GazDavies SWB build
 

Like many others I had been following Chris and Dans progress on the swb with great interest for a long time and decided that I just had to have one. About 6 weeks ago I bought myself a nice Z3 donor which I have been running occasionally in order to find any problems that it may have. The car is a 2.8litre straight 6 with 100k miles on the clock and came with full service history. It has a few rust spots on the sills but apart from that is a nice clean car.http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...psc9x4jej2.jpghttp://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...psercnlkx8.jpghttp://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...pswiasmmo0.jpg

I started to strip the car this evening which took longer than I had imagined. The roof was a real pain with lots of small hidden nuts and loads of sticky stuff sealing it to the bodywork. The boot came off easily until I realised that I hadn't disconnected the wiring loom that is connected to the brake light and central locking. I was tempted to cut it as I won't need the boots central locking but wasn't sure how the modern electrics would react to this so decided to play safe and remove the locks in order to disconnect the loom which isn't easy unless you have very long, skinny fingers!http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...ps0efzc78r.jpg
I won't get the chance to strip it down any further until the end of the week but I do pick up my kit from Chris on Wednesday so should be able to start building the car by the end of the weekend.

Hi Gaz,

I look forward to seeing it progress.
I'll also be looking closely for any interesting ideas that I may want to copy!

Cheers, Bob.

Morning Gaz welcome to the club , Geoff .

be watching this with intrest Gaz,

have you any ideas on the interior or are you happy for a classic outside/modern inside look?

been looking at removal of the airbags and legality even just the steering wheel,think you need an understanding mot tester ,if its been modified for racing/rallying you are allowed to remove and pass an MOT... hopefully the rollcage/bodystiffener is enough to pesuade them ha ha

good luck

I'm open to be corrected but the only fail on an MOT would be if the air bag warning light is on and you can get systems to short this across so this shouldn't be a problem.

The DVSA sent the following guidance to MOT testers:

https://mattersoftesting.blog.gov.uk...e-a-rally-car/

I suggest that either hillclimbing, sprinting or the 750MC Roadsports championship may be appropriate:

http://www.750mc.co.uk/formulae/roadsports.htm
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/allabout.asp

To correct myself:

As of 2012. http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice...nges-2012.html

Back on topic, best of luck Gaz I hope you complete yours faster than I've done mine :-(

My original intentions were to leave the Z3 interior in there and just get the body work on fast to start enjoying driving it but Im now having a rethink on that. Ive decided on changing the seats and also the rear shelf and so if I'm doing that I will have to change the colour as matching the rest of the cream/beige interior will be too difficult for me to waste time on. I have bought some black vinyl to trim the rear shelf and centre tunnel and will look for a black Z3 carpet to replace what I have now. I also want some low seats as I'm 6ft 3ins and from the few pics that I have seen, headroom doesn't appear to be abundant.

I will wait to see if removing the airbag is legal or not but my thoughts are that if there are no lights on the dash the MOT man probably won't question it.

Mine has no airbag, no airbag sensor, no airbag light and no way of putting them back in. Gulp. I modified it this way for hillclimbs obviously

I also bought a car with a beige interior.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, it would have been much better starting with a car with a black interior so I could reuse quite a lot of it, including the carpets.
Oh well, we live and learn, or don't learn as the case may be.
I'm really pleased I bought a 2.8 though as the power is effortless yet the fuel consumption still seems reasonable.
Cheers, Bob.

The secret is in the wording here, "If it is obviously missing)

It should be done in such a way that it is not obvious, and it will then pass the Mot.

WCA is proof of that!!

A car will not fail an mot if the light bulb is broken or missing that should illuminate if their is a fault with the airbags.

However if their is a fault with the airbag and that said light bulb was working or in place showing there was a fault then it may fail an mot?

If thats right then simply remove the indicator bulb

If you remove the sirbag control bit from the centre console in front of the gear stick then the light never illuminates.

It is on one of my threads about removing the sirbag. I can try to post a link tomorrow when I am not using this crappy iPad

I'm now the proud owner of a swb kit that is sat on my driveway and I would just like to thank Chris and Dan for their help showing me around the kit and loading it into my hire van. The kit looks to be excellent quality with some very well thought out touches which I find very impressive, well done guys, it deserves to sell very well indeed which I'm sure that it will!!!

After getting home I found that some of the items that I had ordered online have arrived

http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...psseif3mhb.jpg

I had ordered these 3 badges from here at a very reasonable £47 including VAT and postage. They look to be brand new genuine Ferrari parts so I'm very happy with them at that price and wouldn't hesitate to order from Superformance again.

I will get on with stripping the Z3 between work over the next few days in the hope of getting the kit dry fitted before I go on Holiday on Wednesday. My intention is to just dry fit for now which will help me to decide what I want to do with the interior which will be much easier to fit if I can remove the body again.

It will be good to see the progress and how fast you put the kit together.

If your going for the full replica look, i would re-think that resin badge and go for a metal 1. Just my pennies worth. Good luck with the build

I can't wait to see this one progress, good luck Gaz.

I have no doubt that with this kit you could have a drivable car in less than a week however Im not going to try that. My plan is to have the Z3 stripped down before Wednesday as I go on holiday for a week and when I return I will start the build then. I have had a few hours on it tonight and the panels are not coming off as quickly as I had thought that they would. Its a real pig to take apart with lots of hidden plastic pieces holding it all together!

Im not going for the full replica look, partly because I don't think that it is achievable and there would always be something that didn't look correct and that would annoy me. For that reason I will stick with the badge that I bought for now as if the incorrect dimensions, windscreen and interior are not enough to give the game away then the badge probably won't either.

There hasn't been a whole lot of progress on the car however I have removed almost all of the unwanted/Unneeded parts of the donor. For this nothing special was needed just an 8mm and 10mm socket, a 30 and 50 Torqs, quite a lot of the skin from my knuckles and a good dose of colourful language. I still have one or two things to remove like the air con fan and some brackets on the top of the windscreen which contain torqs that somebody has rounded off :frusty:

I have been looking at buying the items I will need to build it but due to going on holiday in the morning I have wanted to buy anything that I couldn't collect or have delivered quickly. Ive spent many hours on eBay and managed to somehow buy 2 sets of wheels. The first set are some 15 inch steels like MrT as they were only £100 delivered and are a safe bet as I know that they will both fit and look OK.

http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...psnqdtdsbs.jpg

Although they seem to be in very good condition, I will clean them up and spray them silver at some point.

The second set Im still to decide if I actually like them or not for the SWB. They came from a Corvette that was imported to the UK which happens to have (almost) the same pcd as BMW. I quite like the dummy spinners and if you squint at the wheels they kind of look similar to Borranis. I have not yet test fitted them but I think that they should fit.

http://i1107.photobucket.com/albums/...psmjpqm404.jpg

As I can only fit one set I will take a further look at them when I get back from holiday and decide which wheels to use, the other set will go back on eBay.

I managed to sell a few parts of the donor also and managed to get £122 for the electric hood and £18 for the bonnet. I was offered £25 for the mirrors but they broke in the process of removal so went in the bin as did the lower sills which were rotten and rear wheel arches as they were slightly damaged. The other parts will be sold off when I get the chance.

I've got my eyes shut, and they still don't look like Boranis... LOL
Actually, they are quite nice, and some would say you're building a tribute, not a replica.

I like those American wheels, the rim does look very much like the Borrani wires' alloy rim.

They should look pretty good imho (if they fit).