320i Cabriolet Restoration / Facelift Conversion - M50B28 Turbo

[martauto]

Great progress mate,

Mart.

[DanThe]

Good to see you back at it

1/2" fuel lines

I like to use the plastic coated aluminium stuff, real easy to work with

[AlexD911]

Good to see you back at it

1/2" fuel lines

I like to use the plastic coated aluminium stuff, real easy to work with

Yeah for my power goals im 99% sure the oem lines would have been fine, but i thought i may as well have headroom for whatever may come haha.

So its really annoying but i've taken about 50 steps back on the build, i fucked up big time and used the wrong stuff to underseal it, in fairness to me i asked the reseller what was used in a video (Driftworks V10 M3), but in black and not grey, and he sent me the waxoyl type shit instead of the rubberized underseal, i should have checked before putting it on but there was no way in hell i could leave waxoyl all over the bottom of the car, so i've had to strip it all off and in the process had to remove all the seam sealer and pretty much start again on it, I took 3 days off work last week to get the bulk of it, which i did accomplish but as with all of these things, its the last 5% that takes the longest, there is still a lot of cleaning and wiping to do in order to get this waxy shit out of the all the corners and crevasses.

I decided this time im not going to use the RC900 rust Converter primer, although it appeared to do a good job visually, there was a few spots that i thought were probably going to come back through in a few years, this time im going to be using the epoxy Mastic from rust.co.uk (that i did the subframes and LCA's with), i also picked up some of their rust converter to go over everything once again. I've then got the CeChem sprayable seam sealer in light grey to finish it off with.

[spannerrash]

Dang, 3 days stripping it off must've felt like a big setback. Seems like you've pushed through and are back on track now, good to see!

[AlexD911]

Dang, 3 days stripping it off must've felt like a big setback. Seems like you've pushed through and are back on track now, good to see!

Yeah pretty de-moralizing!! In the end i just resorted to bare-metaling the entire underside, no matter how much i cleaned it there was always some residue of the Waxoyl stuff still coming off and i was not confident in painting over it.

I did a test patch first, i did not use RC900 this time, i went with the Epoxy Mastic ( EM121) that i used on the subframes and control arms in light grey - it looks more cream or white in reality.





It didn't react so i bare metal'd the rest of it, i painted all the seams with a brush and sprayed the rest, pretty happy with how it came out.





I also moved the pedal bracket to take the E46 DBW pedal.



I then went on with the Ce Chem sprayable seam sealer in light grey, really happy with how this came out, and i kinda like the colour so probably going to leave it as this.





Now to finish the brake and fuel lines

Cheers

[Stubbsy5]

Hi

That is seriously impressive work - what a build!! Thanks for the detail, specifically on the diff which was really useful

Could I ask where you got the nut and bolt full packs from in the post around a year ago? I've been re-coating my old ones and some are too far gone and not available at BMW anymore?

Thanks

Chris

[AlexD911]

Hi

That is seriously impressive work - what a build!! Thanks for the detail, specifically on the diff which was really useful

Could I ask where you got the nut and bolt full packs from in the post around a year ago? I've been re-coating my old ones and some are too far gone and not available at BMW anymore?

Thanks

Chris

Thanks i appreciate it.

Yes the website is called timsclassicparts:

https://www.timsclassicparts.nl/en_GB/c ... olts-nuts/

Thanks

Alex

[AlexD911]

A bit more progress.

After lots of fucking around and buying incorrect bearings i have now managed to fit Z4 Hubs to my 318ti Arms. The bearings are from a subaru front wheel but have the correct inner and outer dimensions. The width is slightly off and i had to machine a 2mm spacer on the lathe so they sat right:















With the Z4 Hub Pressed in:



Much happier with this and keeping the much closer E30 offset. I've also bought E12 Discs to go with this setup as that has the right offset from the hub to work with the 318ti Calipers (with a spacer ~1mm).

If i ever come across another cheap set of E30 arms i will probably switch back to them just for the sake of OCD.

Hard line clips for the rear arms also came in:









As im gearing up to get the car back on the floor i decided to dig out the purple tag rack and steam wash it off, it came out pretty much mint and im not going to rebuild this now unless it leaks:



Painted the tank in Epoxy Mastic as the paint on it was very very thin.



Bought pretty much my entire fuel system, got Torques AN fittings, braided lines, FPR, Fuel Filter, fuel rail adapters etc. A Walbro 450 LPH Pump that im fitting in Tank. I've also got a 318 fuel pump cradles so i can split the return line back to each side of the tank as to not overload the venturi return on the 63L Tank. Had to order a few more bits to get this finished but made some decent progress, i also ordered normal lines to plumb in the vapour / expansion tank. Room is tighter than i thought down by the tank.



I also decided to run my subframe mounts upside down to raise the subframe ~12mm, this apparently helps with adjustment on lowered cars, i will need to make some diff spacers to bring it back down 12mm again.







Currently on the lookout for a cheap set of wheels in preparation for getting it back on the floor.

Cheers

Alex

[AlexD911]

Bit more progress last weekend, got the expansion / vapour tank plumbed in, filler pipe plumbed in.











I also got the remaining fittings to finish plumbing in the return line to the tank, this is some weird setup that im hoping works based on various forum threads i have read during my research.



Dry mounted the subframe only to realise what Bad_E30 already told me about the filler hose clashing with the Rear Control Arm weld in reinforcements. Ground a relief in it and re-painted, cant go much more than this but i suspect even this will touch slightly when the car is on the floor.













Started mounting the front suspension again to double check everything.



Im geared up to get the car back on the floor this weekend! It will be a good milestone to hit and will enable me to crack on with bits like the front radiator support etc, dry fit the engine and work out what extra holes need to be cut and things like that.

Thanks