Baby Blue - Progress Thread

[Faheem]

I think it's time that I do a progress thread as I've got posts scattered everywhere on the forum and no real recollection of what I've done or when it has been done.

I'll start from the beginning.

In August 2015 I passed my driving test it was time to buy a car, I had the Z3 in mind and was looking at something in the £1000-2000 range, I saw all sorts on auto trader and wanted a Z3 fast, I was considering high mileage cars, some with over 150k miles but thankfully my dad stopped me and he found for me a lovely 1.9l Z3 with 60,000 miles on the clock. Car was clean with little or no rust on the body, previous owner purchased in 2013 for £3000 and I picked it up in August 2015 for £1800 - BARGAIN (or so I thought)

My mechanical knowledge was limited when I bought the car as I'd never been interested in the actual mechanics of car until I bought this. In fact I'm pretty sure that my dad had to point me to where the windscreen washer fluid was!

Here are a few pictures taken of the car on the day

We bought the car from Merseyside and dad actually drove it back as I had no motorway driving experience at the time.

All was good on the way back in that nothing blew up and the car didn't break down but there were a few problems:

• 3rd brake light didn't work
• Masses of water leaking into boot
• Soft Top leaking
• Annoying whining noise coming from somewhere and the noise could be heard usually on deceleration
• Fuel consumption excessive - 12-15MPG

Here are a few pictures of the car in original condition - as I bought it - these were taken after we got back home and had the car washed.

This was meant to be a fix for the soft top leaking - needless to say it didn't work for very long.

Not knowing much mechanically I took it to a garage to have them look at why the car was running so rich and so came my first garage bill:

Bill - 07/09/15 - £213.65

• Camshaft Sensor replaced
• Split breather hoses under inlet manifold replaced
• Emissions correct after clearing error data

Thankfully the above bill was covered by the dealer that I bought the car from as the car was still under warranty.

Less than a month later, the whining noise was driving me nuts so I bit the bullet and took the car to the garage and they were shocked to see how corroded the brake pipes were. They also addressed the third brake light not working which was down to the loom having split in the middle, this was soldered back together and covered in heat shrink tubing if I remember correctly.

Pictures of brake hoses & pipes - all perished!

Bill - 02/10/15 - £356.56

• Handbrake shoes and cables replaced
• All brake hoses and rear brake pipes replaced
• Third brake light gasket replaced and sealant placed around the gasket to prevent water ingress
• Soft top release latch lock screw seized - replaced

Another little niggle I had when I originally bought the car was that the clock in the centre console didn't work, the LCD display was cracked. This was a quick fix as I managed to source a replacement on eBay - the E36 Compacts share the same clock!

Bill - 24/04/15 - £12.99

Around Christmas I treated myself to a set of twin exhaust tips from eBay...

Bill - 21/12/16 - £15

• Exhaust Tip
• Have tip welded on

It looked okay but didn't really fill the gap very well - about 6 months after, it started to corrode quite badly!

In January 2016, I'd had the car for a few months and with the amount it had cost in garage bills to keep the car running any normal person would have sold it there and then - however, I'm far from normal, so I stuck with the car - fitted the plugs myself but didn't fit the fuel filter until the end of the year with help from @t-tony

Bill - 14/01/16 - £22.47

• 4 x Bosch Super Plus Spark Plugs
• MANN Fuel Filter

I was blessed with another problem - knocking from the rear - which I proudly diagnosed myself but when it came time to remove the shock mounts I was unable to as the nut was spinning on the threads - so another garage visit.

Bill - 19/01/16 - £75.27

• Replaced both strut top mounts

In February, I decided to carry out some preventative maintenance - or at least that's what I thought it was:

Bill - 11/02/16 - £31.78

• K-Seal Cooling System Repair
• 5l Red Antifreeze
• Triple QX Screenwash

To this day I honestly don't know why I put K-Seal.... There was no coolant loss but I thought... 'preventative maintenance' - I regret putting it in the system massively - but haven't had an issue with it yet.

