Uwbuurman: 1978 323i polaris: almost done

[uwbuurman]

Before that could go in, I had to grind down the welds on the bulk head.





After that I ripped out the bad produced W&N metal . Look close to see 2 ridges, there have to be 3! And the originals are much refined…So I ripped the lot out.





Finally time for dry fitting, it has to go in exactly right because the gaspedal is mouted to this piece. So I had to have an early start of building it up so I put in the steeringcolumn and pedalbox. Feels good to do this, instead of all that metal work.



Spot on!



It fits and has been measured!



Partly finished



Look at mu nice edge with cableclamp!

[uwbuurman]

On Friday, Agust 29, 2104 I finally managed to finish the front part of the floor.







After doing so I started on the jonit fromfloor to inner sill. Of course my outlined section for removal has 3 fuel and brakeline mountingpoints, right down on the cut. So I removed there first, writing down location and exact location.





Then I cut thru the floor. Because the floorboard is spotwelded, I udes a sharp wood chisel to chisel right thru the floor, in between of the spotwelds. With pliers, you can grab those single pieces and twist them so the spotweld snaps of.

[uwbuurman]

Having that piece of floor out of the way, I repaired the inner sill. Cleared of the rust, had a few spots to weld and primered it all.

[uwbuurman]

The new made strip, with wireharnass clamps, but I forgot the weldholes, so drilled them in.





Clamped in to fit





And welded







I still have to finish all te welding, but the metal is to warmed up fort ha right now, so that’ll be done after a cool down

[uwbuurman]

Due to a cooldown waiting period, I had time to start working on the front inner wing. On this side also the bad repairs around the brakehose bracket.

Cut out the bad part:



Rust and filler, over and over again…



This shows how well the repairs were protected after the work. *not*



Cut out the donor roughly

[uwbuurman]

Outlined to size:



Crap, this has some rust as well, but its all original!!



Outlined were to put I after rapairs, and took the bracket off.





In the meanwhile this is repairs, but somehow, I didn’t make pics of that.

[uwbuurman]

September 29th, 2014 Time for more pics.

For starters, the inner wing, front left. Earlier I showed the crap that I took out. Next step was to remove all the rust and other shit from the chassisbar. I used Rustico gel again, several layers and some 3 days of letting gel doing it’s work.



Because I can’t get to it later on, I applied expoxyprimer to the inside of the chassisbar. A part wil burn off while welding, but what stays on, stays on….



Same for the donorpart

[uwbuurman]

And welded in.



I have a sneakin’ suspicion not all epoxyprimer survived….



Other side, in the enginebay



Grinded down





And zincsprayed

[uwbuurman]

After I got all that sorted out, I went on with the floor. The whole strip is welded in.





The next step is to grind and sand it, but because this is a pretty long length, overheating the metal is a realistic danger. If that happens, the metal can get change in shape of gets bubbles, dents of other unwanted effects. Besides that, the thickness of the metal is also something you have to keep an eye on. You sand away to much easily. So I work in stages.



Floor is already grinded down, but had some more holes to it, I welded them already again.



Grinded and sanded and sprayed.

[uwbuurman]

But there are two sides So on with the underside.





Half finished, half first stage grinded down.



And grinded and sanded.

[uwbuurman]

Having the weld all grinded down, I drilled the holes for the remounting of the fuel and brakeline mountingpoints.



The bushes are welded, but a pic has tob e made (other day…) But now it’s time to get the seatmoutingbracket back in to place. Closer inspection learns that metalfatigue has gotten the bst of it, lots of rips in the metal.

Type 1 cars have different brackets then type 2. Type 1 have high btackets on both sides of the chair, where type 2 has a high side at the sill and a low side in the middle of the car. Mine is a type 1, but one of the last, so I have a type 2 inner bracket (low) and a high type 1 bracket at the sill side. The high one BMW improved later for the type 2. They have reinforcements where mine is cracked. So the problem was already known in 1978.

At one side: 1 on the edge, 1 appox. 5 mm llower on where the claps go on, one another 5mm lower, 1 across the hole, also on the other side of the hole and one underneat the cableclamp, which you can’t see on the pic. On the other side of the bracket all the same. So in total 10(!) cracks in the metal duet o fatigue….



Welded all the cracks and repaired the edge.



All fixed and in the primer.



Outlined the position. Next time I’ll weld it in.

[uwbuurman]

[uwbuurman]

[uwbuurman]

Welded and finished.

[uwbuurman]