Oldtimerfahrer

Same with the rear diff, poly transfers too much...my regret.... Andrew

Gustave, There is nothing different really about a 1502 shell, its just a square taillight model produced as a continuation model while rhe E21 was already in production. Closest thing will be either another 1502 (but never imported officially to the US) or a 1976 US 2002. Would customs taxes make a difference on where you source the donor? If you are doing the restoration for sentimental reasons, you will have to carefully review your options, I guess they will all be fairly expensive compared to the market value of the finished car. Andrew

The cost cutting "featutes/ deletes" make the 1502 the absolutely least desirable and "most likely to make tribute" for a turbo or something else. They were used up as donors in Europe, so most are scrapped or no longer 1502's...

Hi, Its the center link, the angle at which the rod that connects to the spindle linkage is suboptimal. Its difficult to see, but the linkages are nearly at 180 degrees, which makes the effort to pivot initially higher than it would be if the rod were at say 120 degrees and moving down to 80. Now it goes from 160 to 110 or so. I guess a longer link rod would change the angles. Andrew

Hi, @halboyles Are the balance lever and bridge bracket reengineered or equivalent to stock? Are they different if used with weber carbs? I've never been quite happy with the alignment of my setup, but it might also have to do with the manifolds themselves. The front to rear alignment of the center linkage rod and precarious angles of the bridge bracket to the linked center spindle join aren't great, so motor movement is probably being translated into throttle position changes at idle or low RPM. A.

Mines been working intermittently for years, waiting for it to completely stop counting before fixing something I don't need... A.

What you can do is orient yourself on the Alpina A3 spec, just for the motor which would include the downpipe uai recommended. You can make your own downpipe sort of, by rewelding a stock item to move the join further away from the manifold. You will get good low end torque with the 40s, would probably need to raise CR quite a bit to retain driveability with 45's. I have 45s with stock ti pistons and its ok as far as Im concerned. I cant pull away cleanly from 1200 but after 1800 RPM it has enough go to get around the city. If you have the overdrive 5 speed, you will still need to downshift from 5th if you really want to go with either setup.

If the chain was really loose, you would probably hear it running along the casing and taking metal with it. The side effects are odd, a timing chain issue should effect all four as you cannot shift the timing for 2 cylinders, but maybe it has already skipped a tooth and is off by one tooth in total. Removing the cover to get at the chain is not that difficult, but if you remove the valve cover and check whether the valve timing is correct and control the valve clearance would be a first step. Looking from the valve cover, you might be able to see if damage is being done to the casing or to the plastic guide that the chain runs on. These are things you can check without getting too deep into the innards. If the timing chain wasn't done right at the last rebuild and you have not put a lot of miles on it, I would not be surprised if the jack chain that runs the oil pump was also not tensioned properly. Worth checking if you have to do the timing chain. Why? My engine had these faults with both a bad tensioner and incorrectly set up oil pump chain...thanks to a PO in the very distant past. Andrew

The mk1 never had a polished outside face like the Mk2? I couldn't tell from the brochure Steve uploaded in the other thread...Powdercoating steel wheels is not worth while due to the lug nuts and scratching problems but ok for alloys. Rattle can works if their not pitted for a fraction of the cost.

205's need 6" really, 5.5 is ok. I have not seen any manufacturer approving 5" but I haven't searched exhaustively. You can put a 165, 175, 185 on the 5", you can put all of the above on a 5.5 as welll, plus the 205. The 165 looks odd on a 5.5, a little lost...but not a safety problem like the 205 on a 5" rim.

Hi, I have two sets of rims, I mounted the cn36 on rims that had A021R's before. I left the 165 XAS on the other rims, but they are nearing end of life as the scrutineers said that they were at the lower limit for wear for sporting events. Locally, I cant source any quality tires so they are shipped from Germany. The advice came from them, not the tire shop mounting them here...so they are trying to be helpful. Andrew

I received a call back from the dealer, they said two things...firstly that they had not received any complaints to date and secondly said that BMW rims should not be balanced using a centering spindle, but mounted on a balancer that uses the lugs themselves. He said that 02 rims don't center properly on the spindle... He also said that if such uneven surfaces are encountered, they would unmount the tire, or more precisely, deflate, release the bead and rotate the tire on the rim, reflate and re-run on the balancer. Doing this several times he said, usually you find an orientation of rim to tire without these uneven points... This was all a bit surprising to me. I want to get out and run it up to 70 mph or so and see what happens. They are noisier than the XVS they replaced, but are also wider. Andrew

Yes, you see that the rim and sidewall are good, just the tread area itself shows deviations, which result in height deviations. I had Yokohama A021Rs mounted before that, we're round. Oddly, the deviations ate local, like a patch oh 2in by 2in round is a bit higher, its not just one per tire as if they had the reverse of a flat spot. I bought them in Germany from MOR, I was surprised they did not come from Turkey. Andrew

As a follow up, my brake calipers removed the weights as they were incorrecty attached so I had to get the tires rebalanced. I noticed two things, as I watched the guy balance this time around: 1) he said the rims were absolutely straight 2) the tires are rubbish in terms of roundness...even cheap china tires are usually rounder than my CN36s with 50 miles on them. Why I brought this up? There was a disparaging comment made in the FAQ on "Made in Turkey" Pirelli tires. I will chalk the author's view to ignorance rather than anything else. Mine are marked "Made in Argentina". I should have made a video of the balancing, to send to Pirelli. I wish I had "Made in Turkey" tires now... I will follow up with my supplier as I am not real happy with the roundness of the tires, their service was tip top though. Andrew

Hi! Unfortunately the catalog is not well scanned, but what it also includes are any exclusion / modifications regarding the use of the wheels. Those are on the far right, the legend is at the end of each section. It is in German, but many of the topics repeat accross the different wheels and wheel/tire combinations. 12A no snowchains 22c, 23b, 24f modifications to fenders required 71B only with clamp style weights for balancing 73B ONLY WITH TUBES 76B tire/wheel combination can only be mounted on rear axle 81A ventilated rotors not permitted BB9, BBA hardened axle shafts required BCA upgrade to turbo suspension required 165/13 tires look odd on 5.5 inch rims, but are allowed. I have never seen 195/70 13 tires, but I also don't have 6 inch rims either. A.

