Project ’Weight Loss’ M3 Part 2

Spent all day at a friends garage yesterday. Removed the old miltek exhaust. Drilled a hole for the bung for the wbo2 sensor on the new exhaust. It is louder but also has made a noticeable difference to the response of the throttle. It became more crisp.

Track rod ends replaced and just did the toe by eye as the garage does not have any tracking equipement. Although i drove home slowly, the car did not pull to the left or right and no vibrations.

Removed he wires for the check control diplay and also the wire for the sunroof. This one simply just unplugged using one small clip.

For the sunroof we were going to just weld back in the old panel. After a few minutes it became apparent it was going to be a pain to fit. We just go a thin sheet, cut to size. Ground down the lip on the underside of the opening. Then spot welded every 1/2" - 1". Then buffed this down and used some fibreglass to cover the weld.

I need to next sand this down and then fill in more of the space. I will finally but come cataline (this is what it sound like the guy was talking about) which wll go over the top of the fibreglass and is waterproof and paintable.

I know this is not as strong as a one piece roof, but a rollcage will be fitted eventually.

Cheers for the sunroof pictures  Toby nice one....

Good work Toby! (especially for a chippy )

Finally got the front suspension all back together. I replaced the ARB and link bars to the struts. You may notice that the track rod ends look old and that's becuase i could not remove it in the garage and will get it removed on saturday.

The new hub with studs



This picture also shows the ducting. When i bought the car there was 2 holes cut in the inner cowling. I bought an airfilter attachment which has on long circular lip about an 1" on one side. With this side through the cowling i used 100mm diameter ally ducting and bent it to shape. This size is needed to fit over the front ducts.



This next picture shows the strut and Ground Control camber plate. I have set it as far back in the tower for maximum caster and in as far as possible for maximum camber. I'll get it aligned and corner weighed before my 1st trackday in march.



This next shot shows the disc and caliper in place



I set the perches to 28mm from the bottom of the thread which finishes when the yellow paint starts. With the wheels on the car and the car on the ground, i measured from the centre of the wheel arch to a fixed point on the wheel and was 1-2mm out.

Once the rear bumpstops arrive, which will be the first week in feb, i'll get on with the rears.

Toby,

I don't know if it's just me, but I can't see any pic ?

Adrian

Excellent Toby thanks

 

Rob

Do you have a pic of the inside of the roof will all that removed ?

The rust on that inner panel is scary...am I right in thinking this is the part you can see when you slide the roof open, and where the drain holes are located?

I have today removed all the gubbing for the electric roof and will start to remove the casing soon. I still have the wiring to remove and half of the wiring from under the steering wheel to see where they go to.

Cleaned up the ARB, ARB brackets, wishbone bracket and trackrod end/ wishbone bracket the strut bolts too and coated them with some black smoothrite.

Toby, why don't you replace the track rods/ tie rods
with new ones, at least then everything is known
good.