Engine number question

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3.0CSI-RHD

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I started the restoration of my car VIN: 2264982 which is an British delivery RHD CSI.

I got the engine out, the engine number is 4350034 which is a series two (207 cars) engine.

Does anybody here own this car (4350034)?

Also I noticed the modifications on the dash steel structure where it is obvious that the car was converted to RHD but upon measuring the paint thickness I noticed that it is similar to the rest of the unmodified sections, which shows that the car wasn't modified after delivery but rather prior to delivery, otherwise it would have 2 different thicknesses. Could it be the case?

On to the wiring harness removal.

Cheers
 
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oz73csi

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Might have to compare notes , yours is very close to mine , 2264996 UK delivered fjord RHD CSI. Matching numbers though , i don’t know how it got out here , i picked it up in Sydney , non runner but essentially complete (with rust :)) waiting for me to have time to attack it. I believe these (226 series RHD) were modified at the factory , kind of rough looking but also factory looking when you compare (pretty hard to fill in LHD pedal box area without leaving traces for example) , after all they were hand built. Definitely interested in photos of the dash metal to compare , the ones i have seen are cut quite similar to each other.

my 2 cents

cheers
 
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3.0CSI-RHD

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Mine has lots of rust too. 5 color changes: Baikal blue originally, then silver,then turqoise, then white, back to baikal blue and finally the beginnings of a color change to silver starting with the engine bay that didn’t materialise. Stripping process looks like a mosaic from the ancient times.
 
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Wes

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My original CSA (1972) was delivered to UK as LHD and converted there prior to sale. Production records also show no 1972 RHD CSAs produced, which makes sense.
Suspect may also be the case here. There was a thread on this somewhere.
 
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Christoph

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3.0CSI-RHD said:
which shows that the car wasn't modified after delivery but rather prior to delivery,
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oz73csi said:
I believe these (226 series RHD) were modified at the factory
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This has been discussed earlier. I guess @HB Chris knows the most about it. The father of most British E9 enthusiasts, John, remembers E9 were modified prior to delivery, that is right, but not at the factory. They were rather sent to the Channel Islands (Guernsey or Jersey) and converted to RHD right there. The workers had to come over from Britain with all the necessary equipment and parts. This was done because the Channel Islands were/are some kind of a tax-extempt zone, and you could delay paying enormous British import taxes for a while. Or forever, when the cars were to be sent to Australia or elsewhere anyway.
 
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Barry.b

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3.0CSI-RHD said:
I started the restoration of my car VIN: 2264982 which is an British delivery RHD CSI.

I got the engine out, the engine number is 4350034 which is a series two (207 cars) engine.

Does anybody here own this car (4350034)?

Also I noticed the modifications on the dash steel structure where it is obvious that the car was converted to RHD but upon measuring the paint thickness I noticed that it is similar to the rest of the unmodified sections, which shows that the car wasn't modified after delivery but rather prior to delivery, otherwise it would have 2 different thicknesses. Could it be the case?

On to the wiring harness removal.

Cheers
Click to expand...
Hi there
I too could not believe that my car was modified outside of the factory so after a good bit of investigation and help along the way , we confirmed that my 3.0 CSI built in September 1973 on a 2265 vin was in fact a factory RHD car.
Good luck with the restoration :)

RHD 3.0 CSI with a 2265 vin number

I found this, which may be of interest. https://drive-my.com/en/blogs/entry/bmw-e9-cs-coupes-2017-market-watch.html The BMW classic site does seem to confirm no RHD CSI was built before 11/73, so the earlier RHD cars must have been converted. I had a closer look at this and it actually...
e9coupe.com e9coupe.com
 
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3.0CSI-RHD

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Barry.b said:
Hi there
I too could not believe that my car was modified outside of the factory so after a good bit of investigation and help along the way , we confirmed that my 3.0 CSI built in September 1973 on a 2265 vin was in fact a factory RHD car.
Good luck with the restoration :)

RHD 3.0 CSI with a 2265 vin number

I found this, which may be of interest. https://drive-my.com/en/blogs/entry/bmw-e9-cs-coupes-2017-market-watch.html The BMW classic site does seem to confirm no RHD CSI was built before 11/73, so the earlier RHD cars must have been converted. I had a closer look at this and it actually...
e9coupe.com e9coupe.com
Click to expand...
That is exactly what i can see on my car. Mine is April 1973 and the every thing on the dash and on the firewall is painted once. If there was any post production modification, it would be obvious from the thickness of the paint. Nothing seems retouched anywhere.
 
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roundel

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Having worked for BMW in the 1970`s I would say there is no chance a `72 car would have been converted to RHD in the UK. The only cars that were are some early 2800CS cars which were done at Dover import centre. These were a lash up by BMW standards so they would never have agreed to them being done that way had they known ! Example...the LHD pedal box was modified and fitted to the RH side. The brake pedal was connected to a clutch master cylinder which was connected to a clutch slave cylinder which operated the original LHD brake system. As you can imagine no RHD dash parts, glove box, binnacle, crash pad etc....existed and so had to be `modified` and were not pretty. By 1972 BMW surely must have been a long way down the RHD road development wise so rather than converting a LHD car they were probably just building RHD cars to order. Having seen many RHD cars in this period they all just looked normal `factory`....
 
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3.0CSI-RHD

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Christoph said:
Thanks a lot for putting things right. Very likely I mistook the explanations John gave me. Sorry about that.
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No need to be sorry. It’s all thanks to a forum like this one that we can go dive into the details and sort out ambiguious information. Thank you for chiming in.
 
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