The Road to Phoenix

Brakes... AGAIN. ugh.

2009-06-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Took this MC I had in my parts stash. Its not identical to the one shown above, but its close... Oddly, I have no idea where the one in the pics above disappeared to, and I also have no idea where this one came from. Yay for mystery parts!

The line with the large nut on the side feeds the rear brakes, while the 2 lines at the front feed the left and right front calipers.

I removed the un-necessary lines from the car, leaving me with one brake line on the fronts. I needed to move the mounting bracket for the lines forward and re-bend the lines themselves in order to mate with the adapters on the wilwoods.

Only got the driver's side done yesterday, as I was called into the office today. Superb fit; I've got about .5mm between the steering arm and the adapter. Looking forward to getting the other side wrapped up!

The above was written before I knew I would be missing V@V as well as having to work this upcoming weekend. Unfortunately I won't be able to finish up the install on the kit for another 2 weeks. In this economy, people always say that being busy and having a job is good, but that doesn't mean it sucks to miss your vacations and weekends all the same. Oh well.

Unrelated to the brakes, I also did some work wrapping up the interior. The sunroof panel is in, adjusted as much as possible, though I think I need to do some research on getting it flush. It sticks up about 1/8" on the leading edge.

Interior is also nearly finished. Before anyone gets on my case about the belts: I still have the original 3-point lap belt in the car and those will be used for ALL street driving. The 4-points are clip-ins, and will only be used at autoX events. Still some additional wiring that needs to be done on the gauge cluster - low fuel light and tach - but we're 95% done here too.

Lastly, I ditched the kloogy tii-lever-to-325-throttle-cable-and-tons-of-brackets design earlier that resulted in the gas pedal having an on/off feel rather than gradual throttle response. Instead, I installed a Lokar cable and made some new brackets for that. You can see my massively-over-engineered throttle body bracket in this pic here:

If I ever get a freaking day off work, next step is finishing the brakes, bleeding the system, and adding the air intake plumbing. Then I'll be freaking done and FINALLY get to drive it (for real.)

More shiny bits:

Jet-Hot coated header. I think mine is a Stahl, probably vintage mid 80's:

Engine bay - all stickered up and with the torsion bar installed. Glad to have a spare hand on that one - the install was a pain in the ass. Also, don't bother aligning your hood without putting this in first. I had mine pretty well lined up, but once the bar went in, everything got thrown off again.

More to come, including the fun act of registering a car with no title! YAY!

ACTUAL PROGRESS!

2009-03-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

I've been kind of delinquent in updating my blog... been too excited recently about actually getting the car out of the garage!

Phoenix left the garage for the first time in 2 and a half years on 2.21.09, and moved under her own power for the first time over 5. There are a lot of kinks to be worked out, and I need to go around the car and make certain that EVERYTHING is tightened/torqued/filled/bled/etc. I've got the MSII idling nicely, but initial throttle response has a bit of lag in it. It was only a first/second gear stroll down the street and back but WHO CARES?! I drove my car today!!!!

The weird ringing noise is coming from the clutch and needs to be sorted out... I'll be working on that later

This is coming after tearing the intake manifold and starter out to fix my flipped fuel lines and starter connections...

Tearing that out was a bit annoying, but my modular intake manifold worked perfectly for removal and refitting! The krinkle red on that thing is very prone to staining, so I'm going to have to be careful taking it off too much.

Since my MSII unit is mounted in my center console, I ran a line from there to the back of my glovebox for tuning. I also added a USB port there for my iPod connect to my Pioneer head unit. There will also be 2 lines in here eventually for my Innovate WB02

Doorpanels turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Got some vapor barrier from Blunt, and using a heat gun made this job so much easier. All the panels are in, and I tossed the rear seat back in just to see how things looked. niiiiiice.

Need some new armrests... these look like crap next to the new panels.

Up next: tuning and other fun stuff!

Eight months in the making!

2008-12-15T10:18:00.000-08:00

Emily did the stitchwork, though I did help in cutting out the patterns a bit. The pieces were cut from the fabric, then stitched to headliner material to give the raised edges some dimension. There was a special kind of knot stitch used, but I couldn't tell you what it was... I do know it came close to burning out Emily's sewing machine a couple of times though.

There is the chrome oh the upper edge, but the light makes it hard to see in the shots above. I don't think I'll be adding a lower chrome strip, I think once all the hardware gets mounted that they'll look more complete. We'll see though. If the pattern looks familiar, I pretty much straight copied Keith's doorpanels (my2002tii.com) in Stella. Good Artists create, Great Artists steal.

I bought new backing boards from 2002AD ages ago. They're... okay. The upper edges are trimmed very close to the holes, which didn't make me comfortable about the bent-tab mounting method BMW uses. I ended up using gorilla glue to bond the metal bits to the boards:

Retrospectively, I'd go with the wooden ones from Aardvark, but I think mine will work just fine regardless.

I had a nice set of tan rear panels I got from an FAQ-er a while ago. The backing was all I really cared about. Its a pain to find good used ones without any severe water damage from leaking c-pillar seals:

I started off by doing the front panel. The lower seam was 18.5cm from the bottom of the panel. Initially, I was going to glue the sides, then stretch the top and bottom. After testing this (horray for clips) I found that it distorted the lines in the panel when the fabric was stretched top and bottom.

Instead, I clipped the panel at the sides using my measurement as a starting point. From there, I used gorilla glue to adhere the upper vinyl to the metal lip and clipped in place to dry. The rest of the fabric was stretched after these clips were in place to make sure it would dry as close to the final result as possible:

After the upper edge dried, it was simply a method of stretching to the bottom, letting that dry, then moving onto the sides. I did this all in stages, finally gluing the corners last. So far I haven't added any staples to this at all, though I will probably do so sparingly just to ensure nothing shifts around.

The shape in the rear panel was done by stretching the fabric over, then using the armrest to push the fabric in after the glue set. Looking back, I probably stretched it a little tight which is why the lines aren't as well defined in that piece. I'll make it a bit looser on the other one before setting the armrest in.

"Finished" shots:

What did I say after doing my headliner? I would be happy to never see another binder clip for as long as I lived? Ah well... I keep finding uses for these things...

Before & After:

Glovebox refurb (busywork)

2008-12-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting on a box of more important parts to come in, so in the meantime I've been mostly just doing busywork. Still, its stuff that has to be done before I can consider the car to be "done", but its not really helping me get it on the road anytime soon. I've finished my MSQ file, but some things are still tripping me up a bit... I'll probably post on the main forum about those though.

Busywork 1: Glovebox Refurb.

I think BLUNT did this with his glovebox as well. I seem to recall reading that somewhere... I was working on building my subwoofer box and had a bunch of spare carpet laying around, so I found a can of spray adhesive and decided to make mine look pretty again. I think I coated the inside of it with resin at some point in time, then textured it to make it look... hell, I don't know. It looked like shit:

Some time with tape, scissors, cardboard, and I had a template to work with. After that, just follow the instructions on the can and work the carpet into the corners. Simple, cheap, and nice way to make your glovebox look pretty. I still need to poke some holes in the back of it for the MSII, iPod adapter, and WBO2 ports.

A shot of my subwoofer box. Of course the back is carpeted too, you think I would be dumb enough to forget about covering that and do my glovebox instead....? No, I won't show you the back....

Either due to my piss-poor camera skills or my piss-poor camera, you can't really tell but the back of the box is contoured to fit the rear seat bulkhead. Pointless minutia that nobody will ever notice? Maybe, but it fits so much nicer in there now.

One last pic whoring out the Talbots. Totally worth every hole drilled in the hood.

Shiny new toys

2008-12-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

So yeah, I roasted a good bit of my year-end bonus (not all of it - yet!) on my new exhaust and matching wheels!!! Yes, I'm that lame that I had to space out my wheel purchases over the course of a year. Odd thing is, I bought all the tires at the same time, good thing the Goodyear place didn't lose them after all this time.

Random stuff:

Exhaust was a bit of a bitch, mostly because I only had one side of the car lifted while I was installing it.

PROS:
- Beautiful craftsmanship, excellent welds, very well assembled.

CONS (nitpicky, but what the hell):
- the provided grade 4.5 hardware for the flange got tossed immediately - I had some spare 8.8 allen heads I used instead.
- header reducer adapter (also from IE) wasn't flanged to accept the donut provided with the exhaust. Some time with a grinder fixed this, but was a bit annoying.

Overall: Worth every penny.

Muffler - man are those welds pretty:

Adapter flange had to be opened up a bit to fit over my Stahl. Some time with a hammer and a punch did the trick. Here it is screwed to my bench while I "persuade" it to fit

Adapter flange and the bracket I modified to hold up the header. This was (close to) how Metric Mechanic does things with the stock exhaust, except that the Stahl hangs about 1" lower and is about 1" thicker than stock. A few new holes, a little bend, a rubber isolating bushing, and a new U-bolt later and volia:

Finished... it was dark outside and the back of my car faces the garage door, sorry for the piss quality:

In showing my center console, I recall someone asking where I'd relocated my hazard switch to. Wonder no more! (Oh yeah, column back together and new MOMO wheel mounted too)

e30 M3 mirror with map lights all wired up and ready:

Carpet is installed, along with all belts but the driver's, no seats but the driver's, and center console minus the shift lever/boot. I also took this time to wire in my speakers in my kickpanels and tweeters in my dash. For those of you about to yell at me for mounting these tweeters here, I drilled these holes in my (totally serious here) near-flawless dash back when I was 15 and didn't know any better. This was also just after sending a very rust-free shell with ANOTHER perfect dash off to the scrapyard. This was also 10 years ago, when prices were lower, but live and learn huh?

Kickpanels were from Bill Williams' group buy. 6.5" are Rockfords, and the huge magnets made spacers necessary. Tweeters are kickers - I've never owned Kicker equipment before, but with Circuit City going out of business, the price was right. Not sure if I like them yet - they're really metallic sounding.

Besides, if you're gonna get mad at me for drilling holes in my car, get mad the ones I sunk into the hood. Nothing like drilling a few 9.5mm holes in your fresh paint. Then again, after the sunvisor debacle, I know all about that... I dunno, I think the results are worth it:

While we're on exterior shots, how about those MATCHING WHEELS huh? Can't wait to see how she looks once the suspension settles down...

