Recent work to repair my hood cowling and latch

[Polymerjohn]

The previous owner jacked it up pretty bad.  I had to get creative and compromise a bit.  I also made it removable for future maintenance.  The towels in the picture are wetted to catch welding sparks.  I will be referring to the post here tomorrow How-to-Setup the hood/latch properly.  The pictures are in number chronological sequence.  Before you get after me...all the bolts are metric (5mm x 0.8).  Santa brought me a nutsert kit this year and it made the job much easier.  Note - For those new to nutserts, your install tool can yank the threads out of the insert very easily, read and follow the directions to your kit!

 

I have yet to drop the hood on it...

 

Polymerjohn in OK

[TobyB]

Looks good to me!

Being able to take that out for cleaning and maintenance makes good sense.

Can you snug those nutsert fasteners good-and-tight?

bkuz-

 

That panel is an odd one- besides being a bracket to support the hood latch, it also 

has the ability to transfer lateral loading between the firewall and the windshield frame.

Whether it actually DOES so is a different question- but given how little structure there 

is in the firewall, and how beefy the front 'inner fender' structure is, it's quite possible.

 

It would be absolutely amazing to be able to see the original design studies when this

body shell was designed, because it's obvious a whole bunch of thinking went into the load path

calculations.  But in 196-low, in a smaller, older, struggling company, the calculators would have been slide rules...

 

t

 

[Polymerjohn]

Toby,

 

Thank you for the feedback.  Yes, I too noticed that the cowl panel I repaired was originally much larger (rearward) and tied into the water channel and structure under the dash-board (all with spot original welds).  I also thought that it was to transfer load.  It just wasn't an option for me to dig too deep into the firewall and dashboard.  The remaining part of the cowl panel is still welded to under the water channel.  I plug welded the "ledge" to the water channel in front of the window and "dressed" them down with a wheel.  Then I mounted the cowl panel onto it.  I actually bolted the "ledge" and the cowl panel together and plug welded them in at the same time using vise clamps to hold it in place.

 

Polymerjohn in OK

 

 

[zambo]

Nice work.
 

It’s interesting they never made it to be removable for cleaning and maintenance - perhaps it was both a structural consideration as Toby suggests as well as it was cheaper to just weld it up. The cars were - as we know and again as Toby alludes - built to a tight budget given BMW’s financial dilemmas back then. 
 

It’s something that was incorporated into and is one of the nice features on an E3, which apart from helping to maintaining the relevant cowl space, also gives relatively easy access to the heater fan motor. 

Edited February 26 by zambo

[PhilC]

If this panel is removable is there enough access to remove the heater matrix etc?

[TobyB]

Not the heater, but it would make the windshield wiper linkage a lot easier to get out...

 

t

 

[visionaut]

On 2/25/2024 at 9:00 AM, TobyB said:

That panel is an odd one- besides being a bracket to support the hood latch, it also 

has the ability to transfer lateral loading between the firewall and the windshield frame.

Whether it actually DOES so is a different question- but given how little structure there 

is in the firewall, and how beefy the front 'inner fender' structure is, it's quite possible.

Yup.

 

 

[Mike Self]

38 minutes ago, TobyB said:

Not the heater, but it would make the windshield wiper linkage a lot easier to get out...

Were that panel removable, I think you could remove the heater blower motor, or at least easily access the brushes and lubrication points (upper and lower armature bushings).  

 

Another function of that panel--and a possible explanation of why it's welded vs bolted in place (other than cost) is that it takes the load of the hood as it deforms in an accident, since the rearward hood catch is fastened to this bracket.  If you look at the 2002 crash test photo above, you'll see how the hood is designed to fold in the middle in a front end crash--that also explains the dimples in the hood's inner structure to encourage bending at that point.  Early cars don't have that feature, and IIRC have a different (or at least weaker) latch structure that would allow the hood to move straight back and through the windshield in an accident--much to the driver and passenger's detriment. 

 

BTW, John, where did you get those nut-inserts?  I used to be able to find 'em at my local hardware store to use with my pop riveter, but haven't been able to find any for some years...

 

mike

[Son of Marty]

Interesting chart, you'll notice that although the front end damage is quite close across all 3 cars but the 02 had the seats fail.

[2002iii]

46 minutes ago, visionaut said:

Yup.

 

 

The 2002 has great crumple zones, one of the benefits of a unibody car. For there Era they were very safe cars. The passenger compartment is very strong, especially with the extra safety features added with square tail lights. They do quite well in rollovers.

 

I would hate to see what a modern SUV would do to an 02 in an accident.