The fixing of the tank filler isn't ideal but when the rear clam is fitted you can't see it. I would keep quiet about it. Maybe put a jubilee clip around the pipe. It won't do anything but you can put your hand on your heart and say it has been fitted with a jubilee clip and bonded in as well.
Devious......... moi?........ never



That side exhaust on the c type looks so wrong, needs to be matt black with some rust showing through!

Thanks Jag, will have a think. It is the sealing issue I am more worried about than the pass for the cert as if issues in the future a nightmare to sort. A bit more pain during the build might be the way to go. Anyway without trying to hijack Barbers thread if anyone has any fuel tank removal experience or fantastic ideas for extending/attaching the Z3 fuel tank neck then happy for them to placed on my 275GTB thread in the old No 7 section. Cheers!

When success is standing still
 

I got back to the window guide this morning. Dropping the window down and removing the rubbers at the door trailing edge certainly improves visibility. You have to shove the window forwards, and as you manouver the guide back in, raise the door handle so as to make the lock mechanism clear the void where the guide needs to pass.

It took a while to realise that it just takes brute force to get the door card to seat correctly .... very satisfying after all the frustrations. So now I just have to see if the fiddling has improved the old actuator from draining the battery. I am 7 hours out of pocket, along with the £26 for the ebay actuator that didn't work and £5 for the interior trim pry tool set. But I am getting back into amateur car repairer mode (ie Bodger 3rd class). Ready to start playing with the Scimitar eyeball dash vents that Chris supplied with the new dashboard. I'll do another post for that, with pics.

Scimitar Eyeball Vents and the Dashboard
 

The Scimitar vents, kindly included with the dashboard by Chris were very stiff to move about, and had the original mounting collar still attached, which meant that the collar had to be removed.
The vent with collar attached:
http://i63.tinypic.com/smawk7.jpg

Once removed, the vent would be suitable for mounting in the Z3gato dashboard.

However, before that, the vents had to be split apart and the eyeball movement freed up. My son's Dremel came in very useful for removing the collar and encouraging the separation of the top ring and bottom cup.

http://i68.tinypic.com/30jpnar.jpg

Both the top ring and bottom cup have conical profiles inside, lined with strips of black felt to mount the eyeball part. In both cases, the felt at the bottom had become partially detached and misshapen causing the jamming.

My solution was to remove the bottom felt, and cut it half depth along the length and re-stick one half back into the cup. Both vents operate fine with no looseness (we don't want rattly vents when in use).


The dashboard with vents and storage recess loosely in place. I will be using the Z3 glovebox, it works with the dash.

http://i67.tinypic.com/vpydyd.jpg

The dash is currently fitted to a rough cut Z3 dash supplied by Chris. I need to use it as a template to cut my own dashboard bought from ebay. I intend to cut the small quarterlight vents in the top when I start putting the thing together ready for fitting into the car.

I wouldn't bother with the quarterlight vents. If you block them under the dash you will force more air up on the windscreen which is what you want for efficient demisting. Will also keep the dash more retro looking.
Also saves you some work which is soon going to be adding up!

Good thinking, I will drop the top vents, as the Z3 windscreen needs all the air it can get.

Dashboard Surgery
 

I have taken the Chris's dash apart. It is built up on an old scrap Z3 dash. Whist most of the dash is hidden by the new moulded piece, the internal part of the binnacle is visible. It is a beige one, whereas the replacement I bought on ebay is black. Plenty of surgery required to provide a new base. I am going slowly and carefully with the cutter. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have finished the cutting and test the assembly, so will post pics of the canibalised bits together with the mould.

Dashboard Surgery Part 2
 

Here is the template base dashboard from Chris that the moulded dash attaches to.
http://i65.tinypic.com/of8036.jpg


First of all, let me say that in the picture below, at the top is Rudolf, a reindeer skin on an Ikea bench. DO NOT infer any peculiar bestial purposes.

http://i68.tinypic.com/2mcyhbn.jpg

Don't be fooled by the phone pic perspective, it all fits together.

Underneath Rudolf, we have the moulded dashboard overlay from Chris. It tapers down snugly to the windscreen end of the base just before the vents, so the original vent cover can be retained.

Underneath that is the re-worked dashboard base from my ebay purchase. Last is the Z3 binnacle inner, that simple screws back onto the base dash.

The re-modelling took about 6 hours, most of which is thinking and checking before cutting. Even with the template, it is easy to make mistakes still, so I found myself triple checking, and split the operation over two days.

I just need some fine days so that I can paint the dash (black matt with a sage green infill along the instrument band). Then start stripping the Z3 dash so that I can fit this one.

