Grover

Morning folks. That is/was my car. BaT's listing fee for their auctions is $250, and I'd say that was about the best $250 I've ever spent. 

Joking aside, I'm obviously very happy with the final sale, I think it's fair to say that it exceeded my expectations. Pricing modified cars seems very challenging as it's hard to get a firm baseline vs. a restored original car, this was a large reason I went for the auction format vs. pulling a number from thin air and advertising it elsewhere.

Okay, I'm going to get sappy for a second here, brace yourself.... I've owned this car for about 11 years, and it has truly changed my life in a positive way. Through those years, I have fallen deeply into the car hobby and I feel extremely grateful for that. Additionally, I think a key part of the inspiration was this 2002 community. I've seen numerous other forums and owners groups, and none can hold a candle to this for depth of knowledge, and so many great folks, many of whom I now count myself lucky to know as friends. I'll stop from listing them all, but you know who you are. The one name I will throw out is Curt Ingraham who I sort of consider my first "mentor" for 2002's shortly after I purchased it. Such a wonderful human being, and one who left us much too soon. 

The new owner of my car sounds like a super nice guy. He had intended to build up a 2002 himself, pretty much identical to what mine is. However, due to a busy life, he recognized that it just wasn't going to happen. And, fortunately for him, he was in a financial position where he can buy a car that basically needs nothing, so he took this route to get the car he wanted. More power to him, I say. I will encourage him strongly to check out this forum.

While I will now be '02-less, I won't be able to help myself but to check in here periodically. My focuses have shifted to a '65 Alfa that I'm now restoring, but the Alfa forum just doesn't have the "home-like" feel this place does (don't tell the Alfa guys I said that.)

Thanks for everything folks. Giddyup.

Tom (Grover)

A couple of thoughts.

1. I think you will want to try to minimize the amount of material build-up as much as you can. While vinyl is relatively thin, if you just lay it on top (not to mention any added foam you choose to put in) some of the fit tolerances will become more challenging. Think about the gaps around the glove box, where there dash mounts below the windshield, and where the heater controls area. Adding an 1/8" of material there could cause you some fitment challenges.

2. A few years ago I had my dash vinyl covered by Only02 down in Vegas. I've been very happy with the results. If you look at the photo, take note of where the seams are. While the seams provide a level of decorative finish, they were placed where they are because that's where the breaks "want" to be. In other words, I think you may be hard pressed to only get seams in non-noticeable locations without risking wrinkling/bunching the material around some of the numerous compound corners.

By all means, give some things a try, but I'd test the theory in a couple of small areas where you can back out if it's not working to your satisfaction. Lastly, you have obviously already discovered The Hog Ring forum, which is great for upholsterers. Also check out the Chechaflo YouTube channel, he has a bunch of great upholstery tutorials and one or two on covering dashes. The videos have no audio as I don't know how good his English is, and they move quite slowly, but they can be very educational.

I'm looking for a good and straight sunroof frame, the piece that the headlining material wraps onto. Please PM me if you have one to let go of. Thanks in advance.

Hi folks. Looking for a replacement frame for the interior panel of the sliding sunroof. RealOEM shows them as "ended" but sometimes this info isn't always up to date. Have tried inputing the item number with a couple of usual suspects (Blunt, BavAuto, Roger's tii, etc...) and none of them show it. Anybody have specific knowledge on this item? thanks.

I absolutely agree with the others. Pick yourself up a halfway decent MIG welder and embark on learning another skill. Super rewarding. You'll pay it off by writing about it...

I too feel fortunate to have both cars, a '73 2002 and a '65 Gilulia Sprint GT. Sadly, I don't think will ever have the opportunity to drive them back to back. While the Alfa has several years of work still to go, I've been putting some finishing touches on the '02 before putting it on the market in the next few weeks. I'm sad, certainly, but just don't have the time and space for both, not to mention the Alfa could use an infusion of funds. I won't be running it this low, just did this for a lark with the wheels from our LeMons car. 

Perfect. Thanks folks. Very helpful. I'll go this direction.

Greetings all. A few months ago I made new covers for my E21 Recaro front seats. And while I'm happy with how they came out, I now need to turn my attention to the rear seat. Something I'm trying to decide is whether to mimic the original pattern (vertically running "pleats") or whether to try to mimic the front Recaro seat pattern (horizontally running pleats.) For those that have front E21 Recaro's and re-done rears, curious to see what you did and how it looks. Thanks in advance.

Really sorry to see this one go to the Pick 'n Pull in the sky. I've always loved the style and execution on this car, really nicely done. I guess the bright side is that you will now have the opportunity to create another beauty.

It's tough to trim holes that tight. I've subsequently discovered another method that I like much better. While I've not done it for pedal openings, I don't see why it couldn't work. I used it on a couple of elements for some interior work I did on a friend's Alfa, here you can see it around the battery cut-off switch. Drop me a note if you're interested and I can help describe how it's done. 

Obviously the throttle pedal needs to come off, but the other two are fine staying on. When installing, I believe I rotated the carpet clockwise a bit and then just fed through one at a time. I used the rubber sound deadener from the pedal box as a template for the position and shape of the slots if I recall correctly. Then I transferred this pattern to a scrap piece of carpet, did a test fit, and finally transferred that onto the wool carpet.

Good reviews from me too. I use them on my '02 street car and really like them. We've also been using them on our LeMons race car for the last few years and they are excellent. We get 1-2 races out of a set and they definitely have lasted us better than the other brands we've tried with similar wear ratings (Dunlop, BF Goodrich)

Hi folks. I'm looking for an ashtray for my '73, along with the bracket that it slides in and out of. Please pm me of send me an email at trich642 AT gmail DOT com. Thanks a bunch.

