Saturday, September 24, 2011

Moved my storage stuff

Just a note to say that I didn't work on the E9 today because I moved all the bits and pieces to a different storage shed. The old shed is next to a structure that is being torn down before the wind carries it off to Kauai.

I had a few minutes after the move, but the Honolulu Century Ride is tomorrow so I decided to take it easy. Had more time to eat lunch before gamelan.

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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Door window lift motor

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Started the day fiddling with the nose. Sanded some filler along the bottom edge, still had some pits so added more red glazing putty.

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Sanded a spot on the RH side, still had a low spot about the size of a quarter (grey in the photo), sanded off the primer and applied Technifill.

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While waiting for filler to set I got started dismantling the door removed last week. The book describes a Bravaria, which is just different enough to be useless. The trick is to raise the window (used a booster battery), remove four motor mount bolts, pull out wire harness, remove lift arm from window, then, and here's the trick, run the motor as if lowering the window to fold it into a small enough package to extract through the opening in the door.

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Some details. There is a rubber grommet where the harness passes through the door frame. Inside the door the harness is secured with a bend-over clamp. A ground wire from the motor attaches at the motor bount bolt.

All that took so long I never got back to the nose. No problem, it'll be there next week. By the way, Honolulu Century Ride is Sunday the 25th. I'll be doing the full hundred miles.
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RH Door Off

Last week I was trying to create some visual progress and got stuck removing an odd looking bolt. Today I succeeded. Anyone who has been watching will see the change, a gaping hole where the passenger door used to be.

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I tried a number of tools on the bolt but nothing held. It seemed to be unusually tight. Finally resorted to a special extration tool with sharp inward-facing teeth that bite into and grip the head. Destroyed the bolt, but got it out.

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I got right to work disassembling the innards, to get the door ready for its new skin (which I have yet to order). The example in the book is from a Bavaria, so it took some head scratching to figure out how to remove the innear trim piece and window molding. The vent window knob retaining screw become accessible after popping off the plastic insert; stick something through the hole in the back. This was not mentioned at all in the book.

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I took a series of pictures of the window molding where it attaches to the door because I think I'll need to remove all those clips to replace the felt.

Right away I can see I will need to do some welding to repair the top inner edge.



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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Door Skins, day 1

I never got around to writing last week's blog. On Saturday night we attended the 50th anniversary concert of the Hawaii Gagaku Ensemble, and Sunday was taken up by a long bike ride. It's been busy.

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Last week was unusual in that the shop was full to overflowing. My E9 was overshadowed by a row of trucks.


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Smoothed out the Epoxy Filler applied to the RH corner last time.


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Underside of LH grill opening after grinding down the excess POR-15 from the fiberglass patch. To be filled in with TECHNIFILL.


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This is to remind me to work on the RH side.


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RH corner after shooting with POR-15 Etching Primer.


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The bump in the middle of the curved is a weld seam from when the car was made, or old repairs. Cannot get that any lower.


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Last thing done was to apply TECHNIFILL on the underside of the LH grill opening.


It's been a couple weeks now since I started looking for door skins. So far the most promising source has been Classic Heros, an English shop specializing in BMWs. Hey, they use an E9 on their web site, so they must be okay. I got a nice reply from Barney Halse saying they probably have them in stock, but he was out of town on vacation. I worry that the shipping will exceed the purchase price.




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Now the the nose is just about done I decided it was time to make a big step forward, so today I focused on getting ready to fix the doors. Step 1, remove the inner panel on the RH door. Remove the latch handle, then the arm rest. The book described clips around the edge, but mine had screws. Typical old BMW shop manual.




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Found the connector for the window motor in a recess behind the kick panel. Also found a lot of light surface rust, which I will need to treat. The two hot wires were easy, just a couple of push-on terminals connected to a large plastic block. The ground wire was another story. First, it was loose. The connector is a ring terminal attached to the frame with a screw. The screw has not been tightened, possibly because it is next to inaccessible, but it is now rusted solidly in place. I ended up cutting the wire ... I would never put it where it was. This might explain why I had a ground problem with the door windows.


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I lost a lot of time fiddling with that ground wire, but I was determined to get the door off. I call it "visual progress." I ran into a stone wall when I discovered the FWD upper hinge bolt does not have a standard hex head. It looks like a Torx head, but my Torx tool did not fit tight enough to turn it. That was my day.