Hi all,
I thought it about time that I started putting a journal together about my newly acquired M Coupe, I will try to update with all the tidy up pieces I do if I remember to take pictures.
It’s a 1998 Arctic Silver S50 with all black leather which I bought from this forum and was previously owned by Martin aka Wefail.
First task was a good clean and polish both inside and out, resulting in this:-
Reading through threads etc I kind of got the sense that the two issues to worry about are the Vanos and the boot floor, well the Vanos was replaced by Martin , so that just left the boot floor, when i bought the car the boot floor looked ok, not being easily satisfied i stripped all the sound deadening off and the seam sealer, i think my car was at the last of the run when the seam sealer was doing its best as it was a good centimeter think in places and a pain to get off, I was working on the basis of prevntion is better than cure anyway,
This is what greeted me:-
so at least 1 spot weld had pulled,
I then got the car on some ramps and had a look underneath, I didn’t remove the exhaust etc as i didn’t have time but the boot floor had extra welds approx 1" every 2" I would guess these were done at the factory looking at the condition etc.
I took the car down to a local car garage who specialize in fabrication (Daytona Auto's in Congleton) and asked them to have a look, Ray the owner has repaired the floors in M3's in the past so knew about the issues, however this would be his first Z3M. Any way he said no problem to strengthening the floor and he would remove the exhaust etc to gain access and underneath to check for damage, so I booked it in for the next available slot two weeks later, I left a camera with Ray so he could take some pictures for me .
Starting with inside the boot you can see that circa 7 spot welds were actually starting to show signs of failure so these were opened and then welded up with a Mig.
Next you can see where the seams have been seam welded 2:1
From underneath when cleaned up slight metal fatigue was visible so strengthening and seam welding was carried out here as well
Once welded up underneath red lead and then a coat of stone chip undercoat was applied.
And a coat of red lead in the boot, and this is how I picked the car up.
Well you wouldn’t want to remove all of the trim ( as I think has become the norm for all Z3M owners every week) and see red lead so I started this afternoon to prep for taking the boot floor back to something like standard.
First job, there had been a little surface corrosion around the cable grommet, so this was cleaned up to clean metal and Krust added to kill off any remaining, the black is the kruse when dry.
Then the whole floor area had a going over of scotchbrite for a paint key and then degreased using white spirit and clean cloths, then on with the first coat of grey primer:-
Three further coats and I am left with this:-
And this is how the car looks whilst I await delivery of some new bitumen mat as per original and a can of Arctic silver paint which should finish it off, I can then have the joyful task of rebuilding the zillion pieces of boot trim.
I took the car for a trip to Hamble on the south coast and it ran brilliant, smooth and quick and was pleasantly surprised by the fuel economy, on the way back mind the wiper which Martin had told me was intermittent as to whether it would work decided it wouldn’t, so I decided to take a look at it. Well it turned out to be an easy repair as all that was wrong was a loose connector which was not clipped in correctly, it was the twin connector which at a guess is the signal cable.
Second job was to sort out the rear wash as this didn’t work either, so starting at source I disconnected the pipe at the first of many elbows near to the tank and water was getting to here, so I then disconnected the water pipe from the rear jet and surprise surprise the water got here meaning only one issue a blocked washer jet, a quick strip down and removal of the jet balls from the holder revealed it was clogged solid with 14 years of c**p, a quick clean up and the jet now works
Cheers
Ian
I thought it about time that I started putting a journal together about my newly acquired M Coupe, I will try to update with all the tidy up pieces I do if I remember to take pictures.
It’s a 1998 Arctic Silver S50 with all black leather which I bought from this forum and was previously owned by Martin aka Wefail.
First task was a good clean and polish both inside and out, resulting in this:-
Reading through threads etc I kind of got the sense that the two issues to worry about are the Vanos and the boot floor, well the Vanos was replaced by Martin , so that just left the boot floor, when i bought the car the boot floor looked ok, not being easily satisfied i stripped all the sound deadening off and the seam sealer, i think my car was at the last of the run when the seam sealer was doing its best as it was a good centimeter think in places and a pain to get off, I was working on the basis of prevntion is better than cure anyway,
This is what greeted me:-
so at least 1 spot weld had pulled,
I then got the car on some ramps and had a look underneath, I didn’t remove the exhaust etc as i didn’t have time but the boot floor had extra welds approx 1" every 2" I would guess these were done at the factory looking at the condition etc.
I took the car down to a local car garage who specialize in fabrication (Daytona Auto's in Congleton) and asked them to have a look, Ray the owner has repaired the floors in M3's in the past so knew about the issues, however this would be his first Z3M. Any way he said no problem to strengthening the floor and he would remove the exhaust etc to gain access and underneath to check for damage, so I booked it in for the next available slot two weeks later, I left a camera with Ray so he could take some pictures for me .
Starting with inside the boot you can see that circa 7 spot welds were actually starting to show signs of failure so these were opened and then welded up with a Mig.
Next you can see where the seams have been seam welded 2:1
From underneath when cleaned up slight metal fatigue was visible so strengthening and seam welding was carried out here as well
Once welded up underneath red lead and then a coat of stone chip undercoat was applied.
And a coat of red lead in the boot, and this is how I picked the car up.
Well you wouldn’t want to remove all of the trim ( as I think has become the norm for all Z3M owners every week) and see red lead so I started this afternoon to prep for taking the boot floor back to something like standard.
First job, there had been a little surface corrosion around the cable grommet, so this was cleaned up to clean metal and Krust added to kill off any remaining, the black is the kruse when dry.
Then the whole floor area had a going over of scotchbrite for a paint key and then degreased using white spirit and clean cloths, then on with the first coat of grey primer:-
Three further coats and I am left with this:-
And this is how the car looks whilst I await delivery of some new bitumen mat as per original and a can of Arctic silver paint which should finish it off, I can then have the joyful task of rebuilding the zillion pieces of boot trim.
I took the car for a trip to Hamble on the south coast and it ran brilliant, smooth and quick and was pleasantly surprised by the fuel economy, on the way back mind the wiper which Martin had told me was intermittent as to whether it would work decided it wouldn’t, so I decided to take a look at it. Well it turned out to be an easy repair as all that was wrong was a loose connector which was not clipped in correctly, it was the twin connector which at a guess is the signal cable.
Second job was to sort out the rear wash as this didn’t work either, so starting at source I disconnected the pipe at the first of many elbows near to the tank and water was getting to here, so I then disconnected the water pipe from the rear jet and surprise surprise the water got here meaning only one issue a blocked washer jet, a quick strip down and removal of the jet balls from the holder revealed it was clogged solid with 14 years of c**p, a quick clean up and the jet now works
Cheers
Ian
Comment