My M5 engined, Touring car wheeled, air bagged suspension'd E36 Coupe

[MadMax]

he used the handles and fit them to the e36 door.

I assumed he would do this

any reason for buying the whole Door and not just the Handles ??

[laBeef]

Going all out. Love it.

[e36cruiser]

I assumed he would do this

any reason for buying the whole Door and not just the Handles ??

He needs the area around the handle to mold it in...

[andy318is]

What are you going to do with those Doors ??

They are of a Fiat Barachetta right ??

Sure are :-)

Fitted them into the e36 doors. I've copied over from another build thread what was involved :-)

I got me some new door handles! I've loved these handles for years because (imo) they're real trick and I had to incorporate them into this project car (I had wanted to put them on a previous project but never got around to it lol)

Fiat Barchetta handles silly rare and prime for being cut to hell and stuck on an e36! LMFAO!!!

Managed to track down 3 sets to start with,

1st set STUPIDLY expensive!!!!!,

2nd set "yes mate, you can have those doors no problem, you had a big accident in yours?", "Nah, not really I'm chopping them up and fitting them on my BMW project car", "Do what! these doors are mint! I'm not letting them go just to be butchered!!"

3rd set (kept mouth shut LOL) bargin price, incredilbley long drive to collect them 7 hour round trip! BUT THERE MINE!!!!! :twisted: :P :P :P

Its not going to be an easy ride because I want to mount them in the swage line of the door to get them looking spot on, above or below the swage they'd look too much of an after thought if you catch ma drift? So the handles and surrounding metal will be cut out of the barchetta door in the usual fashion, then the plastic oval (handle surround) and metal will be cut horizonatally through the middle so I'll then be able to weld the top half into the top of the swage and the bottom (funnily enough) into the bottom, make good and Bobs you uncle in the swage, happy days! lol!!! :roll:
oh then theres the linkage etc....lol

Should be fun heres a few pictures of the doors and the handles in action (really need to treat myself you a new digi)



Close up of the handle looking all nice and slick lol



Press the alloy button and the blade pops out slighty to get your hand behind



Hand behind the handle finally pull it and open the door



Think this'll be a real Marmite mod but hey ho I'm building it for me have alittle faith though

After getting annoyed with not being able to lower the window because I've no power in the car I got even with the door & cut the standard handle out! Not as drastic as you might think because I'm welding in the new handle & surround metal (the easy way to do a handle swap!)

I win!!!


Then started the mock up & shaping of both the BMW door & the section I'd cut out of the Barchetta door (which was hugely curved & a general pain in the arse!



Thank you Fiat! Bin fodder!!! ����!!!



Piece I'll be working with



After lots of cutting & measuring with both the door & new peice it was time to get them together, now with the BMW handle being in the swage line I wanted to do the same with the Barchetta handle because above or below the swage would really make these handles stick out like a baboons arse & look shit! but because the Fiat hasn't got this line running through the handle I had to make one :roll: this is were is starts to get alittle worrying LOL v.expensive Fiat doors already in the bin, the remaining parts just about to saw sawn horizontally through the centre! LMAO









Looks pretty damn nice hey! but that was only half the job because how the surrounding metal was matching the swage line I had to cut the actual handle in half so each half would line through with the swage.

Also the handle have a slight twist in the that followed the lines in the Fiat door so that had to be sanded out to flow with the nice straight BMW lines (another job that isn't apparent when first looking)



Sanded & dismantled



Chopped in half & a little test fit







After that I welded the surrounds in completly, hopfully you can make out the swage line I made running through the handle surround (the flash made it look abit cack.





After that I did a job that I should have done at the start and that was to remove the glass! Shit me they are complicated to get out!!!!! fuck knows about getting it all back in! LMAO I'll keep the passenger door complete so I have a reference to work to



Had a little fire when welding :lol: nice melted plastic :lol:



Glassless



All the parts put back together (as much as poss) so I dont get 'oh 3 bolts left over' syndrome LOL



And finally... a little test fit of the handle and stuff to end the day a shed load more work to do (obvisouly) I think this is the easy part done tbh. I'm not looking forward to working out the mechanism's to get te hfiat handles working with the BMW door catches, ah well.















BIG milestone today! Got the Barchetta door handle up and running!

Last week I decided I didn't like the look of the push button on the right of the handle so I cut up the passenger door handle and set about feetling that so it fitted.

