Full of surprises. A 72 tii from the northeast

[stymee]

Happy Holidays to all!

While I was underneath the car cleaning up some stuff I got to looking at the repair I did on the driver frame rail about 10 months ago. Based on what I saw on the other side, I hit it real hard with a wire wheel and found another hole.

I was never happy with the lumpiness of the transition from the old rail to the new on this side so I decided to re-repair it.

Once again, a nice fitting patch with 14 gage steel. I want these rails to be solid enough to jack the car up with. You often see in tact frame rails all squished and crushed.

All welded in and cleaned up, this turned out nice (and strong).

And here's a shot of the other side all cleaned up.

Then it was on to the area where the rear sub fram mounts (that I cut out). I still won't weld anything in until I have the subframe to align everything, but I worked on getting stuff fabbed up and ready.

Here's how it all goes together.

And the final structural piece that goes on the outside. This is right above the rear jack point. This whole are is pretty interesting with all the overlapping formed pieces of sheet metal. I tried to stay somewhat close to original, but I didn't have any original pieces to go by, only pictures. I am excited to be able to Use the original jack points, is that sad?

I clamped the lower quarter panel from W&N in place to close up the remaining hole in the wheel well. I strayed a little from the original design, but I figure the fewer the seams the better.

And finally, the piece that I shouldn't have cut out. The lower quarter panel from W&N is very high quality and fits great, but it doesn't go all the way to the B pillar.

To the trunk! I had some time to kill so I started working on the passenger shock mount. I saw a small bubble when I bought the car.

And for once, it didn't turn out to be much worse than I thought! I did see some of the rust from inside the wheel well when I cleaned it up.

After cleaning up as much of the interior cavity as possible, I made a thick patch out of 14 gage and tacked it in.

Welded in and cleaned up.

Then from inside the wheel well I patched up the part that was rotten. The rest of the shock mount was in great shape and very solid. I am going to treat the inside cavities of both shock mounts.

[stymee]

I have been putting off cleaning up the interior because I knew it was going to suck. I still had some of the tar pads on the hump and the rear panel, as well as a lot of old paint, grime, carpet glue, etc. I definitely do not want to put my nice expensive coat of POR-15 over anything but bare metal. I also want to make sure I find every last scrap of rust and eliminate it. Here is an older shot of the interior with a lot of the sound deadening crap and paint and crud still in place.

I know I should have tried dry ice, but I never did find a source for it. Also, the areas other than the floor pans seem to be ahered much better, it did not come off nearly as easily as the rest. Has anyone had a lot of luck removing the bits from the tunnel and rear panel with dry ice?

So my arsenal included a propane torch (the push button ignition is awesome).

One of those oscillating multi tools (with a couple modified blades). I found that the stiff scraper works good for the thick stuff. I cut the nose down a little and added some serrations, which helped a lot.

And finally, the modified air hammer chisel. Thanks to Tom B. from the FAQ for this little tip. This thing worked awesome, just peeled back long strips of tar.

Lets not forget the most important tool of all - hours of effort! After a while, this is what I was left with.

Hitting small areas with the torch first really loosened up the bond. If I got it too hot, it would leave more glue behind, so it was a little hit or miss. Some areas cleaned up much better than others.

Since I was still left with a mess of glue and paint and crud, I thought I'd try some chemical paint strippers. I had visions in my head of laying down a nice coat of aircraft stripper, waiting an hour and coming back to a pristine shiny metal surface. That fairytale didn't come true...

I tried a couple different paint strippers, even the famed aircraft stripper. They are NASTY! I tried keeping a heater on the area, covering the layer of stripper with plastic, waiting longer, and nothing would easily remove the paint/primer. The stripper is also nasty to clean up. Make sure you have the correct kind of gloves if you work with that stuff! It started to eat through some gloves that I thought were chemical resistant, my hands got all warm and tingly! Anyhow, this is as far as I got with the chemical paint removal. Another thing to note in this picture is the crazy, crinkly joint between the wheel well and the rear panel. THis was all covered in a lot of seam sealer. Looks like a bad fit made worse with some tin snips! I will probably try to clean this up, though welding over pockets of seam sealer doesn't work out too well. It is solid at least.

Then I went back to my trusty old wire wheel. These things are great. They are a little pricey, but they do last pretty long. They work especially well if you reverse the disc every 15 minutes or so, it keeps the wires pointing in the direction you need them too. I put a spacer underneath it on the arbor when I flip it over, there are still plenty of threads to hold it on the side grinder.

