e21 brake booster/servo moving

[YoureNotGold]

Hi recently aquired my 320/6 m20 rhd e21.

Currently undertaking alot of work in the bay, to get it as empty as possible,

All tanks & wiring have been hidden. All holes have been welded, filled, turrets smoothed, so all we have now is the engine in the centre, in a search for pure aesthetics.

Problem - brake booster. Now mine is right at the front, by the headlight, with that hideous linkage & box section bar sticking out, ruing the whole thing.

Ive noticed on some e21s, the booster is fixed to the firewall, so so much better looking!!!!!

So, how do i convert, do i merely remove the booster, remove the linkage & bar, 180* spin it and mount to the firewall, or is it not so straight forward?!

In the dream world i would do away with it completely and change the pedal box.......but this is an auto! & so far this has cost me £20, i cant afford the pedal box systems.

So, please, any help, images, links, work, yes/no, dont do it, fire them at me - im a newbie to bmws, but this is to be 1 of many!

[YoureNotGold]

Here is some pics of the car, for no apparent reason








help me quick!

[e21-Mark]

Look at my thread in modified section and you'll be able to see the solution I've gone for.

http://www.bmwe21.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... start=1680

[nas80]

Ive done a custom brake bias box

[YoureNotGold]

thankyou for the responses, im glad to see it is possible, lovely cars btw.

not quite sure how i would go about it, what materials i would need etc.....

[e21-Mark]

What you want to do, is just be left with the clutch & brake master cylinders being bolted directly to the bulkhead.



You then need to either run without a servo and modify the pedal fulcrum point to try and increase pedal force or buy one of these remote dual servos.

[nas80]

Yea your prolly need to be brave to do a bias conversion theres too much to think about really. Marks solution looks way easier then what im trying to do.

Its more about having decent brakes than aesthetics lol

[YoureNotGold]

thankyou, makes sense, altho i have to disagree, with this car, its aesthetics only lol

so whats the difference between my servo and the ones on the firewall as standard?

is it not a simple case of removing servo, removing the massive bracket, rotating servo 180* horizontally, and bolting straight to the firewall?

im just so unfamiliar with engines/brakes....wish someone could come to the southwest and do this for me! haha

[e21-Mark]

Where are you?

Call http://www.rallyprep.co.uk and say I suggested you go there.

[YoureNotGold]

i know will there, but he is super super busy, actually making me some custom bits in the next few days.

this is why i hate this, its by no means finished, just basic preped...but you can see, a nice blank leg, with that eyesore down the middle!




How i want it to sit, so clean, fresh & classy.

[rob0r]

The only way you'd get it looking like that on the left hand side is by adapting the whole braking system off an E30 which has multiple pivots and use a linkage system 90 degrees from the pedal along the bulkhead behind the heater box, then 90 degrees out again into the engine bay. I've looked into this but it's a fair bit of work, and no guarentee the bar would pass behind the E21 heater.

Another consideration is mounting a smaller modern servo onto the back of the pedal box, I've seen it done on an E21 but it was highly modified (tilted engine, cut away heater channel), not sure standard engine bays would fit it.

[e21-Mark]

no guarentee the bar would pass behind the E21 heater.

It won't. We spent a chunk of time & effort looking at going the e30 route and it was far easier to go the way we have.

[YoureNotGold]

the above photo was to represent how it sat on the firewall....i meant it to remain on the drivers side,

[e21-Mark]

There isn't room mate, because the steering column comes through. The only options are really those that we've covered. You can fit an aftermarket pedal box but it's a lot of work. Partly because the e21 doesn't have a flat floor to ease installation. Because e21 have dual circuit brakes you have no option but to either a) run stock servo & linkage, b) run no servo and convert the cylinders to bolt to bulkhead as above, c) convert cylinders and run the SVC dual remote servo or d) fit an aftermarket pedal box.

If there was any way of simply turning the OE servo around I'm pretty sure someone (including BMW) would have done it.

[nas80]

yeah maybe you need to find the smallest depth and diameter brake booster you can, maybe you might find something that will fit.

who sprayed all that primer everywhere, obv masking tape and care wasnt given a shit about lol.