The Short History of an Old BMW (2002 project)

Day 9 - Removing floor pan tar, repairing driver side floor pan (March 20th, 2015)

I took Friday off work, brought my son tobogganing in the morning, had lunch and then pushed the 2002 outside to help freeze the tar on the floor pans.

I was able to remove the tar panels on the rear shock towers / rear seat backing with a heat-gun but the heat gun caused a freakin’ disaster on the floor tar. I had read that dry ice was the way to go but discovered that our cold climate was almost as good as dry ice. [Side note, with all the shit my neighbors see happening in front my place they must think I’m a bit retarded (-30’c “underwear” snow angles, snow fixed gear skid contest at 1am, 2002 “rolling” shell, just in recent months).] The cold helped and the floor pans were pretty clean, aside from crap around the drain plugs. I found a little more rust behind the front seats, very happy about that!



Kosta and Ernest showed up as I was finishing the pans, they gave me a hand to push the shell back in to the previously warm garage. Before the welder arrived (as a precaution), we decided to reinforce the shell by welding temporary bars between the A & B pillars. We also tried our hands at repairing a patch behind the driver seat, I think it went pretty well given our lack of experience and Mastercraft welder. Ernest loves yelling “EASY, EASY, EASY!” while we pound sheet metal to shape.



Ernest hooked us up with a welder, his wife’s cousin Ardo (who owns his own shop http://www.avfabrication.com/, they do some crazy shit there), he agreed to come help us out with a house call. As you’d expect by the name AV Fabrication specializes in fabrication, custom parts, headers/downpipes/exhaust and some freakin’ crazy builds/setups. I now know where to go if I decide to make the move to fuel injection/turbo M10, you guys should definitely call him up if you need anything too. His father used to own a body shop so he brought him along for his bodywork wisdom. Ardo gave us some directives on what to cut and strip from the driver’s floor pan, while he and Kosta prepared the donor floor pan for (non-sexual) insertion.

Side note: Pete (Saceone) dropped by at the same time that they arrived and there was a lot of confusion going on so I didn’t get to chat with him too much. However, he did compliment me on my retarded wooden dolly though :p

1 Greek working, 3 Armenian inspectors


Before:


After:



Just passed 10:30pm we decided to call it a night, Ardo gave me some instruction on how to prep the passenger donor floor pan, so it would be ready for his next visit. I took care of that over Saturday and Sunday, while I was working in front on Saturday a metal collector drove by and luckily the metal sparks caught his eye, I managed to unload all the scrap pieces so that worked out well.


Current state:
 
Day 9 - Removing floor pan tar, repairing driver side floor pan (March 20th, 2015)

I took Friday off work, brought my son tobogganing in the morning, had lunch and then pushed the 2002 outside to help freeze the tar on the floor pans.

I was able to remove the tar panels on the rear shock towers / rear seat backing with a heat-gun but the heat gun caused a freakin’ disaster on the floor tar. I had read that dry ice was the way to go but discovered that our cold climate was almost as good as dry ice. [Side note, with all the shit my neighbors see happening in front my place they must think I’m a bit retarded (-30’c “underwear” snow angles, snow fixed gear skid contest at 1am, 2002 “rolling” shell, just in recent months).] The cold helped and the floor pans were pretty clean, aside from crap around the drain plugs. I found a little more rust behind the front seats, very happy about that!



Kosta and Ernest showed up as I was finishing the pans, they gave me a hand to push the shell back in to the previously warm garage. Before the welder arrived (as a precaution), we decided to reinforce the shell by welding temporary bars between the A & B pillars. We also tried our hands at repairing a patch behind the driver seat, I think it went pretty well given our lack of experience and Mastercraft welder. Ernest loves yelling “EASY, EASY, EASY!” while we pound sheet metal to shape.



Ernest hooked us up with a welder, his wife’s cousin Ardo (who owns his own shop http://www.avfabrication.com/, they do some crazy shit there), he agreed to come help us out with a house call. As you’d expect by the name AV Fabrication specializes in fabrication, custom parts, headers/downpipes/exhaust and some freakin’ crazy builds/setups. I now know where to go if I decide to make the move to fuel injection/turbo M10, you guys should definitely call him up if you need anything too. His father used to own a body shop so he brought him along for his bodywork wisdom. Ardo gave us some directives on what to cut and strip from the driver’s floor pan, while he and Kosta prepared the donor floor pan for (non-sexual) insertion.