Late February I fitted a K&N Induction kit to the car - no performance increase noticed - sounds a lot nicer though:

Bill - 25/02/16 - £91.80

Next came a few good months of zedding and by good I mean, money free! Except fuel of course!

I needed a drivers side floor mat but couldn't find any originals in good condition, so I bought a pair of mats from eBay. When they arrived some of the stitching was poor in quality so I sent them a message to complain and got a full refund and got to keep the mats!

Bill - 03/06/16 - £24.95 - but refunded so £0.00

However, MOT was costly - there was an advisory the previous year of slight play in ball joint and I thought to replace both control arms, I did the O/S myself but it was so tedious with all the rusted bolts that I gave the garage the arm to fit on the N/S, also needed two near front tyres as the old ones were perished and had cuts in the sidewall. Went with Pirelli P7's - not cheap at all!

Bill - 10/06/16 - £431.60 (MOT, Tyres and fitting of the supplied control arm)
Bill - 25/05/16 - £127.45 - Febi Control Arms and Wishbone Bushes
Bill - 08/06/16 - £12.24 - 2 x Stabiliser Links

The rear window was certainly showing its age as the stitching had started to come apart. The soft top had also shrunk where it met the A-Pillar.

So it was time to get rid of the old and get a replacement fitted!

Bill - 07/07/16 - £550

I was hoping this would cure the leak, it didn't, the car would still let water in from the A-Pillars and this drove me mad.

A few days after the new roof, it was time for a full body polish -

I thought this would be a good idea as a lot of things go missed and don't get documented. I like having something to refer back to when I want and I know it also makes a good read for some.

There's lots more to cover, but I'll do that in the post below.

 

[Faheem]

Shortly after having the new roof fitted it was time to re-dye my steering wheel as the leather had become worn, presumably from years of UV radiation...

Bill - 09/08/16 - £14.95 (eBay)

The flash in the below picture makes the steering wheel look worse than it was but it was quite bad...

This is after - significant improvement.

September 2016 - I decided that it was time to replace the rear brake pads - in hindsight this could have waited as there was plenty of thickness left on the pads and having dug through the old invoices they were replaced not too long ago. Whilst trying to replace the pads I broke the wear sensor, so that had to be replaced too!

Bill - 03/09/16

• £17.10 - Pagid Brake Pads
• £9.50 - Brake Pad Wear Indicator

As some of you may know I had two Z3's around this time, one being this one and the other being a black Z3 which I've now sold on to a happy new zedder, one of the issues with the black Z3 was that the mirror had snapped, I bought a replacement mirror, the X8R variant and decided to fit that to my car as the old mirrors kept oxidising and the stem would have likely snapped if I tried to tilt the mirror in. Unfortunately during the removal of the old mirror, I applied too much force to the mirror glass in one particular direction and it ended up shattering - I had to buy a flat mirror glass of eBay and stick this over the old backing plate - I'm not happy with the finish as it isn't a perfect match at the corners of the backing plate!

Bill - 04/10/16 - £80.00

• Mirror Spindle
• Aerosol's
• Flat Mirror Glass

I was browsing through Gumtree one day and came across a tonneau cover in excellent condition, so that was purchased. Whilst it gives the car a 'complete' look, I found that it is a pain to put on and remove each time you have the roof down so it only goes on for special occasions!

Bill - 10/10/16 - £70

• Tonneau Cover
• Delivery

Also on the 10th I ordered a short antenna for the Z3 - I was inspired by the one that @Antm72 has on his car and I think it looks miles better than the original that is supplied with the car and suits the car unlike other examples that I've seen.

Winter was closing in and I spotted a set of 4 lovely alloys on Gumtree which looked to be excellent condition besides from the centre caps. They came without tyres but as they were 16's I could do a straight swap with the tyres on my existing wheels.

Bill - 02/11/16 - £130

• 4 Alloy Wheels - Style 104 - delivered from Scotland to Leicester
• Fitting and balancing of tyres on new alloy wheels

Excuse the poor picture quality but here is a picture of the car straight after the wheels were fitted.


