Well not in my wildest dreams did I ever think anyone would want to read about or have any interest in the restoration of my Z3, Ellie (named after my new wife of 3 days), hence there are not a lot of photos of the work carried out but more of the finished project, but here goes.
I got the car from a car dealer up in Barrow in Furness, by the sea side, after seeing it on the internet. Not bad looking 2.8, 6 cylinder Z3 on an S plate 1998. Overall it looked in reasonable condition for its age. So the deal was done and I hot footed it back to Manchester. What a belting little motor, the engine although it had done 110K purred like a kitten and smooth as velvet.
I drove it for a couple of weekends and then decided it was time to take a closer look at what we had and boy was I in for a surprise. Most of the iron work underneath can only be best described as remnant of the Titanic. Rusticules all over and rust bubbles coming through the rear wings, front wings, lower skirt ends etc etc. in the usual places. Bugger, never mind, with my trusty Haynes manual brought off ebay for the princely sum of £7 the strip down of Ellie began. Off came the front and rear wings along with the lower skirts.
The panels just kept coming off until no more could be removed. The time to get serious and begin work on the iron stuff under the car. First came the rear beam arm with trailing arms , diff and suspension...what a job!! On closer examination hers what I found...
By now my heart had began to sink, just like that famous ship and even Elaine, my now wife, shook her head in despair at what was before me. Well in for a penny in for a pound, what was I going to do leave this poor little car to rot or make a stand and give it a second chance and try and make a silk purse from a sow's ear!!
More and more parts came off Ellie, numerous trips to the sand blasters and powdercoaters, new parts arriving by the day, cash flowing out like the receding tide, what else could I do!! Then when all the sandblasting and scrubbing with a wire brush was over the rebuild of the rear end began. New parts included all rubber bushes, diff bush trailing arm bushes, wheel bearings,handbrake cables, disks and hand brake shoes, brake pipes, fuel tank straps, calipers,CV joint boots etc, the list was endless but pressed on and finished the rebuild.
The rear end then remained on the deck for quite some time whilst I tackled the other parts arround the rear end such as the exhaust and the spare wheel and carrier. Went onto UTube and figured out how to remove the spare wheel and again found nothing but RUST!!!!
Back to the sandblasters and this time I found out about a product called POR15. I saw it on one of Jay Lenons car show and made up my mind to track down some of this and give it a try. Cleaned up the spare wheel and put the POR15 to the test..Well what a result,
Winter came a every spare bit of time was spent in the little garage, the spare room being filled with more and more spare parts. Camera broke at this point...my bad, dropped it on the floor and it no longer opened the shutter... Anyhow work progressed and got another camera just as the front end had been removed, repaied in the same way as the rear end and was ready for the big assembly. After several weeks of lifting, pushing and shoving of large iron parts , Ellie was back on her 4 wheels support all her new parts.
More pics to follow...
Now it was time to make a start on the body work. The offside rear wing came all the way from San Francisco, a nice dry state so no rust. The nearside rear from a guy who bought a job lot of car parts and this nearly new, no rust wing was in with them, so off I went a snatched his hand off for the sum of £30. The 2 replacement front wings I got from our very own member Synclaire (what a gent) thanks very much. With all the body panels in hand off I went to the paint shop and after weeks of rubbing down and preping the panels it was time to decide what colour to paint her...stay with the silver or give her a spruce up and go for a change. Well the change won through and the colour LeMans Blue was chosen. So on went the base coat..
Followed by the lacquer.
Once dry all the panels were removed from the body and the inside carefully painted with POR15 and loads of waxoil..no way was this going to rust in a hurry.
We got Ellie home and began to piece her back together...whats this pink fluid all over the floor, power steering fluid. Rack seals gone.. Again many thanks to Synclair for having the right part ant the right price. Replaced the steering rack, bled it and carried on with the exterior rebuild. All the fixutres and fittings that had been removed, windows doors, lock interior slowly got put back. Once the outside was complete it was time to rebuild the interior. I decided to fit the roll hoop kit to Ellie as additional style and safety (many thanks to Spurs fan).
