My Strip of a BMW donor

[Richard]

To put this into context I have never done this before and am not a home mechanic but I did have a socket set from some 25+ years ago in somewhat embarrassingly pristine condition.

The theory of the optimistic was deployed in deciding to go for a donor car rather than a purchased bundle from a scrap merchant or GKD themselves.

Thinking went like this;
Buy from GKD....hmmmmm... get the bits right but pricey and too easy.
Buy from scrapper / breaker / parts specialist.....eeek still pricey...might miss order a part.
Have a trip to U-Pull-It....hmmm interesting option but as not experienced yet, and not anywhere near me, maybe next time.
Buy a donor and strip it....well cheapest option but a whole lot of work never done before.

Donor car it is, I know that isn't logical but then neither is building your own car when you don't even know what all the bits are called !!
So, it saves initial money that can be used to buy the tools I've not got which can then be an asset / take space in garage, learn a lot along the way and gives teenage boys one whole bunch of fun. I did say it was not logical. 

Worth noting that at this stage is that no breakers are offering donor kits but I suspect that in time this will happen.

U-Pull-It is a very interesting service but think this is clearly a few of you with at least one who knows what they are doing then you could get the parts in the 9-4 window you have on one day. Check their website out, you can use the search engines as well as I can, if I remember by the time I've finished typing this up I'll put the link in for convenience, now back to my two busy typing fingers on topic.

Donor car hunting began; I had already done a bunch of research into components of BMWs. This seemed a wise thing to do as BMW made a massive range of models and parts, they overlap componentry between models and the massive world of BMW tuning has abundance of items but not for all models and components. Will try and cover the options and components over time, perhaps the Kit Car magazines will end up doing an article on it at some point.

My criteria very briefly ended up as;
•   Registered donor before August 1995.
•   BMW 318is Coupe so would have M42 engine.
•   Car should be after 1993 where the earlier models had profile gasket trouble, although if repaired under warranty they should be ok, however another item to check later inside the engine, more in another posting in the future.

This would give in theory a "cheap" but not cheapest access to components needed to get on the road, if going for cheapest then the 316 / 318 saloons would be possible for small money.

Usual places scanned but didn't bother paying for online access to the auction houses. If living in south east or midlands more options crop up. So, ExchangeandMart (id on this forum I notice;)), ebay, autotrader, trade-it, Pistonheads it was plus local papers Evening Post and Western Daily Press plus the weekly local down here in North Somerset.

Ended up buying a justifiably cheap running coupe from Jan 1995 with awful paint work condition but lots of service stamps for whatever they are worth and 11 months MOT, didn't end up using more than 3 weeks of it.

Car was not taxed so duly insured it / taxed it and drove it home, seemed to be the lowest cost route of getting it home as it had no tax and I had no trailer or towbar. It was then driven around for a couple of weeks then SORN'd it was. No noises from transmission, engine performed well and had a surprising amount of go in it at above 4000 rpm, can explain why later in techie article.

Nearly kept it running for the first Bristol Kit Car Club meet but wanted to get the pulling apart started.

This is the rather extensive list of parts that were needed salvaging from GKD;
• Engine (4 cylinder) complete with all ancillaries and engine mounts
• Gearbox
• ECU
• EWS Module - If fitted on donor car
• Key amplifier - If fitted on donor car
• Engine loom - *Note: GKD requires the following connectors each with 150mm tails. Engine loom socket, EWS socket (if needed) and Key amplifier white plug lead (if needed)
• Differential - If E36 diff then complete with speed sensor plug and 50mm tails
• Halfshafts
• Propshaft
• Front hubs/discs/ callipers
• Rear flanges/discs
• Steering column including stalks and key
• Lower steering shaft
• Fuel pump/sender 1 complete with plugs and 50mm tails
• Fuel sender 2 complete with plug and 50mm tails
• Dash pod complete with plugs and 150mm tails
• Wheels and tyres

Gulp !     Feeling a bit daunted at this stage all of a sudden, that paying for someone else to do it seems very appealing and hang the expense, perhaps give up alcohol would save enough money to pay for the difference in price.

Advice that I've read and heard:
Just struck me I really had no idea just a bit of enthusiasm and optimism, perhaps I still have no idea and am living in my own strange bubble of a world, "never mind".
•   Get an Engine Hoist ! -   this turned into its own little saga
•   Steam clean it first
•   Get a mate and give him or her beer
•   Label everything as you go

Well I didn't do 2 of them as my sons aren't drinking beer in my garage with machinery around and I was too enthusiastic to get it steam cleaned and I somewhat naively think it a good idea to leave it dirty so I could see where every little leak was coming from and to then search out what probable causes might be (nothing involving the local constabulary).

