AlfaBMWGuy

Thanks Mo.  Payment made.

-Gary

I'll take this. PM incoming.

Thanks,

Gary

12 hours ago, Son of Marty said:

Thanks Gary, you learn something every day.

While most manufacturers were slapping air pumps and making other emasculating changes on their single carb cars for 1968, Alfa took the extra year to come up with a solution that would still give the same performance as their dual sidedrafts.  So while SPICA did meet emissions, it still performed like an Alfa at least until post 1974 changes (SPICA and otherwise) took their toll.  1975-1981 SPICA before Bosch EFI is nothing to write home about, but properly setup, 1969-1974 is, much like a tii.

1 hour ago, Son of Marty said:

As for people to tune it in Italy the K-fish and Spica pumps used on Alfas are kissing cousins.

While true, the thing is that Alfa never subjected anyone but Americans (and Canadians, guilt by association) to SPICA.  It was a U.S. emissions regulations solution starting in 1969 (there were no U.S. spec 1968 Alfas) that they didn't feel compelled to use in Europe and they just kept right on going with dual carbs for many more years.  Thus mechanics in Europe are even more mystified with SPICA than Kugelfischer.  For sticklers, I think there may have been very limited use of SPICA in Europe actually, such as in the Perkins diesel engine put in some Alfas, but much fewer of those than tii's, 520i's, and the odd Peugeot running K-fish.

-Gary

Generally related, but not specifically about putting a tent on top of your '02 in a futile attempt to avoid being mauled by bears in the middle of the night:

This may be corny Mike, but I'd say that if Paul is in your thoughts, you are still sharing the road with him.

-Gary

That does seem really high.  I'm running Eibach Pro springs with Koni yellow struts/shocks that were installed over this past winter and here's how it sits.  Mine has reworked wheel arches using the original metal so that makes it a bit hard to compare, but definitely mine is sitting lower.  It's over an inch lower than what it was before with stock springs with Bilstein HDs so the Eibach's gave the lower stance that was advertised.

Hilarious.  Some bit of my commenting on this thread I'm sure is related to growing up in Washington with lots of (mostly) good-natured ribbing of the driving skills (or lack thereof) of Oregonians.  I suspect it works both ways though and Oregonians think the same about Washingtonians when they are amongst their own.  But, I think we can all agree that all vintage BMW drivers are excluded from such generalizations.

I for sure would be driving it as well--that's what I do with my 2002tii and my '73 Alfa Giulia Super and why I own them.  But, I'd just be parking it a bit closer to the curb in downtown Portland since I know how many people drive there living about 3 hours away.

Ha, yes, but you know how special this car is.  Most think it's just an old car in a weird color.

Ha, that guy is not taking any chances with curb rash on those wheels even if they aren't Borrani or Alpina.  More trusting than I would be that someone paying more attention to their phone than other cars is not going to sideswipe him.

-Gary

For $50, I'll take that.  PM'd!

Thanks,

Gary

4 hours ago, John76 said:

Does anyone know what this spade connection is for??

It is not grounded to anything in the dash pod.

 

Pretty sure that spade is for the parking brake warning light for '74+ '02s.  Wasn't needed before '74 since that light was only for brake failure (low fluid, not sure of anything beyond that).  If you have that spade on a pre-'74 non-fake woodgrain, non-crosshair gauge face cluster, then that bit of your cluster is from a '74+ car.  On a '74+ car, you'd have a wire to connect to that spade.

-Gary

If anyone wants to see what this NOS BMW shift knob looks like on my car where I'm also running a restored period BMW factory wheel, here you go (please ignore dangling wires under dash--I also recently made a speedo repair and haven't put the under dash panels back on yet--always something to do):

This seems like a great opportunity for someone.  I was just going to post asking if your price was $65000 U.S. dollars or 65000 Euro since back in March you were asking 62500 Euro when you posted this 2002ti here.  When I brought up a currency conversion calculator to see what the current difference is I discovered that the Euro has really taken a pummeling vs. the dollar since the last time I checked.  The conversion rate was around 1.20 when I was considering some cars in Europe last summer and now it's 1.06!  With that $65000 USD is pretty much what 62500 Euro was back in March.

