Bringing a '74 back up to her intended glory.

[Bmachine]

June 18. Visit to the local junk yard. I am looking for a power distribution block from an e36.

While there I am also looking at slightly more modern seats. I really need some good lower back support and old seats just did not offer much in that area. I am looking at the e36 ones. Definitely more modern but not as aggressive as Recaros. I am not sure if they are going to fit so I have to go back and take measurements first.

 

[Bmachine]

June 26. I discovered that it is extremely difficult to disassemble the headlight buckets from their bracket. They were obvioulsy designed ONLY to pressed IN and never to be taken OUT. After trying various brute force options I fnally came up with a little gizmo which made it possible without destroying the whole thing.

http://www.e9coupe.com/forum/threads/separating-the-headlights-buckets.22503/

Once separated, I can finally repaint them!

15. Refinish the headlight assemblies.

 

[Bmachine]

July 2. Restoring yet another set of rear bumpers. How the heck do you remove the under riders??? The bolt/screw is impossible to reach under the main bumper bracket.

 

[Bmachine]

July 22. Brake work time. I have a few hours available today so I decide to get the calipers out so they can be rebuilt. While I'm there I also remove the old rubber brake lines and replace them with a set of steel braided ones I got from La Jolla.

While I am down there, I notice with horror that the ball joint boots are completely trashed. Great. Now I need to buy new lower control arms as well...

The front calipers were definitely ready for rebuild. The seals were all perished.

And... darn, my front disks are right at the lower limit! While I'm there....

Good grief... Where are we? Must be Plan K.

16. remove and rebuild all calipers.
17. Replace rubber brake lines with steel braided ones
18. R n R Lower control arms
19. R n R front brake disks

 

[Peter Coomaraswamy]

That is a great thread start, going through it I kept thinking how much work actually goes into tearing one of these down, and then there is the pleasure of putting it back together. The thing I like the most about working on the e9 is that no matter what part of the car you are working on you can always switch to another part that needs attention while you wait for the inevitable late or wrong part to be delivered. Cant wait to see the pictures when you start the underside

Thanks for posting

 

[Stevehose]

this is great thanks for posting

 

[Bmachine]

Thank you Peter and Steve.

My daughter is home from college for the summer so there are far less opportunities to work on the car during the weekend as I want to take advantage of the time we have with her. But every now and then, when she goes out to catch Pokemon with her friends (also in college...!!!) I get a few hours to do some small thing. Today, I took her with me under the pretense of checking if there were any in Huntington and went to pay a visit to the great Chris Macha. I asked him what he suggested to clean those very rough steel brake lines. He mentioned brass wool and sand paper. I did not have brass wool so I used a collection of sand papers, sanding sticks, wire brushes and brake cleaner. It's amazing the hits that the ones in the front wheel well take from millions of little rocks and stones hitting them over 45 years of service.

Before, during and after:

 

[Stevehose]

you could spray a little satin clear coat on them to keep them looking nice.

 

[Bmachine]

Good idea, Steve. Chris had mentioned the same thing.

PS: Never ceases to amaze me how much time we end up taking to do some of the simplest things... like cleaning your brake lines!!!

 

[HB Chris]

Bo,

I dropped your calipers off this morning.

 

[Bmachine]

Awesome! Thanks a bunch Chris.

 

[Peter Coomaraswamy]

One of the things that is truly stunning about the e9 and many other vintage BMW's is how a 40 year old piece of rubber will come back to life after a good cleaning. Thus you spend more time on redoing old parts than actual money buying new ones- Of course there are plenty of things to spend money on. Enjoy your kids when they're around, my daughter is still young enough to think I'm actually "OK" to hang around with.... I think

 

[Bmachine]

Time to refresh the brake booster. Lots of fluid had apparently spilled on it at some point causing serious cosmetic issues.

 

[Markos]

Great job on the booster! You appear to be a rattle can artisan! I didn't know they made foaming simple green in a can. I must have it!

 

[Philippe db]

Thanks for sharing Bo and lots of succes on your endeavour.

 

[Bmachine]

Great job on the booster! You appear to be a rattle can artisan! I didn't know they made foaming simple green in a can. I must have it!

Thanks Marcos. Here is where I got the Simple Green:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010T66JO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Peter Coomaraswamy]

Bo, since you are going into such detail (I love it!), regarding the paint, from what I can tell the modern rattle cans can be really good and Eastwood sells some pretty good stuff as well, the satin clear-coat that Steve mentions above is available in High-temp and I find that a little better than the regular clear coat. Also, even though the factory did not prime allot of the stamped steel pieces I find it worthwhile so prime them, they look smoother and hold up better. Hey, as long as you're in there

 

[Bmachine]

Hectic summer with family vacation, the whole Monterey thing and some work to do in the house.

But little by little some things get done. First removing, bead blasting and refinishing the headlight buckets.

 

[Bmachine]

Then, time to get the calipers rebuilt with help from the great Chris Macha.

Before and after:

 

[Bmachine]

Then I finally got a home blasting system that can be rolled out when needed and back in a corner of the garage when the weekend is over.

First items I tested it on are the PS fluid reservoir and the heater fan grille. Before and after: