I got the car from a FAQ member in June 06. He was in Santa Cruz, I was in Toronto, so we spent some time on the phone and email figuring the whole thing out. Al Canuck had a look at it for me and I bought it. I had it transported up to Nathan in Buffalo who was good enough to accept delivery for me...this really is a great community.

Here's what it looked like that day, along with Nathan's sweet survivor Tii (original paint)




The PO had done the following:

5 Speed conversion
* 3.90 Limited Slip Differential
* 14" Panasport wheels
* Bilstein HD shocks and struts
* H&R progressive springs
* Suspension Techniques sway bar kit
* Polyurethance bushings on all suspension and subframe components
* M3 starter upgrade
* Big brake upgrade, front and rear (larger vented discs up front, large
drums in the rear)
* Stainless steel braided brake lines
* Battery relocated to the trunk
* Electric cooling fan conversion
* E30 325e 100 amp alternator
* Engine rebuild 10/2003

..so it runs well, stops well, pulls hard (and looks great from 15 feet)



What I really needed was paint etc and interior...the paint was really tired and many if the seals were dry, dry, DRY, dash cracked, carpet dead, E21 seats cracked etc. I went through a major wave of mod fever with all kinds of wacked out ideas for the Tii (flares, M2, no front bumpers, etc.) When I finally came back to my senses about my plans for the Tii (love the idea of a pig cheeked M2, but not with a Tii as a starting point) I decided to restore it and sympathetically mod it for comfort, safety and performance.

Drove it all summer and fall, met the great 02 Toronto crew including John with his amazing 1602 resto.



All summmer I gathered stuff for the resto, like
-clean Tii dash
-Seams Perfect wool carpet
-seals & trim galore
-Italian turn signals
-13" Alpinas
-6 series rear seats
-e30 M3 rear view mirror


I also went to about 6 paint shops, and met a great guy, former 02 owner to do the interior work. About 3 weeks ago, the fun started..the teardown. I'm not a pro, this is my first ever tear down/resto of a car. I've got to say that John has made this possible..he did a full resto on hius 1602 last year and I'm riding on his coattails. No way I could do this without him.

Armed with a digital camera, notebook and ziploc bags we started.





Motor out



The classic tear down shot (according to John)



It's solid, the only rust is a bit around the windows, sunroof and firewall (result of dried out firewall pad.)

Yes that's the remains of the firewall pad and the "wiring harness"



The wiring scares me..there are a lot of extra wires and it's going to take a lot of time this winter to figure out what goes and what stays..wish someone made a replacement harness.



Check out the custom velcro setup for the relays



What's up next...
-trailer the car to the paint shop
-interior work..Recaros recovered, 6 series rear seats dyed and trimmed, door panels restored, headliner, carpet,parcel shelf, dash....
-engine to Marcus Glarner Motorsports for a looksee (it smokes and leaks oil right now)
-header, cam and some general clean up work on the motor
-obsessing over the little things I need to buy...today's obsession was Classic lines stainless hard brake lines and rerouting the fuel lines under the car.
-studying Real OEM to figure out what other bits I "need"

Stay tuned
_________________
73tii


Last edited by kris on 7-16-08 11:42; edited 5 times in total