Update on my ratty 1602 (part 1)

[ratty1602]

In for a penny, in for a pound. The never-ending story of my ratty/frankenstein 1602 continues. Been a while since I posted anything but the car is slowly coming along....  don't think there's anything that I haven't touched. Sorry for the picture intensive post, I'll split this into multiple parts. If there is any task anyone is interested in in detail just let me know.

 

Brakes; New brake lines all around, and rebuilt the rear 1602 (200mm) brakes...  Had to find a brake place that would re-line the old 200mm shoes. Found a place that does it for large trucks, and usually those shoes measure diameter in tens of inches. They laughed at the size of these shoes. Got it back together with new hardware, brake cylinders, re-lined shoes, new cables, etc. Like-new tiny stopping power! Found a cup of fluid in the booster and also swapped out the master cylinder before bleeding and bleeding and bleeding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suspension: Rebuilt/replaced the suspension. Some sort of eBay shocks (Stagg?) with Vogtland lowering springs. Removed the US headlights spacers, as well as replaced all the rear springs seats/pads, and threw in IE fixed camber plates up front. Everything (particularly the front strut inserts) put up a fight. 

 

 

 

 

 

The PO had bro-stanced the car by cutting the springs....  quite a bit. 

 

 

Also threw on new ball joints. 

 

 

Interior:

 

Picked up a set of E30 sport seats and need to figure out a way to mount these...   intend to adapt the few ways people have done this in the past, but including cutting out the stock seat supports and making some custom mounts. Also managed to find an old Raid in 360mm on which I liked the patina so that's going in to replace the OMP travesty currently in the car. 

 

 

 

Electrical:

 

The biggest nightmare job has been re-wiring the whole car with an universal harness. I decided to go with Speedway's 22-circuit harness to replace the 40 years of previous owner hacks, electrical tape, bro-tastic stereo installs, and cut out the whole rat's nest. In addition to modern (and fused) wiring replacing the old 6-fuse setup, the goal was to add support for accessories, a stereo, electrical fan, and driving lights, etc. without setting the car on fire....

 

Found this quite a good value for the price, with excellent instructions. It's aimed at a GM-based street-rod, but easily adaptable to our cars. 

 

 

 

Cleaned all the switches. 

 

 

Super cloth tape!

 

 

I also took apart and fixed the used (later 70s) cluster.... bit of soldering and fixing and adapting and we have a working cluster with the new harness! 

 

 

Some other stuff...  also picked up a set of nicely patina'd Carello driving lights, and an E21 radiator that I intend to wire up with an electrical fan. 

 

 

Finally,  does anyone know whether the curve on the right kidney grille is stock on an 02 at all? Not sure that's from a different BMW or just bent into that shape, but pretty sure the stock-ish grille looks like the one on the left? 

 

 

In terms of exterior...  she's still a massive disaster, but that's for another post.

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by ratty1602
Clean up

[Mike Self]

11 minutes ago, ratty1602 said:

Finally,  does anyone know whether the curve on the right kidney grille is stock on an 02 at all? Not sure that's from a different BMW or just bent into that shape, but pretty sure the stock-ish grille looks like the one on the left?

I think the right grille in the picture has been bent up at the top.  It appears to have a pop rivet or two on the center divider, something an 02 grille didn't have, so this one may have been "repaired" by a PO.

 

mike

[ratty1602]

14 minutes ago, mike said:

I think the right grille in the picture has been bent up at the top.  It appears to have a pop rivet or two on the center divider, something an 02 grille didn't have, so this one may have been "repaired" by a PO.

 

mike

 

The car has had many "creative" solutions that I've found (A+ for creative use of zip-ties to hold the rear brakes together) so you're probably right. It looks like an 02 grille, just has the weird shape at the top that seems too smooth of a curve to have been a result of an impact.