'75 2002 DD Project - Non e46 Content

Thanks guys!

With the front mounts made up it was time to get the subframe square with the car and figure out how high I wanted to tuck it up into the body. Luckily I was able to talk my friend into helping me during the measuring and finessing the assembly into position. After about an hour of tweaking and adjusting I was happy with where it was sitting, and I tacked the front mounts in place. This then allowed me to figure out the correct placement of the rear cross member, which would hold the rear mounts for the diff cover.


Here's the front subframe mounts tacked in place. The bolts are a little long, but I don't think it will hurt anything. Worst case scenario I'll just trim them down a bit:





Here you can see the area cleaned up and ready for the new material to be welded in:





Next we cut and measured the cross member piece along with the extra side panel reinforcements. Here are both welded in place:




Close up of the driver side. The plate that the cross member is welded to is to help reinforce the inner wheel well. The weld-thru primer made my welds a bit crappier than I would have liked, but they will definitely hold.





With the cross member in we put the subframe back in place so we could measure for the diff ear mounts.





Front face of the mounts cut out:





Due to the way the bushings on the diff cover are, the ear mounts need to have a small, circular offset to them. So I TIG'd some washers onto the back of the ear mounts. This allows the inner portion of the bushing to be held rigid to the mount without rubbing on the outer portion of bushing and diff cover.





I then gusseted the ear mounts to add some rigidity and welded them in place on the cross member under the car. This let me remove the jack and see the subframe held in place on it's own for the first time.




Nother Diff Shot:





Here you can kind of see the gussets I added to the diff mounts. Essentially the cross section is a 'C' shape, except at the bottom where there isn't a worry of it flexing (it's lower than the bolt hole). I'm also going to add a gusset above where the ears sit once I take the subframe back out.





Last but not least here is a side view of the diff. You can see how it sits up against the body of the trunk floor. The cover has a clearance of about 1" between the top of it and the front of the cross member, which will be plenty of room.





Next up will be framing out the trunk floor and fit the fuel cell into postion. Then I can repair/brace the inner wheel wells and measure for my rear coilovers.

Nice work.

Awesome engineering!

Respect for the things you pull out of your hat. Lovely to see how this oldtimer gets a second chance.

Originally Posted by ZiMMie

Nice work.

Originally Posted by E46 Coupe

Awesome engineering!

'Preciate the props guys.

Originally Posted by robolop

Respect for the things you pull out of your hat. Lovely to see how this oldtimer gets a second chance.

Thanks, coming from you that means a lot. If only I had your skill with carbon fiber, this car would be a lot lighter!

Not the most glamorous of updates, but an update none the less.

Keeping with the theme of working on her backside, I decided to test fit my rear bumper to see how it would look with the flares. Still a bit abstract at this point, but I like where it's heading.





Next up was to finish removing the last pieces of the old rusted trunk floor. Here you can see the rear panel of the trunk, and the upper and lower lips of the trunk floor that are left:






These were attached with a crap-ton of spot welds, and some seam sealer. So first thing first I drilled out all the welds:





Then carefully pealed away the seam sealer and viola! no more trunk floor:





With that taken care of it was time to start patching the rear panel. It had a few area's that were very pitted, as well as the old 'diving board' bumper mounting holes. I forgot to take pictures of all the steps of cutting and patching, but long story short about 1000 tack welds later this is what she looked like:



Note the truly centered exhaust cutout (I still need to cutout the indented section of metal). This is different from both early and late cars, as the early ones had the cutout over on the right hand side and the later cars had a slightly offset 'center-ish' exit. A true center exit was something I always liked, so I figured why not.





Did I mention there were a lot of tack welds...






Then I moved on to the driver side rear quarter panel. While not as bad as the passenger side, it was still pitted enough to require a full replacement.

The Bad:






The good:





Once I finish grinding the welds smooth I'll start fabing the trunk floor and fuel cell mounts. Then it's on to the front of the car!

i am jealous of your welding skills - i need to keep practicing

this is so awesome. I would love to be able to work on a car like that one day!

Your skills are awesome and this is EPIC! Easily the most interesting thread on the forums!

Originally Posted by 330i ZHP

i am jealous of your welding skills - i need to keep practicing

Thanks, definitely keep practicing. All my welding has been self taught, and practice is the only way to get better, at least for me.

If it makes you feel any better I'm very jealous of your entire bodyshop.

Originally Posted by steve.k

this is so awesome. I would love to be able to work on a car like that one day!

Nobody's stopping you...

Originally Posted by tyusha

Your skills are awesome and this is EPIC! Easily the most interesting thread on the forums!

Thanks, but I don't think I'm on JeppeJ or robolop's level yet. Maybe once she's back on the road.

Thanks, but I don't think I'm on JeppeJ or robolop's level yet. Maybe once she's back on the road.

Well JeppeJ's thread is awesome but it's done! Yours is very much active!!!

Looks like a fun project.

Updates?

Is there anybody out there?








Is there anybody...out there?

Hello, is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me is there anyone home?

Haha nice!

Sent from my DROIDX using Bimmer App

Errrbody missin Tink.

Tink, did you forget about us?

We r still waiting...

Hope this project continues and Tink is busy.