I wish I could be the one for this opportunity.  20 years ago I had the opportunity to also buy an authentic 1970 Colorado 2002ti (originally a Canadian market car) with a few needs like paint for the price of a no-needs tii.  I kick myself still to this day for passing on that car given how rare and special these are.

-Gary

8 minutes ago, '76mintgrün'02 said:

The NGK plugs I recently took out of the box were gapped at .035".  Gap those plugs, John!!  (It's fun and it will run better).

 

Tom

My recent BPR5ES set did come out of the box at 0.032" as they were listed so apparently there is some variance.

I have no idea on the the resistance of the 123 rotor.

My mechanic has said the cold start injector itself is functioning fine, but it's possible the thermo switch is at issue.  Is that related to what Jason P sells?

As far as the coil, I'm running a Bosch blue coil with my 123.  It's actually something I got from Paul Winterton just a couple months before he passed so I'm hoping to keep it along with the small number of other bits I got from him.  Maybe 0.028" then for my plug gap?  It seems in general people run wider gaps on tii's (which mine is) than carb'd 2002s.

3 minutes ago, JohnS said:

With a little bit of searching you can probably also find the hotter NGK BP5ES's on ebay too.  My 73tii likes the BP5ES, my 74tii the BP6ES.  Go figure...

 

I figured if I'm going to try to address my cold start cranking issue, I should go both with what some consider the more proper temp rating for most 2002s, 6 instead of 5, and then the non-resistor version so BP6ES is exactly what I was thinking.  I assume these will come gapped at 0.032" like my BPR5ES ones were.  Would you stick with that (knowing I'm trying to reduce cranking more than maximize WOT high rpm performance) or should I go up to 0.035" or even bring them down a bit to something like 0.030" or 0.028"?  Probably I should have played with the gap on my current BPR5ES plugs first or swap back to the Russian-made Bosch plugs I pulled out, but for under $25 shipped, I just decided to grab these since it seems that those who did hoard the remaining non-resistor NGK plugs while they were still available aren't offering their collections up on the parts for sale board ?

Thanks,

Gary

7 hours ago, JohnS said:

You can also find NOS NGK's on ebay too:

 

BP6ES:  

4 (FOUR) NGK BP6ES SPARK PLUGS = $15.96 = $3.99 EACH = FREE SHIPPING

WWW.EBAY.COM

---

4 (FOUR) NGK BP6ES SPARK PLUGS. note: THESE SPARK PLUGS HAVE A THREADED TOP.

 

and...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144607511634?epid=230335221&hash=item21ab478452:g:3RoAAOSwbPhircnM

Thanks for those eBay links John!  I just bought a set. Hopefully they do turn out to be BP6ES and not the only one NGK sells now, BPR6ES.  A couple months ago I bought BPR5ES for my '74 tii that runs a blue coil and the 123 bluetooth electronic ignition since I needed new plugs and the non-resistor NGKs were nowhere to be found.  Since going to those, although it may be a coincidence, cold starts on my tii have been a bear with lots of cranking before it eventually acts at all like it is going to fire.  If going to BP6ES doesn't completely fix my problem, I'm hoping it makes it a little better.  Even starts after leaving it 3 or 4 hours during the day can take a lot of cranking now.

-Gary

Closing the loop on my speedometer/odometer repair,  I now have a functioning repaired speedo/odo!  It did require doing the flywheel to shaft connection repair on my original speedometer back housing to get a speedometer calibrated to miles where the housing from my original metric speedo couldn't just be swapped over.  Below is a pic of my repaired flywheel after applying superglue and letting it sit for a day before putting it all back together.  You can see the superglue I applied where the shaft meets the flywheel--keeping glue away from the hole in the center of the shaft for the speedometer pin is critical!  The repaired speedo also has 90% of the bounciness in the needle gone along with the subtle but annoying clicking sound it was making while it was doing the bouncy thing at lower speeds.  Odometer functioning great with the swapped nylon gear as well.