Side note: Pete (Saceone) dropped by at the same time that they arrived and there was a lot of confusion going on so I didn’t get to chat with him too much. However, he did compliment me on my retarded wooden dolly though :p

1 Greek working, 3 Armenian inspectors


Before:


After:



Just passed 10:30pm we decided to call it a night, Ardo gave me some instruction on how to prep the passenger donor floor pan, so it would be ready for his next visit. I took care of that over Saturday and Sunday, while I was working in front on Saturday a metal collector drove by and luckily the metal sparks caught his eye, I managed to unload all the scrap pieces so that worked out well.


Current state:

Lollll can't miss ardo at the right :p
 

Day 10 (a few hours) - Prepared Passenger side floor pan for welding. March 27, 2015


Last week I prepared the passenger donor floor pan for (sexual) insertion, I marked the cut-out on the floor and dropped it off at AV Fab (to patch up the holes on it)... Kosta cut out the pan and I grinded all around it so it’s ready for Ardo’s work (Ernest choked at the last minute). I'm a little worried we may have cut too much and Ardo won't be happy with us.





Before I got to grinding the floor pan (and while Kosta was cutting)...I was cleaning up the area behind the front fenders for some Por15. I discovered a few more unpleasant surprises, everything looked sound but let me tell you, bondo is a deceiving bitch.

The photos don’t do it justice, it’s worse than shown. The passenger side was not as bad because there was only 1 hole, it was bigger but at least it’s not all over the place.



On Saturday I cleaned up some parts for Por15’ing at a later date. Pedal box, pedals, brake booster, brake booster bracket, exhaust heat/ gas tank heat shield




need to finish all the welding on the car (+ por 15 the floors) before I can send it for painting.
 
Lol Ant, no problem, it was good to see you guys again. I can't wait to see it on the streets looking pretty. I know the amount of work you guys are putting into this build and I'm sure you will not regret it
 
Lol Ant, no problem, it was good to see you guys again. I can't wait to see it on the streets looking pretty. I know the amount of work you guys are putting into this build and I'm sure you will not regret it

I'm not even close to finish all the work and I regret it... LOL

I am anxious to send it to paint and rebuild.
 
Day 11 to 13 and a little beyond (~3 days total work) – Getting some welding and other things done (steering box, carbs, tail lights) - March 28th - April 24th, 2015

Well, things are starting to feel really dragged-on, I want to get the car out and to paint but there’s not much I can do, I can’t weld. I figured while I’m waiting for someone to come help with welding, I would start working on some things which I’d like to tackle before reassembling the car. I’m really good at “while I’m here, might as well.” I’m also good at starting too many things at the same time... probably not a good thing. You’ll see what I mean as items below were worked on simultaneously, not to mention I’m also plastering the basement drywall.

Steering Box Refresh: I started cleaning the steering box to refresh it with some new seals, gaskets & bolts, plus a new urethane coupler (got the kit from Ireland Engineering). I don’t think this was really necessary but might as well, right?

- Unfortunately I forgot to take a before photo with all the grease and grime on it. Cleaned it by hand with a toothbrush and some citrus degreaser, came out pretty clean.



- Disassembled it and soaked the parts overnight (heavy degreaser)



- Painted with grey engine enamel and reassembled with urethane coupler.



- It’s almost ready to be installed, just need gear oil. I had bought some from Canadian tire (75w 90), I thought it might be too thin but was lazy and took the chance. Turns out my assumption was (unfortunately) correct. It is too thin and it leaked through the seals L, I drained it will buy some thicker stuff when I can find it.

Front Sub frame: I disassembled the front sub frame, the plan is to “por15” it, install some urethane bushings and a beefier sway bar (22mm).

- It was really grimy, I disassembled it





- Started to clean it but, ran out of degrease.



To be continued... Next steps: Removing stock bushings, por 15’ing, installing new urethane bushings + sway bar, reassembly.


Cluster: When I bought the car it came with 2 clusters, the original “wood grain” and an older version “silver dollar”. I had previously disassembled the extra (original) cluster because I planned on using this one instead of the “silver dollar” cluster which was installed in the car. The problems are, the original cluster has this ugly wood grain finish and the speedometer/odometer doesn’t seem to work (based on my assessment during disassembly). The odometer is an easy fix but the speedometer isn’t and it was in mph anyway. I’m currently searching for a kph speedometer to put in the cluster.

