Another F81 Build Thread

[attbimmer]

Some good progress this weekend. Goal was to get the engine/trans in the car, but a few things needed to get done ahead of time. First was finishing wiring in the extra washer pump for the rear glass while everything was still easy to access in the firewall.



Next figured I'd get the steering connected, which meant also installing the under dash structure, which meant carpets had to go in, which meant all the wiring underneath had to be tiddied up. Most of this went pretty smoothly and just trying to do things in the order they will be easiest to access.





By the time all this was done, among other things going on, it was a bit late to start on the engine, so I finished the wiring for the shark fin and tiddied up all the wiring on the left rear. All the unused wiring from the M3 harness I just wound up and will tuck away. I figure that is better than cutting up the M3s harness.

[attbimmer]

This morning I started by taking a last look in the trans tunnel before getting going on the engine. I noticed this small mount that wasn't on the M3. It was part of the different trans mount on the AWD cars. It wouldn't really be in the way, but I figured I'd just cut it out since it was easy to get to. Cut it, ground down the remnants and painted.




Next, I got the engine/trans hooked up and off the ground. Since now the front subframe was already on the car it was going to be a little trickier to get it in. I ended up grabbing a leveling bar that I could use to adjust the angle of engine on the hoist. This ended up being critical to getting it in. Before that though I first cleaned up everything as much as I could. I took off the engine mounts on the turbo side to better clean it up since that side was pretty caked in oil/dirt. The limited service history i have on the car included a valve cover leak and replacement and the remnants are aligned with that. No active leaks anywhere though which is good. I also installed the cats and O2 sensors while it was out of the car. I also put the engine mounts on the engine thinking it might go in easier like that, but that turned out not to be the case.




I put the car on the ground to minimize how high I'd have to lift the engine. I did have to take off the shifter and also took the engine mounts off the engine. The right mount i was able to just put into the subframe. The left mount i had to put off to the side otherwise it was in the way trying to get oil pan to clear. Ultimately it is very tight and you have to keep adjusting the angle and height little by little. The hardest part was getting the left side oil pan to clear the subframe. Once that is clear it is basically in and you can slide the left engine mounts into position and then lower the engine down onto the mounts. I temporarily put an extra jack under the trans to support it and tightened up the engine mounts. Luckily there is enough space to get to both top nuts fairly easily.

Finally in.

[attbimmer]

Tonight I figured I'd quickly get the driveshaft and few other underbody items mounted. Boy did that not end up quick. BMW in their infinite wisdom made it so that the carbon drive shaft cannot be connected on the trans side, no matter if you angle down the trans as far as it will go. I even moved everything I could up top to give it a bit more on an angle, but no luck. It is about a 1/2" too long to fit. No idea why they didn't just make it so that the driveshaft would collapse just a bit further.



So now the options were, take the engine back out a bit and get the driveshaft aligned while installing the engine (didn't want to do that), loosen the unholy nut of doom on the diff side of the drive shaft, or drop the rear subframe again. I ended up doing the latter. Was a bit of a bummer since that meant I had to undo the brake lines again, disconnect all the electrical and unbolt. Overall though it was much easier then the other options.

Key to a project like this is knowing that things will happen and somethings it will be frustrating, but just stay patient, keep at it and enjoy the small things along the way as well. Like for example on the first try I perfectly balanced the subframe on the jack when letting it down.



Or when I had it down and started to raise the drive shaft up to the transmission, I noticed the subframe would lean back and could fall. So I stacked jacks to support the back of the subframe as well. Odd solution, but it worked perfect.



With the drive shaft connected to the trans I was then able to reinstall the rear subframe and all the other connections in the back. I then torqued the drive shaft, installed the shifter carrier, clutch slave, trans mount and fuel lines and breather. Took way longer then planned, but got it all done and that always feels great.

[attbimmer]

Just a few smaller things today. Got all the front coolers installed as well as a few other misc items in the engine bay. Pretty much everything is plugged in electrically. There are 3 damaged connectors I will replace. 2 I can pull off the wagon harness and the other is on order. For the coolers, all the different mounting brackets have a huge amount of play in them because all the bolt holes are enlarged to allow for adjustments. Because of that there is really no way to put it all together off the car as no way it will line up right with the body. You end up having to do each piece one by one in the right order and then it all fits perfectly.



Also installed the rear glass and put the painted cover on top with the washer, defrost, radio antenna, unlock and brake light all connected.



It's starting to look like a car again.

[Matt@Evolve]

Making great progress, and lovely to see all the details you're going to.

[GoMannGo]

This is amazing to follow. I read the whole thread on the train ride home!

[attbimmer]

Just a little more wiring clean up on the headliner area and then put in the headliner tonight. A nice big piece to get out of the house as I was storing it flat to avoid any deformation.



Through to this weekend I will try and get the doors on the M3 stripped and built up on the wagon. That should be the last parts to get off the donor so that I can move it outside and free up garage space.

[attbimmer]

Over the last few days I got all 4 doors fully built up. It does feel a bit repetitive and fitting some of the trim parts is a little tricky, but overall it goes together nicely and it doesn't take extreme skill to get it all correctly installed.

Only odd thing I ran into is most of the inner door handle mechanism I ended up using from the wagon rather than the M3 due to the locking latch not catching well on the M3 ones. In order to install the door handles you need to lock the inner mechanism in a fully pulled out position. Without that it is not possible to install the door handle. It is a bit like a mouse trap. There is a small spring loaded clip you push up when the inner lever is pulled all the way out in order to wedge it in that position. You then have to carefully get the mechanism into the door and the handle installed without setting off the trap. For whatever reason the M3 latches just did not want to lock for more than a few seconds. The wagon ones all seemed to work much better. The parts looked identical, so was odd.





