New owner

[phatsaff]

Hello everyone, Just introducing myself. My name is Ian and I live just south of Edinburgh in Bonnyrigg and work as an engineer.

We had been thinking about a convertible for a few years now, initially an MX5 and latterly a retractable hard top Z4 but a month or so ago was offered a 1997 red 1.9 Z3 for what I thought was a very reasonable price. Never had a BMW or indeed a soft top before but decided this was the one for us. The bodywork is almost perfect with just a slight ding in the bonnet. The rear screen was split and I have since changed that myself with a genuine BMW part – not cheap. Both the seat bushes had play in them so as the weather was not so good removed the drivers seat and replaced the bushes no problem. As the passenger seat forward, back and up down was not working the removal of said seat took me almost two weeks as the spindles had seized solid which made removal of the seat almost impossible but eventually after numerous hours trawling the internet/forums etc. and many more hours under the seat I finally managed to extract it from the seat rails. With the seats out I found that the foam below the carpets was saturated and after removing all the trim, centre console and carpets etc. it has finally been dried out. The front scuttle drain was clear after checking so still need to check the other culprit points. The carpets are now back in as is most of the trim and I fitted a genuine BMW wind deflector. Long and short of it in the few weeks I have had it I have probably done under 100 miles – not good! Jobs for next winter include replacing the corroded brake pipes and rear discs and the front struts which are weeping. There are some other minor issues to sort also.

So far although just lurking for the past few weeks this forum has been a useful source of information and I hope to put back some in return through my experiences with the car.

Hope this weather improves and my work load decreases to allow me to get the car back on the road.

Ian

[Southernboy]

Welcome Ian... and happy Zedding. Look forward to your posts on all the repairs and re-furbs..