The Fateful Trip to Get Crustina: Revealed!

Here is a link to the photos for the trip I took with my two oldest kids to get Crustina. This was Hatchman's E21 that had suffered a critical incident near the GWB in NYC. We went down there and basically got what we could off of the car before sending her to the Brookline salvage yard nearby. The ironic part was that the longest road to the yard was "Legion Avenue".

Check out the pics.
https://picasaweb.google.com/112683634719093006972/December272011

While the Cat's Away.....

At the risk of my better half reading this I thought I would type out some of what may happen while my understanding and loving wife, who I have been with for nearly 20 years, will be visiting her sister in MD. Since this trip will mean me taking a few days off from my practice I have scheduled a couple of tasks to keep me busy. One of these involves getting the remaining boxes out of the garage and into storage (no honey! I'm not tossing all the stuff collected in the garage!) so I can do item #2 that involves finally getting Trixie home. She needs work and now Pixie needs some TLC (clutch slave cylinder is going!) so a few late-nights in the garage are called for in order to keep things going.

It would be nice to get Trixie running finally so that my wife can enjoy doing donuts in the snow....

****Humor Alert****
Honey, I love you and this was a hopeful but tongue-in-cheek post. But, as you have nicely pointed out my humor is not up to par.... Would I like to do this? Sure. Not if it makes you nervous when you are away. Good point. I don't like the idea of being pinned under the car late at night, alone....

....just don't be surprised if the other car is in the garage though. Just Sayin'.

Clearing out the garage and welding....

I've managed to clear out most of the garage except the stuff we need to "donate". I picked up a used Century 80 welder and tried it out with some success on a wing panel of the E21. I have to up the temp and adjust the wire feed. The next acquisition will be to fabricate a "blasting" cabinet for the parts. No point installing rusted bits on the car, right? So the best way to make sure that the parts are clean and rust free would be to sand blast them and recoat them before install.

I also bought a use air compressor for use in my shop. The twin cylinder job needs some work but it has potential to it!

Wow. My Wife is AWESOME!

Even after being a complete idiot about the time I expected to spend getting Hatchman's E21 and parts, she still stays with me! Wow!

Not only that, but after viewing the blog, she offered to allow Trixie home to be restored under the condition that she learn how to drive my car and get used to driving a stick again. Just wow.

Now I have to get the garage organized for the visit and talk to my mechanic about getting her in shape to be driven to the house.

Getting Closer....

With winter approaching and the second 323i sitting outdoors at the mechanic's shop, it's time to plead to the marital gods and obtain mercy for bringing the second car home to the garage to get restored. Yes, the car was bought as a parts car for $250 but that's the great thing! Imagine buying a car for that much that has all this potential (to be a money pit! "wife comment?"). She's right. It's the fun factor that I'm aiming for now.

The long term plan is to restore this car by whatever means (you hear me JM02!) and get her reborn as a running 323i so my son can drive with me to a future Oktoberfest, Show and Shine or Bimmerfest! I hadn't had this plan in place a year ago. Times and opportunity have changed some of my approach to what I'd like to do with the cars.

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/eat/cto/2588853610.html
This is a candidate for the shell replacement on the 323i.

Get my lab coat, Igor!

Well it's looking more and more like the '80 323i will come under some radical surgery due to all the rust it has and the issues with the brakes and fuel system. Jon, a fellow Legion member in Atlanta, has an '82 320i with nearly no rust on her and this seems like the best way to get a working 323i out of two cars. So, the "parts car" will likely be just that for another car and be reborn.

Here is the link for the candidate donor car:
http://s1111.photobucket.com/albums/h474/Jp02ti/1982%20BMW%20320i/

His car has problems but those are the ones that I have either parts for or is what is "right" about the 323i. All the problems with the 323i are the bits that are working on the donor car. With a bit of patience this could either turn out to be a modification for the '82 or an identity swap for the 323i. Either way, the soul of this garage find 323i should live on in a rust-free body.

Stay tuned. 

Getting BMW Central prepared

One VERY filled 15 yard dumpster later and I'm one more step closer to getting the garage into shape for both 323i's. This pic is of my #4 sporting a very cool "new klasse, old school" shirt. The rest of the pics are of the garage. Just couldn't help myself!

That garage attic was awful! All the squirrel damaged rock wool insulation and sheetrock was extra itchy! It's all in that dumpster today!

The Dumpster is HERE!!!

Oh yeah! time to take out the trash and get things ready to get "trixie" home. I'm going to be going through all my collection of stuff over the last 10 years and see what needs to go to make room for the Winter of 2011. Pics as soon as I can get them of the reborn BMW shop areas.

Could I get the Garage back? Please???

It's been a very interesting few weeks as my wife has been "collecting" things for the final garage sale at our house. Now, let's make this clear; my wife is a self-confessed "rotational hoarder", meaning she does accumulate major amounts of stuff, but she rotates the stock.

