JustinB

emails sent to those of you with questions who wanted to be contacted... Now my email is available as a button, didn't know I hadn't had that set before.

His name is Dale Kiehn, and is out of Castro Valley. His website is www.kiehnmachining.com. The site is pretty modest, but he's certainly got the equipment and experience to do the job and turn out a nice piece. I think they came out great, I'd definitely recommend him. Between the price, turn around time (damn near zilch) and ease of working with him, consider this my referral if any of ya need or want this modification done.

I guess this belongs just as much in the project forum as it does here, but this isn't my actual project blog, and just wanted to see if anybody else had done it. Anyhow, has anybody else done this? I thought it was pretty cool, so I decided to cross post it over here on the FAQ from r3vlimited on my project thread. Piecing together my last few parts to assemble my rear subframe, I emailed Dave Varco and asked if he'd turn down my brand new rear hubs and return the same ones to me. He wants $90 to do that and bead blast them, which they really wouldn't need -- so I thought of another way to do it. I also asked if he still had any of his proper sized press in wheel studs and that's a no-go, but ireland does. I've heard theirs are SAE though and there's no way I want to deal with that difference between F and R. I already have the E21 hubs for the front Volvo set up, and they were going to get some 60mm Vorshlag studs anyway, so I decided to look for someone to turn down my hubs AND redrill + tap them so I can make use of a complete stud kit. I didn't look all that hard, as in going around doing a lot of legwork to every machinist in the phone book, but I quickly did find someone that would take on the work for what I would think is reasonable, especially compared to the $90 to just shave them down. Unfortunately, he was also about an hour plus away, so I sent him my parts to him via UPS with a prepaid UPS return label back to my work. He was totally cool with that so last Thursday I sent out my hubs, a drawing, the return label and a certified check for $160 and got these back yesterday! (Rec'd Fri, sent back Mon) Total cost, $163. My work absorbed the whole 10-12 bucks or so for UPS yay If anybody is interested in this, i could probably hook you up with the guy who did the work for me. Just let me know. Here's my full project thread on R3VLIMITED - http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=97960 Here's some pics, Vorshlag 60mm stud kit installed.

ooh cool. I didnt know you had a thread going with pictures of all the rust and... shit. I had some doubts that it would keep the doors from rusting, but I thought if there was some flash rust on it already it might seal it over for a couple days. Of course it also rained! Oh well, just more prep. At least the bondo is all off, DAing surface rust wouldnt take as long as going at the bondo did. It's a car of lessons learned

M42, yes. ... M42 TURBO? Probably not That I've ever heard about.

So that was actually a pretty good turn out. Thanks for coming out! Nice to meet you again Matt. Very nice avatar too! Who are THEY. haha. I can't PM you, it says it's turned off on this board...but I want to hear about your 02 and how it's coming along. Email me zero8475 at yahoo or AIM at Seventy1oh2.

Michael, they're turbo flares. I shouldn't need any bondo at all to attach them. What I was/ am hoping to be able to do is get the surface under the mounting surface of the flare itself bondo free on the quarter panel, but currently mine on both sides have about a quarter inch caked on. I wanted the metal, or a very light skim coat of bondo in the arch where the flares are attached with rivnuts and screws, rather than so much there, so it is coming down to saying screw it and mounting them through the thick bondo, taking it off and trying to get the panel closer to what it should be and doing a lighter skim coat, or replacing them...

I have not given up on the quarters that are on the car right now, I still have yet to get it into the garage to remove all the bondo I found and see if I have a fighting chance of straightening them out to my standards and getting the turbo flares installed without a thick covering of bondo between them and the painted metal. That is besides the point, does anybody know of any known-good, bondo free, straight quarter panels on any cars that may be being parted out, or something happened to them? I'd like to know I have access to a back up plan if I do give up on the ones I have now. Buying new is also an option, but it costs so damn much, and if I do that I'd end up replacing the rear panel and trunk floor too! Also, I'm not so confident on my panel fixing abilities, do any of you have a ballpark idea what it would cost to install the panels? Not necessarily attaching them to the inner fenders since they'll be cut away anyway, but old removed, new on, no paint work or any of that. Michael Dubois? Just trying to gather information rather than wasting time away while I can't work on the car itself . Thanks..

