Breaking up is hard to do

Greetings

Brief update from the weekend's activities; continuing to break up the old E36 Donor. 

The first goal was the rear hubs, driveshafts, and diff. After several failed attempts to budge any of them with their deeply rusted nuts and bolts that rounded off just by looking at a spanner or socket, I gave up and went for the "big bang" solution; undoing the 4 bolts that hold on the rear powertrain and suspension assembly and lowering the whole thing to the ground. (Quite scary undoing the nuts when you're lying underneath it, wondering if it'll shear off and leave you wearing about 100kg of steel!)

Rear diff / driveshafts / suspension etc. assembly.

Close-up on rear powertrain lump

Next challenge will be to attack those aforementioned rusted bolts, although much easier when it's on the bench and you can get to it, opposed to lying underneath with several socket extensions flailing them around your head! A challenge for another time methinks.

The car has spent a lot of time by the coast / beach, evident from the 3 buckets of sand I managed to collect so far from various nooks and crannies during the dismantling. Not to mention the colony of maggots in the carpets under the seat, and the several fag butts, fingernails and 47p of loose change. Mmh nice, just what I wanted to buy into.

Interior is mostly stripped now, just after this photo was taken I got the rear parcel shelf apart and then the steering wheel off

Interior stripped. Dont' look too closely you might see the delights the previous owner left for me to find

Then moved onto the dashboard itself - a job I particularly loathe on any car. No matter how many nuts and bolts you take out, there's always one or two you just can't find, inevitably causing you to have to wrench the damn thing apart and break something! (Lucky it won't be going back then.) Couldn't find the elusive fastenings, and then it was tea time; so gave up and went home. The best labour saving device of today is definitely Tomorrow.

Did one final job to end on a high. I think it's very important for morale boosting on a project, particularly when you invest your own time and money on it - the last thing you want to do is get demotivated and it become a chore; you simply won't enjoy it at all. Need to seek out the small wins every now and then! (Anyway, that's enough motivational speaking, by rights I should be charging for my consultancy fee as a motivational speaker!) So, to that end; I dry fitted the hand brake lever with a spring clamp. Mostly pointless as it'll probably have to come out and be fitted after the gearbox, but still it made me happy and I left with a smile on my face!

First part of the "build" - handbrake lever!! Incidentally, Land Rover Steering wheel is entirely optional.

So the old E36, looking ever sorry for itself is getting closer to its fate with the 9" grinder. Last things to remove are fusebox and all electrical units / wiring, petrol tank (keep for kit car bits), dashboard (bin) sunroof (sell if it's serviceable), front and rear windows (if I can be bothered with the hassle); and that's pretty much it!

Until next time!

Steve