I probably should have been updating this as I did it, but will start doing that more from this point forward. 

 

The car I purchased is a 1970 BMW 2002. It's a manual non-sunroof model. At the time of purchase it was running and was fairly complete but being from Portland, OR it did show signs of rust in select areas. From what I could tell at time of purchase there was no rust in the major important areas such as the shock towers, frame rails etc. Here is how she looked when I got her home:

 

 

As you can see from the photos there are some rust spots on the trunk lid, as well as passenger rear fender an lower section of the nose. All of these issue will be corrected as the build progresses. The first thing I did after taking these pics was drive it in the garage and start the tear down process. Being located in Boise, ID I called around trying to find a good media blasting company but didn't have luck finding anyone with rotisserie that could also do the under carriage, so I made the decision to that once stripped I will send it out to Metal Works in Eugene, OR for dipping. 

 

The tear down took me around 8 days to complete working over a few weekends. I could of knocked it out quicker but my wife and I have a 3 month old so even on the weekends time has been semi limited. Over those days I was able to accomplish the following:

 

Day 1 - Removed front fenders, bumpers, and lights, removed the hood and trunk, front seats, door panels

Day 2 - Removed, exterior trim, rear seats and carpet, windshield, rear window, side glass, 

Day 3 - Just started removing the wiring harness but didn't complete it, removed the brake booster & master cylinder, and pedal box, 

Day 4 - Removed the exhaust system, disconnected drive shaft, removed radiator, battery, engine hoses, steering column, remaining wiring harness, and dropped the front sub frame with motor and transmission. 

Day 5 -  Dropped and removed rear subframe, removed all misc left over items in the engine bay, removed heater core, wiper motor assembly, and dash 

Day 6 - Removed gas tank and hard fuel lines, Gas tank filler neck, headliner, e-brake assembly 

Day 7 - Used the dry ice method to remove sound dampening from the floors

Day 8 - Used the heat gun method to remove the sound dampening from the transmission tunnel (dry ice didn't want to stay on top of it so it made it hard to use that method), and went over the rest of the car removing all clips, vin tag, and anything that wasn't just the bare unibody. 

 

Here are some photos of the process:

 

And here's how it sits as of today ready to go off for dipping:

 

So far some of the known issues for rust repair are as follows: 

 

- Both the front drivers side and passenger side floor pans have holes in them. The passenger side is the worst with some of the rust hitting the transmission tunnel as well. I already order front floor pans from Restoration Designs to provide to the body shop. I also found a hole on the passenger side rear pan, so ordered that as well from Restoration Designs.

 

 

 

- There is some mild rust around the edge of where the gas tank mounted

 

 

-There is some mild rust around where the  heater core mounted

 

 

-Rust on passenger rear fender lip (not an issue as the fenders will be cut for rear flares)

 

-Lastly there is rust spot on the inside of the passenger rear fender near the rear sub frame mount. This seems like it will be possibly one of the biggest problems to fix. 

 

 

I'm sure I will find quite a few more spots once the car is back from being dipped since this was an Oregon car, but fingers crossed nothing too bad.