A car is a lot more compact when it is all put together. Parts take up a lot of space. This is the expensive part. I’m trying my best to limit that but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Other times, you do and still decide financial burden. I mean, reuse all the old (perfectly fine) crappy components on a freshly painted car? I can’t bring myself to do it. However, I can reel myself time to time in the name of expediency and frugality(a real word?).
I have been quite busy since the last
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
Obviously not Peter Sellers, but I think Steve did a pretty good job.
So I found a write up I did for July of 2020 that never got posted. It’s obviously well beyond that now. I’ll post it up after this one. I wish I kept up with posting but it is what it is. I’ve been busy.
As you can see, the car is on wheels with rebuilt suspension and primed! I went with Southern Polyurethane Epoxy Primer. Very helpful on the phone. I found them to be very accommodating.
A question was posed to me once a few years ago: If you could fly, be invisible, teleport, be a billionaire, or have your dog live as long as you, which would you choose?
I’d choose my dog every day of the week.
There is something so emotionally childish about losing a dog. Especially one that you don’t really consider a dog, but a true, full, meaningful part of your life. Almost more than a family member, more like an extension of yourself. Not to be political, but I alwa
I'm Jerry Callo!
You will all be happy to know that Shop Manager Poncho turned 98 last March and is still kicking, as well.
Skip to the picture of Shop Manager Poncho If you want to get right into the build updates. But I had some pretty great distractions.
I was hell-bent on not being dormant on the FAQ for this long, but it happened. Life happened. It's still happening! 15 whole months without a blog entry.
Work on the '02 has not stopped. However we did get into some oth
It seems like more often than not, I start these blog entries with a statement about how “it's been a while since I posted/did anything/blah blah blah”.
This one is no different. If you want to get to the car progress skip to the mug shot of Shop Manager Poncho.
Its been a while since I posted an update, but I have excuses!
The last one was February and now it's July, which makes me feel like a lump.
But!
I did continue to work on the car for a portion of the time
First, thanks for all the productive comments in my last entry. Please keep them coming! I don't know if I should be grateful for that link to MP&C's tutorials or if it is an “ignorance is bliss” type of scenario. Regardless of the situation, that Garage Journal thread has been a complete time suck but incredibly motivating and answered my previous questions about master auto body technicians – Yes it can be made perfect. This guy does it with all his panels. Here is the link, again.
I would like to ask that if you have a question or wonder why I didn't do something a certain way, or even better, some tips on how to do something better, please put them in the comments or PM me. My method is usually try to figure it out and if I can't Google it. That doesn't mean I thought everything through properly and I'm always looking to learning more. So:
Four months and (some) progress!
Thank god I’m doing this before kids. Its difficult to find time but determination and dri
Just the other day, in a moment of clarity, I drew an unerring relation to restoring a car and going to college - at least for me.
In both cases
I thought I would breeze right through it at first.
I was enticed by the marque offerings: education and, ahem, women for grad school. Car community and cool/performance parts for the classic BMW.
It has taken me longer that thought or scheduled.
It's really expensive.
I made gr
Much like my last post, it is snowing here in VA (yes, April 9th) and I know I’ve been slacking on the building and blogging as of late. And by late I mean the last 4 months. I have had a lot of projects going on.
We had a track day at Summit Point that I signed up for in hopes to motivate me to swap out the head on my e30. Long story short, I was able to get the parts together in time and build up the head – with a new billet 272 cam while I was in there, duh – and had some fun on the t
We are snowed in here in VA so I thought it would be a good time to update the blog. I’ve been slacking, thankfully on the blogging front and not on the building front – well, maybe a little. In the time between these posts I have completed a few things that make the paint shop seem a little closer (in time, not so much in affordability).
I was able to weld up the lower A pillar on the passenger side. It went back on nice and easily. Then I welded up the lower C pillar internals and inner rear
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We took a hiatus on the '02 over the break and worked on my brothers 68 Nova. The previous owner of that car thought it would be a good idea to bolt the leaf springs to the floor pan because the suspension mount rusted away. Poncho the Shop Manager took up his usual position inspecting the work.
But anyway:
Priming success! Well, almost. I forgot to prime one piece as is proper. I took advantage of the wonderful spring weather down here las
Why even make them? I think thats how it goes, right?
My original plan was to buy the car and drive it around and enjoy it. Wrong - the car shook, engine stuttered, the pedals were all wobbly and kind of scary.
