2002 Touring '74 from Belgium, full restoration project (Lots of pictures)

[D.martijn]

After fitting the new doorskin on the repaired frame, we noticed the upper curve, where the belt line trim sits.

Was a bit weak compared to the rear quarter panel. We decided to try and make it a bit more pronounced.

 

My brother found a random paint can with the correct radius, a trip to the local steel yard and we get some tube in the same diameter (75mm).

 

We supported the doorskin on some angle iron and cut two slots in the angle iron so the creas in the door skin sits on the lip of the angle iron. By using some clamps, we tightened the tube little by little untilt he radius was correct.

 

No the new doorskin sits also a lot better against the door frame. Next up is welding in the door hinge panel and repairing two small spots. We might also try to transfer the door handle pocket over from old skin to the new as it could have been pressed a little better..

 

 

 

[D.martijn]

After adjusting the lip on the doorskin, we test fitted the skins again onto the frame.

The lower and upper section are pretty good, although in the middle we get some weird bump/tin canning when clamped on to the frame.

 

 

 

My brother went to a local friend/body shop/classic porsche restoration shop to ask for some input.

The owner told us it should be possible to remove the tin canning so there's that.

 

However, just a couple of days ago, MVP announced that they'll also release doorskins for the 2002 in a month or two.

Not sure if we should try and get doorskins from them or use what we currently have..

[D.martijn]

Small update, I was able to find an original BMW front nose panel in Germany. The seller told me it had been laying in his fathers attic for 30+ years. Since the corona pandemic it's pretty hard to travel + it was over 9hours driving to the location, a bit far.

 

After asking for extra pictures, we came to an agreement and the panel got shipped to my door. The back side has some paint on it, the front has overspray but still has the black coating from factory.

Very happy with my purchase, I couldn't wait and test fitted the panel with the fender and the (still original) door that's fitted on the Touring.

 

 

 

The back side where the panel gets welded on to the car was taped before painting, thus leaving bare metal, hence the rust. 

It's only surface rust so no big deal.

 

This folded edge is also a lot cleaner than the old reproduction nose we currently have

 

 

And a test fit on the car, the cross member fit's nicely against the frame rails. The other nose had a +5mm gap!

 

 

 

 

Test fitting a fender.

 

Crazy how much better it fits! With the other nose, the fender sticked out a good 5mm or so..

 

The gap is a little bit on the bigger side, but the nose panel wasn't fully seated against the egde of the inner fender.

I'm sure we'll get if nice and even once it's getting mounted for good.

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by D.martijn

[D.martijn]

So it's been pretty quiet on the Touring for some time. I'm quite busy on upgrading the steering rack on my E30 325iX Touring.

(short version, I'm swapping a E83 X3 steering rack but there is quite a bit of modification involved + also rebuilding the transmission...)

 

Meanwhile I was able to source an original BMW 2002 Touring tailgate, they are no longer available from BMW
The one you can get some W&N isn't great quality either. as the shape of the lower edge is too rounded and the round indentation where the roundel sits is only half pressed into the sheet metal..

also the frame structure of the tailgate is made from several parts.

 

On the original tailgate from my touring and also the one I just bought it's all one piece. Very happy with my purchase.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by D.martijn

[Tommy]

Nice find, the tailgate. Waiting for updates

Gonna be one of the best tourings in the world when finished.

[D.martijn]

On 4/22/2021 at 7:26 AM, Tommy said:

Nice find, the tailgate. Waiting for updates

Gonna be one of the best tourings in the world when finished.

 

Thanks Tommy! Yes it's been a while, I've been quite busy with my E30 325iX Touring, modifying the front subframe to fit a later model X3 steering rack as well as a transmission, PS pump and alternator rebuild.

Since I'm just about finished with this, it'll be time to get started on the 02 again.

 

However I did order a couple of extra parts.

New MVP doors, unfortunately, one door got a small ding/dent in the lower corner. We're still dealing with the shop (Mecatechnic) where we bought these to get a replacement.

 

 

We als send in our headlight reflectors to a company who replated/chomes these. + new coating on the back side of the reflector. These turned out great!

[D.martijn]

Finally an other update.

 

So in the previous post I said one of the doors from Mechatechnic got damaged in transport.

However, they told us it would take several months to get a new stock of doors..

We decided to ask our money back, send the door back to them and order a new door from Walloth Nesch.

 

Unfortunately... The door we received also got damaged during shipping.

Emailing W&N, they said a new batch would arrive 29th July. Since then we received a new door and what do you guess..? Also damaged! Again, emailing W&N, they will send us another door and pick up the damaged one.

So we will be on our 4th left door.. Seriously how hard is it to deliver a door.. (I do appreciate the great service of W&N though)

 

First door from W&N

 

Second door W&N

 

In the meantime we started on repairing the rear section of the sill, where the chassis mount lives.

We made a jig with some box section and tube to make an alignment tool so the suspension point will go in the right place again (doing one side at a time). I don't have a picture but you'll see the jig once we are ready to weld in the new sheet metal.

 

We first removed the old dampening mats on the rear quarters. Little bit of heat, some spatula and a ton of thinner and all the old glue is gone.

 

Little before shot, one of the previous owners "repaired" the outer sill by putting a new sheet over the original panel.

 

We then removed the lower section of the quarter, 1-2cm above the sharp bend in the quarter.
Also started removing the first section of the sill. After thinking how we would remove the panels and later get them all repaired, we carefully marked where we will grind the old panel completely out since we don't plan to reuse any of the old panels except the reinforcement panel for the jacking point.

