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

[D.martijn]

More progress on the 2002!

 

After checking the fit of the inner sill making sure it is nice and straight on the underside and the little steps in the upper flange line up with the B pillar is was time to weld it in for good.

Using the long spot welder arms to reach almost everywhere, we did have to change them out once more to get to the flange at the B pillar since it was touching at first. (4 makrs/dots) It's one of the best tools in the shop!

 

 

Good penetration on the otherside of the sill as well. I'm gonna leave the bead at the inside of the sill since it's not visible.. I did come back and just filled up the little holes at the radius

 

Rear floor section

 

After this we flipped the car on to it's other side so I could stitch weld the subframe mount onto the sill as original

 

Also the B pillar got stitch welded to the inner sill

 

We just couldn't help ourselves and trail fit the inner sill, we will have to grind the lip on the front a little as it's too long and causes the flange to sit to far from the inner sill. But overall very good!

 

So next up will be the jacking point.. or is it...

We decided now is our last chance to chance the wheel well on the car so.. we thought it through and bought one

We previously (6-7 years ago?) fixed up the common rust spot most 02 seem to have. Although the reinforcement braced was severely rusted we were able to save it and welded in the patch panel from W&N.

Since this was the first repair we did on the 02 then, I'm not quite happy with the quality or the repair.

So the decision was made..

 

On the Touring there are two threaded studs on each side of the inner quarter panel, this is where the seat catches are mounted. we made two little plates and welded a section of box tube in between. (used some off cuts)
I then places two other tubes on the brace that sits between the two wheel wells and connected them with some more material. If the floor would sag, we should be able to clamp the brace to the jig and pull it back up.

 

Since our transporting/flip jig for the car is mounted to the rear differential points, we decided to place the rear of the car on jackstands, near the B pillar to keep most of the weight from the diff points.

 

[D.martijn]

This weekend I started with removing the old left wheel well.

 

Roughly cut out at first

 

 

Touring specific hole, this is where the catch mounts onto together with the 2 holes above (welded nut on the inside of the bend) 

 

And floor/boot flange mostly cleaned up, still in pretty good shape

 

Only major rust is at the floor flange but this we already knew.

 

I'm also going to remove this (tow?) bracket and weld in a little section of new boot floor since it was heavily pitted

 

Some more surface rust on the inside of the differential crossmember, only ~10cm far the rest of the beam looks good. Unfortunately there is no option to replace the boot floor of the Touring otherwise now would be the time!

 

Next up I started with removing the two sections where the inner wheel well is welded onto the outer wheel well.

This went surprisingly easy, first drilling the spot welds and grinding just on the side of the stitch welds.

 

And fully removed

 

Some more surface rust on the top. I think water was able to get inside since the C-pillar corner at the hofmeister kink was also quite rusty..

 

Test fit of the new inner wheel well. Fit is pretty good, not perfect though.

I havent measured any thing yet regarding position but it seems like it needs to go a little more to the front.

Some more clearing will need to be done as well towards the differential cross member as it's touching there

 

 

in the middle of the wheel well the flange is also not touching. However I think it's sitting a little twisted (left to right) since I still need to remove the remaining bits of stitch weld at the outer wheel well flange

 

And the front section. I already hammered the flange of the new section of floor we welded in more towards the front but I need to first measure the position before doing any more tweaking.

the biggest "problem" is the width of the flange of the jackpoint reinforcement panel.

Since it's sitting now the outer flanges sit against each other but at the inside the reinforcement panel isn't touching at all. some modifications will be needed...

 

I also found the right inner wheel well at another German shop since BMW doesn't offer these anymore 

[D.martijn]

This weekend we made some more progress regarding the fitment of the inner rear wheel housing, well depends on what you call progress haha..

 

We started out with checking the measurement of the newly fitted wheel housing. I made a small 3D printed flange with a hole in the center. The piece fits snuggly in the hole in the shock tower. by using some small rope and a bit of weight we can get a pretty good measurement. We were only off 1mm. Pretty good for a rough fit up of the panel.

