1974 BMW CSE

Hi all,
We began cutting things out this week. We started with the floors since we have the new frame rails (aka Sub Floor Rails) and new floors. We discovered not one, not two, but possibly 3 layers of repairs over the years:)

The frame rail underneath has nothing left. In this photo you can see that it is rusted but decent, then forward you can see through it. But forward of that there is literally nothing left of it. I should have taken a photo of that before it went in the garbage. So as you can see, we had to cut it completely out. We have new frame rails from Wolf Steel which are very nice to look at, but seem to be intended to cover OVER a compromised rail- as they are wider and thinner material. They are also intended to span where rust would usually occur. Perhaps our car was stored leaning to the left and FORWARD for years. Our frame rails were destroyed much further forward than the new rails allow for.

We will now fabricate new rails that can tie the entire distance. We may use the Wolf units as part of the fabrication, but then we have more joints than I would desire. The Wolf unit will work perfectly on the driver side, so long as I don't mind both sides appearing slightly different :(

We need to get into that rocker panel as well, but it looks better than we would have thought.

So things aren't starting particularly easy, but we are staying myopic to this passenger floor and frame until it is better than new.

Floor-Layers.gif
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Hi
 
Thanks for the pics Paul. Can you snap some more photos of the replacement rail parts? What are your thoughts?
 
Markos,

I think the quality of the rails is terrific. I was just surprised that they aren't identical in size and thickness to the original. You all would know far more than I but they appear to be crafted to cover over the old rails rather than replace them. But since mine were shot that is what is happening.

We are starting to craft the extension to meet the rest of the frame. Once it is complete it should be terrific- just not what I expected. But of course I knew that I wasn't buying the whole 6 foot long section. I was just hoping it would reach past my damage and it doesn't.

I did look at another very nice coupe last week that had similar wider rails like these. At the time I didn't think to ask if they were these type of caps, or if perhaps the cars evolved and have some variation in these. (well, then Wolf would be selling the different variations).

We could have left that last 12" of good rail, but since the floor above it was shot, there wasn't any point.



fabricating rail.jpeg
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JetDexter said:
Markos,

I think the quality of the rails is terrific. I was just surprised that they aren't identical in size and thickness to the original. You all would know far more than I but they appear to be crafted to cover over the old rails rather than replace them. But since mine were shot that is what is happening.

We are starting to craft the extension to meet the rest of the frame. Once it is complete it should be terrific- just not what I expected. But of course I knew that I wasn't buying the whole 6 foot long section. I was just hoping it would reach past my damage and it doesn't.

I did look at another very nice coupe last week that had similar wider rails like these. At the time I didn't think to ask if they were these type of caps, or if perhaps the cars evolved and have some variation in these. (well, then Wolf would be selling the different variations).

We could have left that last 12" of good rail, but since the floor above it was shot, there wasn't any point.



View attachment 57630View attachment 57631View attachment 57632
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I’m impressed with your whole project. While I would be more prone to be labeled as a “purist”, the fact that you are tackling this endeavor is intriguing to me. I actually love Teslas as well as my E9s and think your CSE (or should it be called a “Model 9” ? ) concept can only increase the interest in the car all of us love already. Good for you and can’t wait to watch your project from afar !
 
Markos said:
Wow those rails are much bigger. I’m a pass.
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So I heard back from Wolf, and they were very interested about this. First, they offered to send a longer rail (which they would fabricate for me) if their template were any longer, but it is not.

Regarding the width, they are going to modify their drawings to taper back more. They said that they have seen a couple of different widths at the rearmost portion which is interesting. All that to say, it seems that they will be tapering more going forward which is nice. The front (at the firewall) is the correct width- it is simply a matter of them not tapering.
 
JetDexter said:
So I heard back from Wolf, and they were very interested about this. First, they offered to send a longer rail (which they would fabricate for me) if their template were any longer, but it is not.

Regarding the width, they are going to modify their drawings to taper back more. They said that they have seen a couple of different widths at the rearmost portion which is interesting. All that to say, it seems that they will be tapering more going forward which is nice. The front (at the firewall) is the correct width- it is simply a matter of them not tapering.
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Cool thanks for the update! Sounds like a great company. I should have kept the rails from my parts car. I just ran out of time and had to ditch the shell.
 
I mentioned that we will be running everything in the car with a computer control system. I am literally learning Python to build this as I go (Though to be fair I run a software company, so my developers will certainly be helping me as I get stuck, as well as to help make the code as efficient as possible).

This will save far more weight in the car than I originally imagined. We should have weighed all the wire we pulled out, but it seems that there were 7 or 8 (give or take) 16 gauge (also give or take) wires to the turn signal stalk alone. We will only need three 24 (or smaller) wires gauge in our setup. This will be scaled up across every component in the car. No it's not hundreds of pounds, but it will be something.

So far we can't do anything in the car but turn right. But hey- it's a start!

 
tightbox said:
Have you been in contact with this builder?

https://drive-my.com/en/blogs/entry/test-uk-s-only-electric-bmw-e9-coupe.html
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I haven't reached out to them, but I have read up on their conversion. They do a lot of great work with various classics.

I do find it odd thought when so many folks put in low-power electric connected to the gearbox. They build a clean EV, but large part of the desire to go EV to me is to leap to 2-4x the power. Perhaps it's way more power than these cars should have, but that's been the point of hot rodding since the term was invented. I wouldn't want to go through all this trouble to get a 10% increase in performance. In that case I would much prefer the wonderful 3.0.

Still, this is a beautiful conversion that is extremely well done.

Last note- there is a guy in Finland starting a fully Tesla (batteries and motor between the rear wheels). He said that in Europe you are not allowed to put any EV batteries before the front axle. Apparently UK either doesn't have that restriction, or these folks disregarded it. I don't know how you would fit in all these batteries if you don't put them exactly how these guys (and my plan) did.
 
We've been busy outside the shop, but we did finally get the frame rails started. As I mentioned earlier, the rails I purchased aren't exactly correct. They are, however, close enough that it was worth modifying over fabricating from scratch. We had to change two of the angles, and adjust the width as it met below the engine. After a bit of smoothing out, this should look very nice. Maybe not concourse quality, but since we started with a rail that had nothing left of it, I will take this.

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We also received the Tesla Motor. Our unit will be good for about 465 HP and 443 lb-ft Torque. Yes, it's too much. In standard driving mode we will likely limit it to 350HP, but program up an "M" mode for those occasions where you simply must have the power. Traction control is part of the setup, which will be helpful.

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Tesla won't sell the parts, so it is always through salvage. There are a lot of folks that sell salvaged tesla parts, but there are a couple of really reputable companies that specialize in it for EV projects like mine. They perform testing and back up the parts quite a bit more than the basic eBayers.
 
JetDexter said:
Last note- there is a guy in Finland starting a fully Tesla (batteries and motor between the rear wheels). He said that in Europe you are not allowed to put any EV batteries before the front axle. Apparently UK either doesn't have that restriction, or these folks disregarded it. I don't know how you would fit in all these batteries if you don't put them exactly how these guys (and my plan) did.
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It's me! :) This battery placement issue is probably only in Finland. I haven't seen anyone else having the same issue in EU. I think it isn't written into any specific law or 'directive'. And even locally in Finland, some inspection guys insist it and some don't. I was checking the placements today for the modules, and realized that it's no-go if I can't somehow put at least 5 of those in front. Need to bend some inspection guys arms here.

btw, good progress on the frame rails! Always looking forward for you updates :)
 
Hi Mane- great to see you here. Okay, that's interesting that it is limited to Finland. I will be very interested to see how you work that battery placement out and will be following the progress on your car!
 
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