All quiet on the kit car front...? Not silent though!

Hello all!

Just thought I'd post a mini update, it's been a while.

Not a fantastic amount of progress to report unfortunately, had a couple of setbacks with firstly the washing machine deciding to fail in quite spectacular fashion, and that leak under the boiler has gotten worse to the point of seeing the need to replace it in the not-too-distant future... Besides the funding shortage there's the small matter of spending quite a bit of time away with work recently, and the pressing need to get the wife-to-be's Morris Minor 1000 up to an MoT-able standard, so she can do the "Miss Marple" routine (all straw hats and vintage picnics, you know the drill... happy wife, happy life).

But, undeterred, I will soldier bravely forward, and definitely not giving up. It's just too much fun!

I've just placed the order for the pedal box and brake lines - an acceptable compromise to keep the project ticking over without sinking too many pennies all at once. So when that comes I'll have some more progress.

In the meantime I'll keep you tantalised with a few more little updates:

One of the jobs was replacing the manky old shifter with a shiny short shifter. Really makes a difference to the amount of "throw" in the gearshift, and lowers the knob to a more sensible height suited to the driving position of the Legend:

Old vs new, spot the difference

Absolutely straightforward to fit, just one clip holds the bottom bush in place. I had to drill mine out slightly to fit, but that's not a biggie. And it only costs about £20, so well worth the effort.

Fitted:

Bolt-on shiny-ness that works too.

Next up, brakes. I gave my tired old-looking front calipers to a mate of mine who works in a spray shop, and asked him to give them a blast over next time he was spraying something orange. Well, he did an absolute blinding job and received back the front brakes, fully grit blasted, primed and coated in dashing orange! Very pleased:

hint as to the car's final colour

I've now purchased a seal kit from eBay, and this weekend I'll be stripping the calipers and putting new seals and dust caps in. Lovely! Of course, the rear calipers are different from the BMW ones (mk2 golf ones) so when I source a set of them I'll drop them back into my mate Dave with another packet of chocolate digestives :-)

And then just for something to do, I loosely put in the steering column after wrestling for hours trying to drill off the stupid factory "shear off" security bolts, only to find they weren't that tight all along and could have been undone by hand! (sheesh)

Steering column fitted

Clearly it will need setting up and most definitely a smaller steering wheel - just tried the standard one in position and not only would I not be able to get in or out, but it had about 2mm of clearance against the chassis!! I think a nice tiny kart steering wheel with a quick release boss might solve both those problems as well as look the business!

So for the time being that's about it, hopefully after Peter gets back from Goodwood festival of speed (jealous!) he'll be able to get the next few bits shipped out to me and we can get cracking!

Thanks for reading,

Steve

Blood, Sweat, and Gears.

Greetings fellow blog fans. Update on the GKD Legend Six project, for all those still with me! Fairly big one as well, so get a cuppa and settle down... This covers a weekend and a few evenings spent over the last week. Time to prep and clean that engine and get it ready for re-unification with it's chum, the gearbox.

Started by removing the exhaust manifolds / lambda sensors. Sometimes it was the nut that undid, sometimes the stud, but mercifully they all came without snapping. I'll use a stud extractor to get the remaining studs out and get some nice new fasteners when the new manifold is ready to go on.

Next was to clean the remaining side of the engine, same technique - wire brush, and then engine degreaser followed by a rinse.

Came up really well, quite chuffed with that. I decided to leave the block self coloured, as to do a decent job of painting it I'd pretty much have to strip the whole engine back to nothing, and the extra time and cost would harm the overall project budget on both. My goal is to get the car operational, and then if the engine needs any serious amount of work in the future, to whip it out and rebuild it then; so for the time being that's more than adequate.

I then set my focus to a few little "niggly" tasks that would be 10x easier with the engine out:

First off - the crank position sensor had a head socket cap screw, wound in at a jaunty angle caught precariously on a few threads. Bodge from a day gone by methinks, and access would be difficult from the top of the BMW engine compartment. Thankfully, that did mean that a new CPS had been fitted at some point as these are a common fault on the M52 engine and cause weird running problems without necessarily chucking up the right fault code. Remedial action: re-tap hole and provide a decent M8 fastening:

Shiny bolt head replaces rusted and cross threaded predecessor. Fixes that costs pennies - I love them.

Then, removed the waterpump using the M6 "jacking" screws (thanks Donnie) to have a look-see. Another result, fairly recent (if not brand new) water pump with a metal impeller. Dressed up the tiny bit of corrosion on the impeller and reinstalled; first checking the inside of the block housing for scoring or pitting… neither of which was found.

