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Not-tired M42 motor swap into a 1976 2002. On the cheap.

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...and In With The New.

The M42 got ratchet strapped to a furniture dolly when I yanked it out of the donor wreck, and I've been stumbling over it and banging my shins on it and generally cursing the space it takes up in my tiny workshop (a.k.a. closet) ever since. So I said to myself "Self, let's just get this damn thing in the car. Figure the rest out later." Installation was the reverse of removal; put M42 on '02 front subframe, put the whole mess on a furniture dolly, jack '02 up just for enough for it to clear

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Out With The Old...

With all of the holiday family and road trip fun out of the way (drove my M3 all over Arizona, New Mexico, and even a little bit of Texas - fun trip!), I finally got some time to work on the '02 again, and set aside a full day last Sunday to pull the old motor and transmission out. I'd been considering renting an engine hoist to yank the motor out the top, but then a closeup inspection of the suspension revealed that most all of the rubber bits on the front of the car are worn, cracked, tired,

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Mmm... Junkyard Parts.

No updates in over a month! Shame on me. One of my favorite places to wander on a lazy Saturday morning is the U-Pull junkyard. On my most recent visit back in December, I stumbled upon a little gem for my project: My donor car had been hit in the front and was missing the probably-destroyed radiator when I bought it, so this had been on my parts shopping list for awhile. Found one with an oil cooler attached, no less! Not sure if I'll need an oil cooler, but can't hurt to have it around.

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Bumperectomy.

As seen in this forum post, I learned that the E21 front bumper fits the 2002 pretty well, and is even curved roughly the same as the front of the car, unlike the stock diving board bumper. A few hours in my favorite local U-Pull junkyard last Saturday (I love the junkyard) netted me a decent aluminum bumper from a '78 320i for $40. Following tashakes recommendation, I cut two pieces of 1 1/4" galvanized pipe to 11" long, and swapped them in for the bumper shocks, using all of the same mounting

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Donor Found!

At this point, I still hadn't decided what to do with the '02's motor. I'd been keeping an eye out for suitable VW TDI donor cars, but I was finding nothing in my price range. Even wrecked 10 year old TDIs are fetching $4k or more; too rich for me. Lucky me, a *local* wrecked 1991 318is popped up in the classifieds here, posted by tommyg500. Tom had even put a coil-on-plug conversion on the M42, and purchased the Classic Daily motor and transmission mount adapter kits. Score! I immediately mad

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Carpet Ejection And Mold Ahoy!

Next task was to get the ratty old carpet out, and try to chase down the source of a moldy, musty smell in the car. Once I got the carpet out, I found the sound insulation in the passenger footwell saturated with skanky water. A few hours of scraping, cursing, heat-gunning, cursing, vacuuming, chiseling, and cursing later, I got the nasty stuff out. Pleasantly surprised to see no rust in the floorboards, save for a tiny bit of surface rust that sanded right off. Jumped in with some red primer

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Bumper Removal.

Yep, those godawful bumpers have to go. Starting with the front... Gives me a better look at the bondo'd schnoz, too. The rubber accordions on the sides of the bumper crumbled as soon as I started touching them. I hope I don't need them later. I'm thinking of doing the E21 front bumper setup, as this car will be a daily driver and while I like the look of the small bumpers, I would like a little bit more protection. I foresee some U-Pick junkyard expeditions in my future...

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

Inventory.

Having hauled my little victim home, I took some photos to properly document the starting point of my project. Back when I shot these, I didn't know what I was going to do with the car yet; would I fix the M10? Swap in a VW TDI motor? Or maybe find something else to swap in? Here's how the car looked in its new home, to give an idea of just what I've got to work with: Not bad. Needs some love, but a worthy restoration candidate to be sure. Ah, yes. The obligatory "trunk full of random p

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

The Start.

Back in August, my good friend Ray (a.k.a. ray_koke) generously donated a 1976 2002 to my humble cause. The car has a tired M10 with a bad bottom end, no seats, no door cards, and pretty sad granatrot paint. But the car is 99% rust-free and solid, with good glass. Here's me picking the car up from Ray's friend's shop in Seal Beach, CA: Neat little car, lots and lots of potential - just needs some love.

squirreljihad

squirreljihad

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