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Looking great - glad to hear you've had a bit of luck with the metal of the screen surrounds. It's a fascinating exercise in luck seeing which bits have gone and which are sound, although front footwell corners never seem to survive!

Have you got another front screen???

A local company quoted me £200 to supply and fit a front screen - I've used them before for classic cars and they're very good. Wallothnesch can supply a screen for around £200 from Germany.

Don't forget to put the chrome trim into the rubber BEFORE fitting the screen. It is impossible to fit it afterwards!

Thanks for the reminder Ron! I have new rear window chrome on order...

The car's ready to be painted, got the Getrag 265 CR back from a rebuild today and just getting it ready to go back in the car. I bought a short shift conversion off eBay - anyone installed one of these? The shifting feels quite clunky and I'm wondering if I should go back to the standard stick...??? The linkage (genuine BMW) is too wide at the shifter end so I've added washers - is this okay? After all the hassle I've had with the gearbox I'm now a bit paranoid that it won't work properly!

randall977 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 24, 2018 6:23 pm I bought a short shift conversion off eBay - anyone installed one of these? The shifting feels quite clunky and I'm wondering if I should go back to the standard stick...??? The linkage (genuine BMW) is too wide at the shifter end so I've added washers - is this okay? After all the hassle I've had with the gearbox I'm now a bit paranoid that it won't work properly!

Randall from what I understand the Z4 original BMW linkage work best. At the time I was told it was for the G280 on my car.. But I think it would work. The UUC (mine ) and other shifters are very notchy.

Hi TBM, thanks for the reply - that's very helpful. I will go back to the original.

1.9 Z3 lever in mine, I love it!

The car is currently in the body shop waiting to be repainted Henna Red - as original. Below are a few photos of various items...

1. The NS wings turned out to be made up of patches and filler - beyond reuse. Wattsmonkey kindly sold me a good replacement which had a bit of rust down the edge - funnily enough this area was the only non rusty bit on the old wing - so I cut it out, welded it in and now I have a lovely rust free wing!

2. I wanted to make sure the stonechip was as it came from the factory - I thought it would upset the body shop if I was that prescriptive! So got hold of some Teroson Terotex Super 3000 bought a compressor and masked off the correct area omitting most of the rear valance - came out pretty well.

3. Not a very good photo, but this is just before it went off a few weeks ago. Without glass, an interior etc it goes like a rocket - super light!

4. I really wanted the original headlight wipers working, pretty much replaced everything - an expensive road to go down. My car has E12 headlights - which made buying new lenses much cheaper.

Great work!

Standard shift lever on the dogleg is a bit on the long side, but smooth and easy to shift. After not driving it a while, I considered a lever upgrade but decided not to as I like to keep the wood shift knob.

I went with the original and it works fine, the short shift wasn't as willing to shift.

Well done so far but I have a couple of suggestions.

The shift rod with the washer spacers is backwards in two ways.

First, the shift rod is supposed to be on the driver (left for me) side of the assembly. Not sure why but that is how it is displayed in realoem and other tech materials.

Second, the end with the washers is supposed to be at the shift rod joint at the transmission end, not the shifter end. That specific shift rod is designed for the newer shift rod joint as shown on the right below.

Actually a poor design as that is a brand new unit and it comes with an elongated hole so the shifter starts out sloppy with the new parts. I prefer using the correct shift rod with both short ends

Ralph

Ralph, great info there. I'm sure theres all kinds of ways to install these parts and have it work OK, but not optimally.

My car has E12 headlights - which made buying new lenses much cheaper.

Randall, Very nice work. Amazing to have a rebuilt dogleg. I'm curious, where did you get your headlights that you consider much cheaper?

Thanks - headlights are on eBay (various sellers) - a complete set are around £150...

The car's been with the body shop for a few weeks. The chap doing the work is really good so I'm quite excited to see it finished (next week). He sent me some photos, see here;

You must be so excited! Awesome work.

Very nice those wipers are the creme de la creme Right on man.

Great progress . Look forward to seeing it painted.

You are doing a wonderful job, Christian. Hope you can make a trip to Wales when all complete.

It must be a ("cough") thrill to be sharing paintbooth space with something as rare as a Mk2 Cavalier convertible too!!!!

When "rare" doesn't mean "special".

Thanks for the comments. I wondered if anyone would spot the Cav!

Next week it will be finished... The Cavalier Convertible has been sold, the 928 was bought by the garage owner when it was a year old, only done 30k.

Today...

...and today...