 

Outside still looked pretty good but the inside... not so much

 

 

Nice big hole :)

 

Inner sill removed

 

 

I still need to get some smaller cutting discs for the die grinder so I can take out the reinforcement from the outer wheel well high enough to then being able to repair the jacking point reinforcement.

 

Once we remove this corner, we well be able to remove this rear plate as well.

[D.martijn]

Another update, we received the new pneumatic die grinder with cut off dics.

We were able to remove the corner of the outer wheel tub.

 

More rust

 

After this, we removed the remaining piece of the jacking point reinforcement, as well as a small section of the inner wheel tub that was rusted

 

The hole is getting bigger and bigger ?

 

While my brother separated the jacking point panel and inner wheel well piece + the small plate that closes off the subframe mounting point, I got started on making the new panel for the floor.

Pretty straight forward panel to make, only the profile of the floor I needed to mess with a little using the shrinker and hammer/dolly.  I still need to trim is some more but overall pretty happy how it turned out.

 

 

[D.martijn]

This weekend I started on making the new panels for the rear left subframe mounting point.

I first sandblasted the reinforcement panel as well as the outer wheel well section we removed.

 

A small corner was pitted quite a bit so it got repaired by welding in a small corner.

 

Still need to trim the edges to their final size

 

With the help of some box tubing to get the radius of the bend the same as the original, I remade the rear plate that closes in the subframe mounting point.

 

As well as the inner well got a new small panel

 

Still some trimming needed to do but it's pretty close

 

And test fit with the new/repaired panels, happy with how it turned out.

[D.martijn]

Yesterday we went and picked up the door at the warehouse of Walloth Nesch.

The 4th door they sent us also got damaged by shipping, I didn't want to deal with a shipping company myself so just drove myself.

Was a 8h drive back and forth but worth it as we now finally have a good door.

 

 

When in Germany... ?

 

After getting back home, we went to our workshop. We still needed to remove the metal bushing from the rear floor section which we cut out of the car. I went to my work to use the lathe and first tried to clean up the old one but the welds are like diamond, they are very hard. So I just opted to make a new one, 2 hours later and voila!

 

With a flat face drill, I made the bottom shoulder where the long bolt sits against.

 

Looks a lot better!

 

And the bolt pressed in

[D.martijn]

Another update!

 

Today we trail fitted the new bushing in the replacement panels from W&N we got a while ago.

We did have to adjust the angle of the reinforcement panel a little more, as well as that from the flat panel so they match up better.

 

And test fit in the jig

 

After this we trimmed, fettled and adjusted the floor panel a little more. We also made the hole in the panel to we'll be able to remove the bolt later. As well as pressing in the swage line into the panel using some 3D printed dies.

 

Bushing fit's nice and centered into the hole.

 

However, when we tried tacking it in, the panel moved on us, causing it to not sit centered anymore.

After removing the couple tack welds and re fitting the panel some more, we finally managed to get it centered back into position. We still need to fully weld it and adjust the rear edge of the panel since pressing with the dies, removed the bend.

I think I'll just cut and weld a small section in with the right shape as I wasn't able to form the panel easily after adding the swage line;

 

[tzei]

So inspiring! Need an update

 

[D.martijn]

I know we haven't posted an update in a while but we had a much biggern job the last couple of months.

The space where we rented our workshop got sold to a neighboring company thus we needed to move.

We decided to buy an other space, we already moved everything, got the storage mezzanine up and started ordening some of out stuff. 

 

 

 

We only need to get the electrical work and the lighting done before we're able to work on the 02 again. We were able to use a scaffolding to remove some old water pipes and a ton of old electrical wires (some of which we'll be abel to re use) + old light fixturing.. We have quite a bit of scrap metal now lol

How its currently..

Edited January 29, 2022 by D.martijn

[D.martijn]

It's been a while since I last updated this thread.. 

We finally settled in completely in the new workshop, last big upgrade was lighting and we also painted the side walls white.

 

 

 

I also found a NOS rear tail gate panel for the touring (quite cheap too) in Bulgaria

 

And welded up the newly made panel for the rear left subframe/floor

 

 

However I wasn't quite satisfied with the reinforcement rib around the hole.
So I decided to adjust the 3D  printed die and press a new plate, we then later on welded this new section into the new patch panel.. Looks a lot crispier

 

Since welding in this new hole, the rear most flange got trimmed off as well and a new one was welded on.
With the help of the shrinker/stretcher the flange was given it's fine shape before welding on

 

Next up was trimming down the flange to it's original shape

 

 

And finally the mounting point for the subframe itself got stitch welded as well. (just the two plates and the newly made centering bushing) Next weekend we'll probably weld the whole assembly onto the floor

Edited October 16, 2022 by D.martijn

[D.martijn]

This weekend we made some more progress on the rear subframe mount / inner rocker.

Before removing part of the outer sill that was still left and the remaining inner sill we braced the car a little more

 

Before fully removing the inner sill we decided to first weld in the subframe mount for good.

 

Using the large arms on the spot welder we were able to weld the point to the floor

 

From the inside

 

Finally I stitchwelded the subframe mount to the floor, I decided to tack weld instead of laying a full line down since the floor is pretty thin anyway

 

Mount removed, the jig is still able to come off very easily + measuring diagonally from the front subframe points, both measurement are identical

 

 

My phone battery ran out so I don't have any more pictures of the removal of the inner sill. There was some surface rust on the flange of the floor but that was cleaned up. the little section of B pillar that runs through the sill is also still in very good condition, only the lower flange that's welded onto the outer still it rusty so that will get replaced as well.

 

Little "fact" the sills that BMW sells aren't correct the bigger flange should be on the bottom of the sill