Right now, the BMW house is completely overrun with "stuff". I refrain from calling it crap, lest my wife remind me (yet again) that my BMW parts and cars are really the problem here.


So what if I have nearly enough parts in my garage to rebuild a third E21? Is this a crime? I say no. Each and every part has a purpose and meaning to it and so has a place in the overall scheme of things at the BMW AutoHaus. Jeez, did I just call it that?? Don't tell my wife that I'm planning on clearing out the "third bay" of the garage to house Trixie's homecoming this Fall. Now, to search Craigslist for that lift I've been scoping for....

Bimmerfest East Weekend 2011

Great to finally place faces with the screen names of the fellow Legion members! The drive was about 7 hours and it was a wonderful time. Late night dinner wihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifth Charbel, Richard, Elvis and the crew and the next day enjoying the company of many other enthusiasts such as Tom, Steve, Jeff, and many more!

Here's the link to the photos with my captions. Enjoy!

https://picasaweb.google.com/d.r.long08/BimmerfestEast2011

Getting more Bits together: the Bimmerfest Push.

I received my shipment of RedLine transmission fluid, ordered a new retractable antenna, bought a new set of hex rachets for the tranny/ rear diff plugs, and may consider getting that fuel injector tester to replace a few injectors that have done me wrong. All before my trip down to MD for Bimmerfest this August.

Got to get this all sorted out before then because I really don't want to spend 7 hours driving with a car that misses and putts and all sorts of things on the way down. She's been really good to me, even with the incident to Toronto, but I'd like to sort things out and have her running at her best while on display in MD.

Recaro swaps: best effort to get good seats....

I've managed to spend part of Sunday swapping out my old driver seat to get the covers replaced with the donor seat and upper back panels to help fix some rips and holes. Here are some of the pics for this effort.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/webUpload?uname=d.r.long08&aid=5630515869015565505

Take a look! This is just another step closer to Bimmerfest with my new antenna and front bumper install.

4th of July Weekend: The Neverending Repairs....

Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. It did start out as finally installing my power radio antenna and turned into a "replace the wing panel, rustproofing, take the front euro bumper off and repaint" repair. Forget the antenna. That went back to the rear panel location (too chicken to start yet another body patch!).

Son #2 helped out and was very diligent about removing the rust! Good show! All in all, the car was apart until the third day. See the progress below:


Son helping with the surface prep and rust removal.

Shot showing layers of undercoating and new paint prior to new panel install.

Back to some posts on mods and repairs....

Before my trip to Toronto yesterday, I did manage to do some work to the '82 and complete (okay, nearly complete) some work I started a couple of weeks ago.

Some of this was the long-awaited rear bumper fix, air intake mod and some touch ups. Now the rear fender will still need rewelding. The fix is starting to show signs of rust and it's just a matter of time before it gives out. I did manage to get the rear license plate lights fixed (see pic). This involved the install of a new wire and clip to replace the old clip that broke off. It works great!

The bumper needed some TLC with rust converter, undercoating and a new side piece to replace that broken mounting point. I've been saving the euro bumpers by cleaning off the rust, coating them inside and undercoating with rubber to help save them from the junk that builds up. The bolts that hold the sides are M8x1.25 30 MM minimum and you can take bushings used for wiper blade mounts to sub for the rubber washers. Every other bolt/ washer gets rust treated and coated for protection.

Next stop is to replace the drivers side wing panel (rusted) and install the power antenna! Of course that brings up the question of what to do with the hole made in my rear quarter panel made by someone who put an antenna in that location.....

The Nebelscheinwerfer and Kraftsoffpumpe circuits, oh of course!

Finally returned from my business trip to Toronto at 3am today. The '82 started acting strange after hitting those speed bumps they call seams on the Thruway. The engine shut off around exit 48 (the same location that my Solara engine blew, happy memories!). This time I got out, tapped, wiggled and poked around in the engine bay. She started after that and made it to Towne BMW in Williamsville. Fuel delivery issue, so I figured that the fuel filter (old and who-knows when it was changed) had sucked up enough bad gas and was either failing or starving the pump for gas.

Tom Antoniadis, Andy Ucci and Mark Huber helped me by not only locating a new fuel filter (and clamps!) but getting the '82 on the rack and installing it in under an hour. Kudos to those guys for helping out a Legionnaire and getting me on my way to Toronto! About 2 blocks from the meeting, the same thing happens! Not the fuel filter, but good that there's a new one anyway.

Gremlins. Let's see: 1) hazard switch is working, fixed that last week. 2) check dizzy and afm, no all is well and sealed there. 3) check for leaks in fuel lines, no but I do need some new fuel line clips! 4) check grounds, nope all seem good. 5) frayed wires? nope. Okay, whats' going on?