Happy days

Nice!

It was too cold and windy today so I could not start painting my M3 wing mirrors. Instead, I started to tart up the black door cards that Chris threw in with the dashboard (along with the glovebox).

The driver side door handle has been glued on, and the 2 part glue had dribbled down the ostrich leather panel. I have cleaned both cards with various concoctions, then spent a considerable amount of time picking off the glue trail with the point of a Stanley knife blade. I think it will work out OK when I use the leather re-conditioning treatment - but I could do with some recommendations for this. It could do with re-colouring the leather rather than dying it.


http://i68.tinypic.com/riclg8.jpg

Barber – I hope the improvement in the weather is helping your build.

I am sure the dash will look great when it is all put back together again. :cool:

Good luck, Paul. :)

Have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOZxbp59irk

A bit too much talking and not enough car, but it really is a beauty. :cool:

AM Zagatos
 

Paul, no I had not seen it before. Always nice to see the cars in action though. Pity that they focussed so much on a dull presentation instead of getting a true sense of what it was like to see the cars racing past.(Not as good as the ones that Gary posts in other threads). The VEV cars are icons but were presented like they were Ford Kas. Oh well....

That's a very pretty car ...

Battery drain
 

I think I may have discovered part of the problem.

The standard Z3 for a 3.0 is 80ah with 800a cold crank. The previous owner put in what he described as a "beefy" (well, it says "Premium" on the label), 72ah with 650a cold crank.

I have no idea what all that lot means, except it looks like the battery is not powerful enough. Am I on to something?

I've got some warning lights come up again and suspect something amiss with the brake system, so have it booked into an indy for the end of the month. I'll get them to check the alternator and investigate any error codes at the same time. Electrickery does my head in.

Hi Barber, yup you have a slightly light rated battery, but that wouldn’t immediately give you major issues unless under high load/drain scenarios and frequently. Key will be how many of the 650cca’s are available. My battery as I mentioned previously was shot and could only push out around between 140 to 240cca under a load test. If you haven’t yet I suggest you get the battery load checked to find out what it is trying to do under load. Hope this helps. Cheers.

Can't see that being the cause of your problem unless the engine is cranking over very slowly.

+1 from me. A lot of comments on BMW forums point to kn@ckered batteries after they've gone flat a few times due to high parasitic drain. Seems they won't hold a decent charge after that.

I've bought batteries from Halfords (twice) and upon insisting that they load check them before I took them away- found that they were duff.

Even on my regularly used car, I keep a solar charger on the dashtop. It slows the sulphation/sedimentation which shorts out the plates eventually and kills the cells.

:shocked:

Crikey, will be sure to get the new one checked. It is clear that the old (new) one is kaput.

Colorbond LVP interior trim paint
 

Has anyone tried this? Has anyone figured how to get it in the UK? The reviews are very good. I could do with some for door panel refresh and also the new dashboard.

Ebay.com have some listed with international shipping option.

Family visits and dog sitting have held up my tinkering for 3-4 weeks. Back on track at the end of the month. Jagtvr, empty you pm box, it is full.

Wing Mirrors
 

Earlier in the thread I showed the white M3 wing mirrors I got off ebay. In quiet moments I have rubbed them back with 1200 wet and dry. Not really worth a photo as they just looked matt white instead of gloss white.

Using my trusty corrugated cardboard spray booth, I gave them a couple of coats of high build primer. It said grey on the tin, but it turns out to be not much different from the matt white smoothed back look. So I didn't bother with photos.

After a couple of days, I smoothed them back and gave a couple of coats of cellulose gloss RAL 6021 Light Green. This is the nearest bog standard colour to AM California Sage, which is where I intend to go with this eventually. However, in the short term, I didn't not fancy RAL 6021 light green gelcoat body panels, black doors and white wing mirrors. So this is the learning part of spray painting for me. Last time was in 1968 when I painted my scooter panels and helmet.

That time, they had a fetching eggshell finish which I rather liked as it was unique at the time. In the intervening years, my painting skills have not been refined, and the wing mirrors are half ok and half not. I got too close in the confined spray booth. (I wasn't actually IN the box, just may arm and hand, but it is a bit tight) Sadly, it is 50/50 on each of them. I am going to rub them back and give them a polish. They will eventually be painted the sage gloss, so they don't have to be perfect now.

