1971 3.0 csi bmw restored project car

Bob, the question to dip or not to dip a car is probably still one of the most debated subjects with professional car restorers. Redi-strip heavily advertised its process in Hemmings Motor News during the seventies & eighties and convinced many people it was the magic bullet for rust problems but later on horror stories from customers started to surface by word of mouth.

The idea that you’re going to flood all the hidden compartments & seams with a corrosive chemical and then neutralize all of it with another chemical is optimistic at best, capillary action is going to pull the first liquid in, the second liquid will not have that advantage. Also after rust expands in a tight seam any liquid has a problem penetrating it even when the part is immersed. I have personally split spot welded seams and opened wired fender edges on parts that were done by Redi-strip and found rust that was untouched by the process.

I do not recommend dipping complete bodies to any of my customers. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear but if it’s any consolation I also believed it was the only way to go at one time :oops::oops::oops:. ~ John Buchtenkirch
 
dip it

No offense John but everyone has and opinion. I have had many cars tank dropped before over the years American and Euro. When you put them in a muriatic and phosphate acid tank for 7-days following 2-3 days in a neutralizing tank I have never seen even a spec of any rust. Those acids don’t stop burning rust until completely gone. This CSI I am selling once the OEM synthetic latex and undercoating was removed (that’s fun) the shock towers were not what I wanted to see plus rust was already lightly bubbling the outer rocker panels too. So after stripping it I removed the fenders that were not bad and took the car to the tank guy. Once back you could see where the rust was but only in some sections it did nothing to the rest of the body but clean it. Then I removed one part at a time starting with the rocker panels, sub-frame with a carbide spot weld drill and replaced them with OEM BMW parts and spot weld them back together backed-up in some sections with mig welds. Following the same for the wheel-wells and front nose clip. Not anywhere did I see rust, not one spec in the removed seams? In fact once all the body parts were replaced over a week I started coating the CSI with two gallons of Mar-Hyde synthetic latex as you know seals all air from contacting metal again and burns into the metal not even 175psi sandblaster can remove the latex. One funny thing once I sprayed the first pass with the synthetic latex I could see even after a week out of the acid tank the latex would not react, as you know latex goes on white in color and turns black when it burns in.
So the next day I call the tank guy and ask him what’z up with the acid burn. He laugh and said take a garden hose and wet it down outside tonight and spray with latex tomorrow when it is dry. It still did not show any surface corrosion the next day but worked like a charm.
For coating in all the closed compartments I made a special 3/8” 4-5” foot hose out of the white clear hose you find in a hardware store for under a sink at your house and used a Wagner airless spray gun. It is a stiff hose but real flexible too. I just move the nozzle from the gun to the end of the hose and small clamps on both ends. Just the other day someone on here ask me about that.

Now days due to the EPA were are very limited on chemicals. And the other choice of media blasting even with the new types of media you hit a soft spot and it will distort the body even at low psi. Also using media blasting there is no chance the seams and closed compartments will ever get touched and you cannot open up the seams everywhere on the car.

Muriatic and phosphate acid tank dropping in my 50 years of working on cars is the only way I have seen when you look at a car part 20-30 years later you don’t see rust coming through the paint.

But we are extremely limited now day when restoring I don’t even know where you could even find a muriatic and phosphate acid tank shop now days.
Good luck restoring and by the way for anyone here is a great low-buck restoring store I use to use a lot >>> http://www.eastwood.com/ these guys are great for simple hard to find restoration tools.
 
The problem with acid dipped cars is the acid gets into many of the lapped seams & hems and whether it’s neutralized or not seems to be hit or miss deal at best. If it’s not neutralized it only seems to speed up the corrosion process and particularly so in high humidity conditions. My friend (a body shop owner) helped his buddy chop a fifties Merc and the car was then dipped and 3 years latter the roof was literally rotting apart, not the roof skin but all the structure at the edges of the roof and around the windows & doors. Another friend bought the tube frame for the never completed Danny Ongais, Interscope Monza with hopes of completing a car he could race in vintage IMSA races. He had that chrome molly frame dipped and it rotted apart in a few years from the inside out, the acid had gotten in thru the expansion holes drilled in every piece of tubing. I recently made up rockers and some other panels for a 39 Mack cab for one of my body shop customers. The cab was dipped and then the body shop epoxy primed it and it generally looks great however if you look inside the windshield posts (A pillars) you can see it’s rusting badly. I have pointed it out to the shop owner and even the cab owner and they still haven’t got paint down in there which kind of annoys me. I also found rust where the rockers were spot welded on and in the hem of the one door skin I removed (see photos) on that cab. In some areas it did turn black from the treatment and in some places it was just brown rust like it had never been treated.

