Wesbank Modified BMW 535i
The Restoration
Nick Sheward had known the whereabouts of the two 535is in Zimbabwe and had kept tabs on the cars with his regular fishing trips to the country. Nick had a lot of interest in the cars - apart from being racing BMWs, the cars had been engineered by Eddie Pinto with Owen Ashley. Nick was a great fan of Eddie Pinto, who had also done the engineering on the 1971 A2 Capri Perana that Nick had restored several years previously. Eddie had also done the engineering on the works Opel Calibra raced by Mike Briggs, which Nick also currently owns.
Word along the grapevine in 2014 was that Brian Evans had brought one of the cars down to South Africa, and that it was at a workshop in Boksburg. Nick received a call from Brian Evans inviting Nick to view the car. Both Brian and Nick were ex-Zimbabweans and old friends from the historic racing scene, and Brian had given Nick some pointers to find and the A2 Perana many years previously in Zimbabwe. The intention was to restore the BMW and to race it locally again. Brian knew that Nick was interested in the car, so invited Nick around to have a look at it. It was very rough, but the bones were good and the car was complete. Soon after, Nick sold the Wesbank 745i having done most of the restoration, and now had some coins in his pocket. He contacted Brian and made an offer on the car, which was secured after some negotiation.
When Nick went to collect the car, he opened the boot to find that the carburetors and intake manifolds were missing. It turned out that one of the mechanics had stolen them, but Nick was able to later find a set of 48mm Dellortos in Cape Town. With the 535i in his workshop at home, Nick set about a detailed inspection of the car and worked out a rough plan to restore the car.
Nick removed all the fiberglass panels and when inspecting them, he realised that they were in a bad state. There were one or two which could still be used, but all the others needed serious restoration at the very least. Nick knew that the cars were built by Owen Ashley in Cape Town, but he didn’t know who had made the fiberglass panels. He started doing some research and contacted a friend of his, who told Nick that the panels were made by Bright’s Fiberglass. He suggested that Nick phone them, so Nick made the call and spoke to Keith Bright, who not only made all the original moulds, but still had the moulds! Nick placed an order on the panels he needed and then set about building a rotisserie to mount the car so that the bodywork could be done.
In between all of this, Nick started to track the other BMW still in Zimbabwe, which belonged to Colin Schreiber. Nick arranged to meet up with Colin at one of the Piper International race meetings to discuss buying the car. Nick had only seen the car in photos which showed that the engine and gearbox were out of the car, but according to Colin, the gearbox and engine were still around. The car looked in really bad condition, but Nick realised that he had a source for the fiberglass panels, and that metal work was easy enough. Colin was firm on what he wanted for the car – he expected the same price as Joubert’s 535, even though this car was completed and almost a runner. Nevertheless, Nick reluctantly agreed on the price, but on condition that the important pieces came with the car, like the block, gearbox and oil pump, and that the car would be delivered to the South African side of the border. At the end of the day, the car was delivered to Johannesburg with the engine and gearbox in place, although the engine only had a crankshaft and no internals. Nick had to register as an importer and this whole process dragged out for months before the car was delivered.
Work continued in the meantime on Joubert’s car, and with the fiberglass panels removed, the body could be inspected. There was very little rust on the car, but there were lots of unnecessary hole drilled throughout the car that were made during the car’s racing life, and these were welded closed. There was some jacking damage where the car was jacked up on the chassis legs. Nick felt that this part of the cars racing history and tidied this damage up without eliminating it. Nick’s philosophy was to restore the cars as if they were being refreshed for the next season’s racing without losing too much character or heritage, but also lifting it a bit from a quality perspective. Some interesting damage appeared on the left rear corner, which had been hastily repaired to some degree at the time. Nick realised that this was the damage to the car when Mike Briggs in the Opel Calibra punted Deon Joubert off the track at Continental Corner during the August 1992 Winter Races - see here - and can still be seen from inside the boot. Nick's friend, Lion Postma, assisted with the bodywork, and would go on to help Nick with the assembly of the engines, as well as lending a hand with the gearbox overhauls and any other task where more hands were needed.
Out of the blue, Nick got a call from Keith Bright, who told Nick that he was not well, and that he wanted to offer Nick the fiberglass moulds for the cars. The only moulds that were missing were those for the rear wing and for the front splitter. Other than that, all the moulds were there, and Nick had them collected. He still has them. Sadly, Keith Bright passed away about two weeks after the phone call was made. The wings on both cars are still original, although it was a battle to disassemble them because the bolts were rusted up. The front splitters were still missing, but some time later Nick was contacted from Zimbabwe saying that one had been found, and Nick was able to make a mould from this sample to make two new splitters.
