Tesoro's on the parade lap today!! Amazing! What a dream come true! ? I'm in tears !?
One word to describe this weekend..... Euphoric!!!
I'm floating on an 02 cloud right now! I met so many cool people and I'm truly thankful for the friendships that we have in this small 02 community!
I would have liked to have visited Pebble Beach ... but if I did.. I would of missed out on this opportunity to drive in the parade lap! What a great way to break in the engine!
Pebble will
What a fun day at Laguna! Walked around the paddocks and watched some of the races! So much car eye candy! So fun to see the races and see more friendly faces! ?
Happy 100 Anniversary BMW!
Thank you to Monterey BMW for allowing Tesoro to park on the lawn down at the Lakebed VIP parking ! ;-)
What an overwhelming, eventful day!! Thanks to all who stopped to say hello!
I got interviewed by some guy named Bob Varsha? (F1 announcer) who is doing a 1hr special on Monterey Weekend! He had heard that I had done a full blown restoration on a BMW 2002 and hunted me down! I hope I make the cut! ?
Most importantly... It felt magical to be able to drive Tesoro to this momentous event at Legends!
Lots of wonderful beautiful cars this year! I think there were almost 80 02s alone! Con
The little white specs? Those are not stars.... This is the top of Tesoro's roof with ashes!! I'm in my parents garage trying to get all this ash off.... !! This will be an all nighter!
The smoke here seems bad and there's ash falling everywhere! On a black car.... This will be a tough one to keep clean for the judges!
I've also tried to put on the rain gutter trim with no luck and scratched the paint off ... This is not looking so good.... ?
My Roundel looks good tho!
Got here at my parents house in Pacific Grove safe and sound in 2.5 hours!
For those who don't know, I am originally from Carmel, Monterey and grew up in Silicon Valley and now live in Novato.
As I was driving, I started to panic cause I could smell smoke and thought it was coming from Tesoro, but then realized its from the fires down south! ? Lots of cops out catching racers too! ???
I can't believe how solid, smooth and strong Tesoro drove! I am very pleased with the 38/38
Got Tesoro back from detail all shiny and ready for the first road trip to Monterey for Legends of the Autobahn and Festorics weekend 2016! Needless to say, Tesoro was in good company getting detailed!
To preserve the paint, I taped around him like they do at rally's. It may have been a bit overkill to do something like that, but how many of you would do the same especially after a full ground up restoration... on a black car??? ;-)
See you in Monterey!
Thank you to Bill Arnold for t
Tesoro is all adjusted and off to the detailers! We are cutting it really close! ? ( PS: I'm thinking of painting those cad plated brackets behind the grilles black! )No sleep til Legends!!
(PSS: I was up til 11:30PM painting the front cad plated brackets behind the grilles!)
Here's a quick glimpse! ? Custom Porsche Singer style seats designed by me with the alcantara suede insert and real leather bolsters... Door panels have a smitten strip of alcantara suede on the top with all new hardware. (Don't dock me points on the no seatbelts in the rears.. I have to figure that part out later!) Custom leather armrest over the ebrake handle.Wait til you see my custom center console! ?
I am such a doofus!
I thought I was making headway and broke in 400 miles until I did a map of the loops I have been doing... And I found that it wasn't adding up ...... BECAUSE Tesoro's instrument gauges are km/h ... Not mph!
I realize the speedometer is km/h.. just forgot to add that so are the miles! LOL!
Tesoro has the original euro spec 2002ti silver dollar instrument cluster with km/h, Notice the BRAKE FAILURE LIGHT is not there!
So I've really only done about 250
Tesoro is driving strong!! Drove the beautiful backroads of Novato, Point Reyes, Lucas Valley, and back to Novato! Such beautiful roads! I have to get in 500 miles to break in by tomorrow... Such a thrill to be driving Tesoro again, this time, the drive seems a lot faster! ??