- Before look:



- I painted the backside of the cluster white to help better reflect the light from the bulbs on the gauges at night.
- I removed the wood gain, clip on face and sanded away the “grains.” I painted it matt black with a satin clear coat. Unfortunately when re-clipping it on the cluster, the clear coat cracked in a few spots. I tried wet-sanding it to see if it would improve, it did not L.
- I left the face clipped on and masked off everything else for another round of painting.



To be continued... Next steps: finding a kph speedometer, reassembly


Passenger Floor pan, welding: Kosta came by on April 12th. He welded in a couple of patches on the donor floor pan (which I had bought and discovered it too had a couple of holes). He spot welded it in place before having to leave.



To be continued... Next steps: don't get me started on this :(

Taillights: My tail lights are not very bright (as pointed out by a friend who was following me on the highway last summer). I figured I could do a few things to make them brighter.

- I disassembled the tail lights and sprayed the inner assembly with a metallic paint. I also finished them with a gloss clear coat for more reflective POWER but after doing so I noticed there was a chemical reaction and the metallic finish faded and also ran (leaked) a little. I had to restart them and won’t put a gloss clear coat.



- I buffed the tail light lenses, the photo doesn’t do the difference justice. I’m happy about the outcome though, they look new.



To be continued... Next steps: tail light gasket + reassembly. I think I might also try inserting a slightly tinted piece of plexiglass behind the clear reverse lens to see what it would look like with a little ‘smoke’.


Weber Carburetor cleaning: I bought the car with dual Weber DCOE 45s. This is my first carbureted car so there’s a lot to learn. I had loosely cleaned the exterior of the carbs while they were in the car last summer because they were pretty ugly. Now that they’re off the motor I figured I’d take them apart and do a nice cleaning.

- Depending on the part it would either go straight for the Carb cleaner spray and bath or make a stop at the 'degreaser station’.



- I noted down all the specs of the 2 carburetors and reassembled them 1 by 1. Found a couple of parts which were damaged or inconsistent, I will replace them.



- I cleaned the intake manifold and mocked up how they would mount with the new “bar” throttle linkage... which I find sexier.



- I’ve been in contact with Bud Pauge from Redline to help me out with the few inconsistencies and issues I found. He is very knowledgeable and super helpful

To be continued... Next steps: finding and replacing a couple of damaged parts. Tap the intake manifold to support the linkage.
 
Day 14 and beyond (like ~7 full days total work) – Getting some welding and other things done (Gas Tank + Metal work) – May 2nd to June 7th

I found a welder (student) to come do work at my place, he’s not too expensive but the project is getting very expensive. If anyone needs some work done PM me for his contact details.



Ernest came by to give me a hand with some stuff, so while the welder was working on the floor pan patches, Ernest went bananas with the torch, burning out rubber bushings. They will be replaced by urethane bushings. I'll also be putting larger sway bars.



We then got to work on the gas tank, I had picked up the Por 15 gas tank seal kit (http://por15canada.com/por15-fuel-tank-repair-kit.html). If there’s one thing Ernest is good at... it’s reading instructions 10 times to make sure we follow them properly (not my specialty). It was quite the workout, after every step you need to swoosh around the tank for ~30mins. Before applying the actual sealer we had to make sure it was very dry... Ernest on the job



A few days later I started stripping the exterior of the tank to coat that with some Por 15, I also stripped the front sub-frame for the same process.





___

I’ll leave out some of the smaller rust/welding stories to keep this post a little brief but there have been a lot of nasty surprises while taking apart this car... 2 examples; when I started to work on the shock towers I discovered the patch (repaired by previous owner) which I thought was sound was not, the patch was placed directly over the rust, so there was a nice surprise behind it. The nose had a lot of bondo on the inside at the bottom, which was put on top of expanding insulating foam :s


I cut the shock towers from inside the trunk all the way to the inside of the cabin, this is a common 2002 rust area. I cleaned up the spring perches which were in decent condition and applied some Eastwood Rust Encapsulator, just to add an extra coat I applied some white rustoleum spray paint I had lying around (as a top coat to the eastwood stuff). I made 3 patches per side, I was pleased with my work given my tools (a grinder, mallet & a cement block) and metal experience (zero). The welder put them in and I will por 15 the trunk along with the floor pan in the future.



We had placed some 1x1 square tubing to reinforce the car as we work on it, specifically for the rocker panel replacement. It’s what the more knowledgeable people do from the bmw2002faq forums :)

Kosta came on Sunday, I needed him mostly for moral support because cutting rockers is scary... not to mention this car is a piece of crap and very depressing. We got to work with a spot cutter to remove the rocker panel. I picked up the spot weld cutter from Summit for ~$8, well worth it. We started on the driver side, which is the side I believed to be in better condition of the 2. The condition was not so good, a large portion of the front part of the rocker turned out to be bondo on top of a rusty patch which just covered the rust (much like the shock towers the actual rust was never addressed).



