MadaboutKitcars

The dashboard is out of the mould, but I cannot get down to collect it until the end of next week. I'll put some pics up then.

Progress Update

Today I collected the dashboard from Tribute, and after I have done a little tarting up, will post a picture. It works well for me.

Chris had done some quick and dirty work putting together the front end and we were able to discuss some options regarding angle of the nose (to get the right amount of droop), treatment of the front side wing panels, vents etc, and how close to the front edge the grill should be. The bonnet may yet be hinged at the front. It already looks good with the Mondeo grill in place, not "Ford" at all. Sorry, no pics yet, it wouldn't be fair, so I didn't take any.

The revised roof on Welsh Kiwi's 275 looks really good "in the flesh" and is going to work really well with Zagato type styling. Where the 275 has a recessed blank to the rear of stock z3 windows, I will not have the recess, so the door/window will fit with the roof/side flowing into the rear quarter lights.
Chris is thinking of adapting shortened Scimitar rear quarter lights for this but we will see.

We had been thinking of an Alfa GT rear window, but the new 275 roof, being wider means a re-think - possibly an inverted Scimitar windscreen.

Apart from me twiddling with the dash, nothing much will happen until Welsh Kiwi's 275 is shipped at the end of the month. Can't wait.

Door Lock Actuator

Saturday was the first day for weeks where it looked OK to work outside without rain cover. After a leisurely late breakfast that stretched into early afternoon, I gathered all the bits required from around the house and garage, then found I had parked the IQ a little too close to the Z3 driver door, so thought I would get in the passenger side of the Z3 and scoot across so I could move it as I couldn't be bothered to walk the 10 metres to get the IQ key. Wrong choice.

For those that have not tried it, DON'T. Strained my thigh, pulled a muscle in my back and very nearly kicked off the indicator stalk, twice (once for the thigh strain, then for the back tweak). Apart from bashing my head on the side window when I spasmed with the back. Then discovered that the car would not start because the battery was nearly flat again. Yesterday was lost to re-charging the battery, again. We are off to visit friends near Rugby for a few days, so should be back home again in time for the next wave of rainy weather. Hopefully the solar trickle charger will work well enough to keep the battery charged.

SWMBO has suggested that I take the car to someone who knows what they are doing. She may be right.

You are probably right. Now that I have got the actuator, I will probably fit it. As it is a relatively simple process (if you have the space and decent weather). But now the ABS and brake fluid warning lights have come on again. No problem with fluid level, and the front brakes were done a couple of months ago. The back ones should be good for several thousand miles yet.

There is a good BMW indy nearby, so I may get him to plug it in to do the diagnostic testing and any rectification if the parked and locked draw remains high.

I know which fuse, and lost actuator is most likely offender of the several items connected.

Happy Days

On the first truly sunny day of the year, I goofed off prepping the Z3 and went to Stratford on Avon with friends.

We found this....


On the way to the Dirty Duck for lunch. It is a DB6 series 2. Lunch was G&T for starters followed by G&T for mains.

Door Lock Actuator

So after all the bad weather delays, today was the day. Followed the instructions for removal from a blog and it went like a dream, up to a point. getting the actuator fitted actually.

Getting the lock back in was a nightmare, and after 2 hours frying (my hands almost literally off the hot door) I decided to have a rest, and came back for round two after a cup of tea. Eventually got the lock in, re-connected the battery and tested, and found it was useless as some functions did not activate. So much for ebay bargains. So took it all out and re-fitted the old one, that was nearly as difficult as the first time, tested, checked the draw at the fuse (back to .26A - it was up to .6A last time), but now I couldn't get the window guide back in. 2 more hours of failure. Most of the blogs just say "reverse the removal procedure to re-assemble".

I went back to the notes I had printed off the blog, and found that I had missed the last paragraph, about removing the window rubber seals to make an impossible job only very difficult. Job for tomorrow.

