A bit more progress on Saturday (14 people over yesterday so cooking all morning and drinking/eating all evening).
Car exterior is completely stripped and ready for remedial bodywork on some rust spots:
- Surface rust all along the bottom of the inner sill - This needs ground off, treated, etch primed and 3m underbody paint applied before panels are fitted.
- Hole in both front ends of inner sill needs plate cut and welding.
- Bits of surface rust spots in the engine bay, on inner wings etc. - these need sanding off, treated and etch primed before panels go on.
Most of the interior is stripped out and found some interesting things:
- Some idiot had glued the radio in place (yes glued with Araldite) - Muppets, took me ages to get it out of the centre console without wrecking the console, radio snapped into two pieces so is in the bin).
- Centre console is now 3/4 out just need to disconnect the heater controls.
- Roll hoops, centre rear locking box and all of the rear plastic trim removed along with roll hoop mounting brackets. The top sections of trim are black leatherette wrapped (never seen that before on a Z3 was it standard on later models? (W Reg). All in really good condition and will be up for sale at some point.
- Dashboard knee panels out, looks like somebody tapped into ZKE module wiring to get interior lights into the footwells, good idea but badly done so I will re-do the wiring and keep the lights.
Had a chance to have a good look under the car as well:
- Removed the spare wheel carrier and wheel, the carrier is in OK condition and I will paint it up to sell but the spare wheel is almost rusted right through.
- Rear beam bushes are both shot, the beam is sitting directly on the metal mounts.
- Diff bush also looks knackered.
- Front control arm bushes are shot both sides.
- Anti Roll Bar bushes front and rear are good.
- Drop links all look reasonable but will probably replace anyway.
- Rear discs knackered, fronts OK but will replace them all anyway.
- Somebody used rubberised, old fashioned style underseal on a lot of the rear sub-frame parts and trapped the water/rust beneath so the parts are a bit rusty, no structural damage but a lot of surface rust to grind off - Looks like front and rear ends need to come out and be re-conditioned.
So it looks like a complete re-bushing, new brake discs and pads, brake caliper rebuild, stainless steel hoses all round. also need to buy lowering springs or change to coilovers.
Last but not least, I could not resist trial-fitting the body panels to see what it would look like in the flesh (GRP)!