So if you have no garage, the wind may blow the fumes away - along with your headlining before you get it in position :sorry:

Well that`s the headlining done for the second time , if it comes off again it will be staying off , Geoff .

Good afternoon i decided to alter the door cards i had made by adding a pocket and by changing the door handles for something differant (as fitted to a Alfa 105)!

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/DSCF1711.jpg

Not there was anything wrong with the old door handles!

Original door card .

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...0_142926_1.jpg

New Door card .

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/DSCF1716.jpg

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/DSCF1713.jpg

The size/length of the pocket was dictated by the amount of leather i had left from the original work , the cost of another half skin to make two longer pockets was not realistic .
The two plastic covers around the door pulls are standard Z3 sprayed up the body colour they are stuck on but i can not decide whether to keep them ,Geoff .

I had the same dilemma about the pull surrounds on mine.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/oY...=w1572-h884-no

I left them black while I decide but can't think of a better way to finish them off.

Hi, I found some chrome ones Geoff, which might go with the look of your interior?

https://c2.staticflickr.com/1/434/20...147c8107_c.jpgIMG_1663 by eric holm, on Flickr

Oooh! I like chrome.

Where and how much?

I bought them from FMW tuning, get them quick before the EURO rate worsens!

http://www.fmw-tuning.de/BMW/3er-E36...6-Z3::853.html

http://www.fmw-tuning.de/images/prod...ages/853_0.JPG

Morning Andy , you really are a flash bugger :icon_smile: Geoff .

Good morning Geoff, many thanks!!!!! Hope you are getting the most out of the car with the weather now starting to improve a little? all the small ( and bigger) touches you are doing really make the difference.

Cheers.

Andy

Good evening , i decided it was time for a change ref my wheels and tyres , so i bought a set of 15" BMW steel wheels from an old boy! in Norfolk , would guess most people on here will recognize them , what i will say is that if anybody want a load of small holes accurately drilled in steel "Mr Towed" is your man . Bought set of 4 195 65 15 Avon tyres from Blackcircles approx £170 fitted at ATS , slightly larger in circumference and quieter than the P6000`s that were on the Minilites

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/DSCF1718.jpg

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/DSCF1720.jpg

Thanks Geoff .

Very nice Geoff. they age the car well.

Very Nice touch Geoff!

Yeah,

Steelies for the win, or whatever the youngsters say these days :nod:

That'll be 'dope' then.......probably....unless its changed already...

I really liked the Minilites, but these look better! Good job..

They're bear wheels.

Or they are well sick :)

If I ever get and build a Kobra it is having black steels. Wide ones though if I can work out the maths minefield of offsets

Dave

Me too.

I'm really glad you're happy with the wheels Geoff. Though I say it myself, they do look really good on your car. The dished look the small ET gives (ET18 if I recall correctly) looks right and if you want wider tyres you could have them banded on the inside without spoiling the looks or fouling anything. I'm now officially jealous as f!!!

Geoff - The wheels look good, as does your interior, exhaust pipes, etc. :cool:

Can I ask what kind of reaction you get while driving this around?

Does the "old" number plate throw people off the scent?

Cheers, Paul. :)

Good morning all , many thanks for all the positive comments , Paul as soon as your car hits the road you will find out about answering questions along the lines of is it a ???? and the "double takes" thanks Geoff .

Love the colour of this car, reminds me of a Scalextric 250 (blue with red interior) I had back in the 60's, have loved the 250 ever since then.

Andy

Just found one on ebay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Scalextric...AAAOSwzJ5XdTV7

Good evening all , i needed to go to B+Q on Friday last and decided to go in the SWB , jumped in fired it up and instead of idling smoothly at about 1200 when cold , it idled lumpily at 750 when i flicked the accelerator it cut out and would not restart . Did the B+Q run then tried starting again eventually fired up but idled roughly , decided at this point to check the plugs (nu 1) which was black so walked down to the local accessory shop in the village to buy a set (6) of NGK`s finest , £52 after discount , the guy in the shop suggested that the plugs would probably not be the problem but suggested buying a "coil pack" then testing each coil pack in turn till the faulty one was found . This was about 13:30 they ordered one in to arrive before 16:15 , which it did , as the coil pack was off Nu1 i replaced that one turned the engine over and after a few seconds sprung into life (happy days) have been back to the shop to say thank you and have ordered another as a spare . I am pretty sure my first car a 997cc Ford Anglia did not have coil packs and seemed to run OK! thanks Geoff .

It's worth buying some 2nd hand coil packs from Ebay. My wife had an E46 and it used to eat coil packs. Bought a set of 6 from Ebay for £25. Left a couple in the boot and kept the rest on the shelf. Had gone through half of them by the time the car was sold.

