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Hazard flasher "always on"

As many of you all have, I recently have started restoring the interior of my '75 02.   When ordering parts I decided to purchase a new hazard flasher from rogerstii, installed it and the performance of my turn signals improved greatly...and probably gave me an extra 20 BHP!   Anyway--i just got my car back from the body shop where they welded in a replacement floor pan, and they said my flashers were going off, even when the ignition was off. And yeah, the new switch just tu

POR-15, battery relocation, and it runs!

I had a very busy and productive day today. The pillars on this car are pitted and have some rust repair from someone previous. I decided that it was solid enough and just needed some cleanup and attention.    I started by hitting everything with the wire wheel to remove rust and old paint. After that, I worked on cleaning up the old welds and trying to get things smoother. If it’s going to have booger welds, they’re going to be my booger welds. Once cleaned up, I went through the POR-15

Trey

Trey in 1971 2002

Looking at the valvetrain

I hope I’m doing these blog entries right. It doesn’t look right on mobile for some reason. Anyway…   My son and I pulled the valve cover off to take a look at the valvetrain.  It’s very clean in there. Cam looks great. No major wear and the lobes are smooth. Minimal varnish too. 

Trey

Trey in 1971 2002

Slogging through the Electricals

I promised myself that before I started messing with the ECU setup and the related electrical systems to support it, I would sort out all the electrical gremlins that were original to the car.  Little did I know that was going to a lot harder and take longer than I could ever imagine.   When I hooked up the battery for the first time after completely removing the wiring harness, I had some pleasant surprises and some "what the hell" moments.  First off, when I turned the ignition key f

Rust? Not that bad really

One of the things that will need addressed on this car is rust. It’s really not bad. The passenger front fender and rocker need some work. The pillars have older repairs that seem solid even though there is some pitting. I don’t think I’ll worry about those for now. The drivers floor has been repaired poorly and needs fixed.    I usually get cars with more rust, so this is a nice change. The body is also fairly straight. 

Trey

Trey in 1971 2002

My first 2002. What have I done?

This is my first 2002. Not my first restoration. I come from many years of Volkswagens. I’ve always admired 2002s but didn’t think I’d ever have the opportunity to own one. Well, now I do.    According to BMW Groups Classics, “The BMW 2002 VIN 2574805 was manufactured on June 14, 1971 and shipped on June 16, 1971 to New York, NY. The original color was colorado, paint code 02.”   I’m going to use this blog to record my progress. I do t know where I’m going with the car, but I’ll

Trey

Trey in 1971 2002

NORWAY Adventure 2023

I seem to always dream up wacky and out of the norm adventures to average person.  For those of you who are also 02 obsessed you are most likely of the same nature.  Before embarking on my journey I really didn't know what to expect.  I had a friend who was going to ride shot gun with me, but then due to a family emergency couldn't make it.  Bummer.     I have to admit I was a little timid for a brief moment and wavered whether I should go, but there is no tomorrow; less thinking more

Evan Chong

Evan Chong in Documenting

‘67 1600-2 Build

Most of the car is in epoxy now and I’m just trying to get the panels as straight as possible within my skill set. I had a huge (3/4”) panel gap between the right front fender and the door. My solution was to add some length to the fender with some fiberglass. I had no issues with the drivers side.    How she sits now.  No before photo of gap but here is the fiberglass extension.    Gap closed. The guide coat makes it look larger at the bottom.    A couple wee

jmr_1602

jmr_1602 in 1600

Well that sucked

So today I tackled a job that I was putting off for a while.  I welded tabs on the underside of the floor so that I could install my fuel line.   I  am going with regular AN line until I go with the turbo, then I will likely do a hard line and e85 safe flexible AN line.    For those who warned me that the crap on the bottom of the car makes you loopy as all get-go,  you weren't kidding.   I welded on two tabs (one each for feed and return).  I had an exhaust fan, an air filter, a regul

The Never Ending Task List Gets Shorter

OK, it's been a while, but the road to the next milestone, (firing the motor) is getting shorter.  In the last post, I had some things that needed solving, how to marry the passenger side heater core hose to the bigger connection on the back of the head and other issues like throttle cable linkage and installing the driveshaft.  I happy to report that most of those issues are resolved.   Coolant Connections I needed to connect the passenger side heater core to the back of the head

Life lately

Back in the garageMaking up rough mountsEverything works and clears, all bolts can be pulled out. I can definitely make this better down the road, but I'm super happy for now.The engine sits very low and should help keep the handling flat.It's also as far back to the firewall as I can logically go, and leaves some nice distance in front of the engine for the radiator and fan setup without changing the nose at all. (Besides pulling the snorkel.) This is also an AE86 swap radiator, that works beau

Spyke

Spyke in Swapped

Rabbit Hole Rear end questions.

