The engine build is ongoing - had to take the block back to a second shop to inspect / machine the main bearing bores and ended up needing some additional work to the cylinder bores as well. Tis the season and it's been almost a month. Hopefully I get it back soon. Still waiting on a lot of parts - heads, intake. And still need to order a lot more.
But for the time being, I got to work on preparing the chassis. After giving my dad one last glorious drive on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I parked the car and set out to strip it down for rust repair. There's a lot of damage in the rocker panel areas - in this condition 99% of people would scrap the car and do a shell swap but I'd like to try and save it if I can. The car has some sentimental value being in our family for basically it's entire life (almost 20 years at this point). A combination of bravery, stubbornness, and stupidity I suppose.
Disassembling the front clip for engine removal.
This engine is an absolute monstrosity for being all of 2.5 liters. I really loved this thing...you had to wind it up to get her going but it never once failed me and was always great fun to drive. Really couldn't ask for anything more out of it. It ran strong as a bull and has 230k miles on it so far ;) . There were a couple "gotchas" but I managed to get the engine out without referencing the owners manual once - really straight forward job if you take your time and think about what's going on.
With the lump of iron out of the engine bay, I moved on to the interior and rest of the suspension. My goal was / is to remove as much mass from the chassis as possible to minimize the amount it will deflect once I start moving metal. I don't want to be in a situation during reassembly (if I ever get there) where my doors won't close or something won't line up.
My buddy Brian came by one day to help me with disassembly. He also let me borrow a tent to keep the weather off the car.
Suspension stuffs.
I removed the rear end assembly much more efficiently this time....only a couple hours instead of a couple months. Much better than when I did this two years ago....guess I'm getting better :).
Which basically brings me to where I am currently as of this weekend. Aside from spending a lot of time trying to keep the garage somewhat orderly, I also removed the gas tank and sunroof assembly. All of my rust problems stemmed from it - it has four drainage tubes that run to each corner of the car and for some reason terminate in the rocker panels. Over time, the drain ports in the panels get clogged with dirt and so water just sits inside and eats the metal from the inside out. Pretty dumb fucking design.
So here's the gas tank. Hopefully I can remember how to connect everything back up when it comes to that time.
And the sunroof. This fucker is about 50 lbs. I'll be skinning it, welding tabs to the skin and securing / sealing it in place. I removed the drainage tubes and cut them into a million pieces - I won't have a sunroof anymore but my rocker panels will never rust again. Besides, it's never sunny in Pittsburgh anyway. Bonus weight reduction also to aid me in my quest of a sub-3000 lb car.
I also cut out the tail panel this weekend - it had rust that started around the latch mechanism for the trunk lid. The seal's seam is located in this area, and over time it ripped and allowed water to get behind it and rust it from the inside out. Here's some of the damage. There was a decent bit of rust elsewhere too.
Not really possible to patch this and make it look good, so I just cut out the entire panel and will weld in a new one (which are still available as a BMW factory part). The white outline shows where the seams are....tried to lay it out for myself before starting. Basically grind off the paint / sealer, find the spot welds, drill them out, and separate the layers with some light persuasion. Aside from a couple brazed joints that I had to cut through with a dremel, it was a really clean and straightforward job once I figured out how the layers were put together.
The joints were brazed at the top near the trunk lid seal lip and at the corner of the quarterpanel before it wraps its way around the back of the car. The rest were spot welds, most of which were located along the flange that has the arrows pointing to it.
Spent today cleaning things up and getting the wiring harness out of my way the best I could. I think I'm going to start at the rear of the car and work my way forward. I'll also need to brace the doors / check their spacing dimensions as I go to keep things true.
Here's what I have to look forward to fixing:
It's just metal. It's just metal. It's just metal. It's just metal. It's just metal. It's just metal.
Wish me luck :/
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