E21 316: Inner-Arch Fix + MOT Prep.

Hacking out the inner wheel-arches at the back to make the 16x9s fit left them in a right state, with a big gap up inside the wing. Being where it is, the gap is wide open to dirt and water flinging up off the wheel ready to rot the body from the inside out, so as a temporary measure I covered the area in ally-tape. It worked well, but was never going to last long. I figured the inner-arch would be considered a structural part of the body and would need a steel fillet welding in, but it doesn't appear to be the case so fibre-glass will do.

The area is a bit big for filling in though, so I shot up to Halfords and bought a square-metre of fibre-glass matting, £4.29. You need resin to apply it, which is a bit dearer. A kit is available for £9.99 that includes a small bottle of resin and a small mat, otherwise resin starts at a fiver and hardener is extra. The recommended resin is polyester-based, so it stretches, but I figure that marine epoxy-resin, which can be used for fibre-glass, will do the job as it may not be as flexible, but sure is waterproof and rock hard. I also happen to have a litre of the stuff left over from some carbon-fibre projects a few years ago.

I weighed the fibre-glass mat up to the whee-arch and cut it into rough shapes. The instructions say to coat the mat in resin and then stick it, but I found it just as easy and a little less messy to brush a little resin onto the surface, then stick the pieces of mat on dry and brush in heaps of resin over the top. The epoxy is quite thick and stiffens quickly, so this may the only workaround method using this stuff. It's certainly done the trick, the fibre-glass is as solid as the metal and has stuck well even to the rough under-seal surface, lets just hope it doesn't flex too much and crack away. It should see me through the MOT next week and that's the main thing, but at least there's no mud being flung up into the wing anymore. A quick coat of red-primer and the tester may not even notice the difference...

E21 316: Big job broke out - Time to do the N/S/R Wheel-Arch...

This is the first wheel-arch I pulled to fit the 16s and it's the only one now still needing a tidy-up, to say the least. I cut too much of the lip off trying to wedge some balloon-like 45% profile tyres and left it in a right mess. The newer 40% profile tyres fit perfectly and only needed minor cutting to the other arches, leaving this one miles from the rim and totally out of shape. The bit I cut off is the line used to form the arch on the rest, so this one was missing an edge to build the filler up to and totally sculpting the new arch-line by hand with hanging bits of mesh and filler was never going to happen. The easiest method would be a plastic arch cover, hiding the cut area completely and easily smoothed into the wing, but all four would have to match and the Group 2 ones are just too big to consider. It seems my only options are -

A. Buy a new pressed-steel wheel-arch from eBay for £25. Trim it, grind the wing away in the right shape, weld it in place, grind the welds down flat and smooth it all off. Only then could I pull the new arch-lip out and fill it to match the other three. [http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E21-316-323i-1977-1983-REAR-PASSENGER-SIDE-WHEEL-ARCH-NEW-CLEARANCE-PRICE-/190865619545?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item2c707a3a59]

B. Spot-weld the piece I cut off back into place and secure it with fibre-glass filler. Fill the lip to match the others and build up and re-shape the arch up to where it meets the wing almost.

No doubt B involves a lot less time and effort, but it's still going to be a lot of rubbing down.

The chewed up scrap of metal, good job I saved it. It didn't just slot back into position, there was quite a bit of grinding and filing.

I had wanted to tack-weld the metal on and fill the gaps with fibre-glass, but I couldn't get hold of one so masking-tape did the job. I caked on plenty of P40 fibre-glass filler in between the tape, waited for it to go off, removed the tape and filled in the gaps.

Well sealed behind with more P40. You can see the sliver of metal in position as the light shines through, showing just how much arch got cut off originally.

It was then ground down with a rotary-file on the drill, mainly inside so nothing rubs on the tyre, but a bit to give the lip some shape. All that's left now is the arduous task of filling all that arch.

E21 316: (Wheel) Arch-Nemesis Beaten! - tidied up with a bit of flare.

Been enjoying the car and weather too much over summer to neaten up the pulled wheel-arches, but thought I'd take some time off to finish them before the rain and gloom sets back in.

I bent the lip with a pair of grips into the smoothest arch I could and filled it flush with P38 to where the original outer lip was. This took quite a bit of building up.

Normally I'd give it a coat of zinc-primer for now and rub it down again, but for aesthetic value I went straight to red-primer and it's already lifted the look of the car.

More of the rear arches had to be cut away than the front, so this meant a smaller and slightly easier area to fill. The only remaining arch is the dreaded N/S rear one, which I hacked to death trying to install tyres that were too big, but it's a mammoth job alone and will have to wait.

E21 316: Sculpting New Arches...

The car survived a trip with 3 people in and no scrubbing at all on the 16x9s, which I found very surprising, but still I figure the arches are good to finish off. I've neatened up the pulled lips and made a start to filling in and re-sculpting the shape of the wheel-arches, but progress has been slow and my intentions of selling the complete project this summer are looking unlikely. I spoke to the guy who did the re-spray for me originally and he said to get the arches as good as could be and pass it back over to him to smooth them off and repaint them without having to go over the whole car again. Great, though I can't keep hurling money at it, and with more to do over summer I've had less time to spend on the E21 and more time spent enjoying driving it on the new wheels for a few weekends in the sunshine like I intended, not just the odd trip to work. Oh and there is the matter of my daily driver needing MOT attention, but that's a different story.