I'm from r3vlimited, and still pretty broke for these sort of mods, but it's nice to know it can be adapted to a 2002 easily enough as well. I'll probably buy two from you soon, one for my 325ic and another to go with my 02 that will also be getting a custom wiring harness..... At the least it will have to wait till this Friday ;P

Obviously, to make use of the flares the body surrounding the wheel openings will need to be cut, and the rear quarter panel when doing so the inner wheel well must be folded out to meet the outer body panel again once it is cut away. Here's a good site that shows the installation of turbo flares, it doesn't matter that yours are irelands ABS flares, theyre still the same thing. http://www.2002turbo.com/02body.htm As far as painting the flares being useless, that is absolutely ridiculous. What does that guy think most auto's bumpers are made out of nowadays? Plastic. They can flex if bumped and the paint doesn't break off, it's just a flex agent that has to be added into the paint before it is applied if you're worried about them getting dinged up. If you're an adventurous type, I'd suggest trying to do it yourself. It's not that hard of a job at all if there aren't any problems along the way that you want to fix 100%. It requires time, a MIG welder, some way to cut the body like a cut off wheel or body/pneumatic reciprocating saw, something to measure, tape to mock up the flares against the body, a pencil to mark lines, and whatever you plan to use to attach them. You'll spend less money if you buy all the stuff you need including the tools to do it yourself, than if you have a shop do it. I can almost guarantee that. If you're confident in your ability to adapt and learn quickly, it shouldnt be a big deal. To attach the flares you can use anything from body panel adhesive stuff, to your ordinary sheet metal screws (I dont suggest that though) or do what I'm doing and use riv-nuts set into the quarter panel and stainless steel screws through the flares to hold the flares in place.

That's funny you mention that Ash, a coworker that used to work at Griggs actually mentioned doign something like that about a month ago when he looked under my car and noticed 02's dont have any supports holding the front and rear subframes together. He suggested cutting off the rear most section of the frame rail, and running like 1x2 (to match the rail) back to the front of the rear subframe near the large outer supports and tying it in somehow around there. Doing so would make it necessary to notch the floor directly under the seats though to allow the tubing to run along unobstructed. Talk to me on AIM about this, I'd like to be able to figure a plan out so perhaps we could do this on both of our cars.

That's funny you mention that Ash, a coworker that used to work at Griggs actually mentioned doign something like that about a month ago when he looked under my car and noticed 02's dont have any supports holding the front and rear subframes together. He suggested cutting off the rear most section of the frame rail, and running like 1x2 (to match the rail) back to the front of the rear subframe near the large outer supports and tying it in somehow around there. Doing so would make it necessary to notch the floor directly under the seats though to allow the tubing to run along unobstructed. Talk to me on AIM about this, I'd like to be able to figure a plan out so perhaps we could do this on both of our cars.

Thanks for the replies but Brad has got the right idea. I'm not cutting to weld in patch panels, I'm cutting to put turbo flares on. I just don't/didn't want to have to attach the flares with bondo between them and the metal, aside from the obvious paint and rubber strip. YGM Brad.

Thanks for the replies but Brad has got the right idea. I'm not cutting to weld in patch panels, I'm cutting to put turbo flares on. I just don't/didn't want to have to attach the flares with bondo between them and the metal, aside from the obvious paint and rubber strip. YGM Brad.