BEFORE



AFTER just in zinc primer to stop any surface rust



Got all the internal brackets fabricated welded in to the door so the handle could be bolted to the door


Then today I had to start sussing out the new linkage needed to link the Barchetta handle to the BMW lock (eek!!)

This one I've made is just to get the door up & running, its a proper Heath Robinson affair atm but now I've got the lengths of parts & hinge points etc I can set about making 2 much nicer looking parts

Was abit of a brain taxer for me but after a first attempt that didn't really work this second one worked superbly! :P

It ain't pretty but its a temporary measure!



and finally a video of them working :-)

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQHl8kqEi-4"]Fiat Barchetta Handles.MPG - YouTube[/ame]


Test fitted the door glass and everything back in the door and it all clears the new handle & linkage so jobs a good'un!!!

[DutchStance]

Please post more, looks like an awesome project!

[andy318is]

Ok so you know I'm running an e46 frontend I put together a more detailed post on whats involved....

I was considering using facelift lights of a saloon as they are way more common (therefore cheaper) but when these coupe lights came up I had to have them, they were my first chose but the price was slighty putting me off but if I'm building the car exactly how I want I needed these lights! I wont be starting this immediately, I want to finish the rear bumper, fit the Barchetta door handles..then onto the frontend. Only thing left to buy is the clubsport front bumper

Cue the pictures and let the fun times roll.....LOL

















Ever since I decided I wanted to do the front end swap I've been collecting loads of pictures of e36s with e46 frontend. Theres loads of variations that people have done, preface lights with the e36 bonnet welded to the nose cone. preface lift with the front section of an e46 bonnet welded on to the e36 one and so on.

Now I've never seen a conversion thats absolutely nailed it (imo) I thought I'd take the time to post a few pictures of conversions I've found and say what doesn't work on them...

I'm only going through the facelift ones, theres loads of preface lift convserions but as I've facelift I not bothered about the others.

First up is this, e46 facelift headlights with e36 bonnet welded to the nose cone. Now to me this doesn't do it for me, if you going the hole hog you may as well use the e46 grilles. Kind of a half way attempt



Next is getting in the right direction, facelift lights (saloon lights, seperate indicators and curved underside of the lights), from section of the e46 bonnet welded on to the e36 one.

Its getting near what I'm doing BUT if you look and the swage lines of the e36 bonnet they are alot closer together than the e46 so when the swage runs down to the e46 griles the flow of the lines are broken and you left with an awkward looking bonnet imo. Its a little detail but VERY important to me!.... close but no cigar!



This is more to illustrate the fit of an unfelttled e46 sport bumper to an e36....

Pretty poor, doesn't flow with the exsiting lines of the e36 arches, too bulbus, that teamed with the M3 grilles etc... makes this look like a pretty ill fitting poor conversion



And lastly is this one, ALMOST perfect... but something I noticed the other night while looking at the pictures...

If you look very closely at the inner corner of the lights were the dip in the bumper starts the edge of the light over hangs ever so slighty, looks like 15-20mm.. again messes up the lines. It has the same grilles as me but again as they've only used the front section the lines dont work with the bonnet.



So in a nut shell my plan is.... fettle the sport front bumper so it flows in with the e36 lines, make sure the lights fit as OEM as possible and flow with the lines of the bumpers. Use the entire e46 facelift bonnet! (think it'll be a first!!! as I never seen any pictures of any using the whole thing, only the front section) to keep the swage lines flowing into the grilles.

Onto the progress pictures

First of get the bumper mounted so I can base the light position off of it, I cut about 6-8 inches of each side of the brace to allow the bumper to fit better over it and then drilled the brace and used the OEM fixing holes





Now onto the tweaking of the bumper

BEFORE




AFTER
I cut slits in the top and bottom curves of the bumper, the tops been pulled in about 15-20mm and the bottom been pulled in 50mm!!!! MUCH better!!!





Once that was done (took alot longer that just 2 pictures worth! :lol

Now I had a starting base I could start cutting metal out of the inner wings to get the light actually in the car, these e46 lights are HUGE compared to the e36 ones!! I'll save the pictures of the carnage till the end LOL the front of the arches had to be pulled slightly as the headlights in the position I wanted them made stick out past the wing.

