E21 316: Flared wheel-arches painted.

I have a buyer organised for the car, coming to pick it up next weekend. Just throwing up some recent pics of the painted wheel arches.

E21 316: E30 Sports Seats - fitted.

MJNewbs from eBay got back in touch and we finally negotiated a low enough price for the seats. The fronts are in great nick, only a slight fray to the driver's back-rest, but the rear seat back-rest has a few tear that I'll address in a later post.

Thankfully, the E30 seat bases fit onto the inner stock mount, next to the trans. tunnel, on the E21 so they are already sited neatly in the centre and only require the outer mount to be lowered. Here's how I finally got them to an equal height.

The outer seat-mount was cut away about 1.5 inches height from the lowest point of the floor-pan and the top half completely removed from the sill. This leaves a large flat T-piece section onto which a length of '2by4' style wood-beam was placed that sits at the same height as the inner seat-mount, give or take 2mm.

To strengthen the edge of the wood where the seat sits a piece of 2mm-thick angle-steel was screwed in place, clamping the wood to the remaining edge of the cut seat-mount. The M10 seat bolts run through the wood and are bolted to the floor-pan, so the wood only acts as a riser, not an anchor and the angle-steel helps to distribute any downward force on the wood, or twisting motion as the seat is adjusted.

I chose to bolt my seats directly through the floor-pan for strength and this leaves a gap under the base of the wood at the inside corners, which I stacked out with a nut and large washers. This gives the added benefit of the seats being bolted first to the wood, then through the floor-pan with the same bolt. The downside is the sealed floor-pan nuts will need removing should the seat need to come out in future. The alternative method, used by HSVTurbo in his build here, is to bolt the seats to a thicker metal bracket, then bolt the bracket through the wood and floor-pan. This way the seat can be removed from inside the car leaving the wood fixed in place, but I just don't feel this setup will be strong enough, even with the thicker metal bracket.

I used M10 nyloc-nuts with a dab of stud-lock inside and large-diameter [40mm] 'bumper' washers. A good blob of silicone-sealant was put between the washer and body, then round the outside of the seated nut. Finally, I coated them in a thick layer of Finnegan's WAXOYL Underbody Sealant, for protection obviously, but also to blend the shiny nuts and washers into the car's underside.

I still have the rear-seats, including the folding arm-rest, along with the door-cards/handles and rear trim-panels, so we'll have to see how much will fit after the MOT.

E21 316: Inner-Arch Fix + MOT Prep.

Hacking out the inner wheel-arches at the back to make the 16x9s fit left them in a right state, with a big gap up inside the wing. Being where it is, the gap is wide open to dirt and water flinging up off the wheel ready to rot the body from the inside out, so as a temporary measure I covered the area in ally-tape. It worked well, but was never going to last long. I figured the inner-arch would be considered a structural part of the body and would need a steel fillet welding in, but it doesn't appear to be the case so fibre-glass will do.

The area is a bit big for filling in though, so I shot up to Halfords and bought a square-metre of fibre-glass matting, £4.29. You need resin to apply it, which is a bit dearer. A kit is available for £9.99 that includes a small bottle of resin and a small mat, otherwise resin starts at a fiver and hardener is extra. The recommended resin is polyester-based, so it stretches, but I figure that marine epoxy-resin, which can be used for fibre-glass, will do the job as it may not be as flexible, but sure is waterproof and rock hard. I also happen to have a litre of the stuff left over from some carbon-fibre projects a few years ago.

I weighed the fibre-glass mat up to the whee-arch and cut it into rough shapes. The instructions say to coat the mat in resin and then stick it, but I found it just as easy and a little less messy to brush a little resin onto the surface, then stick the pieces of mat on dry and brush in heaps of resin over the top. The epoxy is quite thick and stiffens quickly, so this may the only workaround method using this stuff. It's certainly done the trick, the fibre-glass is as solid as the metal and has stuck well even to the rough under-seal surface, lets just hope it doesn't flex too much and crack away. It should see me through the MOT next week and that's the main thing, but at least there's no mud being flung up into the wing anymore. A quick coat of red-primer and the tester may not even notice the difference...

E21 316: Big job broke out - Time to do the N/S/R Wheel-Arch...

