#ZedShed BMBabe's Project Panther - Starring Lee and Martin Featuring GazHyde and pgunter

[pgunter]

@Brian4 We had fun doing it.. and more importantly @BMBabe has her car back on the road. @GazHyde Z3 is in next for few bits of tinkering and sorting. Lets just say after he had a drive in Panther, he was standing with his bottom lip out and pointing.. I want that one.. If they had been the same colour I am sure he would have tried to swap the plates over.. haha

 

[Nifty Fifty]

Well done guys it's nice to see some gentlemen coming to a damsel in distress!
It seems you all had some fun in doing the repairs, again it's what makes this forum so enjoyable and to be a member, plus it's nice to see the members helping each other out.

 

[t-tony]

PS should have resealed the calipers whilst they were apart.

As long as the outer dust seals were in good order and the Pistons pushed back freely there would be no benefit in fitting new seals.

Tony.

ps. Well done Gents.

 

[GazHyde]

Air Induction Piping Issues

One of the things I look for every time I nose under a Z3 bonnet is split induction piping. Both Z3's I've bought have been split and it messes with the smooth running of the engine and makes a sucky whistling noise. Panther is just over 13 years old and no surprise then that it's got splits and the rubber it degrading badly. These aren't the worst I've seen, but clearly needed switching.

For these replacement parts we wen't direct to Sopers BMW Parts department, as they are reasonably priced for OEM bits - around £30 for the two pipes and a comparable price to after market off ebay.

Suffice it to say they are just a pain to switch over, access to the jubilee clips that hold them on being the big issue (particularly on the side of the engine).

This is the pipe which fits directly on to the engine:

This is the pipe which connects to the MAF of the other side of the airbox.

The result of the engine service and induction pipes being changed:

OK, so the embarrassing bit first. It didn't start - flat battery... Let's give it a transfusion of ///M power then!

How good does this sound? It's a completely standard car with original exhaust.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crj5K9vePTY

 

[GazHyde]

Heater control bulbs, seat warmer switches & tidying the audio install

10 minutes to get to this stage. I love how easy the centre console is to strip down on the Z3

Head unit & cradle removed for maximum access. You can see the heater controls have already been unscrewed.

Seat Switches:
There was an issue with the heated seats in that the drivers seat overheated, almost to the point of burning. A suggestion we were given was to swap the switches and see if the fault followed the switch.

A recent thread had asked how to remove switches from the dashboard, and a reply was made that you can access them through the gear stick aperture. Perfect chance to try and bust that myth, only to find it worked perfectly. Removed the gaiter and the rubber sound proofing block, and you can get your hand on to the bottom clip on the switch. Apply some pressure to the bottom clip and the switch moves enough to grab hold of and wiggle out of the dash!

The switches were, err, switched and on a subsequent test didn't get a repeat of the overheating. Both seats when put on high, automatically switched down to the lower setting after a period of time. Need to monitor this when it's back on the road in normal usage.

Audio install tidy up:
The head unit looks to have been taken out and refitted several times, with the last attempt leaving the cage bent up and not clipped in securely. Spent some time straightening it out, and on refitting made sure it was secure and the head unit didn't move around! The unit also had a USB lead from the back of the head unit which was tucked in behind the console, so I dropped this out of the console paneling in to the foot well. Seemed a shame not to make use of it!

Heater Control Bulbs:
We already have an article on how to change the heater control bulbs, so I knew what I was doing in theory. In practice it's a bit more tricky that it looks, and I still have the scars on the back of my wrist to prove it!

https://zroadster.org/articles/bmw-z3-replacing-heater-control-bulbs.65/

The difficult bit is maneuvering the control block to an angle to work on through the head unit slot.

The location of one of the bulbs. Didn't get chance to take a picture of the other one, but its on the bottom left side of the panel! In the picture above the second bulb is located to the left of the "Made in USA" yellow sticker.

 

[miller1098]

Phew good work I need to replace the bulbs in the 2.8 ,I can't even get the business CD player out let alone get my grubby mits in to manoeuvre the bulbs out.lost the code for the radio and I need to get it out for the serial No as our local bmw dealer can't seem to find it on their data base

 

[GazHyde]

Phew good work I need to replace the bulbs in the 2.8 ,I can't even get the business CD player out let alone get my grubby mits in to manoeuvre the bulbs out.lost the code for the radio and I need to get it out for the serial No as our local bmw dealer can't seem to find it on their data base

If you are ever passing Newbury, I'm quite good at changing bulbs now... More than happy to help

 

[oldcarman]

Great presentation Gary, excellent pics and explanations! Thanks, JIM

 

[GazHyde]

Headlight Restoration, Water Ingress and Hood Repairs

Headlight Restoration:
I've already typed this up in a different thread here - https://zroadster.org/threads/meguiars-headlight-restoration-kit.5934/

Here's a before/after picture. The after picture looks like it yellowed, but it's just the change in lighting in the garage.

Water Ingress & Hood Repairs
Like most Zeds Panther had issues with water getting in where it shouldn't. In this particular case it was the bottom left corner of the rear plastic screen. Because Panther had been stood and not run for quite some time...


Turf growing in the hoot storage area lining

...and a considerable amount of water soaked in to the sound proofing foam under the carpet in the footwell. This is some of it...

