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pmg

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Everything posted by pmg

  1. I left this forum as it became less enjoyable. The welcoming atmosphere and easy access to knowledge for classic car maintenance were great when I was younger. However, as parts became pricier and the community shifted away from frankenstein mods and towards factory restoration, the fun and creativity faded, particularly after a negative encounter with a vendor here being told off on what was "period correct". The rising costs and shift in which vehicle platforms were at the bottom of the depreciation curve further contributed to the change. A 25 year from 2010 may pick up a '02. A 25 year old today is more likely to pickup an E36 for a carefree build. Although social media provides insights into community events and gives further reach to creative projects, it's less useful for problem-solving. After experiencing elitism in other car communities, I realized the value of this one. Now older and more skilled, I'm excited to work on my M2 project, appreciating this community's evolution and dedication and hope to contribute here more actively.
  2. pmg

    Moving is not easy

    Wonderful. Don't take me literally when I said don't change anything. As I understand it, a lot of care went into getting that property listed as historic, but even the original architects added that second floor master and rad sauna. Sure some purists will grumble but the nice thing about this forum is there's a whole second category of people that restomod things to taste.
  3. pmg

    Moving is not easy

    Ha! The Trogdon house!? We very nearly put in an offer but it seems life had other plans for us. Glad it went to another 2002 owner! Don’t change a thing!
  4. I believe the beemer / bimmer distinction only existed as a shibboleth in the States and Canada. South Africa and India went with beemer across the board and BSA bikes were certainly raced there. That said, I think the Internet forced the distinction amongst the entire English speaking world where previously it was localized to just one region. German is mercurial with their gender choices but "der Beamer" is the only variant of bimmer/beamer/beemer to appear in the father tongue dictionaries prior to 2010. "Beh-Ehm-Veh" is so quick to say though that I think it's hard for Germans to come up with something shorter. I imagine to the guys in Munich hearing: "Bee-Em-Double-U" can be bit...throwing. While they don't have much more to say on the bike/car distinction - the language has some affectionate names for the various models: Bikes: Gummikuh - BMW bikes from 1950 - 1990 - ride like "gummy cows" - cows legs lift from the rear - so did the early bikes. Hängetittenguzzi - Derogatory for BMW - "It looks like a Moto Guzzi with droopy boobs" or a "Hangy-tits-guzzi" Duttlbär - same kind of thing but more endearing - sort of like "Breasts on a Box" I guess? Also for the old boxer configuration bikes. Cars: Beamer - specifically defined in Germany as "what Americans call BMW because it's faster in their language" Baader Meinhof Wagen - slang bacronym for BMW after the terrorist cell. Bayrischer Mist Wagen - Bavarian Manure Truck + a thousand more "BMW" acronyms...some clever...others...well... Knutschkugel - "the ball" - nickname for the Isetta Barockengel - baroque angel - classy name for the 501 - curves like an angel - the vintage Rolls Royce look. Flüsternd Bombe - Whispering Bomb - AutoBild's nickname for the 2002 - cited in the famous 1968 Car and Driver Magzine review as "Flüstern Bombe" - literally "Whisper Bomb" - infinitive present vs present participle - but I can find no use of it German or in the archives. Even if the sourcing is a bit dodgy and miss-conjugated, I'll still take it and use it with joy. Kriegsbemalung - or "War Paint" - nickname for the 2002 Turbo livery - too aggressive for German highways - BMW had to tone it down a notch for release. There are a lot of super racist German nicknames for the cars particularly the E46 3 series variants but at least one I know of for the old model 2000's with the slanty headlights preceding the 2002. Those are better left unsaid. This German article specifically cites the bimmer/beemer turf war as American in origins. Interestingly that German website for bimmer.de is owned by an American company.
