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It's been a few weeks since we've had an update. This is a pretty decent one.

While Mike was on sabbatical, he rented his shop out to another guy. He left my car, the '67 Camaro and the '69 Chevelle in the last bay, which the tennant wasn't using. I stopped in every so often and checked on the car and to make sure they were functioning. I stopped in last Thursday (March 26) as usual and he said Mike had come by that morning and would be back the next day. I also noticed the Nova was back and the Camaro was out of the shop. Great. He must have been there. I decided I'd be back the next day too. I popped by around noon on Friday and said hi. He was working on the Nova trying to make the crappy aftermarket parts the customer ordered fit properly. We talked for a few minutes and he was up on everything that needed doing on my E12. Said that once the Nova was done, he'd be on my car "hot and heavy." I guess it's good to know someone has been thinking about it.

Just to recap. Our plan for the car is to attend to all of the needs of the shell itself first. This helps to ensure all of the stuff I want done gets done. It also allows my car to take up a smaller footprint than it would if I had the whole thing there.

Saturday rolls around (April 4) and I'm diligently working on photographs. The phone rings. Somehow I have this thing where I generally know who is calling. I said, "I wonder what's wrong with my car." Sure enough. It's Mike. No bad news though. He apparently got cracking on the car a little faster than I thought he would. The core support is off the car and he asked if I'd want to remove the front suspension. Why did I mention that to him? Ugh. Well, it's the only way to do it right, so there you go. He figures sometime this week would be nice. Yeah. Great. I asked how that afternoon worked and he said that would be fine. He was going to be there all day. Yay.

I drive over there and here's what the car looks like:



Woa mah fuk. Uhh, yeah, that stuff isn't there anymore.



I took a bright light and looked down the frame rails and they actually look really good, so I'm happy about that. We're going to clean them out as best we can and Mike has an apparatus to shoot something like Rhino liner down the frame rails which should do something.



Mike made up some rolling stands by welding jackstands to some wheel dollies. He used them for the body on the Nova and they worked well. He put two under the frame rails on the E12 while he was working on it. At this point, the core support, the battery tray and it's counterpart for the right side have been removed. The core support was damaged, the battery tray had a hole in it and the right side piece was damaged when the core support was damaged, though the inner fender is nice and straight (hooray).

It really shouldn't be too bad removing the suspension, so here's how you do it:

Start by disconnecting the flex disc between the lower steering column and the steering box. I decided that this was easier than removing the splined couplings (you don't have a choice in E28 as the flex disc is inside the car), plus, it would be easier to reindex the box when it was all back together provided everything goes back together the same way. Given that the car needed to be moved around and I didn't want a mess of ATF every time the steering wheel was turned, I left the pump and reservoir attached as a self-contained system.

Next, remove the heatshield over the idler arm. two 10mm screws. One under the subframe and then one under the frame rail.

From there, put a floor jack under the front subframe itself. There are 4 19mm bolts which secure the subframe to the frame rails. Remove them. Drop the subframe.

Remove the wheels. Could have done this first, but eh.

Then, remove the 3 13mm nuts on the top of each strut tower. I held onto the spring and guide it down to the ground gently. At this point, nothing is attached to the car.

The reason I left the struts attached to the steering knuckles is that they use safety wire through the three bolts and it's just easier to do everything on the ground. Plus, I didn't want to lay down on the ground to get to them.

I pulled the steering column and pedal bracket since they obviously were not needed. They also needed to be cleaned up due to the prolonged brake fluid leak.

Mike then asked the question that I didn't want to hear. The wiring harness from the fusebox to the inside of the car was in the way of doing a really good job on the firewall. I was afraid of this. I had looked at pulling the wiring last year, as I thought everything would just separate at the block of connectors. The more I traced wires, it looked like it was really going to be a mess as harnesses come in and were split amongst several connectors whose harnesses ran across the dashboard support. Well, I really want a good job and one of the keys to success at that goal is not having crap in the way. With the car having sat there and all of the work going on, we better just pull it all out. So, Mike and I fed a bunch of wires and bulky connectors through a relatively small hole. There were a couple of connectors that disconnected some of the car wiring that ran down the sills. I decided to pull all of that out too, since it's pretty easy to trace. Unfortunately, there's a ground wire attached to the right rear backing plate right now so that's the only thing keeping that from coming out.

