I've created this progress thread for the work on
@David's Z3 to keep it all together!
Work at Lees started with tidying up some grotty looking parts. The engine cross brace was sanded down and treated to a coat of black paint. The rear discs also sanded down, masked and given a coat of silver.
Attention turned to checking over the rear suspension - shocks, bushes etc. I have some interesting videos to upload to YouTube when I get chance. After a few minutes inspection it was pretty clear that the rear end needed a complete refresh.
- Rear shocks weak (leaking on drivers side). Driver side could be completely compressed with no rebound. Passenger side would expand, but at a glacial pace. VIDEO to follow.
- Drivers side beam bush looks to have failed, passenger side seems 'okay'.
- Swing arm bushes badly perished
- Drop links rubber perished
- Handbrake cable split
After lee had a chat with David he approved the sub frame work, so we proceeded to strip everything down.
Exhaust: Nice and easy on the M43, comes in 1 piece from the manifold backwards. Removed without any real issue.
Rear Wheel Carrier: This was a pig to remove due to the amount of surface corrosion, and the nuts holding it in place falling apart when a socket was put on them.
Classic Z3 spare wheel once removed. Would hate to have to actually use this if needed. David said he didn't want it put back anyway, which is just as well!
For those wanting to remove the carrier, once it's lowered the tethering cable screws out on a thread. I've seen some people get stuck with this and cut the cable instead.
As you can see pretty much nothing useful left of the nut to put a socket on to. Surface corrosion is going to be something of a theme as we work on this one...
Little we could do other than get the angle grinder on it (we tried a dremmel first, but that just ate the cutting discs). Access was a pain, so we had to cut the bolt in the middle and then feed the two halves of the bolts out.
If you look carefully at the picture above you can see what we think is the factory label similar to the ones on Rosie. Looks like these have been on for 15 years as well!
The next two pictures are to give some idea of the level of corrosion underneath - this is the spare wheel carrier. We will most likely be replacing quite a few bolts and nuts as we go along.
Also a picture of one of the rear caliper carriers...
Following on from this we carried on with the usual process... (no pictures)
- Unbolted the bottom of the shocks (left them hanging from the top for now)
- Clamped and disconnected the rear brake lines
- Unbolted the ARB bushes
- Removed the handbrake cables
- Loosened the nuts on the bottom of the beam bushes
We had to stop at this point as we were struggling to remove the hex headed bolts holding the beam brackets in place on the drivers side. Given them a really good soaking in WD40 and will leave that to work it's magic.
Once those are removed, we are able to carry on disconnecting the diff and dropping the sub frame beam. This will most likely be Monday or Tuesday evening.
We have GSF and ECP in Lincoln too. I reckon you will soon have those few bits done and dusted.
Lee wanted to stand in there so we could take his photo, but was worried he might not be able to get out.
