My 500$ wonder (July 25th, MBC and 42#injectors )

[Pinepig]

She really does need a name, 500$ wonder just doesn't have any soul.

Anyway, here are the pics when I bought her home,

http://home.surewest.net/imapinepig/Thedeuce/

My introduction post on the 2002FAQ had the info about the deal,

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,57/page,viewtopic/t,270651/highlight,/

I've since put a 320 manifold on it, that post here,

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,57/page,viewtopic/t,271955/highlight,/

And since then they started the Project Blog pages, so this will be where I'll put all my crap now.

OK updates, I have the car running on Megasquirt but pulled a dumbass move and left the battery charger at 40amp starting on my pretty little Oddesy 680 that I had under the rear seat, bad idea and I smoked it. Oh well it just gives me a chance to do something else. So I made a rear strut bar/battery box out of some aluminum stock I had lying around.

Here's a pic of it. It wedges in place by turning the nuts on the threaded rod in the middle oposite directions. I may bolt the tray to the bottom to make sure the battery never ever moves no matter what.

[Pinepig]

I also promised you guys I'd show some pics of my throttle cable setup, so here goes. I used a 36' bicycle brake cable from the local bike store and made a few aluminum brackets to support the outer sheath.

The upper one is very simple and just a bent peice of flatstock shapped nicely with a couple of holes drilled in it to line the cable up to the TB.

The lower one took a bit more time but it too is basicly sone flat stock bent with a few holes and bolted to the body.

On both of them I welded the aluminum support ferrle to them to help keep the cable running where I wanted it too.

The throttle peddle arm was also shortened to get the proper amount of throw for the TB, I just used a set of vice grips and changed it a bit at a time until I got the proper amount of throw and then marked it.

I then welded a couple of spacers and an extra piece to make a slot in it and then drilled a hole and used a VW bug heater box cable clamp to hold the cable in place.

Pretty simple really, and the pics,

[Pinepig]

Last one for now.

Just a quick shot of the crank trigger bracket I made. Got the hall sender from Digikey ( I can look it up if anyone want's to know the part # )

And another pic of my car with some company so she doesn't get lonely ( built that one about 15 years ago for my pops). And one extra because I know you guys ( car lovers all ) would ask.

[TMK-001]

Nice Vette!!! Nice 2002!

Looks like it is coming along very well. What a great project on a small budget - mega squirt seems like a great way of getting decent drivablility out of the car.

Good luck!

Todd

[Pinepig]

I am the king of small budget. I hate paying for stuff I can make ( usually dirt cheap too ).

[TMK-001]

It must be handy with such a kick ass workshop at arms reach!

Great work.

Todd

[Pinepig]

I made some progress today,

dropped by pick and pull the other day on the way to work with a template of the door stop hole and was looking at some cheap ( that's me ) way to replace the broken door stops on my car.

Ended up getting a couple of rear door early 5 series ones. They bolt right in and fit in the door jam bracket just fine, problem is they are a little on the long side. Easy fix, just cut a piece out and weld it back together. Took me about 1/2 hour to do both of them and cost a whopping 20$ for both.

Couple of pics showing about how much had to go and how I got the length correct.

[Pinepig]

I stripped pretty much the whole car down the other day after work and had some spare time after the door stops so I got to shaving.

I'm gonna keep the belt line trim ( it just look funny without it ) but go early short chrome rear bumper, no mid trim rub strips, no front bumper with a front spoiler, no side markers and no antenna.

Man that was a lot of crap to weld up, a tip for the small round holes, use nails, run 'em through the grinder to make a bunch in certain sizes after you figure out how many you need.

Got some pics of that too and my progress so far ( all shaved that needed to go ) I'll finish the body work sometime this next week and order some paint for it too.

[Pinepig]

Almost forgot, it got to be a back pain work on all that low shit and I'm too much of a dumbass to put the car on the lift so I made a new shop chair for comfort.

[oz_tom]

Early bars look great on squaires IMHO... look forward to seeing it when its done!

Tom

[Pinepig]

OK some more progress and a couple of more pics ( nice clear outside ones to boot )

Got all the welded up holes filled sanded and primed. Man I hate body work, made for a long ass day.

Now I just have to pull the doors, front hood, trunk lid and the sunroof and start block sanding ( worse than body work ).

[Pinepig]

After looking over the old paint it just wasn't gonna block out very well so I grabbed the DA and started going to town, got it all down to the factory primer and started from there instead, a litle more work but since I'm going this far it might as well be done correctly.

Got up early this morning and got a couple of coats of 2k primer on the whole thing. Also specked a guide coat of ford engine blue ( hey it was handy )

When I washed it yesterday I got a good look at the body work progress while it was wet, looks damn good and should come out flawless after blocking.

Now I'll pull the windows ( cut the rubber back before priming ) doors, hood, trunk and sunroof and prep those too.

A few pics.

[Pinepig]

God I hate sanding. You find SOOOOO many problems and then fix that one, re prime that spot and do it all over again.

I did get the underside of the hood, trunk and sunroof painted plus a bunch of little parts ( hinges, brackets, rods, etc )

I'm ready to paint the top half now but this friggin heat wave we are having right now is making that problematic. Hell I had to get up a 5 AM so it was cool enough to spray the easy stuff. No way in hell I'm going to risk screwing up the main part of the car.

Hopefully next week we'll cool down a bit and it'll be 75 or so in the wee hours so I can get some paint on. Suposed to be 111 on Saturday, weeeeeeee.

[DanOKC]

Hey that's looking good, inspiration for those of us who haven't undertaken body work. A few posts back your pic of the crank trigger for megasquirt, how did you deal with the pulley, all the other megasquirt projects I see they put an aluminum ring w/missing tooth for the signal. Did you drill & mount a magnet ?

[Pinepig]

Hey that's looking good, inspiration for those of us who haven't undertaken body work. A few posts back your pic of the crank trigger for megasquirt, how did you deal with the pulley, all the other megasquirt projects I see they put an aluminum ring w/missing tooth for the signal. Did you drill & mount a magnet ?

Yep used 2 magnets and a non latching hall sender.

Just temporarily I have them glued on with instant glue ( tension so they are not likely to go anywhere anyway).

Digikey ( google it ) has some nice S pole magnets that almost look like a small caphead screw ( threaded ) I'll pick a couple of those up and drill and tap the pulley when I'm absolutely sure they are located in the correct spot.

If you have a hard time finding the right page drop a line back here and I'll see if I can dig it up for ya.