I like this a lot,
It is a similar project I want to take in a few years.
Looking forward to more posts!
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76 Build - The story of a BMW 2002
So i'll start off with some background:
I'm 25, live in the UK, always been all about cars and have modified a few but never had the time/money or space to build one...
I Finally decided that was no longer acceptable! so back in 2013 I went and bought the little 2002 you see will see below.
Like I said, Ive never done this before - So with little to no welding experience, a modicum of mechanical knowledge and huge amount of ambition this is what happened:
Day 1:
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Because of the never ending constant change in weather in the UK. I decided I should probably work in.
Complete with parts room!
Time to get my hands dirty and strip the car down and uncover A LOT more rust!
So when I bought the car it did run.. not well or for very long! But technically it was a "runner". So I knew it would need some major work.
The thing that really confused me was that it was sold to me with a carb... It was/is supposed to be a 2002 tii Lux. With tii meaning injection... so the carbonation confused me!
I assumed that the initial owner had a problem with the mechanical injection system in the car and had a carb retrofitted because of ease and cost.
Sadly that wasn't the case, at some point in its life the original engine had been taken out and replaced with a 1600 engine.
That wasn't going to cut it!
Picked up a new hoist and pulled the engine
Time to have a look at how bad the sills were.
In need of hardcore rust repair!
Because the car is likely to see some punishment and the sill was already off. I thought it would be a good idea to add some additional strength. So welded in some box bar before the new sill went on.
Then repeated the whole process on the passenger side.
Found more rust more rust in the driver and passenger foot wells...
Cut it out, made up some patch panels and welded it all up
A few more panels that needed repairing/replacing on both sides.
Eventually got bored of replacing old bits of rusty metal with new ones...
Considering i had to cut into the car so much, 3 of the 4 wheel arches needed replacing and the car was never bought to be concours.
It was time get creative! Bought some MK1 golf arches and test fit with some 15 x 8"
After a Sh*t load of measuring and cutting, I welded them on.
Super happy with the result.
Big thanks to Heist and Chubby for their build threads! I dont think I could have done the arches without them paving the way!
Then for some subframe refurb and suspension work
Hella Dirty and in need of some TLC but in pretty good shape all things considered
polyurethane super flex bushings all round. And full GAZ coil over upgrade to get it nice and low
Got her back on the ground. Much better! but still not low enough. in need of some camber plates and more stretch!
So moving on to the back of the car... It was trashed! So rather than spend money buying a new rear panel. Just to piss off the purists a little more. I thought it would be a good idea to try to convert the back of the car into a roundy.
Decided I wanted something a little different. So I frenched in the number plate
Moved onto some engine work..
Happened across an M20b25 someone was selling. came complete with gearbox, prop all the ancillaries. decided to go for it, make some engine mounts and see how I was going to make it all fit!
Eventually I got really bored of having to pull the engine up and over the front of the car while test fitting. So I decided that it would be a better idea to cut the front of the car off and make a removable front clip.
A few hours of careful cutting/welding later and I had just that.
So much better!
Then for the engine and gearbox to go in together. Safe to say they didn't!
Made a custom gearbox tunnel
Once everything was in, and there was some weight on the front subframe. I got some more lows
Now that the engine and gearbox were finally in. It was time to focus on the manifold! Not as easy as I thought it would be...
Although the 6 does go into 2 guide was very helpful in certain areas (wiring, plumbing, Engine mounts etc) my 2002 is right hand drive, and the 6 into 2 guide didnt work so well for me in other areas.
No matter what I did, the factory exhaust manifold was hitting the steering box. Naturally I tried to source an E21 rack and do a conversion. But as hard as I looked, I couldn't find one! So the only other option was to fabricate a custom manifold for the M20.
So I bought a stainless 6 branch manifold for the M20b25 hoping it would fit... It didn't!
Time to get creative!
I flipped the manifold over, cut off the mounting tab, fabricated a new one, did some "maths" (tried different angles until it worked!) welded everything together and ended up with a mad looking 6 into 1 manifold...
Time to see if this SOB would start!
Parts!!
After many attempts and a lot of swearing, I finally got everything together and got it to start! was super loud (only had a manifold) sounded a lot like a tractor and was Hella Smokey!
Heres a link of what it sounded and looked like:
After running it a few times, the smoke only got worse...
Then I found coolant pouring out of the manifold. Never a good sign! Pulled a spark plug and coolant poured out.
So considering the engine came out of a 80's car with over 100,000 miles on it. I decided/hoping it was the head gasket.
So that had to be changed! Along with the water pump and timing belt. Not exactly a small job!
Many hours later I got it going again - no improvement!
The head was shot!
I was livid!
Essentially Id bought a £450 engine/gearbox that needed a new Head...
That wouldn't of been so bad, except a new head was going to cost me around £700.
Didn't really fancy that and I decided that money would be better spent on a new engine
Time to start looking for a replacement!
After all of the problems with the engine, worked slowed quite a bit and I decided to take the christmas brake to think about what I wanted to do. And hit it hard in January!
So thats the cars story up unit December 2014... A lot has changed since then, but I will upload that another time.Last edited by pinkboxxjoshua; 01-06-2016, 09:03 AM.
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