Project Polaris - TMK-001's 1973 squarie rebuild.

[TMK-001]

Hey Tommy,

My friend say a white 2002 in Geelong that had a learner driving it... he dropped the clutch in it in front of him from a light.

I was wondering if it was you!?!

I have held off from buying rims as I want to see if I can test fit yours to see how much clearance I will have before I go too much further ahead...

Todd

[oz_tom]

Haha, im not sure mate... we havent been down to Geelong in Whitey since the scout run. I probably did some spirited driving before we met up lol but if this was recently... probably not :-(

Whitey has the interior pretty much all out at the moment. Shaun is coming around and giving me a hand with the stereo installation. I think im going to have to fab up some fibreglass speaker mounts to make the 6.5"'s fit up the front. Should be worth it though :-D

Your still coming up to Melb next sat night yeh? Bring your camera!!

Tom

[Timbo]

Hey Todd, will your car be ready by October 28? The proposed Mansfield run looks awesome - 02 days of fun in the mountains!

Tom, are you & Bill planning to come?

[TMK-001]

Hey Tim!

I am HOPING like hell that I will be ready in time for the run! I am not willing to promise anything when it comes to timelines however. I remember I said I would be at the last one... hahahaha.

Fingers crossed! Toes crossed! Legs crossed! I want to get it in time for a pilgrimage to German Autofest on the second weekend of October...

I think Tom is in the middle of exams at that point in time, so he might not make it. I hope he can though!

Cheers!

Todd

[Timbo]

I hope you can make it too! I love the high country and 02's were made to go there! I suspeced Tom might be caught up in exams at that time....

Question for you re. your front wing panels - W&G have a special on this week and can ship one OEM wing for $155 total (57 for the panel plus 98 for a seat on the plane!). How does this compare with what you paid locally? I'm thinking I might start to assemble some replacements....

[TMK-001]

From memory... I think I paid $350 each for my guards.

W&N you mean? They have their own presses which are not as good as BMW I hear, but I suspect that doesn't mean much...

My guards (or wings as they call 'em here!) were exceptional, but my hood and nose section from Mobile Tradition came with slight imperfections, dented or damaged.

I kicked and screamed over them, so they repaired it all, but they would not say the next ones to come through wouldnt be the same...

BMW are pretty good to deal with - if there is a fault, they wont make you wear it, they will do something to fix it for you. I doubt W&N would do that.

Todd

[oz_tom]

Im not sure if ill be able to make it. Very up in the air at the moment! Bill might represent though :-p

Are you planing a mini restoration Timmy?

Tom

[TMK-001]

I planned a mini restoration Tom :-P

I hope you and I can both make it. Any idea of when exams are on yet? I thought they are normally all over by the last week of October with the only thing remaining is like woodwork and other random subjects like LOTE.

Todd

[oz_tom]

Unfortunatly not :-(...

My last ones on Novemeber 10th...

[TMK-001]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ah well, there is plenty more activities on the horizon!

Todd

[TMK-001]

Bout time I did a big update...

I dedicated a bit of time off work for me to put some time in before it got painted, only to be told that my desired time for finish would be pushed out by 3 weeks... which was supposed to be this Thursday (once again not happening) so I decided I would strip all of the interior out and do things right...

I started by removing all of the carpet, not difficult, a few small screws and some tooling about removing the center consol.

Under the carpet was 3 layers of sound deadening and fibro sheeting in moulded forms joined by bitumen and other cloth and stuff... random! I finally got to the bottom of it!

I noticed there was a bit of rust around some of the 5 speed mounts and thought I would strip back all of the bitumen... I started in the drivers footwell (rhd) and as I went around the transmission mounts and found it was just simple surface rust.

The more "digging" I did, I found a small hole in the floor, I continued to dig and found that water had leaked in from under the master cylinder/pedal box area on the RHD car.

It has rolled down into the footwell and sat there... it rusted out around the pedal pivot point.

I continued digging and found what started out small and ended up being pretty serious...

Backlit for more dramatic impact:

So I stripped it back to bare metal...

Then the experts went to work. Initially we were looking at cutting down the middle of where the subframe mount/chassis rail goes to hide the weld from below...

We decided the best idea was to drill out the spotwelds and cut along them then weld the new section in along the spot welds and they would look more factory from underneath...

So I just kinda watched from here on...

Overall I was very happy with the job, it is bearly noticeable which is a huge plus... strong and well done.

So when that was all done, I stripped everything out of the interior and covered it all in POR15...

This is as much as I could do before I headed home last night - I had a commitment back in Geelong.

I also painted all of the window sills and frame area, a big part of the trunk area and a few other areas I know water will sit.

The panel shop bloke was a bit sceptical of the whole POR15 thing, but the second I opened the tin he was interested in trying it on a few of the cars there and liked it. The mustang in front of me was getting the trunk area and a bit of the interior painted out in black enamel and by the time he masked, painted, etc. I had hand painted the whole floor of my car and stuffed around on a few other projects... mine looked pretty smooth and the Mustang looked a bit light on with the coverage.

The window sills were in very good condition - this pic isn't the best - rest assured the frame is very solid.

Other projects have been the installation of my Braille battery under the rear seat - it is not 100% complete - I have to get some rubber matting to finish it off completely - it will be layed over so the terminals will not touch the seat and the rubber will protect it from the floor and seat kick panel.

I have installed a battery cut off switch - FIA approved - complete with pull tab to be inserted outside of the car in serious motorsports events (you never know, I could get around to some sort of motorsports! :-P) it will also be used as a security device...

The battery weighs 4.3kg from memory and is used in a number of motorports applications - including WRC and other World racing series...

I also had a 14" Davis Craig fan installed.

From the engine bay, you can not tell anything... the controller is hidden out of site in the front nose section. I will take some pics of the 'finer' details when I head back on Monday... hopefully we might see some paint on the car in the next two weeks. I'm optimistic that time is coming very soon for the Polaris project to become Polaris rather than a grey undercoat look! (Grey matter?)

As for wearing gloves when using POR15, I couldn't really as the boys were taking the piss out of me wanting to put gloves on... so I started painting and got it ALL over me!! I ended up scrubbing myself all over with thinners to get it off - all over arms and even on my face I had dots - dont ask :-P

It's been good fun! Maybe one day soon, I will get to drive it again!

Todd

[oz_tom]

Holy Moly you have been busy!! Its good to see ur still making some progress :-)

All i can say is you better have it on the road by Oct 27th! You guys are gonna have so much fun on that drive. I am soooo bummed i cant make it. After exams, the first thing we're all doing is going for a GOR drive!!! I will call this my cool down period :-D!

Anyway, keep your chin up mate! It will be done soon enough. Perfection takes time ;-)

Tom

[TMK-001]

DO the GOR drive... to Schoolies! AHAHAHA!! Do it! :-P

I have been busy, my hopes and dreams are to get it out by the end of the month, I highly doubt it though.

I got my rain gutter trims this afternoon... the box is too big to fit in the back of the ute FFS!?! AHAHA It would have cost more to ship it than it would have cost to make and package it! Any wonder BLUNT doesn't sell them!

[Harv]

Looking good!

John

[Guest Anonymous]

Yeah, it is slowly getting there... you know for yourself that you cant rush things. - Todd