E30 M3

[xworks]

Doing a bit of work on my E30 over the next while so thought I might
stick up some pic's. Bought the car in England a couple of years ago now,
despite the reg plate being 1990 it's actually one of the early M3's (1986).
It's a 195bhp with the cat and this is how it looked when I first got it.



Haven't had much time to do a lot with it in the few years since buying
it apart from some wheels and routine service work. This is how she looked
at the last meet down in Tipperary.



Unfortunately although she looks reasonably clean in the pic's the old saying comes to mind
"good from afar but far from good", reason being the dreaded rust had kicked in and was
starting to munch it's way through the chassis. Also there was quite a few dings around
the body and the front is severly stone chipped for some reason











the most noticeable of the rust was on the rear arches where it would appear
somewhere during it's life the rear arches were rolled to accommodate larger wheels
and tyres and poorly done..





So we set about getting the car ready for some small rust repairs....



















with the amount of stuff coming out of the bm, shelf space was starting to get scarce
so the poor escort has to double up as a fitted wardrobe for the time being ....





right ready to begin......

[Joey]

sweet looking car,when ya hoping to have it finished

[DaveM-sport]

That was your M3 at the meet?

I thought it looked very well, albeit the sexy wheels kinda took the eye away from the arches

Some small rust repairs, lol.

Some people would see a small rust repair as maybe a bit of sand paper and touch up paint to a sill etc

I see I used the same idea with sticking labels on all the wiring in the dash as yourself

Looks like it's going to be great job done to it

***Note to self***
Book iS into xworks garage at some stage

[xworks]

Originally Posted by Joey

sweet looking car,when ya hoping to have it finished

the escort rally car you see in one of the photos was started being built
5 years ago, haven't quite managed to finish it yet. We hope to finish the
e30 in a shorter time scale...

[xworks]

As mentioned the main reason for taking the car off the road was
the rust on the rear arches, but that was far from the least of the
rust problems. First up was some rust on the drivers side of the boot
under where the rubber seal sits.....



a few years after the car rolled off the production line the rear end
had an unfortunate coming together with a solid object, otherwise
known as a tank slapper. The previous owner had provided all the original
receipts for the main dealer repairs at the time , which showed that it
had a rear drivers side section of the quarter panel changed. Sure enough
real oem confirmed that a replacement section of the rear quarters were
available, and I have to admit that whoever done the repair done it well
at the time, I certainly couldn't have done better. Unfortunately the ravages of
time(17years) and salty water has taken it's toll on the repair
and while the main part of the repair (the face of the quarter panel) is
still perfect, the sections under the boot lid and under the bumper have
rusted badly.

So, first thing is to clean away the paint and see how much metal needs
to come out.....



mark up and cut out the rotten area.....





and then make up a replacement section from some shiny new sheet
steel...



and weld it in........



i'm not gifted enough to form and weld in the repairs seemless with the
original panel so the patches are welded in slightly below the surface level
to allow for a small skim of filler to blend the repairs.

next up was a small hole in the bulkhead under the battery tray about the size
of a cue tip which when wire brushed with the angle grinder opened
up to reveal itself to be a little larger......



same story again, mark, cut out, make cardboard template, transfer to
metal, tack in place, weld up, sand down welds and apply primer to bare
metal.......



after that it was on to the windscreen scuttle which on the whole was
blemish free, apart from a section on the passenger side at the drain
hole....



when wire brushed back it was mostly just surface rust, but as access to
view the far side of the panel was poor it was decided to play safe and
cut out and replace.......







next up the foot wells, having had the carpets out a year ago as a result
of a heater matrix leak I was reasonably confident that she wasn't a
Flintstone mobile and that the floors were still fairly well intact.
And sure enough she still looked presentable from the inside.....





but some routing around underneath revealed some less than pristine
metal, first up was the front of the drivers side inner sill panel.....





