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I got this car for free, it runs and drives but the body is in horrible shape. This makes it a perfect candidate for the 24 Hours of LeMons. If you don't know what that is, it is a 24 hour race for cars that cost under $500 dollars. I'm splitting the work between myself and my 5 other teammates.
This is just a little shot of what we've done over the past day and a half.
Here is what the car looked like when my friend got it about 8 months ago. It pretty much sat like that, a little bit of Bondo was thrown on it and all of the trunk and some of the driver's side were sanded and primed.
It came to my house yesterday and we started work
All the wiring in the car was pretty much fried. It had just enough to get it to run. We took everything out and redid the basic wiring, properly.
This is after we pulled all the wiring.
Then we took out what was left of the interior. Headliner, back seats, dash, door cards and then vacuumed out all the dirt/rust flecks.
We ended last night by pulling the hood to prep for a re-paint.
Today we pulled the hood outside, sanded it down and put down about 2 coats of Wal-Mart $0.96 flat white.
We also picked up some wheels, again, free.
We wired up a tach and
"Re-Badged" it.
I know this car will never ever be what it once was. The body is way to rusty to repair properly so we're going to use it as a race car. It should be a ton of fun. Our goal is to have the car ready to race by September so we can enter the race at Carolina Motorsports Park in SC.
So far we've found out the car has a transmission from and e31 324d and a 2.0l engine, from what, we have no idea.
Day 2/3
Cleaned out and vacuumed the trunk and rear seat. Went and got "tuner" wheel lugs to fit the new wheels. Got about $11 worth of $0.96 spray paint. Put another coat of white on the hood and painted the last wheel.
Wheels went from this
To this
Also removed the stupidly routed stock muffler so now it sounds good.
Hooked up the tach and temp gauge lights and wired them up to a separate switch.
Then after we took it down a "rally road" aka my driveway we found that the rear windows were rattling dangerously, so, we took them out. This is how it sits after three days.
Here's a quick video of it, you'll notice the belt is squeaking like a mofo.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bJv2JBifjs"]1969 BMW 1602 racecar revs - YouTube[/ame]
After that I tightened it as much as was humanly possible. It squeaks less now but it's going to need a new belt to completely solve the problem.
Well here is the last update for a few weeks. We got the front wheels on. Wired the tach and water temp switch to a separate light switch and got it working properly.
We spent most of the day out in a field "rallying." The car is a beast. It weighs absolutely nothing so it spins tires effortlessly.
The biggest problems right now are a pretty bad coolant leak, an oil pan gasket leak, and a fuel filler tube leak. Once those are fixed it will be just about ready to race. We just have to get the rear drums working again.
Here are some shots of it with the repainted hood and a few other cosmetic changes.
Our future plans are to find a way to use the old stock springs out of my M3 to stiffen it up a bit and to hopefully get a newer radiator probably from a civic or accord so we can rely on it.
Here are some videos of us rallying.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k8Y9xpNqH4"]WP 20111127 210717Z - YouTube[/ame]
In car. Skip to 1:50
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvPh9aFyr8M"]WP 20111127 195450Z - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWItFWSTXm4"]WP 20111127 210330Z - YouTube[/ame]
Hope you all enjoy.
Here are some pictures I took after getting home today, shot with a Nikon L105.
I want to get this car on the road soon, it's amazingly fun to drive in the small space I have for it. I can't imagine what it's like on the road.
So I organized all the parts I have for the car
Wired up the headlights
And then took it on a rally run at night. That was some fun stuff. I hope they have night rally-crossing sessions.
Tomorrow i'm going to try my best to get the brake lights wired up, both solid and switch lights.
I'd also like to do an oil change but all I have is 0w-40 and that's for the M3 so that's going to have to wait.
Spent a good portion of the day wiring up the brake lights. The guy who re-wired the car before me was an idiot, i'm not sure how he had things working but it didn't really make much sense. So I cut just about everything left out and re-did all of it myself. I got the rear lights working and wired only problem is the brake light switch is bad. So I'm going to have to find a new one or ghetto rig another.
Pics
Here is the old gauge cluster, I tried to pull it and get the fuel gauge wired up, but I think it's broken.
Fixed the driver's side interior door handle, getting out is sooooo much easier
Organized all my paint and put it inside to warm it up.
One brake light wired!
Both brake lights wired.
Kinda fixed up the fuel filler tube.
Painted the second ///M stripe and half of the front end black.
