Lost Trixie and Gained a Shark....

After several months dragging into years the reality that I would never get around to Trixie's (my '80 E21 323i) restoration hit this fall. This realization along with my wife telling me it would be nice to have a BMW that wasn't a manual pushed me to keep my eyes open for an opportunity

Well, that presented itself in the form of a 1986 E24 635csi from KlubVintage in NJ. This also provided me with the chance to unload what had become a VERY LARGE collection of E21 parts and Trixie herself, sitting in the back of my office (remember that?) then at Bill Dewicks (RIP) garage for a year and then finally home for a few months.

So, I now have a car I can drive and allow Pixie a long-earned rest and chance to work on her over the winter to get her back in shape for the summer.

Thanks Adam for working the deal with me! Hope you enjoy all those pieces of E21 euro goodness that have been dropped off at your place.

I'll post some pics of the trip and write about the "incident" on the way home.

Hey, trade Trixie for a shark....

Looks as if I'll be trading Trixie along with a bunch of hard won parts to travel down to see KlubVintage in NJ to acquire a nice 635csi. Hey, I have to bow to three things: 1) getting rid of a bunch of parts stored in the shop, 2) getting one 3 series out of the property and , 3) getting a BMW that my wife not only said was "better looking than mine!" but an automatic as well.

If you are going to get an autotragic, what better car than a Shark that's top of the line!

Looking forward to seeing KV for the drop off and pick up this month!

Wahoo!

Taking the parts apart....

It's been a slow project this summer. Starting out with retrieval of "Trixie" early this Summer due to my mechanic client just getting sick of storing all my ill-gotten-booty in his yard -- to soaking all the parts in PB Blaster and Liquid Mechanic so I have at least a chance of not snapping any bolts. Up to now I have reinstalled the sandblasting system and cleaned up the rear calipers and front subframe. The last week or so has involved taking the rear subframe apart for cleaning and fixing. All the rubber parts are shot and need replacement but that should be done on a 30+ year old system. Calling Jester!

Last night I began pulling off the rear control arms and succeeded in pulling out the flanges from the rear differential! I guess I found a new way to pull those out! The bolts holding the rear diff will just need to be cut off since the heads are so corroded. The rear differential has been confirmed as a 3.45 lsd so that is great news for the upgrade!

I'll be selling some of my stock of parts to finance the upgrades. Guess I'll have to go through the garage again and start posting things in FleaBay.

UPdate: I spent some time last evening using the grinder to cut the bolts off the differential. Wow! What a job! As you can see from the last photo, the front long bolts have decided to stay on. It will take some persuasion to remove them but the main sub frame is free to be cleaned off. 

Vintage at Saratoga! Hot, Humid, and Highly Sucessfull!

The temps topped out at 90+ degrees with over 90% humidity for the show but no one really noticed as 100 old BMW's started rolling into the Bottling Plant site at the Spa at Saratoga, now the Museum of Automotive History.

Patroon Chapter of BMW CCA should be acknowledged for organizing such a great show and in a wonderful location!

Our journey started on Wednesday night, fixing and doing all the little things that will get the 323i ready for the show. A marathon day on Thursday saw the new Recaros installed, new rear seat, final paint work, pumper installs, interior work and more. We were on the road by 10am and on our way to Saratoga in the 90 degree  heat!

Here is a link to the show by RedLine:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=1WF4tgtCudM

Shipfitters Brakes

The brake parts were collected and the old ones were scraping metal-on-metal so it was a good time to make the switch. Used the time to clean off the rear control arms, repaint, clean and strip the brake shield and calipers, and install the new cross drilled discs. 

Pics below. Good timing since my trip back from Watkins today involved a near collision with a fawn! Stopped so close to the little guy I bumped him a bit. He did walk away from it. I noticed the brake shimmy dissipated for the most part with the new setup.

Wheels off and jackstands on. Old disk still installed and clearing off all the crud and rust.










After sanding, rust treatments and priming with high temp semi-gloss black....

 Newly painted calipers, new cross drilled disks and e-brake components (always hate the spring install!).

 Wheels back on with new setup. Deer tested, driver approved....

Getting the bits Ready

The forced relocation of parts I have acquired has left little room in the garage for my work. Right now I have doused the entire set of assemblies with PB Blaster to loosen the nuts and bolts, sprayed some rust etch on some other parts to get them clean and really just generally started cleaning up parts in preparation for a future install.