Piece by piece the car came together.
Stay tuned for my next installment when pictures of the finished Ellie will be seen, til then..see you all soon.
I got the car from a car dealer up in Barrow in Furness, by the sea side, after seeing it on the internet. Not bad looking 2.8, 6 cylinder Z3 on an S plate 1998. Overall it looked in reasonable condition for its age. So the deal was done and I hot footed it back to Manchester. What a belting little motor, the engine although it had done 110K purred like a kitten and smooth as velvet.
I drove it for a couple of weekends and then decided it was time to take a closer look at what we had and boy was I in for a surprise. Most of the iron work underneath can only be best described as remnant of the Titanic. Rusticules all over and rust bubbles coming through the rear wings, front wings, lower skirt ends etc etc. in the usual places. Bugger, never mind, with my trusty Haynes manual brought off ebay for the princely sum of £7 the strip down of Ellie began. Off came the front and rear wings along with the lower skirts.
The panels just kept coming off until no more could be removed. The time to get serious and begin work on the iron stuff under the car. First came the rear beam arm with trailing arms , diff and suspension...what a job!! On closer examination hers what I found...
By now my heart had began to sink, just like that famous ship and even Elaine, my now wife, shook her head in despair at what was before me. Well in for a penny in for a pound, what was I going to do leave this poor little car to rot or make a stand and give it a second chance and try and make a silk purse from a sow's ear!!
More and more parts came off Ellie, numerous trips to the sand blasters and powdercoaters, new parts arriving by the day, cash flowing out like the receding tide, what else could I do!! Then when all the sandblasting and scrubbing with a wire brush was over the rebuild of the rear end began. New parts included all rubber bushes, diff bush trailing arm bushes, wheel bearings,handbrake cables, disks and hand brake shoes, brake pipes, fuel tank straps, calipers,CV joint boots etc, the list was endless but pressed on and finished the rebuild.
The rear end then remained on the deck for quite some time whilst I tackled the other parts arround the rear end such as the exhaust and the spare wheel and carrier. Went onto UTube and figured out how to remove the spare wheel and again found nothing but RUST!!!!
Back to the sandblasters and this time I found out about a product called POR15. I saw it on one of Jay Lenons car show and made up my mind to track down some of this and give it a try. Cleaned up the spare wheel and put the POR15 to the test..Well what a result,
Winter came a every spare bit of time was spent in the little garage, the spare room being filled with more and more spare parts. Camera broke at this point...my bad, dropped it on the floor and it no longer opened the shutter... Anyhow work progressed and got another camera just as the front end had been removed, repaied in the same way as the rear end and was ready for the big assembly. After several weeks of lifting, pushing and shoving of large iron parts , Ellie was back on her 4 wheels support all her new parts.
More pics to follow...
Now it was time to make a start on the body work. The offside rear wing came all the way from San Francisco, a nice dry state so no rust. The nearside rear from a guy who bought a job lot of car parts and this nearly new, no rust wing was in with them, so off I went a snatched his hand off for the sum of £30. The 2 replacement front wings I got from our very own member Synclaire (what a gent) thanks very much. With all the body panels in hand off I went to the paint shop and after weeks of rubbing down and preping the panels it was time to decide what colour to paint her...stay with the silver or give her a spruce up and go for a change. Well the change won through and the colour LeMans Blue was chosen. So on went the base coat..
Followed by the lacquer.
Once dry all the panels were removed from the body and the inside carefully painted with POR15 and loads of waxoil..no way was this going to rust in a hurry.
We got Ellie home and began to piece her back together...whats this pink fluid all over the floor, power steering fluid. Rack seals gone.. Again many thanks to Synclair for having the right part ant the right price. Replaced the steering rack, bled it and carried on with the exterior rebuild. All the fixutres and fittings that had been removed, windows doors, lock interior slowly got put back. Once the outside was complete it was time to rebuild the interior. I decided to fit the roll hoop kit to Ellie as additional style and safety (many thanks to Spurs fan).
Piece by piece the car came together.
Stay tuned for my next installment when pictures of the finished Ellie will be seen, til then..see you all soon.