 

I got started on repairing a small rust spot just in front of the differential cross member where the boot floor overlaps the floor section of the car.

 

Quite rust underneath

 

New panel made, by using a chisel I recreated the small step so both panels sit flush.
I did cut the panel just a little short but was able to bridge the gap..

 

Welds cleaned up, I left the left side of the panel just a little longer so I could trim it once welded in.

 

And sprayed with alu zinc spray, ready to weld on the boot floor panel (just pictured above the repair)

 

While I was busy with repairing this section, my brother was cleaning up the flanges where the new wheel well housing is welded onto. However after some considerations we decided to remove this panel as well. What I forgot to mention is that when we trail fitted the new wheel housing, the insides didn't completely line up with each other.
It looked like the arches aren't quite the same, the front corners were nice and flush while the rear was out of alignement, rough estimate of 5-7mm. Removing the outer wheel well would make it possible to "stretch" the panel out a little to make both front and rear align flush with each other. And secondly this way we are able to spotweld both halves together with the spot welding machine. I hope this explination make a little sense.. this is where you can question said progress haha

 

 

The panel and quarter are glued together at two spots with a big glop of tar.

The outher wheel well is only stitch welded to the inside reinforment panel of the Touring. Only the two halves are spotwelded together. if it helps other people that might go the same route..  

 

I will now sandblast this whole panel and spray it with Corroless (red anti rust primer)

 

Both halves clamped together.

 

My brother also cleaned up the inside of the quarter which was covered completly with cavity wax

 

[D.martijn]

Today after work I managed to sandblast the outer wheel well and put it in some rust converting primer.

The lip is still in pretty good shape, however some repair patches will need to be made for this panel.

Unfortunately it's no longer available from BMW (only the sedan is)

 

 

 

[Tommy]

Oh man! You guys have gone absolutely mad with this. Anyone would have been happy with the already fixed arches but you are tearing it to pieces smaller than in the parts catalog 🙂

[D.martijn]

On 12/1/2022 at 1:11 PM, Tommy said:

Oh man! You guys have gone absolutely mad with this. Anyone would have been happy with the already fixed arches but you are tearing it to pieces smaller than in the parts catalog 🙂

 

Thanks Tommy! Yeah it's more of a "since we're there" moment haha I'm sure most car guys know this feeling

[D.martijn]

Some more fitting and fiddling with the two wheel housings on the Touring

The reason we removed the outer wheel housing as well was since both halves didn't line up very good on the inside edge (there was more than 5mm difference front to back)

 

After clamping the outer halve to the inner halve and using some cleeco clamps we got close but some how the wheel arch lip that needs to sit inside of the wheel arch lip of the quarter panel wasn't lining up very good with the remaining section of lip that's on the quarter still.

Again several times adjusting both halves and getting it screwed together with some selftapping screws we got pretty close. I think we just have to be content with some middle ground while still maintaining the measurement of the spring mount in it's proper position. the outer housing lines up pretty good with the lip of the quarter, at the front it's still sticking out a little, I guess we'll have to massage it a little when we get to replacing the full wheel arch.

 

Here's where we got in the end.

 

The lip of the inner wheel housing it a little small towards the back, you can see the orange panel sticking out behind the black. we might weld a little strip on to it to make it line up with the outer wheel housing and also making some more space to get proper spot welds in

The front is sitting a little lower than the original panel but it's only stitch welded a couple of time over the whole perimeter

 

So with the wheel housing in it's position, we decided to test with the rocker and the remaining section of the outer wheel well housing that we cut off in the beginning of this whole repair. The lower edge of this section should sit just flush with the underside edge of the reinforcement panel.

However when fitting the rocker, the lower edge touches the right corner piece so we'll have to cut some more material off (horizontal line). it looks like the new genuine panel from BMW still needs some adjusting

The little lip on the right also needs to move up since the outer quarter panel is also spotwelded onto it.