I can't think of a segue into this... LED gauges and plate lights! Ooooooh, exciting.

...stay tuned...

Helpers

2008-11-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I figured out the secret. I should have the car done in a week.

Once I resolved the cloning issue, the rest is a breeze... now how am I gonna feed all these guys? Not to mention the bar tab!

...and who gets to take the first drive?!

Glass and Metal

2008-10-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

I went to do my windshields and hood this past weekend, 2 projects I have absolutely NO experience with whatsoever, and they both went near perfectly.

I started out by pulling all of the glass that wasn't in the car already (which amounted to both windshields and both pieces of rear quarter glass) and following Henry Hsu's article for glass restoration. I only deviated from this in a couple of respects - I actually used a medium weight rubbing compound around the edges and on some of the heavier scratches. My glass is still far from "perfect" or "new" but its MILES better than this car has seen in its lifetime.

Example of what I started out with - water spots, paint overspray, hazing, dusty and stained:

And a compare/contrast finished product and fresh-from-the-parts bin:

The front and rear glass looked pretty similar before I started working on those. Major props (again) to my friend Joe who helped with the polishing and installation of the glass. Also thanks to my dad, who had a ton of tips that helped with making sure the glass and window seal didn't slide all over the place during install (tip: use alcohol on the edges of the glass to get the rubber to "grip" the glass as you're installing it)

Aside from the (god damn piece of shit little bastard) lockstrip, everything went in amazingly easily.

I used the "nylon rope" method spoken about a ton of times when people do their glass:

Taped the rope to the glass (another trick I read about on the FAQ) to keep it out of the way during install:

Having someone apply pressure from the outside while you pull from the inside is key, especially in the corners. I wish I could have seen it from the outside - Joe and my sister (who was taking the really shaky pics here) said it looked like the gasket was getting "sucked into" the car. I guess thats what we're going for, right? For the rear glass, I started the rope at the bottom and worked up to the top - bottom first, then both corners (one at a time), then both top corners, the both sides to the middle. I tried to keep things as symmetrical as possible because... well... it makes sense I suppose.

Finished product! (lockstrip is there, its a black Turbo one)

The front followed the same direction, but I found that (after a first failed attempt) the rope works better pulling from the top down to the base. I don't know if it just wasn't seated properly the first time but the upper corners wouldn't pull in when we tried the rope at the base on try #1. Not many pics of this, my "photographer" has left to get pizza.

(ignore the rope placement here, we moved it to the top after this shot was taken)

Finished product!

You may notice something in the above shot that wasn't there before: a hood. On a high from getting all that glass in, Joe and I decided to toss the hood on while we were at it for good measure. Getting the bolts threaded up with only 2 people was a bit of a pain, but everything lined up well and we had it on there in under 10 minutes. It still needs a lot of adjustment, but that will come this weekend.

Time to whore out some pics: Phoenix looks like a real car!

Next weekend: hood adjustment, center console wiring, quarter glass install (maybe), continued seat belt install, possible sunroof install, other fun stuff. Money is tight right now, so I have to make due with the parts I already have until I have a few bucks to spare on the remaining parts I need to finish everything up.

Stay tuned...

Center console wrapped up

2008-09-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Got the console all wrapped up yesterday... finally. Turned out GREAT. I couldn't be happier with the result. Ignore the gauges, they're just placeholders for now until I order the correct ones. Oh, and those white streaks on the side are just the light, not a bunch of dust like it appears.

Sunroof seals going in and a quick test fit. All the aluminum bits have been polished up, just need to rewrap the headliner insert before this goes back together.

Window and door seals installed. The quarter window trim polished up really well.

Long overdue

2008-09-22T07:07:00.001-07:00

its been a while since I posted anything. I've been very busy with the rest of things going on in my life, so unfortunately Phoenix has taken a backseat for the past month and a half or so. A trip to China along with a few conventions really took up my schedule, along with a newfound affinity for propmaking. I should really finish one project before starting on others, but alas...

Things I have completed:

Carpet is installed, after sitting around for nearly three years in its boxes. The blue looks great, and I'd really love to put the doorpanels in as well,but they aren't finished yet. Ditto for the center console, but hopefully that will get wrapped up this week. Along with this went the passenger-side seatbelt assembly, but I had to stop there as I can't find any more of the fine-threaded bolts to mount the rest of the belts in with...

Kickpanels are installed (much props to Bill Williams on these pieces) They're a little shallow for the speakers I want to use, so I may have to add some spacers. On that note...

Speakers are wired in, with crossovers mounted. Tweeters have been rewired in the dash and everything there is set to go once I cut the carpet in the kicks for the speakers and mount them up.

Sunroof seals are in and the glue should be dry by now. I should be able to install the rails and cables in next week, and hopefully I won't scratch the ever-loving piss out of the roof like the last time I tried this.

Trim is being polished. I balked at the price of new stuff - $160 a side for quarter window lower trim and nearly twice that for upper door trim. Granted I'll have to come up with some sort of replacement for the felt liner and squeegee on these parts, but I'm betting I can come up with some sort of replacement. So far the polishing is turning out great.

Hopefully this weekend I can get the gas pedal mounted up, bleed the clutch, finish the last piece of carpet, and maybe start on either the quarter window glass / door seals / sunroof. Need to start making progress again!

Brakes... Why did it have to be Brakes...

2008-07-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

My friend is trying to convince me to do the brakes on his Mazda Protege 5 so he can save a couple bucks. I just got finished with rebuilding the braking system on my e36 and I politely told him "There is no god damn way. I hate brakes more than anything else on a car"

To which he replied, in his best Indiana Jones voice (we'd just watched Last Crusade a few days prior) "Brakes... Why did it have to be Brakes..."

If you laughed at that, I thank you for your pity. No pics in this update, its all mostly boring crap and aggravating mistakes anyways, and those aren't fun to photograph for obvious reasons...

So on Sunday I decided to start dumping fluids into (and, subsequently, out of) the car. First up was, of course, brakes.

Problem #1: Upon filling the system up, it leaked in about 9 different connections. Turns out I hadn't gone through and snugged everything up. So I went through wheel by wheel and connection by connection and did just that.

Problem #2: After pumping a bazillion times, I couldn't get fluid to the rear cylinders. Ended up having to buy a one-way bulb pump and sucked the fluid through the lines.

Problem #3: First two rounds of pumping did absolutely nothing. Searching the FAQ showed that my rear drums were not adjusted correctly, letting the pads move in and out without building any pressure in the system. So I had to break loose the big 17mm nuts on the backing plates and adjust the shoes.

Problem #4: Front Girling calipers turned out to be on the wrong sides of the car. Had to block off the lines (with fluid going everywhere) and swap while trying to keep brake fluid from eating my front subframe. Lost some paint on the steering arms, which sucks, but nothing too awful.

After that... hey! We have pedal! Only thing is now I'm getting a drag in the pedal when its released - it won't spring back and feels like something is scraping in there. I rebuilt the master and it moves smoothly, so I don't know if its my booster thats just been sitting too long or what. Pedalbox is rebuilt with all new busings, but I did use the old bolt. Anyone think that could be the issue?

Coolant went in fine - no leaks - but I'll know better about that once the system gets some pressure in it. Hopefully my homebrew bypass pipe hold tight.

Oil went in... and then promptly all over the floor because the machine shop left out the front-most exhaust stud on the head that blocks that oil passage. There's a bolt there until the correct part arrives.

Transmission and diff oil went in without much drama, thankfully. My battery is now alive again thanks to a replacement charger (old one was dead.) Still need to safety-wire the front struts before I drop it back to the ground, but I need to find safety wire first...

Driveshaft is in but I think the diff is pushed too far forward causing a kink in the driveshaft and misalignment. Needs to be moved back probably 8mm or so to be perfect. No sense in getting that wrong while its still up in the air, but its gonna be a bitch to crack those torqued bolts loose while I'm laying on my back...

Center console is ready for vinyl. I painted all the panels with primer, then topcoated in gloss black to protect the wood and prevent any water warping down the road. Also, this way, if there's anything exposed it won't show up as glaring tan color against the black vinyl.

Man, I'm really getting tired of working on this thing...

Console Magik

2008-07-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well, June kind of sucked for me as far as work on the car was concerned. Between a friend's wedding & bachelor party, along with getting sent to Las Vegas for a week and a half for work, my weekends were otherwise occupied and I couldn't get a lot done.

I would have been able to fire the car this past weekend, but my Odyssey battery has decided to go flat on me. I have no idea why, considering half the circuits in the car aren't even fused up yet, there can't possibly be any power draw outside of the tests I've been doing to make sure my wiring isn't bunk. I tossed a charger on it Saturday night around 6pm and let it sit until 10am Sunday, but the battery still only showed 5v. It will be running during this week on a 2A trickle charge so hopefully it isn't kaput.

I also need to sit down with my MS board and program my sensors into it with easytherm. If I can get the coding done this week and the battery takes a charge, we could be running on Sunday... knock on wood.

Speaking of wood (snicker) I managed to find another project worth doing while I waited for my battery charger to do tis thing. I had originally planned on bleeding the clutch and brakes while the car was in the air, but it turns out I had the clutch MC in upside-down. That thing is a BITCH to remove while the transmission is still in the car, and I ended up scraping up the undercoating around the MC pretty bad. Since I had to repaint it, and since I didn't want to put the MC back into the car around the wet paint (and, subsequently, couldn't bleed the clutch without the MC in the car) I decided to employ the "Slackey" method of building my own center console.

I did work car stereo install for several years, so I know my way around MDF pretty well. For anyone looking to do this, here are a few tips:

First: screw together 2 pieces of MDF and cut your sideboards as one piece. This will make it much easier to make them as identical as possible.

If you don't have a router (like me) and you want rounded edges on your console, angle your jigsaw and cut along a 45 degree angle first.

The follow up with a DA, grinder, sander or the like, and finish with rough sandpaper:

Test fit constantly. I'm not going to have any exposed screws on my console (more on that in a later installment) so I need to make sure the fit is perfect. If you want to screw yours together for the time being, wood putty will hide the holes very well, especially once covered in vinyl.

The "faceplate" was the hardest piece to test fit. this would change size depending on how the bottom piece in the shot above was angled

Finally, when you've got it all set, spray the joints with primer or other fast-drying paint. Don't use a brush because you don't want to knock anything out of alignment...

