1979 BMW E12

[BM-Jonny]

So this was Feb 2010. I needed a second car at the time, and my dad owned this old BMW 518. It was parked at a mechanics house who had been working on the car but then passed away unexpectedly. Nobody knew where the keys were for the bmw so the offer was, if I could move it, I could have it.

So without too much delay I drove to Prince Albert and arranged for a towing company to move the car back to my dads place. I had driven the car once in 2003 and it was in fair shape then.

Little did I realise how much backyard mechanic work the car had seen after that and what had to be done to get the car back to a respectable standard.

[BM-Jonny]

Some pics of what I had signed up for,









After a 2nd trip in May 2010 we managed to get the car running again - just, and it was time to take her back to George to get some proper attention.
She handled the drive quite well although she really wasn't in a state to be driven.

Quick stop to rescue a tortoise.



A few snaps in Meiringspoort:





Then Waboomskraal on the pass just before George:



And finally home.




I was in no financial position to give the car the attention it needed so it wasn't long until the car started overheating and before I knew it the engine had packed up. After a trip to cape town behind a tow truck and then back to George I realised that I was in way over my head and sent the car back to my dad in Prince Albert.

[Woofwoof]

Nice to see the E12 and it doesn't look rotten either, I presume RSA sunshine helped there. Pity about the old M10 as they are a very robust motor generally.What's the plan?

[BM-Jonny]

Thanks, nope there isn't too much rust, the body has just been banged up a bit...

A couple of years later and several disappointing attempts to revive her with crazy engine rebuild quotes in excess of R34000, it all finally started looking up. By the end of last year before once more falling flat, I scrapped the idea for good, gave up the engine and started making plans to get the body towed to a scrap yard.

John, a friend of mine(shocked by the fact that I just handed the engine over for spares)then suggested that I simply buy a 2nd hand engine rather than try and get mine(which was now gone)fixed. I looked into it and found plenty available at good prices (R4000 to R5000)and realised I had been an idiot. I phoned up Paul whom I had given the engine to a few months earlier to see if he still at least had the block so that I could keep the original engine number... He didn't. He had given it to a friend of his, Mike. Mike builds racing engines for 2002's and so could do with some extra M10 spares around his workshop. Fortunately a few phone calls later revealed that Mike still had the engine and he offered to rebuild it at a price I could actually make peace with.

Roll on February 2016...




So all of a sudden I had an engine clean enough to eat off, but the body has seen hardly any attention over the last 6 years... 

I had always intended to do most of the work myself but I wasn't sure if the engine could be saved. Now that it has been I don't want to keep it sitting for another 6 years before it is eventually fired up again. So I've started to get the rebuild going now. My neighbour Pierre has offered to help out with the bodywork and I'll do my best on the other fiddly bits.

[BM-Jonny]

Ok, so here are some pics of the condition of the car and what needs repairing.


All four doors have rusted through and have been patched at some point using fiberglass. I have picked at these and the rust underneath the fiberglass is pretty bad. Sorry I don't seem to have a pic of where the fiberglass has been removed to show the true extent of the rot.



Notice how the left tail light does not line up with the boot lid.













Chassis engine mount arm is completely rusted through on the left, couldn't find any stock with BMW so I cut out a section from another car to replace.



'New' and the old one..




The front spoiler has also seen better days, clearly been in a few dings.





The bonnet looks quite good here but it will be replaced as there's a section that is also rusted through by the windscreen washer jets.
I was picking at the paint on the bonnet for some time to reveal the original blue hiding underneath, quite a difference and so much better! 




Here you can see the hole in the one door after I removed the fiberglass botch job.

[BM-Jonny]

And this...



Not quite sure how to go about this one. The upholsterer said it would be too hard to find material to match this so instead he will try to get something similar and redo all the seats. Not first prize but i suppose it'll have to do.

[BM-Jonny]

I figured the underside of the car is the best place to start. The car went over a boulder on the Swartberg pass about 16 years ago which resulting in that chassis arm being in the state that its in and it left a few dents in some of the floor pans. The sub-frame also has some scars to show for it. So before any work to the doors etc can start the belly needs to be cleaned, stone chipped and the sub-frame and suspension needs attention and new paint too.

About two months ago we towed the car over to Pierre's shop for the serious bits to begin on and off as he gets the time.

So far the chassis arm has been welded up - obviously the weld will still be ground down...