  5. Thanks guys. Got this out and swapped. Ended up using this tool for $15 on Amazon, same day delivery. The length of the stud, combined with me foolishly already grinding it had me worried about sheering it if using a monkey wrench, miami vice grips (heh), or a pipe wrench pliers. I particularly liked that tool as it was cheaper than the Jegs stud removal tool and seems to follow the same idea used by the stud pullers of our roughneck forebears (skip to 2:45 for 80,000 ft/lb explanatory action): (My favorite moment is at 45 seconds. Roughneck gonna' roughneck)
  6. Dumb question, but how do you escalate when trying to remove a difficult engine stud and double nutting fails? Backstory: My water divider has a small leak where it joins the top of the engine block. The nut that tightens down on stud 15 (pictured below) stripped the upper portion of the stud. I removed the divider, ordered the replacement part (07129908160). Problem is I can't get the old stud out. The top 1/4 of the stud was stripped. I took an angle grinder and removed the top portion. I connected two nuts to 'double-nut' the stud off. This stripped the stud again! I've still got about 1/4 of the stud with good threading still on. Not wanting to strip this. I grinded two smallflats on the smooth part, applied butane torch heat, pb blaster, and attempted to wrench this off using a number 7. No luck. Failing this, what is the accepted next step? Weld a nut to the stud and then wrench it off? Try the flat trick again but with less suck? Apply wax + map gas torch to the stud?
  7. Like the poster above me, this is the only thread I found on the forum regarding VDO needle adjustment. Had a similar issue with my tach. Adjusted it and made a video below:
  8. My clutch master started leaking a few weeks ago. I replaced both the clutch slave and the clutch master cylinder (for a Getrag 245) as well as taking some time to rebuild the rest of the pedal box. When I put in the new cylinders in and got everything up and running I'm now hearing a rattle when waiting at a traffic light with the car in neutral and the clutch released. If I push the clutch pedal down, the rattle goes away. Three weeks ago with the old cylinders there was no rattle. With the new cylinders there's a rattle. I'm at a loss on how to debug this one. Is my pedal travel not set up correctly? Or might it be something more serious like the pilot bearing that possibly got damaged when removing the clutch slave?
  9. Trackimo looks like white label hardware with an app on it. $99 is spendy. Those cubes usually go for $8 in Shenzhen. Could be fine. For data try 'Ting' - I used one of their sim cards on my bike. Pay what you use. https://www.adafruit.com/products/2505?gclid=CJWlqYjA7tECFcVefgod8wwKQQ - 2G is on the way out (and has been for a long while) but it's fine if you're looking for GPS coordinates only. (Edit: oops, looks like they are out of Beta. A basic voice 'line' is $6 a month + $3 data. Don't know if you can just get data. Twilio lets you get a data sim for $2 a month.) You could combine that with a white label automotive tracker from AliExpress. Just confirm it's for the right cell bands. Alternatively use a dedicated Android device with bluetooth paired to your 123Ignition+ and install the Prey app + a t-mobile / google fi subscription.
  10. I'm rebuilding my pedal box and the exterior cover on the outside of the car is a bit pitted from leaking hydraulic fluid. Looking to buy a dry used/new one. Roger's TII is out of stock - would appreciate a lead on another source too. BMW: 35111102142
  11. Hey Tsingtao, Mvliotta, Just picked up a set yesterday from scoyote via pm for $25. Marking this thread as *closed* - thank you both for the follow up!
  12. Looking for a set of both left and right cover plates for the heater/defrost cover plates in this style. Would be happy with something that's between 4/10 - 8/10 quality.
