Rollin' again & out with all the old wires...

Not much work done this weekend in-between me taking break all the time to watch the LeMans race.....I still can't get over how beautiful those Peugeot's are....


Put the car on it's wheels and rolled it out of the garage for the first time in over a year...wow time flies.

Got the car ready to take to over to the official bmw1602.com shop.....

http://www.bmwmbenz.com/

It a great little independent BMW & Mercedes repair shop where my good friend Dimitri works. Luckily the owner likes me and has allowed us to work on our race cars after hours and on weekends when the shop is closed. This is invaluable as it gives me access to lifts, factory tools, etc..... So I'm now thankfully listing them as one of my sponsors.

So next week the car goes over there so I can start work on the cage (he has a shear and a drill press with a notcher etc... I will probably tack weld the cage together over there then take it back to my garage for final welding.

Meanwhile I happily removed ALL of the pre-historic wiring from the car. Thankfully since the car is ancient there is not much to get rid of. I will be rewiring everything to a new fresh switch panel with circuit breakers and switches.

Oh yeah.....after a quick week of unemployment I now have a new job.....(unfortunately no increase in pay)

pre-historic wiring
OUT WITH THE OLD.......maybe a good 5lbs. too! .....

suspention assembled.....

Finally got around to buying some POR-15. This stuff is great! It's like the poor man's powder coat! It is very toxic and I was told to use a mask, gloves etc...It dries to a hard finish and make sure to put a piece of plastic when you close the can or the paint will be weld the can shut! Don't get this paint on your skin you will have a hell of a time getting it off!
It brushes on and then melts so you can't see any brush strokes. I will be painting the engine bay with this.....


I decided to bolt everything up so I can put the car on the ground and rolling so I could take it to my friends shop to start working on the cage.....he has a notcher there so I will be fitting and tacking everything in there then bringing it back to do final welding here in the garage. I don't have a floor mount drill press here so It's easier just to do all the tube cutting/ffitting and tacking there then bring it back.....

Used new SKF bearings packed them up with lots of Mobil1 sythetic bearing grease......

Assembled adjuster with Ireland poly bushings.....

completed rear assembly
bolted on subframe
New Myle ball joints
new tie and center rods
bolted on vented rotor
All done and ready to roll! Rolling chassis Time.....

Hot sunday in the valley....

My moms garage is in the valley and boy was it a sauna in there.....! I managed to get alot done and only sweat out a few buckets!

I finish grinding off all the 5 layers of paint in the engine bay and frame rails. Luckily no serious rust to report....

So now I'm ready to start on the cage work....
you might notice I cut out the passenger firewall "foot bulge". This is to make it easier to install and removal the headers....might seam silly but why not! I like making my life easier...

Also finally finished welding on the subframe adjusters. Then I used the air grinder to finish cutting out the adjustment slots. The "eccentrics" required some grinding filing to ensure proper smooth operation....basically it all took some fine tunning to get just right.....

Not bad eh? I'm pretty proud of myself.

Completed subframe
Outermost pickup point adjust toe and inside (vertical slots) adjusts camber.

Completed modified rear suspension!

Reinforced trailing arms and now adjustable subframe ! (also solid subframe mount bushing not pictured)

Truck? I don't need no stinking truck!

Mother's day weekend started by going to pickup some 1.5" x .095 DOM tubing for the roll cage modifications.

the workers at the metal yard looked at me funny when I pointed to my lowered M3 and said "put it on the roof!"

They were like are you sure? It's 60 odd pounds of tubing that 20ft. long!

I told'em....."It's okay this is how we do it in Brazil all the time!" they all had a laugh...
I didn't break any speed limits but I got home just fine....

According to my receipt I got 2 pieces 18'.3" long. = $35.59 each ! I believe that is a smoking deal!

The M3 makes a great hauler......

Alot of time was spent talking and discussing about the engine bay cage design......

In my previous post you saw my version 1.0........I'm calling this V.2.0

Soon into discussion we realized we needed to have the engine in place with the head and most importantly the DISTRIBUTOR......


Within 15 mins we had it all together.....here is version 2.0
The Engine bay tubes will be 1"-1/4" x .120 wall
This design clears the distributor, the carburator etc.... The green things are "taco" gussets with dimple dies.....
after pretty much setteling with this design....I continued my work with the subframe adjusters..... Make sure everything is clean and secure before welding
Measure with calipers to insure that both plates are in exactly the same place. BEFORE welding

Then the fun part..... weld away!

Bimmerfest recovery....back to work!

I was working the Stealthauto booth at Bimmerfest this weekend and unfortunately did not get a good chance to look around.

I did stop by the Ireland Engineering booth and picked up some camber and toe rear adjustable weld on kit.

SO back home on Sunday I got back to work on the car abit....

Here is the Camber kit

First I clamped a piece of flat stock to serve as a backer so I may take my big F'ing hammer and make the small turned out lips flat.
Marking where to cut so that with the plate on now we have a slot so the eccentric adjuster may move back and forth....
On the Semi-trailing arm design of the 2002 (also e30 and Mcoupe). The more you lower the car or basically move th arm further up into it's travel, you gain toe-in and the tire gains negative camber. So usually a 2002 at race ride height will have too much camber and too much toe-in. This kit will allow you to dial some of that out.

Also if you ever plan on running bias ply slicks, you will want close to 0 camber so these become even more important.

Toe will move back and forth on the outermost trailing arm mount on a horizontal plane. This will give you the ability to adjust toe.

The innermost trailing arm mount (closest to the diff) will be cut so we may move the arm on a vertical plane. As we move the eccentric down we get more negative camber and more we move it up we reduce the amount of negative camber.
My first TIG weld on the adjustment plates

Paintball or work?

Took a break and went paint balling on Saturday but at least got some work in this weekend....

finished removing all the paint from both inside fenders....and welding all the small holes that were drilled to mount various items in the last 30 odd years of ownership.....
did some seam welding.... fender to firewall
I'm taking my inspiration for my "engine bay cage" from one of the cars from the guys from http://www.skidmarkracing.net

here is his tube design/engine bay

Here is my version of his concept....Im calling this Version 1.0

I did not like the way he just "seamwelded" the tubing to the 'shock tower'. I thought I could improve on his idea. This is and old car running really STIFF springs supported by 39 year old spot welds and rusty sheetmetal.

So I decided to construct a 'strut tower' reinforcement box.

Both to strengthen the strut mounting area and to transfer some of the load into the roll cage.

My racing rules state I cannot alter the suspension mounting points. There fore my strut holes are in the same place and I'm not moving the strut mounting point inward like I would like to (to gain more camber). I also would like to raise the strut tower abit to gain suspension travel. But that is also prohibited.

So it is merely a mounting point for the tubes and a reinforcement for the area.came up with this strut tower reinforcement "box"
more detailed view of the reinforcement box/tube mounting... the black circle represents where the tube will be welded to the 'box'
A side view of the design. The most forward tube will reach down and be welded to the frame rail. The 2 triangulated tubes will reach thru the dash and attach to the top dash tube.
I will also weld a "taco gusset" with a nice dimple die to this connection.