I finally did it. I've been wanting a 2002 for years. After having kids and starting a new career, life is finally settling into a more predictable routine and after some searching I managed to find a 73 locally. The owner was asking $20k on CL. I reached out and mentioned how inflated the price was, he agreed and said he wanted to keep the riff raff away and knew that it would sell for less. Here's a couple shots from the advertisement:
When I came to look at it, it was idlin
I've slowing been working my way to understand why the motor is stuck. After working the crank back and forth and trying just about every penetrating oil out there I decided next step is to pull the head. Every night I'd chip away. Remove a part. Bag and tag it. I've never really gone beyond replacing a water pump so this is new depths for me. Thanks to this site and the trusty haynes manual it's a fairly straight forward process. The results of the stuck pistons and the condition of the valves
Your car has a story. Whether it came with one that you're continuing or didn't and you're starting fresh. The story is the bond between you and the machine. It's the thing you share every time someone asks you about it. Sure there's the gas station shorter version but there's also the full directors cut that you love sharing to anyone interested in hearing. If you're thinking it's BS go to a car show and walk past the folks sitting behind their cars in folding chairs with a photobook proudly st
some final details I have been doing this winter in California!
interior
grills
drive shaft alignment
wiper linkage
lighting relay upgrade
air filter 38/38 modified
The day I found the car on BringATrailer I kinda had the feeling that this was "the one". I wasn't necessarily looking for an example in such sad shape as this one but I'm a sucker for a good candidate - which this one I believe is. I decided to buy the car from the original owner here in VA and as it turned out he paid the same price for it in 69' as I did with my winning bid...$3,700.
Since the car has been parked since 1979 the underside has not seen the east coast salt as much as
So closing stages of gettiing M2 back on the road I wanted to adjust rear drums…
Alert! Mission creep.
Those shoe adjustment things were solid. Buggers didn’t wanna move no matter what. Then i thought f ’em, I’ll go disc.
Many have done this & kits are available but after shipping & taxes cost would be too much. Because hobby I put tinkering mode on and went diy.
Called local chop chop if they had VW golf 3 or 4 rear calibers. Not surpisingly they did. Went to
So much rust in the pan and tail panel i decide to just replace it, found some rust in the wheel wells and where the pan spot welds too. Slow progress but progress
I haven't posted in a while, but I've made some progress towards getting the engine mounted in the subframe and the subframe reattached to the car. First off, the flywheel debacle is finally complete. My 2 week flywheel lightening project at IE took over a month to return, (my fault for expecting a quick turnaround during the Thanksgiving break). Then there was the issue of the 22mm vs 28mm ARP flywheel bolts, ordering the wrong size (needed 28mm version) set me back $75 and 2 weeks. But wit
After the car completed its transformation with Paul at The Son Of Cobra, the car got moved across town to Ronin Autowerks where Matt worked with me to get some mods to the body completed.
First up was a weld in roll bar. Matt and the team at Ronin build the bolt in roll bars for IE so they already have the roll bars down. I asked for some customization as I wanted it tied into the rear strut towers for additional stiffness. Originally the plan was to do a roll bar with
2017's theme: The more I learned the intricacies of the cars, the more I wanted to learn. The more parts I found, the more parts I wanted to find.
Looking back on my phone at photos taken in 2017, I almost laugh at how naive and enthusiastic I was.
My car was running and driving but it had almost no interior and everything rattled around like a spray can. I wanted to collect the parts I needed to make it complete, and a year in, I was already thinking about buying another 02
It took some time, but overall everything came apart fairly easily and I removed the last part from the body yesterday (other than doors and trunk lid that are staying on for now just as an easy place to store).
Next I plan to get started on the body. I took one of the front fenders that was in pretty bad shape and started experimenting with it. It has about 1 million dings on it as well as some rusted out sections. It is bad enough that I may end up deciding not to use
Some background: As a boy I lived across the street from a guy my dad disliked who happened to have a Malaga big bumper 2002. I remember appreciating how it looked from afar.
I learned the automotive basics from my dad working on his '79 VW Rabbit in our driveway; then a little bit more riding a friend's Kawasaki KX80 from 11-13. This is also how I learned to manage manual transmissions.