Whilst I was having these fitted, I was also having a separate conversation with Steve (@Low Rider) in regards to some Roll Hoops he had for sale, and after a bit of persuading and haggling I managed to grab the kit for £180. As Steve rightly pointed out, this did change the look of the car!

Bill - 05/11/16 - £180

Next, the final piece of the jigsaw, the wind deflector to go over the roll hoops. Again, whilst I had my eye on this for a while, I was waiting for it to come up at a reasonable price on eBay, and indeed it did, I bagged the deflector at a bargain price.

Bill - 20/12/16 - £68.00

It was around this time that I started experiencing issues starting the car, it started off as a minor annoyance but grew worse overtime, until I didn't really know whether the car would start or not in the morning.

Despite these issues, I was determined not to take the zed to a garage again (bills and the small bits and pieces that would come damaged - small scuffs on trim pieces - a dent on the plastic window etc.)

In December (perfect time for outdoor Zed work), I decided to do an overhaul of the cooling system - unfortunately, removal of the water pump seemed difficult as I couldn't remove the 5mm allen bolt that held it in place. @Brian4 offered to come over and he helped to remove the water pump and put everything back together. There was also something in my spark plug well and Brian helped me remove this offending piece with a long piece of PVC pipe.

Bill - 17/12/2016 - £124.40

• Water Pump
• Thermostat
• Radiator Cap
• Wiper Blade
• Oil Filter
• 5 l - 5w-40 Shell Helix Oil
• 1 l - 5w-40 Shell Helix Oil

My problems with the cold start were getting worse, if the car was stood around for more than 5-6 hours it would take a couple of tries to get it started - here is what it sounded like -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FGai2cl-dg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqo8_hI8zXE


The only stored code was P0130 - indicating a faulty oxygen sensor, but members on here pointed out that the oxygen sensor wouldn't be responsible for any cold start issues.

I'd already had the camshaft sensor replaced, but my suspicions went there as I suspected it wasn't OEM - I purchased a Lucas sensor which came with a 3 year warranty, after fitting the sensor I was getting a fault code indicating a faulty cam sensor - bizarre as the sensor was new - this was returned and the old sensor was fitted back into the vehicle. Total cost - £0.00 - that's more like it!

It then turned into a guessing game, which could have become very expensive - thankfully it didn't!

Bill - 09/01/17 - £12.56

• NGK Spark Plug x4

Bill - 21/01/17 - £11.72

• Standard Paper Air Filter

The replacement of spark plugs and fitting the standard airbox with a new air filter made little or no difference to the car starting, it was still very rough on a cold start and I was beginning to have a lot of doubts as I'd invested a lot of time and money into the car by this point!

Members on the forum suggested that I perform a compression test, unfortunately I didn't have a testing kit, so I drove off to see Tony and we did the compression test as well as flushed the brake fluid and replaced the fuel filter. The test was done on a warm engine and compression on all 4 cylinders was at 175PSI which indicated to a healthy engine.

Tony suggested that a compression test should be performed on a cold engine, the very next day I set off to do this and that was not a good day!

Cyl 1 - 180
Cyl 2 - 50
Cyl 3 - 125
Cyl 4 - 180



I also found that after this compression test I was unable to tighten down the spark plug in Cylinder 4, as soon as I started the engine, the plug just popped out indicating that the threads no longer held the plug in place.

Tony then suggested one last method before beginning a major strip down or an engine swap - this was to use an engine flush and then fill the engine up with fresh oil and some valve lifter treatment.

I had to call a mobile technician to fit a time sert into the cylinder - my only concern is removing the time sert when it comes time to change spark plugs again!

Bill - 02/02/2017 - £110.81

• Time Sert fitting and call-out charge
• Wynns Engine Flush
• Wynns Hydraulic Valve Lifter Treatment
• Mann Oil Filter Paper Element
• Triple QX Synplus Fully Synthetic 1l
• Mobil 1 New Life Engine Oil 0w-40

Thankfully this fixed the issue - although not immediately and it seems to have cured it over several weeks. I still get the occasional day where the engine has a few seconds of rough idling but it is nowhere near as bad as it was before. No codes are being thrown out now, checked using an OBDII scanner and Inpa.