Anyhow, here is a shot of the rear area after a couple hours with my side grinder and the wire wheel. This was hard work, but I got right down to bare metal, and got to see every inch of car I was stripping. Amazingly, I haven't uncovered much additional rust.

And after a couple more hours I had most of the interior stripped. I wear glasses, a dust mask and a polycarb face shield. Those wires will let go from the wheel and embed themselves in your face (ask me how I know). I also suggest hearing protection because the noise just reverberates off the bare metal.

I got a good way up the firewall before I quit for the day, I still have to get the rest of the firewall/foot wells and the kick panels. I didn't realize it until I was done, but my hands were really tingling from the vibration of the side grinder. And here I am typing this 3 days later and they still feel a little funny. The result was well worth the effort. Now I will feel much better putting my coat of POR-15 over fresh metal.

Coming soon - Heater box removal (and refurb). I am debating removing the dash, it is a little beat up and I would like to try one of the published vinyl repair procedures.

I am also seriously considering going with a no-console interior. I love the way they look. This would mean NOT re-installing my working Behr A/C system. But it didn't work all that great anyhow, and I figure I survived in my 1978 Olds Cutlass (with a '74 Olds 350 Rocket!) for 10 years without A/C.

[stymee]

The day of disassembly! It was time to pull out the heater box, which means draining the coolant. This led to a complete removal of the dash and most of the A/C system (gotta love "micro" scope creep). First step is to drain the coolant, all over the floor. Why is it that stuff goes everywhere BUT in the catch pan? The good news is that the coolant was bright green and very clean, no rust at all.

Then I disconnected the heater hoses. All that overspray in the air box bugs me...

I tried to take a bunch of pictures of all the A/C related wiring and relays. There was one grounded next to the heater box.

Next step is to remove the vent and temperature controls. Just pull the knobs off, and gently pry the panels out, which will uncover 2 screws for each panel.

I pushed the box from the top as well as pried a little from inside until the seal finally broke and we had separation. Here is a shot of the wiring connected.

And birth!

There is a pretty big crack in the case, I'll have to see how bad it is when I pull it apart.

Next up was the removal of the rest of the A/C system. First step was to pull the radiator. It was actually in excellent shape, the inside looks very clean.

Next I pulled out the fan and condenser.

There is quite a lot of bracketry holding everything together.

There was also a bunch of extra wiring everywhere, I'm beginning to wonder if it was truly factory installed...

I need a pic of the entire A/C assembly and all of the wiring. I would like to weigh it as well.

[stymee]

On to the dash. There are several screws holding the lower dash in from the bottom, these are all easy to see and reach. There are 4 fasteners and two clips holding the upper dash in, and two more screws holding the lower dash in that are a little more difficult to access. Two behind the instrument cluster to either side of the control knobs. To remove the cluster, you need to unscrew the speedo cable, and two round knurled nuts. Some gentler prying and it will pull out.

One of the nuts is just behind the wiper speed knob on the right, and the other is behind the fan speed knob on the left. The headlight and wiper speed knob both unscrew, the cigarette lighter has a slim nut on the back. The fan speed knob has a small 8mm nut under the aluminum cover. Be gently when prying it out!

Remove the cover that surrounds the steering column and you will uncover two more screws holding in the lower dash.

The last two are at either end of the dash, underneath. There is a captured bolt running from the upper dash through the lower dash and the metal frame. Unfortunately for me, the nut was rusted and fused to the bolt, which was no longer captured! When I turned it, it just spun. Same on the other side.

The lower dash cannot be removed until these are out.

After a little meditation, I cut the bolts off. Unfortunately, I also cut into the wire that goes up the A column to the dome light. Sigh. Blurry shot, but I was finally able to lift the upper dash high enough to pull out the lower.

The car definitely had a windshield leak at each corner at some point in its past. That is apparently what rusted the two bolts/nuts. There wasn't much corrosion and there was no evidence of recent leaks.

Here's a shot of the bolt I cut. I measured the length so I can replace them (with stainless steel, probably!).

The upper dash was a little tricky to remove, I had to disengage the little clips near the windshield. All in all, not too bad once I realized what I was doing! Should be a lot easier going back in. I plan on trying some vinyl repair procedures on the dash. I can't make it any worse than it is!

