Bratwurst Repairs

Project: Bratwurst - Repairs

As you can see from Stage 1 - Initial Assessment there are numerous faults with the car. A lot of the faults will either not effect the cars performance in it's new role (i.e. cosmetics) or will be eradicated through simple removal of the components concerned. Therefore I shall start this section with a list of the faults that will actually need rectifying.
So here goes:

Bodywork & Fittings

Loose rear spoiler
I would normally remove such nonsense as spoilers as they usually do little more than create excess drag and slow the car down. However as there was an Auto-test element listed for the 2009 challenge to think about and the spoiler does a good job of acting as a visual aid to show me where the back of the car is, I was going to retain it. As it transpired, the auto-test element didn't involve any precision reversing of any significance and was in fact carried out on gravel therefore it could be removed. It is held in place by four bolts, two at each end. The spoiler is already loose on the nearside (and is letting in water) but this is due to the bolt holes in the boot skin having rusted. The original plan was to plate this area but as the daily driver that this car was originally donating spares to has now itself retired from service it shall be donating it's pristine spoiler-less boot lid to the Bratwurst.

Rear view mirror in glovebox
As far as I'm aware it is not an MOT requirement to have a rear view mirror (look at vans etc...) However, it would be rather irresponsible (and blumin annoying) not to have one. I could just glue the original one back on but it's rather heavy. I'll replace it with something light and plastic from a scrap car. I have some friends on the look out at the moment, one of which does the odd bit of banger racing. The replacement door mirrors will come from a similar source.

Only remaining key will not fit drivers door so the car cannot be locked
It would be handy to be able to lock the car for the obvious reason that I don't want the thing to go missing! I was going to get a set from the local breakers and had been quoted £20 for a replacement set of locks and key but as the old daily driver has now been retired I'll simply take the locks from that instead. I'll still add £20 to the budget however to keep things fair as the fact that the car couldn't be secured caused the previous owners decision to donate it to me.

Rusted Jacking points
I found one jacking point to be rusted when removing the wheels for balancing. However, once I raised the car up and had a good poke around the rest it soon became apparent that all four jacking points had rusted and needed plating.

Nearside Front

Nearside Rear

Offside Front

Offside Rear

Rusted seat belt mounts
Two plates were also required to the floor-pan at the centre rear seatbelt mount positions.

Centre Rear Seatbelt Nearside Anchorage

Centre Rear Seatbelt Offside Anchorage

Rot cut out and plates let in.
Here you can also see some of the 'swiss cheese' lightening holes in the rear bulkhead.

Rusted Off-Side Rear Sill
As already mentioned in stage 1, this hole was discovered later on in the build whilst prodding a bulge in the stone guard.
Sadly, as is often the case, the visible signs were just the tip of the iceberg.

Offside rear sill hole.

Cut out.

Rot extends around rear jacking point.

Function over form, and excuse the shody welding...

The above areas are a very good representation of the main areas to look out for for rust on these E34 platform BMWs. The problem stems from the age old habit of running the sunroof drain tubes into the sills rather than passing them all the way through and outside of the car. The water collects in the sills around the jacking points and to the rear of the sills and sits there with obvious consequences. The problem doesn't reveal itself until the rust is at a very advanced stage due to the thickness and quality of the stone guard sprayed onto the outer surface of the sills. This acts to mask the very real problem developing on the inside. To be fair, you have to consider the age of these vehicles (the newest being built in '95) so they have put up a good fight really. Sadly now though many have succumbed.

Mechanical

Fluid leaks from engine.
I gave the engine a clean and they disappeared! Momentarily at least... Oil is leaking from the rocker cover onto the exhaust manifold whilst the engine is running. A new seal fixed it.

Loose sensor hanging on wire from engine loom, suspect knock sensor?
I got this one wrong. In my defence I was in a gloomy workshop looking up at it from a distance. Now, after taking a photo of it outside in glorious sunshine and with the head lamp unit out of the way it's obviously not a sensor hanging on a wire. For a start it's on a tube. It is in fact a battery vent tube.

Vibrations through steering and body at all speeds - wheel balancing?
Top of the list to get sorted is the apparent imbalance in the wheels to try to eradicate the vibrations. This should make it easier to assess the condition of the cars suspension and steering components. This has already been covered on the Stage 1 page but to sum up, two of the wheels were significantly out of balance and one needed a bit of tweaking. I have taken the car for a test drive since having the wheels balanced and am happy to report that up to motorway speeds all vibration has vanished.I can now better assess the cars handling.

Suspension clonks and suspect handling - possibly caused by above?
Since the wheels were re balanced most of the suspension gripes have gone away. There are no bangs or clunks and the car seems to handle the bumps pretty well. It's just the steering that's not much cop but I did notice that the front tyres were wearing out unevenly with the inner edges being worn away noticeably more than the outers. I'll get the tracking checked (or I might give it a go myself) and take it from there.

Inactive ratchet on hand-brake so will not stay on.
On removing the rear section of the centre console, the reason for the handbrakes failure became very much apparent. The lever has split just behind the hand grip. On straightening the lever the ratchet mechanism began to work again. Therefore the lever simply needs welding to repair the split and prevent it from bending again. Only instead of welding it I simply swapped across the assembly from the now retired ex-daily driver.

Strange loud hissing from drivers foot well with engine running at idle.
This turned out to be part of the climate control. The system uses a vacuum tapping from the inlet manifold to draw air from the cabin through a temp sensor to tell the temp control system what the cabin temperature is so that it can adjust accordingly. It helps to improve the systems reaction time. There are two feeds, one in each footwell and each serving it's own system (the left and right side of the car are independent of each other, posh or what!). The drivers side system had been tampered with and so was making noise in operation.As the heater system is being removed this problem will eradicate itself.

Radiator shot
Nothing for it but to get a replacement quality item from the local breakers. This time the yard at the end of the village I live in came to the rescue with an identical radiator from a BMW 320i for £25. Well, identical except for the coolant level float switch that lives in the bottom of the expansion tank, but this can be simply swapped across (blanking plug fitted on replacement 320i radiator).

Electrical

Major electrical short flattening fresh battery within a few hours with ignition off.
As described in Stage 2, I discovered what may well be the cause of the electrical faults that had blighted this car whilst removing excess wiring from the boot lid. I found that a small area of the loom had become significantly damaged where it enters the plastic conduit attached to the nearside boot hinge.The insulation had cracked in numerous places on all the wires in the loom in an area of approx one inch.

Mobirise

One of those wires is an earth wire, you'll also notice one wire broken (many others were close to breaking point) this accounts for the inactive off-side reversing light. A lot of these wires aren't required, the remaining wires had the damaged section cut out and were re-soldered together.

Mobirise

The contents of this website are purely a reflection of my own experiences and knowledge gained whilst working on my various projects. Anything you do based on what you have read here is done so entirely at your own risk.
Personally I wouldn't trust someone like me with a lawn mower! You have been warned! Flapper-bat!

Made with ‌

Landing Page Software