There's lots more still to come! This is going to take a while...

At this point in time as the car was being used daily I needed some good bulbs as the cheap ones I kept getting from eBay looked very nice but had a short lifespan of around 3 months!

I picked up some Osram Night Breakers and whilst they are okay, they're not quite as bright as what I had expected.

Bill - 12/02/17 - £20.75

Being very unfortunate, along came another problem. I'd just pulled into the car park at work and parked my zed, I then tried to close my windows, the drivers side window, went all the way up, came off the rails and made a loud clunking noise.

The cause for this was that a factory style rivet had broken off meaning that the regulator was no longer being held in its intended position, this meant that when the window would rise up, it didn't hit the stop and instead went past it and ultimately took the window of its rails! The regulator had also been damaged so I had to source a new one as I needed the car on a daily basis.

It became incredibly difficult to find a new regulator as this is apparently a common problem and when this does happen the regulator also suffers some damage.

This is what would happen with the old regulator which was now damaged and no longer correctly aligned.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icvuPg1rDB0


A new one had to be purchased from ECP which cost an awful lot of money for something you never see. The old rivet was welded back on - though I did try and use a bolt initially (this didn't work) hence the need to go to a welder.

Bill - 27/02/17 - £128.84

• Window Regulator - without motor £120
• Welding Rivet - £5
• Window Regulator Clips - £3.84

 

[Faheem]

Finally, time for the fun bit!

So along came March and I decided to, after almost a year of making my mind up, fit a performance exhaust - or rather - have one fitted. I'm sure I've posted this on the forum about a thousand times but this will be the last, I promise! The initial intention was to fix a buzzing sound that I had - and to this day I'm not entirely sure whether the exhaust was responsible for that noise... After having the new system the noise did go away but a similar sort of noise re-appeared a few months on!

It's a stainless straight through cat back system which makes the 1.9 sound considerably better than it did out of the factory.

View: https://youtu.be/fGHaGrI9IgI


Bill - 16/03/17 - £295

Following this, I decided to change the gearbox oil and the diff oil - straight forward job - although breaking the diff bolt loose was a challenge and there was some force involved that when it did break loose, my hand hit the ground which such force that I damaged my fingernail which fell off shortly afterwards!

Didn't notice much of a difference after the change, gear changes are a bit smoother on a cold start but no significant improvement.

I used Redline D4 ATF for the gearbox oil and Redline 75w090 GL5 for the diff.

Bill - 29/04/17 - £60

Next came the refurb of the spare tyre carrier, the tray, the carrier itself, the tyre, and the valve going to the tyre - straight forward job, the bolt holding the carrier had to be grinded off as it had corroded away and I could no longer get a 10mm socket onto it.

Bill - £20 - 07/05/17

• Satin Black paint
• New space saver wheel (from a newer BMW - same spec)
• Tyre Valve Extension

More details can be found in this thread: https://zroadster.org/threads/wheel-carrier-restoration-picture-heavy.17758/

Shortly after this, I did, probably, once of the biggest things I've done in the period I've owned the car, it's not a particularly challenging job but it is certainly one that requires patience and time... lots of it, especially if you don't want to damage the interior trim which is easy to do! The plan was to strip the interior down in order to allow my carpets to dry.

All the rust that had formed from damp being present in the car was treated to a bit of direct to rust 8 year protection hammerite (of course, this was after it was sanded down!)

Whilst I had the seats out, I took the opportunity to stitch back together a part of the seat which had given way - I finally put the nylon thread that I purchased to good use. Finish result was far from perfect but it was functional and prevented the damage from increasing.

The amount of damp that had been in the car left the seats looking in a sorry state - this is the state of the seats after the leather and cushion had been removed!