Slavs, When you got them, were they sprayed with clear PU or lacquer on the polished face? One set of MK2 had this treatment when I bought them. Did yours? Andrew

Steve, Here is the rest...that was only an excerpt. My copy is better than the attachment, but I cant seem to find the file I printed it from. If you look at the 4th column you see either ST (steel) or LM (Alloy) so you see here the dimensions of all of the steel wheels too. This is posted on the strichzwo.de site in Germany for all of the 2002 range by model, but it does not really vary except that the Turbo cannot take 4,5 or 5 or 5,5 inch rims.... So 1502 has all rims listed, 2002turbo only has those listed that you could mount on a turbo. Enjoy, Andrew raederkatalog_2002.pdf

Hi Steve, Great stuff, I had not seen this brochure but it has interesting details like the nuts and plates available. The R2-004 is the only variant that was offered / certified in Germany, unless someone privately certified them you could not mount any other variant. The TUV wheel bible lists them as ET22 with a load rating of 470kg. I saw in the German forums that there are other variants that were available for Opels, which had a lower load rating and despite the same ET and bolt pattern could not legally be mounted. Oddly there is only one entry in the catalog for Cosmic, its always this R2-004 in 5.5x13. You can see it was certified in April 1972, but I have never seen the certificate itself. The valid tire sizes are listed as well. The note on the right says that you may need to roll the fenders and you need hardened halfshafts. The entries/restrictions are the same for all variants of the 02 except the ti/tii/turbo which either had the hardened halfshafts or wider arches. I assume that the brochure was only for the US and not the UK market, since they would not have listed the American cars in the UK. The brochure also clearly states that the Mk 2 at least was always delivered as a polished face with contrasting centers. Not sure whether there was a difference between the the two Mk1 / Mk2 in terms of finish. I also note, that my two "R2-004" Mk 2 are radically different, the earlier ones have a lip and are about a pound lighter than the "later" R2-004 set I have. It is a different casting, as the centers and ribs are formed differently, not just the lip of the rim. Andrew

The need for a tube is determined by the way the rim is formed and the type of tire. Tubeless tires would "need" a tube when mounted on an inappropriate rim (like old 2 or 3 piece steel rims that are riveted together and intended for tubes). I wouldn't think you need tubes for the "mags" unless the bead does not seal properly. Why some tubeless tires take tubes and others dont was answered a bit back in another thread. Had to do with friction or rubbing between the tube and the carcass of the tire. I imagine that most rims that were intended for use with tubes, will seal properly with bead sealant and without tubes... but not where the rim is not airtight. I have two sets of cosmics with two different lip forms, but I dont know if that relates back to tubes. Andrew

Hi, Do you know the model designation of those you refer to as "mark 1"? The other more common type with the right ET and load rating for a 2002 was designated as the "R2-004". That latter style was produced in many different variations. The r2-004 came in two variations as well. Andrew

On a related note, I also finally mounted my cn36's, but not before I swapped out the OEM HD springs for a set of sport springs that used to be traded by Team Andexer in Germany and now taken onto W&N's product catalogue. I searched for lowered springs for a long time, noone in Europe wants to sell just the springs, you get either coilovers or a kit... You can see before and after. Arches are now filled by the cn36's and rear camber introduced by the shorter springs. Ride is no different in terms of comfort. I have some track time on Friday evening, I am curious to see how stability has changed. The HD springs were a real pain to get out, happy I could turn my spring compressors with an air rachet...

My round taillight car fails the 185/70 test, but if you have a heavy original looking trunk carpet as I do, you don't really notice the height difference. You could pad the fuel tank side with thin weatherproof plywood slats or go the whole 9 yards and go to turbo height...but I think the carpet solution kills two birds with one stone. Andrew

The work is great, I wonder what such an exercise costs in reality when you count it all up? Having the original paint is nice, but a law of diminishing returns sets in at some point. I probably wouldn't paint it either, but would I go the whole 9 yards on exterior detailing... They don't say how much time went in. I would expect the total cost to be 4 digits due to the rust and paint corrections. If it was only dings and scratches, would it be a 3-digit number or still 4 digits?

I have had the filter King item for a long time, with the pressure adjustment option. Works flawlessly, but overkill if you are running a mechanical pump and stock carbs. I like seeing the filter and easy replacement without worrying about hoses and clamps.

Well, yeah the cheapie suppliers who are selling only one compound as their excellent product don't list anything. "Most" is misleading, most manufacturers are selling you "poly" and not an engineered product with several hardnesses available. There are quite a few that do and they are probably the ones that we should be buying (not no name ebay backyard products). Look at akg, garagistic, powerflex, irp, superflex (mostly). Why would anyone buy pu bushings in amazon with no ratings? Its like saving money on tires except that bushings are much harder and more expensive to replace.