Staining on the block suggests behind CPS sprocket suggests previous water pump begun leaking through the tell-tale and was replaced.

I then drilled and re-tapped one of the M12 torx bolts that snapped off inside the bellhousing when undoing. ( Steel-Aluminium dissimilar corrosion made darn sure that even with a blowtorch, it wasn't letting go)  Unfortunately because of the broken off part of the bolt being uneven, I couldn't convince the drill (and thus the tap) to go in square. Hence, ended up with a very unpleasantly ski-wiff thread in the block. I resigned to leave it, and that another solution would leap out at me if it was a problem. (Heli-coil / nut and bolt etc.) But it was getting to that time where a pleasure turns into a chore - danger zone! Time to bail out!

After a break of a few days, came back to it, enthused with the purchase of parts - a clutch and release bearing; and decided to begin the fairly exciting task of re-integrating the engine and 'box. First off, install new clutch plate. Hastily realise that I don't have the correct alignment tool, but then decide that I can fashion my own

Clutch installed and ready to go! Note the home-made tool poking out.

I then begun the process of trying to mate the pair together. Now, it's been a while since I've tackled a clutch, but I reckon it's probably easier to dock a space shuttle into the international space station. Even with the clutch manufacturer's handy sachet of "spline lube" it wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

Houston: We have a gearbox

What didn't help was the green strop was just slightly the wrong length, so the engine was being presented at a slight angle, and despite attempts with wooden wedges to get the gearbox in the same orientation it wasn't very happy. After several failed attempts I drew stumps and went back to the drawing board. Despite my superb attempts to fashion an alignment tool without a lathe, I arrived at the conclusion that if it was even slightly out, it would stop the input shaft of the gearbox mating nicely with the nose of the crank. So I admitted defeat and borrowed a pukka alignment tool. Thus, on the 4th attempt I managed to achieve success, although it wasn't quite as smooth I'd anticipated / hoped...

The erstewhile wonky thread seemed to go in, although neither it nor myself felt particularly happy about it. That said, it's in now and torqued up, and hopefully it'll never have to come apart again.

So that was it - mission accomplished. I put the gearbox into gear and turning the crank with a spanner turns the output shaft of the gearbox, and when it's in neutral it doesn't turn? Does that mean success? err, not quite...

Myself, or the friendly neighbour mechanic couldn't remember whether we'd put the clutch in the pressure plate the right way around. It's labelled "gearbox side" on the right way, and clearly it won't work if it's wrong way around. After much soul searching I decided the only way to know for sure, and not risk damaging everything or causing tons of work later down the line, was to pull it all apart again and check. Woe is me!!

I did, and thankfully this picture shows you what was peeking back out at me:

Hurrah. Correct result

And as a result of the proper alignment tool having been used, and the fact nothing had changed; the gearbox was coaxed back into place a darn sight easier this time. I found the key to success was getting the mounting bolts in a few threads and using them to pull it home, taking care to do them all evenly so as not to pull it uneven. So there you have it, Engine and box reunited.

Worthy of small celebration. (very small, almost minute actually)

Project adjourned, for another weekend anyway.

Next, the use of bold font to announce a major milestone...

 I then set about installing the engine into the chassis :-) . 

First job was to reinstall the newly painted engine mounts, brackets and mounts etc. did that on the floor. Then fiddled about with the engine crane and Manoeuvred the powertrain into position (several times, up and down, back and forth) and then gently shoe-horned the unit into the chassis. I'll let the photos do the talking here!!

Vaseline on standby

Once I'd coaxed it into the Land Rover S2 V8 engine mounts and I'd put a G-clamp on the gearbox mount, I could take the crane away and stand back, fairly chuffed with myself! It was sat in the frame without any cranes or jacks propping it up!

I used the engine crane to get it so far, and then used a fairly large floor jack to swing up the gearbox on top of the chassis mount. After a bit (not much actually) of shuffling and persuading, it all settled in nicely. This is where a well-made jig-assembled chassis really comes into its own - the tolerances were spot on, and everything lined up brilliantly. (Nice one GKD!)

It wasn't too difficult either - the main problem I had was that it was a bare chassis so didn't weigh much. When I was jacking or hoisting the engine, it would quite often take the whole thing with it. Shouldn't be much of a problem for you other GKD projecteers - if you're doing the job in the correct order you should have added suspension and things to weigh down the chassis by now!!

I did scuff a few things on the chassis / gearbox and will have to touch them in with a bit of black paint - don't want them going rusty when covered up with panels.

