Evening Eric ref the AC fan it is certainly a tight fit , my fan is tight up against the rad but there is clearance (just) , is there adjustment to allow the bonnet to sit slightly further forward? your car is looking good , cheers Geoff .
Good morning George , there is a company in the West Midlands (Orson Equipment) who can supply everything you need
http://www.orsonequipment.co.uk/spline_hub_adaptors.html , I did visit them and actually placed an order but then decided that with the hub adaptor the track would be to wide! from memory WCA bought his from them , you may want to speak to Nick(WCA) for his opinion , the wires do look good but I am more than happy with the Minilites .
I also have a set (Driver/Passenger) glass (rare item)from a Z3 coupe which has a different shape at the rear if your interested? all the best with your build , Geoff .
Good evening new door cards made and fitted to door temporarily with tec bolts to check positioning ,
Also made and fitted a new rear parcel shelf mainly out of 9mm ply , will know use 6mm ply covered with vinyl to finish ,
,
as you can probably tell I am not a Joiner/Carpenter but until you try! Geoff .
Good afternoon Wasz I have the trim ready for the rear screen but as it will be removed for the spray work it is not worth installing the chrome strip , I have not made a final decision on the front yet , thanks Geoff .
Good evening , I will not be having a radio so no speakers will be installed , the plastic trim under the dash in front of each door will be replaced by carpet , thanks Geoff .
Thanks Nick will investigate , spent this afternoon installing a headlining and two pieces of trim , know I now why people have gone for the convertible version of the 250 swb (joke), what a difficult job , the *correct* method is to apply the glue to both surfaces and then fit! at this point there is zero chance of adjustment , my method was to apply the glue just to a small part of one surface press that part into place then apply more glue to the next section on just one surface and so on . The headlining was bought from Martrim in Sanbach and comes from a 1.5m wide roll 1m length would be £10 , I spent a total of £15 on the headlining and £10 for the glue , if doesn`t fall of overnight then that's finally a job completed , Geoff .
Fuzzy felt is probably a good description and even though I didn`t use the one correct method it hasn`t fallen off yet , Geoff .
Good afternoon at the time that Chris built my car he was using Alfa 156 door handles connected by a Tribute designed mechanism to link to the Z3 door lock (same as on Bob`s car *Hurnleft*) , although it worked reasonably on my car it did seize on 2 occasions and never really gave full confidence .
The latest choice is to use a Mini door handle with the standard Z3 handle fitted with a small plate attached as per (Andy`s car *Ericholm*) .
To convert my car to enable the Mini door handles to be fitted I have bought 2 replacement doors £25, 2 door handles £34.95 and 2 door locks £35 .
I have replaced a Z3 door previously and did not want to do it again , so I cut the required section out of the new doors (which the door handles fit to) and those sections will be bolted onto my existing doors .
If anybody need 2 Z3 doors with large oblong holes in them please get in touch! thanks Geoff .
Good evening not sure if I have posted this already but my car will be Oxford Blue (4546)
http://www.llewellyn-ryland.co.uk/standardrange.html ,
thanks Geoff .
Richard at Nubodi has just sent me a couple of photos of the freshly painted car ,
just got to get the interior looking as good , thank you Richard , Geoff .
Good morning Froggyman , I fitted the headlining myself after getting the built car back from Chris , I ended up making two attempts , first time I covered all the headlining with glue , but this gave a large area to fix at the same time! (not my best plan) , for my second attempt I glued about one quarter of the headlining fixed that then glued another quarter and so on . As somebody else has mentioned it would be much easier to fix the headlining before the body is fixed down , I should say that I had previously fixed sound deadening to the roof to try and reduce the noise of sitting in a fibreglass shell .
Danny ref the paint , it has probably come out rather lighter than I expected but actually to my eyes it looks period! which is what I wanted , thanks Geoff .
Good morning all , there has been a great deal of comment on the Nubodi thread ref my 250SWB , I should say that when I delivered the car to Richard at Nubodi any problems that were pictured showing the door skins were down to me , for some background , Chris built my car and at that time the process was to use Alfa 156 door handles , it was difficult to come up with a mechanism to make a 156 door handle work efficiently with the BMW lock .
A 250SWB builder(sorry don't know which) worked out that a "Classic" Mini door handle to could be used to provide a better solution , I replaced my 156 door handles with the Mini ones (not a straight forward task) , this meant that my door skins were on and off more times than a (insert your own statement) , and so after numerous efforts I had two functioning locks , but was so fed up that the position of the door skins took a back seat , OK I accept that was not a very good reason for not trying harder but Hay Ho .
I had already booked the car into Nubodi and so I new that Richard would do a much better job at sorting the skins out .
I agree with the comments about working problems through but I also know where my limitations are , sorry for the long post , Geoff .
Good afternoon all , before I recount yesterdays story , some thanks are in order , first off Chris and Dan at Tribute for turning my dream into reality , then all those I have spoken to via the Private Message service , thanks also to everyone who has taken the time to read my thread and to add their thought and suggestions , and last but not least Richard at Nubodi for his fantastic work on the body and for arranging the Spray Job , those photos as good as they are don't do the finished job justice , I could not be more pleased .
Right yesterday it was all going so well driving up the M4 to the A34 turn off and getting loads of admiring looks which I am 99% certain were for the car and not the driver! I stopped at a BP garage about 2 miles before the Junct for the M40 and after filling up walked back to the car to see a pool of water underneath with more water dripping down , there is a Little Chef there so I parked up in their car park and called Green Flag at 14:00 , a mechanic turned up at 17:00 to confirm my diagnosis (water pump knackered) , the recovery truck turned up at 19:00 to take me home (so I thought) but he did not have enough time left , the options were a courtesy car or "relayed" via 2 or 3 changes North . Neither option was what I wanted , I ended up with the courtesy car and my "baby has been delivered this morning . Am working away all next week so car booked in with local guy , so from next weekend the interior work will start , thanks Geoff .
Hi Richard no they were not.What I do need are two seatbelt stalks , the existing Z3 stalks stayed with the seats (which I have just sold to a Polish Z3 breaker from Wroclaw , they picked them up this morning at 06:45 in a van that was going back to Poland).The Z3 needs stalks that will take a 25mm buckle most modern cars have a 20/21mm , if anybody has done similar what stalk did you use? thanks Geoff .
Richard thank you for the info , Geoff . PS I am going to spray the packing tape Black ,
Evening Gordon the seats were made from new by Intatrim (Telford) , Geoff .
Good morning , i have never been happy with the action of the bonnet release on my car both when it was a standard Z3 and after the SWB panels were fitted , it was a concern that if the mechanism failed it would be extremely difficult to lift the bonnet . So i have changed it by removing the internal release the connecting cable and the associated mechanism from the front scuttle , in its place i have had a nut welded to each side .
I have replaced the existing brackets that hold the grill in position with more substantial items and had a hole drilled in each one , then had approx 4" long 17mm bolts fitted , that then screw into the welded on nuts .
To allow for adjustment and to give the bonnet something to rest on i then fitted two bolts into the scuttle .
The brackets will be coming off today and getting a coat of Satin Black , Geoff .
