Project "B"

January 2009

For several reasons I have decided to name this car Project "B"

To date I have not done anything yet apart from give it the once over to decide it fate, the previous owner had started to restore the back axle, so this has been fully stripped and painted, and this time does contain the proper limited slip diff.

However there is no interior with this car, apart from 3 very tired grey door cards, there is also no front spoiler, also only 2 alloy wheels, one of which has a shattered centre stub and the other has a largish ding in the outer rim, so I will definitely need parts from the silver car, and perhaps some more from my current hoard of parts.

The welding to the rear panel and boot floor, seem to be due to the tow bar being fitted, perhaps to stitch it back together after pulling something large and heavy, this will need further investigation

Steering wheel is also poor and will need recovering, car was full of water as front windscreen had been removed

Shattered centre to the alloy wheel, I cannot imagine how this happened

Bonnet and front panel are totally rotten, as are all the doors, but at the end of the day these are easily replaced, windscreen surround is surprisingly very solid though

Windscreen surround has been repaired but all in all is very solid

The bonnet and all front end parts are the worst I have ever seen, I think that they might have been made from a recycled German U Boat

Drivers side inner wing has also had a small patch

Notice the thin chrome pushrod in the strut, no Bilstein's on this car either, and a closer look at the rear turned up some Monroe Gas Matics.

Jacking points both away, this is very normal

Front panel will need replaced, but I cut the one of the silver breaker which was in excellent shape

Corner of the drivers side floor away, by the jacking point

all rotten parts stripped of this side now, doesn't look too bad

This is worse than I thought, I will need to do something with this before it goes into storage, or it will have completely rotted away when I get it back out again

I decided to cut the rotten arch back, as it was pretty raggy once I had ground it down, this will definitely stop the rot spreading

Then a quick run over with the DA Sander

Then a good thick coat of Rust proofing red primer

Leaving that to dry it was then onto the Drivers side inner wing

You will remember the whole front end was very rusty, well I found out the reason for that

Accident Damage, you can see from both these shots that the front section of the inner wing is very rippled and uneven, yet when you look inside it is nice and smooth, this is because it has been hammered straight and then covered with body filler.

From that I figure that the bonnet, wings and front panel must also have been replaced, but not properly painted and protected on the inside, hence years later they are totally rotten.

This also means that every E12 M535 that I have owned so far has had some front end damage in its life time, definitely a thing to watch out for in the future

Hopefully not too late to save it though, but I also know that you can buy these front sections from Walloth and Nesch, so it should not be too bad

Then onto fitting the doors and wing

Those are E28 doors, I have done an article about fitting those, as I am often being asked if they will fit.

Looks a lot more presentable now, just the other side to do