At this point I had a good check to see whether it would have to come out again - it may well do, I'm quite comfortable with that; but everything seemed quite accessible - I can get to all the cable ties on the bases OK (I pre-installed the ties to make it easier), pedal box should be just about achievable, only tricky one I can see is the clutch pipe that goes over the gearbox under where the scuttle mounts - tricky, but not impossible. But, time will tell on that one.

So that's it for the meantime, hope you've enjoyed reading and thanks for all your comments I enjoy other people offering comments and suggestions based on their own experience. 

Really in order to progress I need to buy the suspension and uprights now - then it will become a rolling chassis - anyone know any understanding Bank Managers? :-)

Cheers,
Steve

A Riveting Weekend

Hello! Update from that extra "stolen" day thanks to the Bank holiday, and then work done this weekend

The B/H was put to good use, in so far as drilling, sticking, riveting and putting a cable tie in; around 100 cable tie bases. Not fantastically exciting, but necessary. Results as thus:

Many, many hours to achieve this

 The next was to remove the diff and refit it - as I said previously I wasn't happy with the way it was sat, so I made up some M12 spacers to fit in the BMW diff bushes. Essentially, what was happening, was when tightening the M12 mounting bolts there was a gap between the bush and the chassis, so it was squidging up the bush in very peculiar ways and making it sit uneven. With the spacers, it now sits lovely.

So then onto the next couple of days, and I used that time to clean and prep the engine and gearbox for install.

First off, clean off the gearbox of all grime. Did this using a wire brush attachment to the drill, a small wire brush, and then finally engine degreaser. 
Clean down:

wire brushed and then degreased

Next, seperate engine and box and retrieve clutch

Hmm, fairly thin and pressure plate not looking too hot. Looks like a replacement is in order, makes sense to do it now rather than later!

Checked the dual mass flywheel and that seemed to be OK - gave a bit of movement and some firm resistance. My mechanic chum Leads me to believe that's what they're meant to do, so that can stay then.


Engine without 'box attached

Next up, get the gearbox on the bench and finish off the cleaning. Then get the paint out :-) this time I opted for the air compressor for spraying paint, first up 3 coats of primer:

And then some lovely black gloss

mmmh shiny

Quite pleased with the result on that. 3 coats of primer and 4 top coats, it's looking great and should be quite hard-wearing. I appreciate that it's quite opulent and extravagant really (painting bits that aren't really going to see daylight), but if truth be known, I'm almost creating work for myself whilst I save pennies to buy the next set of components from GKD, and as I already had the paint and the gearbox on the bench, it was rude not to.


I also did the same trick on a few of the brackets sat around on the shelf:

Before...

Painting...

Home made paint rack from a clothing hanger. Don't tell the missus!

And the results to be shown next time as they weren't dry when I left!


I then turned attention to the engine, and used the wire brushes / degreaser to achieve this

Unsure whether to paint the engine, as it will get quite warm - especially on the exhaust manifold side. Might price up some VHT paint and see it if it's worth it. Otherwise, it looks quite good in clean bare aluminium.


The rest of the day was spent sorting through a few things to list on eBay. The front windscreen fetched a measly £7... thought it would get more than that, but at least someone's gotten a bargain I 'spose.


I'm beginning to realise that I'm running out of jobs to do now with the components I've got, and looking through the build manual, I may end up creating more work for myself in the long run by doing things out of sequence. So that means I have to crack on and get some more bits sold and generate funds to buy the next chunk which is the suspension components. Realistically I believe I can fit the engine and gearbox, and then the project might be in need of an influx of materials!


At this point I am still enjoying it though, the promise of open-top motoring in a powerful and light sports car is a very good motivator of course! But thankfully, even the dull job of drilling something like 90 holes and pop riveting them wasn't too much of a chore.




Thanks for reading, see you next time!

What a DIFFerence a day makes

Greetings!

Update from this weekends activities.

First off, go to machine mart and purchase a blow torch and a T-star Torx set. In anticipation of some rusted up funny shaped nuts and bolts!

Started off with the rear axle assembly salvaged from the donor

Rusty 'orrible mess

Used a combination of breaker bars, impact windy gun, WD40 and LOTS of heat to undo the carriage, anti roll bar, suspension seats etc. And finally savlaged the diff and half shafts:

Ah, that's better

Then set about getting the halfshafts off (more heat, and several sprays of WD)

It's lucky you can't hear the swearing, dear readers

Cleaned up the diff with a wire brush attachment in the drill, de-greaser, and air-powered water blaster

Nice and clean!

