gretchen72

Well, it's been a while, but I'm back! Due to life getting in the way (and having lost my workshop...) I had to put Gretchen into storage for an extended period, but the good news is she's back! I'm still sorting the new workshop (which is unfortuantley no where near as spacious as the last) and I will begin the last parts of the metal work later this week. I'm hoping I can have it all done in 4 weeks, then she'll be off to be dipped again, and rust treated, and then the next day I'll hit the underbody, interior, engine bay with POR15, give the exterior a quick prime, and then the fun begins! Realistically, she's still going to be off the road for a long time, but I'm aiming for a rolling chassis by February 2015 and a 1st engine start by April 2015. After that there's only the other 10 million things to do, but with any luck she'll be on the road by July. I'll start posting photos soon. Oh, I have a lot of parts for sale, so keep your eye on eBay (aji72) if you're in Australia, and if I get offers from 2002FAQers I will consider them more seriously than random people. No stupid offers please. I've already said no to about 20 people and in case no one has noticed, I'm not exactly in a hurry...

I suspected Gretchen was bent from the clearly very big accident she had been in early in her life, so I thought it best to build an alignment jig to check the diags. I was amazed to find the alignment data for the chassis from a google search! It turned out I was right. The left rail was 10mm out of alignment. Nothing a bit of brute force cant fix. ________________________________________________________________ After the alignment was sorted I welded in a heap of bracing and started to cut the front clip off. The original front (which was actually a replacement from a previous accident) was in horrible shape, so, it had to go. I prefer the look of the later front when using the turbo kit, so I used a very straight one from a scrapped '74 sedan. The new clip fitted straight on with the 1st test fit! It still needs to be trimmed for the e36 radiator. _______________________________________________________________ The boot floor was totally rusted out and the rear panel had been dinged so many times it was just easier to replace it, so, they had to go... Front foot wells on both sides are swiss cheese... ________________________________________________________________ The front floor wells are not so great, especially the passenger side. No option but to cut and replace. It took a lot of time to fabricate the repair panel to make it nicely fit, but I'm happy with the end result. It still needs a bit of work with the TIG and some flapping, but 90% done. ________________________________________________________________ Does an E36 M3 radiator fit in an 02? Yes! You have to chop the plastic tabs off the bottom of the end tanks and then do a little metal fabrication (which drops the radiator about 25mm), and cut extra metal out for air flow, but it fits, and it'll fit with the e36 condenser too. It's actually a radiator for any e36 6 cylinder, including M and Z models (and in this case it has the extended end tank for an automatic), but it'll work just fine for the SR20 and there are heaps of them about. _______________________________________________________________ I'm getting ready to re-attach the front clip, but there are a few mods I want to make first. I was a bit concerned about not having a front bumper when the turbo spoiler goes on. Not so much for safety, but more for minor parking incidents. I decided to close the front of the rails in and at the same time drop in captive nuts for easy attachment of some kind of bumper that can sit behind the spoiler. The deadline to get the body off the jig is now only 8 days away, so you'll see a lot of posts from me over the coming week as everything goes back on. _______________________________________________________________ It's Australia Day today.., true. 26th of January, every year! There's some trivia for you all. Anyway, we get a long weekend and I get a long car weekend, which is good, because there are only 2 days left to get Gretchen off the jig. The boot floor and rear panel went back on today. I had to cut the lower left guard for access, but they went on reasonably easily, sort of... The floor, after much massaging, went in quite well, and a lot of the welds were easily accessible with the spot welder. Nice! The rear panel was a bit more of a pain... The brand new BMW rear panel is actually one of the only truly straight panels on the car, however both rear quarter panels have been smashed and then dinged back to a pretty rough state a few times by the looks of things, so, nothing fits as well as it should. Still, nothing a hammer and a welder can't fix. The boot lid needs serious adjustment, but for a first fit I'm pretty happy. I'll tweak it a bit and weld it out tomorrow. ________________________________________________________________ Today the later model front clip went on. I'd done all the prep a week or two ago, so it was all quite painless, but here's a funny thing, the car is now 12mm shorter..? It's odd because everything lined up perfectly, but when I checked the guards they were both 12mm too long? Maybe the later model clip is shorter than the original, but I was under the impression that it was only the centre panel that was changed? There could be a difference between touring and sedan, but all the data I have says that they are identical in that area. Anyone out there have any ideas? Anyway, it doesn't matter, the guards are having 12mm chopped out of the middle of them. I'll make them fit whether they like it or not. Funny, I originally wanted a 'wheels forward' look, but it all seemed too hard. Now, with the new clip and shorter guards, it's going to happen anyway... Front Clip Investigations I've had a bit of an investigate and found the following things that probably explain the size difference. Looking at the photos from when I purchased the car, the bonnet lip is flush with the clip and there is a larger than normal gap where the bonnet meets the windscreen steel. There was also about 3mm of bog on the top/front edge of the quarter panels. Someone had set the clip too far forward during an old accident repair (Gretchen had the clip and left front replaced early in her life, they were brazed on!). Still, to make the quarter panels fit perfectly I have to trim them by 5mm or so. ___________________________________________________________________ Gretchen finally came off the jig today. Better late than never... An odd thing started to happen a few days ago. Every day I'd come in and the rear door would be a little more out of alignment (a mil a day). Eventually the left side started to catch the left rear edge of the guard. Welding always bends things, but usually it's bent within the first 5 minutes after the weld. It was weird, but I was hoping it was just the weather as it has been raining torrentially in Sydney for the last week and the workshop is situated in a 150 year old wharf entirely made of wood. I unbolted her and all of a sudden the rear door alignment is good again, thank f*%k! There's still a lot of stuff to do before she goes off to the stripper (again) and then paint, but the deadline has been set for 9 weeks from today... Gulp!