I moved this from general discussions.  This is a better place for it.    There are a bunch of questions that I am working through.  Any help would be appreciated.        So here is the first rat hole.  I just made arrangements with one of the members for an open E21 diff.  The reason I got it is I know sooner or later I will need it. He also has the 320 axels ( I think).  Do I get them?  I am not entirely sure what I am looking for.      From what I

Half shafts rehab

Had trouble with rubber bellow at race track. Changed spare but some grease left... I have type 188 diff and big cvj's but smaller 02 cvj's goes same way.   Time to have a look. Here is some carnage:    Orientation of the joint innards:next some centre piece pictures. These you don't want see. 1st is from 02 cvj. Pretty bad.   This is from larger joint. Not good.   Cage dimensions are same but kept them same way as they were.  

tzei

tzei in Half shafts

The Story

I found myself north of Indianapolis one afternoon after receiving a call that went something like, "Hey, aren't you the guy that buys old BMW's?"    On the family farm, Bruce had been storing all sorts of fun projects that one day he hoped to bring to life. Life, however, was moving faster than his slated project timelines, as it often does.  He had a gaggle of E30s that needed to be rehomed, that had been sitting out in a field for quite some time (that were the initial reason for

Project kinda stalled and kinda not, life happens

It's been a while since I've posted about the restoration/restomod of Betty.  Work slowly progresses when I have the motivation to do it....it hasn't completely stopped! We had a couple deaths in the family. Took a trip down New Orleans for a wedding and caught Covid on the way back. Stuff. Works been very busy and life in general got a little complicated. Jo and I have also been busy with the remodel of the master bedroom/bath. All consuming. So, this project has taken

Odds and Ends, The Never Ending List

So I haven't posted in a while because after the Euphoria of installing the motor came the depression of all the tasks that lie ahead.  I still haven't installed the driveshaft, mainly because it takes two people and my brother has been busy with his Triumph GT-6 build.  Other sources of depression were self inflicted, as I was staring up at the transmission and thought, may as well hook the clutch line to the clutch master and promptly cross threaded it.  Just more things to fix!   Fo

M20 Stainless Custom Exhaust - Was it Worth it?

Short recap to the history of my 02.  Original M20 motor swap was done in 2005 at Casey Motorsports in Petaluma, California.  We did it in a weekend and was a quick and dirty install.  I left the original M10 exhaust and used that for... 18 years.  I can't believe it's been that long, but it's been that long.  I've been wanting to get another exhaust for some time now and since arriving in the Netherlands a new friend told me he could do it.  I then started to look around for a header and found

The Last of Rust

I’ve reached the light at the end of the tunnel on my rust repair journey. Over the week I replaced the lower driver’s side rear 1/4 window sill with new metal. I used a technique coined by YouTuber, Fitzee called butt & cut. Some of y’all have probably seen his videos.  All that’s left to do is epoxy the exposed metal and then flip my car around so I can begin installing the passenger side flares.    Original metal with lots of pitted rust and pinholes. 🤮  

Hondata rules

My tuner added a Hondata tune to the stock Honda ECU and that allowed him to turn off all the check engine codes. Power is smoother too. I can now say that the car accelerates as well as my Stage 2 Golf R! Obviously not as composed or solid, but way more fun for raw power. It really is the perfect car; stock on the outside but party under the hood!    Today I also changed the hats on my front struts. This stopped a clunk I've been having since I first got the car. I previously redid th

Stripping the interior body

Nothing like starting with the biggest most tedious job on the entire restoration. It will certainly be a huge step forward when the body is all stripped, prepped and painted, but it is certainly quite a lot of work. I figured I'd go about this large sections at a time. First the interior, then engine bay, then trunk, then underbody and finally the exterior. With each large section I'll strip it, take care of any little bit of rust that I find, prep and prime it.   Starting with the in

The body work continues! (Flares incoming)

It's been a few weeks since we got to work on the car with business and life taking a priority, however, good news is that we now have all the body panels we need for our 1602 build!    Was lucky enough to have a friend that went to a 02 garage sale and snagged some fiberglass Aplina style pig cheek flares for us at a great price we couldn't refuse!      And recently having gotten a hood, trunk, and 2 doors, now all that's left to do is test fit everything and fini
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