Motors I'm building my own car... UPDATE - Stoneliegh 2013

Removing dead pic links

Yeah, I looked at those - nice sets. I had put them on my xmas prezzie list, but then I saw the Draper bundle and the quality will be exactly the same - and Mrs GOO has bought them for me as an early gift.

Not quite - it's got the majority of kit in it that I'm going to need, but I'll be picking up some other stuff - maybe a baby torque wrench, a trolly jack, some extra axle stands, an angle grinder, an impact screwdriver may come in handy. I also quite fancy a cordless impact wrench as well - I've see 24v kits on fleabay for £50 - £80. I'd love to have a compressor and have an air version (plus some other funky air tools), but I very much doubt I'd have the room.

Speaking of room, I've finished painting the floor - HUZZAH!!! I've also given the whole garage another sweep & tidy, put up another shelf and fixed a draft excluder brush on the bottom of the main door to keep debris from being blown into the garage from outside - After a windy day I tended to find most of the neighborhood's dead leaves inside.

The workbench has been cunningly crafted out of an old double pine bed. It's not the finest joinery in the world (Dovetails? Mortice and tennons? Nah - plenty of screws and bolts ***, TBH ), but it's sturdy enough to take both me and the Mrs siting on it - so it'll definitly take the odd cylinder head whilst it's being stripped and rebuilt.

Guess it's time to start looking for a Bimmer to go on the GOO / Marlin crash weight reduction course then.

 

Damn, that's a small garage. If you want to fit an air compressor in there, I would look at one of the flat cylinder ones and put it on a shelf over the garage door. BTW, the garage is looking good.

 

Have you decided to do the build in the garage then? I think you might be ok for building in there with it being narrower than a normal car until you've put the wheels on, but you might struggle for space when stripping the donor car down. I'm near the beginning of a similar project and felt squashed for space while stripping down my sierra donor car, and my garage is about 2ft wider than standard size. You could do the stripping down outside if you have space (and tolerant neighboors).

Have you got somewhere to put all the donor parts and kit parts that's you're not working on? Might be best not to think of that till they've arrived, then there's no option but to put them in the house

The dust is terrible in my garage and I'm thinking of painting. Has all that paint stopped the dust? How much did you spend on paint (if you dont mind me asking )?

 

Damn thats a tidy garage... :|

 

Yeah, the build will be done in here. As for the donor, I'm going to do a blitz strip on the drive, and get the carcass carted away ASAP. I have my own 'Bloke from Stoke' to help me out on this (I hope - Iain, if you're reading this, there's beer in the offing... )

I'm trying not to think about it too much... The chassis will of course be in the garage. Other smaller bits from Marlin / the Beemer will get shelved - and if I need further shelves, I'll get some more up over the garage door, as banished has pointed out there's plenty of room up there for a few more. The body work is all GRP and aluminium, so that can get propped up down the side passage of the house with a tarp over it.

Well - it's only been done a week, but there's zero dust at the mo. The blocks where painted with bog standard brilliant white emulsion (about £7 for 5ltrs - I used 10ltrs in the end). The floor was first sealed with International Concreate Sealent, about £25 for 2.5ltrs (I used about 3/4 of the tin), and International Tile Red Garage Floor Paint, about £30 for 2.5ltrs (I used all of it). You can get all of it from B&Q or Homebase. Infact, Homebase has 10% off it's garage paint at the mo.

Oh, and I caved this afternoon. I've bagged myself a cordless 24v impact wrench... Much easier to store than a compressor, air line and airtools

 

Small update - My tools arrived from Draper! I spent most of Friday night unwrapping them all and laying them out in the toolbox.

I also got the impact wrench last week as well - seem's pretty good for £50 - but GOO had a bit of a senior moment. The wrench is a 1/2" drive, and I went and bought some extra impact sockets for it - and made sure they where 3/8" drive... D'OH!

Guess I'll be after a 1/2" -> 3/8" adapter then...

 

I... AM... WEAK...

Man, I really must stop looking on eBay. Over the weekend, I managed to get a brand new FIAC FX90 compressor (Bargin at £50), a nice long air line on a storage reel and a 77 piece airtool kit (1/2" Air impact wrench, 3/8" Air ratchet, Air hammer, Die grinder, Air Cut-off, Tyre Inflator and air blowers and other attachements)



Donor hunting is going.... Well slowly. I have a funny feeling that what with the drain on resources know as Christmas around the corner, It may have to wait until January. But I've got some irons in the fire, and the better half's boss may be able to help out with some of his 'contacts' in the motor trade...

 

When I grow up, I want to be just like GOO

 

update dammit

 

To add my 2 cents, you should check out www.dpcars.net. The owner is building a AWD track day car from scratch and from his own design. Fascinating to follow.

Not to mention he currently owns a brand new M5 and an Elise. And used to own a westfield megabusa, elise s190, m coupe, the list is huge.

 

Update, for the sake of Fev's sanity.

Progress is that there has been no progress. I've been scouring the small adds for an E30 (325i) for the past couple of weeks, and nothing seems to be a) in my price range b) in my neighbourhood or c) driveable (due to lack of tax or MOT) or a combination of all three.

I really don't want to spend top dollar on the donor - it just has to be mechanically sound. I don't care if it has rust holes in the panels that you could fit a small child through, and If it has a ****** interior, 4 bald tires and has been to the moon and back. All of the oily bits are going to get stripped and rebuilt, and the body work is disposable.

Trying to find such a car is getting a bit of a drag tbh. I've posted want ads here, on E30zone.co.uk, set up dedicated searches on Autotrader and Exchange and Mart, looked in the local papers and so far diddly squat.

So if anybody knows of a sad old 325i sat rusting away that needs putting out of its misery and has an organ donor card, let me know

 

*stops panting and rocking back n forth*

aaah an update... nice to know you're dedicated

 

Well, there's no going back now! I've just bought the donor car. Should be picking it up on Saturday. Just need to borrow a trailer from a friend, as it has no tax or mot, so it's not road legal.

It's a 1986 (C reg) BMW 325i saloon, with about 130k on the clock. It may seem a lot, but the engines going to get a rebuild so it should be OK. It's come in well under budget as well (£100!!), so that's kept Mrs Goo happy.

Pics at the weekend.

 

100 quid!! Is it even driveable?? You're gonna have to do a complete stipdown/clean/rebuild in order to try and find some of those escaped horses.

and: NOT THE WEEKEND! Im not gonna have interweb on the weekend

http://www.bimmer.jp/minicars/mc578_325i.jpg

without the doodars on it.

 

i see no kitchen sink....

i like the speedster as it's something i'd feel more comfortable in on the road..

 

Yep, It's drivable. Just not legal, due to a missing back box and the absence of tax and mot.

The horses will be rounded up, and any lame ones sent to the glue factory, never fear. The engine will be reduced to it's oily bits, cleaned, refurbed and reassembled.

 

Goo, may I make a small suggestion, as you've bought the compressor, buy a pop rivet gun to fit it.

A few years ago a friend of mine built a Westfield, all of the hard work was in riveting the bloddy body work on

 

Great minds think alike, Smashie. I've seen a few on fleabay for reasonable amounts, so I'll bag one after I've ordered the chassis and bodywork.

 

Great choice on the Sportster, looks seriously badass! I bet it'll handle sweetly too

 

Forgot abput this one till today looking to do something similair myself when I have the cash so I'll be keeping an eye on this one.