tzei

Yea shopping. Or was there something special inside? No? Then off to the neibourghs pool & ”new” in the hole.

And if/when some b/fluid gets past those rags rinse with lots of water.

How about I put it this way: tank sender unit needs ground from chassis and then it ”sends” ground to gauge. 10-pin provides +12 volts to gauge -> gauge works. How much ground tank sender ”sends” relates amout of fuel in tank.

Well it's kinda rose joint ball, spring loaded. And they wear (i.d. gets bigger) so measure/check it's snug enough.

Documented progress in form of new blog. Forecast shows frost for next week so M2 needs to wait a bit longer. I start to feel the itch thou.

This was a headake. I mean really. My ladder nervous systems was working at max capacity to figure this out. First I patched up the rising face of the rear bulkhead/frame rail. Had to cut outer cheek off the side of trailing arm housing, move it inboard with an angle - it needs to be under of body panel. Reinforced RTAB thread studs - maybe overkill but E46 guys have had to do this and it was easier to do now than later. Maybe it's just the rally boys but it's done now. Cleaned everything cabriolet relaiting bracetery out of way. Had 2.5 mm (to match Z material th.) sheet metal bended to make upper portion of the panel and used Z's under portion cuz I was too afraid to butcher more of oe rockers. Z's steel is hard. It was real pita to hammer it to contour upper part line. Got it done but it's not pretty. A small disappointment at this time. Oh well. Fabbed a wedge part to join RTAB support housing. Buttwelded from top and seam under thru large hole to attach it to pull rod (front) fixing point support. Then it was time to start welding upper portions in place. This took awhile. Small tacks first and cooling with pressurized air after each one - I didn't want to leave any tension to metal, or as little as possible. Then about 2 cm beads, cooling, Grind each tack/bead almost to level, cool each grinding, weld, cool, repeat... Left small extensions with 2x 6 mm holes in front part of rockers to have something to fix front fender supports when it's time to figure those out. And then at last all is welded up. Touch down! All metal was painted with weldable 1K etch primer inside and outside. I think I will aply a thin coat of cavity wax inside the rocker to prevent rust. Next will be some sheet metal work to mate c-pillar roots etc. to floor and roll cage.

First I measured center line for both chassis. And rear axle line for both. So rear wheel would be in correct position in regards to 02 shell. This was very time consuming. Lowering and alingning 02 on top of E85 floor to see where to cut next. Then winch 02 up to make room to work. Back down again, aling. Repeat. When I got to about 5 cm from touch down I found out that my support cage was getting in way. I had to make cage to outside of 02 chassis and remove tubing from the cockpit. This was also important bcz I wanted to be able to weld roll cage roof tubes all around before I mate the two chassis. I wish I had done this from the start. Oh well it is what it is. And we have a touch down! 02 chassis on correct level on top of E85 floor. Phew! Very early on I knew that rocker panels would be an issue. They don't match 02 at any level. This needs to be sorted next.

First I confirmed rear axle line as this going to match 02 chassis rear axle line. Marked position to chassis and table. This was actually done before last supports was added. Determided center line for both chassis and rear axle line for 02 chassis. This was very time consuming and frustrating task but I needed to get this right. Then it was plasma cutter time. What a fancy tool! Cutting goes so painlessly and gets to places that angle grinder doesn’t. Also it’s very easy to cut wrong. Steady hands I say. Also wincing up and down was slow. No way around this. Lower enough to see where to cut next. Then up to have room to work then down bit more. Repeat. Larger bits was easy but closer I got more slowly it went. I didn’t want to cut too much so that I would need to weld pieces back.

Well thank you sir! Z's M54 is not for this one. I'm thinking M10 Forced induction atm but we'll see

Now this took awhile. Dismantling was pretty straight forward. But removing all that factory chassis glue/sound deadning was rough. Well got my neck & arms trained. Btw cars wire loom weights about 50 kg. Some rust spots had begun to developing under plastic panels inside wheel arches but nothing major. Getting this chassis on the table by self was sweaty task. Two floor jacks, two by fours, plywood bits and sweat. No blood was spilled. Measured chassis dimensions and they all checked. Now was time to level chassis and fix it to the table. Bolted front cross member back and welded braces from that to table. More iron to hold front upper suspension towers in place. In rear turned some parts and welded rear axle carrier points to table. Also rockers got welded to table about every 10 cm or so. Rear trailing arm pots got supports from table. Chassis rails got supports to table from FCAB fixing locations. And of course rearmost downward structure got fixed to the table. Should hold it in place. I hope, we’ll see. Point of no return closes in. Plasma torch is whispering…

Sand basted and some base paint.

In order to even remotely achive some kind of acceptable end product I needed a firm table to conduct metal work. Near by metal shop was selling a table they no longer needed so I went and grabbed that and had it delivered to my garage. With four trolleys and an iron bar I was able to wiggle it inside. Leveled table with laser and steel shim plates.

