Rigmaster

It's no big deal, you can replace the studs if you like, but I would just rethread them into the head when you reinstall the manifold. Use some blue loctite if you like, but not necessary. Can't advise you on official torque value- I always use "goodntight". Bret.

Well, I'm not gonna say that, but it's probably true. You said you didn't want to use a cutting ring head gasket because your head had been milled down close to minimum thickness. BMW installed the cutting ring HG on tii's to help cut down on problems with blown HG's due to the higher compression. It's a gamble, choose your poison- having to mill down the head everytime you change the head gasket when using a cutting ring gasket, or risking the possibility of a blown headgasket using a non-cutting ring gasket. I've heard that you can use the E30M3 (S14) HG with some mods- it should be able to stand up to tii compression...... Bret.

That part number is a BMW part number: http://www.realoem.com/bmw/partxref.do?part=11121734142&showus=on&showeur=&details=1 It's for M10 318i's, so the head gasket will work on your car, but you'll get a bunch of others in that set that you don't need, and will need some that are not in the set. It's not a cutting ring headgasket- that would be a tii headgasket. Bret.

Sorry if this is long, but it's all 100% true. Summer of 1984, I was in college, driving a 1973 VW Thing. I saw an ad in the local newspaper that read something like this: "1969 BMW 2002 with '72 tii engine. Over $5000 in receipts, lots of spare parts. Needs brake work and exhaust repair. New gas tank and fresh paint. $1500 OBO." Now, I had owned a couple of aircooled VW's, but never a BMW or any other type of car. One of my good friends in High School used to tell me how cool the 2002tii was, and that it would be the BMW to get if we could afford one. I had to believe him because his dad owned a 1957 507 that would carry the homecoming queen around the football field at our High School homecoming festivities!! So, he was the closest thing to a BMW expert that I ever knew. So, I called the number in the ad, spoke to a guy and got some more details. It seemed that he had indeed spent a bunch of money on the car, and he even painted it himself a couple of weeks prior. He said it was a pretty good car overall, but it was not safe to drive because it had no brakes and a bad exhaust leak. I made arrangements to look at the car that afternoon. I met the seller at his parents house, he was probably ~25 or so (keep in mind I was 20, so he was "an older dude"). At first glance, the car looked pretty good, but upon closer inspection, the paint was horrible. It had huge runs in it, plus various bugs and dirt embedded in it thanks to the open carport area where he painted it. I asked if I could drive it, he said it was really not safe, but he would take me for a drive around the neighborhood. We hopped in, the car cranked up right away, and off we went. At the corner stop sign, he reaches down and yanks the parking brake handle to slow the car a bit, glances both ways and turns right. Car seems to be running OK, but I'm a bit preoccupied with the thought of dying at the hands of this guy and this brakeless car. One thing I remember is that we drove down a street named Sleepy Hollow something, and I expected to see the headless grim reaper chasing after us!! We made it back to this guy's house OK and he said that he had some spare parts in the basement of the house that went with the car. He drug out some crusty rusty tii strut housings and told me how they would bolt right on and give me "big brakes". He also had a box of spare crap to go with the car, PLUS a huge manila file folder of receipts. Some were stupid stuff like Bondo (I should have noticed this....) and brake fluid, but there were lots of receipts from the local dealership for things like "fix exhaust leak" and "New fuel tank". I ended up buying the car for $1000, and got my dad to come back later the next day to drop me off and follow me home in my new 2002!! I started out fixing things in order of their likelihood of causing me bodily harm- first was brakes. The front calipers were dragging, but not leaking- both rear wheel cylinders were completely blown out- so I got 2 new ones and that almost fixed the brake problem. Next was the exhaust- the rear muffler was an Ansa sport muffler, and it was almost new, but it did not fit up to the centerpipe flange at all. There was a ~1/4" gap at best, but the muffler just did not look right. I later found out that the muffler was for a 320i, apparently the parts place sent the PO the wrong muffler and he never figured it out. I got a stock replacement muffler and installed it and that took care of the exhaust. I drove the car some to sort it out, and it would jump badly to the right when you hit a bump. I was not sure what the problem was- I installed some NEW KYB Gas Adjust front struts and the ride was 10000% better. Then I took it to get a front end alignment, but the shop said that the "draglink" was worn out. Back to the BMW dealer for a new draglink- I think it cost about $40 at the time. I installed that and took it back for alignment, and it was driving great!! I noticed some bondo in the rocker panels and the front fenders while working on the car. I poked the rocker a bit and it sort of crumbled, the PO evidently stuffed the rusted-out rockers with steel wool and newspapers and then covered them with bondo before his carport paint job!! I noticed that all 4 of the rear axle CV boots were totally shredded and mostly non-existent. It appeared that the car had spent some time sitting flat on the ground with no wheels- probably at a junkyard or behind a shop!! I bought 2 used halfshafts from a guy at the local VW parts place and put them in (they're still in there today). I began to notice that this car was a conglomeration of cars. I knew about the '69 body and '72 tii engine, but it had some carpet and seats from a 75-76, door panels from another car, center console from another, etc, etc. It reminded me of the Johnny Cash song "One piece at a time" (see lyrics here: http://www.toptown.com/hp/66/onepiece.htm ). I never found out the true history of the car, and why it was an assortment of so many cars. Another strange problem I encountered that I attributed to the PO was the brown wire (one of 3) that goes from the alternator to the voltage regulator would occasionally short out and melt all of the insulation off while trying to start the car. I replaced this wire 4 or 5 times, but could never figure out why this happened. I even took the car to a BMW independent shop (the first AND last time it has EVER been in the shop except for tires and alignment)- they said that I had a bad ground, and advised me to add a ground strap from the engine to the body. I did this (actually bolted a heavy guage wire from the braided ground strap to the strut tower) and thought it fixed the problem, but it eventually happened again. It turns out that the PO had used a bolt that was about 1-2mm too long for the ground strap to engine block. It was tight, but not tight enough since the bolt bottomed out in the hole before it got the strap completely tight! Once I installed the correct length bolt, everything was fine. I still own this car, it was the "Art Car" for Vintage at the Vineyards 2005. I have rebuilt the engine, installed a rebuilt tranny, and lots of other repairs over the years, but she has been a great car. Speaking of license plate repairs- I once bought a nice looking tii that had recently had a bunch of bodywork and complete repaint, but the PO used 2 old license plates to cover rust holes in the drivers side floor pan. Then there's the 71 2002 that I bought that had a siezed engine, the owner advertised it's condition as "no visible rust" because he had obviously spent the previous weekend with a 5 gallon bucket of Bondo and a case of black Krylon making the rust NON-visible. I could go on, but these are the high (low?) lights.... Bret.

