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Busy driving back from Mid America 02Fest yesterday so didn't post, but on 3 May 1969 I took delivery of my Nevada sunroof '69, after waiting over three months for it to arrive due to an East Cost dock strike that held it up in Hamburg. Still graces my garage and does its duty. First picture taken outside Bavarian Auto Sales, Woodside NY, 3 May 1969; second picture is at 3 Rivers in Pittsburg, July 2019. mike

Finally got one of my Recaro seats recovered. I bought these seats for about $300 from a wrecking yard in Minnesota. They were in bad shape. I still have to weld some new (rust free) metal on the passenger seat back frame. I got the Seat covers from Lseat.com. Seat covers are genuine leather outers and suede inners (no sweaty back and butt for me). The quality is very good. Install was pretty straight forward, but I wouldn't say it was easy. There was a lot of tugging, heating, pulling, stretching, etc. I think some of my challenges were due to the very early production of these seats. They were from a 1977 320i. I am very happy with the way it turned out. Unfortunately the passenger seat needs welding, otherwise I would have started with that one, leaving the driver seat for last. Still, I'm happy with it.

Yeah it rained and was windy as well. Not to mention the white knuckle drive from the East Bay. I was looking forward to this event for months and was really bummed with the forecast leading up to today, and that it was raining when I woke up. BUT I would have much rather be bummed in Brisbane than be bummed at home. 3 of us made the drive and we had a gas - I bought a part that I’d been searching for, a great turn out, talked to old friends and made new ones. Looking forward to the re sked in October!

A little rain ain't gonna stop us. Thanks to all the folks who put this on. Love you guys, John

This is an easy-to-make tool that I use.

Having condemned my original E21 head due to the water jacket holes being too corroded, I tore into my spare E30 1.8 engine today and was delighted to find that it's all but pristine! A 1982 engine with unknown mileage, and this thing is beautiful on the inside. Original crosshatch on the cylinders, nice clean valvetrain, head bolts popped satisfyingly on the way out. We're in business, lads.

They are Beige. I wiped down my original door panel from my 74 tii (sand beige) and put it next to the seats. It's a decent match, but not exact. The seats are definitely a little darker. I bought a whole hide from lseat.com for the door panels. They need to be redone anyway, so I figured matching leather would be best.

Double or nothin' t

Shakedown run! First long drive, and working well, since I bought it 18 months ago. Finally figured out my hard cold starting issue. It was…uh, user error. I forgot there was a manual button to activate the cold start valve. Once I tried starting with that it started right up even cold. 🤫 So I took it out into the canyons. Went on the freeway, up Pacific Coast Highway, across Mulholland, back PCH, about 65 miles in total. (IYKYK) A few observations: -Steering feels very light at center, with a little play, but more effort turning, or away from center. May be due the offset roll center spacers I installed under the struts for neg camber. May be it needs an alignment. Except for the outer tie rods, which don’t have any discernible play, the other suspension parts, center link, bushings, big sway bar, are all new. -Oil leak. I know it’s leaking from back of engine/trans mating joint. I assume that’s the rear main seal. On hard turns I get a whiff of burnt oil. Also shifting at high rpm (between 5-6k rpm). Probably leaking on the exhaust. -Huge knocking noise when turning is gone. Thought it might be diff. I now suspect the noise was the old janky exhaust. New IE exhaust seems to have fixed it. -Suspension feels good! Bilstein B8 and H&R/IEstage2 springs feel nice and taut. All new bushings front and back help too. -Trip-ometer does not work. Didn’t turn at all. -Odometer works too much. Logged about 350 miles when I only did 65. I’ll have to research that. -Feels very peppy! 4-speed isn’t so bad. I do have a 5-speed to swap in but that can wait. I need a driveshaft anyway. -I had 3 people make comments. Two gave me thumbs up, one Tesla driver chased me down to ask me questions at a light. He had a 69 in the past and loved seeing mine out. -So fun to drive!

It's official! Our our 2002's are relatively easy to repair! Hmmm, who knew...

Apologies for my mistake Geez.

Well, we needed to cancel the remainder of Swap & Show-2024-- about 10:30 AM we realized the wind & rain were too much to continue. We could NOT setup the raffle in the wet wind (how to keep the PA system dry and audible, how to display items and keep the item names and ticket boxes in place) and things below the 6 canopies were getting increasingly wet. Trying to sort bags,T-shirts and items to purchase (like sweatshirts, kids shirts, extra hats) was turning into chaos. While perhaps 20 cars parked on the lawn and maybe 10 more in the swap area, everyone was congregating under a canopy. Some people who started setting up at 7AM were pretty soaked. It was a super effort but we were overcome by the storm. We have opened discussions of a "replacement" Swap&Show in the Fall but we're still in the discussion stage. Stay tuned! Larry