With all that out of the way I can continue to clean up the firewall/under dash area and hopefully start laying down some POR-15 on the interior.

[scanner]

Wow, we both have spent our Xmas holidays in a very similar way - check my Blog! http://2002bmwinnz.blogspot.com/ - even the same colour, you are a lot further down the track than me which is good for my inspiration, following progress with great interest

[canadapierre]

Later cars were required to have door crash bars added as a safety measure. My guess is that one door was damaged and replaced with such a later door.

Love your enthusiasm and persistence. Thanks for motivating me to get out there and get metalworking!

[deschodt]

Similar car and problems as you... I got pros to patch my 2002 floors but I'm currently trying to patch the battery box on my 68 912... My welder is not as nice as your handy mig, it's a $90 harbor freight unit with 2 power settings... It's fine on thick stuff but I got lots of burn thru even at low levels on thin steel (22 gauge)...

Question for you: are you using your handy mig as a flux core only (no gas), or are you also connected to a gas bottle, like your welder can (mine can't) ?

What wire size do you use on thinner body panels ?

I'm trying to figure out the cheapest upgrade that will make my welding easier... I'm impressed by your welding progress, that's my goal as well, so I'd like to hear from you.... any other welding tips you picked up along the way, please let me know ! Great thread, great job !

Greg.

[stymee]

Wow, we both have spent our Xmas holidays in a very similar way - check my Blog! http://2002bmwinnz.blogspot.com/ - even the same colour, you are a lot further down the track than me which is good for my inspiration, following progress with great interest

I checked out your blog, man our cars are so similar in some areas, and so different in others. All of my rot is from the bottom up. Keep up the good work and stay inspired!

[stymee]

Later cars were required to have door crash bars added as a safety measure. My guess is that one door was damaged and replaced with such a later door.

Love your enthusiasm and persistence. Thanks for motivating me to get out there and get metalworking!

Thanks for the info and the kind words, motivation is free around here!

[stymee]

Question for you: are you using your handy mig as a flux core only (no gas), or are you also connected to a gas bottle, like your welder can (mine can't) ? What wire size do you use on thinner body panels ?

Here is my welder on the cart with the bottle:

I am using CO2/Argon gas in a small bottle. It ran me around $100 to get it initially from a local welding supply store. They are a great resource, the folks behind the counter can help you with just about anything. It costs me about $30 to refill it, and so far one bottle lasted about 9 months and 2 and a half 2 lb rolls of wire.

I am using .025" Lincoln wire. Obviously no flux core since I have the gas. My welder came with everything for gas except the bottle, so it was easy to set up. I added a nice adjustable gas regulator. I think the smallest wire you can get with flux core is .035" which is probably much harder to use on thin sheet. 22 gage is way thin and really hard to weld. I used 20 gage for most of my thin patches, that extra .006" of thickness really does make a difference with butt welding.

Also, the cart makes it a whole lot easier to move the welder around, especially with the bottle. I got mine at Northern Tool for around $40, so worth it.

I guess I got a good deal on the welder, $262.67 from Amazon with free shipping a year ago. It looks like its up around $400 now. I was a little worried when I bought it because it was a "low end" model, but I have been real happy with it so far. For reference here are the settings I use for different thicknesses/welds:

14 gage butt welding: Power=High/2 Feed=9

18 gage butt welding: Power=High/1 Feed=7

20 gage butt welding: Power=Low/1 Feed=5

18 gage plug welding: Power=High/1 Feed=7

Good luck and keep at it.

[deschodt]

Thanks a lot, that's all the info I needed to move forward. I've gone as far as I can with my crap equipment ;-)

[stymee]

POR-15 time! I did most of the interior in two stages. First, I cleaned, prepped and POR-15'd the areay behind/under the rear seat. Prep is the most important step!

I always worry about brushing this stuff on, but it always evens itself out. Looks good!

Then I got side tracked by this one last lapped repair. I should have just fixed it before I put on the POR, but I took advantage of some warmer temperatures. Anyhow, here's the paper pattern.

And the 20 gage metal patch. I still had some trimming left to do after this shot. This piece was actually kinda fun to make. The only tricky part was where the one bend tapered into the other.

Tacked in.

And welded in. Now I feel much better, that old patch, though well done some time ago, was going to haunt me.