(I don't have the grilles or rocker trim on yet .... I was waiting for an order for the rocker side driver trim and I'll be putting on a set of old grilles to preserve the newly polished grilles for Monterey and to kee
Le left at 4AM this morning to trailer Tesoro home! He crunched for the finish line and got the car here to San Rafael at 11A this morning!
Talk about first class customer service with personal delivery!
I have been waiting for this day for almost 2 years! It's been an amazing emotional journey!
Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories and never the private sacrifices to reach them. So I want to take this opportunity to Thank Mr. 2002garagewerks for a
Do you know the way to Monterey?? ?
Got my registration packet with tickets to Legends and Laguna!
***Special parking at the infamous LAKEBED CORRAL! ***
It's going to be a fun 2016!! Woo hoo!
I just finished restoring Tesoro's original raised lettered rear Roundel!
Testor's paint #1111 is the closest BMW Blue you can find.... Some people mix a lighter blue with it but I got soo picky about the color that I kept it one color as these colors will probably fade overtime too... I'm happy with the result! ?
Tesoro has some major bling going on!
We got the custom bumpers and all new trim aligned and ready for show !
Just to reiterate how much time, measurement, and skill that went into this paint job and body work that has been done, it's like a mirror! .... Narcissus would have drowned in this paint job... ?
After sorting out a nasty wiring harness that had some major shortage issues, Le had replaced and put new wire in where he could, even if that meant having to go back to unraveling the whole harness!
The method to Le's madness is safety first!
But we are on track for Monterey as Le is finishing up putting Tesoro's pieces together and heat cycling the engine!
Take a listen to Tesoro at the bottom of the pics... !
Check out the engine with the polished valve cover, m
Pictures do not do this car justice... It's one of those things where you have to see it to believe it.
Tesoro came from humble beginnings from foster home to foster home for the past 40 years and when I got him to be my keeper 02, he got into that accident with that negligent tow truck driver.
But here we are now doing reassembly with some major hardcore pieces... I'm beyond ecstatic over the progress! You can really tell the care and craftsmanship that Le has overhauled
I'm looking forward to Brisbane tomorrow!
It was 2 years ago where I laid eyes on a lowly schwarz 02 where its owner at the time was selling parts out of the trunk on the parking lot and had a "For Sale" sign on the side quarter window. (I've enclosed this pic of Tesoro on the parking lot)
The black little beast looked tired, dusty, and reminded me of an animal that was just left out on a porch ignoring passerby's with a vacant look on its face.
This car need
Tesoro was sent out on Friday to a new OEM headliner.... And BAM! Leave it to the professionals to put in a headliner over the weekend! New visors, dome light, e30m3 rearview mirror, and new rear handles will go in shortly to complete the new headliner look!
Time to start checking off more items on the checklist! ?
I can't believe how remarkably zealous Dr. 2002garagewerks is working as we are coming very close to getting Tesoro on the road home!
I have registered Tesoro for Bris
Looks like Dr. 2002garagewerks dropped something!....
Dropped in Tesoro's engine! ?
Woo hoo! This is all too exciting to see the assembly come together and watch Tesoro come to life and breathe again...
Happy Friday everyone! Cheers to the weekend!
More Tesoro progress!!
New track rod, tie rod assembly, urethane steering coupler powder coated pitman arms... And of course, I had to buy myself a personalized necklace to go with all the plated little bits! wink emoticon
Tesoro is on beastmode right now so there will be more to see soon!
Tesoro's brake booster, brake master, and brake booster bracket linkage with upgrade ball bearings are in!
Lovin' all the new hardware!
Got these Wilwoods installed to go with the brake booster.... ! Here's also a quick peek at Tesoro's custom coil overs!
Name that part! Let's see what parts you know?
More amazing progress with Tesoro! He's coming together so well! Love the attention to detail and quality of work from 2002garagewerks!
Check out the nuts and bolts ! They truly look like gold treasures on Tesoro!!