Engine Hoist – looked at renting and realized if I needed it a couple of days I'd have bought one from auction sites and at 3 days I could buy a new one. Went for a new Sealey one, first delivery didn't happen, then when it did the parts did not fit together(of course photos taken ), then a spare part was shipped, it did fit with the legs but not the body, arrggghh  so much for trying to be accommodating to the supplier and manufacturer, then whole replacement sent which did all fit together and I then had to pack other bits up for collection.
Not impressed with Sealey or supplier, it did work in the end but ...  for some reason I don't think with all the other tools I will inevitably buy either of those suppliers will be involved and given how this project could go that will really add up, "hey ho", just my one-off experience and opinion.

Before stripping there is a neat little feature on BMWs and probably on other cars that enables you to see all your dials light up and run to max and back to zero again, so parked in the garage we managed 160MPH in very few seconds according to the speedo that is.

Off and out it all started to be.

Things the advice should have included;

To be continued on another edit ...

['The Gaffer']

I truly entertaining and enjoyable post Richard, I look forward to the next installment.

[Richard]

To pick up the thread, what advice should have been included, perhaps that should wait until more reflection and typing is completed.

As perhaps you can imagine and more than likely know already that there are a lot of parts in cars and mechanics and modders are clearly very skilled and experienced. Not to be daunted figured that some reference material would be useful for this particular model.

Some months ago before the final decision on which kit to build or even whether I was going to build one or leave the idea just as an idea, I was walking down Wells high street. I had been browsing magazines in the various newsagents and buying a few of them on kit cars, well I suppose I should admit it I bought all of them I could find (aren't magazines expensive when you buy several). The thought then struck me that if I did build a kit car I should have at least a Haynes manual for the donor car / parts. Oxfam shop was in front of me at the time so I wondered in on the off chance of seeing a Haynes manual, now this could have been fate or if you don't believe in fate then the only Haynes manual they had in, there on the shelf was a BMW E36 Haynes manual, so purchase executed it was added to the bag of magazines.

Now, Haynes manuals are good but not all encompassing, they have a feature called "scare the first time kit car builder like me", well it isn't called that but it has that effect. Haynes rate the tasks in terms of difficulty with little spanners, well guess what, oh you already knew, the tasks for dismantling whole car have all the high spanner ratings, another Gulp !, followed by at least we don't put it back together to work in this car thought, so bound to make it ieasier, isn't it ?

Other support material was duly found. I've been a member of various forums for a while so familiar enough with searching out good reference material and filtering opinions.  The international version of Haynes seems to be called Bentley's, getting one of these manuals as well as Haynes is a good idea, they look at things slightly differently and before you say it not just because they are Left Hand Drive ! 
Then I have found a couple of places where some very good DIY material has been written up, this is really helpful as the manuals do not contain everything.

Some reference material was in place, a few tools from various house projects / botches assembled along with that pristine socket set. Where to start ? I suspect at this point it is obvious to all of you but it wasn't to me. The "plump" was made and electrics were disconnected and battery out, this was not the place to start as it turned out but it was in the top 5 (I think).

Remember that list above of part needed, at this stage the list did not exist so tidily, just my hand written list from over the phone chat with Peter of GKD, remember the Legend car is not exactly a long time in production at this stage with Chasis 001 being the only one and that is Peter's prototype.

With the list of parts needed kind of in my head, a bunch of screw drivers (what is the collective noun for a group of screwdrivers ? "A thread" perhaps ?), spanners and sockets to the ready and an electricity free car the teenage boys were let loose ! Now this is perhaps unfair on the car, however there is potentially a bit of money to be recouped from some of the parts we don't need, so fingers were crossed and the boys were left to it for a few days as I was working very long hours. Some of my work is from home and on the odd day a teenager would stick his head into the make shift home office holding some unrecognizable piece up like a prized kill whilst chanting some hunters instinct cry like "got it", you get the gist. This is more or less the way the whole interior of the car was stripped; all electrical components were labeled as they went as well as the ends of the wiring loom. Parts were put to one side in some kind of ordered fashion.

