Late in 2001 I noticed that there were a number of spots on the body where time and the weather had taken it’s toll on the beamer. I decided to take it off the road and start the slow process of dismantling and repairing all the damage. The car was completely stripped, so all the glass, all the trim, the (bolt-on) front wings (fenders), bumpers, bonnet (hood), boot (trunk) lid, door handles, lighting, also the interior was removed to keep it from harm. I decided to leave the engine compartment as it was for the time being as the costs were going to be fairly high as it was, the dashboard was also left in. First job was to deal with the rust. Some of it was superficial and was removed with a rotary wire brush and then primed. Some of it was pretty bad and needed to be cut out and new steel plate welded in. In the first slide show there are a couple of examples, notably the fabrication of the lower rear wing section which was hand formed and welded in place. After grinding, sanding and priming you couldn’t tell what had been done. It was suggested to me at the time that some replacement wings would have been easier. Although this is possibly true it would have a) cost more and b) due to the quality of replacement panels (even BMW) these days I doubt if the fit would have been as good as the originals.
There were also a few things that needed some attention to build the car back up to a state where it would match the new paint job.
- The front bumper was absolutely full of rust, there are a couple of photo’s in the next slideshow, but the worst was in the rubber bumper strip itself. Inside the rubber is a thin steel C profile strip which serves to hold the flat heads of the fixing bolts. Apart from all the rusted bolts breaking off during dismantling, the C profile itself was all rust and when the rubber was bent it just disintegrated leaving a sloppy piece of rubber which was no longer any use. So that was one more expensive repair, more or less a complete bumper.
- Secondly the chrome strips attached to the rail round the roof line once removed are so mis-formed as to be unusable. Another expensive item from BMW (Note from 2016 – no longer available).
- The windscreen had a couple of cracks which after removing split right across the screen, so, new screen.
- The cardboard like material used for the trim on the panels in the boot was warped and split from damp over the years. This was repaired by stripping the felt covering carefully and then using the cardboard as template to cut replacement panels from hardboard. The felt covering was glued to the new panel and the small fixing locks installed. Good as new.
- The steel channel that holds the glass on the rear window winder assemblies was so rusted that the glass shifted and jammed during operation. I cut the old channel off and only being able to find a piece of rectangular steel tube of a size that would fit the glass (plus a thin rubber protective strip) I had to saw down the length to create two U channels. Welded them in place, primed and painted and that was also as good as new.
- New BMW roundels as the old ones were damaged by damp between the layers, a known problem.
The last stage was the build up of course. When the spray shop was eventually finished the owner offered (as a sort of compensation for the wait) to let me use the back of his used car showroom to rebuild it. This had the advantage that:
- We didn’t need to push the car the 200 metres across the road back to my garage.
- I had much more space to work around the car.
- It served as good publicity for the work done as I spent a lot of time talking to his customers about what we had done and why.
Disadvantage was strangely enough tools, or rather the lack of them. They said I could use their tools but I couldn’t find much I was happy with so ended up dragging my toolchest tower across the road and parking it next to the car. You can see it in a couple of the photo’s.
So this was the result after this first phase.
I must add that I have always been happy with work that “Autoschade De Staart” has done for me. The owner Giuseppe di Spirito is an old school type of guy and I have always been able to come to some sort of arrangement over the cost and the time taken to do it. Having said that it always takes longer than initially agreed due to the fact that the ANWB (Dutch Travellers Association) are bringing accident damaged cars every day from the motorways near the town. This is not work that they can easily turn away, it’s their bread and butter.
Guiseppe di Spirito
