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7 hours ago, Tom Daley said:

Hi, The car looks awesome! Hard work paying off for sure. 

        After reading your posts I purchased two of the door brakes you mentioned at Pelican parts. Since its been a while I wanted to ask;

1) have you noticed any flexing in the door brake? I only ask as the third bolt hole (nut on end) isn't utilized and the base (two utilized nuts) is much thinner material than the original cast unit.

2) Before I cut mine, did the 3/4" adjustment work out? Go shorter or longer?

 

Appreciate your recommendations and posts. Thanks Tom

Still working great, and the 3/4" shortening seems just about right.  Wouldn't change it.  Thanks for the kind words!

Without knowing your skill level or aptitude it's sort of hard to guide you.  If you're fairly handy, you'd be surprised what you can do yourself.  I restored my '72 without it ever leaving my garage, including body and paint. To see what you'd be up against, take a look at my thread.  (add in Tii complications for your car on top of it): 

If you decide to sell, All of the local places (Sac Craigslist and FB marketplace) are good places to start, as well as the classified section here, of course.  Good luck!

I went to the one in October 2019, not sure if it continued after Covid.  It was a pretty small affair.

Wow, that seems risky!  Glad it worked for you, I'd probably make a pig's ear out of it.  I ended up landing on a different solution that I think will work.  I took a generic Christmas-tree style fastener and cut it down to a rectangular shape so it would slide into the trim  the same way as the metal clips and still have the thickness to allow it to be pushed tightly into the hole.  Pic below.

Unfortunately, I also found out that the slot cut into the rear end of the door trim to facilitate the clip installation ends up exacly over the rearmost clip, rendering it useless.  I had to weld on an "extension" onto the rear clip to give it enough length to bite down on the inside flanges of the trim, second pic.  Yuck.

So I am installing the @02bumpers stainless beltline trim on my '72 and I saved the doors for last.  So far everything has gone well enough and the trim looks fantastic.  For those unfamiliar, the stainless trim is held on with metal plates/studs/nuts on every hole instead of only at the corners.  It does NOT fit with the stock plastic trim clips in any way.

Anyway, my question is about the furthest forward hole on the door.  I see absolutely NO way to install a nut on that clip because there's zero access to the back side, and that would leave the front of the door trim unattached.  Has anyone who has installed this trim come up with any kind of solution for this??

This is probably a long shot but does anyone have a single Cromodora CD32 center cap they'd part with?  One of mine went MIA on my last drive.   I only need the cap itself, I still have the cup for the rear of the wheel.  TIA.

I spent the last few weeks installing (read swearing and drinking) all of the rubber seals and glass.  I was able to get all OE BMW rubber except for the door seals (Uro). Everything fit well (even the Uro door seals) but good lord the doors are hard to close.  I really hope these seals relax a bit over time.

Then today was a big day - I actually drove it for the first time since October (of course it was out of gas).  Still have a ton of interior left to finish but I'm glad it's a driver again.  I've really missed this car!

Just a quick update tonight.  Back when I started the teardown in November, I found (and asked about) the disintegrated remnants of the door brakes in the bottoms of the doors.  Searching around I found some evidence that a Mercedes door brake could be shortened up and used.  Well yes, it's true and it works great!  I bought two of part number 126-720-05-16-M352 for the whopping cost of $9.75 each!  All I had to do was shorten the arm by about 3/4".  I went ahead and welded the original door brake end onto the Mercedes part just because the original one had a nylon bushing in it, though I don't think it's necessary to do so. 

Last pic shows the door at the stop position.

Still plugging away at it. Bumpers and most of the exterior trim are installed.  I also got the headliner in thanks to this excellent thread by @ClayW : https://www.bmw2002faq.com/forums/topic/126157-headliner-installation/

The headliner was a big hurdle so finally I can get on with all of the new rubber and glass!

Sold, thanks 

Bump.  $150 shipped. You buy now.

23 minutes ago, Aaron R said:

Yeah, but tell us about the 575 in the background 

It's a 550 actually, gated manual V12.  Bought it 10 years ago when they were "cheap".  Couldn't afford it today.

Small update time.  Slow going the last couple of weeks primarily because every single thing I go to put back on the car looks like crap next to the new paint so it needs cleaning/polishing/straightening.  I refinished the Cromodoras, polished all the trim, even refinished the license plate frame. 

I also ordered about $2K worth of headliner/rubber seals from @BLUNT so when all of that arrives, I'll have plenty of work to do.  Good thing, too as I retire from my job on April 20th so I will need something to occupy my time! 🥳

Price reduced.  $150 shipped anywhere in the USA.

Driver-quality early center kidney grill for 2002.  Minor dings, and the upper stud has been repaired (does not affect mounting).  I had this grill on my own car for several years before I found an NOS one.  $150 shipped in the US.

It's been about a month since my last update but I think I can finally say I'm DONE with this paint job.  I spent the entirety of the last month color sanding, buffing and polishing. 

First I sanded the entire car with 2000, then 3000.  Then I went though the whole rigamarole of polishing with 3M perfect-it rubbing compound and then polishing compound.  It ain't perfect by any stretch, but for an idiot working in his garage at home, I'm fairly pleased.

Now I get to finally move on to the fun part - putting it back together!

I spent a bit of time hanging all of the hinged panels back on the car and getting them "macro-adjusted" so they at least don't crash into each other.  Then I backed it outside and the car immediately found a suitor so I must have done something right.  😄

4 hours ago, JsnPpp said:

 

Q: What did you bake it with?

 

I bet that one garage post on passenger front fender was fun to shoot around.

 

I used the term "bake" loosely!  I fired up a pair of two-headed propane heaters on full blast for a couple of hours.   Usually does the trick.  And yeah, that post has been the bane of my existence since I bought the house 14 years ago!  It's always in the way.  I've definitely learned to work around it.

I got really impatient and wanted to see how well this paint would polish up, so I grabbed one of the doors that I painted about a week ago.  Color sanded with 1500>2000>3000 and then 3M 6085 compound and finally 3M 6064 polish.  It's not going to win the Pebble Beach Concours but it's good enough for me.

Finally, after I baked it for a few hours, I unwrapped my Christmas present!  I'll update in a few days when I hang the doors/hood/trunk.  Then I'll let it cure for a couple of weeks before I cut and buff the whole thing.  I'm pretty happy with the result for a hack job garage paint job. 

Then today was the big day - the car itself.  4 months of work to prepare for one hour's worth of spraying.  I loaded up my old DevilBiss FLG3 and away we went.

First thing I painted were the doors/hood/trunklid. 

So here's the Reader's Digest version of the last few months.  After a couple of months of blocking, I found myself fairly happy with where I was so I got it all wrapped up and ready for paint.

6 minutes ago, popovm said:

 

wow. Nice stable! If these are your fun cars, what do you daily? Edit: just saw the Mini. A real enthusiast's collection. 

😄 No, the Mini is my wife's!  My daily is a very exciting 16 year old Acura TL.  I was dailying an F30 335i but when Covid hit, I just found I didn't need it.  Hence the Acura, which gets driven to the grocery store once a week.

More later, but today was a pretty exciting day in the garage.