1976 back from the dead

[morganfelder]

So my roommate (who I'll call has this old Fender amp that he doesn't really care too much for, and his friend R has a '76 2002 that has been sitting in their mutual friend G's driveway for about a year and a half with a blown head gasket. G bought this car about ten years ago from some good 'ol boy, who had it sitting in his front yard slowly rotting away. It didn't run too good but G got her all fixed up, and eventually sold her to his friend J. J started tearing her apart with the aim of restoring her, more or less, but lost interest in the project and sold her to R. R also wanted to fix her up but then the head gasket blew. R isn't the most mechanical person in the world- so he drove her, blowing steam, over to G's house thinking he would enlist G to get her fixed. He even went so far as to buy the gasket kit. But time went by and she sat, forlorn, in G's driveway.

So anyway my roommate, B, canny dealer that he is, talked R into trading the BMW for the amp. More or less a fair trade, between friends. B even traded G his old Honda Cub in exchange for G's help replacing the head gasket (B isn't the most mechanical guy, either). But the deal got soured; this story is long enough as it is so I'll spare you the details. Anyway B was still willing to pay cash for the BMW and R was willing to sell but in the meantime B had the opportunity to buy a Royal Enfield for a really great price, and so he did. So B says to me, "you should buy the BMW, after all you're actually capable of fixing it", and it just so happened that I had come into some cash right about that time, and to be honest I was pretty jealous of B trying to buy this car, so I went for it.

Still with me? So now I own a 2002 that's been sitting in G's driveway for a year and a half. I gather up my tools and head over there to pull the head off and replace the gasket. G was kind enough to help me; I'm new to BMW's and G knows this car as well as anyone so he was a real asset. I don't know if I would have found that bolt underneath the intake manifold. We got the head off and cleaned up and discovered that there was quite a bit of rust in the first cylinder. We scraped it out best we could but it's pretty rough in there. And also the reason coolant was blowing in there was because a small chunk of the head had mysteriously vanished; it looks like there may have been a bubble in the casting in the area between the head of the first cylinder and the coolant channels, and the small amount of metal disguising it (and keeping the head intact) finally gave way. Anyway G was anxious to get the car out of his driveway (finally) and I was anxious to get it into mine, where it will be much easier to work on. Also I really wanted the engine to turn over, just so I don't feel like a fool for buying this thing. So we patched the hole with JB weld, cleaned it up best we could, and put 'er back together. And by gum if she didn't start up that night, after a bit of gentle coaxing. She runs pretty well, too, rusty cylinder and all.

I got her over to my place but as you might imagine the JB Weld didn't hold. Thanks to these here forums I've got a replacement head on the way- nothing fancy but I'll clean it up and slap it on and hopefully she'll run OK. She needs at least one new tire, and the brakes could use a going-over, and probably some suspension work, and most definitely some body work (it's nice to watch the road go by through the floorboards but it's not so much fun in the rain). Everybody wants to knwo what color I'm going to paint her but my first goal is to get her running reliably. But the answer is blue.

[morganfelder]

hey here's a pic!

That's the bike my roommate ended up buying.

Here's the missing chunk o' head:

yeah, that's gonna need some fixin'.

And the first cylinder:

It's shiny because we scrubbed it out with a chore boy. I KNOW.

[tashakes]

Congrats, it is a labor of love, and well worth it. Welcome to the club. Amazing how these just kinda pop up on you when you least expect it and BOOM, all of a sudden, you own a 02!!! Have fun.

[johnnysquare]

Paypal me some $ for postage and I'll mail you some grilles for that car. I pulled them from my first o2-- a zombie that went to the boneyard and has yet to come back.

john.blake@fuse.net

[morganfelder]

Thanks for the offer but I have the grilles! I have all the trim, actually; it's just that the guys who had it before me stripped it all off and started to do some bodywork. I'm waiting until I clean up the area around the grill to put 'em back on. That's what I'm doing today, as a matter of fact; since I can't work on the engine I figured I might as well whip out the bondo and primer.

[morganfelder]

She's alive! ALIVE! Thanks to 2002monster I got a replacement head. It's not in the best of shape but it doesn't have any extraneous holes and that's what's important.

In fact it has fewer holes than I would like- turns out it's from a car with an electric fuel pump, so the holes for the mechanical pump haven't been drilled! No way I can drill them out so I had to put in an electric fuel pump. Which is actually fine since I would have had to buy a pressure regulator anyway- one of the previous owners put a Weber DGV in it but no regulator, so the psi from the factory pump was too high. The electric pump I got delivers fuel with the proper pressure so two birds with one stone, I guess.

But she works! No leaks yet and the exhaust gases are pretty clear. I haven't adjusted the carb yet or checked the timing but she runs pretty well anyway. I probably should have adjusted the valves- one of them had a little play and I can hear it clicking. Maybe next weekend- I'm getting pretty good at cutting gaskets. Next up is new tires- the ones on her have flat spots and cracking and other signs of neglect- and then onto the brakes! She's pulling to the right. And once I get decent tires on her I can start troubleshooting the suspension etc.

[morganfelder]

Me again! As you may have noticed I don't really know what I'm doing but I'm not gonna let that stop me! This forum has been a great resource.

So; She runs. Her front tires were shredded and rotten, so that was my next step; but of course nothing is easy. Sometime in her misty past she was fitted with 205/60R13's and I have since discovered that they pretty much don't exist anymore, except for racing. There is a company that still makes them but the only US distributor for said company was out and awaiting a new shipment, which should be in around August sometime. Naturally I'm not gonna wait that long so I had 175/70R13's put on. The diameter is only different by 0.1" and I know wider is better but it's not like I'm racing this thing. And I can always get the 205's in August if I need 'em (they're only $80, I was thinking of investing in some. If I have any money left by then.)

With my new front tires she actually holds a straight line pretty well. She pulls to the right when braking tho. She's had some brake work done but only on one side, which probably explains the pulling; the other side is still broken. I'm pretty sure at least one of the calipers needs to be rebuilt but I've never done that and it doesn't cost too much more to buy rebuilt ones, so I'm gonna go ahead and replace both. And bleed the fluid good, and maybe replace some hoses too. I'm a little wary of brake work and I'm sure like everything else there's a bunch of unknown unknowns I'm about to discover but the brakes really need to work if I'm going to drive this thing. So that's next.

I adjusted the valve clearance and got rid of the ticky-tacky, but I wish I had replaced the valve seals before I put this head in the car, because I'm 99% sure they need to be replaced. Which I can do with the engine in I guess, but it would have been easier while it was on a bench. Live and learn. She still runs pretty well. I've adjusted the timing (I have a light gun) and maybe tomorrow I'll get around to checking the compression, I've had a tough time roping up assistants. But anyway then I'll have a better idea of what's actually going on. I know that first cylinder is a bit of a mess, the spark plug in that one is the only one that gets oil and crud on it. I have a vacuum gauge so I'll check that out too, maybe I'll learn something. I rebuilt the carburetor and jetted it ala c.d.iesel and it made a noticeable improvement, but there's still something not quite right. Of course it's quite possible that the engine needs to be rebuilt but I'm ignoring that possibility for now. Still, the more you know, right?

This is getting really long! I haven't even discussed the body work or the missing gas pedal yet, maybe tomorrow. I'll try to get some pictures too, everybody loves pictures. I must be off, it's dinner time.