Awesome video Bob, thanks!! I can only watch the first 2:50 of it though, anyone else have the same problem??? Bret.

Ehh, everyone's entitled to their own opinion- I'm glad you shared yours about the Roundel V@V article. I did want to publicly thank Scott and Patty for all of their hard work and devotion to this event. I don't think many people realize just how hard it is to make an event like this run soooo seamlessly, Scott and Patty make it look easy!! As far as I know, the "team" is pretty much Scott and Patty, with some other help as needed at the event. Anyway, thanks a million for a job well done!!! Bret.

I can't see that worn spindles could be the problem, especially if you see no wear on them. What about the hubs?? It seems to me that if the hubs were worn, or wrong, or had ill-fitting bearing races in them, then that could be the problem. When you tighten the spindle nut, you are squeezing the bearings and the hubs/races together. Does the nut bottom out on the threads before the whole thing seems to tighten up? No offense, but if the spindles are somehow wrong/undersize, then you're best bet is to bite the bullet and swap the strut housings. It's not hard and not very expensive. Bret.

Incorrect. e21 320i 5speed on the left, e21 323i 5speed bellhousing on the right. I swapped the euro bellhousing onto the 320i 5speed. Matt Uhh Matt, that's NOT the bellhousing in your pic- it's the whole damn tranny case!!!! The bellhousing is just the front part, that covers the clutch/flywheel. MOST BMW tranny's do not have removeable bellhousings in the tradititional sense. Some Early E28 528e's have them, as well as the E30M3 and some others. The trick setup is the bellhousing from an early 528e, combined with an E30M30 gearbox, which allows you to bolt the CR M3 tranny to an M20 (still don't have a speedo drive for 2002 swap use, but.........). Bret. Bret.

1) it's impossible to say, but only the '77 320i (and 323i's) came with vented front rotors. I think you can bolt the vented rotor to any of the 320i hubs, but the early hubs have larger bearings than the later hubs. You need the later hubs to fit stock 2002 (non-tii) spindles. 3) I think we have a problem with terminology. The hubs come off VERY easily, once you get the hub nut removed, they should just pretty much flop off. The hubs are bolted to the rotor with a small set screw. Does this help? Bret

I heard a rumor that Esty and Al Canuck hang out in there "alone together", planning the next big 2002FAQ controversy.