Never the less, both the o/s arches have begun to take shape. Getting the lips off the bigger wheels and tyres was too extreme a job for my arch-rolling kit, so I had to pull them out with grips in the end. This meant a fair bit less grinding on the o/s rear wheel arch and none at all needed up front. The arch-lip needed to be low for as much tuck as possible, I don't like the cut-arch look, so I got the pulled out lip roughly in line with the slope of the arch and built it up flush with P38 filler. This is as close to the look of those European BBS'd E21s as I could figure, with a slight flare to the lip rather than the flat-edged look of the original arches. This is probably the easiest method of smoothing and saves on a bit of body-filler, enough of which is being used already.

I haven't touched the nearside arches yet, the main thing putting me off being the n/s rear one that was used to test fit those oversized Yokohama tyres and has suffered greatly from the spinning-disc. With the extra lip cut off the rigidity has been lost and the general shape of the arch has deformed, as well as more tyre being visible, about 10mm of tuck being lost. I guess my only options are to try and spot-weld the rough section of lip back on that was cut too far, which I still have, and rebuild the shape of the entire arch in filler, or buy a patterned-part wheel-arch off eBay for £25, cut out the current one, weld in the new one, smooth it off, pull the lip out and fill all that in. Well, there's no doubt the first method is cheaper and a lot less work, but this is a large area to be filling and smoothing and a wide margin for error, plus I don't even know if the bent arch will accept the bit I cut off without messing it up even further... watch this space!

E21 316: Re-Spray Update!

I managed to sell the engine and crank to another BMW enthusiast who is keen to do the 2-litre upgrade that I can't stomach on his E30 Baur convertible. Nice. He's picking the engine up tomorrow and the block was still in the boot of my car in the paint-shop, so I decided to pay an impromptu visit after work and see how the car is coming along.

All masked and ready to paint. I wasn't expecting them to do any filler work for the money, but you can see from the 328ci behind that my Beemer is in the right hands. They've sorted out that front wing panel for me and smoothed out even the minute blemishes I was going to leave. Turns out that line of rust from the door bottom was actually a ridge - the whole bottom edge had been pushed in, probably slammed into a high kerb - and they've sorted that out, so I've got to give them props there. Can't wait to see it finished!

** Couple more pics the guys sent me as they wheeled her into the spray booth - today's the day.

E21 316: Filling the rest of the Dents.

There weren't many more body blemishes to be fair, just a couple down the driver's side you could barely see [invisible on the pics], but worth flatting out for the respray while the bonnet was being done.

The rub down reveals how small these pin dents were and metal had been pushed in slightly over an area of a about 2" round.

Two quick skims of Isopon P38 body-filler and a rub down with 180-grit paper on a flat block, then P600 Wet/Dry - not going mad here.

A coat of filler-primer and it's back to factory-flat. Ok, so you could barely see them in the first place, but at least I know they're gone.

Also needing the merest attention was this tiny patch of rust bubbles on the o/s bonnet corner, worth mentioning because it's the only one I found on the car, where on my 1995 318i I could have pointed out half a dozen without trying. A quick rub and one blob of filler was all it needed.

E21 316: Big bonnet dent filled.

This ding in the bonnet was from a dropped tool by the look of it and this pic doesn't really give an impression of how far the metal was pushed down.

The rub-down showed an area of of about 2" round that needed filling. A nasty drop whatever it was.

It took one big fillet of P38, a lot of rubbing with a flat-block, a quick coat of filler-primer and two quick skims of filler to eliminate pitting.

The final skim was then rubbed well flat with P600 Wet/Dry paper.

This was the worst bit of damage on the 316 and something that everyone noticed - I'm glad it's been put to bed.                        

E21 316: Bubbled Front Wheel Arch + Rotting Valance Repair.

The rear corner of the metal valance had started to rot away and a bit of spray has been done to the lip of the wheel-arch and its all started to bubble and a little rust poking through from behind.

The whole area was rubbed down and the rotted edge of the valance rebuilt in P40 fibreglass filler, then smoothed off. A skim of P30 body-filler then went over the whole arch and a smooth (ish) curve was formed.

Bubbles in the arch filled and primed, ready for the paint shop.

This panel behind the wheel-arch looked repainted too and had yet more bubbles, some of which had rust starting in the middle. A bit of corrosion is also creeping out from under the rubbing-strip and curing it will have to wait for the exterior trim to be removed for the respray.

E21 316: B-Pillar Rebuild.

Small patch on the B-pillar was the only real rust on the whole car. The rub down revealed quite a bit of pitting and a few holes down the left hand side of the pillar.

After a good dose of Finnegan's No.1 Rust-Beater, the bulk of the pillar was made up in P38 filler.

After a couple of skims to eliminate craters the shape of the pillar-base was reformed.

Not a bad job if I do say so myself!

E21 316: Bonnet + Badge Paint Cracking - sorted!

The bonnet looks like it's been resprayed before and the paint is cracking and flaking off at the edges of the bulge, but no sign of rust.

Even the un-flaked bits had small paint bubbles so the whole length of the edges needed rubbing down and a quick skim of filler going on.

There was still original red paint under the badge, but it was cracked and had corrosion beginning below so it all came off.

Dad then finished off the bulge-edges with his keen artist's eye and put a skim of filler into the badge-recess and smoothed the curve.

Quick blast of primer - job done!