My Collection of Mostly Broken BMW's - MTechnically's Garage

Trying to keep momentum moving, and the first thing I needed to sort out was the previous parts order I made. It seems like the front bushing kit I received was missing one of the larger control arm bushings. Sent out an email and it looks like I'm getting a new set at no cost, so that's a bonus. I also managed to score a set of NOS control arms off of eBay for $250. Still pricey and I assume that the bushings are past their prime, but it's still a significant win over roughly $300 per arm.

I also got notice that my door cards should be shipping out tomorrow. I'm guessing they will take a week to get here, but I'm really excited to see how they turned out. 

I want to keep a better habit of getting out to the garage at least three times a week, so I decided to try to pull the harness out of the car. As silly as it may sound to some, I'm pretty apprehensive about tackling anything electrical, but I know it doesn't really get much simpler than this car. With that in mind, I finished disconnecting the remainder of the engine bay harness and ended up with this mess by then end of my night.

I removed the drivers seat in order to make it easier to work under the dash, but I still had a little trouble running the harness out through the firewall. Ended up cutting the rock hard grommet to get the last bits out. It mostly seems okay. Outside of clearly needing a cleaning and a retaping there aren't too many glaring issues. The biggest challenge is going to be dealing with the wires that weren't connected to anything. I think I'll be going with the solder and shrink wrap route were possible. Never done any soldering before, but it seems pretty straightforward. I think I'm going to end up pulling the body harness as well. It just seems like the right thing to do at this point. I am a little worried that I've gotten to the point were I have too many sub-systems apart and I'll have a real challenge getting it back together properly. I'm trying to take my time and make sure I bag parts where necessary, but it's starting to feel like the car will take forever to get back together.

Not a lot of progress was made on the 2002 this weekend. The weather is starting to pick up, so that meant spending some much needed time outside with the family. It also signals the beginning of yard work season. I got some general clean up done, but we've also decided that now is a good time to get a garden going. We've opted to do some raised beds, so I've been building the box sections over the past few days. 

That's not to say that nothing has been happening on the car front. First thing that happened was that I received my set of NOS lower control arms.

I'm really happy with the condition they are in. The rubber seems to be pliable and in otherwise good shape, so I think I'll be running them like this for a while.

I also received my additional set of control arm bushings after the packaging mishap. I find it slightly ironic that I've got all these bushings and I won't be using most of them for quite some time now. With the little time I actually did spend on the car over the last few days, I mostly spent it doing rust prevention. I've got the Loctite product that I mentioned before, but I also found some SEM Rust Preventer that I had picked up on a previous product. It's much thicker than the Loctite product and it seems to dry a very dark brown color. I've used it in the harder to reach and see areas of the car and I'm curious how the different products will perform.

On Sunday, I got a delivery that I have been anxiously awaiting. My new front and recovered door cards arrived back from California. I sent the some pretty crusty old rear cards and singular piece of trim for the fronts to Aardvark racing and this is what I got back.

I'm really happy with how they turned out, and I'm glad I decided to go with cardinal red instead of black. I really want to get the car back together just so I can get these installed and enjoy them. 

It wasn't all happy news on the car front this weekend. I decided to take the E34 out to pick up some more supplies for the garden project, but something isn't right. It cranked over and started without too much trouble, but it's idling pretty rough and it doesn't seem to do the proper cold start with higher revs that slowly bleed down to usual idle speed. I let it warm up a little and thought I'd try to circle the neighborhood to see if that would clear it up. No dice. On an incline the car would barely accelerate in third gear. I can't quite tell if it's fuel or spark at this point, and I didn't have time to do more diagnosis in the moment. I ordered up all the intake manifold gaskets awhile back, so I'll probably do that job, replace the fuel filter, check the plugs and see if that sorts it out. If anyone thinks this sounds familiar for an M50, let me know if there is something I should check while I'm doing the other work.

Those door cards look amazing!

Don't think I can help on the M50 front, but when my M52 had idle problems I found the idle air control valve (semi-circular) flapper plugged solid with intake crud and unable to move.  Cleaning it with carb and brake cleaner freed it up and eliminated the hunting idle problem.  Probably not your issue since you had problems off-idle with the engine warmed up, but something you may want to check "while you're in there."

Good luck.

In reply to HundredDollarCar :

Good suggestion the IAC, I'll have most of the intake system apart when I do the manifold gaskets, so I would only make sense to check the system and clean it out. The way the car felt when I was driving it seemed like it wasn't running on all cylinders. Plugs are pretty new, but it's possible that I've got a bad coil or injector, I'm hoping pulling the plugs will show if I have a spark issue or not. Honestly, I need to just do some more poking around, because I was on limited time yesterday. Didn't really get a chance to test anything other than driving it around the block.