This is the first wheel-arch I pulled to fit the 16s and it's the only one now still needing a tidy-up, to say the least. I cut too much of the lip off trying to wedge some balloon-like 45% profile tyres and left it in a right mess. The newer 40% profile tyres fit perfectly and only needed minor cutting to the other arches, leaving this one miles from the rim and totally out of shape. The bit I cut off is the line used to form the arch on the rest, so this one was missing an edge to build the filler up to and totally sculpting the new arch-line by hand with hanging bits of mesh and filler was never going to happen. The easiest method would be a plastic arch cover, hiding the cut area completely and easily smoothed into the wing, but all four would have to match and the Group 2 ones are just too big to consider. It seems my only options are -

A. Buy a new pressed-steel wheel-arch from eBay for £25. Trim it, grind the wing away in the right shape, weld it in place, grind the welds down flat and smooth it all off. Only then could I pull the new arch-lip out and fill it to match the other three. [http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E21-316-323i-1977-1983-REAR-PASSENGER-SIDE-WHEEL-ARCH-NEW-CLEARANCE-PRICE-/190865619545?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item2c707a3a59]

B. Spot-weld the piece I cut off back into place and secure it with fibre-glass filler. Fill the lip to match the others and build up and re-shape the arch up to where it meets the wing almost.

No doubt B involves a lot less time and effort, but it's still going to be a lot of rubbing down.

The chewed up scrap of metal, good job I saved it. It didn't just slot back into position, there was quite a bit of grinding and filing.

I had wanted to tack-weld the metal on and fill the gaps with fibre-glass, but I couldn't get hold of one so masking-tape did the job. I caked on plenty of P40 fibre-glass filler in between the tape, waited for it to go off, removed the tape and filled in the gaps.

Well sealed behind with more P40. You can see the sliver of metal in position as the light shines through, showing just how much arch got cut off originally.

It was then ground down with a rotary-file on the drill, mainly inside so nothing rubs on the tyre, but a bit to give the lip some shape. All that's left now is the arduous task of filling all that arch.

E21 316: (Wheel) Arch-Nemesis Beaten! - tidied up with a bit of flare.

Been enjoying the car and weather too much over summer to neaten up the pulled wheel-arches, but thought I'd take some time off to finish them before the rain and gloom sets back in.

I bent the lip with a pair of grips into the smoothest arch I could and filled it flush with P38 to where the original outer lip was. This took quite a bit of building up.

Normally I'd give it a coat of zinc-primer for now and rub it down again, but for aesthetic value I went straight to red-primer and it's already lifted the look of the car.

More of the rear arches had to be cut away than the front, so this meant a smaller and slightly easier area to fill. The only remaining arch is the dreaded N/S rear one, which I hacked to death trying to install tyres that were too big, but it's a mammoth job alone and will have to wait.

E21 316: Sculpting New Arches...

The car survived a trip with 3 people in and no scrubbing at all on the 16x9s, which I found very surprising, but still I figure the arches are good to finish off. I've neatened up the pulled lips and made a start to filling in and re-sculpting the shape of the wheel-arches, but progress has been slow and my intentions of selling the complete project this summer are looking unlikely. I spoke to the guy who did the re-spray for me originally and he said to get the arches as good as could be and pass it back over to him to smooth them off and repaint them without having to go over the whole car again. Great, though I can't keep hurling money at it, and with more to do over summer I've had less time to spend on the E21 and more time spent enjoying driving it on the new wheels for a few weekends in the sunshine like I intended, not just the odd trip to work. Oh and there is the matter of my daily driver needing MOT attention, but that's a different story.

Never the less, both the o/s arches have begun to take shape. Getting the lips off the bigger wheels and tyres was too extreme a job for my arch-rolling kit, so I had to pull them out with grips in the end. This meant a fair bit less grinding on the o/s rear wheel arch and none at all needed up front. The arch-lip needed to be low for as much tuck as possible, I don't like the cut-arch look, so I got the pulled out lip roughly in line with the slope of the arch and built it up flush with P38 filler. This is as close to the look of those European BBS'd E21s as I could figure, with a slight flare to the lip rather than the flat-edged look of the original arches. This is probably the easiest method of smoothing and saves on a bit of body-filler, enough of which is being used already.

I haven't touched the nearside arches yet, the main thing putting me off being the n/s rear one that was used to test fit those oversized Yokohama tyres and has suffered greatly from the spinning-disc. With the extra lip cut off the rigidity has been lost and the general shape of the arch has deformed, as well as more tyre being visible, about 10mm of tuck being lost. I guess my only options are to try and spot-weld the rough section of lip back on that was cut too far, which I still have, and rebuild the shape of the entire arch in filler, or buy a patterned-part wheel-arch off eBay for £25, cut out the current one, weld in the new one, smooth it off, pull the lip out and fill all that in. Well, there's no doubt the first method is cheaper and a lot less work, but this is a large area to be filling and smoothing and a wide margin for error, plus I don't even know if the bent arch will accept the bit I cut off without messing it up even further... watch this space!