There are a few other SR20 powered '02's out there. FAQ memeber staunch2002 has a laser cutting facility. While both of our projects are a million miles away from worrying about details such as custom badges, staunch has had a few proto's made. The first attempt was this. Good, but much room for improvement... Second attempt is much closer, but still not right. So far staunch has done all the hard work on this, but, a friend of mine has a 3D printer, so, it'll be my turn soon... _________________________________________________________________ Okay. So here's the very controversial photo of Gretchen with 19" Audi RS rims. It was only ever a meant to be a quick photo shoot with whatever I had laying around to keep me motivated while I chopped all the rust out of her. The door and the arches are gaffered on, the body was dropped onto the wheels and with the air let out of the rear tyre to squeeze into the tub and the body was given a 5 minute prime. I thought it would look ridiculous, but I was surprised. 19's are crazy, but 17's for sure. Before anyone decides to comment on 'destroying dynamics' and 'ruining handling' this has all been discussed at great length and with much emotion before, so, save your breath. _____________________________________________________________________

Hi all, I'm slowly transferring from the old blog system to the new one. This will take some time, so, bear with me... Ad ________________________________________________________________ Hi, After 6 years in storage I've finally re-started my project; Gretchen, an SR20 powered 2002 Touring. This is a full ground up restoration with a bit of a difference as I am not restoring to concours, rather, to my own personal taste. I'll use BMW parts wherever I can but if another manufacturers product is more appropriate then that's what I'll use. Obviously the engine is the biggest single change, what with it being a Nissan... Basically the sky's the limit, but I'm trying to keep it real and within a reasonably generous budget. Even so, crazy ideas are being entertained and nothing is being ruled out at the moment. I'll try and post as much detail as I can over the next weeks, months, years.., but for the time being I'll put up some pics of where I've been and where I'm up to. I'm happy to take comments and constructive criticism, and I'm sure I'll ruffle a few feathers, so if you don't like the project, thanks and see you later, and if you do like the project feel free to chime in with suggestions. Cheers, Ad ____________________________________________________________________ Here's the pre-purchase concept. I was only ever thinking subtle body mods and period wheels with mildly tuned M10 in those days. Quite reserved compared to where I'm going now... ____________________________________________________________________ Here's a pic of her delivered to the strippers and then two more of Gretchen re-born. Seeing her stripped was an amazing sight. If you've ever had a car dipped you know what I'm talking about, but it's hard to describe. It's like she just came out of the factory. There are 2 processes. First a caustic solution to strip off everything but steel (and oddly plastic?) and then a second dip to stop and reverse rust. I was worried she'd come out looking like swiss cheese, but I was pleasantly surprised, sort of... Every accident repair she'd ever had was revealed, being: - Front clip and left front of the engine bay including the left rail (replaced!) - left rear quarter from the b pillar to mid way through the wheel arch (replaced!) - right rear quarter badly roughed out - rear panel roughed out - boot floor patched 10 million times including the fuel tank support - passengers foot well patched, maybe only 5 million times? And every piece of rust I may have missed if I didn't have her dipped was revealed, which was pretty much everywhere. ________________________________________________________________ While I was procrastinating I pumped out another quick concept. Picking colours is hard. Original 