...this way, when you take everything apart, you have nice clean lines where everything should go:

There was a weeklong break between the above and the following:

Project Center Console is shaping up to be nearly as complicated as my Intake Manifold project... There are 36 bolts and nuts that hold this thing together! Along with a bunch of custom aluminum plates for the joints to keep everything hidden, and countersinking the bolts, this has taken a lot of time.

I wouldn't recommend this method unless you're crazy like I am, have a bunch of free time, or just really hate exposed screws in upholstery. I like the stock look of the '02 console, but I've always hated the screws just sitting there on the side of it.

one of the harder pieces: the faceplate

An example of the countersinking. Bolts are inserted here and then covered in epoxy to hold tight. The holes are then covered in wood putty:

Some of the more complicated brackets that hold this all together. This is all so I don't have exposed screws!

There are over thirty bolts keeping this all in one piece:

My friend Joe (I'm using his basement garage for this project) made this out of my scrap pieces while I was working. I think he's just trying to find excuses to use his new nail gun:

Other than that, I have the radiator and electric fan hooked up:

The fan came off an old Mercedes from a junkyard, and had a nice rock-guard to go with it. This thing is like a jet turbine, it puts out so much more air than I was expecting. I took an 89 degree switch from an e30 and put it in the threaded plug at the bottom of the radiator. This will control the fan on and off through a relay in the car.

I also hooked up my fuel pump and fuel filter, as well as all the wiring that goes with it. I'm running an in-tank pump from a 1990 318is wired to the MS board. No shots of that unfortunately (which sucks because my fuel filter bracket is SO COOL) because I forgot my camera.

In addition to all that, I had my clutch cylinder installed upside down. Contrary to conventional wisdom, when doing a 5-speed swap on a 2002, you want the bleed screw pointing down. This is because if its pointed up, you can't actually reach the bleed screw. Problem is, its a bitch and a half to get the thing out when its already in the car. This was, and I'm not kidding, a 6 hour job.

I ended up having to make a new hard line for the clutch, as the cool stainless braided line I had with my fancy fittings was now too damn short with the clutch slave flipped. Doing this also tore up the undercoating a bit, so I had to repaint, wait for it to dry, then reinstall.

This week my shipment of driveshaft bolts came in, so the driveshaft can finally go back in this weekend, and I can bleed the brakes as well. After that, I need to man up and actually turn the damn key!

Engine back in, other small things too...

2008-06-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

So, I do have shots of the engine going back in with the 5-speed transmission, but they're not on this computer (or my camera for that matter) so those are going to have to wait.

No matter, plenty of shots of other random junk:

Apparently when I get frustrated with things, I paint valvecovers. crawling under the car repeatedly and going out to purchase random little missing bushings and washers for my 5-speed install got me a little annoyed, so I did this:

My girlfriend says its too much red, and that it kind of overpowers the engine bay. Another friend of mine (who, oddly, drives a Nissan 300zx) says it might be too "Rice." Meh, changing then only takes like 5 minutes anyways. If I had the correct fuel pump, I could bolt up a header and crank it, but I pulled the pump out of a 325i instead of a 318, so I need to make another junkyard trip first.

A few more pics of my throttle cable set-up here. Like I said in the earlier posts, I used a tii throttle bracket with a few new holes drilled in. I also removed the spring on it, since the gas pedal and throttle body already both have return springs on them. With the tii one in place, the whole mess got really difficult to articulate.

Parts used were:
- e30 325i throttle cable
- 2002ii throttle bracket
- 2002 pedal linkage
- Custom brackets (see earlier post)
- Generic flanged bushing from O'Reiley (meant for power window regulators)

Got the MM 5-speed kit all bolted in. Fits really snug, but I didn't pound out enough of the trans tunnel for the slave cylinder, so I need to open that area up a little more still. The transmission shifts into all the gears smoothly, but I won't know if this thing is lunched or not until I start the car.

Worked a bit on making some new foglight mounts. Originally I drilled holes in the radiator support and hung the lights upside-down form there. This really isn't optimal though, since the metal there is flimsy and they bounce all over the damn place at speed. I came up with this solution:

This way, the lights mount to the holes where the plates used to bolt up for depressing the square rubber tubes surrounding the bumper shocks (square-light guys know what I mean.) Obviously, I'm not running bumpers so this works out pretty well. I'm pretty sure you could do this even with the bumper shocks in place but most people would just use the bumper in that instance. Oh, this mounting method is also very rigid.

Mounted up, they look nice. Tight fit, but enough to allow a fair bit of adjustment:

I've got a 320i radiator (I think) I'm using for the car. Its got brass tanks and fins, and was in the car when I got it forever ago. I had thoughts of purchasing a brand-new one from Ireland, but loooong ago when I first got Phoenix back on the road, my grandfather brazed a couple small leaks closed in this radiator. This had to be around 1999 or 2000, and he has since passed away. Being a machinist his whole life, I'd really have liked for him to see my completed car, but its nice knowing I have a bit of his handiwork in my car still.

Some before shots, with a few bent fins:

After stripping, and straightening the bends:

Measuring for some adapter brackets (I think I used aluminum box stock before, but I'd like something a little more elegant this time 'round):

Also, I scored a set of these:

NOS 1960's satin-black Talbots, straight from Germany. hotness.

More work and pics coming from this weekend, and maybe I'll get my engine install shots too. I'm hoping to get the car up on stands and finish up anchoring the fuel lines, putting the driveshaft in, bleeding the brake system, and checking the torque on all the suspension bolts. Fun times.

Engine and Transmission work

2008-05-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Been a while? Somehow it seems longer than a month since I've last posted. I've been busy, but it seems like i have and have not been at the same time, whatever that means...

Prepping the 5-speed for install onto my M10. Many thanks to C.D. and my friend Jeff for explaining the diesel gas method of manual transmission cleaning - the gas went in clear and came out looking like sandy lakewater. I'm sure this helped the transmission greatly. I've since flushed it twice with ATF and replaced all necessary shaft seals.

It had better be in good shape. Cleaning this thing to this degree sucked.

Mocking up the Metric Mechanic 5 speed kit. The rubber bushing they provide is long gone, so I've decided to try a urethane one I had sitting around. Should work well:

New clutch and pressure plate, resurfaced flywheel. Much thanks to Dave Varco at aardvark for hooking me up with these bits, as well as the new seals for my transmission other related bits.

Yes, I plated my clutch fork.

I kid you not, this picture was taken a mere 5 minutes after the one above. Picked up the transmission, and it slid right in first shot. I just kind of stood there and blinked for a bit.

I also got a used MM shortened driveshaft for my car, which I stripped and POR-15'ed. It was a tad rusty from having sat outside for a while.

To make up for the ease of transmission install, I fought with this turd for about an hour. Man, give me a heaterbox over this thing anyday:

Fabricating my throttle cable brackets was also a good time. Once again, I went to Fink's site to see what he had done, and to what degree I could rip off his creative skills... I came up with this strikingly similar design:

They're mocked up in ABS plastic here, and I recreated them out of galvanized steel once I had he proper angles all figured out. Of course, its damn near impossible to re-create bends like that, but I like to think I came close. A search of the FAQ showed a few things about what other people had done for throttle brackets for their EFI cars, so I'm going to add to that by showing my solutions here.

Here's the brackets in steel:

and on the manifold:

I'm using a 325i throttle cable, which ends in a little hook. I found a bushing at O'Reily that fits over this hook really snug. I cut a slot in the bushing to fit over the cable, then slid it up over the hook. The hook has a cup at the end which prevents the bushing from coming off.

I'm also using a tii part on the firewall to transfer the pedal movement to the cable. In the pic below, the slotted hole is where the bushing fits in, with the hook part facing the opposite side of the flared end. I don't know how well I'm explaining that, but its very rigid and transfers movement at a 1:1.15 ratio to pedal movement. From my art-school math classes, I'm pretty sure this is optimal.

This set-up allows for a lot of fine-tuning. The 325i cable has an adjustment screw at the throttle body which will help in tightening everything up when I go for the final assembly of all this stuff, maybe as early as next weekend.

All of my underhood wiring is wrapped up now. All I have left to do is run fuel lines and I can drop the engine and transmission in.

Doorpanel work and Alarm

2008-04-07T10:00:00.001-07:00

Part 1: Doorpanels

I've (somehow) convinced my girlfriend to help me in stitching up some new doorpanels for my car. Emily is an awesome seamstress (as my more recent Halloween costumes can attest to - yes, I'm 12 years old) and she's also agreed to help out with the "Slackey" method of rebuilding my center console.

The old panels were pretty rank. Mold had started to grow on them from several years storage in a damp storage locker, and they were waterlogged pretty badly from a flood my car suffered through while it was in Savannah, Ga. First up, we take inventory:

Ew.

I'm going to be doing a Vinyl top and bottom with cloth insert to match my seats. This is a shot of the check-patterned cloth that I'll be using:

We hacked up the old panels to make patterns:

Then transferred the patterns to the new fabric:

I also enlisted the help of my Corgi, but Louie seemed less willing to do any work and more interested in why the floor was suddenly a new, softer texture.

More shots of this process as they come. Emily started sewing the patterns together, and the rears are pretty much finished - we just have to stitch them to the backing foam. In order to give the fabric the same seam appearance as before, we're stitching the entire new panels to headliner foam thats been cut to the shape of the original doorpanels. Haven't gotten that far yet, but I'll post shots when I am.

Part 2: Battery & Alarm

The alarm brain and accompanying harness:

I'm using an Avital 2200, the same model alarm I had in my 1994 Jeep Cherokee before it met its untimely end. The Avital is a really simple system, without all the crazy bells and whistles like the one I have on my e36 (zone sensors, 2-way alarm paging, etc) All I was really looking for was power door locks, trunk release, a shock sensor and simple alarm. I got this one on Ebay for $29.99 and $8 shipping. The problem with buying an alarm from a place like BestBuy or such is they typically include the price of the alarm in the sale. This ends up making a $50 alarm cost $250. If you possess soldering skills and a multimeter, you can do his yourself.