I decided to cut the shell in areas that I won't be needing to make it a) lighter to move b) for blaster to be able to clear rust/goo as much as possible. I build a cage around it so moving and blasting on a fork lift forks wouldn't damage shell any further. It was time consuming to try figure out what I needed from 02 chassis and what would be left from E85 chassis to be able to mate them as seamlessly as possible. Jigpuzzle with optimally just two parts. With jig table levelled I made two, hmm, towers from old rotesserie and some scrap metal to each end of the table so I could winch chassis up & down as needed. Two manual chain winches volunteered for the job. Time to get a plasma cutter

Well I don’t have washers in my race engine.

I bet there is a lot of metal work to be done until that turns over with rods in M10 block.

Here is victim I sourced for 1st trial/mockup. To my defence shell had donored some sheet metal parts and it had had minor LF accident + someone had started some guestionable rust repairs. So it was kinda ruined already.

Long overdue to write something down but here I go. Things started to happen in 2018. In a quest to get better suspension geometry for 02 race car and all good things that comes along I started to investigate the subject. I had bought myself two E30 M3 rear axles earlier. Now my current front end works pretty well but rear seems to be harder to grasp - atleast for me. At this point I was thinking of replacing current 02 based rear axle with something a) not hacked b) more modern to start with. 02 rear axle design was penned, what, late 50's or early 60's? So no E30 stuff albeit it can be made fast. Next thought was it could be something that has more modern engineering behind it. So then I sourced all aluminium E39 sedan (lightest version of those mind you) rear axle. After some more investigation I came to conclusion that while it's plausible there are some issues regarding wheel control and I abandoned this route. More thinking was required. At that time I had driven two E36 race cars and one of them was M3 version. Now those things handles quite well I must say. So how to put E36 axles to an 02? Front wouldn't be that much of a problem but the rear. Now there is some challenge to be honest. But the thought persisted. Internet is your friend (at times) and look and behold: E85 Z4M has almost the same axle base (2497 mm) than 02 (2500 mm). Normal E85 Z4 has more difference (2494 mm). Pretty darn close. What if I take whole E85 floor with axles (all in correct factory places) and just put 02 chassis (sans floor) on top of it? Now that's neat idea! Lets roll with that. Soooo where to get dirty cheap, no accident Z4? RHD's are cheaper than LHD's so where are lots of rhd cars to choose from? In UK! But Brexit was looming over so I had to act quickly. Me and my buddy bought plane tickets to London and off we went. Had looked the market and made contact with one seller. Car had to be in shape for a long road trip. First car had some issues with documents and I called next potential seller. Off to other side of London to meet him. The car was ok, nothing major so we did the paperwork and I bought that car. 2003 Z4 2.5i with about 186 000 km's on clock was mine. Seemed that we had some brake bads, fluids - enough, tires had air - road trip here we go! At London about to view first car. This was 24.7.2018 1st stint took us from London to Dover. It was pretty late and train was booked and no ferries avaiable. There was one room vacant in Dover so we took that and spend the night there. Next morning tickets to ferry and to France. Near Dover docs. No way to cross over to main land. Dover by night. About to board. In a ferry to France. Bye UK. From ferry we hit the road and I though what's wrong with these ppl as evereybody was driving so slowly. Took me few km's to figure out that I was driving by miles rather that km/h. Now that calmed things down. Long story short next Belgium, Netherlands and Germany. Pitstop in Germany. I think. Another stop. I think this was Denmark. Next night in northern Germany. Then Danmark, we had time to visit a small viking boat museum at Ladsby. Nice sunny day & icecreams. Then to Sweden. Sweden. Somewhere between Malmö and Jönköping. Morning in Stockholm. Waiting to get to ship. We were about to sleep in car near Mantorp but Z4's aren't that comfy so that was a bust. Drove all night to Stockholm, bought tickets to a morning ship to Finland, got in and crashed to bed as soon as it was possible. Next day was last stint to hometown. All and all it was 2520 km trip in 5 days. The car worked just fine all we did was we put more gasoline in it at times. What a nice car to drive. I enjoyed every minute that I was behind the wheel. Home sweet home.

@jprocket So totally forgot/did not see your Q. Fronts are normal 02 Ti/Tii/turbo etc. pads, I'm running currently Ferodo FCP399H and read pads should be Audi/VW #20961 (VW Bora '09 I think it was from which I took rear calibers).

The cam is dead. I bet rockers are dying too.

@Mark92131 What pressure cap you got? Factory used 1.4 bar for S14.

The rad bj

Measure R? You can always glue limiter non-operational. No reason not use limiter version unless it’s tired and limits too early or you would like to rev a bit higher.

Step might be due wheel having steel mating faces for lug nuts. Either way there should not be any paint on the mating surfaces. Tightening torque will be wrong & wheels could come loose. Same goes for wheel to hub surface - no powder coating! Last pic hole looks different... steel bit missing?

50 (ish) oe red plastic is still better than 20 yrs younger nissan fan blades. Mine was looking so brittle that i ordered new when i did my timing belt. Oh and there is all Al 4-blade version for M10 engine - i have nos one. Dunno what car/year that belongs tho.

Solid bushes for alt.