GiNormous Thanks to the Wife, again

My wife has got to think I have completely lost it. I guess if you can't have a smoking, drinking or womanizing habit this is a substitute. Thanks, Honey!

As I help her build up her kids entertainment business (see www.kidventuredome.com ) the owner of the garage where I had kept Trixie and other Ill Gotten Booty from over the past year + finally had it with me and told me "I'm gonna motivate you here a bit. You have to have all your stuff out by Friday at lunchtime." Now he did add that I could use his forklift and anything else to get her running and ship out other parts. Among them are the other bits gotten from the Free Boston Giveaway (engine, rear axle, etc) and other salvage parts I couldn't get to.

Here are a few pics of the stuff finally retrieved and sitting at my place.

 Rear axle with disk brakes, carrier, rear differential, sway bar (big one) and the driveshaft.

 the M20 engine, all the bits, too.

I forgot that I haven't added onto the garage yet.

Prepping for the Vintage at Saratoga

Placed my reservations to go to the Vintage at Saratoga this July 13-14. Should be fun.
http://saratogaautomuseum.org/bmw-vintage-at-saratoga/  The plan is to leave mid-am on Friday to make the afternoon/ evening events and stay over Saturday.

All drivers looking to meet up along the route (NYS Thruway for the most part) that day can meet up with us. just email or contact via the blog or on Bimmerforums.

Kicking Pixie's Butt....

Kicking Pixie's Butt....

Could have said something more suggestive than that I guess but let's keep it PG. Managed to get some further work done on the rear valence and rust removal. This stage is the final part of prepping and painting. I don't want to squander the last of the color matched paint!  Sand, prime, sand, prime, fill, prime and paint. Repeat as needed. While waiting for the paint to dry I fixed up Trixie's front air dam and spoiler.

Here are a few pics. Clear coating is the last part and coming soon!

 Lots of sanding and priming to go. Those small marks and defects just drive me nuts!

 Rear sanded and ready for a first color base coat to bring out all the spots I missed....

 The nearly-final product at work. Blending with some 800+ grit wet sanding and then clear coating.

 Shot of the passenger side. I took the time to really sand out the lower portion and get things smooth.

Aw heck, with the back end looking so good (and having to wait until the paint dries on the back).

Some other bits done while waiting....

Why Have Just One? It works for most things.

When working with any air tool or blasting equipment the old challenge of "not enough air" comes up. You can go down to Lowe's or someplace like it and buy your way out of the problem or you can get a bit crazy and do what I did.

The one hurdle that I had after getting a big enough compressor was a big enough tank for not a lot of money. Solution: old propane tanks. Now, you may be concerned over safety and so am I. The last thing I need is a big bomb in my garage. So, get your tank from a reputable supplier and have it pressure tested. You also need to make sure you have a means to drain the tank of moisture. Easiest solution is to install the tanks upside down and have a drain valve. I went and tapped a new drain in the bottom. Also fill and drain water to get rid of any residual propane.

I prefer the 100 pound tanks, so called because they would hold approx. 100 pounds of propane. They are tall and take up very little room. The tank is about 16" in diameter and 48" tall, holding about 9600 cu. in. (5.6 cu. ft) of compressed air. That's about 42 gallons of air per tank, with the dual setup we're talking 84 gallons of 125 psi capacity!

Welding, Part Doo...

Last night was welding night and up until midnight a few things were accomplished: 1) cutting out some rot on the rear valence, 2) building and filling one of the bumper mounting locations; 3) second pass on the side markers delete (who knew that the little bolt holes would be such as pain!); 4) the replacement of last years' rear wheel well area. Here are some further pics of the carnage.

Photo showing the cut out. I could have gone further but at this time it was best to get the rot out and POR 15 the rest. 

 I took 22 gauge mild steel, a ball-peen hammer and a section of berber carpet to pound and shape the corner piece you see. Could have been prettier but it does the job and will be finished off with some filler.

 Close up of the passenger side rear bumper mount location. Years of moisture rotted the outer layer and instead of cutting another piece I decided to try the weld bead fill method of building up the area. Wow, lots of wire went in there!








This one was started at about 11pm last night. I hemmed and hawed about doing this and in the end decided that more bondo was just not the right thing to do. It did hurt a bit doing the cutting....

 Shot of the section pulled off the car. That panel sealer was really holding on. Didn't stop the rust though. I'll have to cut some more, weld on some patch to attach the new panel.

Looks like the new Walouth and Netsch panel will fit pretty close. Nice to have new metal!