This is turning out really nice. Love the interior color. 

I have been watching a 2002 on FB marketplace that has a m42 swap with a eaton supercharger and meth injection. It's pretty rough but one of my bucket list cars. 

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Thanks, it's starting to feel like the concept of what I have in my head is actually coming together and becoming a reality. That's a nice new feeling for me to have since my other projects are usually too busy being transportation to get anything meaningful done.

I'd imagine that a supercharged M42 would be quite lively in something as light as an '02. If you want one, I think now is probably one of the best times to get one, I don't think they will be getting cheaper in the long run. Just watch out for rust and try to find a relatively complete car. The one thing I am learning is that all the little pieces start to add up with a car like this. Consumables are very reasonable, but trim pieces can be MURDER.

So it’s been about a month since the last update. I have once again overestimated my ability to get out into the garage. I’ve been busy focusing on the yard to keep our sanity, being stuck at home with the little ones all the time. It’s also been a bit harder to justify going out to the garage when Mrs. MTechnically and I finally get some time to sit down and unwind. I’ve also been distracted a bit from what is in the garage with thinking about what to put into the garage. I had thought that the M5 was going to sell, which naturally had me hunting for a replacement. But that didn’t end up happening, and I’m starting to wonder if I will sell the car. I’m not sure there is a sedan out there that I want more than this car. It really is just the maintenance that put me off and had me ready to sell. Plenty of time to ruminate on that one.

So with those qualifiers out of the way, let’s get down to what has happened with the cars. Or I should say what hasn’t happened. I haven’t looked into diagnosing the E34 any further. The weather has been spotty enough that all the good days get taken up with other tasks, and since it’s just sitting covered outside, it’s waiting for the time being. Another thing that didn’t get done was that I didn’t end up stripping out the interior of the ‘02 completely. I had been considering that for a little while, but it’s just another big project that I don’t need to take on right now.That’s an important step in the right direction in keeping a lid on my habit of scope creep. I’ve also decided to pause on the wiring harness, until I can figure out what I’m adding to the car, I don’t want to finalize the harness.

I started this out wanting to fix the rust under the brake reservoir, but the reality is that this car is old at this point and has had some weird things done in that time. The car was originally polaris silver, but at some point the majority of the car was painted some type of dark blue. I think it was professionally done, because what remains of it seems to have held up well. Someone had at some point painted the door jams and a few other places in a generic white, with what seems like a worn out toothbrush, it’s just terribly done and flaking off in places. This picture kind of highlights all those issues in one image.

So the right thing to do would probably be to strip the car down entirely, bring it back to bare metal, repair the panels and paint from there. But I would like to get this car back together before winter, if at all possible, and honestly I’m just not ready for a project of that scope yet. The current goal is to clean up what I can and try to make the car just a little more cohesive. I know that the wrap is only going to last a few more years, but that’s vital time to get my garage in order and maybe enjoy the car a little bit more.

Over the last few days, I took lights, grills, and hood off of the ‘02 and began prepping the front of the car for paint. I laid down a second coat of primer the other night and it’s starting to get there. I’ll probably sand this coat with 400 and then lay the last coat of primer before laying down some base.

I also started reconditioning some of the old suspension parts that I will be reusing. I scuffed up and used some self etching primer before laying down some gloss black enamel. Not perfect, but a marked improvement from where they started out. I still need to tackle the front struts, but once they are done parts can start going back together.

In between paint prep, I’ve been shopping for and accumulating more parts for the car. Ever since I bought the car the shifter has been pretty sloppy. It’s very common on these cars for the linkages to wear out, since they are a bit needlessly complicated. Instead of just doing a simple rebuild, I decided to upgrade the shifter mechanism to AKG’s sport shifter. It should provide a shorter throw with a more positive feel, with the dual shear selector rod and Z3 shift lever.

I was seriously tempted to get the tunnel mounted shifter, for maximum motorsports awesomeness, but this is going to be a street car and solid engine and transmission mounts are recommended when using that shifter. I don’t think the cool points are worth the NVH trade offs. 

I’ve always planned on adding fog/driving lights to this car. I try to use quality parts in any of my cars, and if I can use period correct parts I’m even happier. I happened to find these Marchal 880’s on eBay for a pretty decent price, and they are like new. They are probably my ideal fog light for this car. I am really happy to pick these up to say the least.

I also picked up a set of Kooglewerks front fog light mounts. They are quality pieces and I’m really excited to see how this looks all put together.

