The Teardown

At this stage I am not sure how much of the car I will end up using but currently my intention is to use the engine, gearbox, prop and drive shafts; and wheel hubs. I will use the differential for the build but intend to swap it out for with limited slip version at a later date, similarly the steering rack will be swapped with the quicker ratio version from a Z3. The first stage is to remove the parts I need from the car and then to remove parts I can sell on ebay before getting rid of the left over chassis.

Since I picked the car up I have been working on removing parts but as the car had an after market alarm and immobiliser system I needed to remove it before removing the engine so I could check the engine wasn't immobilised. After removing the dashboard, following wires all round the car and rejoining wires where the alarm was spliced I finally was able to remove the alarm system. A quick test and the engine fired up first time.

Once the alarm was gone I could start getting ready to remove the engine. I had removed the front bumper, grill and lights over the last week so next the car needed to be jacked up and the coolant and oil drained.