Fast forward a bit, I cleaned up the panel that goes under the rear seat, tacked it in and test fit the seat.

It's kina neat to actually see some interior in the interior!

Then it was time to clean/prep the front part of the interior. This took a long time. It would be a whole lot easier if I could roll the car outside and use the hose!

Two coats of POR-15 later, and it's looking good!

I missed a few spots when applying the second coat, it is tough to see the spots that still need the second coat.

I stopped short of the firewall. I figure it will be easier to reach those areas from inside the car.

In between coats, I started tearing apart the heater box. I think the furry creature that was living in the frame rail may have made a winter home of the heater box!

And I found the reason I only had 2 speeds for my heater fan.

Heater core is in good shape, it wasn't leaking. I will still have this boiled out and pressure tested (hopefully along with the radiator).

The fan looked good, too. I am thinking this had been replaced at some point. Based on the rivets and cracks, it looks like this box had been rebuilt at least once before. It was either done a loooong time ago, or was half assed. I plan on gluing the cracks back together, reinforcing the heater valve mount and replacing all of the little shoulder bushings. I want this box to work better than new!

I also decided to dig in to the infamous heater control valve. Mine is the old, all brass version. It wasn't leaking, but I wanted to open it up and replace the o-rings.

I took some extra pictures of the lever position when opened and closed. I read plenty of horror stories about people putting everything back together and having it backwards. I also marked the lever and cover.

These little flat head screws almost stripped out. I left them soaking with PB blaster for a few days and finally got them loose, phew.

Here it is before I cleaned it up. The o-ring on the shaft was pretty flat.

It is a pretty simple design, why are these $290? I thought I would find something sealing the back plate, but it was just metal to metal. I guess I'll clean this thing up with some soft brass brushes and my little dremel.

[stymee]

I got some nice headlight buckets from a fellow faqer. They were complete and in far better shape than mine, which were a little bent, very rusty and missing those little threaded nylon blocks. First step after separating the two pieces was a little time in the blaster.

My neighbor let me "borrow" his really nice blast cabinet. It also has a vaccuum on it, which really helps keep the media clean. It works great, but my compressor can't quite keep up with constant blasting for more than 10 minutes or so at 60 psi. So in between being distracted helping my buddy put an entire rear axle in his old ford van, I got all of the parts done. The actual headlight bucket part is identical, left and right. The back part is slightly different.

Hella clean!

While I had some help I decided to drop the transmission. I have a lead on an engine hoist, so I decided against dropping the motor/transmission out of the bottom. It came out looking quite nasty! It looks wet here because I already had a coat of degreaser working away at it.

Fast forward a few hours of scrubbing and it looks almost brand new!

I am super happy how clean it came out. I messed around with a brass wire brush on the bellhousing, I may try to really shine the thing up.

This is a 5 speed out of an '81 320. The swap was fairly well done, the shifter mechanism was also in good shape.

Here's a shot inside the bellhousing, it was pretty nasty in there as well.

It's amazing how good this car was mechanically considering all of the rotten sheet metal below the rockers.

[stymee]

It's been a busy week! I got my parts back from powder coating, and couldn't be happier with how they turned out. I wish I could get my whole car powder coated. It is quite durable (don't ask how I found out already). Anyhow, on to the pics!

I sent the pedal box, pedals, rear brake backing plates, rear subframe straps, diff hanger, subframe and swingarms.

So, with the rear subframe back in hand, I bolted on the rubber mounts and got to work. I had lots of measurments of the subframe location, but it still took a while to get it all lined up.

Here it is in its final resting place.

Tacked in.

Here is the final layer on the outside, 2 coats of POR-15 on the inside, then weld thru primer.

Things are getting more and more solid! I wanted to get it nice and strong because I will be putting a lot of heat into that thick metal.

After putting more welds on the rear subframe suppot panels, I moved on to the last piece of the rear floor. Here is the cardboard version.

And the metal version, all plug and butt welded in.

Back underneath, I finished up all the seams, this is SOLID. I am very pleased with how this turned out. This repair probably had me worried the most as it is a major structural area, was very complicated, and if I didn't get it lined up right, it would throw off the thrust angle of the car.

Welding thicker stuff is soooooo easy compared to 20 gage. This stuff is about as thick as my little welder could handle. I got good penetration, but I wouldn't want to weld much thicker.

One more big hole in the rear wheel well to fill in.