  13. You guys are wonderful. Percy, Toby, thank you so much for taking the time to school me on this. Your posts reflect a deep mastery of the subject. Great update here - thicker gasket came in, installed it, car is running again! This is without a doubt the most challenging thing I've undertaken on a car (dismantle and put back together half an engine). Old hat maybe for you guys but I'm super thrilled. SUPER thrilled. Interesting discoveries: When the previous owner swapped the heads, the chain slipped one tooth. This explains why the pistons where not at TDC when the mark was at the TDC notch. Because the timing chain was '1 tooth off' I was running into all these problems last year with the engine running rough and not stopping on shut off. I tried adjusting the dizzy, the float, the spark plug gaps, setting the ball on the timing light. Nothing, nada. Adjust one thing, problem comes up somewhere else. Now I understand. I clayed 4 valves. Good thing as one came loose during the operation. Gap was at 0.095" with the 1.80mm gasket - enough for me to feel comfortable with as it's above that 0.080" margin you mentioned Toby - no need to bust out the angle grinder(!). Given there was 'plenty' of clearance - Percy - I suspect the those indents were made by the original head that died many moons ago. Current troubleshooting areas: Two problems now that everything is back together. 1. The car wants to die really quickly on startup until it's warm. Even with a high idle. I kind of need to keep it at 3,000rpm(!) for a few minutes which seems excessively high. I understand the weber 34/36 has a fast idle if you punch the gas peddle before starting but I can't seem to get that to work - what's the trick? 2. The car is surging on acceleration. I look like a doofus pulling out of the driveway at 5mph and 5,000 rpm. I think this is either something wrong with my carb throttle linkage (highlighted in yellow) or that the intake manifold isn't secure well enough and is rolling on engine acceleration causing a slight tug on the throttle cable making the surge. Between the machine shops and disassembly I some how lost my coolant divider (highlighted in purple). I found another one from an E21 at the junkyard but it doesn't have the inlet on the "rear" side. Kind of leaks. Sort of sealed with permatex. I've already ordered a fancy one from Blunt that gets me three sensors plus the E12 head compatibility but it has to ship from Germany. In the mean time I plugged that intake line return with a bit of white plastic. From reading elsewhere in the forums this helps with warm up at low temperature. No idea on the surging though.
  14. Thank you Toby for being incredibly clear and helpful (as usual). I'll clay the engine, if it looks good, put on the stock 1.5mm gasket. If it fails down the line, I'll swap it out for a 121. Man, Daron, your comment really twerked my day. I really wish I had known this head did not match this block before spending $720 to get it up and running. $720 is crazy maybe, but in the process I learned it was previously ported so it seemed worth saving. (For reference it was $70 to resurface, $285 for the cam work, and $365 for the two tricky welds and repairs for the cracks). And this is after saving for a year to get it back to life. I now feel dumb, bummed, and penny-wise, pound foolish. A couple of expensive lessons here and I'm not out of the woods yet. So reading between the lines here, I should swap out the pistons or the head to match for ideal performance, but I can put this head on this block now that I've gotten this far. Basically, the engine will run but be even more prone to detonate, but I'm not insane for carrying forward with this path? (Or is putting the wrong head on the wrong body something one should absolutely not do?)
  15. Thank you very much Toby, Preyupy - you guys are wizards. So advantage of using the standard VR 1.5mm gasket is I get more compression / more power. The disadvantage is that my valves may not clear, I have to run higher octane fuel (I can only buy 91 in California - will that work?), and I have to be extra careful for detonation and pinging. In theory, I'm fine with that. Or rather, I would prefer that. It sounds great actually. Why do some people say not to plane the head to increase compression? ("It's a bad way to achieve that.") Here is the lower half before finishing. Two big concerns: 1) I made triple certain I was lined up at TDC with the timing chain ring notch directly under the oil pressure bar. When I pulled the head off, I saw this. Those pistons do not look TDC. It looks like the previous owner(s) mounted this one or two or three teeth off. (Sidenote, these are domed pistons, yeah?) (also, you can see where the gasket blew between 3 & 4 - that's what started me down this road - not a concern here.) 2) There's tiny dings from the intake valves on each cylinder. Close up below: Those - really look like they shouldn't be there. Does this mean the last person to put this back together got timing off? On the positive side. The head came back today. Toby, to your observation, it was lightly finished, two cracks appeared, those were fixed, and it was refinished. This is the final result: You can see the discoloration where the weld was put in between the top two cylinders (4 and 3) and the second discoloration between the combustion head and water jacket at the second combustion chamber from the top (3). The cam alignment was all redone at the same time and the valves all looked good. (I was worried based on those dings that the valves would be off.) So tldr: 1) Should I be concerned about those dings on the tops of the pistons? 2) Do I need the thicker gasket now that it's been established I have domed pistons? 3) How do I identify what camshaft I have? To my knowledge it's stock. Pic here: http://imgur.com/AiaQJrD
