bmwe21.net forums

The engine has arrived.

NIce Lars

Even Arnold will stay behind in the smoke now. The new captain Slow

I do love old m20 and m30 engines when clea and rebuilt, they look lovely!

Couple from the 2.7 build I did and installed in a customers E28

Drooling time, nice job on the valve cover, wrinkle finish in the oven?

Yes it's wrinkle finish, I love the stuff and will be swapping my value cover over to my metal one on the m52 so I can do that as well. . I didn't have an oven so just let it air dry, first time using the stuff so it was. Little trial and error but came out nice. I did the inlet the same but you can't really see it in the pic.

I need a little drying room for painting small parts when we move units, I've got heaters so worth building something to bake in.

Here's a small pic of the vac cap on the m20 manifold, you know the saying watching paint dry right, well watching this stuff wrinkle as it dries is really fun! Hehe




And here's a pic of the 21, just the brakes to blead up after me taking the tanks off and cleaning and painting them before making new fuel and brake lines. Once the brakes are bled she's ready for exhaust, MOT. It'll have to wait till after my trip around Europe though as that's goin to cost a small fortune. . Getting close though, after 2+ years of the road!

What paint did you use? I hear there are considerable differences and the one you used doesn't seem too sensitive, heard about wrinkle paint failing in the oven

BTW E21 sure looks lik she's almost there! That's going to be fun

Brakes are bled up now...manifolds to sort next then and mate to my exhaust. I can't wait to get the car back on the road now. I wasn't that fussed about getting it done but it's so close now it's making me want to drive it. I even sat in it for the first time in 2yrs + and turned the wheel and shifted gear and made brum brum noises! Sad I know!!

The paint I used doesn't require an oven from what I remember. If I remember right you are supposed to layer the paint up over a period of time. I think it's something like left to right then wait a few mins then go up and down. Something like that anyway. I'll get a pic of the can with the instructions for you. If you want some I can always get it for you and ship it over if you were looking to buy some but can't get it locally. It seemed to do the job ok though.

I found the easiest way to get a good finish with crackle paint is to use an old hair drier (I don't use it much for my hair nowadays) and a cardboard box.

That might help. Just looking for a good brand of spray after hearing some horror stories.... where I didn't bother to write down the brand name

I bought a pair of new old stock opel ascona ate calipers for £18 which are identical to e21 calipers ....bargain !!

rebuilt my brake master cylinder and had the system pressure bled

Picked her up from the roll cage fabricator last weekend. Today I masked her up and sprayed the first coat of paint on the cage welds.

Had the central axle rebuilt, and exhaust (both central and final parts, not the manifold) replaced.
And had a short shifter fitted, the Schmiedmann one: Looks and feels great, anyone heard anything about its quality? Schmiedmann claim of very high quality, of course...