1990 BMW 318iS Sterling Silver Euro

[Glaede]

The mirror takes power at a plug in the A pillar (somewhere at the speaker) I've got a picture in my thread of the iX somewhere though

Cool! I'll take a look at your thread again :-) Thanks!

[constructor]

Build is coming along nicely!

Do you find sharing from whom you purchased the 3D printed center caps? I need a set for my Style 5's!

Thank you!

On facebook I found a guy who creates custom 3D printed centers, so I obviously needed that in my life.


Stock center caps


Custom 3D printed center caps

[Glaede]

Build is coming along nicely!

Do you find sharing from whom you purchased the 3D printed center caps? I need a set for my Style 5's!

Thank you!

I'll send it to you in a private message, as I don't know if he wants his name to pop up all over the internet :-)

[constructor]

I'll send it to you in a private message, as I don't know if he wants his name to pop up all over the internet :-)

Received! Thank you!

[Glaede]

So, the body guy has been working on getting everything ligned up and fitting well. The inner arch is sitting good and ready to be welded in after that the outer quarter panel should be fitted for good. He also fitted the new door and got i fitting pretty good!
I think all the gaps etc. looks spot on.

[Glaede]

Inner arch fits well within the fuel cap area.


The all new battery box, inner arch and flooring in place.


Door/quarter panel fitment. Looks good to me. What do you guys think?

[mjweimer]

Panel fit looks great all around. That door gap can be a real pain at the top corner where it meets the door (at the B-pillar)....amazing how many pieces come together in the lower battery tray area. Your body guy is doing great work.


MJ

[Glaede]

Panel fit looks great all around. That door gap can be a real pain at the top corner where it meets the door (at the B-pillar)....amazing how many pieces come together in the lower battery tray area. Your body guy is doing great work.


MJ

Thanks! Yeah, it's funny how "complicated" such a small area is :-)

[burkey001]

wow, that's an amazing amount of rust repair, good on you.

i saw one pic and it mentioned welding. It may be too late now, but these tail panel seams are actually brazed not welded.



here's a pic of that area with all the paint removed (and not rusty)





in fact, quite a few parts are brazed not welded from factory, including that rear quarter




maybe that helps you, maybe not. I don't know why they chose to braze these spots, not weld, but they did

great project

[Glaede]

great project

Thanks burkey001! Your own project is out of this world! Read it multiple times so far :-)

Yes, I'm aware of the brazing, but unfurtunately, my body guy can't replicate that. So, I think the panels will get a regular weld. A bit of a bummer, but hopefully not too visible once painted.

I've read different stories of why they chose to use brazing:
1. Softer material = more flexibility.
2. Easier to "flow" the panels together and less grinding.

Don't know if any of it is true though (I'm not a body technician) :-)

[Northern]

I think brazing is less likely to crack, whether it's more flexible or less residual stress because the heat required is less, idk.
Less chance to distort the area because of less heat input as well.

EDIT: also remember that this was ~30 years ago, with the alternative to brazing being welding processes from 30 years ago.

[Glaede]

So, yesterday was a big day, so far, in this project. The right quarter panel was finally welded in!!
This means that its now completely rust free in the right arches, battery tray, rear tail light panel, frame rail etc. That took a lot of $$$ - hopefully it will be worth it once is road worthy.

[Glaede]

I haven't updated this thread for a while. It's pretty time consuming to do, which is why I tend to update my instragram profile instead. Anyways, I'll try to bring it back to life.
So, since my last post, the body guy removed the left quarter and discovered a pretty shitty inner arch. I already knew this and hence bought another inner arch. Unfurtunately, this is kind of rusty as well.
Right now I'm trying my best to source a new/better, but they are REALLY hard to find. SO, if anyone in here has somethinh laying around, please let me know!

So, in the mean time, while waiting for better parts, the body guys has been to work on other areas. The "jack point" and flooring was gone, so they fabricated some new pieces for that area:

As you can see, the inner part was fixed as well as the flooring. They tried their best to replicate the OEM look. Think it looks decent. Needs a bit of grinding etc. still obviously.


Here's the outer part. Still needs some work and also the 'box' needs to be welded on too. As you can see the outer panel also needs fixing.

Other than the flooring they also worked on the windshield area. This was worse that it appeared at first. They had to cut a 'window' to be able to fix it properly and then close that window again.







Here's the window cut out and the rust underneath has been cut out and fixed with new sheel metal.

[Glaede]

Inner part fixed and outer 'window' closed again.


All welded up.


...aaand the final result. I hope the repair will be invisible once painted. I'm pretty sure it will look good :-)


Here is the before shot.. Yikes!!

[Glaede]

Outer left quarter removed.. Luckily it only seems to be the inner arch thats fucked up. Rest looks okay.


As you can see - my own is toast. My other used arch is also pretty bad and the repair piece isn't covering it all. Bummer..

On saturday, I'm suppose to pick up the rear suspension setup from an E36 Compact for my 5 lug conversion 8-) More on that later...