Everything was put back together and as planned the job was completed in the 3 days that I had allocated it. However, it had to be put back together as I needed the car to commute to work in- ideally I wanted to get a bulb for the centre console as the one behind the heater control panel had blown, unfortunately I had to order this bulb as well as a few other trim pieces from BMW

Bill - 28/05/17 - £17 - Hammerite
Bill - 02/06/17 - £21.80 - Trim Pieces

Also whilst all of this was ongoing I had ordered a can holder from BMW - expensive - but it's an absolute necessity, you don't know what you've been missing out on until you have it in the car.

Bill - 27/05/17 - £50.06

MOT was coming up soon after I finished this and I needed 2 new rear tyres before I took it in for its test, I went for Avon ZV7 - very impressed with the price as well as the quality of these. Front end was aligned after replacing the tyres.

Bill - 05/06/17 - £190.75

Next on the agenda was a new centre console as mine had become butchered when I tried to install a new stereo to the car - as well as that I spilt a tiny drop of super glue and it looked a mess!

This was the old - original centre console

As you can see part of the trim around the heater control panel is damaged and there is also some damage around where the stereo is housed, unacceptable!

So, I began to search for a replacement console on eBay - which are difficult to find (in good condition, at least).

There was this chap who breaks Z3's in Coventry who supposedly had several consoles available, I nipped over there the following day and I found my perfect console, the finish is a bit like marmite and not to everyone's taste but I think it's far better than having damaged trim in the car.

This was pulled from a facelift and I couldn't source an analogue clock, so went with a digital instead. I have yet to wire in the BC stalk or the temperature probe so some functions are redundant.

Unfortunately.... That wasn't the only thing I picked up whilst in Coventry

I also bought a pair of boomerangs to go with my new centre console - these were originally green so had to be re-dyed to black. Not a bad finish.

And finally, the biggest purchase of the day was....

I picked up these bad boys, a pair of sport seats in very good condition, there is a seat belt guide that's broken and that'll be addressed later!

It was indeed a very expensive day for me. Worth every penny though, now that it's done.

So here's my biggest spend to date:

Bill - 06/06/17 - £810
Sport Seats
Wooden Trim
Extended leather boomerangs
OBC Clock
Heated Seats Switches
M Sport Single Stage Airbag (which was supposedly free!)

Heated seats has yet to be wired in as the car came from the factory without, it's a job for another day!

Final job that should bring us up to date with all the work that has been done to the car (I'm sure that there is stuff that I've missed but I'll add that in as I remember) is the steering wheel, I sent an M-Sport wheel of for a re-trim - this is a wheel I picked up from a low mileage Z3 which had been scrapped, the wheel was in great condition.

I went for a flat bottom wheel with perforated edges and nappa leather at the top and bottom

Bill - 13/06/17 - £220

• Retrim £200
• Cost of M Sport Wheel £20

 

[Low Rider]

I think it's time that I do a progress thread as I've got posts scattered everywhere on the forum and no real recollection of what I've done or when it has been done.

I'll start from the beginning.

In August 2015 I passed my driving test it was time to buy a car, I had the Z3 in mind and was looking at something in the £1000-2000 range, I saw all sorts on auto trader and wanted a Z3 fast, I was considering high mileage cars, some with over 150k miles but thankfully my dad stopped me and he found for me a lovely 1.9l Z3 with 60,000 miles on the clock. Car was clean with little or no rust on the body, previous owner purchased in 2013 for £3000 and I picked it up in August 2015 for £1800 - BARGAIN (or so I thought)

My mechanical knowledge was limited when I bought the car as I'd never been interested in the actual mechanics of car until I bought this. In fact I'm pretty sure that my dad had to point me to where the windscreen washer fluid was!

Here are a few pictures taken of the car on the day
View attachment 59287
View attachment 59288
We bought the car from Merseyside and dad actually drove it back as I had no motorway driving experience at the time.