Bad gas? Don't think so. I stop into a Canandian Tire at midnight and poke around in the engine bay again. I pull the fuse box cover to discover a bit of busted-off fuse metal wedged in one circuit and able to move and touch another circuit. Short! The two circuits? Well, it's the Nebelscheinwerfer and Kraftsoffpumpe circuits of course! HUH? Okay, it's the fog lights and FUEL PUMP circuits! YOW! The bumps managed to move that bit of metal to bridge these two connections and short out the fuel pump! NO fuel!

After driving like a granny all the way back from Toronto, the '82 did just fine once that little bit of metal was pulled out.

Whew!!

Break out the Toothbrushes!!!

Getting to spend some time scrubbing off all that grime and grease from Trixie's engine bay. Nothing like wheel cleaner and some old toothbrushes to get things cleaned off! I'm still looking forward to Bimmerfest East in MD this August and doing what I can to get her preped and ready for a show.

I spent some time waxing, cleaning and swapping out one rear signal lense to get things cleaned up. The day was also spent cutting new floor mats and a trunk carpet from recycled commercial carpets. I have to say it was a good way to reuse some of this stuff.

Some Bits Completed... sort of.

Managed to find time this weekend to accomplish some delayed repairs and upgrades to the '82. Among them are the reswap of the plug wires, change of oil, replacement of the center console and radio, and modification of the air intake.

Oil change was quick. Plug wires was a result of a faulty set of "performance" wires that are just junk. Too many arcs and breaks in wet weather. The center console was a long-awaited fix for a broken radio and jimmy-rigged panel. I restored the original look and replaced the radio with a new Sony red display model with CD and MP3 inputs.

The new air intake took some fabbing on the mount with an aluminium plate and is at least functional for now. The final set up will have an extension tube to get the filter away from the engine heat.

Getting to Bimmerfest East!!!

Hey all! I'd like to get together and organize a caravan to Bimmerfest and MD this Summer. Let me know!

It's nearing Summer and all the wheels are coming out....

What the heck is with me and round things for the 323i??? I mean, really! I've got my claws into a wonderful set of wheels (15" turbines and rubber to match) for the car. Glad to have all this rare wheel sets come my way.

Free Engine Turns into Gem

The engine I acquired from a fellow Legionnaire turned out to be a 2.7 litre engine from an E30 325e with a modified 200 series head that is now an 885 head. All this gibberish means that this engine nearly 180 hp and is about 40 hp more than the one in my 323i. With the engine in my 323i running less than smooth, it's really an option that I am willing to explore if the original engine suddenly goes bad.
These shots are of the head being pulled of the block and prior to cleaning. The head has new black intake ports roughly .5" wider than the exhaust ports (just like in an 885 series head). The block, bore and stroke all confirm a 2.7 block.

The shot of the head has the ANSA header still on it. Man, I would really like to get that off the block.

Trixie is at the doctors....

Bill stopped by with a couple of helpers to get her out of the back of my office this afternoon. Glad to see her heading indoors to have the work done. I'm trading architectural services because he's just not able to pay. Barter is the option since there's no cash available. The guys really had to take a look at how I managed to get her in there!
Ran her up the ramps and strapped her down. Definitely is going to be a "take it one step at a time" thing. I bought it as a parts car but I didn't have the time to do that. Once I looked through the car, it really wasn't that bad. Some rust in spots that a weld job couldn't fix.

What do you do? Toss what could be a good, rare car? Now I have to scour the garage for the parts in case he needs them.

Now I have a backyard again! Such as it is. I can't wait until spring...

Georgian Bay: Part 2...

I finally decided to post my trip to Georgian Bay and get some of the pics onto the blog from going there and back. I have to say that driving in the 323i for these trips made them that much memorable. No breakdowns or anything like that. The only issue was the apparent over-heating of the engine, but other than that it was fun.

These pics are of my meeting with the development owner of Cedar Ridge and with the owner of Cedar Coast Homes, the builder of future homes in this area. It is just spectacular to see this place. I'd love to have a second home here and enjoy the atmosphere.

These shots are of the drive back. I just loved the open roads with single yellow line, just like in europe.

An earlier post showed the trip up to Georgian Bay. These pics show the actual visit to the Cedar Ridge site and some of the trip back. I really need to take more pics or have a dash cam to get the shots I've been regretting I missed. One shot I didn't take was of an E24 in the parking lot just north of Toronto. The last pic shows some funny place names, like "Palm Beach Road" what, are we back in Florida? The Township of Tiny was also a nice touch.

Can't wait to get back up there!

Getting Trixie Running....

Well, I made a deal with one of my clients that is about as cash poor as I am. I will do his architectural work for car repair, namely towing out Trixie from in back of the office and fixing the fuel line issues and brakes. Once those are done, I can get her home under her own power and continue the work on the body at home. He owns a repair shop in town and has been caught up in all the bureaucratic garbage of planning and zoning approvals. Regular everyday business owner just don't have time for this, so I'll help him and he'll help me.

This should be happening over the next week. Hoping that January is the month of "gettin her done". That car is just suffering sitting back here and it's impossible to do anything to it in this weather.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed! The goal is to get here to Watkins this Spring.