We're having a little informal get together on Sunday Aug 6th at our farm near Raleigh, NC. There's no real program so far, other than get together, chat about BMW's and cars and whatever, check out others cars- maybe some light-duty wrenching, and some sort of meal- probably at a semi-famous local BBQ joint. All are welcome. Email me for details or directions- I'll probably post up some directions in the coming week. Thanks! Bret.

Ehhh, bullshit. If you want to restore your car with all OEM parts down to the last nut and bolt, then good for you. BUT, if you have a 2002 driver and want to keep driving it, and keep some of the wind out of the door cracks, this looks like a good solution to the $200 each OEM door seals. This is a totally "non-invasive", easily reversible repair- if someone decides that they must have the OEM door seals sometime in the future, they can yank these out in about 2 minutes and no one will be the wiser. I for one am not looking forward to the ever more elitist attitude that some 2002 owners are cultivating. Bret.

Stock for SOME 2002's is 215mm, stock for the early cars (pre-74) was 228mm- they're not hard to find, why not just use one of those??? To answer your question, I've never tried to fit a 528e flywheel to a 2002, so I don't know if it would work. One thing to consider is weight- AFAIK, the 528e flywheel is one of those "dual-mass" flywheels, so it weighs like 40 lbs- not something I'd want to have to spin up with an M10 engine........ Bret.

Ahh, gotcha, the core plug that's sorta in the end of the "L" shaped part where the hose attaches. Sorry, can't help with why it's happening, maybe a bad batch of pumps since the bad ones have come from the same source?? Funny thing is, back in the day (1980's), the general consensus was to avoid the Italian-made pumps due to a high failure rate, and stick with the W.German-made pumps....... Bret.

By "plug" I assume you mean the little "weep hole" that's drilled in the body of the water pump?? If so, then coolant should not leak out of there at all. If you get another pump, DON"T plug that hole. If you see coolant leaking from that hole, that means that the seal around the water pump impeller shaft is leaking. If the hole was not there, you would not be able to tell the seal was leaking until the pump failed completely. Bret.

hmm, well there should be some resistance/friction, but you should be able to turn it over by hand- using the crank pulley and both bare hands. You should be able to turn it over using a 1/2" drive ratchet and socket on the crank pulley nut- maybe it just needs to be turned over like that a couple of revs, then try it by hand. Bret.

hehe. Well, it's the name of the farm that we own and live on. About 30 minutes SE of Raleigh, in Johnston County. Bret.

Don't take this the wrong way, but if you don't understand how DC power (car electrics) works, you need to get that straight first before doing this repair- otherwise just pay someone to fix it, or at least get someone to help you who knows what they are doing. Sparks and gas do not mix. You are right, you don't want the fuel pump straight-wired to the battery. You'll need to find a switched 12v+ wire to tap into and then just ground the 12v- wire (ground wire) to a good clean ground point. But back up a minute, was this fuel pump working recently, or are you trying to install it from scratch?? Bret.

rear quarters are the same, roundie or squarie. Soooo, you could weld in a roundie center rear panel and convert the rear of a squarie to a roundie...... Bret.

I was there Weds-Sunday. It was a great event, no 2002's racing, but I saw a couple of nice looking cars tooling through the paddock- a 2002 touring came by our spot a couple of times. Anyone on the board go to this event?? It was a VARAC Vintage race weekend. A great time was had by all- too bad it's ~16 hours away........ Bret.

I will be there.......... Actually I'm working for a shop doing trackside support for 2 vintage race cars. Not 100% sure which customers' cars we are bringing, but I think it will be 2 Alfa's. I'll be there all weekend, look for the light blue + white Ford F350 dually with the 2 car enclosed trailer- white with some old graphics on it- "BC Racing" (former owner's name- we just havent' gotten around to taking them off yet......). Bret.

Lemme guess, this was supposed to be a reply to an existing thread?? Better let the brains of the operation (Biscus) do the posting from now on.... Bret.

This might help: http://www.vintageatthevineyards.zoomshare.com/ I'll be there- bringing the Art car "canvas" again this year....... Bret.

No, it is not an illusion. Best weather we've had at Carlisle Import in a longggggggg time. Rained alot overnight thurs/fri early AM, but the rest of the weekend was pretty nice. A few showers on Friday, and one or two sprinkles on Sat, but lots of clear sky. It was really windy though- but I'll take that over rain anytime. Saw some nice cars and folks, bought and sold some parts, drank some good Yeungling, it was a good weekend! Bret.

I sold one almost 2 years ago for ~$600. Bret.