Once that was all done, we were left with this:







The firewall is also in really good shape. With the pedal bracket in the way, Mike hadn't really gotten in there. Lots of brake fluid was in the area for a while, so there is some weirdness in there, but it's all solid according to him. The two holes on the right side of the firewall will be blocked off as this car is staying AC frei.

Mike and Ruben's assistant helped me put the whole pile of stuff into the back of the touring. Forgot to photograph it once it was in there, but my hands were filthy and Mike needed to get home, so time was tight.

Mike is hoping to have the car back on it's wheels when it is time to paint it. I kinda didn't want to hear that either, but I guess we can make it happen. I asked him how much time I had and he was figuring a month.

I took all of the stuff home. I pulled the struts and stuff out and then I wasn't really looking forward to pulling this out myself.



Well, I did.



I shoved it in the garage in front of the '75 E12 and decided to deal with it another time.

I was up at the storage unit last night and decided that while I was there, I better unwrap the three doors I bought from BavAuto in 2010. They all looked good, but while I was looking at the right front door, I noticed something.



Uhhh, where does the mirror go?



I start thinking oh shit. I have to get two doors now. Ugh.

After sharing my discovery with another member doing an M535i project using genuine doors sourced through BavAuto and freaking him out, the part numbers definitely checked out. I looked at my original door really closely and discovered that the front window guide rail is in fact bolted in and there are two rivets that secure the mirror mounting through the top of the door frame. While I did not drill those out, it seems that the piece should easily transfer into the new door. I cannot find any mention of this part in the ETK, so it's interesting. The new door definitely has the two holes for the rivets, so I settled down.

I never paid attention to this, but I'm starting to think my car was originally delivered to Italy.



I did a little bit of digging on the M-Registry and interestingly, the other two cars I found (one of which is in Italy) that listed Italian specification also lacked the right side mirror and had similar options (no sunroof, no air conditioning and power windows). This might help to explain also why despite the car coming to the US in 1989, it doesn't really have much rust compared to what I've seen of other cars.

Today, I decided to tackle getting the front suspension stripped down. I didn't really take any photos of the process since really, I don't understand how that works. I just undo bolts, stupid cotter pins and castle nuts. I think I'm going to have to warranty my needle nose pliers.

Everything came apart pretty easily. I had to drill out one of the brake rotor securing screws, but that really isn't too bad. The front struts were still the original Bilsteins and they look good, but need rebuilding. I'm thinking that instead of spending $11 billion buying new ones that have had superceded part numbers, I'll see about getting these rebuilt. After a couple hours of work, here's what I was left with, which should be heading to the powder-coater this week:



Everything is actually in really nice shape, so it should look fantastic when I get it back.

So, that's pretty much were we are at.

Oh, and tomorrow, I will have had this car five years which oddly enough makes it the car I've had the longest. Funny how that has worked out. Maybe someday I can have something to show for it.

Very cool.

The tops of the frame rails aren't closed on an E12?

They are. The battery tray and it's mate cover them. Notice that they have been removed as they are being replaced.



The two pieces on the right side of this photo are also the top of the frame rails.

Very nice to read!

Fantastic progress report, love it. I'm very interested to see all the steps you're taking with the wiring harness and powdercoating work.

How did you find the battery tray piece? I was told only the passenger side was available (I got it and then the bodyshop ended up straightening mine and reusing it, and they repaired my battery tray and reused it as well).

Ugh, frame rail insides! Now I need to ask about whether the shop peeked inside at mine.

So glad you are finally getting the resto moving again! It will be worth it in the end.

