bmwe21.net forums

Well, a month in, so I'm new to E21's, having craved one for the best part of 20 years, but not new to old German cars and welding, which I guess stands me in good stead! I picked this up off the bay, last owner had it for 25 years, and it's got a full stack of receipts from his local BMW dealership cataloging every part fitted since 1987!







It had a couple of weeks MOT on it, but I figured I'd not drive it till it'd been through a test, so I started off by fixing the things that were most wrong with it, ie a bit of corrosion on the jacking points on the sills, and at the "not a jacking point" just behind the front wheel. The latter looked least fun, so I began there....

weird lump in the floor, looks like someone attempted to jack it.





Throttle pedal bracket doesn't look too clever either



First removed the bare minimum of the sound deadening




Angle grinder time





Reconstructed the back of the wheel arch first




Made the inner sill section, and floor plate (all the silver paint is upol zinc rich weld through primer)




Time to have a look under the throttle bracket..





Decided to replace the bottom section of the bracket




Cleaned up and new bottom piece fabricated



Welded in place



Seam sealered and painted, phase one complete!





Next stop, front sill jacking point....

Nice job!

Defo, real clean car and a great job! Any other rust spots apart from the drivers side foowell? You should just shoot the guy that just threw the jack under the floor!

Well I'd have to blame BMW partly, because if you make something that looks like a jacking point in the place you'd expect to find a jacking point, at some point, someone is bound to treat it as such! The rust everyone seems to get there seems to me to be a result of two main factors: 1) when you jack there, it distorts the metal, and breaks the seal on the paint and underseal there, and 2) it's right behind the front wheel so gets all the water, mud, salt and debris off the road.

The jacking points on the sills don't seem a great place to jack either, since you end up damaging the paint and underseal, and it becomes rusty too. I think I'll stick to jacking at the subframes and suspension arms, since they're pretty beefy.

I didn't want to remove the wing to do this repair, so I found that if I undid the bolt at the bottom, and the three up the back inside the arch, I could wedge it out a couple of inches, just enough to carry out these repairs.

The front jacking point on the sill is sorted but for final stone chip and paint.

It didn't look pretty to start with, but it did look pretty localised, so I was hopeful it could be fixed with minimal disruption to other areas......





First off, I gave it a good prod, and freed the jacking point itself from the sill. It didn't take alot of persuading




Figured seeing as I'll be doing all four, I'll make up new ones in nice thick steel. I improved the design by giving them a back edge, so the load isn't just pushing up against the sill, but also being held by the back edge being welded from behind tot he vertical sill flange






I cut out the affected area of the outer sill, revealing the inner strengthener



In order to make it strong, I decided the jacking point should be welded to the strengthener and outer sill, and figured the best way to do that was to remove the strengthener, make the outer sill repair, weld the jacking point to it, and then weld the strengthener on from inside, then put the lot back in and plug weld the strengthener from above. The pics will explain what I mean:








The welds on the top were ground flat, and painted, and are totally hidden under the plastic tread plate in the door aperture. I gave the outer a coat of zinc rich etch primer for now, I'll stone chip and paint the lot when it's all ready. I'll also bend the bottom edge back like it was originally.



Fun stuff!

Nice work wish I had the skills

Right, well a few things to update, I'll start with a blatant repost of the Recaro how-to I put in the tech section

A month of the stock seats is all I could stand, I cannot believe how truly awful they are! No lateral support, bouncy as a space hopper, worn out, and does anybody else seem to pin the seat belt buckle between the side of the seat and the door card when they close the door?

Enough is enough, I took the seat of the runners, and measured up the bolt spacing. Then I measured the Recaros I have had stashed waiting for the right car.

I wanted to get rid of the steering wheel offset at the same time (Go sit in your car, RHD cars at least have a 1" steering wheel offset to the left, very annoying!) and worked out what size metal to buy. I looked at the design of the stock brackets, and figured I could make them a little lower, so went with aluminium in 10mm x 20mm for the rail nearest the transmission tunnel, and 10mm x 60mm for the outer rail.