then it was on to the passenger side which was a little more involved.
At some stage the seamsealer had given way around the front jacking
box and allowed the elements in on top of the box section. The box
section was finished......



but thankfully it hadn't taken to much of the floor with it. Again to be
safe anywhere that had signs of even slight surface rust was cut
to make way for new metal......





after that it was back again to that rear quarter panel repair and the
rusted section hidden behind the back bumper. Surprisingly we didn't
have to wait for the wire brush to find out the extent of the rust here....






again cut out all that was coloured that expensive shade of browny
orange...



and make up some new pieces to fill up the holes.....



don't mind admitting this one took a few goes to get the bends right...








and thats about where it's up to now. Still plenty of rust to go and
still have to figure out what way to go at the rear arches. Loads of
stuff planed for the rebuild but we'll save that for down the line,
next installment could be fun though, as we attempt to swap a perfectly
good sun roof for a freshly purchased non sunroof roof.....






will she end up a soft top??

[Jozi]

Remember reading a very long thread about a guy also with an E30 M3 who decided to turn his in the the jagermeister car (racing car anyway, and for racing) He had some job with rust, half the car looked rotten away. He got the bare shell dipped in some sort or chemical which removed everything and anything from the shell leaving bare metal and rust exposed.
I think it was on a Dutch forum some place, not a clue where anymore.

Very time consuming I imagine, best of luck with the work xworks!

[dicko]

Best of luck with that it will be as good as new when you are finished
I couldnt help but notice that electric fan what size is that
I cant wait to see that finished

[andye21]

i have all the parts to convert it to right hand drive if you want.
there yours if you want them.best of look with the rest of the work.looks very good.

andy

[Feens]

Jasus You dont Do things By Half's Do ya??? Didnt Know that was your Car At the Meet Either, Its Going to look the Dogs Dangelies when Done

[xworks]

thanks for the replies,
@ Jozi, aye I think I know the place your talking about,
this shell is going there to get the full dipping process too
all will be revealed as time goes on.

@ dicko, I'm guessing it's the standard M3 electric fan
as there's Bm stamps on it and it fits in just perfect.

@ andy21, thanks for the offer but shes staying a leftie,
you'd be suprised the extra room people give you on the
road when they see a foreign lookin left hand drive car beside them.
Car parks and toll bridges are still hard work though.

@ Feens, as the saying goes, if your going to make a balls
of something might aswell make a total balls of it.

[smith4130]

jesus.... paddy foose.....

[paddy]

well x works looks like it not too bad your doing it at the start of the rust which will end up alot cheaper. i have seen a good few cars with worse rust then that for sale at premium prices. some of them are still on car zone.
the scuttle ws pretty good but best rip it all out. nice to see the job being done well the work is very good judging by the pics. . are you getting the shell dipped?

the electric fan is standard on most m3 s soem came with a viscous fan too. i replaced mine last year to the nice sum of 360 yo yo so hope your one is good. some times the resisters goin themand can be bought in maplin for way less than the oem. keep up the good work look forward to seein the progress

[fivepint]

LOL little rust repair, hurry up ya bollix I dont trust anyone else to tidy up me own yoke!!! not even meself!

looking like the proper job though, fairplay Brian

I'll be watching for updates as your attention to detail is great to see!!!

best of luck with the project

Cheers

Fergal

[tractor.]

Now thats what I call a Restoration, the speed you're going at it won't take long, good luck with it.