The nice thing about a wagon.



Donor M3 is not fully stripped and is getting kicked out of the garage tomorrow.

[jaylazy2020]

This build is amazing. Should be on YouTube.

[attbimmer]

Didn't have much time the rest of the weekend, but was able to get the donor body out of the garage, which was a nice step.

I decided to get the headlights cleaned up while they were off the car and reinstalled. They weren't in that bad a shape, but were having a bit and had some blemishes.

I wet sanded them with grits from 600, 800, 1000, 1500 and then 2000. Just a few minutes at each grit. Checking occasionally to see that things were going evenly. I then sprayed with a 2k clear epoxy, let cure 24 hours and then wet sanded again with 2000 grit to eliminate the orange peel and any small blemishes and then polished with with my rotary. All told it is not much over an hours work and they look great and with the epoxy coating will last longer than just sanding and polishing only.



Here you can see what it looks like when wet sanding the epoxy. All the tiny bumps were orange peel. You can feel it get silky smooth as you sand with to 2000 grit.



Fully sanded:



And then polished:



Finally back on the car.



Even though it was just a quick spray I took no chances with over spray making it onto the car. This epoxy is great, but can carry pretty far. Ask me how I know. 😁



I also had a set of OEM carbon mirror caps that had a few small chips in the clear, so I sanded them and resprayed as well. I'll list them for sale in case anyone wants them.

[Matt@Evolve]

Might be worth getting some PPF on the lenses once they've properly gassed off, always helps keep them fresh from stone chips!

All these small details are going to pay dividends when the project is complete.

[attbimmer]

[QUOTE="Matt@Evolve;31888962"]Might be worth getting some PPF on the lenses once they've properly gassed off, always helps keep them fresh from stone chips!

All these small details are going to pay dividends when the project is complete.

Yes I do plan to wrap a decent portion of the car in PPF. Haven't decided on full extent yet, but at minimum front bumper, headlights, hood, rear arches, ...

[attbimmer]

I'm going on a trip in a few weeks, so will now turn my attention to the rear bumper cover to see if I can get trimmed and plastic welded to the point that I can drop it off at my body shop to have it finished while I'm gone.

Today just mocked it up to get an idea of where things sit. Not terrible, but I think will need some adjustments to the body line the bumper sits up against to get it a bit straighter. Will see once it is properly trimmed.

Also thinking all red may be a bit boring and should mix in a little Silverstone, mineral grey and yellow strips.😁

[NYBulldog]

Ive had my F80 donor almost 3 years and my wagon donor for almost 1 year... let me tell you how motivating this is! LFG!

[attbimmer]

Not a lot of hours futzing with the bumper, but it was certainly on the frustrating end of the spectrum. I have gotten the 2 parts trimmed to where they fit together pretty well and overall line up and fit into the car well. The parts where the 2 sections meet along the body line of the rear fenders was definitely the hardest part for me and I'll still have to adjust a little there before I start permanently attaching the 2 parts to each other. The cuts and joins are nowhere near as nice as I would have liked them as I ended up with some gaps where things got trimmed a little too far. Ultimately should come together fine as it is filled and finished, but would have felt better if they were a bit cleaner. The general shape along the long horizontal cut lined up very well. I think it helped that I had an msport wagon vs a non msport.




Now just need to quickly learn how to plastic weld.

[gerri]

Originally Posted by attbimmer

The cuts and joins are nowhere near as nice as I would have liked them as I ended up with some gaps where things got trimmed a little too far.

Don't be too hard on yourself, you are doing a great job all alone and without the possibility of "copying" from other work already done.

[attbimmer]

Originally Posted by gerri

Don't be too hard on yourself, you are doing a great job all alone and without the possibility of "copying" from other work already done.

Thanks. It's fine. Part of doing this yourself is learning new skills and that takes practice.

Also there are others that have done this converstion before and I have definitely used any information I was able to find to help make this easier. Definitely credit to those that did this before and shared learnings.

[dangerouslaser]

this build is awesome - loving all the updates!

[Syfres]

The amount of work and detail you go into with each step is amazing. It’s looking friggin awesome! Can’t wait to see the finished product! You’re killing it!

[attbimmer]

I made a few more slight adjustments to the rear bumper and then replaced the masking tape with aluminum tape to get ready for plastic welding. I first put in about 1000 hot staples and with just that it feels very strong, which is encouraging.






I got some fasteners I was missing, so I may go ahead and get the fone end together next. Will be fun getting all the panels aligned.

[attbimmer]

First look with the front bumper mostly on. Things are still loose since will need to get other fender and hood on and all aligned. For first pass it doesn't sit too bad.

[attbimmer]

Well I couldn't help it, finished getting all the front panels on rather than working on the rear bumper this afternoon. I spent a little time getting the panels closer to aligned, but they are still need a lot more adjustment. Right side fender is odd all over and left side front of bumper is touching too close to the hood. Left fender fits very well so not sure if the right one was tweaked previously. Also got things cleaned up and my GTI washed and back in the garage.




Got most of the black plastic parts cleaned up and just resting in the engine bay. Will wait to put the plastic pins in after the windshield is in and the panels are aligned better.