Both brake lights again, in the dark
Here are two of the ghetto wired brake lights. The previous owner soldered wires directly to the bulbs. So, every time you have to change a bulb you have to pull it and re-wire an entire new bulb.
This is just a little shot of what we've done over the past day and a half.
Here is what the car looked like when my friend got it about 8 months ago. It pretty much sat like that, a little bit of Bondo was thrown on it and all of the trunk and some of the driver's side were sanded and primed.
It came to my house yesterday and we started work
All the wiring in the car was pretty much fried. It had just enough to get it to run. We took everything out and redid the basic wiring, properly.
This is after we pulled all the wiring.
Then we took out what was left of the interior. Headliner, back seats, dash, door cards and then vacuumed out all the dirt/rust flecks.
We ended last night by pulling the hood to prep for a re-paint.
Today we pulled the hood outside, sanded it down and put down about 2 coats of Wal-Mart $0.96 flat white.
We also picked up some wheels, again, free.
We wired up a tach and
"Re-Badged" it.
I know this car will never ever be what it once was. The body is way to rusty to repair properly so we're going to use it as a race car. It should be a ton of fun. Our goal is to have the car ready to race by September so we can enter the race at Carolina Motorsports Park in SC.
So far we've found out the car has a transmission from and e31 324d and a 2.0l engine, from what, we have no idea.
Day 2/3
Cleaned out and vacuumed the trunk and rear seat. Went and got "tuner" wheel lugs to fit the new wheels. Got about $11 worth of $0.96 spray paint. Put another coat of white on the hood and painted the last wheel.
Wheels went from this
To this
Also removed the stupidly routed stock muffler so now it sounds good.
Hooked up the tach and temp gauge lights and wired them up to a separate switch.
Then after we took it down a "rally road" aka my driveway we found that the rear windows were rattling dangerously, so, we took them out. This is how it sits after three days.
Here's a quick video of it, you'll notice the belt is squeaking like a mofo.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bJv2JBifjs"]1969 BMW 1602 racecar revs - YouTube[/ame]
After that I tightened it as much as was humanly possible. It squeaks less now but it's going to need a new belt to completely solve the problem.
Well here is the last update for a few weeks. We got the front wheels on. Wired the tach and water temp switch to a separate light switch and got it working properly.
We spent most of the day out in a field "rallying." The car is a beast. It weighs absolutely nothing so it spins tires effortlessly.
The biggest problems right now are a pretty bad coolant leak, an oil pan gasket leak, and a fuel filler tube leak. Once those are fixed it will be just about ready to race. We just have to get the rear drums working again.
Here are some shots of it with the repainted hood and a few other cosmetic changes.
Our future plans are to find a way to use the old stock springs out of my M3 to stiffen it up a bit and to hopefully get a newer radiator probably from a civic or accord so we can rely on it.
Here are some videos of us rallying.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k8Y9xpNqH4"]WP 20111127 210717Z - YouTube[/ame]
In car. Skip to 1:50
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvPh9aFyr8M"]WP 20111127 195450Z - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWItFWSTXm4"]WP 20111127 210330Z - YouTube[/ame]
Hope you all enjoy.
Here are some pictures I took after getting home today, shot with a Nikon L105.
I want to get this car on the road soon, it's amazingly fun to drive in the small space I have for it. I can't imagine what it's like on the road.
So I organized all the parts I have for the car
Wired up the headlights
And then took it on a rally run at night. That was some fun stuff. I hope they have night rally-crossing sessions.
Tomorrow i'm going to try my best to get the brake lights wired up, both solid and switch lights.
I'd also like to do an oil change but all I have is 0w-40 and that's for the M3 so that's going to have to wait.
Spent a good portion of the day wiring up the brake lights. The guy who re-wired the car before me was an idiot, i'm not sure how he had things working but it didn't really make much sense. So I cut just about everything left out and re-did all of it myself. I got the rear lights working and wired only problem is the brake light switch is bad. So I'm going to have to find a new one or ghetto rig another.
Pics
Here is the old gauge cluster, I tried to pull it and get the fuel gauge wired up, but I think it's broken.
Fixed the driver's side interior door handle, getting out is sooooo much easier
Organized all my paint and put it inside to warm it up.
One brake light wired!
Both brake lights wired.
Kinda fixed up the fuel filler tube.
Painted the second ///M stripe and half of the front end black.
Both brake lights again, in the dark
Here are two of the ghetto wired brake lights. The previous owner soldered wires directly to the bulbs. So, every time you have to change a bulb you have to pull it and re-wire an entire new bulb.
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