[xworks]

evenin all,
we managed to get some progress done since the last post, the main
item being the attempt to change the roof. When originally setting out to
look for and M3 in the begining I had wanted one without a sunroof
but this proved all but impossible to find at the time so instead I settled for
a car with one.
So when planning this rebuild I decided that if so much work
was going to be done to the shell, changing the roof wouldn't add much more
effort, plus it'd get rid of a nice bit of weight to.
So after buying the roof skin from the local dealer, which is the same skin
as any other e30, we set about seeing what was involved in changing it.
From studying the parts diagrams it appeared that the rear roof addition
could be removed by drilling some spot welds to get access to the roof below
it.....




however when we started to clean around this panel to reveal the spot
welds that would have to be drilled we discovered that not only was the
panel a bit bigger than we had expected but it was also brazed in
places (i've outlined the panel in red to try and show a bit clearer what is
all one panel)........



and it continued all the way over to the other side.......



we hadn't minded the taughts of drilling out the spot welds around the
windscreen lip and the ones across the roof but in having to heat the panel
up to remove the braze and then removing the whole section across the
parcel shelf we were fairly sure we'd f**k the panel up,
which takes on a little more significance when your told the panel is no
longer available to buy. So instead we decided to do it like this.

first up cut out the lower section of the sunroof tray.....





which allows a good view of the brace that runs across the roof right
behind the sunroof opening. This had to stay, as cutting this out leaves
the roof very very flexible.
next up cut out the roof behind this brace......



which allows better access to carefully trim the metal off the brace.....



the sidewalls of the sunroof tray were still stuck to the brace and while
they at first glance look as if they are just bonded to it......



they are in fact spot welded to it.......



so drill the spot welds and carefully prise it free....



next up, the roof skin at the rear of the sunroof hole rolls in around
this brace.....



and the lip was buffed with the angle grinder untill the lip could be broken off without doing any damage to the brace. With everything now disconected underneath from the brace all that remained was to remove
the roof skin from above it. Two carefull cuts......



and then peal the skin off.....



revealing the roof brace....



with that done a few more carefull cuts were made to remove the side bits
of the roof skin.....



the reason why we needed to be carefull with the cuts was the roof
skeleton was only a few mm below the roof skin and we didn't want to
touch it.





with the skin cut down to the drain gutters on the side of the roof, these
were then buffed down with the angle grider to the flat mating surface,
ready for the new skin to sit on top (sorry lost the pic).
The last remaining piece of skin was the front section which involved
drilling out the spot welds around the windscreen lip and cutting it off....





the original roof is brazed on at the top of the front windscreen pillars
and this was removed by getting out the gas bottles and melting the braze
again to allow the last little bit of skin to be pulled off.....



after stopping for a brief smoke and a sh*te attack when the realisation
kicked in that I'd just cut a perfectly good roof off my M3 , we moved on swiftly.
remove the new roof from it's fancy crate.....



and then offer up the roof to see how it fits. As said earlier we had decided not
to remove the rear panel which concealed a couple of inches
of the roof skin and instead decided to cut and weld the roof here instead.
First up mark the roof to trim off the overhang....



and then refit the roof skin to see if we'd measured right.....



thankfully we did, and the roof sat nicely in place as we had left an inch
of the old skin protruding out and had joggled this down allowing the
new roof to sit on top of it......



next up was to trim the "A" pillar joins and get them sitting right.....



a couple of laps around the car buffing down metal to ensure the roof
was sitting snuggly before welding started......



and then we started welding at the rear first working our way forward,
after each weld was done it was quickly quenched with a wet rag to try
stop the heat from soaking into the roof skin and warping it.....



ideally it would have been nice to use a spot welder for this but we don't
have one and after pricing a decent one decided that it wasn't worth
buying one just for this job, so mig it is.....



the nice part about this run of welds is that theres a nice little brace
that sits on the roof which conceals everything.....



we then moved on to the sides, on the original roof the gutters appear to
be continously roll welded, I've no idea whats required to replicate this
and hassard a guess that the equipment required would cost the same if
not more than the spot welder, so, mig welder at the ready we ran a
bead of weld an inch long every few inches........



and buffed them down flush when finished so the black rail trim pieces
will fit back over.......



next up was drill and plug weld around the front windscreen lip.....





and finally braze up the "A" pillar joints.....



and hey presto, no sunroof.....





thank f**k thats done, not that we were ever nervous of making a balls
of it you understand

hope to tackle the rear arches next.