E46 M3

[tea boy]

2 hours ago, GaryH said:

Well, that very much depends on how many Jehovah's Witnesses had visited recently surely ? 🤔

I'm not particularly familiar with Jehovah's Witnesses because they have usually already been killed and eaten by the locals before they make it to our end of the street.

[World Citizen]

What's the difference between a Jehovah's Witness and Tesla's built quality?

You can shut the door on a Jehovah's Witness!

Boom, boom 🦊

Joke had been brought up to date for the inclusion of woke EV owners 😀 

[njpcarrera32]

According to Google/Imperial War Museum, there were 302 watchtowers in 1989.

 

Just adding my 2🪙 worth to this excellent thread.

[tea boy]

1 hour ago, njpcarrera32 said:

According to Google/Imperial War Museum, there were 302 watchtowers in 1989.

 

Just adding my 2🪙 worth to this excellent thread.

Yes, that is the answer we were given.

We over-guessed.

 

Another weekend, another washout...

Saturday was supposed to be mostly dry but ended up being incredibly wet.

I just could not summon up enough enthusiasm to paddle about in a wet tent so I didn't.

Sunday dawned much the same but wonder of wonders it stopped raining mid morning so I went out to fill my sand bags and build a miniature Hoover Dam. I might call it the Henry Dam or something like that, I don't know.

Anyway, I had done the first three bags before the monsoon recommenced and I ended up completely soaked.

I got this far before I ran out of sand.

I think I'm going to get some more to go a bit further round the sides of the tent otherwise the water could come around like what happened at the Maginot line...

I swept out as much water as I could, we'll see what happens because it is still raining now.

After that I had to go inside to dry out in front of a roaring candle.

My enthusiasm is very low at the moment, not because I don't want to do it, I do, but I don't want to do it whilst having to wear a snorkel and flippers.

Cold and dry I can cope with, cold and wet is not for me.

Cheers.

[Phill]

With you on that Mate, cold and dry is tolerable, cold and wet, no thank you. That’s  why I plan to spend my retirement out of the country November to March, at least….

Tell you what though, I’ll not complain about working in my cold, cramped single garage again after seeing what you are enduring. Mind you, is your 911 in a garage?

Keep going, it’s awesome work 😉

[tea boy]

15 hours ago, Phill said:

With you on that Mate, cold and dry is tolerable, cold and wet, no thank you. That’s  why I plan to spend my retirement out of the country November to March, at least….

Tell you what though, I’ll not complain about working in my cold, cramped single garage again after seeing what you are enduring. Mind you, is your 911 in a garage?

Keep going, it’s awesome work 😉

The 911 is in a cold, cramped single garage...

 

Now, when I got home it was, of course, raining.

I checked the tent and it has flooded again.

I've ordered some more sand bags to extend the Henry dam.

The good news for today is that the price of heating oil seems to have come down from total P*** take to downright diabolical.

To celebrate this I have serviced and lit the Rayburn, which would normally have happened some time ago.

The benefit to this is that I only need to wear one cardigan at a time now and I don't need to wear my tights under my trousers, in the house at least.

This has the added benefit of sparing the Lovely Doctor from seeing me first thing in a morning prancing around looking like Rudolf Nureyev...

Right, I'm off to cover myself in deep heat and get up against the Rayburn to try to survive the night.

Cin cin.

[Ian Comerford]

Unfortunately the thought of you in tights doing a Rudolf Nureyev is now seared into our retinas…….. not fair TB!

[tea boy]

17 hours ago, Ian Comerford said:

Unfortunately the thought of you in tights doing a Rudolf Nureyev is now seared into our retinas…….. not fair TB!

I can only apologise, IC1.

Have I awakened your hitherto suppressed yearnings for handsome chaps in tights?   

 

 

As my Henry Dam was not up to the job I got some more soft sand and had ordered some more sand bags from those Amazonian bag makers.

The sand was there but the bags were not so I filled up the remaining ones from the first batch and extended the barrier around the side of the tent.

Obviously it started raining on me whilst I was doing it so once my stock of bags was exhausted I packed up and went inside.

After a quick cuppa I went to the shop and to fuel up for tomorrow and upon my return the new stock of bags had arrived so I set to and filled those.

I think the majority of the water was running off that concrete slope and in through the side so hopefully it is now shored up enough to keep it out.

I also put a few down the other side, just in case.

Now I have run out of sand again and my back was telling me I'd had enough.

It was time to lean up against my nice warm Rayburn with a lovely cuppa.

Let's see if this is enough to keep the water out.

Cheers.
 

[tea boy]

Have my flood defences worked?

I have no idea because it has now stopped raining.

The pluviality is probably saving itself for the weekend I expect.

The precipitation has been replaced by subzero temperatures.

It was showing a degree and a half below when I backed up the drive this evening.

Not that long ago I said that I can handle the cold as long as it was dry, so here was my opportunity to live up to my bravado.