I could go on and on with the many horror stories I’ve heard (I’ve been in the auto body & metal shaping trades for 39 or 40 years) but I think I made my point --- to me it has proven to be a hit & miss process at best. While I think it’s fine for model A hoods and early fenders that don’t have wired edges I’m totally against it for any panels with lapped seams, hems or wired edges. Having said that you can understand why I would certainly never dip a CS coupe with so many semi sealed up compartments and the lapped & spot welded construction it has or for that matter any other uni-body car for the same reasons. I’m glad your experiences with the process have only been positive and I wish your dip guy was on Long Island, he must really care about his work and he understands the process to the point of somehow having mastered it. Also thank you for your tip on Eastwood :roll: but while they do carry some good products I have sort of out grown them and many of their fake tools some years ago. ~ John Buchtenkirch
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dip it!

Not to just butt heads John on opinions although our experiences with tank dropping are like day and night in difference. And how 3-years later your friends “chrome molly frame dipped and it rotted apart in a few years from the inside out” is very questionable? The tank it was dropped in must have been using salt water for the acid solution.
Honestly, anyone can look at the many spare parts I have some El Camino parts that were dipped over 20 years ago and just primer coated and show no rust still. I have a few doors off a CS I bought and cut up for spare parts and had the doors tank dropped believe me the acid never stops until it ate holes 3-5 inches long right through the outer panel. at the bottom.

I think the real question here is, what are the alternatives.
Personally I would find another tank dropping guy and check out the acid solution first. The one I had everyone in Southern California raved about him for 30 years. He even had one of the Los Angeles fire departments 1930’s fire trucks in one of his many tanks when I was there but is now gone due to the EPA.

Second, an acid burn only takes the metal to clean no rust bare metal. You have to seal it within days that’s why I always used synthetic latex to start the basic coat. And even hard to find parts http://www.eastwood.com/ sell a 4-5' foot spray hose like I made years ago to coat the inside of all compartments and especially inside the frame and rocker panels after spot welding a panel back together. Also we live in country that makes nothing anymore, everything is made offshore. When buying Chinese’s tools buy two both will only cost you 25% of a well-made Bosch tool and Bosch don’t make many restoration tools.

Third, I have worked on many of these CS coupes over the years even the actors Michael Douglas’s CS that wanted my CSI before a big $$$ divorce came down. Out of all the cars from Morris Minor’s I started with restoring at a night school in the early 1960’s when I was still in high school to another passion I have El Camino’s to 2002tii I have never seen cars rust like these CS coupes do.

So what are your alternatives for the massive rust in these cars to save them?
I chose a well-known highly professional muriatic and phosphate acid tank dropping shop. I never seen or to date see the rust problems you talk about John.
The only things left is to do nothing to the closed compartments or seams and hard to get to panels.
Or media blasting although then there is no chance the seams and closed compartments and hard to get to panels ever get blastered and then there is the distortion problem on soft panels with blasting.

Last just paint over the rust although not even synthetic latex well go into the seams it’s too thick and will react to fast before getting into tight spots.
I would say John in your case your doomed if you do an acid burn or if you don’t but I chose to acid burn and would recommend it to everyone although find a highly recommended professional shop after hearing this story for the first time.

Also, I see you talk about metal shaping are you a body shop guy or just a metal shaping guy?

Over the years I have done many jobs with metal. Was a certified welder when I was still in high school. Did a lot of body shop work when I was young. Had a small carrier business for specialized equipment even Jet Ski Stainless totes for years mostly emergency generator carriers in heavy weather conditions. Made injections molds and owned my own foundry specializing in casting aluminum with the best grades of casting aluminum.
Outside of that a lot of fiberglass and composite mold making like RTM molds.
Sounds like we have both been around the block a few times but have to say it one more time, I have never seen the reaction you are talking about from professional acid tank dropping. And as most always talk about just the problems this time I would like to ask you again what are your alternatives for the massive rust in these cs couples to save them.

Final, have you ever have you ever hands-on and stripped down a CS,CSI or CSL car and structurally restore it and put it back together?

Got to go starting to feel like just like another keyboard junky and all I am just trying to do is sell a CSI….
 