At this point I need to finish the second coat of primer, put down the base coat, and start putting some parts back onto the car. Once I get the front suspension back in the car I think I’ll focus my efforts on getting the wiring harness back together. After that’s done I’ll be able to piece the interior back together. I've not made quite the progress I was hoping for, but at least things are moving along steadily.

It's starting to feel like things are coming together. Last night, I decided to paint the engine bay. I could have spent more time on the prep, and I would have probably ended up with a better result, but in the name of getting this car back on the road before it’s winter again, I decided that it was time to move forward. It’s probably a 10 footer type of job, if you squint, but it’s so much better than what was going on before, that I don’t mind the imperfections nearly as much as I would otherwise. It also brought to light some of the flaws in my last bit of touch up work. Some of the paint pulled up from the masking tape, but luckily it’s only in places that won’t be visible once everything is back together.

I've got an order for over 1100 feet of wiring coming, but in the meantime I'm going to try to get the car roughly put back together. I really wanted to test fit the fog light mounts and Marchal's when they arrived, but I didn't want to mess with the masking at the time. I managed to get 30 or so minutes tonight, so I took the opportunity to do a test fit. I'm very pleased with the results. The only annoyance is that the hardware that Kooglewerks sent aren't long enough. But that really isn't Kooglewerks fault seeing that I bought an early car kit and my car is a '76.

I also managed to score some Marchal soft covers, so naturally I had to see how they looked.

There's a host of other projects to get done before the car sees the road again. One of the key items it getting the struts back in the car. Unfortunately, I broke the head of one of the small bolts that hold the steering arm to the bottom of the strut tube. I tried a host of tricks, but none of them worked, so I might have to farm that one out to a local machine shop to see if they can't drill and tap it out for me. Once that's sorted things can really start going back together which will be awesome. 

After that I'll just have to figure out this whole wiring harness thing, and we should be back to motoring. Easy enough, right?

Those door cards are incredible!

In reply to trumant :

Thanks for the kind words. I'm excited to get the car back together, but I'm trying to do the stuff that makes sense at the moment. I'm coming to the realization that it probably won't be together as soon as I wanted, but I think I'll be more satisfied with the result.

I'll have a new update soon. I've got a replacement for the M5 that should be delivered in the next couple of days.

The M5 sold?!?! If so, congratulations. You sounded conflicted about it but must be a relief nonetheless.

Yes, the M5 sold a few weeks ago to a very enthusiastic guy, so I'm glad it went to the right owner. I just didn't have the time to have another car that was supposed to be my daily and was still half a project.

I still have the 2002 and the E34 to keep me busy. And the new car is no slouch either. I tried to do something a little different, but I ended up reverting back to type. 

So the F30 arrived early last Wednesday.

I wrote more of my thoughts about it in the other thread I started here. After the first week with the car, my impression hasn't changed much. I definitely think it was the right choice for my daily, but I won't pretend that it's not a downgrade in some ways to the M5. I'm not a huge fan of the throttle and transmission calibration in comfort mode, and I find the sport damper setting to be a bit rough on my typical roads. Luckily you can set the sport mode to remain soft on the suspension and it sharpens throttle and transmission response to a nice level. Still haven't really been able to take the car anywhere that resembles a driving road, so I can't yet comment on the dynamics. I was a little tempted to sign up for an HPDE or TNiA, but it feels a little too soon and I don't really want to risk too much with the car that I'm supposed to use long term.

The 2002 has been sitting with little progress over the last two weeks. I mounted the Hella H4 conversions headlights and test fit my new horns. Those two items should be a nice step in improving the relative safety of the car, seeing that I previously had no horn and sealed beams. I also received my VDO oil and water temp gauges that go along with the oil pressure gauge that came with the car. I'd like to get an electric fan, and a basic sound system too, so I can just do all of the wiring at once, but I might need to revise that plan depending on how long it takes me to do the rest of the work.

I finally got around to getting the strut housing fixed, which was a relief, because they are hard to find and very expensive if you want one from BMW. With that piece back, I can clean up the housings, give them a coat of paint, and then start working to get the front suspension back together. I ended up ordering some Koni sports today, since the Bilstiens that came out of the housings were stamped "Made in West Germany". I'm going to guess that they are due for a refresh. I'm heading to the back of the car next. I really want to get my AKG shifter installed, and then I will probably pull the rear subframe out of the car and clean it up. I've got the RTAB's and struts, rear drums look like they could use a rebuild, and I'm going to be doing all the brake lines already. I should probably plan on sourcing some subframe and differential bushings, and I might as well do the camber and toe adjusters so I can call that end of the car done.