The next bit on the list was this at the back of the rear footwell.

This was how I'd left it in the antediluvian times.

I wanted to have a go with the modern welding set that I have borrowed.

It is nothing fancy at all, just a basic Sealey thing, and now is the time when I should have taken a picture of it.

My old welder is still working as well as ever but I have been struggling a bit with the very thin BMW floor panels.

When I bought it many years ago it was a very expensive set but technology has moved the game on.

Another thing to consider is that I wouldn't be able to wheel it into the tent because someone has covered the entrance with a wall of sandbags...

The Sealey is very light and I can just carry it in, I brought the gas bottle down from the shed with a sack barrow to save my poor back.

The first problem, actually it is more of an inconvenience really, is that the Sealey has a short 2 metre fixed harness whereas my old Erfi has a 4 metre Binzel harness and torch.

This meant that I was tripping over the set every time I had to get down the side of the car due to having to have it so close. 

Anyway, I did a test to get the settings how I wanted them.

Again, I could have taken a picture but didn't.

I was going to get a picture of the piece tacked in, but got a bit carried away.

It was much easier to get the welder set how I wanted it because of the stepless controls.

I have to say that because of the area that I am welding and the fact that I can't fully open the door meant that I was bent over and twisting to my left.

This was really uncomfortable for my dodgy back and I had to not stay in that position for too long or the Lovely Doctor would probably have had to come and crowbar me out.

I am using the pain and discomfort as an excuse for the shabby welding.

I have to say that I was very pleased with how the Sealey performed, it's a thumbs up from me.

I gave the repair a quick tidy up. 

As usual I had made it oversized so I was just going to get my stuff to mark it out and trim it down when the Doc asked me if I would go to the shop for her so it was pack up time.

To be honest I didn't mind, there was ice on the inside of the tent and my toes were starting to feel cold.

Next job is trim it up and get some weld through primer on it and start cutting in these new bits that join on to there.

Sorry for the verbosity and lack of pictures, I'll try to do better next time.

Cheers.

[reddevil]

Excellent work!

[tea boy]

1 hour ago, reddevil said:

Excellent work!

Cheers dude.

 

I know I said that I was ok with the cold but last night was minus four degrees and I was in two minds about going in the tent.

Whilst I had a cup of tea to psych myself up for it it started snowing so the towel went in.

Tonight is just as cold but no snow, well falling snow at least, so I had no excuse.

This is the view out of the tent.

First thing was to look underneath to see if we have reasonable penetration and to tidy it up a bit.

It looks ok from below.

It needs trimming to size so I used another bit of that window shutter thing as a guide for cutting.

I moved the clamps about to suit whilst I chopped it down to just slightly oversize then finished it off with a file.

I did expose a single pinhole which I have marked out for filling in but that will have to be another time because whilst the filing kept me quite warm it didn't prevent me losing all feeling in my fingers and toes.

Even Fat Al was feeling the cold.

Cheers.

[reddevil]

Am 100% with you on the weather.

Been faffing about fitting an oil cooler for the last week. Designing brackets inside on Fusion 360 is more appealing than actually making a them inside the workshop!

[johndglynn]

This thread is made even better by virtue of the fact that I can imagine Tea Boy's voice reciting the posts. If I ever do a podcast, this might be the first episode - TeaBoy's M3.

We may need a calorie tally-up just for public health but will be worth it.

[reddevil]

Don’t let this idea die… it’s 100% what this forum needs… The Glynn Tapes, from sub zero sheds across the land!

Edited December 9, 2022 by reddevil

[tea boy]

2 hours ago, reddevil said:

Designing brackets inside on Fusion 360

That sounds fancy!

I do most of my designing using Frosties 1KG, it's grrreat. 

 

1 hour ago, johndglynn said:

This thread is made even better by virtue of the fact that I can imagine Tea Boy's voice reciting the posts. If I ever do a podcast, this might be the first episode - TeaBoy's M3.

We may need a calorie tally-up just for public health but will be worth it.

You might need to put a public health warning on it, caution, man talking 'northern'.

I dread to think what the calorie count would be but as a result of feeling the pressure to perform once my cake habit came out I am now carrying a fair bit of excess timber...  

[World Citizen]

Down the pub the other night was podcast worthy 😎 same fun as any typical IB evening

Group wasn't as sophisticated though, as it included 3 current world championship motorsport team heads of engineering, an ex-WRC chief engineer, a super road car chief engineer and me a motorsport young-timer 😉

Topics included what car your dad drove, your first car, crap cars you've owned, family car holidays, navigating before Satnav, how did any of us survive the dangers of childhood etc

Do it JG, reckon you've got enough people on here for a very entertaing first series

[tea boy]

Had to do 'things' this morning, usual Saturday routine.

I got a couple of hours this afternoon so I started to cut in the heel panel ready for fitting.