Okay, time for me to jump in with my opinion, because I'm sure everyone is dying to hear it!! :mrgreen:

"d-ace", unfortunately, anytime someone posts a coupe for sale they get lots of opinions, and some responses will not be easy to take. In this case, you even asked for opinions and a price, which probably contributed to the tone. Don't get me wrong, I would like to see EVERY coupe for sale listed on this site, but the fact that its a discussion forum opens it up to both praise and criticism. Personally, I took "sfdon's" comments about craigslist as trying to explain the "tire kickers" from the forum, along with some insight about how craigslist works (or is meant to work). I saw it as an explanation and not an attack, but it also wasn't directly at me so I understand the different views.

My opinion about selling an unfinished restoration project goes along with comments made about just that... "unfinished". I don't think it devalues the car at all and in some ways allows a potential buyer to see more of what's been done to it. But, the important thing to remember is that it drastically reduces the size of the market, or the number of potential buyers, when the car isn't finished. This just means that the value is still there but it will probably take much longer to sell.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of coupe buyers are actually coupe nerds like us, versus people who buy them because they're cool cars and they have the money. I would expect zero interest from the "cool car with money" group and small interest for the "coupe nerd" group when it comes to buying an unfinished project.

How many of us have unfinished projects that they've considered selling in their current state?

"d-ace", I would like to offer that if you can email me photos of your car, LOTS OF PHOTOS, I'll put together a nice webpage for you to help you sell it.

-Dan
 
Hi Dan, thanks for coming in and voicing and opinion, you have done it before for me and it is appreciated to keep things focused.
And I do try to understand others views most people do. Just when they go off subject ask of “I was just wondering what the members on here would think a respectful reasonable offer would be for this CSI and the ground up restoration done on this car”. To CL advertising rules or how and what tools I used when off the subject of the car I thought but just my view.

Anyhow I would very much appreciate the webpage offer always open to new ideals it would be greatly appreciated, Thank You.
I have been trying to get this car outside for about two weeks to take more and better photo’s. Work slowed me down at first then we have had only one day yesterday of no rain in 10 days and it says rain late today now.

The reason I am not finishing the car is my wife passed away a little over a year ago I am moving back to Hawaii in about 4-5 months where I grew up and have two other cars to finish before then. One another Euro BMW a 1979 Alpina 635csi that had everything I wanted on it all the way to the headlights wipers and water washers. It must have cost between 90K to 100K when new in Germany, California ones in 1980 sold for about $75K and not even close to this one. You have too draw the line on what you want to take when moving to Hawaii it cost a lot.

Anyhow I will get back to you if you need to contact me outside of here>>
[email protected]
805-566-9154
Thanks
Bob Morgan
 
Maybe this way?

Why don't sell the rusty look!I was at Mt Shasta this past summer at a car show.There was these cars that were rusty,strip and to the ground with fiberglass bucket seats no windows and my Uncle now thats looks Cool! Just think a CS to the ground,no windows,stripped,chopped and RUSTY! (with 16" Alpina's under here!! :)
Any sorry if I came off rude early. Thanks Tim
 
Search

On Mt Shasta car show You Tube it shows a little bite of Dodge truck in the background that look pretty cool but none of the cars I'm talking about but maybe some else's has seen these primed cars? I wish I had my camera :-(
 
No problems “tmason” how is the “Biggest little City In The World”? I use to live there when I was in school back in the 1950”s and had a son born there when I was living in Tahoe in the late 1970”s.
I new someone would ask about the primer color. It is a double fish oil base and does not shrink use it over the synthetic latex coat to start base coats before sealer coat then primer coats before block sanding. The light gray primer is where I did the leading after welding the nose clip to the fenders.
And sorry "NO", on a chopped, channeled and lowered CSI they did a great job on the body design of these couples many years ago.
 
