2,002 things to fix on this car (BMW content)

[CubbyChowder]

Somehow seeing this for the first time right now. Wow, you are a brave, brave man. You're making me feel lucky! I salute your patience and attitude, I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far with that shell as you have. Keep up the enthusiasm and stick with it!

[readfrost]

Quick little update/bump:

Being at school for me means two things: the first is that I can't work on the blue car, and the second being that I have no money to buy parts for it either. Nevertheless, I came home for thanksgiving break and was able to put in some solid time into it.

Remember this tired looking front subframe? It it was it's turn to start getting some loving...

DSC_0361 by readfrost, on Flickr

I tore everything off of the frame itself because I really wanted to assess its condition as I was going to use it to help line up the replacement frame rail. After way too much time, I finally got it (almost) by itself. I guess years of being covered in brake fluid and New England's salty roads made the bolts not want to come undone, who would've known? Please excuse the mediocre picture...

DSC_0078 by readfrost, on Flickr

The struts, brakes, sway bar, and steering rack all got torn down a little as well:

DSC_0079 by readfrost, on Flickr

You can see how sad the disks look, hopefully I'll go for a BBK and use these in some sculpture or something:

DSC_0080 by readfrost, on Flickr

And the whole lot laid out:

DSC_0077 by readfrost, on Flickr

Last thing I did was burn the bushings out of the subframe and give it a quick wire brush:

DSC_0081 by readfrost, on Flickr

Overall it's not in bad condition, one of the tie-down loops is broken, but the is not structural, so it can be heated and then bent and welded back into place. If you look closely you can see some of my driver's side frame rail still stuck on (the bolts just spin, I'll have to cut them off).

DSC_0086 by readfrost, on Flickr

One shock is still stuck in the strut, and I don't want to damage it more while removing it. I may have to get new shocks as well, just because I don't exactly know the history of these ones. We'll see what becomes of them.

Next phase should be cleaning up all of these parts and rebuilding it, and then same for the rear. But, I seem to change plans all the time so who knows...

Thanks for looking'

[Shawnc16]

Holy shit! That's gonna be a metric shit of work but I see this thing being pretty badass when its done! Amazing work so far!

[Rez_hoj]

Wow! Amazing work dude!

That poor, poor car! I'm so happy it's being bought back to life! She's gonna do you proud!

The 2002 is probably my earliest car memory, this is what started my passion for cars!

Good luck with the build! I Can't wait to see more!

[Greg|H]

You don't mess about do you, proper bare shell rebuild! Nice work so far

[oprahhwinfreyy]

wow man. keep it up. I wanna see this thing rolling by summer time.

[Grime]

Like the dedication man, lot's of people would have just walked away. Sub'd in for more.

[alantw-15]

oh man, that is bringing back some horrible memories that I had done well to suppress! I done all this 2 years ago to a customer's car. know all those rusty areas intimately..

3 points of advice;
1. put it on a spit. you have so much under floor work to do you need it. and m.i.g doesn't work well pointing up. they are easy to build, box iron, castors, 2 wheel hubs and a handbrake on one
2.buy as many replacement panels as you can. there is a huge amount available for these cars and it is cheap enough to make it not worth fabbing from scratch. e.g. entire outer sill 40 euros. I used an '02 specialist in germany who I can send you the details of if ya want
3. if you are starting to weld on this project don't start straight onto the shell. spend a few weeks welding other stuff like a new workbench, drift trike , the spit etc. this will give you a feel for the welder which you will need once you touch the car cos the metal is wafer thin. like 0.6mm everywhere. obviously ignore this if you have welding experience.

Completing this car will give you huge experience and satisfaction. and it will be worth it cos they are awesome when done.
fair play for making it happen.

[pulze]

i think you must do car body roller. i did it myself and that was easy and helps a lot. but car body can easily warp in body roller so you should weld some supports in car body
sry my bad english

[TiTyman]

😱😱😱 liking where this is going

[readfrost]

Thanks for checking this guys,

@oprahhwinfreyy trust me if I had the time/money/resources, I would love to get this done by the summer, but sadly I don't think that would be too realistic for me at the moment

@alantw-15 thanks for the advise, I'll have to look into making a spit. The car as it sits currently is not on level ground, but if I could find a shop floor to house it in rather then the tent, I would prefer to build a spit. Interesting point about mig welding upwards, I hadn't thought about that

[Korito1887]

great resto man! the progress so far is amazing, the cars going to be great. I saw you used multiple different wheels to get the car down to bare metal, which was your favorite? and do you have any suggestions on cutting thru large amounts of bondo?

[readfrost]

I used 'Quick Strip' wheels for cutting through the thick bondo, and then went back over it with a wire wheel. This worked well, but I ended up getting the whole car media blasted to save me time.

These are the quicks trip wheels:

DSC_0730 by readfrost, on Flickr

[Nuts]

wow bud, keep up the great work.

[JHermes]

i love it, just came back from working on my 1971 merc, and seeing this makes me wanna go back now and bother the shop manager to get his lazy ass off the sofa.

keep it up man!
The biggest things with these cars is that they are rusted, when its all patched up it will look great!!