However, I got filthy greasy as well as hot and sweaty, and avoided any household tasks, so all in all a proper boys day.

When success is standing still

I got back to the window guide this morning. Dropping the window down and removing the rubbers at the door trailing edge certainly improves visibility. You have to shove the window forwards, and as you manouver the guide back in, raise the door handle so as to make the lock mechanism clear the void where the guide needs to pass.

It took a while to realise that it just takes brute force to get the door card to seat correctly .... very satisfying after all the frustrations. So now I just have to see if the fiddling has improved the old actuator from draining the battery. I am 7 hours out of pocket, along with the £26 for the ebay actuator that didn't work and £5 for the interior trim pry tool set. But I am getting back into amateur car repairer mode (ie Bodger 3rd class). Ready to start playing with the Scimitar eyeball dash vents that Chris supplied with the new dashboard. I'll do another post for that, with pics.

Scimitar Eyeball Vents and the Dashboard

The Scimitar vents, kindly included with the dashboard by Chris were very stiff to move about, and had the original mounting collar still attached, which meant that the collar had to be removed.
The vent with collar attached:


Once removed, the vent would be suitable for mounting in the Z3gato dashboard.

However, before that, the vents had to be split apart and the eyeball movement freed up. My son's Dremel came in very useful for removing the collar and encouraging the separation of the top ring and bottom cup.



Both the top ring and bottom cup have conical profiles inside, lined with strips of black felt to mount the eyeball part. In both cases, the felt at the bottom had become partially detached and misshapen causing the jamming.

My solution was to remove the bottom felt, and cut it half depth along the length and re-stick one half back into the cup. Both vents operate fine with no looseness (we don't want rattly vents when in use).


The dashboard with vents and storage recess loosely in place. I will be using the Z3 glovebox, it works with the dash.



The dash is currently fitted to a rough cut Z3 dash supplied by Chris. I need to use it as a template to cut my own dashboard bought from ebay. I intend to cut the small quarterlight vents in the top when I start putting the thing together ready for fitting into the car.

Good thinking, I will drop the top vents, as the Z3 windscreen needs all the air it can get.

Dashboard Surgery

I have taken the Chris's dash apart. It is built up on an old scrap Z3 dash. Whist most of the dash is hidden by the new moulded piece, the internal part of the binnacle is visible. It is a beige one, whereas the replacement I bought on ebay is black. Plenty of surgery required to provide a new base. I am going slowly and carefully with the cutter. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have finished the cutting and test the assembly, so will post pics of the canibalised bits together with the mould.

Dashboard Surgery Part 2

Here is the template base dashboard from Chris that the moulded dash attaches to.



First of all, let me say that in the picture below, at the top is Rudolf, a reindeer skin on an Ikea bench. DO NOT infer any peculiar bestial purposes.



Don't be fooled by the phone pic perspective, it all fits together.

Underneath Rudolf, we have the moulded dashboard overlay from Chris. It tapers down snugly to the windscreen end of the base just before the vents, so the original vent cover can be retained.

Underneath that is the re-worked dashboard base from my ebay purchase. Last is the Z3 binnacle inner, that simple screws back onto the base dash.

The re-modelling took about 6 hours, most of which is thinking and checking before cutting. Even with the template, it is easy to make mistakes still, so I found myself triple checking, and split the operation over two days.

I just need some fine days so that I can paint the dash (black matt with a sage green infill along the instrument band). Then start stripping the Z3 dash so that I can fit this one.

Happy days

It was too cold and windy today so I could not start painting my M3 wing mirrors. Instead, I started to tart up the black door cards that Chris threw in with the dashboard (along with the glovebox).

The driver side door handle has been glued on, and the 2 part glue had dribbled down the ostrich leather panel. I have cleaned both cards with various concoctions, then spent a considerable amount of time picking off the glue trail with the point of a Stanley knife blade. I think it will work out OK when I use the leather re-conditioning treatment - but I could do with some recommendations for this. It could do with re-colouring the leather rather than dying it.