Here are a few things that might help your install:

The parking light wires are separated left and right on different circuits. On my car the easiest place to tap in was at the headlight switch. You'll have to diode-isolate these 2 wires from another.
The domelight is a negative trigger. If you're wiring up your domelight to the alarm, make sure the output to the light is negative.
The starter wire is black with a white tracer. Instead of cutting and soldering it, just unplug it from the ignition, run one line into the alarm, and the other from the alarm back into the ignition. This will limit un-necessary solder joints.
The brown/purple wire at the driver's door pin reads negative when either door is opened. This is the best place to tap in for that signal.

Man, enough talking already.

More pix:

Battery install finished - I ran the ground to the subframe support point - I just picked a larger bolt and a star washer to make sure I had good contact.

My "Test Light" for checking the circuits are working

Of course I'm not actually going to be putting that on the car...

Testing brake/tail/turn signals at the rear. All checks out!

And a shot of the trunk lock solenoid. This uses one of the license plate frame bolts and a rubber plug to hold it in place. I'll be making a new bracket for the cable soon, the gold uiversal one there is just for mockup/testing purposes.

And video of my creations in action!

Intake Manifold

2008-03-24T15:45:00.000-07:00

This is something I always wanted to see more of when I was doing research for my intake manifold, so I figured I'd share as many photographs as possible for anyone that might be undergoing a similar modification.

Tom over at www.02again.com sent me one of his new throttle position sensor plates. To really get a good idea of how nice these parts are, I'll show it to you positioned next to my rather humble piece of handiwork.

And mounted on the throttle body. Too bad nobody will ever see it down there...

The plugs I posted before look like this close up:

The green and gray rubber gaskets keep dirt and moisture out of the plugs, so I've decided to use them for all the underhood connections. There is a special GM crimper tool you can get for these, but I decided to solder the ends on, because I'm paranoid.

This is a shot of the back underside of the intake manifold on the engine, right before the firewall. There are 2 4-pin plugs and 2 3-pin plugs with male and female connectors reversed so there's no way to screw it up and plug the wrong harness up. I need to make it idiot proof if its ever gonna work for me.

The following are a few shots of the plumbing for my IAC valve. My throttle body came from a 325i, but seems to be reversed from the ones I've seen on other installs. On Finkbuilt's Blog, for example, there is an air line on the side of the throttle body that faces inwards toward the intake manifold, but that line is on the opposite side on my TB. That made routing the lines for the IAC a little tricky, as well as where to mount the valve in the first place.

The valve is held on to this aluminum bracket with a hose clamp and a rubber fitting that came around it when I pulled it from an audi in the junkyard.

The air lines route to the outside of the throttle body and into the air line (before the throttle butterfly) I mentioned earlier. There's a 90 degree elbow I got at an auto parts store off of one of the racks with all those "Help" parts on it.

The plumbing routes into the manifold through the factory air inlet. I've blocked the injector hole with some JB weld and a bolt with a few washers.

This whole set-up is really rigid, and all of the lines and wired are well hidden under the manifold. One caution - if you do rotate the air inlet line on the top of the manifold like I've done above, it will block off one of the 1/8" air lines that the MAP sensor and FPR get vacuum from. I just ran a T off the non-blocked line and capped off the blocked one.

Lastly, I used the stock air bung on the intake elbow to mount the IAT sensor, since its orientation didn't really help in plumbing the IAC valve.

Oh, and I mounted the washer bottle and siren too. yippee.

Next up, shots of the new door panel fabrication / center console recovering.... Oh, and 5-speed install.

Daur Lohks

2008-03-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

How to install door lock actuators in your 2002 -or- How never to worry about breaking your key off in the door ever again!

(1) Select your door locks. You can get these at the car stereo install dept at BestBuy (thats where I got mine) for about $20 a piece or so. I think I paid like $2, but I bought them way long ago when I worked for BestBuy, installing stereos. These are "Harada" brand actuators, which I've installed a ton of in my day.

(2) This is where I'll deviate from most installs. Normally, there's a little aluminum channel with a few tapped screw-holes in it. The idea is to slide the door lock bar through one of these, then fit it over the existing lock bar in the vehicle and tighten the screws down. The famous "Stella" uses this very same method:

(With credit to Keith, if you want me to remove this, just let me know.)

You can see this little piece of channel at the top, near #9 (it has three gold screws in it.) In the 4 years I did stereo install, I noticed that repeated use of the doorlocks would eventually cause these screws to back out and the lock motors to fail. You can achieve some success around this if you flatten one edge of the bar going into it, but I still don't like this method. Instead, this is what I would typically do in my installs - Find the lock arm that engages/disengages the lock, and drill a new hole for your motors:

Done in this manner, the lock arm will never work itself free. I'll elaborate in the remaining steps.

(3) Bend your bars to fit the motor and new hole. In the method I am showing here, the bars has to be installed on the motor first, then the two are installed in the door as one unit. Typically, the bar goes in first and motor fits onto it. Again, the failure rate with my method here is nearly non-existent.

The bars should look like this initially. Remember to mirror them left to right to fit the opposite doors.

(4) Then install them on your actuators. They come with a pre-bent "U" shape that fits the nylon end. I like to pinch this shut slightly after the bar is installed so that it fights tighter. Less play in the system will save excess wear over time.

(5) Place both pieces in the door as one unit, and fit the "L" into the hole you drilled earlier. Let the lock actuator hang for now. The bar should look like this:

(6) With the actuator hanging, measure out where the holes will be drilled in the door to hold the motor in place. I suggest this channel in the door so that the screw heads will not interfere with the doorpanel. Mine are drilled already in the shot below, and filled in with some POR-15. Make sure to test the lock actuation up and down, and mount the motor accordingly. Don't worry if the lock throw is shorter than the actuator throw, this is typical and not a problem at all with universal actuators.

(7) After the actuator is mounted to the door, bend the outer arm of the "L" at the lock arm down to create a "U" shape, similar to the other bar in the same place:

(8) Run some wires, and you're set! With this method, you don't have to worry about any small parts sliding off or those threads on that aluminum piece stripping out during installation (its happened to me a few times) Hopefully this helps out a few people. Its a great mod with any alarm system and really doesn't take much time at all to perform.

Moar Wires...

2008-03-17T11:00:00.000-07:00

Warning: LONG POST. You may want to go grab a drink or lunch if you're actually planning on reading all my rambling nonsense.

Wiring Wiring Wiring.... Now I remember why I put this off for so long. Soldering upside-down sucks.

The relay / new fusepanel / power distribution block area in the glovebox is getting a mite bit crowded, but I think I've wrapped up everything that needs to go there. I've added 14 additional circuits and 5 switched relays to the car (not counting the MS Relay Board, which would make it 7) with 1 left over spare switched output and 3 left over constant power outputs, in case I think of something additional to add in the future. So far I've managed to add everything in without having to tap into the factory harness at all, making this a stand-alone mod. Diagnosing any issues in the future will be easier, since I won't have to go digging around in the original loom.

I've added circuits for the following:
- Driving Lights
- Thermostatic-controlled radiator fan
- Stereo
- Aux gauge pod
- Radar detector
- Megasquirt
- Ford EDIS-4
- Alarm system
- Power door locks
- Power trunk release
- Fuel pump
- Low-fuel warning light

Enough chatter, onto the pictures.

This is my "Relayboard_V1" which was meant to go next to the relayboard:

Pretty, right? I really should have checked to see if it fit before i drilled and tapped all those holes, and also wired the damn things up. It looked great in there, but it blocked the big data plug on the MS relay board, so out it went.

V2 looked like this:

Which is almost better, in a way, because it let me add an additional relay just in case I think of something else to add in the future. This mounts to one of the bolts on the MS relay board, and to the support tab for the defroster vent on the other side (hence the cutout for the hose-clamp) The three relays control the switched power fuseblock, the trunk lock actuator, and the radiator fan. The foglight relay is located elsewhere.

Looking at stuff like this reminds me of why I buy a lot of aluminum parts from people that know what they hell they're doing. My fabrication skills are somewhat lacking (this bar doesn't sit straight and it drives me nuts) so I'm glad I'm the only one who will see this thing on a consistent basis.

Here is what it looks like in place:

12v+ constant block on the right, 12v+ switched on the left. I mounted my innovate wideband o2 inside the car because things are getting too crowded in the engine bay, and I didn't really have any good place to mount it. This also lets me unplug it rather easily if I ever need to. You can see my relay plate hanging there, I think this is when I was wiring the o2 sensor.

Here's everything bundled up:

The split-loom harness at the bottom is the Megasquirt cable from the relay board to the ECU. I ran the o2 lines next to this and they will both be accessible from the center console. The red button and LED on the relay strip are for programming the innovate o2. Also, while it may look like the innovate brain is held in by duct tape, I assure you its actually heat-formed ABS plastic. That actually turned out really well, but my camera sucks and its hard to take shots in there.

A shot of where I mounted my EDIS-4 module. I used the original mount, which lined up with the factory holes here fairly well.

And a shot of the EDIS coil packs. Again, this is the Ford Escort mounting bracket, which just happened to fit really well.

Another project of mine is to try to make the harness easy to work on if need be. I decided the intake manifold would be best made as modular as possible, so all the connections will terminate in 3 plugs so the manifold can be removed with all the sensors intact.

4 Injectors, IAT sensor, IAC valve, 2 coolant sensors (one for the VDO aux gauge,) and TPS sensor. I ordered some GM Weatherpak connectors from Summit, so hopefully I can wrap this up next weekend.

Random shot of my coolant neck, crammed with sensors. They take standard bosch pigtails, which made wiring much cleaner. My IAC valve takes the same connector (I took it from an early 90's Audi)

While I'm talking about the IAC, this is something I either didn't notice or couldn't find when I was building my system. The Bosch IAC valves are PWM (Pulse Width Modulated) valves and will therefore need an additional circuit added to the MS board. They also need a resistor wired into the circuit, as shown here:

Go here for more info:

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/pcbv3-valve-control-tip120-39modkit39-p-134.html

Needless to say, its much easier to do this when you first build your board instead of going back and adding it in later. This was my mistake from not doing enough research, but hopefully I can prevent someone else from making the same error. In my case, i was still able to modify the board and everything is functioning like it should, but it was frustrating to do things the way I did.