Then I got distracted by the missing B pillar support panel. I noticed one on the passenger side when peering down inside the rocker. I found some rocker repair pics on the FAQ and sure enough, there should be something coming off the B pillar.

Yet another shortcut on a repair! Grrrrr.

The new support panel is on the right. These are blasted and soaking in Prep&Ready so they can get 2 coats of POR-15 on the hidden parts before they are welded in.

I mounted the lower quarter panel to make sure everything would fit properly.

After lathering the entire inside of the rear subframe support panels with POR-15, I welded the panel in.

And an inside shot of the last hole in the interior closed up! Time to celebrate!

But first, weld in that B pillar support...

In between coats of POR, I messed around with all the fasteners and bits that came out with the shifter and transmission.

The frankenstein theme continues. The shifter itself is a "late" bent one, the parts holding it in were about half late and half early. The shifter linkage and coupling are both early. Go figure.

Blasted some brackets while I was bored. Left to right is the exhaust hanger (I'm going to stamp C.D. on this), the bolt in transmission mounts, and a shifter bracket.

Found a crack in the end of the support bracket.

Nothing a little weld can't fix.

My shortened shift selector rod.

As I type this, my last coat of POR-15 on the last patches is drying. Next up should be the rest of the rocker, and then if I'm brave enough, the lower quarter and wheel arch repair. Hopefully I have enough practice keeping the heat down so I can minimize warpage and not have to use too much body filler.

I got a deal on a hoist, so the engine should be coming out soon. Then I can drop the front subframe and send another load off for powder coating. Vintage, here we come!

[stymee]

Prepare for some serious stream of conciousness type work here. I dabbled in a lot of areas over the last week.

First off, back to the shift tower support bracket. In mine, the bushing was a piece of rubber hose! It fits ok, but there is a little slop. I can't find the piece alone, I guess it is molded to the bracket?

Assembled:

Now for the part I have been worried about. My first "visible" body panel welding. Everything else up to this point has been hidded stuff, so a little warpage and ugly welds don't hurt. Here is the Walloth & Nesch aftermarket wheel arch repair panel. I opted for these over the BMW ones because they covered more area (I didn't know at the time how far the rust would go), and I'm cheap. It is also much easier to cut straight lines with my cutoff wheel.

The fit is actually pretty good. This panel is a hair (literally) thinner than the quarter panel.

While I was in there, I drilled new holes for the re-routed sunroof drains.

I went real slow, jumping around a lot, in hopes that I wouldn't warp such a large flat expanse of thin steel.

This took about 3 hours. For comparison, I welded in a whole floor pan in around an hour. With the weld to the inner wheel well, this area is pretty solid now. Amazing how much strength you can get from sheet metal when it has some structure.

I still ended up with some warpage. The welded seem sunk in a bit, maybe 1/8". I can probably hammer and dolly it back out.

Then my buddy, Mike, showed up and it was time to yank the motor! I got a screaming deal on a harbor freight 2 ton hoist. I had to do a side removal because there was no room in front of the car. That also let me leave the hood on.

Thanks for the help, Mike! He doesn't realize how famous he is now.

I let him do all the work while I took pictures.

I had seen a picture of an M10 mounted sideways on a stand. But there really aren't many choices for bolt holes.

Instead of just looking the picture up again, we made a trip to lowes for some hardware. The lower bolts for the engine mount were easy, lowes had M10 bolts long enough. However, the smaller bolts were M8, lowes did't have anything long enough. I must credit my friend with the idea, buy some 5/16 bolts, cut off the threads and cut some metric threads in them. Worked like a charm.

Overall, the engine is in great shape. The tii linkages are shot, they are all floppy and loose.

In case anyone is wondering what a complete Behr A/C system weighs. 61 lbs.

I also pressed in my new OEM rubber diff mount bushings. My 36mm socket was just a bit too small to use to press them in, so it took a little fanagling. I was so paranoid about putting them in upside down.

I also shot the inside of my rear subframe with some Eastood internal frame coating. That little spray tube/nozzle is pretty slick!

While watching football, I pulled out the dismantled heater box and measured the rods/holes to try and figure out what size shoulder bushings I would need. Here is what I came up with:

I couldn't find anything exactly that size. I will post what actually works in the end. Unfortunately, I cannot find any part numbers for the black bushings that go from rod to rod, they were in good shape and the size looks about right for the rod to box connection as well.