  16. I recently had an E12 engine head machined down to 5.047" (~128.1938mm) - (it's been decked a few times in it's life) - what head gasket should I get? And what else should I know? I understand the stock head is 5.0787" (129.0mm +/- 0.1mm) and the minimum is 5.070" (128.775mm) - this is below that. I also understand some A/X folks go as low as 127.5mm but need to start doing crazy things with chain tensioning and cam adjustment. VR makes a 1.5mm (p/n 11121734279) and a 1.8mm gasket (p/n 11121734280). Goetze does as well. IE/Cometic makes MLS gaskets 1.2mm / 1.4mm or pretty much anything else custom. In theory I understand I should get the 1.8mm thicker Victor Reinz gasket but I don't understand why. What are the advantages of Multi-Layered Steel? What would go wrong if I just put on the 1.5mm VR gasket I had as a spare? At this level do I need to worry about claying my cylinder heads to make sure there's not contact with the valves?
  17. Check for a broken front subframe by the engine mount on the drivers side. Had this happen to me, engine would roll right when I applied too much gas or went around left hand turns which would pull the throttle cable. Ended up dropping the whole subframe and welding in additional support material. IE sells two parts to reinforce this: 1) Motor mount reinforcement (where mine broke) and 2) a general subframe reinforcement plate. If that ends up being the problem, you may as well do both. Hope it's something more minor.
  18. The failure rate on these projects are low, but the delays are very high. This recent article sums it up. I'm not going to stick my neck out for two guys I've just met, but I'll give 'em a hand. For everyone else, it's just an fyi. As for the cost, I think it's fair, if maybe a bit low. Those are six 350 Farad (!) capacitors ($10 each) on four 38120 LiFePO4 batteries (rare but $15~$20 each?) plus electronics ($5) plus enclosure ($5 + $20,000k fixed over say 2000 units or another ~$10 amortized.) All in that's $160 without labor or assembly or warehousing. Typically COGS should be 1/4th of retail. For a crowdfunded project, maybe 1/2. But 7/8's is too risky. If they swap the 8AH 38120's for the much more ubiquitous 3.5AH 18650's (same one's found in the Tesla) they could shave off $50 or so. Which takes time. Which creates a delay.
  19. So I just met two of the founders of Ohm battery at a startup event. They're launching an indiegogo campaign today for their new 6lb lithium iron phosphate battery (LiFePO4). There is an early bird option to get the units for $179 - $40 off the retail price - so I figured I'd give y'all a heads up if this does it for you. For me this is cheaper than doing the trunk conversion so I went for it. The gist is they are a new company with experienced founders; they have a functional prototypes fielded; and they are launching a campaign today to take their prototypes to mass production. The actual units won't be shipping for a year (August, 2016). I'm reserving mine now because I want to see the guys succeed and believe in the inevitability of this idea. That said, there is risk of delay or failure so buyer beware. It is a new-ish technology which like all new things will have some teething issues. I don't have any affiliation with these guys but based on the prototype I saw today, there's nothing in my experience they can't work through over the next 9 months. It's a simple circuit with some unusual requirements (high amperage) - but nothing that looks too complicated for a new company with financing and smart founders to tackle. If you decide you don't want to reserve one, just let this post serve as a heads up. I think it's a better deal than going with a fancy AGM kit. I've wanted to do this myself but now that a commercial product nearly exists I'll devote my attention to other endeavors. The batteries are a lightweight combination of off-the-shelf LiFePO4 (safer storage than regualr LiPo's) and super capacitors (to dump enough current to the starter) with custom electronics and smart features such as an 'auto shutoff'. The downside is the battery has 1/2-to-1/4 as much capacity as regular lead acid batteries. The auto-shutoff feature will reserve enough juice in the event that you left your lights on. (I.e. if you left your lights on all night, it'll kill the supply, your radio will reset, but when you come back in the morning you'll still be able to startup the car if you can usually it going on 3 or 4 crank attempts.) We were discussing battery placement in another thread and I just wanted to post a follow up over here.