We got the driver side more or less off, now I need to clean it up a little more and wait for my package from http://www.restoration-design.com with 2 rear rocker/quarter panel patches.

Current state:


I hate this car.
 
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You are soooo patient... I would have thrown this car in the garbage a long time ago. That's why I can never own a project car!
Seriously I can't believe how much work is involved in this...
 
Day ~22 to 24 (~2 days of work), Sheet metal work + Por15 - June 10th, 2015

I had to fabricate some metal panels at the bottom of the A-pillar and in-front of the rear fender (behind rocker) because of the rust (plus some horrible bondo work by PO).
Given the bends on the pieces I was replacing and the fact that I’m a beginner working with only a mallet and a cinder block... It’s freakin time consuming and not fun. I gave that a rest as I went as far as I could go without the welder putting pieces in.

Welder wasn’t very available...so I moved on to more fun things.

I took a whole bunch of parts I wanted to Por15:
- Front Sub Frame + components,
- Gas tank + Gas tank heat shield
- Pedal box
- Brake booster + brake booster brackets.

I grinded down the parts to remove the rust and then prepared thems with Por15 Marine Clean (degreaser) & Por15 Metal Prep (metal etching).



I made a parts “clothes-line” in the corner of my backyard and got to painting.



I really love the finish Por15 gives. I just hope it’s as good as advertised when it comes to rust prevention/protection. Note: Por15 is UV sensitive and will crack if exposed to sunlight, the parts I’m painting won’t be exposed to UV rays so I won’t be top coating them.

Gas Tank:


I rebuilt the pedal box with the Ireland Engineering refresh kit which has aluminum cylinders and sealed bearings instead of the Metal + plastic sleeves (which is OEM).



On the subject of the welder, looks like I will have to find another welder as mine seems to be too busy this summer on his parent’s farm. It’s hard to find reliable people. I kinda got the impression he was less interested the last time he was here but at least he said he'd refer me a friend from school, will have to see if he comes through with that.

Kosta is swinging by this afternoon to look at what needs to be welded and to see what he can help with because he sees how depressed I am with this car. Ernest said he'd swing by but we expect him to choke.

I hate this car.
 
If you read OP's account of what's been going on, you get the feeling that ACTUAL work is being done on this car by a bunch of stand up guys who know EXACTLY what they're doing.
You see progress through hard work & ingenuity. You see the light at the end of the tunnel.
You think to yourself "Man that's really cool, I wish I had a project like that & amazing buddies to share the project with" A bunch of guys with a "Go Gettem" attitude and skills to match...

.
..
...

Nothing could be farther from the truth and with this post, I'm going to show you the other side of what happens at these casual gtg...



Here is Kosta doing some actual welding... I must say his welding skills have improved considerably
IMG_95371_zps35mhg0to.jpg




Anthony cleaning up some rust & by accident destroying his lawn
IMG_95401_zpsyuffatcc.jpg




Since Kosta is unionized, inevitably we need to take a Union Break.
IMG_95451_zps7ptpcsbj.jpg

Some say: he wears his welding helmet when playing hockey because the force is strong with him...



Anthony doing some metal fabrication... Although sometimes a second try is required to complete the task
IMG_95411_zps51auv4zz.jpg

On another note, Why do you think Anthony is still working:
A) He is fed up of this car & wants to finish quickly
B) The baby is crying and he wants to finish quickly
C) His wife is going to divorce him and he needs to finish quickly
D) He is not unionized and does not get a break
E) He wants to go to soccer practice in an hour and has to finish quickly
F) All of the above
G) B AND C

.
..
...

If you answered F) All of the above you are correct.




Finally all good things must come to an end. After a hard day's work (2 hours give or take 30 minutes)... Kosta calls it a day & heads home in his brand new GLK (It's a 4 matic)
IMG_95651_zpswvblqxr4.jpg

Here he is pulling out of the driveway.



And that my friends is what ACTUALLY happens *tu*
 
Oh I know exactly where you live. We are working on a house down the road from you, near the water.
 
Sucks to find out about the rust.
I just found some rot on my foxbody and it drives me fucking nuts.

There was a guy in sherbrooke with 3 or 4 of them near where I lived.

Nice to see you guys still hang out.
 
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