1981 BMW 728i E23 - UPDATED 16-07-08

ah it's not too bad, it's definitely not beyond repair, I can't wait to get stuck in. I've got loads of parts on order lol.

Huzzah! A nice shiny new petrol tank. Isn't it pretty. And rather large, at current prices, £119 to fill the tank from empty ;D



The old tank was rather buggered, as were the tank straps, luckily I'd ordered shiny new ones too:



The fuel filter was definitely due a change...



So I set about with some carefully selected tools and a large hammer, and hey presto:



Apart from the yucky inner arch you can see in the top left of the pictures, the underside of the boot floor was in great condition for a 27 year old car:



A quick snapshot inside the old tank showed it to be mildy contaminated with crud:



Happily, after I slapped the new tank, lines and filter on, she sprung into life. I was so happy, I forgot to take any pictures. FAIL! Instead, I bought some temporary wheels, as the original rims and tyres weren't sealing, and would only stay inflated a day. Forty of the queen's finest got me these, with tyres, I was chuffed:



Now she was running, and had tyres that stayed up, progress was definitely being made. It was time for beer.

Day 2, and it's best to start the day well:



After this, it was time to get busy, my garage was a mess, so first off was tidy up session:



And then time for the most important mod of the day, Snap On seat covers add +10 skill points to any task carried out through the day:



I'm terrible at remembering to disconnect the battery on car's before I weld, and knowing I had to weld today, I remembered. The fact that the battery is horrible expensive helped I suspect.



I sanded back the drivers side rear arch, because it was in a better state than the other, and I've not done arches before, and to my delight, the metal was actually very sound, I'm currently undecided whether to keep the original bodywork and simply skim it to get the shape right, or whether to replace it:



I red-oxide primed the bare metal anyway, old cars rust happily enough without any undue help. Here's a nice shot of the repair section, new wheel, and primed arch:



The bottom of that arch was curse word, so out came the grinder, and I got chop happy:



I cut a nice repair section from the arch I had, and tried it in place, nice!



Next up I welded it in, I haven't welded in months, but I was pretty happy with the welds, good penetration, and neat, which was my worry, as obviously I didn't want to mis-shape or warp the panel at all. Here's a picture after I ground the weld nice and neat:



Time for some body filler:







And hey presto, a much tidier lower rear arch, with sound metal:



That's it for now, I'm back out in the garage tonight to do some more work, so here's a cheeky "tucked away for the time being" shot:



;D

Love these old barges, look forward to more progress!

thanks for the replies! :-) Who is Mr. Fricker RfChris? The supra belongs to my mate Graham, but he hasnt had it long? He bought it from down south somewhere, we're in Northumberland.

Looks very nice, you've got to love an old 7 series

Well, more progress last night.

The plan last night was to strip the front wings off the car to see what the inner wings, a-posts and fronts of the footwells were like. It became apparent that the bolts at the front of wings were going to take some "persuasion" to loosen.

Sadly, I found that there are 4 bolts that are impossible to loosen on E23 wings unless you completely remove the front bumper assembly, lower front spoiler, front indicator units and wiring, and headlamp section slatted covers :rofl:


Awesome, I spent the first half of the night swearing profoundly at it, and started taking pictures after I'd removed the bumper:



Hooray. Two bumper bolts are nice and easy to loosen from the bottom. The other 2 are bolted through 2 brackets mounted 14inches back into the engine bay on the chassis arms. Both of these require arms with at least 4 elbows to access without stripping much out of the bay. Luckily I have 5 elbows per arm, so I was ok.





now I was getting somewhere, and everything came off fairly easily.

I'm not dissappointed with the condition of the inner wings, they're fairly sound, but I'm not overjoyed at how good they are either, so meh, they'll clean up okay.









Importantly, despite being a bit surface rusty, the A post is solid and has no holes anywhere, and is screwdriver proof. Result. The front panel is okay mostly, but the bottom edges at the sides where the front wings meet it are corroded and flaked away nicely. I may splash out on a new front panel, or I may patch the one I have. Decisions decisions.....

Now it was time to sweep up the rest of my car that I'd stripped in my "weight reduction" exercise :rofl:



The rain had set in for the night, so Ebba got pulled outside, and Graham's J drift unit got pulled in to have it's new Focal speakers installed in the front doors.



Graham had helped me strip the front of the BMW all night and have a good tidy up afterwards in the garage afterwards, so I did the honorable thing and had a nice cold beer while he struggled on trying to fit 6 inch speakers in a 4 inch gap B)





And that's the whack for now. I'm off gigging it up tonight, so that's all the progress till the weekend / next week now. B)