dc2100k

Having spent the last 36hrs worrying about sending ££££ to a complete stranger it is a relief to finally be looking at a pile of fizzing metal and unidentified parts. The delivery guys gave me the knowing look of sympathy that you give to someone who is about to spend all their spare cash and time on something rather marginal. On the plus side the first person to pass the gates asked how much I was wanting for it... so I'm guessing there will be no shortage of greater fools when reality really bites. Here's the details:
1990 BMW 318is - Diamond Black.
167k on the clock, off the road since 2009. Looks like someone has started a resto but stopped and it's been left to sit. No engine or box. No seats. Lots of bits all over the place. Plenty of tin worm in awkward spots.
Partial resto required - plan is historic rally car. These were homologated in Group N for 1990 and as luck would have it the FIA have just extended class 4 historic rally cars to include up to end-1990. Therefore it is eligible to go up against the Audi Quattros, Lancia Stratos and 037s, Escorts, Mantas, 131s, etc. Should make for a few fun British and European jaunts next year hopefully.
Looks good from a distance... r,r,right?

As with many of you the recent COVID crisis and subsequent lockdown has caused me to reflect on my priorities, and a degree of fleet rationalisation has now become inevitable. Therefore the tried and tested method for achieving this has been implemented, and I've bought another car.
1. Bought sight unseen off facebook marketplace - CHECK
2. Category C write off - CHECK
3. Last MOT in 2009 - CHECK
4. 170K miles on the odometer - CHECK
5. No engine or gearbox - CHECK
6. No seats and all the external trim in the interior - CHECK
7. Signs of corrosion on the underside - CHECK
8. Not told the wife - CHECK
What could go wrong?
 
No collecshun unfortunately but delivrly impending...

So i’ve acquired a sheet of 1.5mm galvanised steel slightly oversized for the hole, and a couple of smaller offcuts of 1mm for bodywork repairs, for the princely sum of £10 from a local steel merchant. I hope everything in this project turns out to be so affordable. 

5 mins with a wire wheel and I’ve found clean metal. Next step is to work out what to do with the big hole. I’ve drawn a line where my 1.5mm steel sunroof plate is going to fit and there is a decent margin of clean steel to rivet into. The flange and seam on the inside are solid enough, it’s just the flat surface that’s holed.
 
Fortunately the original sliding sunroof panel is in position and looks like it will just crank forward if I can find the right size socket. That makes the whole interior/headlining business a bit easier. 
 
 

For those of you who have watched this sort of thing before this is the part where the true horrors reveal themselves and the motor gets stuck on ebay for 99p no reserve.
 
oMFgggg ROOF RUST
 
 

So after a couple more days pondering I have decided a rough course of action. First things first I’m going to look at the roof and the sills, then try to get the bonnet open and see what is present under the hood. If it looks like I can sort out most of the rot in non-prescribed areas fairly easily myself then I think it may be a viable project. If that is the case I will get the shell up to roadworthy standard and in the meantime find a decent early E36 318TI donor car (M42 engine) to run about in, molested or unmolested. This will give me a chance to do routine maintenance on the donor and make sure it’s running well before I do the swap. At the moment I feel like perhaps it would be easier to simply swap the entire drivetrain including front and rear suspension and brake set ups, thereby negating the need to rebuild the brakes and everything that is currently in bits inside the car. As this is a competition car I will probably delete the power steering and get rid of all the non-essentials which should make reconstruction a little easier.
 
OK so deep breath. Firstly, time to remove the headlining and sunroof cassette and grind out the rusty metal in the roof. I’m then going to plate over the sunroof aperture with a wide margin encompassing all of the removed metal. Where there is an overlap of less than 25mm I’m going to put additional plates underneath, in fact I may do this at each of the corners in order to stiffen them up, and possible bond some small angle to the underside for stiffness. I’m going to plate in a single sheet of flat steel with the minimum of shaping required, and pop rivet around the perimeter at 50mm intervals. Usually people use silicon sealant to seal this up but I’m considering using Gripbond Pro adhesive on the overlap and some seam sealer on the inside. The exterior of the sunroof will be rattle canned in diamond black and for the inside I was going to cover with a bit of foam camping mat and glue on a dark grey carpet tile where it is visible through the headlining hole. That's the plan, reality however may prove rather different. Off to charge the grinder battery and find a sheet steel merchant who's serving the public.
Anybody know what thickness of steel to use for the roof? EDIT - it seems some Golf GTI racing series requires 1.2mm (18swg) steel riveted to the roof so that's probably not a bad place to start.

