body and interior E36 Spare Tire Well

[69NEWCLASSNH]

I was watching this video posted by another member here:

 

BMW 2002 Turbo Restoration.  They used an E36 spare tire well..  Has anyone done this before?  Junk e36s are plentiful, and getting a spare tire well should be cheap and easy.

What sort of problems would I run into?

  

 

[TobyB]

....that it's only a rough approximation of the 2002 tire well.

 

"some metalwork required"

 

But it would sure beat starting from a flat sheet of steel...

 

t

 

[KFunk]

I haven't had the time to watch the whole video, and now its gone.  

 

Any more thoughts on this?  I have a friend might be able to come up with an E36 well for me, and is checking around.  If I don't fix mine soon, the spare tire is gonna drop out on the ground.  Rest of the car is solid, but I've put off fixing the spare well and don't want to spend a fortune on a new one.  

[TobyB]

Go measure!  I'd think the critical dimension would be the depth- if that's close enough, a tire well's a tire well.

Some flat sheet is easy enough to add around the perimeter.

 

You HAVE to weld on the little 'not a tow tab' to the bottom if you do this, tho...

 

heh

 

t

 

[KFunk]

I don't have an E36 in front of me to measure, hah.  There isn't one in every parking lot in Appalachia, yet.

 

I kinda figure that a roughly similiar sized piece of metal from any damn make or model of car would work, but I'm not ready to go digging through everyone's trunk.   

 

Yeah there's gonna be some welding no matter what.  Definitely need the hook, for my 'not towing' that I never need to do, because my car is always reliable.

[Russell74Fjord]

what if any is a better substitute? I'd like to set mine up to handle a spare tire the same as the tires and rims I am running (Rota 15's, 195x55x15s) and still have a flat trunk floor. Obviously a good 2002 one could be added, along with the extra depth, but are there other spare tire wheel wells that can be used without major work? TIA

[Neildo11]

This got me curious to see if my e30 well would be a good candidate for the 02, thinking that an earlier 3 series would be closer to an 02... heres a quick comparison. 

 

The e30 well is 1" bigger in diameter and significantly deeper. The tire hold downs in the middle are nearly identical, right around 4". You might be able to cut the extra inch of trunk floor around the spare well but it would be tight. 

 

* Edit: after closer inspection I'd say it's closer to a 1/2" difference in diameters. Might fit better than I thought.

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by Neildo11