And a reasonably considerable amount too. Picture links are at the bottom. I found this slather while trying to prepare to install turbo flares. To do so the quarter must be cut to about one inch shy of the outline of the flare in order for it to have a mounting point. Regardless. The inner fender then has to be folded out and welded to the quarter to reseal the trunk and passenger area from the road. There's a considerable problem though when there's a bunch of body filler stacked on the metal where the flare is supposed to be mounted, and the inner wheel well is supposed to be welded to. I need to grind the filler out and somehow push/pull the quarter panels precisely to their proper location around the perimeter of the flare to mount flat without filler, in order to weld the inner fender and use riv-nuts through metal alone to attach the flare with screws. Does anybody have any advice? I already posted and got some basic answers from an auto body forum, but this is obviously an 02 specific crowd. Perhaps there are known perfectly good used quarter panels that someone knows of from a car that's being parted out? Some rust in the fender lip at the top would be fine but nowhere else. I don't think it should come to that though. I just feel it could be a serious pain to get the metal to exactly the right position (especially with shrinking to do) for the flares to be attached with lots of point measurements off the rear hub from a known-good car. However, it's also more than difficult to commit to new quarters for what seems to be such a trivial problem (though it is stressing me out for lack of a solution), especially when they will be cut anyway. If anybody has any solutions, suggestions, hints, or anything at all, let me know. Anyway, here's the pics of what I've found so far. It's not particularly clear, but both sides have up to or at least a quarter inch in places. It may not be that big of a deal to a body man but I have no idea how I'd get it right-on around the flare from an unknown shape it is in now. Drivers side - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/norcal02/other%20stuff/rearquarter1.jpg I began cutting with my body saw towards the back and the filler wasn't all that thick, but going forwards it got pretty nasty so I stopped. Passenger side - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v207/norcal02/other%20stuff/rearquarter2.jpg (goes to 4) I just pulled my mini angle grinder over and ground away what appears to be about a quarter inch of filler. I dared not go further, but with the magnet test on both sides it doesn't stick for a pretty large area around the wheel well. As far as I know it's nothing and could be fixed easily being what appears to be not-that-far-off, but then again, like I said, I don't know what would be easier/the best way. Help me out to finally get my 02 on the road setback after snowballed project . I'll be able to explore the rest of the damage when I can get the car into the garage, which shouldn't be too long, but for now it is sitting outside. Oh, and on the driver side right ahead of the wheel well there are several small holes drilled through the quarter visible from inside that was suggested to me that may have been used to pull out damage at the time of the fix. Of course I overlooked these until now. Thanks, Justin.

What would you suggest in the case of not having one? Not all 02's have mounts in the B pillar. My 71 doesnt, later cars do, and my manufacutred-in-70, 71, did. It would need to be reinforced...A nut welded around a hole wouldn't work.

I did not cut the tank open. The one that was cut open is the one I messed up because I left the final sealant in too long and it started to harden up inside before I could get it all out. I cut it wiht my sawzall to see what it looked like before I threw it away. There is a whole kit, and it's just as effective as boiling because it will get all the rust out, but then it it will be sealed by the final step. It's like pouring paint inside the tank at the end, then slosh it around to be sure to get the whole tank, upside down on the sides, etc, and it's all good. The top and filler is not hard to do at all because you need to block off the filler and sender hole with duct tape anyway, slowly roll the tank around to be sure everything gets coated then pour it out the drain plug on the bottom.

I dont know about having someone else do tanks, but I can suggest the POR15 tank kit. I used it on mine, then POR15'ed the outside of it. Following that, I sprayed on POR15 self etching primer, 3M Undercoat, regular primer, and semi-gloss paint over it. I decided to have some texture on the top too because the POR15 pulled up a little around the sender hole and doing so it disguised it a little bit. That and it just looks cool IMO Here are my pics- Just dont leave the POR15 in it too long, it will coat the inside rather quickly when turned around and flipped, I did it too slowly and it started to get muddy and messed up my first attempt

douplepost

Looks very nice and clean! Marty, what VW calipers did you use? I wish we had a FAQ of rear disc conversions if the DIYer wanted to do their own or see different setups.

You can directly contact DAPBMW/Dave Pineda too. He gets these parts made, and I can vouch for quality. I have not entirely put my parts on yet, but I ordered his turbo flares, airdam, rear spoiler and bumper and mock up looks good. His email address is davejuliet@rogers.com

ha, seriously, everybody is/was in there now

Why did you remove the nose? Are you replacing it or do you have other plans for it? Looks like care was put into removing and making two pieces from it anyway and some prep work is being done to the outer side. Making it easier to prep and paint? I'd think that would be just a huge PITA to remove and dissect it like that, but only you know what you have planned . How is that going? It looks like you're making good progress. I've been thinking about emailing you and asking how its been going, but you got this updated. I'm to the point of needing to decide what to do with my nose, to replace or not, but I cant decide yet until I try to fix it and see if I screw it up worse or not . Removed my fenders, theyre rusty, so I have sort of decided to jump to the back of the car and cut my wheel arches or straighten out my rear panel. Maybe I'll get around to shaving my fusebox like you did before long. Nice work as usual, keep it up.

Yeah, thats what I was looking for. Any advice from anybody whether that front panel is even worth using? I'm doing an m20 swap and will be cutting into whatever panel I use anyway, so something I have to fix up to work properly to begin with is probably not out of the question....