When it came to painting Deon’s car, Nick managed to track down a guy who worked as an apprentice at Roelf’s Panel Beaters in Randfontein. This was the business that did the repairs and paint to the Group N 325iS BMWs. They also did the colour change on Viana’s car from Winfield colours to BMW Motorsport colours. The guy was very keen to paint the car for Nick, but it turned out to be a long and frustrating process. The end result turned out well, though.
Tony’s car was a lot rougher than Deon’s car and there were even more holes drilled all over the car. There was a lot more jacking damage to the chassis legs, and even on the sills, but Nick was able to get the sills nicely straightened and fix most of the damage on the chassis legs. With the fiberglass panels removed, Nick uncovered a lot of damage to the right front of the car that needed a proper repair. He found an E34 body in a scrapyard, but the owner wouldn’t sell him the front quarter panel alone – Nick was forced to buy the whole body. The required panels were cut out of the donor body and then welded neatly into place on Tony’s car. Nick also upgraded the radiator and oil cooler carrier on Tony’s car to match that of the Joubert car, which was far more robust. Nick assumed that the damage to the right front had come from when the car raced in Zimbabwe, but information that has only recently been found, points to a racing accident at Midvaal in June 1991 – see here. Nick also changed the mounting system for the front bumper and spoiler to that used on the Wesbank 745i. Two pieces of square tube were bonded into either side of the inside of the bumper, and then the whole bumper, with these tubes, slotted into two larger square tubes welded onto the body of the car, and secured in place with Zeus clips.
Nick found a different panel beater to spray this car, but it turned out to be an equally frustrating experience as the first panel beater, with broken promises and extended deadlines. All turned out well in the end and both cars stood side by side in Nick’s workshop, ready for assembly. Deon’s car was painted Motorsport blue on the inside, as original. Tony’s car was originally Motorsport lilac on the inside, but Nick used his artistic license and decided not to paint the interior of Tony’s car that colour and to keep it white. During the time that the car was in Winfield colours, the interior was white anyway.
From this point on, the cars were built simultaneously.
Viana was not happy with the Owen Ashley-designed suspension system and after the second outing at the end of the 1990 season, he decided to change his car back to the standard McPherson struts at the front. This arrangement required front rims of a different offset, and from then on Tony’s car was fitted with gold BBS-type rims - the difference can be seen in the pictures below. When the cars were retired from Wesbank racing at the end of 1992, Tony’s car was returned to the original horizontal coil-over cantilever system.
The suspension cradles were restored as units - the front and then the rear of Deon’s car, followed by the front and then the rear of Tony’s car. The suspension units were stripped down completely, and any missing or damaged parts were re-made. The springs were tested at Bilstein to see if the spring rates were still correct and then painted, while the shock absorbers were cleaned and then refurbished with new seals and bushes. A lot of time was spent cleaning and buffing the suspension cradle plates, and everything was then assembled and fitted to the car. During every step of the build process of these cars, Nick was pedantic about ensuring that the correct parts went back into the correct car and were not mixed up.
Nick had collected a number of photos of the cars in period, and these were used as a reference when it came to making all the decal. Nick contacted René from Autovation, who had done the decals on his Group 1 Sierra XR8, and she came out to his house to measure up all the dimensions, designed the decals and then had them applied.
Both diffs in the cars were still original, so these were checked and painted. The control arms were also in good condition and these were refurbished with new outer rose joints fitted. One or two rose joints needed replacing on the rear links, but all the rose joints on the front steering links were replaced.
The brake system was restored with the master cylinders and brake calipers overhauled, and new brake fluid reservoirs fitted. Nick had new brake discs made for the front and rear at Vari Racing Brakes in Edenvale, who did a great job in replicating the original units. On closer inspection, Nick found that the mounting holes of the front brake calipers on Tony’s car were slotted, and the left side was damaged. He worked out that at some stage larger discs were fitted, and to gain the required clearance, the bolt holes were slightly slotted. During the car’s racing life, someone didn’t realise that the calipers needed adjustment and allowed the disc to grind into the caliper. Nick managed to find a new unit from Willie Hepburn, who had one caliper among some BMW racing bits that he owned, and this was overhauled and fitted.