Teenagers and friends seem to use the front seats for patio chairs at times, of course the putting away in a shed was more of thrown away. A few trips to the tip saw the really unwanted items disposed of. We will reuse the BMW dash so that was carefully removed and put into a bit more of a protected place of a cupboard in the garage. The window motors and mechanisms were wanted as they are potentially worth a few pounds as is the heater resister (one darned awkward thing to remove in a fitted out car). The process for removing the window mechanism involves something quite significant for us ....electricity or power to move the windows up and down as various bolts are undone. The astute will realize we did not have this, so reconnected it was to a partly complete wiring loom and connections and windows sent up/down and almost sideways in our bid to get the pesky bolts out. The books and guides then have one of those classic phrases "ease the window glass out of the rubber lined bracket", oh ha ha ha, such a sense of humour these writer folks have, old rubber sealed around glass does not do anything even remotely called "ease", screwdriver (old) + hammer did "ease", this left glass out but riveted in winder and motor, will come back to this problem later. 

Now for the muckier / greasier mechanical bits and in fact the more interesting from a kit build point of view.

And time for another break from typing.

['The Gaffer']

Again, an excellent post mate. I like the bit about the haynes manual in the charity shop, that build is definately for you!!

[Richard]

Back again.

Rust ! this is a very dirty word !  It is a curse, vile nasty thing when put with nuts and bolts that have been over tightened especially.

Obviously the inside work had no such problem, it  seems that 8mm and 10mm were the favourite choices of the interior BMW team, the occasional diversion but nothing too serious apart from somewhat obviously the seat belt mounts and the steering column support bar. Perhaps come back to some of the inside fiddles, not wanting to re-write the manuals.

Anyway, rust, this is perhaps something I had not thought too much about before. I think if I had a choice of donor I'd check the underside abit more thoroughly and go for the cleaner looking one. I've heard all kind of opinions on BMWs from rust buckets and the catchy comment of "how do you tell the depth of tread on the front tyres of a BMW?  Lift the floor carpet", to great never really had a problem taking any of them apart.

I have come to the conclusion that our car had either had a very wet life near the sea or some mysterious mischievous elf type creature had been creeping underneath it and cursing the nuts and bolts. Perhaps the latter is more likely, only joking. If you recall the shopping list of parts above and then add on top the idea of selling all the other bits we could, you'll understand a more vehicle kind approach was taken, that said I had an angle grinder from cutting stone and bricks, only a small one but plenty long enough to do some damage with a metal cutting blade on.

Front  of car was duly stripped off lights, radiator, bumper, a bit more access given to front of engine by cutting out two joints I did not have the right fitment for and well they looked painted in.  Wiper arms off, now getting that wiper motor out was darned fiddly if you ever have to replace one on one of these models, put aside quite a bit of time to be able to take enough care. Car was put on Axle stands, we didn't have a trolley jack so it took a bit of time, did notice that cheap trolley jacks can be had for under £20, so perhaps I should have got one before. Theory was now to get exhaust off, the underside shielding etc. to see what we were dealing with. Exhaust off, don't think it had ever been replaced, or if it had been it was done immaculately. First sign of obstinate bolts, could not undo them at the bottom of exhaust manifold, tried the tentative approach first, with spray, pointless as you perhaps know, straight to violence, I think if you had a vehicle lift you'd get a lot more room underneath which would make this easier.  After a lot of heaving Angle grinder just taken to chop the pipe off, job done ! Perhaps a long breaker bar and more room would work, I suspect an air gun and compressor might be a fantastic tool to have for donor car stripping, this thinking got repeated a few times.

Rusty nuts / bolts, what I've learnt and yet again I suspect you all know this already but this seems to be the order of most efficient approach assuming you don't grab the angle grinder to start with;
•   Clean off nut/bolt, wire brush useful
•   Penetrative spray – I have a specific penetrative spray which seemed to work well
•   Use correct size socket/ spanner and have first attempt at undoing, must keep that socket on the nut/bolt
•   Then try to just a very little tighten it before undoing
•   Longer lever can be very useful here, I now have a 2 foot breaker bar, soo much more leverage than the socket set 9", sorry metric should be 600mm and 230mm or something else that most people seem to convert back to inches to mean anything.
•   Still stubborn ? then heat time, get blow torch (I had one from fitting a few copper pipes some years ago (Sorry Dave not encroaching on your business honestly), heat that nut bolt to a very shiny orange red, not the redish purple you get on very hot exhausts. Careful it is very hot and be wary about what else is nearby.
•   Drilling out the bolt becomes an option, given how hard they can be I found this in effective but in some circumstances I can see how it would be best e.g. drill out , cut new thread and refit new bolt.
•   Still stubborn ? then knowing nothing else it was angle grinder time, now this depends on the bolt type / thread nut etc. whether this works or is right thing to do.
o   First technique I now go for is cut off part of nut so you just skim the bolt, then with hole punch and hammer knock the nut round the thread, seems quite effective, use that spray stuff.
o   Then next option is chop off nut and or / bolt head and use nail punch to knock it out (does not work obviously on threaded bolts.
o   Next option if you suspect threaded bolt and the bolt is big enough, cut down centre of nut end of bolt, squeeze the two halves into each other, more spray and undo bolt as normal (much less thread stuck to inside of thread).

