I had the same thing happened to me I was sideswiped on the freeway but the guy ran into me on purpose yeah a little road rage going on so as you can see in the pictures he caved in both doors front and rear passenger side I've been able to pull out the passenger rear door not so sure I'll be able to save the front door but as I'm living on a budget and don't have the money to buy all the parts
this is about me skinning my b pillar.
I was able to get a replacement B pillar/column for 85 dollars at the local wrecking yard I had to go and cut it out myself there's a couple pictures in there of me stripping the B pillar out getting all the interior guts out of it I found out the top portion (pictures in the diagram number 16 )of the pillar on the inside is glued in the you will need a blow torch burn the glue out in a screwdriver to pull it out as it'll be hot I use some spray paint remover so I can find all the spot welds drill them out on the replacement B pillar you wanna leave all the components for the upper hinge on the inside In place so don't cut or drill out those spot welds (keep in mind this is how I'm doing it ) so now basically your replacement the pillars should be gutted and ready to use keep in mind there are 2 support pieces 1 on each side of the b pillar approximately a foot and a half or too out along with the spot welds they also have foam glue thim in.
Tools I use to 12 inch long dual metal hacksaw blade, air powered cut off wheel, electric grinder for half inch, a porta power,and miscellaneous and tools found my most handy tool is a rather thick high quality puddy knife/puddy spreader inch in a half.
when chopping out the B pillar on the car cut it out sections at a time so you can reveal what's left of what you might need to see being careful not to cut too deep to damage the floor or the side panels buy a spot weld removal bit at a self punch or just use a punch in a hammer cut out to B pillar in sections like showing in my pictures the top portion of the inner B pillar is glued to the outer skin once you cut it where you want it replaced on the upper portion just use your puddy knife once you get the sides cutaway and separate the glue cut around the hinges with your cut off wheel and then cut the upper hinge out using the sawzall blade to make room for the 1 you left in the replacement B pillar now this is as far as I've gotten so far but I cut off to lower hinge and grounded it completely off using the welder to fill in any spots or gaps the last couple pictures are me dri fitting the peace with out the ends cut to size I hope to add on to this in the near couple weeks
(my plans are to trim the ends by overlapping them a 16th of an inch once I get I get it trimmed and put in place use clamps to hold it in place and spot weld it and my plans to secure the bottom hinge are to drill for holes in it and weld and feel those holes firmly to the inside of the pillar I got the diagram pictures from this website
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partgrp.do?model=GJ83&mospid=47531&hg=41&fg=20 )
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Sunday, September 2nd, 2012 AT 2:15 PM