Crappy pics of more wiring

2008-02-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Been in and out of town recently so I don't have a whole lot finished from when I uploaded last. I've got a bunch of stuff that needs to go out to be plated (and I really want to make sure this my last bunch. I'm really tired of driving up to the place that does this stuff because they're very far out of my way, and expensive)

I've been concentrating on wiring for now. I've got all the EDIS and MSII wires sorted out, so I can hopefully finalize those connections next weekend.

Sorry for the crummy photos, taken with my cell phone because I left my digital at home.

Auxiliary fuseboxes: one is switched power and the other is constant. I'm trying to make all of my add-ons completely separate form the original factory harness so it will be easier to track down any problems in the future. The only interface between the two is the 12v switched purple wire coming off the hazard switch which will be used to trigger the relay for my switched power fuseblock. (Yes, I'm labeling them with a sharpie marker for now. I'll print some nicer vinyl labels later but this should keep me from confusing myself until that happens)

The large 4ga wire here routes from the dist block near the glovebox through one of the former air conditioner lines and to the starter

Distribution block. I used one I pulled from an e30, mounting it in the same location as in Blunt's car. This provides the 2 fuseboxes with power.

I'll be running a single Odyssey battery with a 1-farad capacitor wired in for big surges. This is coupled to an 80A alternator from an e30. I'm using Zenon's mounting location under the rear seat. Eventually the amplifier and capacitor will go here as well.

Believe it or not, I actually know where all of this is supposed to go. I'll post better pics of the EDIS mounts later - I'm using the factory ford brackets as well as the relay bank strip above the brake booster where all the emissions crap was set up originally. Its pretty clean and out of the way up there.

Better pics - and hopefully more progress - to come soon.

Copper wrapped in plastic

2008-01-28T15:34:00.000-08:00

Wiring!

Man, I've been putting this off for a while, but since the engine is in the car and I can lay everything out, I really don't have any excuse anymore. While I'm at it, I'm adding in 2 extra fuseboxes: one for constant power and one for Ignition switched, because I'll be adding a lot and want to leave the factory harness more or less intact. These will control the radio, alarm, radar detector, foglights, aux fan, aux Gauge panel, and MegaSquirt. If I want to add anything in the future, it will be easy to add onto with these under the glovebox.

Relay Board for MS Under the glovebox, the fuse panels will go to the right of this.

Engine wiring, all this has to end up somewhere...

All the unwrapped wires coming through the firewall are new. They all fit through one new grommet, which is good because it fit a pre-existing hole that I had drilled at some time or another. I still need to route the battery cable through, but that can come later (and probably on the passenger side - its getting kind of crowded over here...) You can see red ends on all the leads here - I wrote the associated number of the plugs on these from the wiring schematic on the wall when I rebuilt the harness. This makes life much easier as I can just look at a plug, read the number, then look at the wall. No more tracing wires.

And a quick picture of my aux wiring schematic, as drawn on the side of a really big box with sharpie marker. I'm pretty low-tech.

More to come... cant wait to figure out where all this mess goes.

Engine in its home

2008-01-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

I should be more excited about this, but after my incident with the sunvisor screws, I find a lot of things about the project more and more frustrating. Short version is that I used screws that were about 1/8" too long for putting in my sunvisors, and they dimpled the roof. Idiot mistake, and really took the wind out of my sails.

Regardless, the engine still went in this weekend. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

A couple of shots of the www.02again.com pulley shim w/ trigger wheel:

Removing some of the clips to put the welting on (I used the same stuff from McMaster-Carr that Bill Williams showed in Pikachu 2)

Testing the best way to cut out the dome light hole in the headliner on some scrap and a spare dome light assembly (when I first did my car, i had a spare, so I put two in. It had to be the worst wiring you'd ever seen... They would only work if the switches for both were in opposite positions...)

All of that was done while it was ASS FREEZING COLD outside. I realize some of you guys will laugh at this picture, but down in Atlanta, this is groundbreaking stuff. Thank god I bought a space heater, I think it was like 18 degrees in the garage before I turned it on...

YouTube clip

2008-01-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

The previously-mentioned YouTube video regarding headliner install:

In it, they're talking about the completion of the 2002tii that Mobile Tradition made in 2006. They show a few good shots of the assembly, but I wasn't able to follow the example exactly. For one, I used spray-glue as the industrial brush-on wasn't an option for me to acquire. I think the fact that they used a specific glue made for stretch-vinyl headliners contributed to the fact that there are no clips shown...

Once I yank all of these clips off, I'll offer the box to anyone who wants to do this to their own car. I don't see myself doing this again for a long while.

The sunroof headliners are different from non-sunroof ones. In a sunroof car, there are 2 ribs toward the back of the car and the entire rest of the headliner is held up by the seams around the windows and sunroof. In a non-sunroof car, there are 5 ribs spanning the length of the headliner and they support it over your head. Pic below is a non-sunroof headliner (powelli's car) in it, you can see the seams around the ribs toward the front where a sunroof car would have none:

I went with one of the Ebay headliners from goliners.com. It was a very nice quality, but there were some very slight alignment issues. Most notably, the material did not like to turn the corner around the sunroof, which is why that particular part was so frustrating for me. For the price, you can't beat it though. You just have to use a little heat on the corners around the sunroof and you're set!

I'm exaggerating about the frustration, really. The first part (before sunroof) was cake and actually a pretty good time. It was only once I had to start wrestling with the material around the corners of the sunroof that I really started getting pissed. All in all, it turned out well I think. I'll be putting in the sunroof and engine in coming weeks, so I hope my newfound progress and good fortune continues.

Headliner install (the reason why I've gone insane)

2008-01-15T11:02:00.000-08:00

Holy piss, I never want to do another one of these for a looooooong time. My fingers hurt from all the damn clips... I think i used over 600 of them.

Total time start-to-finish was about 16 hours. I used Wurth Spray headliner adhesive, which explains the tape (to protect overspray)

Pix: The intro, it all looks so simple when you're just hanging the silly thing on the bars for the first time

I started in the back, got everything hung loosely, then just kept tightening up the slack around each side as I went along. I think this is key to getting all those pesky wrinkles out. My friend Joe is also in these shots; his house is where I work on my car, and I cant thank him enough for putting up with me squatting in his basement for the past year and a half. Thanks dude, I owe you HUGE!

Then we started glue-ing:

Move from the top of the back window, down the back of the C-pillars, to the front of the pillars, then up top to the B-pillars...

After that, we tightened up the front and pulled things as taught as possible to avoid any wrinkling:

Feathered corners (thanks to C.D. on the FAQ for that video on YouTube! it was a HUGE help.)

The end of day 1 wrapped up everything but the pillar trim and sunroof. Only one *tiny* wrinkle around the driver's C-pillar, which will be directly behind my head so i'll never see it!

I'll voulenteer to shove forks in my eyes before I do another sunroof again. This was an exercise in frustration...

B-pillar and A-pillar trim goes in....

And now she sits and dries for a week...

I'll never do this again.... but I'm glad it turned out as well as it did.

New for 2008!

2008-01-09T13:49:00.000-08:00

A few smallish updates from my crappy weekend. Saturday was ok, but cut short due to work, as was Sunday. At one point I was working on the hood latch bar and found out i had it mounted in "backwards" (that is, the spring was loading the bar the wrong way.) When I removed it, the spring dug a huge gouge in the paint of the rain tray, so now I need to sand that down and repaint it. I also broke the little wheel that the cable bolts to, and frayed the hell out of the cable too. OH! AND I also scratched the bloody hell out of the bar itself.

Because of all that, I've decided to send the bar off to be plated, as it bumps around too much during install for me to rely on it not getting the paint scratched off. I found the orientation of the hood latch bar a little difficult to track down (eventually got the answer on Bill William's Touring re-assembly blog) so I'll be documenting my re-install when the time comes rather thoroughly.

Anyhow, pictures... sorry for the crap quality, taken with my phne because I forgot my digital:

Axis OG-San 15" x 7", 35mm offset (there's a 1/2" spacer on it now, but I'll be running 3/8" now that the correct ones have come in from Ireland) Kuhmo Ecsta 195-50-15.

Started putting a few of the seals in:

Fabbed up a new dome light panel and some new wiring. Also tossed the roof foam back in... mine is in pretty decent shape for being 30+ years old.

And, finally, finished up the rear sunroof drain tubes. They terminate into a heater valve I got from pep boys that has been cut in half and epoxy-ed into the hole in the wheel well.

If I don't get the pulley in by Friday, the next step will be to do the headliner and start putting in the seals on the doors and windows. Hell, I may even put in the quarter glass soon if i'm feeling ambitious...

Custom Parts

2008-01-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

I got a custom machined-and-welded pulley coming in from Tom over at 02again, ready for my trigger wheel to be press-fitted!

If anyone has an opportunity to work with Tom on anything, its a real pleasure. He is definitely one of the most helpful people you'll find in the '02 world. His site is www.02again.com

Aluminium hotness

2007-12-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

Oh.

Hell.

Yes.

Once more, with feeling.

2007-12-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

I said more pics to follow, and here they are:

Brakes with suspension. Apparently Sesame Street is sponsoring my car, what with the primary colors going on in this shot. The nut there is only at a paltry 200lb-ft currently (all my torque wrench will do) so I'll have to jump on those a bit more once the transmission and engine are in the car.

Subframe showing new plated bits, Urethane, Herculiner, brakelines and rebuilt CV's.

Swaybar endlink pirated from an old dodge minivan (i think.) The hardware originally in my car was some really rusted bolts and seized ball bushings, so I scrapped that and had a friend at a local auto parts store dig through some of their stuff to see if anything matched.

Rear end... These shots speak for themselves.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And some shots of Phoenix, outside for the first time in over a year!

Even though it was a pain to bring it back in, it was worth it. Also, i really needed to clean out all the crap from under there and chisel all the dried POR-15 and Herculiner off the garage floor.

This weekend I re-routed the sunroof drain tubes as well as finished running the new hardlines on the front end of the car, so the girling upgrade is complete (finally.) Also replaced the front studs with longer bolts in order to accomodate the Axis wheels I'll be running in the future.

All the wiring for the roof (antenna, dome light, map lights) is getting wrapped up too, so headliner should be going in soon. Man, I cant wait for that....

I am such a damn dork...

2007-11-28T09:05:00.000-08:00

No, the steering wheel isn't attached.