Search Rat Rod Fest Long Island NY 2009

Hi d-ace
The Biggest Little has alot of problems with the Gaming and Foreclosers woes in todays world but I really like living here in a Mountain Town!
At that car show in Shasta it was a small event 40-60 cars with Corvette's,Z-28 and misc others like a Dodge Daytona with the wing on the back but the crowds were around these Rat Rods and you couldn't believe the people loving these cars :) !!
I'm not suggesting to this to your car but a car that is rusted out and going to be crushed anyway doing a rusted look with lettering on the sides chopped,lowered and in a US Navy blue/green primer!
I don't know what body style some of these were but they were very cute and crowd was climbing all over them.It was really hard to believe?
I wish I was better on the computer because in Photoshop you could use a photo of your car and do this look to show what it would like like.
But search Rat Rod above and can see what I'm talking about a Mad e9 Max :)!
Tim
 
Bob, the IMSA Monza frame was a purpose built race car frame, it was made out of very thin tubing so I’m not that surprised about what happened. Every length of tubing had a 1/8” hole in it so the expanding air wouldn’t blow out the final part of the weld that sealed the tubing. Reid-strip gave it back to him with liquid dripping out of those holes and the tubes still somewhat filled. I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of that frame (it wasn’t my job) but I did see it. I photo documented the Mack cab work to prove to the customer what I actually did. The brown line running down the center of the green rocker or sub-rail (between the two I made) is where I drilled out the spot welds and removed the seat pan --- sure looks like rust to me but the process did clean out the deep pits on either side, I can’t argue that point. In additional photos I have added you clearly see other rust that was trapped between panels and wasn’t removed.

Again, I am glad that you have had nothing but great results with the dipping process but I don’t like to mislead people --- that just isn’t the way it always works and I think my photos are proof enough about that. None of my horror stories are made up and I have nothing to gain by knocking the dipping process, in fact I wish it worked better because aluminum oxide blasting panels and striping paint & undercoating is the most boring stuff I sometimes get stuck doing. As far as my credentials go I was an auto body combination man for about 10 years and then I became a heavy man doing structural uni-body & frame work for other shops for 14 or 16 years and also got into metal shaping somewhere during the later part of that time. I have even made some short runs of aircraft parts which was the nicest work I ever did, no dealing with rust or undercoating or working under cars. I did fenders and tower braces on 1 CS coupe and that plus rockers, door posts and some floor pan work on another but that was some 20 years ago when all the parts were available from the dealer however I have to ask what’s the big deal, to me it’s just more structural work on another uni-body car, they all have their own problems & challenges. Mercedes is the worst to work on, the rubberized undercoating is a beast to remove and the lack of rocker panel edges to clamp to is a problem. I hope I passed the credentials test and will not even ask you for yours, if you tell me you have dipped & primed panels that are fine after 20 years I believe you --- why would you us the same process on your coupe otherwise.

My complaint with Eastwood is they have no idea if the tools they sell even work or not. Try shrinking metal with one of their rotating face shrinking hammers and see if it does anything but chop up the metal. They sold Scott Knight’s shrinking disc without any directions and then called him up complaining that it didn’t work for customers. They do have some decent stuff but mostly they are just clueless about their products. You should ask them if they ever actually restored a car or truck instead of asking me how many coupes I’ve done. I have never claimed to be an absolute CS coupe expert but I do have tons of structural uni-body experience. I just think it’s only fair that the members of this group whom may be potential customers need to hear both sides of the redi-strip or tank dipping story, it’s nothing personal against you. ~ John Buchtenkirch
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My understanding John as you said “not to mislead people” is “Redi-Strip” is reverse electrolysis not acid dipping. Acid dipping burns rust until completely gone some claim “Redi-Strip” it works the base metal but I did not see it do anything to the base metal but clean it although it seek out the rust and burns it until completely gone.
Also as you and I know John aluminum oxide is pretty abrasive media. Even at low 60-70psi I have seen it distort panels fast. And stripping OEM latex or old undercoating is a B!%CH I have spent a month of spare time once on a cleaning a BMW’s bottom before. Once I even use a weed burner propane torch with a turbo-blast trigger to soften that crap up before scrapping, it worked pretty good but you need a fire suit to work with that kind of torch.

John if you have shaped “ fenders and tower braces on 1 CS coupe plus rockers, door posts and some floor pan work”, I would say there is a hell of a lot of people that need these parts they just don’t know it yet, go for it.

And Eastwood is obviously a low buck took company its just things I needed and have built over the years showup on there just because they are needed.

Last, the CSI even though many have contacted me is still For Sale.
 
My understanding John as you said “not to mislead people” is “Redi-Strip” is reverse electrolysis not acid dipping. Acid dipping burns rust until completely gone some claim “Redi-Strip” it works the base metal but I did not see it do anything to the base metal but clean it although it seek out the rust and burns it until completely gone.

I stand corrected, I actually thought the 2 processes were more or less the same deal :oops::oops::oops:. All the problem cars I heard about or dealt with myself were from the Redi-strip process. Now I understand why you seem to be getting excellent results.