Same trick on the halfshafts

Before and After

Then cracked open the tin of hammerite

Now that's a real DIFFerence

Shiny and new!

I did consider spraying them, but the time and effort involved with rubbing them down, masking them up, and then having a thin layer of paint that could get damaged; vs a quick application and heavy duty finish... well you can see where that decision went.

So the next day, with the diff all dried and ready to go; it was time to start on the build for real.

First off, lower the diff into the chassis - was quite a heavy lump, and although the good lady was there working on her car, it was a bit heavy even for two of us, to risk fumbling it and dropping it on the chassis, so the crane did all the work:

Lowering into position

Big smiles all round when it fitted first time

OK so what she lacks in heavy lifting skills, she makes up in camerawork

It went in reasonably well, bit of jiggling to rotate it from vertical to horizontal. I then come up against the problem that the standard bolt for the front mount was a bit too long, and being a metric 1.5mm pitch (metric fine I guess) couldn't locate anything to substitue. I ended up cutting it down to length and using some washers to pack it out. Not entirely happy with it, but its in. Should be relatively easy to change later though.

Drilling into the chassis was another big milestone in the project - but It's got to be done sooner or later, so may as well be now!

I was quite pleased with progress, so elected to finish the day off by fitting the handbrake, seeing as it was sat there waiting to be fitted. May well have to come out at some stage, but it's only two M8 bolts, so why not.

Finished the two days with the diff and handbrake lever fitted

"Is it finished yet"?

Not bad for a weekend's work.

Being a bank holiday, might get the chance to nip up on the Monday as well, let's see what can be done there as well.

Thanks for reading!

From "Breaking Up" to "Braking Up"

Greetings!

Had an especially productive weekend, which I'll share with you now. In a break from tradition I'm going to show you the end, first... Pretty impressive though, I'm sure you'll agree!

Tadaaaaa!!

Nice clean workshop - all o'rrible remains of E36 disappeared. So now how this magical goal was achieved...

Oops

Started off from where we were last time with the back end remaining. My good ole mate Trev turned up and we tried the same trick with the rear window, but our impatience got the better of us this time, and the rear window wasn't quite as forgiving as the toughened and laminated front glass (I'll have to record on the timesheet 1 hour's rework for sweeping up broken glass!!)

Nimble incisions removed the roof rather quickly:

I love that 9" grinder

Flipped over and begun the same procedure on the underside, but took an age because of the huge amount of strength and stiffening in the floor:

"Surgery" nearly complete

Many, Many hours and several cutting discs later...

Incredible amount of stiffness / rigidty in the  boot floor, but then it is an impact zone

 ... It was finally broken up into handleable pieces. Well, some pieces "handleable" by the engine hoist, but meh. Done.

A lot of clever packing and stacking and finally managed to get the whole lot on one load:

Needs to be secured, but at least it will go in one trip

Then lashed it all down and put a tarp over it. (Don't worry it was incredibly secure and perfectly stable, despite what it looks like!!) And that was that - the bitter end of the 1995 328i 4 door MontrealBlau Saloon picked up for £400 on eBay. Rust in pieces!!

With that superb milestone achieved, and the pieces nearly on their way to BMW heaven, it was time to celebrate. However, the champagne cabinet was empty, no party poppers available, and stood there on my own with a 9" grinder in my hand; I decided just to carry on rewardless. Ah well.

This did mean that I can start refurbishing some of the parts harvested from our erstwhile 90's repmobile. Starting with the rear axle / drive assembly

Lifted this huge lump onto the bench and started attacking the rusty bolts

Unfortunately the iphone started playing silly buggers, so missed a few pics of the axle dangling in mid air, which was a bit annoying.

As said earlier, this car spent a good deal of its time near the sea, the salty spray working its magic and converting what was good steel into pure rust - so a lot of the bolts for the hub carrier, brakes and spring seats; required WD40, scaffold tubes on sockets; and heat (or a combination) to undo them. Where I finished late sunday night (with a magnificent roast calling my name) was to have dismantled all the brake assmblies front and rear, ready for refurb:

Crusty, rusty and generally not very nice.

After being fed a hearty meal, I spent the rest of the evening having a look around on the 'net, and found that you can actually refurb each caliper quite reasonably (£11 per corner for the seals and dust covers) whereas a newly refurbished one would set you back between £75 and £250, EACH! I think I'll go with the refurb option. Used the compressed air to pop the pistons out and they had a very good seal, and bores were still polished as if like new. I'll replace the rubber as it looked perished and give 'em a wire brush and paint; but otherwise they should be good to go. Discs were OK ish, again wire brush and check the thicknesses with a micrometer and they should be fine. I will need rear shoe assemblies for the handbrake, in case you don't know the handbrake has shoes that go inside the disc. Quite a clever design from a space / weight reduction point of view; not so clever for "extreme marine corrosion" resistance. Whole new mechanisms needed!