Yes, I'm sitting on a milk crate.

No, there is nothing resembling an engine in the car.

Yes, I was smiling like an idiot all freaking day.

Rear end DONE! (More pics to follow.) I don't care how much of a bitch it was pushing it back inside and over that 5" concrete slab in the garage. It was worth it.

October update (boo.)

2007-10-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

Been a long time coming... and here it is. Doesn't really look like a lot of work (Do I always say that?) but it really has been.

I've decided to leave the trunk black. I dont think many things are going to go over the POR-15 very well, and I dont feel like roughing it all up for a topcoat. I'm going to be making some custom panels to cover a lot of the area in gray vinyl, so the black will mostly just be the wheel wells. I think it'll look good. I did score a set of side panels to use as templates to make some new ones out of:

I know I say I'll start a lot of projects (wiring diagrams, kick-panel pods... I know I know....) but I'd like to trace these into a PDF for download. Maybe i'll finally get around to all that when I finish my car...

Random stuff first. This is the worst spot of rust in my car. Well, it was. I ended up cutting the entire thing out and POR-15ing over the empty space. After looking a few things up, it doesn't seem like this spot is structural, and it only really served to capture a bunch of dirt and water, then rust. Good riddance.

Here's the floor pan from before, POR-15'ed and scuffed up to await undercoating. I used some of their 2-part epoxy sealant in the seams - the stuff dries like concrete.

Also, took a pressure washer to the 5-speed. Now I dont look like a chimney sweep every time I pick it up. I'm contemplating painting it...

Onto more meaningful stuff. As for the rear subframe, I started off with coating the diff in POR-15 (about 4 coats) The shaft seals are in good enough shape, and I'll probably swap to a limited-slip in a year or two, so I didn't want to go crazy and rebuild this thing. It'll be fine for now.

Speaking of the diff, here's a couple of shots of my bushing rig. Nothing spectacularly new or different from other people's, but a combination of a few ideas. I find that the hose clamp really works wonders to get that first flange into the opening. Also, if you put a washer and nut on both sides of the bushing before you press it in, it forces the bushing to keep its shape around the metal sleeve in the center, making this whole process light years easier. Ask me how I know.

All the rear subframe bits have been blasted and repainted, and I've started assembly. the rear wheel bearing shims are on backorder from Germany, so I'll be waiting on those before the CV axles, stub axles, and hubs can go back in. Also I've got a few parts for the swaybar on backorder from BMP, so thats in limbo too.

Starting out:

End of the day:

The Diff bushing tool also proved useful in pressing in the rear bearings. I just had to invert the PVC cap and find a larger washer for the bearing. I don't like whacking bearings with hammers, and this made the whole process very simple.

Started bending the brakelines I got froma fellow FAQ'er (thanks Alonso!) this is a fun process. Never done it before, but I think its turning out ok.

And lastly, a couple more shots of the undercoating (Before & After)

As soon as my parts come in, hopefully I can put the rear end back under the car... Going to have to read up on how to align everything. Should be fun.

in case you're wondering

2007-09-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

I've had a few people ask me how long the wire-wheeling took me to do to the trunk.

I'd guess start-to finish (this includes chipping out the fiberglass out of the wheel well) was around 10-12 hours total. I lost a lot of time initially because I was using a standard wire wheel on a drill motor for some of the work. When I got that corded brush for the angle grinder, things started to pick up rapidly.

Its pretty tiring too. Keeping a death grip on the grinder to make sure it doesn't go shooting off in any direction it damn well wanted to go while being folded up inside the trunk took a lot out of me. Slept pretty well those nights.

This is nothing compared to some of the MkI guys over at the Vortex forums and the level of detail they put into their engine bays. I got the corded brush idea from them, and definitely recommend it to anyone that needs to do this level of paint removal.

I'm only going this far on certain spots under the car - in and around the floorpan patches (Which, honestly, make up at least 50% of the floor at this point) A large part of the rear of the car will be getting this treatment, just because of all the water it retains from day-to-day driving. The front end of the car wasn't nearly as bad.

Moving into September

2007-09-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

Still getting the trunk wrapped up. I think this is just another file in the "what the hell is wrong with me" pile. One of these days I'm going to have to realize that I am not BLUNT or Bill Williams and I'll stop this level of insanity. That being said, what follows is more or less my train of thought...

Remember that wheel well? If not, its posted above. I started looking at the paint around it and thinking "You know, thats not going to blend very well. I should strip the paint around it up to the seams so it will look better"

Also, I never really did like those big blobs of seam sealer up there in the middle...

I guess, while I'm in here, I should strip all the seams just to make sure...

May as well check the shock towers and wheel wells too, right? I mean, you never know... Oh yeah. The rear bulkhead too. Just... because.

I was going to do the side panels, but thought better of it. If I heat the metal up a bunch, the paint on the outside of the car would bubble up... and then I'd have to shoot myself. So these got a quick scuff, and the rusty bits where the rear reflectors were got a full wire-down.

First coat of POR-15 with patches. This stuff is pretty cool. Works just like fiberglass, but you use POR-15 silver instead. apparently, the silver has metallic bits in it that makes it "fill" better in the cloth. A couple coats of the stuff and I'm convinced it isn't going anywhere.

Some shots of the black POR-15 topcoat. The pics suck, but thats because its really hard to shoot gloss black (especially with my crummy camera.) It looks really nice and clean now. I'm thinking of using some Wurth Body shutz and spraying over top to get the "textured" look again, then going over again with a close match to my silver. We'll see.

As soon as this gets wrapped up, I should be able to get the back end together.

So, in order:
- Finish Trunk
- Finish undercarriage in rear
- Rebuild and put in rear suspension/driveline components
- Drop in engine (yay!)
- 5-speed
- Wire MS
- Interior

Easy, right?

PS: If you're going to do the above with one of these:

WEAR GLOVES and GOGGLES!
I'm pretty sure my index finger would have gone bye-bye had it not been for the gloves I was wearing. Also, I had a bristle shoot off this thing and stick itself so far in my cheek I could feel it with my tongue from the other side.

August Recap (sorta)

2007-08-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

Pictures to go with my previous post:

Gastank refurb is complete! I think I spent about $100 altogether on paint, POR-15, and about a week's worth of time for painting, curing, etc. Hopefully it will hold up for another 35 years! Don't have any before shots handy.... but its a HUGE step in the right direction.

Fooling around with making my own gauge cluster, since I can't find one I like. This is (obviously) just a mock-up of what I could do in MDF and fiberglass... 4 might be too much.

Spots that are getting the POR treatment: This is the one that i had submerged in silicone...

And this is the spare well (duh) with the fiberglass patches... Looks worse than it actually is, but its still pretty bad.

Started rebuilding the brake MC. Any tips on cleaning out the barrel? there isn't any rust to speak of, but it couldn't hurt to polish out the innards out a bit.

And the obligatory old vs. rebuilt CV axle shot:

Ruminations...

2007-08-20T16:43:00.000-07:00

I think there exists a special place in "Automotive Hell" where Satan brings you the first car you ever worked on, and he then makes you correct all the dipshit "repairs" you did to the poor thing in the first place. I have the unique benefit of still owning my first car, so I get to gaze upon my past "repairs" with a bitter cocktail of awe and horror; what the fuck was I thinking when I did that?!

Pictures to follow soon, but of particular note are 2 floorboard repairs done at least 2 years apart from one another. I got better from one to the other, but not by any largely noticeable degree.

#1 happened during my first year with the car... I think i was 15 when I "repaired" the spare tire well. This more or less consisted of cutting out the worst of the rust (at the time there wasn't a large amount) and filling the well with several layers of fiberglass cloth and maybe a gallon or two of resin. I'm exaggerating of course, but not by much. Nearly a decade later, I learn that fiberglass over bare metal does little more then trap moisture between the metal and the 'glass. Given the choice of which one to eat through, the moisture attacks my trunk floor in an effort to escape, and I'm now looking at a heavily pock-marked wheel well with at least 2 dozen more rust holes. Genius.

#2 was a repair done in College. The area under the passenger rear seat had all but disintegrated; this time I knew fiberglass would not do the trick. Coincidentally, I had been taking a welding class at school. I pulled the car up to the shop one weekend, and patched the floor with some spare 12ga sheet that was laying was laying around. So far, so good.

Thing is, I must have been in a rush... or severely drunk... or possessed or something, because I never primed or painted the underside of the car. I painted the inside, sure. The underside, however, was treated with roofing silicone spread over the bare metal in about a 1.5" thickness. I know this material very well now - I spent the better part of four hours peeling it off from the underside of my car this weekend.

I'm very glad I only really have to deal with my own idiocy where my car is concerned. At least this way I know who to get mad at.

Gas can refurb and CV refurbs are finished. Like I said before, pics to follow. This time, it almost looks like I know what the hell I'm doing...

...almost

Dirty Jobs

2007-08-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Small update. didn't get much done because all the work under the car took a lot out of me.

I think I was the nastiest I've ever been in my whole life this weekend. That sort of thing happens, you know, when you decide to scrape off all th old dirt, oil and rust from underneath a car. Its especially bad when you're under the car as well, and your instrument of choice is a wire-wheel on a power drill.

This is me. I'm having a good day, really.

Seriously, i felt like someone had stuffed me into a sandblasting cabinet for a few hours.

This is the view I enjoyed for most of the day:

Its getting there. The rusty spots are getting hit with some POR15 and then some Herculiner. Everything else just gets the Herculiner. Right now I've finished from the firewall to the rear seat bulkhead. I ran out of paint there, and theres also a few spots that need to be patched also before I move on.

More dirty work here. CV joint rebuild. my boot kits are on backorder, so i've got a bunch of nice clean steel parts sitting in WD-40 filled bags while I wait.

I also repainted my rear springs.

I'm in the middle of re-sealing my gas tank with the POR-15 kit right now. Should be done by tomorrow, and i can repaint the outside this weekend. Will update when I get a little closer to done on that project.

proto-chop

2007-08-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

Quick photoshop to see how the Axis OG wheels will look on the car:

niiiiiiiiice.

Touchdown!

2007-07-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

Weekend accomplishments (from last weekend)

TOUCHDOWN! She hit the ground! for the first time in more months than I really care to recall, Phoenix has all 4 tires firmly grounded. This was a HUGE moment for me, even though most people I tried explaining it to gave me funny looks. Don't mind the bottlecaps, they're just placeholders for now...

