Another F81 Build Thread

[attbimmer]

I think it took longer to remove the wiring harness from the car then it did the drive train. Overall though it came out without issues, just fiddling with endless clips. Out of the 100s I think I only broke about 10 or so.



Just a few things left to complete stripping the body. Then the real fun begins.

[WedgeSalad]

Godspeed

Cant wait to see what direction you take it

looks like its local too, if you need a hand feel free to hit me up

[attbimmer]

Had just a little time tonight, so thought I'd at least quickly pull out the sunroof and curtain airbags. Then looked closer and saw a few dozen rivets would need to be drilled out as well as some interesting looking clips that held parts of the airbag. After futzing with the first clip to figure out best angle and tools to use the rest came out pretty easily. The rivets are pretty thick, but are soft aluminum so drilled out relatively quickly.

After all the airbag and about 16 metal bracks were removed, the sunroof unbolted and was out in 5 minutes. It comes out in 2 parts with the tray, motors, and moving parts of the glass and shade as one large part and then a smaller section that has the second piece of glass that doesn't move. The seal that goes around the glass and metal of the roof is glued on real well, so that will be fun to remove.

Could probably have left a few of the brackets in, but at this point I'm beyond deep into this and would like to make it look as close to factory as I can within some semblance of reason.

[attbimmer]

Getting closer. On the inside about all that is left is about a million little plastic plugs in various places.

[attbimmer]

Haven't had a lot of time the last week or so, but with an hour or 2 here and there I was able to finish stripping down the wagon body. Even though it seemed close last time I posted, you look closer and find a few things here and there and they all add up. I pulled out the fuel tank, filler and lines, main battery wire, gutted the 4 doors, took out enough plastic plugs to fill 3 Ziploc bags and took off the rear hatch glass and roof rails. I also drilled out the welds for the rear diff guard. I used a special drill bit that cuts around the spot weld and automatically stops at the right depth. My first time using it, but it worked really well and didn't cause any damage to the body underneath.






So now I'm going to turn my attention to the M3 donor for a bit. I need to get the rear fenders off it so I can get the wagon body over to the body shot in the next couple weeks. Right now I plan on having them do the rear fenders first and paint the engine bay. I'll then pick it up and can start transferring over suspension and a lot of the underbody items and get the rear bumper sorted before it goes back for full paint.

I also took the M3 out for a short drive before I take it apart just to make sure overall things are working. Was my first time driving it. I put the stock tune on it before I drove it. That helped quite it down some, but it is still super loud on throttle. Getting cats back on it should sold that. Overall everything worked, except the parking sensors for some reason and the passenger heated seat. I recall a couple codes related to them and will look a little deeper before fully taking it apart. For now though I pushed the wagon over and backed the M3 in and will get started on it soon.

Looking at the carbon inserts on the front bumper, I'm guessing those are put on at the port with betalink as well and won't come off easy. I don't necessarily dislike them, but since I'm painting the car would be nice to have them off for paint.

[attbimmer]

A bit of dejavu as I begin taking apart another F 3 series. Intention is to take off enough to allow access to cut off the rear fenders so the wagon body can head to round 1 at the body shop.

Started with the nice and simple task of removing the wheels. Fronts came off easy, but there were 15mm spacers on as well that were very corroded into the hubs. Previous owner or whoever worked on it obviously didn't believe in anti seeze. After some soaking, heat and banging they finally came off. I cleaned up the hubs and spacers before moving on. The rear wheels on the other hand were so over torqued that it actually broke the socket I was using. I had to hold a torch on each lug, so a minute or so before they would eventually give way with a breaker bar. I've come across plenty of over torqued wheels over the years, but this one was the worst I'd seen.

After that though, was all very straightforward. Removed the wheel well covers, side skirts and rear bumper cover and carriers. At this point having the 2 cars side by side was able to start to see first hand the specific differences. On the rockers you can see about mid rear door where the mounting slots for the carrier change direction. On the F30 they stay the same all the way across. The F80 actually uses the F30 M sport skirt carriers for the front and middle and just the rear is M3 specific.

Tomorrow will spend some time measuring and marking before start cutting the rear fenders. Will leave plenty of extra so that there is a lot to work with as it gets eventually trimmed down to just what is needed.

[attbimmer]

After some time looking I decided to just dive in and start cutting. Was originally going to just cut out the M3 fenders and drop off as is to the body shop, but a lot of the fun in these projects for me is learning new skills along the way and I like to do as much as I possibly can myself while still ensuring I get a good result.

Since the wagon is already stripped, I started there. Was able to cut out large sections of the outer skin on the wheel arches and along the bottom rail. I also drilled out all the spot welds along the door edge. There are just a few spots still holding parts on that I didn't have a small enough grinder to get into. Ordered that and will be able to finish up this weekend. Once those large parts are out I'll be able to drill out the spot welds along the bottom rail and then decide how to approach the inner wheel wells.

At this point I'm leaving quite a bit of meat on still so that when it comes to fitting the M3 fenders I'll have a lot to work with to fine tune.

I'm also still undecided on how I will approach the inner wheel wells. Cut the entire section out and buy M3 inner sections to weld in complete or cut the wagon and M3 arches in half and weld together in the middle. Will start with the latter and if it doesn't look like it will work out well then I can always switch to using full new M3 im er wells.

[attbimmer]

It's a bit late, so will post details later, but big step forward. I've now officially ruined 2 not perfect, but functional cars. 😁 Was definitely a bit nervous about this, but feels great that it came off without any damage. One more to go and then ready for trip to body shop.