BodgeMW part 2

Part 2 went better than I had hoped: no clamping issues because the screws held everything in place while I glued. Glue was standard araldite which I hope will be ok. I degreased with brake cleaner which is liquid magic. It’s curing in a sun- warmed car wreck now.

Dry run:

Glued:

You can see bodge spatula in the background.

Hopefully it will work. It looks and feels ok but it’s hard to work out how much force it will be subjected to. Even if it buys me a few months it will be worth it though.

BodgeMW

My beautiful old 1982 Ford laser gave up a while back and rather than yet another backyard fix I decided to upgrade to something a little more modern.

After a period of grieving and some half hearted looking I found my new chariot, a 1993 BMW 318is for a song. Problem is though, it’s still a bit old and not all of the bits work.

An example: the driver’s door handle didn’t open from the outside. The handle has this extended lever thing that had snapped. The dealer wants $422 for the part, with a different key that is have to get changed over if I want only one key for the car. Ebay wants about $200 inc postage. Ditto the key.

I figure it can probably be bodged. I’m replacing the cast triangulation with solid aluminum. I’ll screw and epoxy the pieces together. Here is the bodge attempt at the end of afternoon 1:

The pieces go together better than that but I couldn’t hold and snap at the same time. Clamping will clearly be tricky.

A while back I disassembled a fax machine to see what kinds of bits it contained. I had the foresight to collect the screws together:

And here are the six I’ve selected to hold this bodge together:

Tomorrow I’ll start drilling and assembling.