Edited December 8, 2022 by D.martijn

[Tommy]

16 minutes ago, D.martijn said:

 

Thanks Tommy! Yeah it's more of a "since we're there" moment haha I'm sure most car guys know this feeling

Yep, I know. But it requires great confidence to tear in as deep as you're going. You really know you can do it better! 👍

[D.martijn]

Finally made some more progress.

I've had a few days off from work but I worked on my uncles E30's (215iX touring and 316i Baur)

My brother and I also got a little sick, still not 100% but we managed to go to the workshop a bit more.

 

We started with fitting the outer rocker as previously we noticed that the little lip where the rear quarter panel get spotwelded onto was sitting to low. I also had to grind of a little of the slanted edge at the end of the rocker as it otherwise would not fit.

 

 

I later moved the little lip so it bends at the line 

 

Then it was time to start repairing the lip of the outer wheel well. only some small sections needed repair.
I did get the W&N repair panel but it's not the greatest quality

 

Most of these patches required some shrinking and stretching to get it to fit right with the panel

 

 

Also the rear lower lip needed some work. we still need to finish the actually lip of the arch

Some TIG rod and a chisel + hamering and we got pretty close to the original sealant rib

 

While I was busy repairing the wheel well, my brother cleaned up the inside of the support brace between the two shock towers to bare metal. finally he sprayed it with Brunox

 

 

 

[D.martijn]

Today I finished the rear corner of the outer wheel well panel
Turned out pretty well if I say so myself, when I compare it to some picture of the sedan panels you can still get new

 

Some DA cleanup on the arch

 

 

Inside of the panel also mostly cleaned up

 

 

Next up is trimming/repairing the front most section of the panel. I started with replacing a small section in the middle at the lower edge of the panel where it meets the outer sill. but still need to finish it some more..

 

I also finished welding in the small section of floor we previously repaired.

 

And added spotwelds to keep both panels together, still need to trim the top panel a little

 

Quick go over with the pneumatic grinder and some paint!

 

While I was busy with repairing the rear corner of the wheel well panel, my brother made a piece for the section of flange that was rotten. Turned out great

[Hansome]

read this whole blog from the start...... very inspiring and got to be the best on here!!

 

all the best and looking forward to the updates

[D.martijn]

17 hours ago, Hansome said:

read this whole blog from the start...... very inspiring and got to be the best on here!!

 

all the best and looking forward to the updates

 

Thanks for the wonderful comment! Much appreciated

 

Will do! Should get some more progress done this weekend

[D.martijn]

It's been a little while..

We pretty much are ready to weld in the left rear shock tower/wheel well into the car.

 

Last bit of repair that needed to be carried out was on the outer wheel well. at the jacking point.

As well as the little bottom lip of the arch, turned out well.

I didn't fully weld the arch as it will need some tweaking when we get to welding in the new outer arch on the quarter panel.

 

In the meantime I started with removing the front right floor. Some of you might remember that I had already repaired a section of the floor but as we will replace the inner sill on the right side as well when we inevitably get the repairing the rear subframe point. I figured to do things right and replace it completly, there was still some rust in the chassis leg and at the lower section on the flange that meets the firewall panel. 

 

When I previously repaired this section, the new panel also sat a little too low in the front corner, so I will be able to correct this as well now.

 

 

 

We should be able to place in the wheel well next weekend (finally)..

[02Wobin]

What a great deal of work you guys have put into this car! Love the entusiam. And great with all the pictures, i have revently started my own 2002 project and your pictures of rust repairing will help alot. Thank you and keep up the good work! 
 

/Robin

[D.martijn]

On 4/12/2023 at 12:35 PM, 02Wobin said:

What a great deal of work you guys have put into this car! Love the entusiam. And great with all the pictures, i have revently started my own 2002 project and your pictures of rust repairing will help alot. Thank you and keep up the good work! 
 

/Robin

 

Thanks Robin!

We've come a long way but still a long way to go before this one is finished  

Feel free to ask questions if you need more info/help regarding some panels!

 

Cheers,

Martijn