Then I just wanted to rebuild the pedal box and balance the carbs. But the car was in NJ and I was in VA. When I finally got the car to VA I remembered that I was concerned about the low oil pressure at idle. It was November so I thought I would just rebuild the engine as a winter p
The I in the title is in anticipation of a II and perhaps a III. I really hope not a IV, or else I'll need an IV.
After cutting out all that metal in one area I was a little concerned that I had gone too far and possibly removed too much. I was nervous that the structural integrity of the car, passenger area, or some pickup point would be compromised because of all the missing material. Truthfully, I still don't know. We will find out when I have the alignment done – when ever that is... But wh
The driver side rocker panel is in. I had to weld on the bottom of the A-pillar first, but the metal didn't relax at all when I took it out which was nice.
The rocker fit right back up like it was never cut out. It took a few clamps to get it lined up but once it was, it went on quite nicely. I ended up having to squeeze it top to bottom in the middle to get the top flange in line with the inner rocker. I was much happier filling all of the plug welds that I was drilling all the spot welds. I
It's been a while since I posted any update on the project. I've had crazy work and just no time to get in the garage. Even now, I'm writing this at an airport on a work trip. It doesn't stop. Recently though, I have found little snippets of time to get in the garage and make some good momentum building progress. I'm excited to make my way away from the driver rocker and around to the passenger side which seems in better shape. Knock on wood...
So I welded the portion of the front fender wing b
I ended up buying a snake inspection camera from amazon for 20 bucks.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EQNCMTY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
It works pretty well and has already saved me from pulling off the driver side lower A pillar.
Alternatively, it has also showed me what kind of mess lurks in the rear wheel boxes.
Gross.
It works really well, I just plug it into my laptop and snap away. It has 6 LED's on the head which ar
So I left off thinking I would patch up the driver side inner fender and move on to the floor pans and frame rails. Well, I still haven't figured out what I want to do with the frame rails and I have to check my parts car - which is in the Northeast - to see if the rails in that are salvageable.
So in the mean time I decided to move backwards in the car.
I started by pushing down the floor on the passenger side where some dummy tried jacking up the car on the seemingly fine frame rail which le
I've been practicing my welding for a few weeks now with some sheet steel I got from Lowes. I started by cutting up some squares and butt welding them together. I picked up some butt welding clamps from harbor freight for like $5.00. I initially had issues with penetration. I was not seeing the weld root on the underside of the metal but after a while my consistency increased drastically. Practice, practice, practice!
While practicing welding, I also started the process of cutting out the
I worked at an antique repair shop in Boston while doing my graduate work. It was a wonderful place to be a tinkerer.
Check it out: Village Green Renewal
It was one of the best jobs I've ever had, and I highly doubt I will find a better one. One of the reasons it was so great, aside from the wacky and awesome projects and repairs we performed, was because the tools were all there. Every tool needed for any job was within arms reach or just out of reach when needed most, naturally. The setup wa
The project has been moving along steadily over the past few weeks. What seemed as an easy partial rebuild of a pretty solid 2002 is slowly morphing into a pretty complete rebuild of a 2002. The past few work sessions saw the nose pulled and the continuation of investigative cleaning.
I made the decision to pull the front clip off because I noticed some rust and some pretty poor repair work.
As it turns out, the front clip had been replaced. The car started life as a tii so there shouldn't be
So just to start off, last post I ended with my feelings on prepping the car for paint. Well I did a little research and was linked to an autobodystore.com forum thread. My search questions was "Can I strip paint with a wire wheel?" In the infinite space that is the interwebs I was presented with "About 163,000 results in .56 seconds" or so says the Google. So the first thread read that while you can, it is not advised because you will put a lot of heat into the metal and paint and can poten
The subframe was easily removed a few nights ago. It was about 15 degree in the garage and I had my space heater pointed directly at my toes. Some of the hard brake line fittings rounded off slightly so I let them soak in liquid wrench for a while but that didn't help. The next go around they rounded off instantly. So I ended up cutting a few of the soft brake lines between the mount on the unibody and the strut tube because and it was too damn cold to deal with it and I don't have a torch...yet
So the rebuild has officially started. I've taken enough apart to feel comfortable saying that the project moves forward and the shell is not being sold/scrapped.
I got the car out of storage in November and trailered it to VA with a Uhaul. She went into the garage and the tear down began.
The idea was to pull the engine are rebuild it, shove it back in and drive her around. While putting the car down on jack stands I heard a few crunches and crackles synonymous with frame rail disint