I have never warped a panel in my blast cabinet. The technique is on low crown panels to shoot them 10 or 20 degrees off of parallel to the panel and of course keep the gun a good 10’’ to 14” from the panel. Having said that I totally agree, the wrong person using any blast process can do a lot more damage than good.
As I mentioned when I did the coupes all the panels were still available from the dealer and that’s what I used at the time except for making patches for the bottoms of the doors & some floor pan patches. At 62 I have no desire to become the Northeast coupe king (most coupes here are already too far gone anyway) but may end up doing one for myself. Lately I have been working more on the rental houses than metal work but I have about 3 weeks of customer work that I’ve been stalling on, I do need to get back in my shop. I did say Eastwood has some good products but I maintain they don’t know which ones or they just don’t even care as long as they’ve got your money.

I have to ask you, you keep mentioning latex base coat. Is that the new water based paint ? While a few shops have started using it I don’t believe it’s mandatory till next year in NY. I wonder how well it’s going to hold up on older restored cars ? It seems like whenever they come out with new paint systems they always have problems for a few years. ~ John Buchtenkirch
 
No problem John, although the chemicals do make a difference. I remember in the late 1980’s I had a 36’ foot Sea Ray boat we use to go out to the Santa Barbara Islands with and I loss the motor from a stuck pressure relief valve. Since the boat was always ran in salt water it was recommended by the motor builder to put the exhaust manifolds in straight muriatic acid to burn the rust out. I never seen the CSI dropped in the tank (which was put in different chemicals) but when I had the same guy tank drop the manifolds in a small barrel type tank of about 10-15 gallons of straight muriatic acid it was something to see. Even with about 2’ foot from the acid to the top of the tank it went off and over the top of the tank in less than 1 minute into the catch and did not stop foaming for the time I was there. Another thing interesting the tank guy just to show me put a clean piece painted metal in another straight muriatic acid tank and it did nothing.

About the “I have never warped a panel in my blast cabinet” years of experience does help and the right media too.
Our blasting cabinet we use everyday to cleanup aluminum sand castings. But I have used it for years to clean up rusted car part before changing to new media. Just sand works the best on thick car parts but once many years ago I blasted a thin panel of aluminum with sand. It bowed the flat piece in minutes and obviously due to heat because you could feel it on the metal. Bead blasting we use most in the blasting cabinet but now days on a car body restoration walnut shells ground work good but not very aggressive. They still leave rust in spots and don’t clean seams and closed compartment which is the real problem with these cs couples but most never even see it and just buy a couple for the paint and stereo.

Also about the synthetic latex. It has been around for decades BMW even sprayed it on these couples. I just bought the best I could find in quarts (2 ½ gallons) but even “Loctite” plus many other companies still sell it mostly in small spray cans.
We had water base paints mandatory in this BS state of rules and regulations California I live in about 10 years now maybe even more. They don’t work primer coats take some time days to dry correct I am told by one of my body shop guys. We go over to Arizona about once a year I buy all my paints there same as they were 20 years ago here and half the price of the water base paint here.
 
Good Luck

Well “Sticky” time to step up to the plate, a few are coming to look at it this weekend.
Although you remind me of someone that was on here once before always talking about buying one almost every post and never doing it just talk. Funny thing is you signed up just about the time he was called out about that and left?
 
D-Ace:
Who in Germany has leather seat kits for $1000? Thanks for your help on this.
 
With the holiday weekend no one can be reach at the shop that quoted me the price on the kit for the front seats and back seats plus the arm rest. It was 3 or 4 years ago and like everything but these "E9 BMW COUPLES" most likely the kit went up in price some. But I have work with the owner since the 1980’s he is pretty sharp he has been doing euro parts for about 35 years.

I have to say those prices at “World Upholstery & Trim” are way beyond outrages. Especially when every one of these coupes need the rubber trim replaced after almost 40 years. A front "Windshield New" only cost $225-250 and the trim is $204.00 from these guys?

“World Upholstery & Trim”
Front Windshield Seal
Fits Years: 1968 - 1975 Material: Rubber
Price: $ 204.00

And more outrages:

Product #: 280-4868-4
Left Door Seal
Fits Years: 1968 - 1975 Material: Rubber
Price: $ 1152.00

The seal is almost the cost of the door when it was available OEM from BMW.
Looks like someone is inviting competition big time. Plus any good upholstery shop can get a universal BMW trim that can be used and made from material better than rubber.
 
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