bmwe21.net forums

agreed on the pedal box being interesting. so what pedal ratio and cylinder size is the standard set up? whats the cyl. youve fitted from?

Thanks guys
Murran, the standard e21 cylinder is 19mm (from memory) and i will initially try the 11/16's (17.5ish) and use that as a starting point.
This is with wilwood 4 piston calipers.

Made a bit more progress, engine bay is in primer with hopefully a final coat and clear this weekend.
Doing a few other jobs too... pics soon

Thought i should update this, its been a while, but i have been making progress!

Ill start off with the strut brace mounts. Made them weld on, cut up from some RHS. They are pretty much straight out of the ford escort gp4 rally prep manual, although slightly thicker guage steel. Hopefully they look like OEM fitment, the 635csi Group A cars had the same welded brace which is where i stole the idea.



welded up some now vacant holes





Removed old seam sealer around towers and re-applied in a slightly neater fashion. There were quite a few areas back to metal so epoxy'd the whole lot. The 2 pack epoxy is pretty high build so ended up doing a few coats.




removed fuse box (now in car) removed the brackets with a spot weld remover.



Gave the whole bay a surface prime, wet rubbing with 400 then 800. Have done a lot of prep before but never basecoat/clearcoat. Using the bay as a practice run for when i paint my brothers e21 next year.

After a couple of weeks of prep after work, wet rubbing, priming, wet rubbing etc i finally got to a stage to lay some Kastanienrot Metallic on.

This basecoat stuff goes on so well. Really nice to paint with. Laying the metallic on evenly was my biggest concern but it went on easier than expected.
The clearcoat was a bit trickier, especially in an engine bay where you find you wish your elbow would bend an extra 180 degrees!

Basecoat









Applied clearcoat about 30 mins after basecoat. Pushed it out in the sun a couple of days after painting to let it bake a bit. Its amazing how different it looks out in the sun.
and finished product,

Nice work. Im liking the colour

And all shiny again, nice!

that looks great good work

Thanks guys!
The sump flange distorted a fair bit after being welded so i used a block and some sandpaper to take down the high spots.



Oil cooler and radiator mounted, roughly worked out the routing for the -10 lines
Where do people normally mount oil coolers on e21's??



Finally got my hands on an e21 non-aircon centre console, far harder to find than i imagined. Tidied up all the plastic bits.



After measuring the g260 gearbox, i found that the e21 shifter linkage was going to be too short, the stick would end up about 80mm too far forward in car, and not come out the hole in the tunnel. After reading a bit about 'weighted' shifter linkages, i figured this was a place where adding a bit of weight wasnt a bad thing? The welded section is solid steel rod.



After lengthening the linkage to 187mm, i read that the stock UUC DSSR for an e30 is also 187mm!! Probably would have just bought that if i had known since i like the way it works. With new bushes though this does feel tight, might swap it out for a DSSR in a few years if needed.

Made a short shifter using an e36 shifter in the e21 shifter housing (yep i was surprised this actually worked!). Had to lengthen the shifter plate housing too for the new shifter linkage length.





Fitted a new friction surface to my second hand aluminium flywheel before it goes back on the car

I sent the motor was off for a top end rebuild, all new guides, springs, retainers etc and a a pair of 284 cams.

While waiting for that, i finished the wiring fuse box and then started on the AIM.
The AIM MXL ended up being the only elegant solution for monitoring the vitals, much neater than an array for 6-8 gauges scattered around the interior... not period correct but definitely purposeful. Will be able to configure a warning lights for oil pres... considering my bespoke sump pan, and accusump setup this is definitely needed.

murran wrote:agreed on the pedal box being interesting. so what pedal ratio and cylinder size is the standard set up? whats the cyl. youve fitted from?

sorry murran didnt see this earlier, its an early datsun MC around 1970's, they come in 3 different cyl sizes, pretty common in Oz

Nice work happening here Nigel I'm loving the engine bay looks incredible!!! Keep it up!

Really, lovely car, wann see that all put nice with that new dash

Hi everyone, can't believe i haven't updated this thread since 2012!

I completed this build in early 2014, i will try and get this thread back up to date! Lots of pictures to come...

Wow your back!
This thread has helped me so much over the last couple of years.
Thank you.
Great car, cant wait for the updates

Nice to see this projecttopic to be alive again.