Victory is short-lived however. Now that the front is re-sexified, time to do the same business in the rear. Remember kids, a Leaky diff means real-time rust prevention!

Step One - Know your Enemy:

Step 2: completley forget about the parking brake cables, and whack at the subframe mounts with a hammer. Curse a lot.

Step 3: Success!

Step 4: take out agression on CV bolts and other siezed componentry.

Dont know whether I'm going to try to track down a nice LSD or not... I gotta see if my (nonexistent) budget can handle it by the time all this stuff goes back together. Mine, though gross looking, is in decent shape.

I totally ripped-off BLUNT's wiring-wrap. Sorry man, but this stuff just looks too nice to keep all to yourself! The fumes can get a little annoying though, when you're melting the ends together so it doesn't fray. Once the MSII wiring goes in, i'll bundle this all up.

Lastly, I picked up this oil cooler from a friend for pretty cheap. Trying to figure out where to mount it. The oil filter housing looks to have an internal thermostat on it. Does anyone have any experience with one of these?

Oil cooler cleaned up really nice with some paint stripper and a wire brush

More to come soon...

Megasquirt Assembled! (Autobots, roll out!)

2007-07-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

I've just finished testing all the parameters with my Megasquirt, and its some seriously confusing stuff the first time you read through it. Part of me is a little worried about buggering it all up, since I really only know carbs - and only slightly at that!

It is a good feeling when all the little bits go together and you see all the lights blinking. I know I've got a crap-ton of programming and configuring ahead of me.

Oh, I'm also under a deadline now. I'm shooting for completion the first week of November, since I have an event to make by the end of the month... This could get interesting...

7-7-7

2007-07-07T22:29:00.000-07:00

Another Holiday weekend... Why do I always feel like I didn't get shit done when I look at my pictures? Probably because I always forget to take pics...

Not shown:
- Finished assembling my Megasquirt, Stim board, and Relay board
- Installed Heater box, and got REALLY pissed off when I immediately dropped a screw inside the damn thing no more than 5 minutes of it being in the car. Per regulations, this became lodged into the vent flaps, completley immobilizing them. Horray.
- Took out heaterbox agression on my Escort EDIS pulley. The wood-wedge and sledge-hammer did the trick, and now my 36-1 wheel is free of its Ford counterpart.
- Stripped Gastank (outside) and flushed inside with MEK. I have a re-sealant kit coming from POR-15, so that will get wrapped up this weekend.
- Ran 318i rear battery cable to trunk

And now the (few) pictures I did take:

What would you do if you found this on a car? Call it ghetto? Laugh uncontrollably? Yeah, probably me too... but my old bypass pipe was rusted beyond belief, and I didn't feel like buying a new one or play roulette with the scrapyard. Yes, thats 3/4" household copper pipe. New water bypass pipe = $4

With possible Intercooler piping as well as Oil Cooler piping in my future, I took the opportunity with the engine out to open the nose up a little bit. Of course, this means more painting.

Pedalbox/booster mounted. You can see here the flex that my steering guibo is under, which is the suspected cause of my steering box leakage...

Of course, brakes are in the car, minus new lines and brake pads. Oh, and wheels that fit. I'm still ticked about that.

TPS Adapter plate made from Aluminum plate. Works well, looks... well, decent. The TPS hides the clamp-scars fairly well... I'm using a 325i throttle body with a variable-resistance TPS I bought off Ebay.

Oh, after my genius idea with the copper pipe, I decided to try another homebrew concoction. A spray-paint cap looks like its just about the right size to fit over the heaterbox blower motos and keep out rain moisture. Sounds like a great idea, right?

Hell, that almost looks factory, doesn't it? Suuuuuure it does. Then you get the thing in the car, bolt it up, and find out it hits the hood lock-down bar right in the middle and makes turning the lever feel like an arm-wrestling competetion.

But you dont want to take the heaterbox back out, so you get an x-acto and cut away the cap while the box is still in the car. No problem. Then you go and remove that little 8mm nut there at the top... and THATs when you get to take the box out again, since its now blocking the vent flaps, because your dumb ass dropped it right into the heaterbox. Man, i felt like a winner when that happened.

Finally, an obligatory shot of my engine, since it seems to change in every single post I do.

Rimz

2007-07-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, since my OZs won't fit (dammit) i've been looking at other alternatives.

I don't want to go the BBS route... a big hell-no to bottlecaps (no offense to those that have them)... Can't go back to 13" stocks because of the Volvo brakes.

I found these while wandering around online:

15x7, et 35. I'm going to be running some pretty short springs, but nothing like bent struts or coil-overs. If I went with a 195 tire and possibly a 5mm spacer, I'm thinking these could fit pretty well. They're available in Gold, Red and Silver (above) which is what I'll probaly go with.

Not to mention they're only $150/wheel!

MegaSquirt Reciept

2007-06-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Odered today:
------------------------------------------------------
1 x GM Closed Element CLT / IAT Sensor with Pigtail (CLTIATwPiggy) = $16.50
1 x MegaSquirt Relay Board - UnAssembled Kit (MSRelay-K) = $64.00
1 x GM Open Element IAT Sensor with Pigtail (IATwPiggy) = $21.00
1 x MegaSquirt Stimulator v2.2 - UnAssembled Kit (MSStim22-K) = $45.00
1 x MegaSquirt-I or II Relay Cable (MSRelayCable) = $70.00
1 x MegaSquirt-II Programmable EFI System PCB3.0 - Kit w/ BLACK CASE (MS230-K_BL) = $253.00
4 x Fuel Injector Pigtails - Bosch (InjPiggy-Bos) = $22.00
------------------------------------------------------

& also some 24# injectors and a TPS off eBay

Many thanks to Finkbuilt, Zenon & johnhup for the extensive documentation on their builds. The info provided there was a huge help in deciding what components to purchase.

I cant wait to start soldering this stuff together!

Memorial day weekend

2007-06-27T14:22:00.000-07:00

Follow-up to the Memorial Day weekend:

I have gotten a lot more work finished (front brakes, finding out my wheels don't fit....) but here's some shots of things I was working on during memorial day weekend...

I realize its a rattle-can engine bay, but some of the cracks in the paint here (done at the body shop, not by me) were really starting to tick me off. So i sanded out everything in here flat and started over. Most of this is hidden under decals and the like anyways, but at least there's a flat surface to work with now.

So, here are my springs. "JAMEX" brand. Who knows? they fit, and drop the car waaaaay low, so i'm all for it!

Jamex + Billy's = Fresh, VERY stiff struts!

Subframe install...This is how I left things on Memorial day before I went in to work. Its all in and buttoned up (except for the safety wire on the struts) so as soon as I figure out how to get my damn wheels to fit, we'll be ground-ward bound!

Yes, its krinkle red. It actually looks pretty cool with the krinkle black valvecover. I'm undecided whether or not i'll keep this though...

More to come, I just need to take more pictures of all this stuff i'm doing.

High-rez steering box

2007-04-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

This damn thing took so long to get this pretty... I should have it framed and set in my living room or something.

Quick update...

2007-04-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

More progress has been made (a lot!) but I haven't really had the time to document it. Front subframe is back together, all soundproofing is done, started putting in the sunroof and seals, and started making the aux harness for random other components that I dont want tied into the main wiring harness.

More pics to come later, but for now:

Bling!

2007-04-04T14:45:00.000-07:00

Got pieces back from the platers yesterday. This stuff looks awesome, and now i can finally get the subframs back together, which means the engine and transmission can go back in soon! There's light at the end of the tunnel!

Seat rails had to go twice since they were yellow on the first batch. O-rings came out fine through the process, and they move VERY smoothly now. Just a little grease and we're good to go!

Who knew there was a logo on these? I learn something new everyday...

Random Gold. Things should start moving now! There were about 400 pieces in this batch, frigging box weighed like 40 pounds.

These look like less than is actually in the bag, for some reason. There's probably 150 or so bolts in there. the bag sits about 8" or so tall.

Things should start picking up speed now....

Dumpster Diving!

2007-04-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

I have been working on the car, as much as my recent work schedule allows (which, to be honest, isn't terribly much) But I have tried to document it as best as possible. The past two months have seen:

- final repairs to any and all floorboard rust holes in the cabin (theres still a small one to be addressed near the gas tank area)
- 95% of soundproofing finished in cabin area
- refinishing of wheel wells
- sandblasting & replating of nearly every single washer, nut and bolt that I could possibly take off the car (these will be picked up this week)
- Refinishing of underside of car
- a rather successful trip to the junkyard...

Can anyone give me a good reason to put these back on? Most restorations I see don't have them, and I've heard rumours that these are asbestos-filled. I'm planning on leaving them out, unless they're a necessary heat shield. Thoughts?

More of the subcomponents are coming together. Its going to be fun when I can FINALLY bolt all this stuff back in

The problem with Krinkle paint is that, once you get the hang of it, you start looking for all other kinds of things that "need" to be textured.

My driving lights are actually situated behind the grilles, but I thought this looked cool, and the plastic was faded and oversprayed anyways.

Maybe i'll go with the Red one. I have a W&N Strut Brace, and with all the red suspension components, it may look good together. I just dont want it to look too "rice"

Cue Red Suspension components. My anti-sway bars were actually a metallic gold when I got to them. That, and the rust, needed to go. Please ignore the pink bike and the dirty matress. Neither of those are mine...

Soundproofing about 95% done. Just some small spots and bubbles to check for. Sorry for the crappy pic, the flash is dead on my digital camera.

Wheel Wells were wire-wheeled down on all loose and rusty spots, shot with zinc primer, and treated to a coating of Herculiner. If this doesnt guard against rock chips and rusting, nothing will.

I scored a 5-speed transmission off a 320i (I'm 99% sure this is the right one, can a Getrag Guru look at these pics and tell me I'm correct on that??) with 150k on the clock. Spins very nicely, no grinding, and no chips or metal shavings in the fluid, so I'm pretty confident in my $42 transmission.

I also got a rebuilt starter that was sitting on a 320is with a giant hole in cylinder #3. Haven't tested it yet, but its the smaller M3 variant, and it cost me $12.

