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About this blog

It all started as a moderate pile of iron oxide and dreams...

Entries in this blog

New seats and trunk in epoxy.

This past weekend I got epoxy down on the trunk.  I think I can cross this off the list until its time for final paint.   Thee are a few small areas that yet need to be addressed that will be addressed when the car is in PA and I can take the rear glass out, but structurally the trunk is now sound. This makes me very happy.   And today, something showed up in the mail for me!   Really excited about these. There is also a rear seat cover that I ha

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Part 2 of Fixing Trunk Rust!

This past weekend was another work weekend on the BMW down in Virginia. As usual, it poured.  There was thunder and lightning and flood warnings.   Almost every time I go to work on the car during the spring summer and fall, it has been pouring, and I'm driving 200 miles from York PA to Charles City VA.  Regardless, considerable work got completed.   Previously I had cut out and welded in a new spare tire well.  This past weekend I was working on the other side, taking care of the

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Fixing all the junk in the trunk

I spent the weekend finally getting some work done on my car. Previously I had ordered a trunk kit to replace the rusty metal in the tire well and around the gas tank.  This weekend I got the well replaced.   The new well was long and designed to be fit to size.  I did some initial fitting and cut the lip off where it would be in the way.   Next up was cutting out the old well. Fun times in cramped working conditions.   Well is out and fitting th

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

A quickie update

Its only been a solid year since i have updated this blog.  Bad Zach, no cookie for you!   Over the past year I have: Bought a rusty parts car to harvest parts for my slightly less rusty car. Bought all the stuff required to redo the trunk metal floors. Cut out and welded up a LOT of rust all over the car. Cut out all the rotten trunk metal, and making my plan for welding in the good stuff. Redid my engine mounts, and a bunch of other smaller jobs around the en

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Dog days of summer

For the past several months, no work on the car has gotten done. The shop in VA that I have been working at moved to a new location, and so from the months of May - July we have been packing boxes, moving shop equipment, tools, 10 years of build up stuff, and cars.  The new shop is slightly smaller, but WAY better.  We moved out of an industrial park about a mile down the road to a new, private location in Charles City, VA.  Cuts, scrapes, a LOT of sweat and swearing, but we got all three b

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Update (part 2)

Last week I was back in Virginia to do more welding on the car.With my floor pans being mostly fixed, the next BIG issue were my rockers.  The drivers side rockers were by far the worst, so I decided to start with them.   Since I had bought the full rocker replacement panel from Restoration Design (who is the NA reseller for the W&N panels), I decided to replace the entire rocker.  This gives me a chance to see first hand how these cars are put together.   This first pic,

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

An Update (part 1)

Ive been tardy and let two work weekends pass without a blog update.   So, first, a new pass side floor. trimming down the panel, and starting fitment and finding out where to cut.   Yup...  That is a big gaping hole in the floor.   Get all the edges clean and ready to be welded in.  Both for the panel to be welded in and the floor that needs the patch.   Finally ready to begin the fun part.   Zap zap zap zap zap.

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Doing Homework

Last time I was out to work on my car, I brought a piece of the rear seat bulkhead to repair. As you can see, the bottom edge was totally rotten.  YUCK!  While most of the bottom inch is going to get cut off, there is a few inches of solid metal I wanted to preserve.  On the pic below, you can see the top right.  I need to remove the old floor metal that has been spot welded on to the flange.   In the next pic you can see where I have wire wheeled the flange and found the spo

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Welding begins on floors

From October to the end of December nothing got done on the car.  Well, that's not really true. I got a ton of small parts back from the cad platers, and they look good.  But for the most part, until this past week all my time for the past two months has been hunting, making stuff for Christmas in my shop, some crunch time at work, and then the actual holidays.   But this past week, gentle reader.  This past week shit got done. Started the same as seemingly all my other work

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Rust and hurricanes

This past weekend was my monthly trip to Richmond to work on my 2002 and visit with my southern set of friends. Work was hampered slightly due to brake failure on my Toyota Highlander while driving down to Richmond (yipe!) which required fixing as soon as I got there, and a hurricane that just happened to be wrecking Florida, the Carolinas, and dumping several inches of rain in tidewater VA.   The last month (whose blog post never got posted) I had started stripping floor tar with

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Motivation

I'm not sure whose car this is.  But its the inspiration I'm using for mine.     I had decided that I was going to take the trim off my car and weld up the holes.  So I was searching for pictures and here was this little beauty.  My color, almost exactly what I have planned for my car.   So if this is your car.  Man, it looks fantastic.  And I'm using it for my inspiration.   Zach

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Taking apart continues.

A 90+ degree day here in tidewater Virginia.  I'm slightly hung over.  Its humid as balls.  It took me 7 hours to make the 4 hour drive from my home in York.  Anyway.  Time to take more parts off cars.   Started with the master cylinder bracket.  I used up a TON of time cussing and fighting before I figured out all I had to do was pull the 4 bolts that I thought were part of the steering shaft bushing through the firewall.   Success!   And while I was in t

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

The first nice thing!

The day I bought the car, the pedals looked like this: Dear God YUCK! Also, the clutch cylinder is broke.   Anyway, that pile of excrement simply can not exist in MY very fancy automobile.  So, after considerable cussing and sweating, out it came. The next day there was a hurricane.  So I drove a few hundred miles home instead of attempting to work on my car.  But I brought the cluster with me.  Yay!  Mini-project!   So, first I took everything apart and blaste

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

Initial Tear Down

After buying the car, immediately tear down began.   Gas tank out to be boiled and epoxy coated. Fuel lines removed (including the nylon interior fuel line). Front calipers off for rebuild. Front disks off for replacement. Rear brake cylinders out for replacement. Brake hard lines out for refresh. Pedal cluster removed for rebuilding.   We cleaned out the prior tenants.   The Passenger front floor was getting close to Fred Fli

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

The beginning is a very good place to start - 2016

So, its hot.  I'm bored.  Here is the start of my restoration blog. I bought the car in June of 2016.  It was advertised as not needing much, mostly solid, strong running engine, etc. When I got there the car that faced me was, well, a car. On the west coast it would be a parts car.  But I'm on the east coast.  And we takes what we can gets.   My thoughts of taking the car home that day ended.  Brakes were frozen, tires would not hold air, usual old car BS.  I

vacca rabite

vacca rabite

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