'75 2002 DD Project - Non e46 Content

Sorry guys, I've been out of town for 80% of the past month, so there hasn't been anything progress worthy of an update.

Hoping to get back to it this weekend, so expect something in the next week.

^ perfect pic

Just read the entire thread, beautiful work
And subscribed!!

lol Thanks guys.

Small update. My cousin came down to help me for the day and I didn't bring my dslr from home, so I only have one picture. I start framing out the trunk for the fuel cell and roll cage. If you look at the center section you can see the fuel cell will be slightly offset to the passenger side to help center the drivers weight.





Expect more updates soon.

Awesome choice. You are seriously the main inspiration for my excessive want for an 02. I had two options before buying my e46 sedan. Unfortunately, 4,000 was too much for a 38 year-old car...

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

Depends on the condition really, you'd be amazed at what the really clean examples are starting to sell for. Pretty soon a $4000 '02 will look worse than mine did.

Yeah it was a perfect example. The M10 had been fully rebuilt and it had a perfect interior. But the hood and nose panel had a nice shunt in the passenger side.

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

That stinks. But at least it wasn't the other way around. The best scenario would be a perfect body with some mechanical stuff that needs sorted out. Mechanical parts can be replaced by anyone with some basic knowledge, especially on older cars like these. It's much harder/more expensive to get a perfect body on these 'ol gals.

Plus one.

The second one he was selling was a Chaminox with an e21 sport interior swap and the dogleg five speed. But it had a salvage title. Scared parents means no fun for me. Both were '76s...

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

That's a shame. The second one sounds like quite a find, worst case you could have just swapped all the nice parts onto a non-salvaged chassis.

Got some more done today. First thing first, I needed to decide how high up to place the gas tank. It's a delicate balance of ground clearance vs. a low center of gravity.

Checking out different heights using the floor jack:





I ended up with the fuel cell sitting ~5.5 below the top of the frame that was already fab'd. The next step was to start cutting the tubing to size. Here are the down tubes that connect the top frame to the lower section:






Then I cut out a bunch of other tubes and threw them together like so:





The largest tubes in the above picture are 2" x 2" x 0.125" wall. Then the outer fuel cell frame is 1" x 1" x 0.125" wall, and the smaller bracing a triangulation bars are 0.75" x 0.75" x 0.0625" wall. It may be a bit overkill, but it will be very secure.

Side View:






View from Underneath:






Shot from a couple steps back. The framework shouldn't be visible except from very far away:





It's hard to see clearly in the picture below, but the fuel cell is about 1" higher than the floor pan at the lowest point. So while I don't have a very big departure angle, clearance shouldn't be to bad:







Fuel Cell in place:





Top Shot:




Bottom View:





Then the last thing I did for the day was to remove the rubber bits from the bumper, which makes the lines much cleaner. Then test fit it to see how it looked. Overall I'm much happier with the change:









Next up on the list is to start fitting the sheet metal for the trunk floor as well as the fuel cell hold down and the rear suspension reinforcements.

Go Bucks!

I wish i had one!!!!! man its so nice

Wow. Now it is really taking the epicness status shape

Thanks guys.


Progress from tonight. Started off with some exploratory surgery on the rear driver side fender lip. Before making up the trunk floor, I want to use the extra space and access the void gives me to make the necessary cuts for the fender flares. This involves taking out ~2 inches of the outer fender lip and then splicing the new edge into the inner fender. This will also let me see if there is any rust hiding in the inner body that I couldn't see before.


First I transferred the mounting holes for the fender flare so I knew where the cut would go. I left ~ 3/4" of material from the mounting holes, which should be plenty.





Then I trimmed out the lip. Here you can see the inner fender material and the edge that will be spliced into it.





With the fender trimmed, I am happy to say that the rusty parts of the inner fender lip were on the parts I cut out, so after some final trimming the splices should go fairly easily. With that done I decided to move away from the chassis work for a little bit.

Tis the season:





Next I moved to reinforcing the transmission and engine mounts I made earlier. First up was the transmission mount.

Here's the top side after cleaning up all the welds. Once it's powdercoated it will resemble a stock stamped piece:




And this is the underside as I left it before:





While this would be fine for a stock M10 setup, I wasn't really happy with it for my goals. Likewise, I wanted to avoid partially boxing it due to the possibility of trapping water on the inside. So I decided to use some of my 0.75" tubing and triangulate the inner walls. This should add the needed rigidity while letting it dry easily.




Moving on to the engine mounts, I wanted to add some internal bracing before fully boxing them in. To keep weight down I made them out of a thinner gauge, so the bracing will let me keep the strength while having a lower weight of a similar piece made from heavier material (such as my first generation of mounts).

Here's how they looked from earlier:





Some flat stock later and this is how they looked when I finished tonight:









Tomorrow I'll finish boxing the engine mounts, once done they will look like a solid piece of tubing with the bracing completely hidden. Then it's on to the other fender lip and more bodywork.

Thanks for looking.

Quick update for the day's progress, I only had a few hours to work on her but I got the Engine and Trans mounts finished up.


For the engine mounts, I wanted to fully box them, both for strength and because I think they look much better that way. But I still needed to have clearance around the nut for securing the rubber mount. So I took some 1" I.D. pipe and welded it around the stud hole.





With it welded in place, I cut the pipe at an angle so that I could weld it flush with the rest of the mount. Then I proceeded to cut out the rest of the top pieces for the mount using my normal paper template method. With all of them cut out and tacked in place, your left with this:






With everything in place it could be fully welded:







Then ground flush on all sides:






With these finished up I'm going to put the engine and trans back in the car. That will let me work on some of the other things up front while I finalize my rear suspension set up and keep knocking out the body work.


Thanks for looking.

Ahh-mazing...

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

Originally Posted by Hornung418

Ahh-mazing...

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

Originally Posted by E46 Coupe

up and at'them!