AM Zagatos



Paul, no I had not seen it before. Always nice to see the cars in action though. Pity that they focussed so much on a dull presentation instead of getting a true sense of what it was like to see the cars racing past.(Not as good as the ones that Gary posts in other threads). The VEV cars are icons but were presented like they were Ford Kas. Oh well....

Battery drain

I think I may have discovered part of the problem.

The standard Z3 for a 3.0 is 80ah with 800a cold crank. The previous owner put in what he described as a "beefy" (well, it says "Premium" on the label), 72ah with 650a cold crank.

I have no idea what all that lot means, except it looks like the battery is not powerful enough. Am I on to something?

I've got some warning lights come up again and suspect something amiss with the brake system, so have it booked into an indy for the end of the month. I'll get them to check the alternator and investigate any error codes at the same time. Electrickery does my head in.

Crikey, will be sure to get the new one checked. It is clear that the old (new) one is kaput.

Colorbond LVP interior trim paint

Has anyone tried this? Has anyone figured how to get it in the UK? The reviews are very good. I could do with some for door panel refresh and also the new dashboard.

Family visits and dog sitting have held up my tinkering for 3-4 weeks. Back on track at the end of the month. Jagtvr, empty you pm box, it is full.

Wing Mirrors

Earlier in the thread I showed the white M3 wing mirrors I got off ebay. In quiet moments I have rubbed them back with 1200 wet and dry. Not really worth a photo as they just looked matt white instead of gloss white.

Using my trusty corrugated cardboard spray booth, I gave them a couple of coats of high build primer. It said grey on the tin, but it turns out to be not much different from the matt white smoothed back look. So I didn't bother with photos.

After a couple of days, I smoothed them back and gave a couple of coats of cellulose gloss RAL 6021 Light Green. This is the nearest bog standard colour to AM California Sage, which is where I intend to go with this eventually. However, in the short term, I didn't not fancy RAL 6021 light green gelcoat body panels, black doors and white wing mirrors. So this is the learning part of spray painting for me. Last time was in 1968 when I painted my scooter panels and helmet.

That time, they had a fetching eggshell finish which I rather liked as it was unique at the time. In the intervening years, my painting skills have not been refined, and the wing mirrors are half ok and half not. I got too close in the confined spray booth. (I wasn't actually IN the box, just may arm and hand, but it is a bit tight) Sadly, it is 50/50 on each of them. I am going to rub them back and give them a polish. They will eventually be painted the sage gloss, so they don't have to be perfect now.

I will post pictures of the before and after smoothing tomorrow. I may get some lacquer and see how that goes before going trying the polishing. After that, it is having a bash at the doors

I have got a sample of beige vinyl from the company that do the best value MGB seat covers. The beige is more brown than pink (no Steve Davies jokes please) and I may order a length and see how it looks on the dashboard. This will save me making everything black. I think I mentioned before that I am probably lazier than Jaguartvr (sorry matey). I can then do the MGB seats later, if I don't get round to it before Chris gets the car in for the panelling work.

In the meantime, I am dog sitting at my son's house, commuting back to the house to strip the walls back in the dining room then getting back in time for his next wee break. Thinking about it, my wife is off babysitting for our daughter tomorrow. I wonder if the dining room would be a better spray booth? If i can get 2 coats on the walls after the mirror test, she might never know. Something would be sure to go wrong though......

Green Eggs

Here are how it turned out after trial spraying. SWMBO reckons it is too "peppermint" and I should go for a darker colour.

I made the obvious error, of assuming that as every colour swatch i had seen on my computer looked the same, then that must be the colour. Yes, I know, I know .... now. I have sent off for a RAL colour fan. I think I need RAL 6011 and not RAL 6021. We shall see. Anyhow, no harm done.

But I will have to let Chris know if I change my mind on the colour as he is going to use the same colour in the gelcoat, when we get that far.