And the spoiler has received its first round of attention, almost an inch of body filler was removed from it.



We removed the running gear and sent some bits to be sand blasted. Then new bushes can be fitted and everything can receive some new paint.
You can see then new donor doors in the top right of this pic...





With everything disassembled I took a closer look at the sub-frame. It wasn't neat enough so I sourced another one from the local scrap yard.



Here are some bits that have been done already

[BM-Jonny]

A few more bits and pieces I've been working on...

Ive cleaned out the old indicator lens housings, repainted the reflector and replaced the lenses, looks as good as new.




The wheels went off to be sandblasted...






Now just waiting for the paint and tires to go on. It was a bit of a mission to find tires that fit, apparently its not a very common size, 14/70/195. Everything in that size looks pretty agricultural in my opinion, but eventually I found these, they should look ok I reckon. I've bought some new badges and done some work on the little center caps, cant wait for it to all come together!

[BM-Jonny]

A few photos of recent activities...

Red oxide:


Then some colour, and ready for bushes and rubbers before a final touch up.


I built a small blasting cabinet to try and clean some of the smaller more irregular parts. It was a partial success, in that when it works it works really well, but it has a hard time getting the grit through the gun 80% of the time... Larger parts take way too long so it'll have to be modified. I definitely need a finer medium and a different gun to siphon from a collector point instead of waving that heavy gun around.




A before and after sand blasting example of the bits for the calipers


Also the brakes arrived back - painted black.

So I'll have to give them a coat of paint to make them look more factory original. Silver should do.

[79cord]

Fair progress. Hope the bodywork is under control.

[darrenh]

what on earth happened to the front seat, someone get shot in the stomach ?

[BM-Jonny]

Thanks, but due to some unforeseen circumstances there is a change of plan.

Body work, paint-prep and final paint will have to wait until some later date until the stars align again. So, the focus has now shifted. I'll just get the car back on its wheels, the engine running and the roadworthy test done. So i'll tackle the body work bit by bit and over a much longer time period than I had originally intended.

As for the front seat... The story is that the car was left in the Karoo sun for a few years, and some forgotten newspapers on the seat then randomly caught fire. Perhaps the light was concentrated in just the right way to set the newspaper alight. Sounds like a tall tale but this is what was told.

Here are a few other bits that have seen some attention.
A before and after version for comparison. Amazing what some 1300 wet&dry followed by a buffing wheel can do.

[BM-Jonny]

I got news yesterday of my gearbox from ZF in Cape Town. It is ready and needed to be collected this morning so my wife was put up to the task.

She just sent me these pictures...






A few more pieces to add to my stockpile of 'ready to go back on' parts!

[Davey]

Great progress, nice to see something being kept in a family and brought back to its former glory.

Keep up the good work i love an old BMW.

[dbdb]

I think you are making good progress too. It is a mammoth undertaking, but with the family connection and the car's rarity, it is worth it!

[BM-Jonny]

Thanks Davey/dbdb, It sure is a fair process and the logistics takes some head scratching at times. Though it's a good learning curve.

Unfortunately my dad did not own this one since new, though it was his for a good 10 years. He did however own a 520 previously in the early 80s, as did his father and my one uncle, all at the same time as far as I can tell. So there were three in the family, all 4 cylinder e12's. So there's definitely a bit of history there...

[BM-Jonny]

Ok, so a few more updates.

The wheels are back and painted. The centers are darker than the rest of the wheels, but not as dark as they were originally. Pierre had offered to paint them darker if I wasn't satisfied, but I think it looks good like this for now... It can always be changed later I feel it doesn't look right... 

[BM-Jonny]

The chrome front bumper also needed attention. The inside had been painted at same point, I can only assume that it was to stop the rust... Now its so bad that that I will have to repeat the same process.



This pic makes it seem a bit worse than it was, but the chrome was covered in overspray which needed removing first before I could get to polishing.



So after some scrubbing and sanding, inside painted.



And outside polished.



These cover plate sections will need replacing though. I saw that they are available from Wallothnesch, so I'll be ordering some of them at some point. For now though these will have to do.



Then everything reassembled:

[Coakers]

Book marked, taking the bull by the horns on this one. Really looking forward to the reassembly. Loving the home brew shotblaster as well.

[BM-Jonny]

Thanks Coakers, will do my best to not disappoint!