02 colours or something new??? I entertained the idea of Dakkar yellow for a while (the first rendering) and then this one in the more traditional silver with the ever popular Alpina rims. _______________________________________________________________________ I had major confusion about colour, then I saw a modern 330 finished in BMW space grey. Nice! ______________________________________________________________________ FAQ member redskinsjbs very kindly picked one of my favorite '02 Tourings and did these renderings for me. Options paralysis... __________________________________________________________________ Here's the front cut of the donor car. A PS13 180SX. I bought the whole front cut, including gearbox, to make the swap easier. The best part about buying a front cut is the engine can be started to make sure it runs before purchase. The engine fired up 1st go, even though some of the plumbing was missing from the compressor outlet... ___________________________________________________________________ And here's the same engine test fitted into Gretchen. As you can see there's loads of room, which is understandable as the SR is a 2L 4 cylinder... The very svelte SR gearbox fits nicely in the 02 tunnel too. The SR head has the opposite inlet and exhaust configuration to the single cam M10, which is actually better for a right-hand-drive car, but would probably be an issue for LHD. I'm sure some of you have noticed that the twin cam BMW race engine of the era is actually the opposite head configuration too..? The only notable mods needed to make it fit are; conversion to rack and pinion steering, custom engine and gearbox mounts, change the position of the front sway bar mounts, and move the gear stick hole back about 100mm.

Well, what a couple of days! I had a horrible time with misbehaving welders, bent panels, blunt tools, blah, blah, blah.., but mostly it was bad decisions. The rear guards, those f*&king rear guards... why did I want turbo flares again??? Anyway, Sunday was the right.., what a disaster. I'm not even going to post pictures it's so embaressing. Today, however, was the left. I had a dream overnight, and when I woke I knew what to do! It was all too easy, sort of... Oh, and before anyone comments, the huge panel repair was NOT me. It's one of the brazed on parts that came with the entire left and front of the car. I'm not trained in panel repair, but that one is totally a 'friday' job, done by the apprentice while the boss went to the pub...

Better. Now let's engage the 3rd axis. If you don't mind handing the drawing over I can probably get a couple CNC'd out of aluminium for not much cash.

Hi all, Not very interesting, but I managed to get the drivers floor repairs 90% sorted yesterday. A bit of grinding and flapping and it'll be finished, but I think I'll divert to something more interesting today. Rear wheel arches are on the list, along with 20 other things... I'm getting very close to the deadline for paint now and there's still 5 more days worth of work to do.

Thanks. Easter weekend is the deadline to finish the big stuff, so you should see more detail soon. I don't have facebook and would really prefer not to.

Very nice. I'm particularly interested in the e36 crossmember, e46 arms and sierra rack. I can't wait to see the pics!

Well, as people have mentioned that Gretchen looks like a full size Hot Wheels car I guess I'd better get one...

Personally, roundie's (especially the first ones with no lower trim and short bumpers) are the best look. However, a roundie with a later grill conversion is a great custom look. My baby is a touring, which only ever had BIG round tail lights, but I converted the grill to the later look mainly because I think the turbo kit looks better with the later grill. As far as bumpers goes, the 5mph ones on US cars are just plain odd looking. The very early short ones are beautifully understated on any model. How about a touring tail light conversion on a sedan? That should upset some people!

that is pretty weird...

