Car Fix DIY Videos

Car Front Jacking Point Repair [BMW E30 Welding] How To DIY Fix Rusty Jacking Points On Cars | 31

In this video, I get around to fixing the rusty weakened front jacking points on the BMW E30 restoration project. Knowing this would be one of the more complex welding repairs I had to take on with this car, I’ve been putting this one off for a little while.

Here’s what I use in this video:
Clarke Weld MIG 150 TE Turbo: https://ebay.us/jbdfE8 (this is the newer version)
0.8 Welding Wire: https://ebay.us/eQWqWx
Argon/CO2 Welding Gas & Regulator: https://ebay.us/7BOngD
Angle Grinder Wire Brushes: https://ebay.us/sSJjtM
Dewalt Angle Grinder: https://ebay.us/CmsNuW
Safety Goggles: https://ebay.us/2Dvt5C
Car Bodywork Hammer & Dolly Set: https://ebay.us/l3tdWF

When I finally took the angle grinder wire brush to the rust on the front driver’s side jacking point, which is a known notorious rust spot for E30s, I quickly found myself looking into a massive hole looking into behind the throttle pedal.

This is why I ended up stripping the interior including the throttle pedal and the entire carpet in the previous video because I did not want to damage or set fire to the interior of the car, which is always a huge risk when you are cutting and welding on a car.

I am aware of some front jacking point repair panels online for these cars, which are multiple panels including the little box part, but these seem very expensive for what they are, so I decided to make my own. Out of slightly thicker gauge steel too for peace of mind.

The hardest part for me when doing a rust welding repair on a car is actually cutting accurate panels from sheet steel and shaping them well to fit up in place. I have a real preference for doing butt welds, where you have two pieces of metal perfectly meeting up to each other and weld along the seem to make them join together, but with this repair I ended up doing a mix of butt welds, lap welds due to the shape being quite complicated, followed by a series of plug welds to position that box and secure it in.

On the whole, the process was very long-winded but the results I’m very pleased with. I duplicated the work I’d done on the driver’s side on the passenger side when I realised the rust on that side was just as bad if not worse than what I’d already ground away.

With regard to the welding, I have included links to the tools I used at the top, and in the video, I noted the setting I was using on the Clarke 150 MIG welder. This combo of settings has worked well for me for the past few repairs too.

I’m satisfied that the newly repaired front jacking points on this chassis are solid and ready for years of use without concern. I’m still not managing to do pretty welds but they certainly are solid, and once ground down and coated over will be near invisible to the untrained eye anyway.

I’ve seen some very scruffy poorly welded-on patches underneath cars to get them through an MOT, and I’m proud to say my welds are much better than those by any metric. I’m not just bodging the chassis up, I feel I am futureproofing it. Well as much as one can with a car in the UK climate anyway.

All that remains to do is to coat them in seam sealer to prevent them from rusting again on me, but I will save that until I’ve purchased the correct seam sealer.

For more helpful how-to guides and restoration project logs, visit our blog: https://www.spannerrash.com/

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