Scrap or rebuild?? - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

ilundber · 7th September 2008, 17:28

Hi,
It's been a while since last I visited the board. The E34 M5 has been sitting in the garage about one year now due to other priorities.
I have found that the car has some severe rust problems. The front left jacking point "disapeared" when I tried to use tha jack. It has gone some 5 cm ( 2 inches) upwards. In fact, all jacking points are very rusty. This is probably caused by the roof hatch drainage that ends inside the sills(so I'm told). I suspect that there is quite som rust in the floor as well.
I don't have the skill to rebuild it my self so it will probaly be quite costly to have it fixed. I do not want a quick fix welding job, I want a proper job and I am trying to figure out what parts will be needed to fix this. I have been looking at spare parts like 41001946315 (COLUMN B WITH LEFT ROCKER PANEL) and 41001946313 (LEFT EXTERIOR COLUMN A) but I don't know if these parts are sufficient to repair the hard structure of the jacking points. Does anybody know?
I also have some rust in the doors as well but that is a minor problem.
About two years ago I bought new brake discs, new piping, new seals etc but I haven't had the time to put it on the car. That was just after I completely restored the interior. The question now is

hould I scrap the car or fix it?" It is probably a very silly question to put to this board

but I would appreciate some answers based on experience of how difficult and how expensive it is to fix major rust problems.

Cheers

day · 7th September 2008, 20:06

I've just done the front jacking points on my car - it's not too much of a job. I'll try to post a few pictures shortly.

Back ones were sound on my car but are even easier to fix if rusted I reckon.

For the rear you can buy the rear half sill that includes the jacking point - i paid about £70 for one of these - I actually canilbalised this to repair my front ones. I bought the rear section to repair the fronts as it looked like the front jacking point is part of the door pillar and those panels are £200-£250 a go, so it seemed over the top to spend £500 on panels just to use a couple of bits.

The inner reinforcement is a slightly different shape front and rear but the base plate and very bottom section is the same, so it made sense to reshape the inner reinforcement to fit, and then use these.

The bottom of the front wing will proably be rotten too but I repaired mine with a section from a good second hand wing - that saves a whole load of work!

I had a good look over my car after fixing these bits (the underseal can hide a multitude of sins!) and basically the rest of the car was very sound, so if you only have the jacking points to fix, i suggest it's worth doing.

davidoli · 7th September 2008, 20:20

I totally agree with Day , especially after the other works that you have carried out .......

ilundber · 7th September 2008, 22:48

Thanks a lot for the input, guys.
I am of course leaning towards repairing the car but I wanted a second opinion. I have spent a lot of time, money and affection on the car and I was thinking of making it an "Old Gentleman's" racer so I am probably going to restore it. I was not sure, however if the spare part would provide the necessary bits and pieces (reinforcements) to fix this. That is why I turned to the welth of knowledge of this forum.
The front wings are ok. I changed them some four or five years ago.
I would really appreciate a few pictures to guide me along the way. Thank you very much in advance, day.
Cheers

richardbaxter · 7th September 2008, 23:56

I too had this problem with the off side front jacking point.

I think the possible repair to these sections can be acheived by carefull cutting out and patching in new metal.

To replace these sections with OEM will involve a number of sections as the rust can spread through to the floor section as well as the cills.

One will need to remove the cill caps and then the carpet. The carpet is quite solid due the foam backing but it can be done more easily by removing the front seats and then prop up the carpet to allow access and a good view.

Hopefully it will not have affected the A post as this becomes quite involved.

A good welder fabricator should be able to make this good and sheet metal is very cheap.

If the welder uses pre weld paint on all the new sections while making sure they have cut out the cancer then an effective repair should be possible.

Until a complete inspection is carried out it is of course difficult to say...

The original metal was galvanised and therefore the point between good metal and poor is sometimes abrupt.

Hopefully the bad points are within accessable perameters...

SpecRaceM5 · 8th September 2008, 03:52

SAVE THE OLD GIRL! My car was in an accident prior to my ownership. She hit a curb and tweaked the chassis a bit. It is still a clean title, but there is a little poorly repaired crumple up front and the back end doesn't sit level. I have gone back and forth, but after talking with a very good body shop, I have decided that when I am done with school, and money permits it, I will rebuild the car better then ever. It is a classic M car and I can't bear to see it go to scrap.

Good luck with the repairs. Post lots of pics!

Cheers,

Brian

day · 8th September 2008, 12:44

I'm not at my PC at the moment, but should be able to uploads photos and give you a full run-down of what is involved tomorrow- Richard is right though -the quality of the steel and paint means that the rot tends to be very localised - ironically rot spreads further under the underseal!