Trev got the job of squeezing the water out of the foam

I've just realised I didn't take a job of the repair we made to the rear screen, which was basically using really strong glue to seal the leak. This has stopped the water coming in through that point, and the remaining wet in the foot well should clear as the car will be used regularly now.

The moral here is that dry carpets do not mean you don't have a leak. I checked before the interior went back in by lifting the otherwise dry to the touch carpets.

While the seats were out:
Would be rude for Trev to not get the hoover out wouldn't it...

Yup, that needs a good hoover out!

 

[Jonno Bee]

I have been enjoying a UK TV programme 'Classic car SOS' currently on More 4, and this story has a similar feel. Fine effort ladies and Gents look forward to seeing the end result.

 

[mini]

Part one of “Project Panther”

Back in 2007 I bought my first Z3 after months of hunting around trying to find one that took my fancy. I finally decided on a black 2001 2.2i Sport with black interior, what else could I do except name her “Panther”.

What followed was a few years of enjoyment with many days randomly cruising around with the roof down. Sadly I was made unemployed and money got tight, and Panther became rather neglected. She ended up abandoned off the road untaxed, with the hood starting to deteriorate, mould forming on the interior and an ever growing list of things needing to be done. To be honest it was getting a little depressing not being able to get her back to a driveable condition.

Fast forwards a couple of years to 6 months ago when I joined a Facebook group for UK BMW Z3 owners (at the time I didn’t know it was part of ZRoadster.org). So I joined and said hi, but wasn’t quite expecting everyone to jump in and start asking for pictures. This is something I’ve now learnt happens when you join car internet sites. Rather embarrassed I posted an old picture of Panther back when she was stunning, and then a few days later I admitted she was off the road in a rather sorry state.

It was a mixed blessing being on this group as all I could see was everyone having fun in their Zeds, meeting up, fixing, tinkering even just driving them. I gave more details as to what was wrong with the car, particularly the long list of broken bits.

Surprisingly I was directly messaged by a chap called Paul (pgunter), who encourage me to sign up on ZRoadster.org, and that I would get plenty of assistance and support. I gave it a go and signed up, at which point I got in contact with Gaz as well.

After a bit of encouragement I was convinced to meet up on a cruise being organised by Paul in the New Forest. This would give Paul and Gary a chance to have a look over Panther and give an honest opinion on what needed doing.

There was a few small problems with this plan, as it was Thursday and the cruise was on Saturday. The main problems were no tax, insurance or break down cover and the car hadn’t been on the road for some time. After a few phone calls and rushing around like a loony, I managed to get everything done by 5pm on the Friday, ready for the next morning.

To be continued…

I get it and im new to this !!

 

[pgunter]

@mini What are you trying to say ? I seem to have lost you on that post. @GazHyde Can you make sense of it ?

 

[GazHyde]

Quote tags fixed in previous posts.

 

[BMBabe]

Hi all Panther came home on Saturday looking amazing!! Still more to post and the project will go on!! Rock on phase 2
Need to start saving the penny's again

 

[t-tony]

Hi Stacey, enjoy what you all have achieved up to now for a while, catch your breath then start again. Keeping old cars in good nick is a marathon.

Tony.

 

[GazHyde]

Random bits 'n' peices

Did we ever mention doughnuts? The secret to keeping any team motivated is to keep them topped up on Costa Coffee & Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Here we see 4/5ths of the team getting well and truly motivated

From left to right - @pgunter @BMBabe @Lee & Trevor

You can clean your own wheels @BMBabe...

Stacey want to add a bit of her own personality to the car. It was a hard decision whether to go with 'blonde' or 'pink', but we got overruled so pink it was...

What better way of adding some pink to Panther (and no, we didn't make it the Pink Panther) was to add some LED strips to the foot wells. It's hard to photograph the colour exactly, but we think they turned out exceptionally well ourselves.

The Kenwood head unit also had a pink display setting, so it looked perfect in the dark!

It's a simple enough procedure to wire them in place, but does involve removing the glove box and a couple of bits of interior trim. You also need a @Lee to do the wiring type stuff Although it's always worth checking that everything is fitted correctly before the glove box and interior trim is put back in place

Yay, they work!

 

[pgunter]

So remind me @GazHyde how many times did that glove box come back out ? haha

 

[GazHyde]

This is the final update as Panther is pretty much a happy Panther now! We got together for a bit of tinkering yesterday (which turned in to a mini meet). The handbrake needed adjusting, one of the rear pads stuck on, a new set of carbon fibre badges needed fitting and finally the Zorg stickers were applied

The brakes were fixed pretty quickly, with a bit of extra grease and adjustment so on to the more exciting tweaks.

The OEM blue/white badges were not in the best condition, so on with a full set of black carbon fibre badges @pgunter had located off eBay. They are pretty decent quality as well - good find sir This included bonnet, boot, side grills, wheel centre caps & steering wheel badge.

Have we mentioned Costa coffee & doughnuts yet? It's the ZRoadster.org approved method for keeping the team motivated

Then it was the final stamp of approval for Project Panther... Applying the Zorg stickers!

 

[badman gee]

Looks good apart from the footwell lights, very chav.

 

[pgunter]

Well, not everyones taste @badman gee but Stacey loves them.. and I must admit it was a very nice touch to keep her happy.