My pretty new and completely undamaged harness is expired. I don't make the rules, I just mostly follow them. Freshies showed up today.
My pretty new and completely undamaged harness is expired. I don't make the rules, I just mostly follow them. Freshies showed up today.
I started today by taking out the rear window and swear it wasn't entirely me being sidetracked. Since I'm doing rust repair and figured it would be nasty under the seal, I thought I may as well pull it now.
Essentially no rust. How?!
Same with the pop outs. Some crust, but nothing I'm going to replace.
I'm going to weigh everything again but the rear window with seal came in at 18 lbs and the two pop outs with their seals also were about 18 lbs total. I think I'm within 50 lbs of being sub 2k.
Back to rust repair. The trunk floor along the rear edge is gross on the driver's side and instead of a bunch of little patches, I decided to cut out a chunk.
The patch I made lays on top and I'll stitch weld it in and seam seal. Good enough for the trunk floor of a rusty old race car.
Patch stitched in, rust hole welded shut.
Not pictured - I attempted to just weld the little holes in the corner below the taillight shut. The dremel was out of juice so I'll work on cleaning that up tomorrow.
Sunroof panel, tracks, etc. removed. It should end up being about 17-18 lbs. I'd say. I'm not going to bother cutting out the metal supports in the roof. It would save a bunch more weight but would be a royal PITA with the cage.
When I say the doors are gutted...
I realized that after cutting off the top crossbar of the door, I can just open by pushing the handle mechanism from the inside and may not need the cable pull. I didn't notice that my wife walked out to the garage as I was testing an emergency exit to see if it'll work. I turned around to see her jumping up and down cheering.
My calcs have the car at ~2010 lbs right now with probably 10ish(?) lbs of Lexan to go back in.
When a friend nearby (*cough* Patrick *cough*) offers you the right tool for the job, what do you do?
Do it the hard way, of course.
OK it's not going to win any awards but I'm really happy with it.
I started last night by welding up the little hole that can be seen in the pic above. After that I decided I needed to knock down the bubbling behind what used to be the driver's side reflector in the rear so I could just smooth it over and repaint. It didn't go as planned.
Nasty. That dime-nickel sized hole was filled with 98% bondo.
I was not planning on that at all but I couldn't leave such nastiness. There's a bit of wave in the panel but 1. I'm not sure it wasn't there before, 2. I can easily get at it from inside the trunk and 3. who cares?
That fully completes the rust repair in the rear, now on to the wheel wells.
What was that about moving on to the wheel wells?
That's all for a week.
It's been tough to get myself motivated and back into the garage because I really don't enjoy this spackling work but I realized that it's January and it'll be May before I know it so...
I finished sanding and was reasonably pleased with both sides for the first pass. I did a poor job of putting the next layer of mud on, however, and have a lot of sanding ahead of me. Hopefully though I can get it flat enough with this last sanding.
From the sanding marks, looks like you are using 180 or finer grit paper. HIt it with 40 or even 80 until the stuff is flat. Saves a lot of time. And you can never put too much filler on. Stuff is cheap enough that you should flood the entire zone and sand of what isnot needed.
In reply to NOHOME :
You're right, this pic was taken after some finer grit stuff - it was just for my benefit to get a better eye on where I stand. I haven't used anything as aggressive as 40 though, thanks for the tip.
I'm pretty sure the passenger side will be done after this next round of sanding. The driver's side will likely need one more layer of mud.
As usualy, Pete was right and there wasn't too much mud.
We're all in agreement that I should not attempt to repair this hole with welding, right? I'm not overly concerned about the brake line but those two tubes that run under the "frame rail" are original fuel lines.
My thought is for now I'll rivet in a patch panel and seam seal and when/if I convert to carbs and move the fuel lines I'll patch it correctly...or not.
I also did more sanding last night - both sides needed another layer, likely because I'm not very good at this but it's looking pretty good.
Just need to skim fill those little craters and then I'm calling it ready for primer. The driver's side still has a small wave in it but I'm almost certain it's better than it's ever been.
Can you disconnect the fuel lines and swing them out of the way? That'd let you make the repair. Would be nice to do it right now, since you're set up and in the groove.
In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :
As a general rule, I like to disturb the CIS as little as possible but it hadn't occurred to me that I may just be able to move them temporarily. I'll check it out. I'm guessing it's not going to help though as they are hardlines all the way back so unhooking from the fuel distributor and removing the clips from the floor would just result in open fuel lines on the floor that I'd have to protect.
Got the final skim coat sanded off and laid down some etching primer. I'll need to run out tomorrow and get some high build. This primer is super thin and didn't cover up any sanding marks whatsoever.
There's now about 5 coats of high build on both sides and the driver's continues to get worse and worse, not just because paint shows how bad ones work is. To top it off, I got a run last night in what should have been the last coat and, for whatever reason, something possessed me to touch it! Dummy.
You can see the silliness near the top corner of the taillight. Once it's fully cured, I'll sand it down, probably hit that area with another coat and call it good enough. After laying down the primer, I attacked the dashboard.
Shame on the BMW engineers who didn't design the dashboard to be removed easily with a cage installed. They make the ultimate driving machine which certainly will be turned into the ultimate racing machine. Just another corporate oversight.
The dash itself registered 11.6 lbs on my cheapo scale, adding the few ducts that came out at the same time probably brought last night's total to 13 lbs I'd say.
No pictures but heater core, blower and wiper motor removed totaling about 16 lbs. last night. Just a minor biohazard spill when unhooking the heater core. I had a drip pan under there but coolant, at least for me, always finds concrete.
My calculations have the car sitting at 1983 lbs. right now. I think that's probably pretty accurate, hopefully a little high. It's going to be close... Things to go back on are lexan windows, block off plates for the holes caused by heater removal (probably thin aluminum), carbon/kevlar bumper and probably new tow hook(s) for the rear. Either way, there's really not much more to be stripped out of this thing other than some unused wiring. Don't get me started on wiring I uncovered last night.
Way to keep at it, this is awesome progress. I know it feels good to get the rust knocked out and the new panels in, even if it doesn't feel like the biggest leaps forward.
In reply to classicJackets (FS) :
Thanks! It's at least over 35 outside today so I'm hoping to get the primer all finished. Maybe even lay some color...
For future reference and for those following along at home.
Yes, you do stop sanding when you see shiny metal. BUT, you also make a decision. If it is just the one high spot, maybe it is best to give it some love taps with the body hammer so it is no longer the high spot and keep sanding so as to minimize the thickness of filler?
If the circled high spot had been given a few whacks or a visit from the shrinking disc, then you could have kept sanding the hatched area until another metal high spot showed up. And you then make the same decision. I call this high spot whakamole.
What are you using for high build primer? 5 coats of that stuff is a lot. two is more the norm if your filler work is "done". Are you using sanding blocks?
To be honest, it looks not bad from here and this IS a race car right? Might be time to file it under lessons learned for next time and go racing now.
In reply to NOHOME :
Most of what I do gets filed under lessons learned!
I just checked and I've been misrepresenting what I'm using. It's Rustoleum Filler and Sandable Primer 2-in-1. It really ain't very thick at all and surely isn't nearly as thick as high-build. But, yeah, it's getting this final coat to smooth out my flub of touching it and then I'm done.
EDIT: Yes, sort of block sanding. That is, I've got a 2x4 that I'm wrapping sand paper around...
Progress from last night. Looking good if you ask me.
Maybe the fact that I primed much of the back end is a clue that it ain't gunna be yellow any more back there.
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