@tech71 don't worry about sending it. Consider our 'exchange' thus far a 'tip' for all the other people here you've already helped as well. This dist is already all back together and works perfectly as designed. Once the clip is opened, the center shaft pops right off. Two more small circlips and the advance weights and springs escape. The timing wheel unit fit perfectly down on the new(er) dist shaft. The oem square hole (in the pic below, bottom unit) grants access to the set screw that locks the wheel to the shaft. Only had to drill and tap one hole for the anti-rotation flag, as one hole and screw use to hold the dist cap clip. I'll have to wait til tomorrow to put it back on the car. I'll need to reset pot #1 to TDC then set up the wheel. Scroll back, the white marks I put there...the eleventh tooth lines up when at TDC. Then the curve is dialed in on the HPV-1. jff ... As to the Pertronix.... I'm still running a Perlux module in a '75 Triumph Spitfire (over twenty five years now in MY hands) Perlux was the name of the company, before a group of engineers there, got together and bought the division and renamed the company Pertronix. So this module is a minimum of 3+ decades old and still runs perfectly. I've probably installed nearly 50 over my life time. Love 'em. ptegler

I just welded in a few small patches and the floor in my '73 was 18 gauge FWIW

Dry ice really is the way to go. It wasn't so much patience that is necessary but a tolerance for the pending mosquitos that will show up in time due to the off-gassing carbon dioxide. Ask me how I know....

This was why I ran 4 egts on the race car- plugs don't tell you which circuit's the problem. +1 for everything Byron said, but adding that you should balance the carbs when they're up 'on the linkage' not at idle. So you'll need a way to use the linkage to pull the rpms up to 1500 or so, and hold it there. THEN check balance. I found that setting 'best idle' by leaning each barrel until it stumbled, then opening just a bit past where it settled down gave a good, even, slightly rich idle that worked best. 12ish on the wideband. Also, check and recheck float levels- they directly affect all a/f ratios. t unisyn

I think it will end up being stronger to just do a patch and leave it as much of the existing metal as possible, The bend at the transition from the tunnel to the floor pan, adds a lot of strength and having as much metal as possible on both sides of that bend/ corner will help.

Rusty, The block should have a casting date, likely one to four months before the original car’s October 1977 manufacturing date. Check the head’s type and casting date, as well, to see if it was originally a tii head. Most factory tii heads through U.S. VIN 2762372 were type 121 heads. From U.S. VIN 2762373 onward, tii’s had E12 heads. Here’s an article that will help you find the block and head casting dates: And, yes, many of the original tii bits — such as the aluminum runners, front engine covers, and injection pumps — will have casting dates as well. It sounds as if tii components were swapped onto an e21 block after the original block failed. If you see 1974 casting dates on the four aluminum intake runners, dollars to doughnuts the tii equipment came off a 1974 tii… If you show us a photo of the left side of the accumulator (plenum), to which those runners mount, we can see in a flash whether it’s a 1974 model year component. Regards, Steve

Oh man, I've spend many an hour watching Fitzee. That's exactly the technique I was going to use after I plug welded to the sill and firewall.

I've found that 165 tire width and 5 1/5 wheel width are the most the unmodified well can handle, verified on multiple cars.

I agree, keep the spark plugs out and crank the engine using the starter (in ~20 second stages, allow the starter to cool a bit) until the oil pressure warning light goes out. You'll likely see via the oil filler cap hole a healthy amount of oil on the cam/rockers, which means you have the green light to install the spark plugs and fire it up! Oh yeah, touch the cam oil spray bar banjo bolt with a wrench if the valve cover is off before endeavoring with the above . . . .

You can sell me the wheels first😁…… they’d need shipping to Aus though😉

No need to pour any oil over the cam area specially when its been sitting only 3 years. You are already approaching very cautiously with other steps to revive it. Its always exciting to see one come alive first time in many years. Please post videos if you can.

Replaced the original seats with a pair of E21 Recaros that someone reposted from Craigslist here a few years ago. Finally summoned the courage to do it myself with the help from Dave @ Aardvark BMW for the adapters. Straight forward fit and install. New seat straps as well. I used muscles I haven't called-up in years to get this done! The seats do transform the ride; I was surprised by this. So supportive and I like the look as well. Yet, I do miss the old look of the originals which I need to store properly. The old ones have the original vinyl which I want to keep for future go-back to classic look. Cheers

Thank you all for your kind words. Bill was my grandfather ( that's me when I was 16 or 17 in the green shirt in the original post) , and it fills me with joy to see that he's had a positive affect on so many. I cherish the time I spent working for him at road rockets, and though I've been a bit of a lurker on here, I now have no-one in my family to go to with questions about my 02. I suppose I'll have to become more active from here on out... but I digress- every time I converse with someone who knew him I get to hear more stories about him and all of his adventures. If anyone reading this thread has any more of those stories I would love to hear them, either on this thread or in a dm (if that's how it works, still not very familiar with the innerworkings of this site). Hopefully I'll carve out some time to say a few words on the 20th, and I'd love to include some stories from those who may not be able to attend, so that their voices may be heard as well. I always felt that bill had a way of turning engine building into an art, and it thrills me to know that others feel the same. Thank you all again, Jack.

One of the first things that threw me for a loop. The tip needs to be unscrewed from the spark plug to work in the spark plug wires typically sold for these cars. If your tip doesn't unscrew then the plug is the wrong part number. BP6ES plugs with solid tips that *don't* unscrew do exist. Ask me how I know... And your sparkplug wires don't look like the Kingsborne wires I have. Doublecheck your receipt.