I keep coming back and keep going older

[steaksauce]

So once again this winter I decided it was time for me to get out of the car scene to focus on being a responsible adult... well it just didn't sick :rofl . This is my 3rd bimmer, first was an e30, then an e21 and then I had the chance to pick up this 2002. The previous two had been daily drivers and I seemed to spend every weekend fixing something. I finally have a daily-driver so the 2002 can be slowly built which means that there will be balance of family and cars.

Woke up at 6 this morning to make the normally 4 hr drive down to pick the car up... but then we had to deal with this most of the way down which turned 4 hours into 6... it sucked lol.

Finally we made it though, the body is rough but the frame rails, floor boards and towers are all solid. The interior was stripped out but luckily my buddy had a full set of tan interior which I'll be throwing in it.

Plans:

Lots of body work (finally a chance to learn how to weld and paint)

MK1 Fender flares, Love how they look on Cubbychowder's 2002

Clean up the bay of all the randomly running around wires

who knows what else lol.

Basically first up will be getting it road worth, then probably will do body work over the winter.

Finally the reason I went older... my dad's (someday mine after a buy a bigger house to please the wife) 72 2002.

[M3M3M3]

interesting that all the holes for rear bumper are filled.

love the front seats in the rear...you should keep that look in the final incarnation! :-)

[Conserv]

love the front seats in the rear...you should keep that look in the final incarnation! :-)

Agreed, Marshall. I have long dreamed of taking a Lux rear seat (with folding armrest) and installing a pair of front headrests in the backrest for a mini-3.0Si look. I've got spare matching headrests but Lux rear seats (for sale separately) are not so easy to find. (I know, I could either skip the folding armrest feature or modify a stock backrest for a folding armrest but that would require some research, thought, and work!)

I'm certain a few have done the rear headrest look by now.

Steve

[steaksauce]

I also like the look as well, I know coming from e30's a lot of guys have installed headrests on a coupe rear seat and they look pretty good.

_____

So today it was finally not freezing balls cold out so I cleaned out the '02 some but then... it rained... gotta love Missouri weather.

After pulling out everything which included the door cards and 3 sets of buckets (yeah 3 sets lol) this is what I was left with. Once it warms up some more some major clean up will happen, right now just seeing what I have pretty much.

Then I popped the hood, car fires right up which is nice but it could use some cleaning up under the hood. MSD ignition, Weber carb, and long tube header are the highlights.

[M3M3M3]

is that rust coming through the LR shock tower?

[steaksauce]

interesting that all the holes for rear bumper are filled.

love the front seats in the rear...you should keep that look in the final incarnation! :-)

Yeah someone decided to shave everything they could on it including the door handles which I'm not a fan of. already working on trading for some doors with handles, Probably will reverse some of their shaving because I feel like it takes away from the old school look. Someone was attempting to build a race car out of it but that is no where close to the plan for this one now.

[steaksauce]

is that rust coming through the LR shock tower?

Its just surface, there is a small spot on a rear one too. both will be taken down to metal. this car has a good amount of rust but I was happy with the price.

Fenders and doors will be replaced and new rockers welded in. Its very hard to find these cars in Missouri and I paid about what shipping would have been alone to ship one from Cali. Plus eventually I'll own my dads which is a California car and has zero rust, this one is more to play with haha.

[Koblenz]

Looks like a good find. Congrats.

I just woke up but, is the interior turkis?

Personally I like the shaved look. BTW, where you are looks painfully ass cold. It must be freezing in the car. Keep us posted on the rebuild.

[steaksauce]

Well since it was like 60 when I got off work, I shot up to my parents where the '02 is calling home for now and messed with it briefly. Finally put some extra e21 wheels I had one so I have tires that no longer go flat after an hour. Previous owner cut the springs so it sits nicely... only time will tell how well it rides lol.

So the sunvisors and mirror look poor on this car so I've decided to run my wink mirror. I actually love these functionality wise so I embrace my former jdm days lol. Was going to install it but to my surprise the roof is actually wider than pretty much every car this as been in (Integras, E30 and even an s10) so I'll have to make some custom brackets to see if I can make it work.

Cleaned the dash up to see how bad it is and I think it will stay, gauge cluster isn't working plus the speedo no longer has a needle... thinking custom cluster... more on that later. Also the center console looks like crap so I'm going to ditch all of it and hack up a e21 console and make something custom and maybe run an e28 console around the ebrake. Nothing to exciting, still in clean up mode. Probably going to be upgrading the rear brakes with e21 brakes since I have them laying around and maybe swap in the ebrake set up from an e21 as well.

Also was sorting through the trunk to see how bad the spare area was... lets just say thats getting cut out. Thinking about going the fuel cell route. Other than that the trunk is actually pretty good.

[Koblenz]

A few have used the E21 rims. Its a good look. Big fan of the wink. Mine is 5 frames and fits. I used some home depot L brackets then painted them black.

Regarding the console, if you toss it I am interested. Depending on condition.

[steaksauce]

A few have used the E21 rims. Its a good look. Big fan of the wink. Mine is 5 frames and fits. I used some home depot L brackets then painted them black.

Regarding the console, if you toss it I am interested. Depending on condition.

Awesome thanks for the tip, I've been think of what to use bracket wise. On the console I'll let you know once I get it cleaned up, I won't be using it since the a/c is being tossed. Its missing the driverside panel but the rest seems decent

[steaksauce]

Well last night did a little more work along with some this morning. First up is removing the A/C, all thats left on it is removing the condenser which will require taking out the radiator. Then I tried to fit some e21 carpet in that I had laying around but it didn't fit to my liking so I'm going to see if I can find some carpet locally but if not then I'll make it work. Next up was putting in the seats and rear door cards, since I'm replacing the doors I decided not to mess with the front ones.