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2002spaceodyssey

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  1. 2002spaceodyssey

    New Drivetrain

    By 2002spaceodyssey,


    Doug's 1974 BMW
    My goal is to build a fun street car, and I recently had a completely new/upgraded drive train installed in my 2002. I set things in motion in August 2020, when I bought a used 1972 2002 motor from Kim in Herdon, VA.


    In September 2020 I dropped the motor off with Bruce Shelton (Automotive Enterprises in Winchester, VA) and asked him to rebuild it. I was in no hurry, and Bruce worked on the motor over the next year. He had the block machined, provided an E12 cylinder head, installed JE 9.5:1 pistons, a 292 cam, dual Weber 40 DCOEs, a Carter electric fuel pump, and a long-tube street and track step header from Rogers Tii. 

    In September 2021, Bruce called and said the motor was done. I decided to have him install the engine along with a 185K-mile Getrag 245 5-speed that I had bought from ClayW in Silver Spring, MD.

    I installed an E21 3.91 Limited Slip Differential I bought from Al Taylor in 2020, put my car on a trailer, and towed it Bruce's shop.

    Bruce sent me some pictures as he was installing the rebuilt motor.



    Outside Bruce's shop.

    Automotive Enterprises is something of a time capsule, as it was an imported car parts business many years ago. Bruce races a Pinto in SCCA and supports the racing community at Summit Point Raceway. In April 2022, Bruce was done installing the fresh engine and doing a 5-speed conversion. I bought a driveshaft from Steve at Blunt. I brought my "new" car home. (The front air dam had to be removed to go on the trailer.)


    Once I got my car home, it needed some sorting. The header was hitting a castle nut on the drag link. I had to file the corner off the castle nut until it cleared.



    Note my washers on my drag link (or whatever it's called) have come apart almost immediately as mentioned on this site.
    I also had a sticking throttle, the result of rust in the tube that the gas pedal passes through. I cleaned out the gunk and installed new bushings and a new return spring...problem solved.

    I had to properly secure the console to the transmission tunnel as it was flopping around. The Blunt 5-speed conversion kit includes a BMW Z3 shifter.

    I had a list of little things that had been waiting. I installed a brand new pair of flag mirrors that I bought from W&N a couple of years ago.


    I made a template a drilled the door for the passenger-side mirror. I used riv-nuts to mount it, of course!

    I installed new door buffers and replaced some missing door handle gaskets.


    I put new webbing under my Recaro driver's seat. The old webbing was shot.

    I painted the supports behind the grille the current body color and replaced the grille "hooks" which were missing.



    I bought a set of underhood decals. All my original decals were painted over.


    My license plate light lenses and taillight lenses were old and cracked, so I installed new ones.

    I was doing all this work as the run-up to the Carlisle Import Show in May, but on the day of the show, the car wouldn't run right. It wouldn't idle and would eventually stall unless I kept my foot on the gas. When I tried to drive it, it stumbled and wouldn't accelerate. I guessed the problem was the old Crane XR700 ignition, so I order a new one (now FAST XR700.) Of course, once I installed it, it took a couple days of fiddling with the optical sensor before I could get it to run, but now it runs good, so the ignition was the problem. 
    My SiennaBraun paint is showing where the old Crane unit was mounted.

    Well, I missed the Carlisle show, but I'll be at the Hunt Valley Cars and Coffee this summer!

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     


  2. 2002spaceodyssey
    I recently installed one of Pierre's Kamei repro air dams. I bought it a couple of years ago, and finally got my car on the road. Pierre suggested using rivnuts to install it, so I bought a tool on line. This was my first experience with rivnuts, and they worked very well. I ended up using 9 rivnuts in 6mm size. My 1974 2002 has cutouts for the big bumper brackets up front. It was suggested the air dam could cover those openings, but installing it that high made the ends come up short of the fender lips. I will have to have the openings filled and painted later. Here is what the rivnuts look like:

    Here is rivnut installed on a washer to show what the backside looks like once installed:

    This is the tool I bought - Astro Pneumatic Tool Company 1427. It worked well, no doubt because it had "Astro" in the name.

    I laid out the 9 holes on the air dam, and then used it as my template to drill the car's valence.

    Here are the rivnuts installed.

    I found some thin 1" wide rubber tape and used it between the fiberglass air dam and the car's paint.

    Pierre's air dam fit extremely well with almost no space between it and car. Once installed, the height from the ground was a uniform 6.25".

    I will have the air dam painted soon (right now it's in gelcoat as received.) I've also ordered some black stainless steel washers and button-head 6mm bolts. And (sigh) I live in MD so I need to figure out how to mount a front license plate. Here are some gratuitous pictures of my car with the air dam.




    UPDATE 31 May.
    I needed to install the front license plate and I found a quick-release front license plate bracket that allows the front plate to be quickly removed for car shows, cars & coffee, and track events. 
    I settled on Big Mike's STO N SHO. They are vehicle-specific, and I looked at the designs on-line and used the 2016/17 Ford Focus RS design to mount the plate to my air dam. 