All was good on the way back in that nothing blew up and the car didn't break down but there were a few problems:

• 3rd brake light didn't work
• Masses of water leaking into boot
• Soft Top leaking
• Annoying whining noise coming from somewhere and the noise could be heard usually on deceleration
• Fuel consumption excessive - 12-15MPG

Not knowing much mechanically I took it to a garage to have them look at why the car was running so rich and so came my first garage bill:

Bill - 07/09/15 - £213.65

• Camshaft Sensor replaced
• Split breather hoses under inlet manifold replaced
• Emissions correct after clearing error data

Thankfully the above bill was covered by the dealer that I bought the car from as the car was still under warranty.

Less than a month later, the whining noise was driving me nuts so I bit the bullet and took the car to the garage and they were shocked to see how corroded the brake pipes were. They also addressed the third brake light not working which was down to the loom having split in the middle, this was soldered back together and covered in heat shrink tubing if I remember correctly.

Bill - 02/10/15 - £356.56

• Handbrake shoes and cables replaced
• All brake hoses and rear brake pipes replaced
• Third brake light gasket replaced and sealant placed around the gasket to prevent water ingress
• Soft top release latch lock screw seized - replaced

In January 2016, I'd had the car for a few months and with the amount it had cost in garage bills to keep the car running any normal person would have sold it there and then - however, I'm far from normal, so I stuck with the car - fitted the plugs myself but didn't fit the fuel filter until the end of the year with help from @t-tony

Bill - 14/01/16 - £22.47

• 4 x Bosch Super Plus Spark Plugs
• MANN Fuel Filter

I was blessed with another problem - knocking from the rear - which I proudly diagnosed myself but when it came time to remove the shock mounts I was unable to as the nut was spinning on the threads - so another garage visit.

Bill - 19/01/16 - £75.27

• Replaced both strut top mounts

In February, I decided to carry out some preventative maintenance - or at least that's what I thought it was:

Bill - 11/02/16 - £31.78

• K-Seal Cooling System Repair
• 5l Red Antifreeze
• Triple QX Screenwash

To this day I honestly don't know why I put K-Seal.... There was no coolant loss but I thought... 'preventative maintenance' - I regret putting it in the system massively - but haven't had an issue with it yet.

Late February I fitted a K&N Induction kit to the car - no performance increase noticed - sounds a lot nicer though:

Bill - 25/02/16 - £91.80

Next came a few good months of zedding and by good I mean, money free! Except fuel of course!

However, MOT was costly - there was an advisory the previous year of slight play in ball joint and I thought to replace both control arms, I did the O/S myself but it was so tedious with all the rusted bolts that I gave the garage the arm to fit on the N/S, also needed two near front tyres as the old ones were perished and had cuts in the sidewall. Went with Pirelli P7's - not cheap at all!

Bill - 10/06/16 - £431.60 (MOT, Tyres and fitting of the supplied control arm)
Bill - 25/05/16 - £127.45 - Febi Control Arms and Wishbone Bushes

The rear window was certainly showing its age as the stitching had started to come apart. The soft top had also shrunk where it met the A-Pillar.
View attachment 59289
View attachment 59291

So it was time to get rid of the old and get a replacement fitted!

Bill - 07/07/16 - £550
View attachment 59297

I was hoping this would cure the leak, it didn't, the car would still let water in from the A-Pillars and this drove me mad.

Apologies for the lack of pictures, I've got plenty more, but just need to dig them out, I'll edit this and add the rest in here later.

I thought this would be a good idea as a lot of things go missed and don't get documented. I like having something to refer back to when I want and I know it also makes a good read for some.

There's lots more to cover, but I'll do that in the post below.

An excellent idea Faheem and an interesting read

 

[Brian4]

This could take a while

 

[t-tony]

Congratulations Faheem for sticking at it mate. You have done really well and come a long way in a short time mate.

Tony.

 

[andyglym]

Fair play to you mate, that's a sterling effort and commitment

 

[Antm72]

Nice work mate spot of effort has been put in and the car shows off all the great work

 

[billz]

Great to see a young man getting stuck in trying to do the work himself

 

[Shelly]

What a great thread
Very interesting

 

[DavidM]

Great read @Faheem - and great work in getting this far!

