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!