UPdate: I spent last night welding in the panel. First was the rebuilding of the interior trunk panel and wheel well. I was surprised at the solidity of the weld panel, even without the attachments of the trunk panel! I did finally remove the rear wheel and weld up the interior seams to keep everything tight. Now for a small amount of filler instead of a big can of it.

Welding, welding, welding....

Managed to spend some time revisiting those areas of the '82 that were "treated and released". The side marker deletes were showing signs of corrosion and the patches sent to me by Layne of BF fame were just the fix! Bondo just sucks for anything more than a very thin skim coat. After a while the expansion of the patch just pops the damn thing off and you waste so much time you are better of welding in new steel. I'm convinced that any large patch with that stuff is a time bomb. I am debating redoing the rear wheel well... The base patch looks okay but there is compromised metal near the patch. I have the WandN panel to do it, just have to build up courage and find time to get it done. Here are some pics of the work so far.

Shots of the drivers side panel with the marker delete discs welded in. you can see the patch panel left over from last year but the bondo outer coating was popping off. 

 Pic of the passenger side. I took too much steel off the edge and the welder blew holes in the panel! Ouch! Got some building up of the bead to make up for it!

 This is the seam at the rear valence that was patched over with just bondo and the rust started to come through. I decided it was best to just shoot a bead of weld along the ground out seam. Man, does that inner panel seal catch on fire! Yikes!

Passenger side close up with some additional weld bead to close the holes. Welded inside and out. Thanks Layne!

Got the bits. Mostly....

I managed to have delivered the parts for my rear sway bar rebuild. All the parts showed up except the M8x140 bolts. Okay. Not a problem. Right?

Sure. After several Google searches and a desperate call out to the Legion for a good source of bolts I found one! I ordered 10 bolts (that's the minimum order) delivered to me at some point this week from a site called McMaster-Carr. that's www.mcmaster.com for all you out there.

Stay tuned! I am going to preview my evil plans to move my office to the garage and in doing so upgrading the entire shop. There are lots of things that need fixin' and there is no time but now to get 'em done and taken care of if I am expected to move out of my current location and back home.

Such a Small Hole and So Much Noise?

I still cannot get over the amount of noise the E21 makes when there's a small hole in the exhaust! Okay, it's not such a small hole--- the entire bracket for the center resonator-to-muffler broke off. Waaaa, waaaaa, waaaaah! all over town. So bad that one afternoon the GPD paid a visit to me about it. Yes, officer! I'll fix it right away!

 This is a picture of the part after I finally Dremelled out the pipe and banged it off the car! Thank goodness for Dremels! A sawsall would not fit in there. This effort took about 3 hours of jacking, cleaning, cutting, more cutting, fitting, welding, starting so I could tell where the leaks were, rewelding, restarting, rewelding, etc...

The final product after about 5 passes with the MIG and trying to plug holes just beyond the patch. The cold galvanization spray will help a bit. This week I have started hearing other noises and it's only a matter of time before Pixie will need the entire exhaust system redone.

22 Hours of Roadtripping

Last Friday I managed to get up at 4am and head out on the road trip to pick up the seats. I met up with Adam (formerly Metalsoul), KC (aka KC), Darren (dspulv1) and Brian (BCalis) before heading back to NY. Glad to have met all the great forum members and get a peek at their cars. The real downer was that I didn't get out of the DC/MD area until 5pm on that day and hit Rush Hour, which should be named 3 Hour Parking!

The trip started out before dawn on Friday and a quick trip to the office to check emails and send out messages that I was indeed heading out. The weather was pretty good until the PA border and then lots of wet snow, school closings and all that.

I pushed through to NJ and tried to confirm my first pick up in South Orange, NJ but the parts were not there. On to Metalsoul's shop in Lamberville! The GPS that hates me was working pretty well. I arrived at the shop and waited for Adam to show so I could pick up the parts for Brian in MD. Here's a shot of the shop yard.

 From there I travelled to KC's place outside of Baltimore to pick some parts and see his collection. I managed to bag a box of E21 hoses, an IS wheel, and some other bits. Then it was onto Chevy Chase to drop off the seats, hood and front valance for Brian and get my new Recaro seats and rear bench! The back of the van would start getting a bit crowed, but that is okay...

I arrived at Darren's and saw the Henna 320i in the driveway (ain't it nice to be able to spot fellow Legion members that way?).

By the time I left it was after 5pm and the dreaded traffic kept me in MD for nearly 3 hours!!!! Yuck!

