Goodness, you BMW guys never cease to amaze me with your dogged commitment to remaining OEM with stuff like this. But you also never cease to amaze me with how good it turns out. Pulling off OEM quality, function, and appearance with a conversion like this isn't for poseurs or dilettantes. Good job.
It's a real pain to weld using MIG haha. Used to weld this everyday at work without ventilated hood :/ Stinks like crazy, I was actually welding holding my breath lol. Hopefully I only did this 1 month.
"Let's try to reuse this terminal that isn't made to be reused, and will probably fall apart in a year, instead of getting a new one with a terminal made to be crimped onto a wire." ... I have to admit, I also do this sometimes
the white residue was the result of welding something galvanized. and I think the battery terminal was crimped originally the bodywork came out good, nice job!
Probably my fav project going on besides Project Binkey... just this one's a bit quicker to update! The 'fingers, is caused by the zinc coating reacting to the heat
Loving this e39 m5 wagon build. Everything @ the back to make this conversion work; the cutting/muffler/piping/battery fingering and brushing the sealant etc. fucing clean as hell, excellent outcome.
I think when you get to the point of factory matching the primer, brush strokes on the seam sealer and using a factory correct battery cable, you get to use thee M badge.
Pete and Dave: Re: the negative battery terminal R/R...reminds me of The Avengers at the beginning of “Age of Ultron” trying various methods to lift Thor’s Hammer...perhaps you’re just not worthy?😂
The irony of putting down sound absorption material in the spare tire well, then mounting a compressor to bare steel right after? Sounds a bit counter productive...no? What an insane amount of work...seriously hats off guys.
Hammers are useful tools a few well aimed taps and that battery tray would have fallen straight in . Holding a bit of bar flat against the side and hitting it would make a nice neat channel.
I'm so happy this is going on right now. I just picked up a 528i Touring and will be doing an interior swap plus a few other odds and ends (including Stage 0 maintenance that it sorely needs).
I guess the Ooze coming out is the Rosin core of your Rosin flux-cored solder wire. Flux is a chemical cleaning agent used before and during the soldering process of electronic components onto circuit boards. Flux is used in both manual soldering as well as the different automated processes used by PCB contract manufacturers. The main purpose of the flux is to prepare the metal surfaces for soldering by cleaning and removing any oxides and impurities. Oxides are formed when metal is exposed to air and may prevent the formation of good solder joints. The flux also protects the metal surfaces from re-oxidation during soldering and helps the soldering process by altering the surface tension of the molten solder. Flux is made up of a base material and an activator which is the chemical that promotes better wetting of the solder by removing oxides from the metal. It also contains other solvents and additives to help with the soldering process as well as inhibiting corrosion. Flux may be solid, pasty, or liquid in form depending on how and where it will be used. For hand soldering, flux can be applied by a flux pen or is usually in the core of the solder wire that most technicians use (like here).
Spray boom mat on the outside of the housing for air pump to quiet it down more. I would also try to make the negative battery cable shorter and make sure you have a ground to chassis and ground to frame from the battery.
Let's be honest. When PT does something up to his standards, the finish quality is way better than oem. So it is not a shock that it turned out so good. 😅
Nice upgrade and look cool! For the battery tray, maybe you could try to cut it in half and use plastic strip to weld it back, with some mm less in the width. Keep doing your good work as always!
If you don’t have a roller you can wad up a cloth that’s suitable for cleaning and use that to smooth out things with adhesive backing, works better than a roller provided you don’t burn or tear the surface from using too much pressure or going too fast.
that goo that was coming off of the solder was hopefully rosin/flux it makes the have this sticky coat that the solder will fuze too it's really useful.
When using the urethane cut the nozzle at a 30° angle 4-5mm wide hole and feed out evenly then use a plastic sharkfin dipped in water and dishwasherfluid too make it all perfect. Same as doing the corners in your bathroom.
You can use a plastic welder and some stainless mesh to re-join the two pieces back together so that they fit. Don't give up on that battery box it is so close too fitting!
Use a spray bottle with dish washing liquid mixed with water over the seam sealer and for a pro finish on clean edges use a ice cream stick to scrap the excess off after you spray it.
You know the old phrase, measure twice weld once, and if that doesn't work grab a hammer. Nice planning on the battery box. It's kind of like watching funniest home videos, you can just see the impending problem as it comes right at them. If I had never watched these videos I would swear every car was their first. What kills me though is they have every tool known to man at their disposal and still look like that.
The easiest solution for the short negative cable would be to rivnut a new ground point that suited the cable then run another length of cable from that to the original ground point.
Pure epicness. I was considering converting my E91 wagon to an E91 M3 but in order to do it correctly I'll need to invest a mint to do it so i'll pass for now.