Any other tips warmly welcomed !  (will put in separate little post).

Removing the heat protection under car is pretty simple, so prop bolts surveyed and attempted with spanners, no joy ! left it to think about how to deal with it, if you see list above you may guess what happened.

Off to get a coffee now, so another update another day.

['The Gaffer']

Keep up the good work Richard. Dont let that pesky rust get the better of you.

[Richard]

Very brief update on the blood drawn tally, the donor car now has scored twice !

Stewards inquiries have initiated with a meeting in Paris later today to discuss the outcomes of the appeals.

We are hopeful of a successful outcome with the maximum penalty to the donor car being applied, more later.

[Bulldog Bri]

Hey, I always try to put a little of myself into my builds as well. Lol.

[Richard]

Just in from the garage, no news from Paris, guess we have to wait for business hours on Monday.

To pick up where I'd left off. Prop separation next, and this was not for a trial period as once off it was going for drastic surgery and not cosmetic


The separation of the prop from diff did not go simply, the nuts must have a special name in more than one way, they have those little groves on the flared flange edge that give a bigger surface area for grip and all else that comes with it. I now know the bolts have groves in them presumably again for extra grip and and round head slightly flattened on the inside next to the shaft. Oh such fun this was, ended up angle grinding both bolt head and nut off and taking a large hole punch and lump hammer whilst lying under the car knocking accurate belts into the end of the bolt to knock it through. Another point to realize here that it is a bad idea to take the gear lever off before doing this as you will otherwise have a rotating prop unless you can leave it in gear !

There was no way I could undo the prop from the gearbox under the car, wimp I hear you cry, well wimp it is as it was not going to be undone by me in that space, so, decided that engine / gearbox and prop were all coming out together, may be a mistake but just no choice. No room to get at the nuts and bolts under the car with them done up so tightly, again more room would have helped.

I'll be changing a few things before refitting however those can be covered in the build section. One of them involves the gearbox so more research has again thrown up what clever folks these BMW engineers were. Putting that aside what irritating folks they were as well. Removal of gearbox of course means separation of gear lever and how it is fitted. This was where manuals became of no use, they described removing a fitment you can't see with no pictures of what it looks like just a description of where it would be. Now in my view that is not helpful, luckily prior research had unearthed the answer with pictures so at least it made it simpler. I think this may require a picture explanation to be added to the reinstall. Note to self: don't forget this as it would be useful. No I do not have hairy palms 

Now we have just the brackets holding prop and gearbox to car, no bad thing and certainly ready for next phase.

Now, I plan no use for power steering so pump can be removed. Sounded simple again, again guides a bit lacking here however hunting for pulley replacement and pump replacement seemed to throw up some interesting points. Firstly getting spare pumps is very hard, so guess there is a second hand market, secondly the suggestion is to knock pulley off using a rubber hammer and thirdly two of the 4 bolts are considered very very hard to get off. Just my favourite subject all over again. Belt off (very very easy but remember to losen pulley bolts first ), then lightly tap pulley off, there goes that sense of humour, just no way lightly was going to work, checked and double checked I wasn't being a numpty on this item. As you know hitting light alloy pulleys with anything will damage them so I was not keen to do that on the rim, what I thought I'd try is hitting the pulley along the line of where it was joining the bracket behind it, not easy to reach so the some what handy tool of my crow bar came to the fore, using it as a big screwdriver I positioned it along the joint and gave the other end a sharp tap with a hammer, this was repeated on each of the three edges and then on the second lap it duly came off. It was easy to see how it had become so stuck, I suspect the mixture of metals with a bit of moisture had started a little chemical lesson. Incredible that was the easy bit, knew I was in for trouble and I was right.