One other trick I had to do to get that nylon to worm gear piece to spin freely in the housing after I extracted it by pounding out the ball bearing was to sand down the length of the shaft.  My theory is that just by pounding it out of the housing it bends the shaft enough to no longer let it spin smoothly.  I took off the nylon gear again and put the shaft in my drill to do the sanding that was needed.  A bit of sanding, test it in the housing, a bit more sanding, test it, etc.

As I put it all back together doing the old speedo cable connected to a drill test multiple times was also reassuring to verify function.   Now the only issue is that the speedo continues to read about 10% fast at highway speeds (I'm running typical 185/70R13 tires) just like it did before the failure.  I'd like to get that down to the usual 5% fast, but for now I'm just happy to have a functioning speedometer again.

For those who are having speedo/odo issues where advice in this thread and others doesn't solve the problem, I did find you can actually still get new 2002 speedometers.  A good number are even stateside currently waiting for buyers so no overseas shipping.  BluntTech, my go to new parts supplier, got me this information so I'd recommend contacting them.  They aren't cheap at $375, but it's surprising to still even have that option to buy new.

-Gary

Thanks John.  -Gary

I would like to buy this if it is a threaded shift knob, not push on.  PM sent.

Thanks,

Gary

Well, it was a mixed success.  I do now have a working speedometer and odometer so my basic repair was fine.  But, I've learned that the internals of the speedometer housing that the nylon gear with the worm drive fits in is directly part of the speedo calibration.  The one I am using that never had the failed flywheel issue is from the metric speedo from my Canadian market tii that I swapped out for other reasons including just wanting a mph gauge.  But, now I'm getting a metric speedometer reading on my U.S. mph face.  I need to disassemble the speedo yet again and this time repair the failed flywheel as documented in the Youtube video that I linked in my original post.  I hope to post another update later this week.

-Gary

Thanks Dug.  I was able to make some more progress today.  I now have my speedo/odo reassembled with that swapped nylon gear.  I used a flywheel/shaft from my original metric speedo because that one had never come apart (making me more confident in it vs. a superglued failed one) so it was a matter of swapping the couple worm drive gears from my failed mph speedo/odo so that I had the right calibration.  As I mentioned, parts from a '71-'73 odo won't do it as the gears are just different ratios than what is needed for the internals of a '74-'76 odometer.

The only other "trick" I needed to do was that the speedo housing for that nylon gear with the worm drive gear on the other end (the one pictured above) was just too tight of a fit in my metric speedo housing (the one without a failed flywheel) for it to spin easily as needed for everything to work reliably.  So I took off the nylon gear again and put the shaft in a drill and went to town with sanding off just enough of the circumference that it went in and spun smoothly.

Speaking of drilling, I was able to use my old speedo cable (since I originally thought my whole issue was the speedo cable and it turned out to be the gauge just slowly failing) hooked up to the back of the repaired speedo/odo and connected to my old school corded drill to verify I had a working speedometer and odometer when I was done with the basic repair (see pic below).  I even did a quick calibration test on the odo to make sure I wasn't completely off on all these odo gears (e.g., that it would still roll over in kms and not miles despite my parts swapping).  I drove the speedo at around 30 mph for 60 seconds and it did turn over approximately 0.5 miles (within my precision for controlling the speed of the drill holding it at 30 mph) as hoped.  With that I simply mounted the speedo back in my instrument cluster.

Now I just need to get the cluster back in my '74 tii and check it in the final configuration, which should happen in the next couple days and I'll report back whether I can declare victory or not.

-Gary