CubbyChowder finally got a BMW 2002 - it's project time

[seffer]

wow this is awesome!

[NorCalFocus]

May 5th. I may have to make the trip over.

[deutschman]

Do it. Ill be there with my m20 swap (hope it starts up and runs crossing my fingers) and there will be many many more cool cars, friendly people and prizes to win.

[CubbyChowder]

that sounds cool! I doubt the car will even be drive-able by then but it'd still be cool to go anyways. I'll try to make it up

[CubbyChowder]

alright time for another update. Haven't been working on it as much as I'd like to, but I've been spending a lot of time with friends and family which is always good too. Let's see where we're at...

Got the rear subframe all back together and back on the car. Some might wonder why I didn't repaint the whole thing and make it look all titties, but I decided against it. I just didn't feel it was totally necessary:





Then I started getting at the point in my build which I've secretly been dreading: body work. I decided to start with the worst section first, which would be the driver's side quarter panel. I knew there was gobs of body filler and boy was I right. It's almost a half inch thick in some spots. It's interesting to me that whoever owned the car while it was repaired, they cut out the wrecked quarter panel, and replaced it with a pretty trashed quarter panel. There are dents everywhere all over it, and the more I grind away, the more body filler and dents I find. Kind of discouraging but whatever:




Had my first go at "shaving", looks pretty haggard, but everything is sealed:





Also started doing all the trim holes:





Then there's this whole area. Basically everywhere you see bare metal was previously covered in 1/4"-1/2" of body filler. Pretty bummed on how beat up this whole area is, it's going to be hard to make it look perfect again. It doesn't look nearly as bad in the picture as it does in real life:



On a lighter note, my 7" crosshairs came in. Pretty excited on them, I think they'll look really cool. Love them on MK1's and MK2's:

[mattmac2007]

lookin good i really want a 2002!

[E34FANATIK]

whoa nice build. always wanted an '02. in for updates..

[deutschman]

Ooooh good idea on the lights! I want to see how you fit those. I want to try and find some wire mesh covers for my lights.

[CubbyChowder]

Ooooh good idea on the lights! I want to see how you fit those. I want to try and find some wire mesh covers for my lights.

I'm pretty sure it'll be really easy to fit them as they are standard 7" headlights. Just checked your thread out too nice progress!

[EdwinBlack]

I totally love this build, you're doing it the right way.

Great choice on the wheels and good luck on the bodywork, once it's done its all worth it!

[CubbyChowder]

Alright, so today was cool. Since I bought the 2002, I've been searching for a specific set of seats which come in later model MK4 GTI's. I think they only came in GTI's from 2004-2005, but I could be wrong. A guy in Sacramento had a nice set for sale, and he agreed to meet me in San Jose, which is about 3 hours north of me. So to San Jose I went this morning, and picked them up. Very happy with them, I just love them for some reason. They're going to require custom work to make them fit, and I'm going to have to chop up the rear seat a bit to make them sit flush on the back, but once they're done I think they'll look really good. Super comfortable too:





And I forgot to post this a few days ago, but I had to take my buddy down to LAX last week, and I wanted to utilize my time down in the LA area since anytime I need ANYTHING car related I either have to order online or drive at least 3 hours either direction from me. My area sucks when it comes to used car parts . Anyways, I checked the night before and found a guy in the LA area selling a bunch of '02 stuff, and he happened to have a driver's side door in good condition, so I picked that up after I dropped my friend off at the airport. My current driver's side door has about 1/4" of body filler lining the entire thing and the bottom corners are rusted out so I wanted one in better condition. This one is in much better shape with no filler and solid corners. Pretty stoked I got this, it will provide peace of mind and a relaxed soul for me in the future:

[Riley_J]

good to see you're making progress.. still too busy to really do anything on mine

[NorCalFocus]

Nice finds there.

[HardPark'd TT]

Yeah buddy! Love the build Mikey!

[CubbyChowder]

Made a small amount of progress today. Spent most of the day figuring out how I want to mount the front seats. The way the GTI seats are mounted is completely different than the 2002. Here is a picture of how the bottom looks, it has a triangular configuration where the front is bolted in the middle and the rear has a wheel on each side which sits in a slider:




One feature that I really like about these seats is that they pop up and forward when you want to let people in the backseat. I wanted to keep this function, here is a picture of how it sits normally and the second picture is when it's popped up:




So I decided that I'm not going to use the mounting system on the GTI seats. I want to use the sliders from the 2002 seats since they are pretty simple, so I'm going to just weld up some brackets for the sliders to bolt to on the seats and the floor. I won't be able to use the original mounting location for the seats since it will cause the GTI seat to sit too high.

I decided to just start cutting haha both "legs" from the GTI seats off:




I also removed a bunch of unneeded stuff from the bottom of the seats, but didn't take any pictures. I also removed the original seat mounts in the car, some might cringe when they see this haha I'm basically just ruining this car and scaring all purists away:






I'm going to finish up the driver's seat tomorrow, I need to go get some hardware and metal so I can make brackets and mounts and what not.

Also, I received these in the mail. After a lot of thought and consideration, I decided to use MK1 rabbit fenders as flares rather than try to shape my own. I love the way they look on Heist's '02, and feel they were the best option for me:




That's it for today. More tomorrow!