Pump bracket to engine block is two relatively simple bolts, longish, so a bit of spray and not too difficult. Now for the already declared tough ones, did not notice at first but there is a gap which permits more spary to be added along the middle of the bolt, if you are doing this use that fact to your advantage. Anyway a big fight happen, eventually the top bolt made that horrible sound and an amazing loose feeling came over the bolt. Oh you are so right, it had snapped half way inside, so top half I have out and bottom half I have threaded and stuck in. Oh beep,   what to do? Well truth be told it is still there now as the pump is only connected to the bracket and this is to free the bracket, so it is a bit of a monument at the moment to all those bolts out there that  fell in the fight for donor cars to remain original.

On that melancholy note for bolts, I'll leave this update and go chase a beer and get ready for a little tidying of aluminium panel edges in the morning.

[Richard]

Results in from the inquiry and Donor body shell goes to scrap at the end of the week. Result 

Perhaps a bit hard to remember but there is actually a list of parts I'm after from the donor car. The tails off the various bits of wiring loom were snipped off with the labels that were put on as the demolishing went. For a bit of interest we pulled every wire back from its end in the whole car, an incredible number of wires all in all, and some put in the most in accessible places. From a parts collection point of view nothing difficult to get from the electrics it is a matter of labeling discipline.

Mechanicals again, those of you brighter than I or those with more experience will note that we made a big mistake earlier on. Fuel ! In reading up removal of engine among all the little instructions there is a suggestion for depressurising the fuel, it is called stalling the engine, however being a novice or other words you'd prefer to use I did not do this. So, problem is how to do this with no electrics, no steering wheel, no ignition, no airbag etc., well after a bit of thought decided that not a lot of choice.

Now, found something else a little interesting about the donor car. It appears that within the same range, same spec a few things changed so before and after Jan 1995 there are some differences, well our donor has both attributes as it was built bang on the cusp of the change, just great. So, fuel senders and filter from one version and other parts from another. Typical just typical !

That aside the documentation states that fuel is kept at about 65psi or about the same as some bike tyres (for those who have forgotten this is a form of transport powered by yourself, no combustion involved). If you have ever punctured a tyre at 65psi or less you will know air comes out pretty darned fast. Tee hee, GULP !  I now think I have to do this with the fuel pipes or something similar, oh well. Probably worth mentioning at this point that there is a great tip for how not to drain fuel tanks on the internet. Had a good chuckle at this, the gist of the story is that  someone wanted to drain their fuel tank whilst breaking their car and not having a pump wondered how they would achieve this, one of them thought they'd use their "Henry", spotted the flaw yet ?, well, they duly put the end of the vacuum nozzle into the tank, switched on "Henry" and jumped back with surprise as the vents of the cleaner emitted several feet of flames as the fuel vapour came into contact with the electric circuit powering the vacuum. Not wanting to repeat this, removed the recovery system, and had suitable bowls, garage doors open and went for the removal of clamps and hoses. I can report that 65psi is quite high, equally petrol and its fumes stink and it tastes horrid !

Lesson learnt, stall the donor car as its last action !

More another day.

[Richard]

Short update.

The more you strip out of a donor car the more you realise you could re-use. The possibilities are for those with skills apparently quite endless. The trouble starts becoming in my mind that for those you design kits the endless variation between models from the suppliers. With BM's it does appear that a few things could still be used that run through the E36 and E46 with a little extra planning. Some items do change of course.

The reason I've started thinking about this is the effect of IVA on some items, so obviously re-using makes more regulation compatible, the downside I guess is that less individual builds come out.

Back to fuel, reusing the fuel pump and senders from both tanks makes a lot of sense. subsequently I've found a little modification is needed but not too difficult. Getting them out of the original tank is one of those tasks were you have to be careful. Apparently there is a "proper" spanner tool for removing the large screwed on tank lids, now I'm sure this is the right thing to do but getting more into this Kit Car frame of mind a little of Mr Heath and Robinson and that creative touch is more than sufficient.

The screw top is of quite large diameter so applying force evenly between edges is hard, so with a little help a large screwdriver was pushed on one side where the raised ridges were and on the other one of those great tools "the crow bar" made an impromptu debut as a large screwdriver on the other side, now lump hammer taken and nudged in a controlled way on the back end of the impromptu made the "proper" tool entirely redundant, both tops were undone quite simply and yet more fuel fumes filled the garage (doors all open !!! )

A more complete update next time.