E21 316: More Open Arch Surgery! Wheels finally on...

Got the grinder out again today and tackled the job I haven't been looking forward to - cutting away the other rear wheel-arch. Progress was quick and smooth for a change, I guess because I had an idea of what to do now, but I think the lower profile tyres played a part. If only I'd bought them first time round I wouldn't have had to butcher the n/s quite so much. A good notch had to come out at the bumper shut-lines as these were the main bits sitting on the tyre, but less of the outer lip had to be cut away and the arch looks a lot smoother than the last effort.

The main problem with scrubbing was coming from the inner skin of the arch and the best way to get that off was still to peel it back, cut wide flaps in the metal using tin-snips and work them with grips until they snap clear.

It's been quite a bit of effort and hacking away at the car was heartbreaking, but at last the super fat wheels are on and no scrubbing whatsoever. Now to see about neatening up those arches...

E21 316: Front wheels fitted - the easy part.

No fouling on the pulled arch-lip with these skinnier tyres, but the front valance was still just about catching so, with the arrival of the new spacers, I thought I'd get the fronts boxed off before starting the arduous task of the other rear arch. Sadly, my camber-plates have yet to arrive, I guess they must be stuck while Customs & Excise figure out what they are.

Thankfully, the amount of valance that needed cutting away on the n/s was only about 8mm and I didn't have to remove the bumper after all. I did my best to follow a natural curve, not sure if I took a little too much near the bottom. Interestingly, the o/s of the front valance didn't contact the new tyre at all and the fender does not extend past the bumper. I wonder if the n/s wing has been replaced at some point giving a slightly proud line. I matched up to that line when repairing the lower-valance last summer, so that would explain why it was catching the tyre too. Either way, the o/s/f arch required no grinding at all, so a little more pulling and the fronts will be ready for smoothing in.

I've also been driving round the last day or two with NASCAR style staggered wheels - 16s on the n/s and still 15s on the o/s. The car steers great to the right, but is a bit recalcitrant going hard left. I must find time to wrestle that other rear arch on Monday or it'll be like this for a while.

E21 316: Slight arch foul!

As you can see, the arch was sat on the tyre something awful with the 9" wide wheels at the back and the 225/45/16 rubber on...

A bit more arch persuasion...

Credit card clearance!

Or is it? The arch is still sitting on the tyre a little. The car just about rolls, but there's nowhere for the tyre to go either on a bump or with the weight of the driver...

It looks very flush and tidy, but something drastic will have to be done.

E21 316: Arch Rolling - First Test.

ET Plus complete arch-rolling kit was about £100 on eBay and comes with a full set of spigot rings to fir anything.

Hard to see in the pic, but quite a bit of scrubbing on the tyre and a faint red line all the way around the sidewall from the sharp-edged lip, below.

Rolling-tool bolts on to the hub, winds out against the arch and you're away, rolling it back and forth, winding it out a little more each time. This was insanely easy compared to what I was expecting. 

I managed to roll the sharp lip up almost flush and gave the rim of the arch a slight flare in about 15 minutes flat. No more scrubbage for now, even if the look hasn't changed much.

It's best to use a heat-gun to warm the paint so it doesn't crack, but without one to hand I figured hot water would do the trick. A bit of loose paint still flaked off from under the arch, but it looks like I'm already beginning to get rusty bubbles under the rim of all four arches and they will probably have erupted by summer. The n/s arch also consists of a fair bit of primer, so it'll be interesting to see how neatly that rolls out and I'll ask my paint guy how much smoothing and spraying all the arches will be with my left over paint. 

E21 316: Some Paint-Job Pics...

Gonna take some proper pics when i've finished cleaning and refitting all the trim, but for now here's a few I took in the dark.

E21 316: Re-Spray Update!

I managed to sell the engine and crank to another BMW enthusiast who is keen to do the 2-litre upgrade that I can't stomach on his E30 Baur convertible. Nice. He's picking the engine up tomorrow and the block was still in the boot of my car in the paint-shop, so I decided to pay an impromptu visit after work and see how the car is coming along.

All masked and ready to paint. I wasn't expecting them to do any filler work for the money, but you can see from the 328ci behind that my Beemer is in the right hands. They've sorted out that front wing panel for me and smoothed out even the minute blemishes I was going to leave. Turns out that line of rust from the door bottom was actually a ridge - the whole bottom edge had been pushed in, probably slammed into a high kerb - and they've sorted that out, so I've got to give them props there. Can't wait to see it finished!

** Couple more pics the guys sent me as they wheeled her into the spray booth - today's the day.