  20. That a Xiaomi? They're the real deal. No sinophobia here. Nice vids!
  21. If you're just using any goop as a seal, I would say use a high temperature non-metallic (ceramic) anti-seize not a thread-lock. On iron blocks, the use of metallic anti-seize may not be recommended. People have used copper-based anti-seize on iron heads for years, but I've heard that can cause galvanic corrosion to the iron. The use of aluminum anti-seize on iron threads is not recommended because it will cause galvanic corrosion of the aluminum base itself and might make it more difficult to remove since the aluminum metal will have corroded into a white aluminum oxide. I don't think there are any problems with Nickel anti-seize other than it's more cancerous. Ceramic anti-seize seems to be the way to go in the future. Various manufacturers seem to do more or less diligence on long term effects. I've head good experiences with Loctite, Champion Aerospace, and Molykote but skeptical of Permatex. FWIW Loctite still is recommending copper anti-seize:
  22. Ah here we go. From the Petrolicious article: From the detailed photos it looks like a straight collector header. (Select "English" in the top right.) Which is NOT to say these cars were fitted without exhaust in all competitions. Further digging reveals the name of one manufacturer: Devil Exhaust. They made the Alpine A110 exhausts for the rally (or as they say in France "Rallye") models. This brochure scan features not just the 1971/72 Alpine models but our familiar friend too. From an old thread with other fitting these onto their '02s. Which just goes to show, you should use the search function! Devil exhaust isn't quiet "no exhaust" but it does have it's own kind of throaty charm. Apparently common in Germany and huge in France. Sometimes they come up on eBay.
  23. First. I'm not sure if you are using fuses. Your diagram suggests your not. You should be. 30amps for the fan and 10 amps for the thermo/overide switches based on wire thickness. You want the fuse to pop and not the wire to burn up. You want to use thicker gauge wire (10ga) for the fan so it can it can draw a higher current. You want the fuses on the positive side of whatever you are wiring to. (If your equipment does have a short, you really don't want it to be 'hot' if you go in there and start spannering around when the battery is live.) If you do have fuses in there, then no worries! Second. As with the fuses, you probably want a suppressor diode for the thermo switch. (See diagram below). You don't need one for the over-ride switch. The thermo switch has a smaller range of motion between opening and closing, purportedly making it more susceptible to arcing and premature failure. Now that's taken care of, it depends on which thermo switch you are using. It sounds like you are using a resistive switch and not an open closed switch. If you have a two-pole switch your above plan will work. If you have a single pole switch (I believe is more common), the thermo shorts to ground when activated. If you are using this kind of switch it will bypass the whole relay and your fan won't turn on. If I wanted this setup, I would try putting both switches on the 85 side and short 30 to 86 with a 10amp fuse and 18ga wire. I would also add a suppressor diode from 85 to 86 if the relay does not have one built in. Instead of using the Blue/Green wire connected to ACC, you would connect this to 12V battery+ (aka pin 30 on the relay).
  24. Out of my depth here. From the narration it sounds like he's using the same components from the WRC/Rally entries in 1973. Don't know what the homologation requirements were for that era. Theoretically there should be records of the race spec parts the various teams used. Kakimoto makes replica Alpine exhausts. As another inline four-banger making ~130bhp you're not crazy for trying to get that sound out of an M10. There was another fairly recent rebuild of that car in 2013 so more project information may be available. Here at 2 minutes and 30 seconds:
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