Lastly, I yanked the EFI manifold from the very same 320, for a Megasquirt project I may or may not do in the near future. My plans right now are to get the car running with EDIS and a 38/38, then upgrade to Megasquirt after I'm familiar with everything and have all the kinks worked out.

Did I mention I'm running out of places to put all this crap?!

Small Update

2007-02-05T15:02:00.000-08:00

Small update... I've been spending most of my time sandblasting, wire-wheeling, plating and painting parts... I have a nice, big pile of new shiny stuff, but very little of it actually bolted together...

Also, I thought I had taken more pictures than this before (and these are the good ones... ugh) but i had a thoroughly terrible day in the shop over the weekend, and didnt feel much like taking any more pictures.

Some highlights: I sprayed some primer in the trunk but forgot to move my sockets and wrenches, so they have a nice grey-green coating of etching primer on them... I dropped a metal broom handle into the side of the car which left a scratch I can only hope to buff out (I left the shop after that gem)... I got black overspray on the nose of the car when touching up a piece on the nose... and I spilled a cup of water INTO the cardboard box that has my carpet kit in it...

Anyhow, here's the pictures I did manage to take:

I stripped the Valve cover for a coat of Crinkle-finish paint. The paint that was on there came off easily enough, but I had to strip it a second time after I thoroughly botched the first coat ("Thick Paint," as the can instructs, does NOT mean running down the side of your valve cover) The second coat went much better, and i'll be posting shots of it on the engine as soon as its done.

With the help of a fellow '02-er, I finally got the steering box apart. I wire-wheeled the outside down, then let the whole thing sit in some mineral spirits to clean out the sludge inside. After that, it got a coat of dull aluminum, and new seals. I'm still waiting for the input shaft seal and the output shaft locking washer, so it won't be going back together until I get those parts in.

My rank pedalbox is rank no more! All parts have been replated, and the difference in the new bushings is amazing... I can't wait to see how it feels once I get it in the car...

Front subframe was stripped and dipped, and new bushings / replated parts started going in also. I still have a few pieces of hardware to replate/replace so this project is ALSO in limbo, awaiting some more pieces before being finally put together.

Random plated and painted bits going back on the engine. I do NOT recommend opening up the Carb side of the intake manifold with a Dremel tool... It works, but you'll be there doing it for about a week.

Finally, the rust holes on the passenger side floorboard have been welded in. These got a coat of primer and paint that I forgot to take a picture of before I left for the day. The entire rest of the interior is Dyna-matted, so once I get this section done I can run wires and put the carpet in!

I actually have gotten a good bit more finished than this, but don't have any pictures of it... So hopefully i'll remember to do that the next time i'm out there.

I had meant to jack the rear end up to remove the rear subframe, but with the front on jackstands, everything just felt waaaaay too unstable. Right now, I think I'm going to rebuild the front subframe, and rebuild a spare rear that I've scavenged off of another car. Once the new front goes on, I'll jack out the rear and swap the old with the rebuilt. For clarification, I can remove the CV's, diff, and swaybar without having to emove the rear subframe, correct? I'm thinking the more I take off of it, the easier it will be to remove when I need to get to it.

2006-12-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

First off: LOTS OF IMAGES! I'm sorry to the Dial-up users out there...

Man, its been a while since I updated... Mainly because I keep leaving my camera at the garage where i'm working on my car. Lots of stuff since then, but mostly just me collecting parts, blasting, repainting , and such. I really need to start bolting everything INTO the car soon, since i'm running out of room to put all this crap! Once the front subframe goes back together, i'll have a lot more space. Right now, its scattered all over the place, and the only thing I'm still waiting on is new springs before I can bolt it all back together.

Ah, the unholiest of unholy... the Pedalbox. I've already yanked the heater box, and rebuilt that, so I may as well do the next-nastiest thing...

Yeah.. this is gross...

Everything Blasted and painted with Zinc Primer...

...Then coated in about 15 layers of Plasti-coat Laquer.

I also decided to re-paint and re-assemble this whole set-up

Brake booster after blasting

It recieved the same Zinc Primer treatment as the pedalbox

While laying soundproofing, I decided to dig up some suspicious fiberglass int the passenger side floorboard. What I found did not make me a happy camper. Water had seeped between the 'glass and the floor and pock-marked the whole pan with rust. The drain plug was particularly nasty. Also, the fiberglass must have been 1/2" thick in some places. The plate there is aluminum, riveted onto the floorboards... At least that wasn't rusting any time soon.

So... Everything got dug out, cut out, and wire-wheeled down to bare metal.

New filler plates have been made, and are awaiting welding.

This is what the rest of the (solid) floorboards look like. This is a material called "FatMat" I bought on Ebay. Same stuff used in the famous "Stella" restoration. I highly recommend using a heat gun to get this stuff to stick extra-well. So far, I've been very pleased with it.

Last weekend, my engine was finally completed! Many thanks to Jeff for helping me unload the thing at my garage, and getting an engine stand for me on such short notice... As for the Engine itself, the only things that remained the same were the block, crankshaft, and the aluminum head casting. All other components have been replaced. 284 cam, 9.5:1 pistons, and I've got a brand-new 38 carb waiting to be dropped on, as soon as I carve out the intake manifold. Sexy.

Shot from the exhaust side. I have a 2-piece supersprint header that will eventually take up residence here.

So much more to do, but getting that engine back was some serious motivation.

2006-10-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

A lot of time off this week led me to getting a lot of work done on the car. Not everything is pictured here, but some updates to show nonetheless. I'll be back at it tomorrow, hopefully getting the subframe apart, and finishing up some of the rust repair on the driver's side frame rail. Nothing bad there right now, but surface scale i'd like to get rid of now that i can get to it.

Yanked the subframe out of the car, all by myself Ma! Man, that was a fun one-person job. I suggest you have a little help, and 2 floor jacks if possible. None of the bolts were siezed, and there is very little rust on the whole assembly. Overall, I'm pretty pleased.

Another shot of the subframe. I need to scrape the 19 coats of black paint off the steering box...

Score! 23.5mm swaybar (i'm pretty sure the last .5mm is paint)

Current Projects: Gastank, Pedalbox, Subframe, Brake booster... this is what happens when you say to yourself "...while i'm at it..."

Door before new internals

Door after new internals

New plated parts for door internals, waiting for installation...

Someone made a post a little while ago about getting new hardware for their car... I found this box of grade 8 hardware, Zinc plated, at Pep Boys. $19.99 for the box. This is a damn good deal for what you get.

More coming soon...

Moving into Joe's house

2006-09-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm squatting in a friend's Garage, since I live in an apartment complex, and dont have the space for all this idiocy at my place anymore. On the plus side, my third bedroom is now wonderfully empty. On the minus side, that probably means I need to put some furniture in there...

Kind of annoying, since I moved all my tools over to my friend's place also. I needed a screwdriver yesterday, then remembered all my toolboxes are 30 miles away... this is going to take some getting used to.

The Basement garage (Note the evil Rusty Pole of Death next to my door - thats getting wrapped in foam ASAP)

My car, best friend, girlfriend, and his Dog in the basement. The puppy (hes about 15 weeks old) walked over to my Recaros and made like he was going to use them as a chew-toy. I haven't moved that fast in a long time.

The aformentioned Chew-toys. I think I told TMK I was going to post a few shots of these. I have rears to match, and doorpanels in the works.

Parts, Parts, Parts! (Shelving by IKEA - CHEAP! I highly reccomend it)

3.0-style mounting on C-pillar. I've always loved how this looks:

OPINIONS ARE WELCOME HERE:

Chrome:

Black:

Keep in mind, with the exception of door handles, and turn signal trim, all the brightwork on the car has been blacked out. I also have a pair of satin black Talbot mirrors that will be hood-mounted in the future.

Highschool picture

2006-09-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

Found this old shot of my car. Had to be back when I was still in Highschool, after I got it running the first time. Just felt like sharing for comparison sake.

I moved it out of the bodyshop and into a friend's garage, where i'll be finishing interior and some suspension work over the next month or so.

Engine and transmission work is nearing the end too... I need to take more pictures! I always forget my camera... Hopefully i'll be able to snap a few soon.

Also, I am goign to be doing that stripe down the side of the car again - black on silver... I'm trying to decide to paint it on, or pinstripe tape like in the photo. What do you guys think?

Gunmetal

2006-09-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

First shots of the new paint. The color is a Toyota silver, used on their Scion xB's. Its a dark metallic, not too far off from Polaris in the right light.

As for the bumper, that started out as a three-piece '73 bumper with the long sides. The guy that is doing the bodywork is a big hot-rod fan, so he's all about shaving off joints and making things smoother. He welded the three sections together and cut the ends of the side pieces to make everything fit better. Unfortunately, I don't have any shots of this process being done. I did tell him that about everyone with a 2002 is going to be asking me where i got this thing, though!

More bodywork shots

2006-09-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

More shots of bodywork, done by Stout Collision in Georgia.

Little Things

2006-08-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Its the little things that really take all the time to do right... This isnt anything terribly interesting, but I consider it an accomplishment I get anything done at all with my recent work schedule.

Oh, and I got reported by my neighbors in my apartment complex twice for spray-painting the heaterbox on my balcony...

Old Heaterbox (Yes, those Zip-ties are holding the motor in. Yes, I did that, I'm man enough to admit that now...):

Rebuilt Heaterbox (Thanks for the spares, Jeff!):

Door Latches a-la Dishwasher:

I finished the wiring harness! good as new:

The Road to Phoenix

2006-08-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

I got my 1975 2002 from a body shop I used to work at when I was 14. I also got a parts car around the same time, and my Dad and I used it to get my '02 up and running by the time I was 16. I drove it through highschool, and a little bit into college, but the restoration didn't hold up too hot out near the ocean, and she went into storage for a couple of years.

Now I find myself graduated college, working in Graphic Design, and in a few days I will have owned my 2002 for 10 years. Kinda crazy to think about it that way...

These are a few pics of the restoration thus far. Mostly bodywork, but i've been doing a lot of little bits also here and there (replating everything, rebuilding smaller components, etc) Its kind of a pain in the ass to do a restoration while living in an apartment complex, but here's hoping it can be done.

More pics of the interior coming soon. Oh, and the last shot is of my "dining room" when I was rebuilding my wiring harness.