Glad to be back home and this will be the last trip for a while! I'll post pics of the seats once I have shots of them. I can't believe I didn't take pictures of them.....

Road Trip: Haven't We Been Here???

Thanks for my wonderful wife. Despite my idiotic husbandry efforts (no breeding jokes, please) she has been really supportive of my efforts to pursue my hobby. This time the road trip involves a loop from NJ, to Baltimore then off to MD near DC and home again. Lot's to do and appointments to keep! Now if that evil Megellan GPS doesn't screw with me.

You can follow some of the coordination going on the Bimmerforum here:

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1791028

And here:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1791221
Where the request was for some food pick up. Okay. May do that. My wife has asked that I find a great place for bagels and bialis.

Pics and stuff to come once the road trip commences. In the meantime, I'm off to collect $$$ from several delinquent clients to help pay bills!

The trip site says 14 hours 15 mins for the trip so leaving at 4 am will get me back at 6pm but with visits and stuff it will likely be 8pm.

Here's the map so far.....

Zipties? No Honey real men use welders....

...and then manage to have something else break. THEN they use zipties! 
I'll have to check my followers list because it seems my wife is dropping hints about my repair abilities. So, in the tradition of providing many opportunities for my better half to zing me I offer this up.

The exhaust system starting sounding like it did when those glass packs were on the car. A broken pipe? Yes and of course it's here....

Fellow E21 owners will spot this location near the rear subframe. Yeah, it's pretty well shot. It is just a matter of time if this area looks this bad. I got the car jacked up last night and started with the Dremel (wow, great $20 spent! Thanks Hon!) to get the rust off and have a good ground for the MIG.  While under there I found something else...

 That might have been the "pop" and "bang" I heard a few days ago when exiting the driveway. Rear sway bar bushing. So the cleaning was done and onto the welding in that tight spot. I didn't get it sealed 100% but it's not swinging free of the car. I covered it in zinc to keep the rust at bay for a while. Plugged a couple of other holes while in there.
 

To top off the repair was the failure of my Optima Red Top battery (I did properly ground the MIG!). A tripe this am to Tractor Supply for a new 84 month 770 CCA Exide battery (half the cost of a new Optima) did that trick.

I can just feel the eyes rolling! 

Heater core information: FYI.

Some forum members have asked about fixing the heater control panel and the cables that are attached. I can say that I was totally freaked out to have to tackle this job. I had almost no defrost and heat for a while and my concern was that the core was done and all the controls fubared. It turned out that the setup is not that bad to understand and trace.

The best way to start is to know that you need to take off some covers and be able to open up the center control panel so you can track the problems. Removal of the center panel is NOT really needed unless there is something totally broken up there. The more important issue are the cables and the clips that hold them in position so that they work to move the duct controls.

Okay, this shot is of the diverter conrtol next to the center panel on the passenger side. Note the blue and black cables? The blue controls the fresh air/ recirc duct. Really it just controls the amount of outside air let in and doesn't have a recirculation option for the E21. See the zip ties on that one? That is because the clip broke and I had no way to fix it. It turned out to be the best way to fix the problem. See the black cable? That one controls the Upper/lower/center panel duct. I chose to epoxy the clip back on (and the darn thing broke a week later. Zip ties for that one, too!).

These two cables are accessible from the passenger side of the center hump. Drop the glove box and release the holding strap to get at the upper screw that holds on the cover over these ducts. Honestly, I've left off the cover as just about no one notices it's missing.

Good luck with your repairs. Here are a few more detailed shots. This one of the zip tie fix on the blue cable.

A close up shot of that lower duct with the cable. Often, the coiled end comes off the selector when the clip breaks.

A Mild Winter and New Ideas....

Well, it's been a while since the last posting and I am still trying to clear out the garage so I can bring Trixie home. Lots of work for her since the last owners didn't take great care of her. The car really needs to be out of the elements and under a roof although I know that there is now a finch family residing in my garage by the "gifts" left around the place.

With Pixie acting up lately, my worry is that I'll be out BOTH cars soon if I don't get the other car in and working. My '82 has started to drop in fuel economy and now the steering is making noises. Not good. I can't complain too much about a 30 year-old car with the small things going wrong. I've also noticed this on her start ups... See the pic. Upon startup the "smoke" comes out of mainly the right exhaust which is the front cylinders I'm guessing. Hey wait! Don't I have a center resonator that would compensate for that???? Weird! It appears that one of the front 3 cylinders has started allowing oil to get past the rings. Sigh.