Mario Bellini is a famous architect who designed a load of funky stuff for Olivetti, Cassina and others in the 1970s/80s, including the Lancia Beta Trevi interior.
Most of his work is now very collectible and worth a lot of £££.
 

100/10.

It’s 90 miles home. Wish me luck!
 

Mario Bellini is a famous architect who designed a load of funky stuff for Olivetti, Cassina and others in the 1970s/80s, including the Lancia Beta Trevi interior.
Most of his work is now very collectible and worth a lot of £££.
 

100/10.

Mario Bellini is a famous architect who designed a load of funky stuff for Olivetti, Cassina and others in the 1970s/80s, including the Lancia Beta Trevi interior.
Most of his work is now very collectible and worth a lot of £££.
 

Mario Bellini is a famous architect who designed a load of funky stuff for Olivetti, Cassina and others in the 1970s/80s, including the Lancia Beta Trevi interior.
Most of his work is now very collectible and worth a lot of £££.
 

Mario Bellini is a famous architect who designed a load of funky stuff for Olivetti, Cassina and others in the 1970s/80s, including the Lancia Beta Trevi interior.
Most of his work is now very collectible and worth a lot of £££.
 

100/10.

100/10.

100/10.

I also managed to get the bonnet open by pulling the bonnet catch ? As predicted there isn’t much under there but also not too much tin worm so that’s a relief. 

100/10.

It has started today!
Last Nov I bought a Trevi, it was worse condition than I really wanted to take on, but with some encouragement from Mrs6C and knowing there are only a handful in the UK I went for it.
Since then we have had Christmas, winter and lockdown and nothing happened. I have now spoken to my usual garage who surprised me by agreeing to take it on if I did the parts searching.
First hurdle is the car was fitted with twin carbs, but was sold to me with a single carb and having run a 2.0 carb HPE I am quite happy with that. Trouble is there was no throttle cable with the car. Any ideas as to what cable I should be looking for?

As with many of you the recent COVID crisis and subsequent lockdown has caused me to reflect on my priorities, and a degree of fleet rationalisation has now become inevitable. Therefore the tried and tested method for achieving this has been implemented, and I've bought another car.
1. Bought sight unseen off facebook marketplace - CHECK
2. Category C write off - CHECK
3. Last MOT in 2009 - CHECK
4. 170K miles on the odometer - CHECK
5. No engine or gearbox - CHECK
6. No seats and all the external trim in the interior - CHECK
7. Signs of corrosion on the underside - CHECK
8. Not told the wife - CHECK
What could go wrong?
 
No collecshun unfortunately but delivrly impending...

So i’ve acquired a sheet of 1.5mm galvanised steel slightly oversized for the hole, and a couple of smaller offcuts of 1mm for bodywork repairs, for the princely sum of £10 from a local steel merchant. I hope everything in this project turns out to be so affordable. 

So as it seems I'm now taking on the full blown resto of a decrepit old BMW I figured I had better get a more comprehensive toolkit. In time honoured fashion I scoured ebay and gumtree until I found someone selling a massive job lot of old tools and took a punt. I'm certain that I don't need at least half of the tools included but will probably try to sell anything on ebay that I am not going to need to try and recoup some/all of my outlay. There is a bunch of HGV/Tractor/Plant tools that I definitely wont require, including loads of massive Gedore spanners, 'King Dick' and Britool 3/4" and 1" gear and some canny looking Sykes Pickavant valve cutting gear that I won't be touching.  I'll unpack most of it and decide what to do in the next few days...

So as it seems I'm now taking on the full blown resto of a decrepit old BMW I figured I had better get a more comprehensive toolkit. In time honoured fashion I scoured ebay and gumtree until I found someone selling a massive job lot of old tools and took a punt. I'm certain that I don't need at least half of the tools included but will probably try to sell anything on ebay that I am not going to need to try and recoup some/all of my outlay. There is a bunch of HGV/Tractor/Plant tools that I definitely wont require, including loads of massive Gedore spanners, 'King Dick' and Britool 3/4" and 1" gear and some canny looking Sykes Pickavant valve cutting gear that I won't be touching.  I'll unpack most of it and decide what to do in the next few days...