When I offered it in I could see that the two flutes didn't quite line up.

I had purposely left the top part of the old ones in to give me the correct location for them.

Their positioning though not critical does have to be reasonably precise because the tank strap bracket fits between them and that needs to be somewhere near the right place.

The reason that the flutes were out of place was because I had bent the end flange slightly too far away so I marked that out for repositioning.

I also decided to cut the whole thing down to closer the final size to make it a bit more wieldy.

The lower flange needed to be trimmed to the final size.

it now fits reasonably well.

This is just rested in position.

This was the point when the lovely Doctor needed me to retrieve plastic trees, tinsel and various other items of festive paraphernalia from the loft.

Once retrieved it was time for a lovely cup of tea and victoria cake.

Cheers.

[World Citizen]

TB, can you show some of the tools you're using

Interested to see what you use for cutting, grinding, hammering etc

Edited December 10, 2022 by World Citizen

[tea boy]

22 hours ago, World Citizen said:

TB, can you show some of the tools you're using

Interested to see what you use for cutting, grinding, hammering etc

Yes dude, I'll try to show them when I get the chance.

 

Today was really unproductive.

I needed to weld up the pin hole in the back end of the floor first.

This would take a few seconds, except when I did it the weld fizzed and oxidised, like there was no gas getting to it.

There was no gas getting to it because the supply hose from the bottle to the set had got a kink in it.

I had to drill it out so now I had a hole bigger than a pin hole to fill.

With the pipe straightened I went to start again, the welder now issued gas but the wire feed had stopped working!

After quite a bit of faffing around I got the wire feed working again, I have no idea how but I didn't care.

Right, now I can weld up the hole.

Except the weld fizzed and oxidised because I had turned the gas off whilst trying to fix the wire feed and had forgotten to turn it back on again...

This meant I had to drill it out again...

By the time it was finally sorted I was so thoroughly teed off that I packed up all my stuff.

I did force myself to get some weld through primer on there so that it is ready to weld when my enthusiasm returns.

Hopefully the welder will work properly next time.

Cheers.
 

[Phill]

I know your pain, wire feeds are a pain in the proverbial. Such a nuisance to have to dismantle everything to get it going again. I really need to get set up with gas though. I’ll make it a job for the spring.

Keep going though, truly excellent fab skills and that new welder is doing the job 👍

[Beaky]

On 09/12/2022 at 22:56, reddevil said:

Don’t let this idea die… it’s 100% what this forum needs… The Glynn Tapes, from sub zero sheds across the land!

The E46 M3 Chronicles, superb idea

[tea boy]

Tonight the lovely Doctor is out on a secret mission so I went straight into the tent, well, after I had fed Fat Al of course.

First thing was to drill the flange on the heel panel for plug welding, then get it set up into position.

I painted it with weld through primer yesterday before I drilled it because I want clean metal on the holes.

If you look here..

You can see that I have scraped the weld through primer off in the area that I want to weld.

This is because, and I have tried numerous different brands, trying to weld through weld through primer is just horrible.

The arc doesn't want to start then when it does it spits and doesn't go nicely so I just use it for the bits next to where I'm welding.

I got a couple of plugs in to stabilise where the piece was at the bottom.

Then I could start tacking the perimeter.

It was very thin and flexible so I had to file down the tacks on both sides as I went along so I could use a hammer and dollie to keep everything as lined up as I can

I decided to plug weld the remains of the outer section back on, this involved rooting through my shed (which seems to have exploded again) to find some long welding clamps.

I'm really glad that I left that hole in the floor open for now, it is really handy.

So plug weld that back on.

Then do a bit more tacking of the top edge.

What with having to keep filing back and hammering it to shape this took far longer than I anticipated.

This is what it is like now.

I haven't done all the plug welds on the lower flange because the floor is sagging a bit and needs to be jacked up to meet it.

That is how I left it tonight because I was out there over three hours and my torch and lamp batteries were beginning to fade and due to the incredible cold, so was I.

My fingers and toes went numb then I think my toes just fell off because I can't feel them at all now.

I am sitting here typing this with a hot water bottle on my lap and a hot wheaty bag thing round my back trying to thaw out.

I do have a lovely cup of tea and some victoria cake.

I'm lucky the Doctor is out or I suspect I would only have a cup of tea...   

Cheers.

[Ian Comerford]

I thought some of the detail in this might be of use to you TB

http://www.speedhunters.com/2022/12/project-345-gets-little-serious/

[tea boy]

25 minutes ago, Ian Comerford said:

I thought some of the detail in this might be of use to you TB

http://www.speedhunters.com/2022/12/project-345-gets-little-serious/

That’s cool.

Hasn’t the Sheriff got an E36 M3?

[Ian Comerford]

3 hours ago, tea boy said:

That’s cool.

Hasn’t the Sheriff got an E36 M3?

Apologies, I’d forgotten yours is an e46….