 

[Grumps]

Excellent thread mate. Your dad is obviously a wise man! Keep at it.

 

[Faheem]

I've been busy, think that covers all of it and brings us to present day. There will definitely be bits that I've missed but I'll add those in if and when I remember!

I went through all the paper work for the car and organised it into this folder in date order, there's a total of 175 receipts! (That's excluding service history, manuals etc.) A good 3 hours spent organising these yesterday. I need to stay organised.

I think my bragging rights have reached to an end now so with that I'll finish for the day.

Thanks!

 

[Tracy Dee]

Nice province for the car especially come sale time a good documented history goes a long way.
A reason i still get mine serviced to keep the stamp going in the service manual.
Like yourself I have a pile of receipts and every MOT.
A job well worth doing.

 

[Faheem]

@Tracy Dee I agree with you there, not only that but it's useful to know exactly what's been done and when it's been done.

Although... I can't imagine that I'll be able to sell the car anytime soon with all the work I've done to it. I did want a bigger engined zed but there's two things stopping me from getting one, insurance and having to do all the work again.

 

[t-tony]

@Tracy Dee I agree with you there, not only that but it's useful to know exactly what's been done and when it's been done.

Although... I can't imagine that I'll be able to sell the car anytime soon with all the work I've done to it. I did want a bigger engined zed but there's two things stopping me from getting one, insurance and having to do all the work again.

Maybe three things then bud, how old are you? No rush Faheem, enjoy what you've achieved for a bit then think a bit bigger.

Tony.

 

[Tracy Dee]

Agree another reason for keeping receipts and documented history you know when and what's been done.

 

[DaveP]

Faheem
Great work so far. You deserve to take pride in your so far. My compliments.
Dave

 

[Faheem]

A long, tedious and back breaking weekend.

Saturday afternoon I was bored and had little to do so decided to strip off the N/S sill as it had what looked like surface corrosion.

I was shocked to see how much crap builds up behind the wheel arch liner which is ultimately the cause of corrosion.

With the sills off (not a long job - half an hour to an hour at the very maximum) I had a look at the chassis and was pleasantly surprised to see virtually no corrosion except a very, very slight amount close to where the sills had sat.

Any rust that was present was treated with hammerite. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away and did more than I planned.

I then started work on the sills, I masked off all areas that would be visible when the sill is fitted to the car and began treating the reverse of the sill with hammerite underbody seal, this was after I'd ground out most of the corrosion on the reverse. In hindsight I should have left this till the end.

It was my first time using this underbody sealant and I'm not a fan at all, messy, messy stuff! Remains tacky and isn't even visually smooth.

Anyway, back on topic, after this has dried, I started work on the corrosion at the ends of the sills. Using 40grit oxide sand paper I went on a mission to remove as much as possible, unfortunately, came to realise that not much of the end actually remained. Most had become victim to corrosion. To add to that, there were holes in the metal.

My problem at this point was that I needed to get the car back together again as I would need it to commute to work in....

So out came the body filler. Not my proudest moment... And I'm not completely happy with the finish but until it's time for the full respray (at which point I'll have a second care) this will have to do. When the time does come for a full respray I plan on getting two brand new sills - whether they're wide body or narrow body depending on whether I do the conversion.

As you can see, not perfect - far from it in fact but it should hold together for a few more months.

I also spent a good hour cleaning the wheel arch liners after which both front and back were treated to a few coats of satin black

All in all I don't think that this is a job that should have been done in one and a half days. Towards the end there was a lot of rushing as the car needed to be ready for Monday morning!

The best bit is in a few months I get to do it all again.

Bill - 16/07/17 - £40

• Hammerite Underbody Seal
• Atlanta Blue Aerosol
• Satin Black Aerosol
• G3

 

[t-tony]

Sills are only as you would expect mate and as they're still available a relatively easy (if not cheap) repair. What you have done this weekend will stand you in good stead for the BIG job when it comes around. Well done mate, top work.

Tony.