Clem86 wrote:Very nice !
You won't lost your wallet or cellphone anymore
haha I really almost did lose some stuff out of the giant hole one day when driving
highlander69 wrote:Looking great Chris !!
It's amazing how quickly it all comes together once you decide to tackle the rust. I really like this car,and I'm glad your
fixing her up.
Keep the updates a coming.
Cheers,
Craig.
Thanks for the encouragement
It really isn't all that bad to fix this stuff... you just have to start cutting! Once you start, I find that it's hard to stop actually. It is pretty disheartening when you find the bad stuff, but then you formulate a plan to get it out of there, shape new panels, and weld 'em in. As long as you're good with shears, a hammer or brake, and a welder, it's pretty fun.
I really feel good about making this car right again. It would have surely gone to the scrap yard if it was in 99% of other people's hands I think.
So here's the latest on the car. I found a good source for mixed gas near me (Praxair) so now I'm good to go there. I decided to break out the POR-15 to try it out on the most recent repair. It is awesome stuff! I also got the rubberized undercoating, but haven't sprayed that yet. I'm waiting until I weld the seat mount back to the repair panel I put in. That will require stripping some of the POR-15 off, but I needed to paint under the thing anyhow because I couldn't get in there with a brush after it's welded... it will make sense when I take some pictures. I'm going to focus on getting the rust in the driver's side floor fixed before I go back to the relatively simple seat mount fabrication.
It was my birthday on Friday and I received a few cool things. One was a brew-your-own-beer kit. The next was a check to partially fund getting the seats in this car re-done! It was less than enough to get one seat done, but its still a start
One place has quoted $350 for one seat... I've heard of another who does full interiors for $1000. I'm going to take a look at the quality of work of all of the local places before I even think about making a move. Part of me really wants to get all of the seats done at the same time in an effort to make them all match, but I don't really want to spend that kind of money. Then again, I'm definitely not just going to do one front seat, and if I'm going to spend $350+$350, then I'd rather just do it all. We'll see...
Finally, I'm still trying to figure out why the hell this thing is vibrating so badly from 45-50 mph. I've replaced all of the important bushings in the front end. The suspension on this thing is *tight*. I mentioned it to my favorite local mechanic and he instantly asked if it was on a BMW and then if it was at 45-50 mph. He thinks the wheel/tire combo is to blame, but I already tried the stock wheels/tires and there was no difference. He wants to try to road force balance the wheels/tires. I'll try that I guess, but my initial feeling was that an alignment issue could be causing it. Too much toe in either direction can cause a shimmy...
If neither of those pan out, I'll look into rotors and wheel bearings. Those are the only other things which could be causing this unless one of the bushings somewhere is just not showing it's flex/problem when I'm under the car jostling things around.
I also made a sweet steering box reinforcement dowell on my mini-lathe. I'll post some pics later on.
. I should have known if there was beer posted you would chime in
Sounds like a good time. I used to do COZ once a year, before I had kids!
