'usual' touring tailgate rust repair & rear screen remov

[gareth]

my tourer has the usual rust bubbles on the tailgate, below the screen.

is it easy enough to remove the rear screen to sort it or is it bonded...

[jonb]

gareth

you dont have to remove the screen. just remove the rubber strip from underneath the screen. this will give you plenty of room for p40 etc.

[gareth]

ideally, i want to get a thorough look at it. if there's any rust, it'll be cut out and replaced.

i come from a previous history of minis, 105E anglias, mk1&2 escorts etc so rust doesn't scare me, i'd rather do it right.

do the strips just pll out then? at least i could get a better look at it before i start to see if it'll be easier to replace with a good tailgate.... assuming i can find one!!!!!

[jonb]

gareth

yes, the strips just pull out. the screen is bonded in.

[gareth]

.....the screen is bonded in.

that's a pain...

if mine is too far gone, i'll probably source a better one to start with. i really can't be arsed with bonded ones...!

[KDS]

(Sorry, this is a bit of a hijack!)

If you end up ordering a new tailgate from BMW, beware: they don't seem to be built to the original factory standards. Mine arrived with huge globs of sealant squishing out from the seams and had the trim holes drilled in the wrong places.

Because I didn't have much choice, I went ahead and installed it and later discovered a massive water leak problem. It turns out that the entire gate was filling up with water because of a manufacturing flaw. Opening up the gate after a heavy rain meant buckets of water pouring out onto my head.

I brought back the guy who installed the rear glass to figure it out. He found that the problem wasn't with how the glass was bonded to the window frame, but how key parts of the frame channels were welded together. It's a bit hard to describe, but it looks like they scrimped and decided to use spot welds instead of running a long continuous weld--meaning that the tailgate isn't even remotely water-tight.

I've contacted the BMW dealer and he says there's little he can do because that's how they come from the supplier. Argh! Usually BMW is great with parts, but this time they really dropped the ball.

[gareth]

oooh, cheers for that.

i know ford have sold their old tooling to expressed panels and they do reproduction panels with them and sell them back to ford. so somethime a supposedly genuine ford panel is actually a pattern, be it a very good one.

maybe this has happened to the E30 and bmw are effectively selling pattern parts for the rarer stuff...

[Simon]

Things like this are always going to happen, especially with older cars, as companies come and go.

Another part that comes from BMW in a state is they're scuttle panels, the metal work is good, it's just where they stamp the VIN into it, looks like they've used a hammer and chisel when holding the scuttle in a vice!!