    Here is what the installed plate mount looks like.

    I have read on the FAQ that the Kamei air dams came with aluminum brackets to reinforce the lower lip of the air dam. Most of the old posts I found referencing these brackets had broken photo links, so I could never see how they were installed. Given the lack of something to copy, I made my own brackets out of 1.5" wide, 1/8" thick aluminum stock. I used the bolts that mount the STO N SHO license plate mount to hold the brackets. I was going to then drill the brackets and screw them to the car's front valence, but they fit so tightly that I don't believe they need to be bolted to the car. They are quite rigid.



    The front plate can now removed and reinstalled in seconds without having to reach for the screwdriver! Additionally, the front air dam is very solid. You can't push the lower lip inward.


    Thanks for lookin'!
  3. 2002spaceodyssey
    I asked my wife for an Ireland Engineering fiberglass rear bumper for Christmas last year. I almost changed my mind when I saw that the shipping cost from CA to MD was about $100, but I went ahead. I had already purchased Blunt's early bumper conversion brackets for my 1974 car, and I decided to use a piece of aluminum U-channel to bridge the distance between the mounts and give some structure to the installation. Being enamored with Riv-Nuts after using them to install the front air dam, I used four of them to secure the rear bumper. 
    I was very disappointed with the fit of the bumper. The ends were nowhere close to the body. It's a shame they couldn't have made the bumper fit the 2002 body contours. 

    Since I don't have fiberglass skills, my first idea was to trim the middle portion of the bumper so the gap would be more like the ends. I made a scribe so I could trace the body contour onto the bumper.  I used a Rotozip tool to cut the bumper to a uniform distance from the car body.
     
     
    After the bumper was trimmed, it had a uniform (but large) gap with the car's body.


    When I took my car to East Coast Restorations in Finksburg, MD, the owner (Mark) said the bumper should fit flush with the car and he would cut both ends off and re-form them tight to the car. He moved the bumper forward until it fit under the small overhang on the rear valance.  He then painted the bumper to match the body and filled in the stock exhaust exit, which was on the right side. 


    As a reminder, here is what Pierre's front air dam looks like. I recently added euro front turn signals.


    Thanks for lookin'!
  4. 2002spaceodyssey
    This is my first blog. Last May (believe it or not) I decided to drop my rear subframe and rehab everything. I didn't fully understand the scope of the project or what a rite of passage it would be. I used cyclopticgaze's series of articles as a reference. Right away I realized there were a couple of rust problems that had to be overcome.

    Peterman here on the FAQ helped me out by welding in new upper spring perches while Steve at Blunt hooked me up with a used pair of trailing arms with sound lower spring perches.

    I had the rear subframe and trailing arms media blasted and then used POR15 on them.

    The first project was new rear wheel bearings. For some reason my hubs were extremely tight on the stub axles. I had to take one to a machine shop because I couldn't pull it. Even after they were off, they were very difficult to get back on the axles. I bought a bearing driver set and a 4 pound hammer to get the old wheel bearings out and the new ones in. My 16 oz. craftsman claw hammer wasn't going to cut it. The bearing drivers are aluminum so you don't damage the bearings while hammering them in. The bearings are then greased. The spacers go between the two bearings in each trailing arm. New seals cover the bearings.


    Next up were the 4 CV joints. Like most aspects of this project, I had no previous experience with CV joints, but managed to clean them out with brake cleaner, pack new grease in, and fit them back on the repainted axles. The boot clamps I had required a special pair of pliers (called boot clamp pliers, appropriately enough) to cinch the metal bands down tight. (Cyclopticgaze's rear subframe article has a link to a great piece on redoing CV joints.)


    Next I had to show my stock differential some love. I cleaned it up, installed new side oil seals, and used RTV for the cover gasket per mlytle's excellent rear diff article on the FAQ. I also gave it a quick paint job (with very little prep.) New Red Line lube too.


    Getting there. S&T Sway Bar. Cunifer brake lines from AceAndrew. Polyurethane trailing arm bushings and rear mount bushings. New rubber subframe bushings from Blunt with polyurethane inserts. Most hardware new from Blunt although some of the original bolts, etc cleaned up really well with EvapoRust. The rear subframe mounts have metal inserts that must be cut out before you can put the new bushings in. I rented a transmission jack from Sunbelt rentals. $35 per day and I only needed one day. I would highly recommend the transmission jack rental for lifting the subframe back into place.

    Bilstein HD shocks. H&R Springs.


    I'm experimenting with an aluminum strut spacer in the rear to increase rear ride height. I may end up removing it if I don't like it . The zipties to hold the spring rubbers on is an idea from cyclopticgaze that seems to work well. (The shiny black paint is POR15 covering rust repair sections welded in.)

    New wheel cylinders and brake shoes. My first exposure to inserting the W-shaped spring was today. They are IN!

