Yeah, stayed on at work till late last night so didn't get anything done in the garage, but I did get time to pop in and take a few photo's.

In this one you can see (in the red ring) just how limited I am for space in trying to get those duff bolts out of the gearbox:

And this is the panel (across the front) that will have to be cut out if I can't get those bolts out.

But At least my hoist works!!!

I was soooooooooooooo close! Nearly got the engine out last night!

Disconnected the last coolant hoses, fuel lines, battery cables, lambda sensors, reverse lamp switch, drained the power steering fluid, undid the engine mounts and most of the gearbox bolts (have to leave a couple in to stop it falling apart prematurely).

I set the hoist up, got a grip on the engine and just took the weight. got down to the last couple of gearbox bolts and DOH! Some butcher has been in there before me and rounded the heads off the last 2 bolts.

It might be time for a rethink. If I can't get them out then I'll have to cut the front of the car off to make room to get the engine and gearbox out together. Not the end of the world as I'm scrapping it anyway, just means a heck of a lot more work that's all.

Not sure if I'll get anything done today but I'll go take some pictures to put up so you can see my progress.

Spent a couple hours in the garage last night, managed to liberate the exhaust - and what a monster of an exhaust it is! It's soooooooooo heavy, and the muffler boxes are huuuuuge!!! I shall not be re-using those (although I may well re-use the catalytic converters).

Removed some splash guards from the bottom of the engine and disonnected the starter wiring. Although this turned out to be a pointless excercise as it looks like I can leave the starter attatched to the engine and it will come out with it.

This afternoon I have to go and have a look at a friend's daughter's car, a little Pug 106 which she ran out of petrol and is now misfiring. (Groan) hopefully it's just air in the system and I can bleed it easily. After that I will spend some more time with mr BMW and may even get the engine out!

Wish me luck - I need it.

No work done today, but bought some tools I need to get the Beemer apart. It seems BMW like to fix lots of things together with torx bolts!

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures to explain a little better what I'm trying to achieve:

I'm taking this:

And trying to make it into something like this!

Spent an hour or so in the garage this evening. Got the car up in the air on 2 axle stands and got the 2 exhausts disconnected. Getting closer to getting that engine out all the time!

The downside is I found that all the front suspension/steering components are held together on a large subframe, could cause problems with the build. I'll have to work that out later.

For now I am coming to appreciate the quality of that German car, it has been very well build, and even after 15 years of wear and tear, it's in really good condition.

Just to get it going...

Hi everyone, this webspace is going to be my build diary for my Locost car.

For anyone who doesn't know, "Locost" is the now generic name for all cars based (allbeit loosely) on the Lotus 7 that have been home built from scratch, not necessarily from a kit purchased from a kit car manufacturer. Ron Champion began this whole thing with his book "Build your own sports car for £250". His car was based around a Mk 2 1300cc Ford Escort. Well mine is going to be similar in looks, but enlarged both widthways and lengthways as I am using a rather larger BMW 5-series as my donor vehicle.

Also the £250 idea has gone straight out of the window as well, my donor 1993 BMW 530i already cost me £650!

Yes that's right, a 530i. To be more specific, it's a 3 litre, 218bhp 32v V8 engined monster. At least, it was before I started taking it to bits. At present the engine is still in it but much of it'd life support system has been disconnected. Here it is with it's top cover removed, and most of the plumbing disconnected. Just need to get underneath and unbolt the gearbox and exhausts and it's nearly ready to lift out!

I'll add more pictures and other stuff as the build progresses, but don't expect it to be too often, i'm planning this buold to take at least a year, probably 2.

But do check back every now and then, and do email me if I havent posted in a while.

Thanks for looking!

Sam