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M3This

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Blog Entries posted by M3This

  1. M3This

    Phase 4 - Some Body Mods Prior To Paint

    By M3This,


    Modifications
    After the car completed its transformation with Paul at The Son Of Cobra, the car got moved across town to Ronin Autowerks where Matt worked with me to get some mods to the body completed. 
     

     
    First up was a weld in roll bar. Matt and the team at Ronin build the bolt in roll bars for IE so they already have the roll bars down. I asked for some customization as I wanted it tied into the rear strut towers for additional stiffness. Originally the plan was to do a roll bar with an X-brace but at the last minute I decided it was over kill and since this car is all about weight loss I figured it wasn't needed. 
     
    Mocked Up:
     

     

     
    After the roll bar was completed Matt and his crew did a full stitch weld on the body and then moved on to the pedal box.
     

     
    We ended up going with a Tilton set up and E30 accelerator. Matt installed a steering column on the car to get the pedals as center as possible, and built out some custom floor boards as well to raise up heels slightly
     

     

     

     

     
    Next step is back to Bart at the Resto Shop for final body work and paint.
     
  2. M3This

    Phase 3 - Carbon Fiber Time

    By M3This,


    Body Work
    After the rust restoration got completed with Bart at The Resto Shop the car got transported down to Costa Mesa, California to Paul Lefevre the master mind behind The Son Of Cobra. A lot of you have seen Paul's mostly carbon fiber build. His car is a really special build and if you haven't seen it you can check out the specs HERE.
     
    For my build I opt for the following from Paul:
     
    -Carbon Fiber Hood w/ Aluminum Hood Pins
    -Carbon Fiber Trunk w/ Aluminum Hinges
    -Carbon Fiber Alpina Style Pig Cheek Front & Rear Fenders
    -Carbon Fiber Roof. 
    -Carbon Fiber Dash (coming later)
    -Koogelworks Carbon Fiber Front Air Dam
     
    I choose to opt out of the door skins as I feel like they didn't offer that much weight savings plus I don't mind having a little metal on the doors from a safety stand point. Now on to the photos:
     
    Here is shot of him starting on the rear fenders:
     

     

     
    Now on to the front:
     

     
    Almost done, hanging out with Paul's car
     

     
    Final Results:
     

     

     

     

     


     
    Next stop is over to Ronin Autowerks to finalize the chassis modifications so it can head back to Bart for paint. 
     
     
  3. M3This
    After the dipping was completed at Metal Works in Oregon, the car got transported down to Bart Ziegenhagen at the Resto Shop in San Martin, CA where the goal was to do the rust restoration and some minor body modifications (fill holes for rear side marker lights and rear reflectors). 
     
    The dipping revealed more issues than initially expected (If you didn't see the dipping post you can see it HERE): 
     

     

     

     

     
    As bad as this looks Bart was able to work his magic on these spots without issues:
     

     

     
    We ended up doing new floor pans which you can see here:
     

     
    As well as the trunk floor replacement I picked up from IE:
     

     
    About 80 hours later and here are the end results:
     

     

     

     

     
    And then the whole thing got epoxy primered in black:
     

     

     

     
    Next step is back on the frame roller and it gets loaded up this week to head down to Costa Mesa to Paul @ SonOf Cobra where the big body modifications start. 
     
     
     
  4. M3This

    Phase 1.5 - Off To Dipping It Goes

    By M3This,


    Disassembly
    Car finally got shipped of to Metal Works on Oct 4t, but due to their back log it sat their patient waiting until last week. 
     

     

     
    Last week it finally hit the hot tank which removes most of the paint and body filler. The hot tank is the first step in a two part dipping process where its submitted in a chemical and heat mix at 200 degrees. This step is the main step for cleaning. 
     
    Video:
     
     
    After it was in the hot tank for two days it came out and was high pressure cleaned and looked as follows:
     

     
    As you can see it removed the majority of the paint and body filler, but a lot of the rust remains still.
     
    The 2nd step of dipping process involves the body going into the acid tank. This accomplishes two things. 1) It removes the rust and 2) it neutralizes the base paint removal. 
     
    Below is the final result:
     
     
    Im super happy with how it came out. I knew the car had some bad body work over the years and had a terrible repaint so to see the metal this clean is just amazing. 
     
    Next step is the car is heading over to Bart @ The Resto Shop for rust repair next week. 
  5. M3This

    Phase 1 - The Tear Down

    By M3This,


    Disassembly
    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.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

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