All told, I'm quite happy with that. Worst case scenario was shelling out for an entirely new braking system.

Next time, should have the results of the weigh in (and final cash total from the old bimmer); and will begin refurbing and painting the diff.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Steve

Quick dismantling update - Chop chop!!

So - quick update on progress comprising two weekends work...

Finished the interior strip out - got the dash/console out, although even with the Bentley manual couldn't find all the hidden screws and fastenings, so brute force won over anything else. (wasn't really in good enough condition to re-sell anyway). Then proceeded to carefully take the loom out - quite proud that I managed to keep it entirely in one piece. It was a headache following every single wire to a connector to unplug it, but should be worth it and easier to piece together all the necessary pieces afterwards.

Spaghetti Central!! Arghh!

Bare shell

Next was the manky carpet ( maggots, sand and scummy cigarette ends and all). Glad to see the back of that! 

Manage to then fill the trailer entirely with plastics, foams, rubbers; and other stuff that wasn't steel which could be weighed in for scrap or sold on eBay as spares. And yes, I got the usual amount of grief from the people at the tip (standard rant for those of you who live in Plymouth and want to take more than grass clippings and newspaper recycling to the tip)

Off to do battle with the forces of evil at Plymouth dump

Which then left a pretty much empty shell...

Car hasn't felt like this since it was born 17 years ago

... And a desire to buy a weapon of mass destruction - E36, meet your doom!!

Insert evil, and slightly deranged chuckle

First off, safely remove the fuel tank (stray sparks from a 9" grinder, nicht so gut) and sunroof casette (might be able to sell that, although fairly hard work to remove without hitting your head).

I set off by chopping the front structure - although arguably this is the strongest part of the car. Load bearing for the engine, and all the strength of frontal impact / crash protection meant it was an absolute pig! I cut everything I could see and it was still hanging on for dear life! In the end I got the trusty hi-lift jack and used it in "spreader" mode and finally the two front chassis rails let go.

After a LOT of grinding, this was the only way to get them to part company

First the right...

...Then the left

 

Then, my good mate Trev turned up with a cracking idea on how to get the bonded windscreen out (using an old throttle cable as a cheese wire - thanks for all the blood sweat and tears mate!), which left the roof and front windscreen open for some judicious surgical cuts. Nurse! Scalpel! (OK, well Trev, pass me the 9" grinder)

Windscreen and front of roof coming apart

Then finally, cut across the width of the car along the floor and up the transmission tunnel to seperate the front bulkhead from the floor pan

It's a cut and shut motor, only without the "shut" part

If you read this blog in reverse, it's a detailed guide on how to build an E36 BMW

Oh and on the new build, another tiny bit of progress -   engine mounts fitted. Series 2 V8 Land Rover were the perfect height, screw thread and consistency. And a snip at £2.20 + vat :-)

And that was it for 2 weekends! What remains now is a trailer full of scrap, and about 2/3 of a BMW shell. A few people have asked so I'll answer the question "Why?" Well, the local scrap metal merchants won't accept a car whole (no matter how little remains), unless the V5 is provided so they can dispose of the car. Well, I'm not sure how that plan would pan out for me keeping the V5 to prove the age of the donor vehicle parts to get an age-related plate for the finished car. I also thought about selling the shell to someone in case they wanted some bizarre project of their own (rally car? track car? touring car?) but with the amount of copies of the chassis number engraved, stamped and stuck into the shell, there'd still be nothing to stop someone finding out the previous details, re-registering it; and tearing around sending me little gifts such as speeding fines and parking tickets in my name. Far fetched, but not keen on that idea either. So the safest (and arguably most fun) option is to destroy it myself, get the age-related plate; and afterwards inform the DVLA of the fate of one of Bavarian Motor Work's children.

Next jobs, finish cutting the shell, weigh in the remainder, and sell sell sell on eBay! For those of you keeping a running total, in terms of scrap and eBay takings; the car owes me a measly £140. Hopefully would be able to get that fairly easy, and hey presto I've got all the donor parts for free!!!

The missus says this part looks like a car from a ferris wheel... who knows, maybe there's a market for rear-end BMW ferris wheels? All I need is another 50-odd cars and a lot of steelwork to find out...

Cheers,
Steve