Of Happenings: E21 project is back on the front burner

"Bullitt Ride" (yesterdayknight)
12/10/2015 at 08:25 • Filed to: bmw, e21, project, project car, diy, mechanic, restoration

Having a hoist is muy bueno! Last night I dropped the engine, transmission, and front subframe/suspension out of my E21 project car in preparation for some cancer removal in the engine bay.

Creative rigging is required when working on your own...

Aww yisss....

It’s going to be a long winter...

DISCUSSION (16)

vondon302 > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 08:31

That is one sweet workspace. Jelly.

Bullitt Ride > vondon302
12/10/2015 at 08:39

Indeed, I am definitely #blessed #teamLH. I wasn’t always so lucky though, I did my time and broke my body enough over the years crawling around on the concrete beneath cars on jack stands.

Needmoargarage > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 08:56

I’m seriously considering a lift after screwing up my back working on cars. I think my garage is tall enough...the only thing holding me back is that I don’t know how long we will be staying in our current house. Regardless, your work-space gives me something to aspire to!

itschrome > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 09:11

Do you wanna build a racecar?
Come on lets go and race
I never see you anymore
Come out the door
It’s like you’ve gone away-
We used to be best buddies
And now we’re not
I wish you would tell me why!-
Do you wanna build a racecar?

It doesn’t have to be a racecar.

Bullitt Ride > Needmoargarage
12/10/2015 at 09:12

Lift installations aren’t permanent though, so as long as your next house has adequate garage height you could take the lift with you. If not make sure you add a few grand to your selling price to cover the cost. The nice thing is that if you’re handy enough... and your friends trust you lol... you can do some work on the side to pay for the hoist. I’ve had my hoist for a little over a year and have paid off about 40% of it just by doing brake jobs and other little things for friends.

Bullitt Ride > itschrome
12/10/2015 at 09:16

People are asking where you’ve been...
They say, “Have courage,” and I’m trying to.
I’m right out here for you.
We only have each other,
It’s just you and me
What are we gonna do?

I want to build a race car.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 10:38

Very nice :) I’m very jealous of your lift.

We’ve got a good garage already, and we’re in the middle of building an even better one just next to it, but a lift would make one hell of a difference.

At the moment I've only just progressed from doing work outside on a scalpings (nearly gravel) floor to working on a concrete base and I can tell you it was revelatory.

Bullitt Ride > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/10/2015 at 11:13

*shudders* I can’t imagine crawling around on that stuff. I’d have to put down some cardboard at the very least. Even now you can see in the picture I have a couple of pieces of old fake wood wall panelling on the floor, it helps keep oil and other stuff falling off cars from staining the floor, it helps with clean up as I can just drag it outside and sweep it off, it’s much more durable than cardboard, it’s easier to slide around on than concrete, and that little bit of insulation and softness goes a long way compared to laying on cold concrete!

Needmoargarage > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 11:21

That’s a good idea. Might make the justification a little easier. Did you have to pour deeper concrete for the base of each pillar?

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 11:28

Yeah it’s not great. We do have a load of cut up squares of carpet which work nicely for insulation and comfort though :)

Nice E21 btw :) at my heart I’m an Italian/British car man which kind of makes German cars ‘the enemy’, but I do appreciate a good few of them, E21 included.

What’s the plan for yours? Funky daily driver? Fun little runabout? Modifications in the future?

I can see it's an M10 as well, but which one?

Bullitt Ride > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
12/10/2015 at 13:25

I’ve got an E30 that I use for the track and an E90 daily. The plan for the E21... for now... is to fix the cancer, get it painted and put it back together with some suspension mods to tighten things up and get a bit more of an aggressive look, no stancebro stuff though because I like my cars to be usable. The car had the 1.8L M10 with mechanical fuel injection. I’ve got an EFI M10 from an E30 sitting in the shop. Chances are I’ll rebuild the motor and toss in a cam, headers, some mild port work, up the compression, convert over to megasquirt EFI. Then just boot around in it for a couple years. Then I’ll probably want more power, so I’ll likely either boost the M10, or pull the 2.8L M20 out of the E30 and drop it into the E21 so that I can drop a V8 into the E30. We’ll see... I’ll probably change my mind a dozen more times between now and then.

Bullitt Ride > Needmoargarage
12/10/2015 at 13:26

I think the minimum is 4” thick reinforced. We ended up pouring at least 6” across where the posts were going (because we planned on installing a hoist when we built the shop)

DasWauto > Bullitt Ride
12/10/2015 at 21:05

Can I ask where you bought be hoist and what it cost? I’d like to put one in our shop, we routed the in-floor heating around 2 spots of the floor with this in mind already.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > Bullitt Ride
12/11/2015 at 05:02

Very nice :) props on the lack of stancebro as well...

What you could do is drop in the EFI M10 sitting around into your E21 along with some suspension mods then while you’re hooning around in that rebuild the 1.8l M10 with a turbo :)

Saying that, I do like the musical chairs M20>E21 V8>E30 plan :)

Bullitt Ride > DasWauto
12/12/2015 at 08:56

I got mine from from these guys http://competentgarage.com/

It’s not the cheapest option, but I knew a working there at the time so he got me a bit of a deal.

DasWauto > Bullitt Ride
12/12/2015 at 09:26

Looks like they’re in Guelph so that works well for me. Thanks.