2 lengths at 900mm were purchased from these guys on ebay:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251300688050? ... 1497.l2649
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390622135471? ... 1497.l2649

Here's the assorted dimensions I came up with. Interesting to note that the Recaro dimensions are weird because they're imperial!





And the alloy cut to length




Next the hole dimensions were carefully transferred to the alloy and drilled 6.5mm with the exception of the outer plate-to-runner holes which were drilled and tapped M6 as this will look neater when bolted together.






The front hole on the inner bracket was countersunk, and a countersunk bolt used, as the head of the bolt would damage the seat material otherwise.






Then I bolted the brackets tot he seat, remembering to have the countersunk bolt in place first!



Next issue before final fitment is the seat belt socket. This is an integral part of the seat pivot on the stock seats, which is a weird design. I looked at the seat runner and figured if a regular solid bracket style one could be sourced, it could bolt to that alone without issue. It should be noted that the inner runner is much beefier and secured to the car with much larger fixings in order to accommodate the larger potential loadings of the seat belt forces.



The buckle on the E21 is one not regularly used on 80's cars, so I figured I'd have a look at the ones on older 70's era BMW's. I came up trumps when I found these from the rear of an E24 6 series on ebay. The socket is identical, but they come on on a solid bracket that can be adapted to suit.



I cut off the large rectangular section, rounded off the end, and drilled a 1/2" (12.5mm) hole in them, before bending them by hand in the vice to match the angle of the bracket on the runners





And then it was time to bolt them in! Everything lined up, and when I paint the brackets, you won't know they weren't supposed to be there!




The seats are from a mid nineties Audi cabrio and were a bargain £100 from my local breakers a couple of years ago, and originally featured electric height adjustable bases, to go with the electric seat back recline. I modified the outer back leg of the bases to make them mk2 golf compatible, and sold them on ebay for £100! Free seats!!!!!

They're enormously comfy, extremely supportive, and nappa leather, so very soft. I'm going to re-colour them blue to match the rest of the interior, and I'll have the back seat trimmed to match, when I've got the money, and nothing else more important to spend it on (probably never then!). I'll wire them up to the cigarette lighter socket today. Top switch is the recline, and the lower one is height, but as that's now gone, I might use it for power windows when i fit them. Which is why I put the passenger seat on the drivers side, and vice versa, meaning I can reach both switches with ease, and don't have to fit switches anywhere else



The only questionable part of the conversion, is that the inner bolster is tight on the console when they're fully forward, but as I'm 6'3" that's no issue, but short arses might need to retain the stock seat offset to avoid this.

The weird thing is, the car now handles better, steers better, and rides better, because you're not hanging on to the wheel in the corners, and the seat absorbs the bumps better than the current suspension!

I know I got lucky with the seats, but the total price for all the parts used in this conversion was under £40 which is alot cheaper than you can buy brackets for.

Nice work and nice upgrade! I'll move the report in the Tech section to the Top Tech Topics since the stock brackets are becoming more rare by the day. Thanks for the detailed write up and the thorough work!

Fair enough Jeroen, hope it proves useful. A slightly less dramatic mod this one, but makes a difference.

There's not many paces to put stuff in an E21, the door pockets are OK, but sunglasses are going to get scratched in there, and the centre console has a big area, but stuff just slides about all the time, which is annoying, so I partitioned off the front part with a bit of wood screwed in from underneath so i have a place for sunglasses and/or a phone, then covered the lot in some sticky backed felt from eBay .




I like the little details that make a big difference!

Another nice mod Polov, I'm coming to you for advice when I need a cup holder designed for my E3!

Got the rust at the base of the B Pillar on the drivers side sorted now. I thought I had a before picture, but either I've misplaced it, deleted it, or it's a figment of my imagination. I'd got the rear opening windows to swap in, so figured I'd do this swap and fix the rust at the same time.

Like I said, I didn't get before pics, but after I'd pushed the window out, cut out the rusty portion of the outer skin, cleaned up the surface rust in that area on the inner skin, and protected the visible paint as much as possible with duct tape, it looked like this:




It's pretty nerve wracking cutting and grinding so close to the excellent paint on the quarter panel, and I wasn't looking forward to welding, but needs must. I made up a repair plate to the original design, the holes are for plug welds to replicate the original spot welds.