    Here are some tools I recently bought that I never felt I needed in over 40 years of working on cars. I highly recommend you find these tools if you're redoing your rear subframe. The previously-mentioned 4 pound hammer and bearing driver set, a seal puller, and the boot clamp pliers (middle bottom). The needle nose vice-grips are great for brake springs.

    Thanks for reading! Next up is the front end....
  5. 2002spaceodyssey
    With the rear subframe back under the car, it was time to focus on the front end. Merry Christmas to me! I've managed to have my wife, my elderly parents, and my adult Son buy me 2002 parts..
    It's wintertime. Fire up the propane heater.

    First order of business was to press out the old bushings. I bought a bushing puller set.


    The nuts below were solid mounds of rust. I had to take these parts to a machine shop to grind them off.
    The gland nuts on the front struts didn't want to let go. I bought a 24" pipe wrench and mapp gas. That did the trick.
    The strut inserts didn't want to come out. I used a slide hammer with vice grips to free them.
     
    The KYB inserts were severely rusted in the bottom of the strut housings.It
    It's POR-15 time again

    Getting pretty comfortable using this POR-15 stuff.



    Billy HDs

    There was so much rust in the bottom of my strut housings that the Billy HDs wouldn't go clear in. They stopped about 3/4 inches short. I had to get a cylinder hone on an 18" extension bar and run it down inside the strut housing for a very long time in order to seat the inserts.

    I ordered a special bilstein gland nut wrench so I could torque the nuts, but they were the wrong size, so my Son welded some longer tabs onto the wrench.

     


     
    ST Sway Bar
    Coming together. I took my struts to a local BMW motorcycle dealer and they did the speedwire for me (for a price.)



     
    As I put the control arms and tension struts together, I noticed the front tension strut bushings were very loose. I had bought Energy Suspension urethane bushings, and no amount of tightening would snug them up where they mounted to the car. I took everything apart. The Energy Suspension bushing measured about .950" between the bushing halves. I realize that not all 2002s are the same, but my 2002 front tension rod mount measured about .900", so these bushings were never going to fit snugly.

     

    I bought a set of Ireland Engineering Urethane bushings, and the front tension strut bushings were at about .850", so they fit snugly.



    Time to replace front wheel bearings. Mlytle's article was most helpful. 
     

     


    New calipers and Porterfield pads


    Bleed the brakes and let's drive this thing!

     
     
     
     

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
  6. 2002spaceodyssey
    I bought a 1974 2002 from a friend who restored the car in the 1990s. It has had previous rust repair in many areas (driver's front subframe rail, driver's floor, rear shock towers to name a few.) It was painted a very dark green (Nissan color) in the 1990s and clear coated. The exterior has had all trim removed prior to painting and looks pretty nice. I bought the car a year and a half ago and have done a few basic things to it. I removed a roll bar and 5-pt belts (it has seen some track time at Summit Point.) I installed retractable seat belts from Blue Devils, an S14 starter, a nice set of E21 Recaros, plugs, wires, rotor, cap, fluids, repainted E21 turbine wheels with Toyo tires. It drives well. I noticed some rust bubbling from the metal floor plugs underneath the car, so I finally pulled out the carpet. I found a repaired driver's floor section and intact-looking black tar sound deadening in the rear and passenger side. I used dry ice (thanks Dry Ice Ice Baby article!) and discovered that all the metal plugs  have rusted through (most fell out leaving holes.) One of holes is perilously close to a rear suspension mounting point. The floor is intact where it meets the inner rocker panels save for a 6" section along the rear driver's side, where it has rusted through. The outer rockers appear sound. I'd like to have these rust holes repaired/patched. I don't know if I should buy a new floor section for the driver's side rear where the damage is worst.







      So I bought a rear driver side floor panel. I dug a little deeper. I found the inner inside fenders (which were covered with sound deadening) have rusted through as well. I also removed the cardboard-like stuff on the passenger firewall and found another hole in the floor there. The inner rear fenders (next to the springs) appear to have been repaired in some manner. And I've added a picture of the previous driver's frame rail repair, which now has surface rust.

     I bought new driver side rear and passenger side front floor panels, and had East Coast Restorations in Finksburg MD do the welding work. They also fabricated metal to repair the rear shock towers, which were rusted clear through. I then used the POR15 process: degreaser, metal etch, POR15 black paint, and finally grey POR15 top coat over the entire floor. It wasn't too expensive, and I'm fairly happy to have the rust and holes gone! Pics above.










     I bought new driver side rear and passenger side front floor panels, and had East Coast Restorations in Finksburg MD do the welding work. They also fabricated metal to repair the rear shock towers, which were rusted clear through. I then used the POR15 process: degreaser, metal etch, POR15 black paint, and finally grey POR15 top coat over the entire floor. It wasn't too expensive, and I'm fairly happy to have the rust and holes gone! Pics above.    
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