Hi Geoff got ya message . Will look nice when finished. But I'm guessing if it was to become a product Chris would need at least 10-15 sales to make it worth the effort. All the shape is their. Ive bought a different bonnet bulge that was on a 2600 coupe and looks custom period. I'm just hoping my donor is still alive to be able to drive after all of chris's effort. After the gearbox gave up on me the car and parts and labour mechanically owes quite a bit.

Good evening , i haven`t used the SWB for a couple of weeks so i decided one Saturday to give it a run , the battery has been weak for some time so i wasn`t to hopeful , well it would hardly turn over and also threw up an EML on the dash . The following weekend with new battery in hand (well two) that was fitted the engine now turned over as you would imagine but would still not fire . Back in Summer before the trip to Italy a coil pack has failed and the symptoms were the same this time , this time i decided to replace all 6 coilpacks , they were ordered and fitted the following weekend a really easy job . So back into the car ignition on (still with an EML) and engine turned over but would not fire immediately i kept it turning over and eventually it fired up although the exhaust note didn`t sound right , after a couple of minutes running at approx 2500 rpm i tried the idling , it would idle but at 500 rather than 650/700 which it usually did . I decided it was time to go out for a drive , the engine ran but with little power . I called in at the local garage to ask the guys there to connect there tester to the cars engine mgmt system , it showed a number of fault as expected , they reset the system and then reset the EML , there was an immediate change in engine note and the idling changed to 650/700 , the mechanic who i spoke to told me that when a coil pack fails the engine mgmt system cuts the fuel to that cylinder and so my car had been running on 5 until the EML is reset , after another drive to check i can confirm we have 6 working cylinders and the exhaust note is back , if anybody else has a similar problem hope this helps , thanks Geoff .

It's worth getting a universal OBDII (Onboard Diagnostics Display) reader for about £35 on eBay to check for fault codes yourself. That's about half of what most garages will charge just to hook their's up to your car.
You can read the codes, see what they relate to and delete them yourself.

Not with a Z3, but i have found that flat batteries can really upset the computers running the car. It could be that the flat battery caused the EML and the car decided to take some action!

Good evening all , if you have followed my thread you will be aware that my car was an early build (By Tribute) following Bob`s , at that time it was to early for the front edge of the door/bonnet mod , since then a number of companies/individuals have carried out that mod and that gap/look is much improved , so my question is , is there somebody prepared to quote for the work to be done to my car? in an ideal world it would not be at the other end of the country (i live in Cheshire) but that`s what may happen , please PM me , many thanks Geoff .

Very nice work Jeff, I'm sure Geoff is very pleased.

Interesting to see 3 cars together so we can see the slight differences we make when we build them. I expect that's the most there's been together in one photo.

Bob.

Great thread thank you ! Really interesting to see the results of great work.

Also seeing the cars next to each other shows how some small details make such a difference. You might think Geoff's blue SWB had a slightly wider grill but it is just down to colour of both the car itself and the grill surround.

They do look excellent together.

My compliments to all three owners and especially builders.

Dave

You ought to post the pic of the three cars on Piston Heads or similar and ask them to identify the genuine one.

I can guarantee pages of posts pointing out who has the fuel filler in the correct place, who has the correct indicators etc...


I am really looking forward to the Owners Club BBQ in June with 10 cars all lined up

Top work Jeff, well done, a noticable improvement

These hardtops.....................common as muck!

I do like the idea of putting the polyester primer on with a roller. I presume you used one of the small dense gloss foam rollers?

What was preventing the door from opening, looks as if it was only partially opening.

Evening all back home safe and sound , a quick message then on to the Peroni , i had decided to buy one of the SWB dashes that Richard at Nubodi has produced so was going to call in on the way north , but on the way there i had some negative financial news and decided now was not the time to buy one .Anyway i carried on to advise Richard that i would no longer be buying a dash , he had one with the instruments fitted (as per the Number 7 car build) to show and it really does look the part , thanks Geoff .

Negative financial news .....yep we've all been there

Must admit the dash is "the" finishing touch now by the looks of it

Morning the following picture is the dash that Richard showed me yesterday

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...9/IMG_1307.jpg

Forgot to mention in my post yesterday evening how good the bodywork looks , good enough that the other half is impressed!!!!! Geoff .

All 3 cars look superb but the rear screen on 69 VPG really is a fantastic finishing touch.
I wonder if Lancelot Link could make them as he is already making a double mould for his headlights. Or might the company that makes them be able to offer them at a more reasonable price to Tribute? I'm sure he can't sell many a year but that could change if they were offered by Tribute. Just a small adjustment to the original mould, I'm sure Chris could do it in a weekend!
Is it just the edges of the rear screen that are curved?

I do love an optimist!!

Afternoon the price for the gauges is £600 , Geoff .

Ouch !! so fibreglass only is £350 ? blimey !! makes my under £50 356 dashes a bit too cheap then !!

The dashboards are pretty though , Chris missed a trick not buying those moulds from the customer who subsequently offered them to Nubodi , in my opinion ...