If you can't tell I'm still avoiding the wiring. My lack of experience is really showing in this department and it's got me nervous to start. I think the best thing I can really do is start with the simple stuff, like the horns, headlights, etc and work each sub system until it kinda comes together to be a harness. Yet I'm still finding it just a little bit daunting. 

Bilstein will rebuild them for ~$65 each

In reply to docwyte :

Yes, I could have sent them in to see if they would rebuild them, but I'm really not sure one of them was actually repairable. Also with the 20% discount that Koni is running to the end of the month, I think I'm paying less than $50 more per corner to get the new, adjustable Koni's. I'll also admit that I am partial to Koni over Bilstein. I put Koni Sports on my E34 and was really happy with the ride quality. OTOH, I put B8's into my E39 M5 and I thought that they were a bit too firm. To the point that I was considering coilovers just to rectify that issue. 

Did a loose sketch of your 2002. 

Congrats on the F30, looks super nice!

In reply to OjaiM5 :

Dude! That is amazing. I hope it ends up looking half as good as that when it's done. 

Would you mind PMing the image file to me? I'd love to use it as an avatar for this site and other things.

Small update today. 

Got reproduction Euro turn signals off of Ebay. The chrome is plastic, but the real deal pieces are very pricey. 

The big win is that they have the proper brackets built into them that hold the signal bulb into place. The PO was creative in cobbling something that worked, but the bulb was ultimately just kind of rattling around behind the DYI lenses.

One last thing that I want to figure out is a fan shroud for an electric fan install. I'd like to do a proper one out of aluminum sheet, so that I would feel comfortable deleting the mechanical fan. I'm sort of surprised that the aftermarket hasn't covered this, but I haven't been able to find one for my use. Any one have a source for a shroud? 

Car has always run about half way between the half and three-quarters mark. I'm guessing I have one of the higher temp thermostats, but I would like to have a solid cooling system setup for the future.

So it's been a long time since the last post here and a lot of things have changed since then. Another new daily and a new career in the nearly two years since I last posted. It's been a bit of a whirlwind to say the least. I'm honestly not sure where I want to take this tread at this point as I have even less time and energy for projects, but the passion for cars is still burning strong. 

Not too much progress has been made on the 2002 front unfortunately, though I have found a good amount of rust that was hiding under the vinyl wrap. I've pretty much resigned this car to a long term project since I really do like it and want to see my vision for the car fulfilled eventually. Lack of funds will probably push me to DIY body work stuff, which leaves a ton for me to learn before I'm actually comfortable hacking into the car itself.

Before work completely stalled, I went ahead and pulled the majority of the interior out of the car.

I also started removing the wrap since it was coming up in spots and at this point I had already resigned myself to some sort of repaint in the future.

Somehow it's worse than I expected. I knew that the previous paint jobs were shoddy, but the amount of filler and delamination when removing the wrap confirmed that ultimately this was probably necessary. 

On the positive side, I got the front struts rebuild and installed the offset camber spacers. 

And that's pretty much where the 02 sits now. Tons of work to do and not a lot of time or money to get it done.

The big shake up in my life has been my career change. Back in April of 2021, I decided to open my own detailing shop, Enthusiast Auto Detailing, where I get to do something I am passionate about and try to make it something that can actually pay the bills. It's been a journey so far, but I don't think I'd do much differently if given the opportunity. I've gotten to work on some really cool stuff along with some disgusting minivans and crossovers.

I'm always working on getting better at my craft and ultimately my business, but I'm sure it's going to be a marathon instead of a sprint.

So maybe the title of this thread won't make much sense. Maybe I should start again? Most likely if I manage to post at all this will just be detailing and glacial progress on the 02.  

I admire people who can stomach the risk of self-employment. Congrats on opening your own shop!

Yes congrats for sure. Looks like you are off to a great start with some well good customers based on that trio of 911's. Sorry you have to also do some filthy minivans to help pay the bills.  Watching the 02, I am sure you will be able to move it along over time, a little each week and you will be surprised where you are over time.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

I admire people who can stomach the risk of self-employment. Congrats on opening your own shop!

It definitely wasn't the easiest decision I've ever made, but fortunately Mrs. Mtechnically can keep us afloat while I figure it out.

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

Yes congrats for sure. Looks like you are off to a great start with some well good customers based on that trio of 911's. Sorry you have to also do some filthy minivans to help pay the bills.  Watching the 02, I am sure you will be able to move it along over time, a little each week and you will be surprised where you are over time.

Thank you! Yes, I've been fortunate to link up with a Porsche specialist that gives me the opportunity to work on fun stuff like the Speedster above. It really does take all kinds to keep myself busy enough, so I honestly don't mind the challenge of a minivan as long as there aren't too many of those jobs back to back.