Adam,
I bought the battery tray piece in 2010 along with the core support. At that time, the right side wasn't available, so it was either straighten/weld the crack in mine or buy the Walloth and Nesch piece which looks crappy in comparison. Totally lucked out that they put the right side back into production so I snagged it.

I may need your help figuring out where wires go. I also need to try to locate the harness for the right side mirror. It's definitely something I think needs to be added.

So many great restorations going on right now. Keep the updates coming!
It's a shame you don't have a nice cargo mat for the e34 to protect that carpeting.

Wow, this thing is really coming apart, I'm impressed with how deep you are going. E12 restoration mania is hitting mye28.com by force.

It's fun seeing someone else work on these heaps for a change.

wkohler wrote:I may need your help figuring out where wires go.

Doh! I was planning to contact you when I tried to put my car together and ask for help. Maybe your Fore! E12 will be the Rosetta stone we need to get the M535i's back in order.

Adam W in MN wrote:

wkohler wrote:I may need your help figuring out where wires go.

Doh! I was planning to contact you when I tried to put my car together and ask for help. Maybe your Fore! E12 will be the Rosetta stone we need to get the M535i's back in order.

Adam, I'm sure we can figure it out!

bkbimmer wrote:Wow, this thing is really coming apart, I'm impressed with how deep you are going. E12 restoration mania is hitting mye28.com by force.

It's fun seeing someone else work on these heaps for a change.

I was kinda hesitant in some areas, but really this much effort is going into it, may as well try to do it the best I can. I am hopeful that this car will turn out pretty nice, but we will see.

Another update, it seems.

I made several calls today in search of a driver door. Nothing. Stop holding out on me.

I also was on the phone with Bilstein for over an hour about rebuilding my factory shocks. Short answer is that the shocks have BMW part numbers, they don't have a diagram and they won't do it. Great. BMW has superceded both part numbers, so I have no idea what I'd be getting for my $1k.

I did order two new fenders. We will see how that goes since it took an act of Congress to get the bushings for the front subframe.

I had kinda forgotten I told Mike I'd be out today to pick up the driver door I brought him to check out since I cannot for the life of me find a door. It's got too much rust in the seams, so I have no choice but to find a new door. Anyway, he called me and asked if I could pick him up some sand from an abrasives distributor. Sure. Got that picked up and headed over. He had the rear up on the jackstand dollies as well. Gave me a chance to pull the rest of the wiring out since I could easily get to the screw that was affixing that one ground wire. Surprisingly, he had also fitted all of the front end pieces together and everything fits properly. Even more surprisingly, he cleaned the bottom of the car back to the rear subframe. Said it's in really nice shape.












No wiring!



Next up, I get to remove the rear subframe, fuel and brake lines. May as well cut no corners.

wkohler wrote:Next up, I get to remove the rear subframe, fuel and brake lines. May as well cut no corners.

I guess not!

So good you pulled the wiring!
Walloth und Nesh has new doors but shipping would be a tad high.....

.

Are you reusing the wiring harness or can you buy a new one? That is one thing I didn't feel the need to remove from my car, technically I'm not restoring my car rather heavily modifying it. I'm thankful I had little to no rust to deal with so I could focus on the big stuff.

Watching this project coming together makes me wish I had money to have help with some of my builds so they would move along faster, this shirt is a huge commitment! Good thing we aren't married.

I'm going to reuse the harnesses as they're in really nice shape. I'm not sure if I can get new ones, but it's not really something I am worried about. The main thing for me is getting them out of the way as they get filthy (they already are).

As for the doors, while Walloth and Nesch show they had the left front door in stock, they do not. So, I guess I have to try to find a used one without rust. My year-long search has been unsuccessful of course.

wkohler wrote:I'm going to reuse the harnesses as they're in really nice shape. I'm not sure if I can get new ones, but it's not really something I am worried about. The main thing for me is getting them out of the way as they get filthy (they already are).

As for the doors, while Walloth and Nesch show they had the left front door in stock, they do not. So, I guess I have to try to find a used one without rust. My year-long search has been unsuccessful of course.

