Showing posts with label glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glass. Show all posts

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Door deconstruction

Learned a lot about E9 doors today. Some things seem really well thought out, others seem haphazard. Obviously a side effect of being hand made. I also learned that one of this car's POs was a careless mechanic, because the guy I bought it from told me he swapped out the doors from some he bought on the mainland, and I found lots of missing hardware. Why use two bolts when one will do?

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I decided to start with the vent window gearbox, but that was a mistake. Need to remove the entire window frame first, as it slides down into the gearbox drive shaft.

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Removing the window only required two bolts, both in the rear. Appears a third bolt in the rear lift bracket was missing. The glass is passable, but not all that good. Has a long scratch along one edge (as if a rock got jammed in the window opening), and there is a chip near the upper edge. I am not going to replace it until everything else is nice. Which may be never.

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The forward window rail carries all of the weight. Along with one or two normal looking bolts that go into tapped holes, there are two unusual mounts made up from slotted studs and nuts. Remove the nuts and washers, then "tighten" the studs if necessary until they slide up through the slots.

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I took a series of five pictures of to detail the rust damage along the top edge. The inner panel will need some repairs before new skins can be attached. I plan to do that before removing the old skin.

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The vent window connects to the gearbox via a flat tang and slotted shaft. Looks like a bolt belongs here, but nothing present.

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Two quick shots of bottom edge rust damage. May need to repair inner panel but does not appear as severe as the top edge.

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Removed the outer door handle and the lock.

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The rear lift rail was only attached by two thin nuts at top of door. Note thin adjustment plate between nuts and door. Bottom end appears to be missing a bolt.

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Removed all of the trim retaining nuts, but unable to remove trim strip because one stud was rusted to its washers. Shot with PB Blaster.

All in all a very satisfying day. Do need to get back to the nose, it needs a little more work and a coat of paint to stave off more rust.
posted from Bloggeroid

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Good day for Favre

I finally got to work on my E9 today. I got a late start because I wanted to watch Brent Favre tie the touchdown pass record. You see, in Hawaii Sunday football games are on live in the morning. I got to the shop around 11:00, stoked that I got to see it happen. I can't understand why in the U.S. the only athletic record that makes big headlines is the baseball home run record.

So, my big accomplishment was to remove the front bumper. It sounds trivial but the 13MM nuts and carriage bolts were a bit rusty. I had previously shot them with PB Blaster and hit them again today. Even so I had to work them bit by bit. I wonder why those bolts are so long.

When the bumper was off I moved on to the next thing on my list, removal of the windshield. That did not go well. According to the manual all I had to do was get inside and push it out with my feet. I managed to get the upper left corner loose, but I was using all the force I dared and that was as far as I got. One of the guys at the shop said I should cut it out, but I didn't want to damage the rubber. I decided to work a putty knife along the joint starting at the loose corner to separate the adhesive. I got maybe two inches and the glass cracked.

Well, that's life.

BMW092307-01.JPG Front bumper being removed, nerf thing on floor.

BMW092307-02.JPG Front bumper with nerf thing removed.

BMW092307-03.JPG Front bumper on bench.

BMW092307-04.JPG Front bumper bits, rubber pieces go at ends, spacers go between bumper and mount.

BMW092307-05.JPG Rubber trim falling off

BMW092307-06.JPG Metal strip on back of rubber bumper molding trim

BMW092307-07.JPG Rivets holding rubber bumper trim

BMW092307-08.JPG RH front bumper mount

BMW092307-09.JPG LH front bumper mount

BMW092307-10.JPG Oops. Cracked the windsheild while removing.