Nice fit, so I CAREFULLY, and slowly welded it in, then ground all the welds smooth




A couple of layers of zinc rich etch primer should see it protected until I can get a paint repair guy in to blend it and a few other minor defects. Now that I have the rear openers in, taking the window out for that should be a very quick and easy job.



one more item off the "to-fix" list

Been a little busy driving the car lately, and loving it! Even with it's somewhat shagged suspension it's a hoot!

But the rear section of the sill did need looking at, so I set to it with the angle grinder......







I'm trying to remove all the rot, but leave as much of the original panels as possible. The outer skin at the rear has rusted along the bottom, but the inner member just had surface rust on it. Having got the outer off, I also cut out the rear section, which is the bottom bit of the inner arch, and, a small section of the wheel well. These were three different panels, and I fully intended to repair it as per the factory, with only three different repair sections.

Phase one is to remove all traces of surface rust, and coat everything in weld through zinc primer. This stuff rules, and means all those enclosed, impossible to get to sections have at least some layer on them after welding. They'll all be drowned in Bilt Hamber's finest cavity wax after the job is done.

First repair was to the inner arch section. A small triangular piece with a return on it was stitched to the wheel well, and to form the seam which the inner arch panel welds too. then the inner arch was formed, all beaten by hand from a single piece of steel, with the wheel arch lip. I think this might be one of the trickiest parts I've ever had to make, and owning a mk1 Scirocco, that's saying something, but we got there, and it turned out well. The vertical seam weld might look less than OEM, but it's how BMW did it, as there's no way to get a spot welder in behind there:





The outer skin repair was much the same as the front jacking point, but the patch was trickier to make, as it had an irregular shape, and had to form the lower arch on it's back edge. It's times like this that it pays to do one side at a time so you can double check the profile with the other side! Anyways, I got it on and ground all the welds back. It came out pretty well, the only difference being I had to drill and plug weld the jacking point on as there was no way to weld the top of it from inside.





I also remade the reinforcing plate that supports the subframe mounting stud. I had the steel, so made up a new one. I didn't get a pic of it before I mounted it, but you get the idea...




It looked exactly like that but in smooth clean steel!

Here it is on the car after I threw some temporary black paint on everything




One sill is now completely solid. Guess I have to do the other now.....

Nice job! Again.

Still haven't got round to fixing the other sill, but I have done a few things inside the car, and got some stuff ready to sort and upgrade the suspension and replace the weeney 13" wheels.

Inside, I replaced the standard boat wheel with a tasty Momo 3 spoke. Yet another ebay find, it came with the BMW horn push, and the correct hub. I fitted the 2" OMP boss extender I had fitted to another Momo on a previous car, covered with a ribbed cover off another hub. Personally, I like it better than the alpina 4 spoke momo, and it was a damn sight cheaper. I got a steering wheel refurb kit which involves, cleaning the leather thoroughly, lightly sanding it, then a three stage prep, paint, and protective layer treatment. Came out like new!




To match it i got a leather gaiter for the gear stick. I'm on the look out for a better knob. Judging by the price the wooden Alpina ones are going for, it won't be one of those!



Also got some mats made up by Autostyle to protect the stock carpet. It's going to be pretty blue in there by the time I'm done...







Underneath the car, I replaced the weepy clutch master cylinder, which required the pipe to be bent round a little, and also for the distributor to be rotated one tooth round on its drive, but works perfectly, so no bother.




About a month after that, the clutch slave cylinder pegged out, presumably it couldn't cope with the increased flow. so that's been replaced too now. Didn't get pics of that though.

The wheels it came on are in great shape, but only 5.5 x 13, and have the wrong size 185/60 13 tyres on, when they should be 185/70 13. I was looking for a staggered set of 15" Mahles, but came upon these Compomotives, in 7x15 et 10. I have 195/55 and 205/55 tyres to go on them, but decided to get them refurbished before I finally fit them. However I couldn't resist a full scale mock up on the car!





Now I quite like them gold, I think they look retro, and in keeping with the age of the car, but everyone I tell that to seems to think that'll look terrible. I think everyone's been biased by the millions of Golden wheeled Scoobies.