Start the make the wings look abit more purposeful after hacking them to bits at the start LOL having cut the front corner off the wing to get the lights in (in fair I shouldn't of but hey ho) I had to weld in the front corner again, thankfully I had a couple spare fronts of e36 wings I saved from when I made my carBQ!!!! to using one of those corners I tacked it back in place and started eyeing up the front of the e46 wing piece

LOL thanks e46 wings....







As you can see from the above pic ^^^^^ the line of the plastic trim doesn't follow the new line of the bumper. Busted out the gas torch, heated the plastic and tweaked the trim to it now flows with the bumper line!



The whole next stage is lacking pictures mainly because I didn't know where I was going to end up, either an e36 wing with a nicely welded in e46 facelift wing section OR utter bin fodder! it was touch and go LOL still needs more work along the front edges and stuff but it's a good base to start the finishing touches

THE BACK EDGE OF THE WING (THE PART THAT GIVE THE ARCH SHAPE) ISN'T FINISHED, IT'LL FLOW ALOT BETTER WHEN ITS DONE















Doing the bumper and this headlight (still no where near finished) has taken all weekend!! Its going to be a long old process.... LOL

Around the headlight






Bumper/arch lines





Messy arch line





Couple overall shots

[andy318is]

Today I started the passenger side headlight. The drivers side bonnet edge has had some work done to it but the passengers not been started. I'm also going to be running a slight 'bad boy' bonnet, to give it more of an evil look

Long way to go but the coming along! :P 8) you can see how much new metal will need to be added to the back of the bonnet!













So it was time to get on with it again and try and get it somewhere looking like a bonnet, firstly I had to add new metal to the back of the bonnet, leaving plenty of excess to it can be trimmed and folded later also putting a crease in either side to carry on the swage line of the bonnet!!! VERY important!!! 8)



then make a cardboard tremplate for the vent section, cut out some metal then cut the vent out the bonnet



Tacked in place



Once the rough parts where in place I seperated the skin and frame and took the skin outside in the sun to carrying on the welding and shaping





Got bored of tack welding so thought I'd cut and bend the new metal to make the bonnet edges





The sun in this picture shows up the crease lines that would put into the new metal



Then this morning (before fathers day duties) I had time to start the shaping of the back edge of the bonnet... in the end it'll be bent fully over around the e36 frame but I need to get out all the little dings in the skin before finally fixing the skin to the frame so I've left the back edge just folding at 90 degrees

....thought I took some pictures but seems I didn't... but anyways... after that I put everything back together and slapped it on the car!! ALONG way to go yet as far as fitment goes BUT its taking shape... and thats what I need to be seeing to keep my enthusiasm up!

[andy318is]

This last update brings the front end right up to date!

Managed to get a few hours Satruday working on the car so thought I'd start correcting some work I wasn't happy with. I know its pretty ***** choice of modification but ah well LOL....When I first extended the bonnet I rushed the welding and warped the metal. With my very limited metal working skills I tried to straighten everything out but failed! So the sensible choice was to cut it all out and start again.

Must admit I didn't take any progress pictures because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out LOL

So after making up some card patterns I cut up some fresh metal and spot welded it in place taking my time so I didn't screw it up again!





And the reverse side.... I still need to finish welding the skin to the frame...



A while ago I made some brackets for the headlights





The piece that I chopped out ready for the bin







Still need to fettle the edge gaps but its not a million miles off for what I've done, next up will be finishing the back side of the frame & tacking the skins together :-)


It was time to permanently weld the skins to each other...



Bonnet skins trimmed up


Infills welded in




and yet again more hours on getting the bonnet shut lines looking presentable





I've just got the back corners to finish up and finish spot welding the extension pieces and the bonnet will be done (for the time being)

[slimadi]

Awesome build im liking where this is going...

[SLammed Hooptie]

nice to see youre continuing to work on it! I remember seeing this on bfc way back when!

I'm loving the attention to detail!

[CandySucker]

this car was ruined when the e46 front was put on.. man I was really liking the direction

[Queef|Chief]

This is very different, and it looks to be a badass idea! Keep up the quality work. And also, what kinda of Recaro seats are those?

[andy318is]

This is very different, and it looks to be a badass idea! Keep up the quality work. And also, what kinda of Recaro seats are those?

Thanks man :-) they are Recaro A8's :-)

[244Brick]

You might have the first conversion that i LIKE!

[Arteeste]

This is definitely going somewhere