Work has been crazy, so, Gretchen hasn't had any attention over the last 2 weeks. I had to move her out of the workshop for an hour to load a truck. Thankfully it wasn't raining. As you can see, she keeps pretty good company... Work starts again next week. The clock is ticking and the 'to do' list still has the following items: - drivers foot well rust repairs - rear inner guards - left rear sill replace - trim hole plug weld - about 10 other patches - gearbox mounts - shifter hole reposition - final clean up Then she's off to the panel beater, then the stripper (again...), then POR the underbody and interior and engine bay, and prime the exterior... Here's a bump for the time lapse footage.

Thanks man. I cut about 300 frames out of the jig building process. Even when 16 minutes = 1 second of vision, there's only so many times you can watch someone checking diagonals, checking level, checking lines, etc... I was one of those 'laggards' only two months ago, so, don't worry about that. A build like this is very hard to get started, medium hard to keep going, and EXTREMELY hard to finish. Most of my motivation to get started (well, re-started really) came from this forum. There are so many inspirational builds here, so many good ideas and so many people willing to give helpful advice. My biggest motivation is: when you use a blog on a forum to show your work there is a certain level of diligence that must be maintained. When you publicly share your work with others (who have a similar love affair with the same car) you can't cheat or there will be hell to pay... Cheers, Ad

Time lapse of the build so far. If only this was real time...

Drop the crossmember and go in through from under. There are a few more bolts to undo, but not too many, and it's the cleanest way to install the engine and gearbox. It's how they go together in the factory...

When I changed the front clip and boot floor and rear panel I had the car on a jig and then I braced everything before chopping bits off the car. I needed the jig because the car was bent, but if yours is straight then cross bracing should be all you need. It only takes 5 minutes to weld bracing in and quite frankly I think it's madness to even attempt replacing large structural portions of the body without bracing.

Gretchen finally came off the jig today. Better late than never... An odd thing started to happen a few days ago. Every day I'd come in and the rear door would be a little more out of alignment (a mil a day). Eventually the left side started to catch the left rear edge of the guard. Welding always bends things, but usually it's bent within the first 5 minutes after the weld. It was weird, but I was hoping it was just the weather as it has been raining torrentially in Sydney for the last week and the workshop is situated in a 150 year old wharf entirely made of wood. I unbolted her and all of a sudden the rear door alignment is good again, thank f*%k! There's still a lot of stuff to do before she goes off to the stripper (again) and then paint, but the deadline has been set for 9 weeks from today... Gulp!

kick ass build man! I like the rear bumper mod. I'd do this to the touring, but it's a huge job (to get looking perfect) and then some dumb ass would just ding it in a parking lot...

Here's a pic of the new clip fully fitted with the 'chopped' guards test fitted.

Well, here's the thing. Gretchen's front clip was replaced early in her life due to a major accident, and I'm pretty sure the repair was just placed too far forward, and, the later clip that I just installed was off a donor car, so, when you combine these things 12mm doesn't seem to be too much of a discrepancy. I looked at some photos I had of Gretchen before the restoration started and the bonnet edge is flush with the clip and the gap at the windscreen is too large, so, a bad alignment on the old repair. I still have to chop a little out of the middle of the guards, but only about 5mm to get the fitment perfect. These little problems are simply a fact of life when you're restoring a very old and battered car. You just have to work around them I can post pictures, but it won't really show you much as I've already cut the guards in half... Have a look at the project blog if you want to see how big the job is. The link is in my signature. Adam

A tilt tray is the most common way I move cars around, but if you have to tow then there's no problem with towing it backwards. The steering lock should be enough to hold the front wheels square, but I'd tie down the steering just for safety.

Wow! An AE86 with an SR, and an 02 ute. There's a couple of interesting builds! If you mount the engine high or mod the remote rod then you can probably use the standard 'go-kart' 02 setup with an SR. Either way you have to play with the geometry, so, for me, it's a rack conversion. Adam

Thanks! I'll try my best to keep it interesting. Adam