Later, I didn't drive for nearly 20 years straight while living in NYC and SF. Maybe
It all started one day many months ago when I inadvertently discovered rust lurking below the paint surface. Because my 76 spent who knows how many years with its tail end exposed to the elements, as it sat in a car-port style storage facility, the trunk area had obvious surface rust spots. One of the first over ambitions things that I started doing when I first got the car, was to strip paint on the whole trunk top. Sure enough, the rust spots were pitted and nasty, fortunately none went all th
So while I was waiting for IE's machine shop to finish weight reducing my S14 flywheel, I decided to button up the oil pan. As you may remember, I thought the oil pump chain was a little stretched, so I bought 3 of the .25mm shims from IE and ended up only using 1 of them along with the two, .1 mm shims already installed. The new shim did the trick and I was ready to install the baffled oil pan and crank scrapper.
I had already gotten my brother to weld in the IE Baffle and after s
So this adventure started back when I first bought Conrad. I checked for rust everywhere, being sure to use a hammer to test the integrity of the metal everywhere on the body. For a car that (I think) lived it's entire life in Oregon before I brought it to Utah, the rust was surprisingly limited. I knew there was rust around the gas tank, and a little probing of the front valance revealed rust in the usual spot. The floors however, felt sold.
A year later, during a thorough cleaning
As I have some time here and there, I've been continuing to take things apart. The front and rear suspension have been completely removed and fully disassembled. Overall things came apart very easily. There was plenty of dirt in areas. The rear subframe have about 3/4" of dirt built up on it, but on the plus side the subframe itself looks nearly new underneath all the dirt. Either way everything will get blasted and refinished. I found a set of Bilstein inserts in the front that look decent. I'l
Another small project down...restoring the glovebox.
I needed to restore the super crusty, ugly glovebox, and found several posts here on the FAQ and some additional info on YouTube to help with this flocking adventure. Here is what I needed for this project:
- Acetone
- metal scraper
- gloves
- flocking fibers
- adhesive/paint
- flocking applicator
- large plastic tub
- 2 small cheap paintbrushes
- denatured alcohol
Don't stop. That's the answer: Don't stop.
After priming the car I started doing body work in the form of filler and more hammer and dolly. This was really tedious and all learning on my own. Having just an hour of someones time that knew how to use hammers and dollies more effectively would have paid dividends. Hitting too hard or not hard enough? Am I stretching the metal where I need it to stretch?
Body filler was the same. I bought CleanSheets which I found is a must when d
The longer I take to finish this project, the greater the opportunity for scope creep. While perusing the FAQ Classifieds, I saw a post from @Ian that he was selling his BluntTech Ultimate 5-Speed conversion kit. Well, I already had purchased an IE 5-Speed conversion kit for my Getrag 245 OD Box, so obviously, I don't need that part, but the nagging voice in my head kept telling me, "The BluntTech kit was better". When Ian adjusted his price, I jumped at the chance to get the "better" of the
So while I wait for my S14 flywheel to return from the machinist, (I dropped it off at the IE booth during the SoCal Vintage). I figured I would finish off the trunk by completing the installation of the gas tank. All that was remaining was to simply install the rubber fill pipe and figure out how I was going to vent it. Well, things are never simple with this car.
First off, the rubber fill pipe is the longer one for the early car and the original one I removed from the car was i
Attended the 2022 Legends of the Autobahn East in conjunction with the Hilton Head Concours.
Drove Vern down to Hilton Head over 2 days with my friends Wayne Killen with his 1987 Mercedes 190e 2.3 16v Cosworth & Doug Dolan with his 1972 S38 M Powered 3.0 CS.
Spent Thursday detailing our cars at the rented beach house with a 3 car garage.
Vern & I competed in the 2002 Class with Stuart Oberman's 1974 2002 Tii & Tim Wing's 1974 Turbo.
Th
Work continues on the 1600 S14 Motor Swap. I switched positions in the garage with my M2 Competition and put it up on the MaxJax in anticipation of finally installing the motor, trans and front subframe. Several tasks needed to be completed before getting to the motor installation, notably the brake and fuel return line. I had already run the fuel feed line (5/16 copper nickel) through the cabin in the same routing as the plastic line. I used what was left of the 25' coil to run the return l
Found some pics of my latest race wet sump i thought i share. This performed well. Total oil volume was about 5.5-6 L iirc. It's was ugly alright but b/c race car. Now my M2 has same type hinged baffle plates and uses S14 oe windage tray.
Changed over to a dry sump system when i moved engine further back.
