat gun work well. Use plenty of clean rags, and avoid the fumes as much as you can.

BMW uses friction tape on the interior harness, but all exposed exterior sections are wrapped in heat shrink tubing -- engine compartment and stuff under the rear of the car. Friction tape holds stuff together, but it doesn't protect well against the elements. Electrical tape is better here.

If the car spent any time in a climate with real winters, you may want to examine each exposed electrical connector -- headlights, bumper lights, turn signals, radiator and AC switches, diff speed sensor, etc. If the wires and/or connectors are corroded, this is the time to replace them.

Keep up the good work!

Alex

This stuff is a bit different but I understand what you're saying. I checked the connectors like you said and a few are in bad shape (exterior temp sensor for one...which I won't be using) and of course my poor diff speed sensor. Those will be corrected once I get the car back in the air, my head barely fits between the valence and the ground. I am still unsatisfied with some of the wrapping so I might go back and wrap with electrical tape and then friction tape to keep the same look. For now, it's nice having the wiring out of the way so I don't step on it.

You make a good point though Alex and wrapping wire is kinda therapuetic. I might rewrap some of the wires up front by the valence for added protection this week after work.

Thanks for the adhesive removal tip. I'll try and attack that in a week or two after I'm ready to kill more brain cells!