The gearboxes were overhauled one at a time. The gearbox on Deon’s car had a burnt second gear, which was replaced with a spare gear that came with the car. Much later when the cars were started, there was a noise in Deon’s gearbox, and Nick found a tiny crack in between the cogs on one of the gears that he didn’t see when overhauling the box. The gearbox on Tony’s had a crashed second gear – some of the teeth were missing. Nevertheless, broken parts were replaced, and the gearboxes were cleaned and reassembled with new seals and bearings throughout. New pump sections for the gearbox oil pumps were made by Gerhard Heyns, a friend of Nick who was doing all the engineering and turning of replacement parts on the cars. The coupling between the gearbox drive flange and the propshaft was missing on Tony’s car, and two new ones were made by Gerhard, copying the coupling off Deon’s car. The original on Deon’s car was well worn. The propshafts had new centre bearings and the rear joints fitted, were balanced and then painted. The rear driveshafts had all joints replaced on both cars with finned joints for cooling purposes. The clutch pack on Tony’s car was still in good condition, and was refitted after checking the rivets and replacing the clutches. The clutch pack on Deon’s car needed replacing, and a unit was found locally. However, some modification was required to take up the change in distance between the clutch and thrust bearing. The original flywheels have been used after checking the thickness of the material and that the teeth on the ring gear were all in good condition.
When Nick stripped down the engines, he confirmed that the blocks were correct. These were from the European 745i Turbo and had oil jets inserted to spray oil into the bottom of the pistons. The pistons and rods on Deon’s car were wrong - these were dished to drop the compression ration when the cars had turbos fitted in Zimbabwe, and the pistons and conrods on Tony’s car were missing. The cylinder head on Deon’s car was changed at some stage because it was not ported and polished, and the cylinder head on Tony’s car was the same, but cracked. Nick had a spare cylinder head on the shelf, so he sent the two heads to the Van der Linde Team to be polished and ported. The inlet manifolds were also taken along to get ported and polished. All the valves on Tony’s head were renewed. The camshafts looked like standard units, which would have been right for the turbo set up. Nick had no information to go on regarding what conrods and pistons were used at the time and had to work this out for himself. He managed to get a sample of the piston that was used from a friend of Tony, and through a bit of trial and error, found that the conrod from an S38 M5 resulted in the piston being flush with the top of the block. Nick had a theory that the engine blocks had been skimmed. He had some M30 front covers among other parts that he had bought from a guy who had BMW items from Tony’s estate, and these covers were too low when fitted to a standard M30 engine block, which proved his theory. Nick had two sets of pistons made at Ross Racing Pistons in California and had the cylinders bored to 94mm.
The engineers noted that the blocks were very hard to machine, which means they had a high nickel content. Nick had two used, but very good, 535i crankshafts in his stash of parts and these were used in the engines after everything was carefully balanced. Nick managed to source the special bearings for the M5 conrods in Canada, only to find upon arrival that they were made in South Africa by Glyco. Nick consulted Shaun van der Linde about the camshafts and they decided to use 292 camshafts. They tried to source billet cams from overseas, but without luck, so Nick collected up all the camshafts that he had among his parts and took them to Shaun. They were hoping at best that they may get a 286 camshaft after modification, but they were able to deliver two 292 camshafts.
The oil pumps for the dry sump lubrication system on both cars were locally made units, supplied by Dorino Treccani at Trepal Automotive Engineering. Chris Costas had bought up all the spares from Trepal, and Nick was able to buy parts from him and refurbish the pumps. The drive pulleys had too much wear and tear, so Nick replaced these with good, used pulleys off a spare set of pumps he had in this spare collection that had seen very little work. Nick added a clever modification to the oil pump pulleys (also on the water pump pulleys), where a flange was bolted onto the pulley to protect the belts from coming off the pulley due to something like a stone. The oil tanks are still the original units, as well as the catch tanks in the boot. The original plastic bottle that was used as a catch tank on Tony’s car has been retained. Only Tony’s car had a diff oil cooler fitted and this was retained, but refitted with new hoses and mounts.
The original collapsible fuel cells that are located in the spare wheel wells were replaced with new tanks that Nick sourced from the USA. These are rigidly moulded tanks with foam inserts and look very similar to the originals and are FIA and SCCA rated.
The wiring harnesses in both cars were in a poor state. During the racing life in Zimbabwe, wires had been spliced in for the rudimentary computers that came along later, so Nick decided to have the cars rewired with new harnesses. The job was done by Nico Visagie, who has a lot of experience on Porsches. Most of the gauges on both cars are original with one or two being replaced on each car with new senders being fitted for all.
All fuel lines have been replaced and new fuel distribution tanks were made up from scratch, exactly like the originals. Tony’s car had new 48 Weber carbs fitted, and Nick sourced a set of Dellorto 48s to replace the missing carburetors, which were cleaned and refurbished. New intake manifolds were cast in Cape Town by Rowland Manifolds.
The seats were recovered, but the steering wheels are untouched and exactly as they came with the cars. New seatbelts were fitted.
The rims are still original, but three of the centres had to be remade. Repairs were done to the bolt holes on some of them, and all of them were polished. All the wheel studs were replaced and new Good Year Eagle racing slicks were fitted.
After seven years of restoration, Tony Viana’s BMW 535i was ready for the first track test on 23 January 2022.