Greetings fellow Bay Area 02'ers. If you are anything like me, you would consider yourself a fairly serious car hobbyist, but simply don't have adequate work space at home to do the work you want to do. This was the quandary I was in for a very long time, but recently took the plunge and leased a shop space with another friend of mine. The space is just about one mile from the little town of Point Richmond, so about 15 minutes North of Berkeley, or 5 minutes or so from the Richmond/San Rafael bridge. We have 1,000 sq/ft of floor space, plus an additional 200 or so as a mezzanine level where we store parts, etc... We currently house my Alfa that I'm restoring, my friend's Falcon, my team's LeMons race car, and a couple of motorcycles. Sometime in June the LeMons car will be moved to another space, so we are looking for a third renter for the space. My current co-renter and I are both 9-5'ers, so most of our time is spent here on weekends or in the evenings during the week. A couple of other features of the space:

• Roll up door and a man door
• Lots of overhead lighting
• Several locks on doors, as well as an exterior gate to the broader complex
• About 15 units in the complex. One shared bathroom which is maintained by the landlord and kept nice and clean

We are looking for an individual either with one car, or perhaps a couple of motorcycles. We don't want the place so crowded that it becomes hard to move about and enjoy working in the space. We also do NOT want a pigpen in the space. I've been to a number of other shared work spaces which are proverbial s***holes, and this is just not in the cards for us. We both do this strictly for fun, so the space needs to be enjoyable or it's just a waste of money.

Rent for one third of the space, including utilities and insurance is right about $450/mo. Reply here or pm me if you are interested.

Tom (aka Grover)

Hi Mattio523. Thanks for the compliment. To answer your question regarding suspension. Up front I have Ground Control coilovers and camber/caster plates. In the back are Ireland Stage II springs on single dot pads. Koni shocks all around.

Again, I've not taken apart one of those seats in particular. However, on my E21 Recaro's the listing wire was attached to the frame with hog rings, but on other seats I've done it was attached via strong string, not wire. In the case of your seat, I think you'll need to see if the contour of the frame mimics that of the finished cushion. If so, perhaps a hog ring is used, but the nice thing with the string is you can adjust the tension as needed if the frame shape isn't an exact duplicate of the finished seat, or it's simply too far away. I'm not sure you could hog ring through a horsehair pad regardless.

I'm not familiar with that particular seat. However, typically, what you are seeing there is referred to as listing wire. And yes, when it is in place, a string would be threaded around the wire and then it is fastened to the frame with tension to provide the desired shape.

I built a stand a couple of months ago for my Alfa project. I can't recall the exact height, but I'd guess it's 18" or so. Even at that height it was a bit of a pain getting the shell lifted up there, 30+" will be interesting... Also, at that height off the ground, depending on the work you are doing to the car, that seems a little high. Yes, it will be nice in terms of getting the underside, but if you want to be doing work inside the floorpan, in the engine bay and trunk, this may be a bit higher than optimal. Please note, I'm just talking speculatively, but something to consider. The height I have mine is great for "topside" work, but it still kinds of sucks crawling underneath. Oh for a rotiserrie...

Is this what you're looking for? If so, I have a spare. Let me know.

Fantastic. Really nice work, great creativity, and a very nicely documented write up. Bravo all around. 

FWIW, after the braking challenges I had in the post you linked to above, I ended up going to Hawk HPS and have never looked back, infinitely grippier than either the Textars or Metal Masters. 

Porterfield make great pads also. We run R4E's on our LeMons car and they are also excellent. Another great thing about Porterfield is that you can actually talk with a person there who has great brake system knowledge. Additionally, they will make custom pads for you with the material of your choosing if it's not a stock item. Not super cheap, but good quality product and support.

I'm guessing I'm like several folks on this forum, I've got both of these. Like Marshall said, in pretty much all quantifiable ways, the M3 is "better." However, at least for me, I've never bonded with it in the way I have with the '02. Perhaps that's because I don't work on it in the same way I do the '02, but the M3 just doesn't have quite the same soul as the older car. I use the M3 as my daily driver, and the '02 as a more occasional fun-day car.

While I don't buy cars for investments, one notable strength for the '02 is that it is likely going UP in value, whereas I'd guess most E36 M3's are still in decline (evidenced by the fact that you believe you can find a decent one for $6k.) Nice ones may start going up in value at some point, but at least right now they are a phenomenal bang for your buck purchase. The '02 I think you could almost make an argument for as an investment vehicle.

What sort of tools are we talking about here? Hand tools? Power tools?

Personally, I'm not brand loyal to any one in particular. I generally try to take the approach of evaluating the degree of use that I expect to get out of a tool. If it's something I just see very occasional use for and doesn't require fine calibration (a stud welding gun I got recently fit this bill) I will entertain Harbor Freight. However, if it's something I will use with a high degree of frequency or benefits from a tighter tolerance of build quality, I save my pennies and splurge on a good one. Up until a few years ago, I'd only ever used cheapo Black and Decker jigsaws. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why anybody ever used a jigsaw, they were just so frustrating. Then I used a friends very nice Bosch and it completely changed my perspective on jigsaws as a whole. I bought one the following week and still enjoy using it to this day.

Well, look at the bright side. Perhaps partially what allowed the car to get such a healthy chunk of the episode was that the guests left such a void of interesting screen time to be filled. The guy in the back seat, while I'm sure a perfectly nice fellow, was just a waste of pixels. What works so well about many of the other episodes is Jerry and his guest really connecting on a personal level, and having the third wheel just didn't lend itself to that.

A little cliche perhaps, but...

The two most interesting things I found during the course of re-doing my '02: Knowledge and friendships. Cheesy, but true.