I wouldn't have thought it would be that hard to find a good e12 door, is an e28 door that different that you can't just move a few things around? Like by changing the upper frame. I know you are a purist so I'm sure that is the worst thing you have ever heard!

I have parted out quite a few that had great doors and no one wanted then, to the scrapper they went!

My driver door is decent but there is some rust in the channel that holds the door seal and Mike doesn't think he could get all of it. There is no rust showing anywhere with the seal in place. It's rusting there because when the car was Federalized, they welded the beams in and of course did nothing to seal up the welds. The leading edge of the door is fine.
I had an E12 parts car for a short time that was a piece of shit and had nothing I could use. Unfortunately the door was rusty and full of filler.

It can't be blasted away and sealed with epoxy? If there aren't any holes it doesn't seem to be a big deal to me but I haven't seen it.

There are no highly complex shapes in that area, right? Worst case, couldn't someone fab a length of channel and you simply cut out a section of the frame and weld in new? This is assuming the rust is localized to that spot and a few inches on either end of it.

-tammer

I will get a picture of it. I was going to take one yesterday but alas.

First, off, I apologize for the quality of photos. It's been kinda crazy and I haven't had a real camera, so we get iPhone photos, which are by and large, terrible. Also, I'm pretty terrible with the phone as a camera, too.

As far as the driver door goes...

I still have the super eta. Unfortunately, a late E28 door is not going to work, but I had thought about taking an early E28 door, ordering the window frame, which looks available and having a door made out of them. It is something I did consider. It's pretty common knowledge that early E28 doors are less-resilient than late E28 doors and when it comes to E12s, the same thing applies, except they're all pretty much early doors.

I made four more calls this morning. None of which were fruitful.

Here's the affected area on the door:



I've felt all up and down that area on the inside of the door and there are no perforations or scabs that I can feel. The inspection mirror didn't show any evidence of a real problem either. He did some isolated blasting on some pitted areas on the car and it occurred to me that he could probably do something with this since the rest of the door is among the best I've seen. In fact, I thought this door was "perfect" until I pulled the door seal off. Mike mentioned it to me today since he was very happy with the results he was getting.

And of course, I did more work on the car today. I didn't have a lot of time, but with the way Mike has been moving on this, I didn't want stuff in his way. I was out in Florence, AZ for work today and when I got back mid-afternoon, I called Mike to see if he'd be cool with me pulling out the rear suspension today since I don't have the block of time needed during the next week or so and I know he has things he wants to do under there. I made my way over there. I had the necessary tools and my creeper in the car already, so that saved some time. I showed up and he already had the front end welded on. Holy shit, we're moving too fast!









Here's the extent of the rust in the windshield channel. He figures this is easily remedied.



The firewall has cleaned up really well.



The previous resident has been evicted:



We were going to use the old subframe bushings to support the car on the stands, but that wasn't working so well, so they're under the jackpoints on the rockers right now.

Note in the photo that this car already has the reinforcement installed for the differential mount. One benefit to it staying in Europe for nearly 10 years.

Once I got all of that removed, we also removed the fuel and brake hard lines. At this point, the car is nothing but an empty shell.

Mike seam-sealed everything up front and that was that for today!





I'm sure many people think I'm nuts nuts nuts for putting all of this effort into an E12.

Certifiably nuts!

My kind of nuts.

These crappy photos are better than no photos, by far. Thanks for posting them.

this causes me madness. measurements on all 3 axisesesis.

You all move fast. Sheesh.

Adam W in MN wrote:

wkohler wrote:I may need your help figuring out where wires go.

Doh! I was planning to contact you when I tried to put my car together and ask for help. Maybe your Fore! E12 will be the Rosetta stone we need to get the M535i's back in order.

If you fella's need help with photos of wiring and where it goes, let me know. Mine is still together since it'll still be a few years before I join the tear down and rebuild club. Easier for Adam to see it in person, or I'd be happy to bring it by or leave it with you for a weekend or whatever when you're ready.

Chris, the car is looking good. I wish my car had rust to fix, it looks like an awful lot of fun.