I will post pictures of the before and after smoothing tomorrow. I may get some lacquer and see how that goes before going trying the polishing. After that, it is having a bash at the doors :shocked:

I have got a sample of beige vinyl from the company that do the best value MGB seat covers. The beige is more brown than pink (no Steve Davies jokes please) and I may order a length and see how it looks on the dashboard. This will save me making everything black. I think I mentioned before that I am probably lazier than Jaguartvr (sorry matey). I can then do the MGB seats later, if I don't get round to it before Chris gets the car in for the panelling work.

In the meantime, I am dog sitting at my son's house, commuting back to the house to strip the walls back in the dining room then getting back in time for his next wee break. Thinking about it, my wife is off babysitting for our daughter tomorrow. I wonder if the dining room would be a better spray booth? If i can get 2 coats on the walls after the mirror test, she might never know. Something would be sure to go wrong though......

Good call on the dining room/spray booth, just air it well, slap some Magnolia on the walls and tell her that modern emulsion just doesn't smell like it used to. ;)

Green Eggs
 

Here are how it turned out after trial spraying. SWMBO reckons it is too "peppermint" and I should go for a darker colour.

I made the obvious error, of assuming that as every colour swatch i had seen on my computer looked the same, then that must be the colour. Yes, I know, I know .... now. I have sent off for a RAL colour fan. I think I need RAL 6011 and not RAL 6021. We shall see. Anyhow, no harm done.

But I will have to let Chris know if I change my mind on the colour as he is going to use the same colour in the gelcoat, when we get that far.

http://i67.tinypic.com/x1eo3d.jpg
http://i64.tinypic.com/o89qwk.jpg

That is a truly hideous colour.

Hey Barber, here are some helpful info for the correct color.

ALMOND GREEN PPG# 400525 (RKB-85A)

CALIFORNIA SAGE ??

ASTON RACING GREEN
PPG# AST 1140

DBR1 PAINT CODE R-M PAINT CODE R-3213

2000 Lexus dark green mica PPG 48460

No, no, stay with puke green!

Darker colours are much easier to work with. They show the imperfections and ripples much better and make the finishing easier.
Stay away from white at all costs.

Molleur, thanks for the codes, I have been casting around without much success for the AM California Sage one. I saw a nice MGB done in the Sage, but no-one ever publishes the code.

For this stage I am sticking with RAL colours, as Chris can do those in the gelcoat. That way, I can be driving around in something approximating what I want whilst I continue to prevaricate about what to do next. It least the gelcoat will not be eggshell finish.

I am being pressured to get the dining room painting finished, so smoothing back the green eggs may have to be next week. Some scheduling conflicts there though as 2 days are blocked out for a walk in the Surrey hills with a schoolfriend. We usually set off mid morning and make it to a pub for lunch. Surrey has a village every 3-4 miles, most of which have a pub.

After 5 miles up hill and down dale, we make it to another village where we stop off for a refresher. And afterwards, returning to the start point (another pub would you believe) where we dine, meet up with another school friend who still lives locally and basically, get hammered and stop over.

We stick to the range of villages we could reach and return home in a day of mischief on bicycles (before we were able to ride Lambrettas it used to be 16 years old in those days).

Next day, after a late and full breakfast, time for a leisurely stroll along the river, then home and try to convince out wives how far and hard we have walked.

I will try flatting these back and see how it goes before trying a darker colour.

The PPG color code might be cross-referenced to RAL.
ALMOND GREEN PPG# 400525 (RKB-85A) Identical to California Sage.

Great, thanks

RAl code
 

There is a Colour conversion program I fed it the pic of a DB2 in sage and it chose Ral 7034

https://www.bing.com/images/search?v...car&ajaxhist=0

I found a scooter painted that colour

https://www.vespafarben.de/fotos/ves...7034-gelbgrau/

Interesting, on my screen, that comes out a germanic beige, like one of those Mercedes monster 4x4 thingies.

I have to confess, it is hard to disagree with that succinct evaluation.

Break it to him gently there... :-)

I did!

Harsh.......but fair :D

Message
 

Smash could you check your inbox , thanks Geoff .

Colour Matching
 

So I did a quick bit of flatting back, and here are the comparisons to the RAL colour swatches.

On the left is the colour I thought I was getting. In the middle is a bit of flatted spray paint delivered. On the right is the 6011 that I will probably go for. The delivered paint in the middle is slightly more blue than the RAL swatch.

I could send back the two tins I still have (I need to do the doors as well), but not sure I can be @rsed for £22. I could order the 6021 from somewhere else, but that may be no closer. I will probably go for the 6011, and get one can to try it out first, which would have been the wise move first time around.

http://i64.tinypic.com/20k7ptl.jpg

Maybe I should go for that Scottish flag blue?