It wouldn’t be the holidays without a cold….

Last Tuesday evening I made some solid progress removing all of the driver’s side as well as half of the passenger’s side suspension, brakes, and steering components.  The following afternoon I had to work outside in the bitter wind and rain, and by that evening I had a full blown cold.  I wasn’t bad enough to take a sick day or to pay the doctor a visit, but just enough to realize that laying on a chilly garage floor wasn’t going to do me any good.  Therefore, I don’t have much progress to post from this week.

I did, however, want to take the rusted rotors to a shop to have them turned.   Obviously, I’d like to replace them with shiny new rotors, but at 150.00 each, and a whole lot of other parts that need to be purchased, the fact that I’m not yet a millionaire mandates that I appropriate certain funds into particular areas on a limited basis – otherwise known as budgeting.  And with the 400.00 strut mounts looming over my head, I was hoping simply to have the rotors turned for the time being, and  I would replace them with gleaming beauties down the road.   I made the mistake of providing the first shop I took them to with the minimum thickness specs.  These were just a hair under the allowance, so needless to say, they declined my patronage.  The second shop I took them too was your standard industry brand brake shop.  The greasy counter jockey gave me a disgusted look and said they wouldn’t even touch them.  Finally, I took them to a local mom and pop repair place near my house.  Before lugging them in, I asked the presumed owner first if they turned rotors and secondly, if they would turn a set of old rusty rotors that had been sitting stationary for 15 years.  “Sure,” he answered, “for a few dollars extra.”  I didn’t bother giving them the minimum thickness specs since the car’s not even really going to be driven on these rotors.

Here’s a before picture:

and here’s 25.00 later….

I’m really happy with how they turned out.  I can tell that the gentleman there spent a good amount of time on them.  Thank you very much to Westmark Auto on West Market St in Akron.  It’s nice to find those little places that will go the extra mile for your business.

They’re not perfect, but they’ll certainly work for now while I’m moving the car around.

Another big thanks to my friend, Mike Pugh,  in North Carolina for generously donating a very hard to find driver’s side motor mount to my project.  He is restoring his own Neue Klasse and has substituted a 2002 front subframe, therefore utilizing 2002 motor mounts.

I’m finally feeling better.  Today, only hours before the winter solstace, it was 60 degrees in Akron, Ohio which is unheard of for this time of year.  In fact, if it’s not raining tomorrow morning, I may drive the ’76 2002 to work.  It will be a busy weekend with the holidays, but I’m hoping to get back out to the garage, and back down to business.  For now, I will just post a few other pics that Mae took that I haven’t posted yet.

Before bringing it home….

After a couple of baths….

And so it begins…

With Mae in Vegas for a trade show, I figured I would get a good bit of work done on the tilux this weekend.  I probably would have if I hadn’t spent most of Friday shopping for a new tool chest, the rest of Friday buying things to organize it, and most of Saturday putting all my tools into their newly organized home.   It was something I had wanted to do for a long time now, and I’m glad it’s done.  It’s much nicer opening a drawer and seeing a set of wrenches organized from biggest to smallest, where every tool has it’s designated spot.  I didn’t want to start the next chunk of labor trying to rifle through a noisy, overcrowded, tiny tool box.  Funny story – a few months ago I had lost my wedding band.  I figured it got pulled off of my finger doing landscaping, unloading brush from the back of my truck or something.   When I was cleaning everything out of my tiny, old toolbox, I found the ring.  It must have fallen off my finger when I was digging for a socket or something.

Now that I knew where my wedding ring was, and surprisingly had almost every single socket, wrench, pliers, and screwdriver I owned accounted for, it was time to get dirty.

First thing is to get the car up on jackstands and get the wheels off.

The first thing that I wanted to do was remove the calipers and master cylinder so that I could run them over to Harvey for rebuilding. I tried to rebuild a set of calipers for a 2002 once, and that was enough to keep me from attempting it again, and with the cost of replacing these tilux calipers, I wasn’t going to take the chance of mucking them up.  I would have liked to have had an 11mm flare wrench for the brake lines, (of course I had a 10mm and a 12mm) but they cracked open surprisingly easy.  After pulling off the hard lines and hoses, I easily removed the 14mm bolts that hold the calipers to the spindles.  The master cylinder wasn’t too bad either.  There were four brake lines plumbed to it, one on top, one on the side, and two on the bottom, and after removing the lines, the two wires for the brake light warning sensor, and the two bolts that held it to the booster, it came right off.

After delivering the calipers, master cylinder, and rebuild kits to Harvey, I resumed the removal of the driver’s side strut and suspension.  The castle nut on the front spindle came off easy, and the wheel bearings and grease appeared to be in excellent condition.  The spindle was in very nice shape as well.  The rotor, unfortunately, is not in that good of shape.  I’m hoping a brake shop will be able to turn it, and make it use-able, if only for the time being.  I have other areas I’d rather spend money right now.

I split the hub from the rotor so I can take it to a brake shop once I have the other side done.  Next I removed the backing plate from the strut housing, which I will probably have powder coated, or maybe just hit with some epoxy spray paint.

This baby is really crusty underneath…

After that, I removed the ball joint and pitman arm, the control arm, the A-arm, and the tie rod end from the pitman arm.  After installing my coil spring compressors, the strut assembly was ready to come out, but I didn’t have the proper tool to remove the strut insert from the strut mount.  When something like this happens, I can always call on my good friend, and fellow Rivertown Gearbuster, Jason Gipson or Eurotrash as he’s commonly known on the FAQ.  He instructed me to use a small 11mm socket inside a deep 26mm (I didn’t have a deep 26mm, so I used the standard equivalent – 1  1/16 I think), pass the extension through the hole in the larger socket, and while gripping the larger socket with vise grips or channel locks, I used a smaller ratchet on the 11mm and extension.  Good gravy, it worked!

Here’s the disassembled strut:

The disassembled control and A arms:

The nasty, dry-rotted, 184.00 EACH strut mounts:

This is the worn out passenger side motor mount:

Crusty….. At one point this evening, there was actually a spider crawling on the strut assembly while I was working on it.  He’s probably lived there for quite some time.

And here is the wasted driver’s side motor mount.  I believe this part might be NLA.   I’m hoping to pick one up from a friend in North Carolina that he’s not using because he swapped his front subframe out with one from a 2002.

So I didn’t get quite as much done this weekend as I was hoping to, but the work I did went relatively smooth.

Ready to wrench

Last Saturday and Sunday the weather in Northeast Ohio was beautiful.  I needed to move my ’70 2002 over to my Grandma’s house for winter storage, freeing up a stall in the stable for the tilux.  I charged the battery, added some Sta-bil for the long winter’s nap, and took one last spirited drive over to North Hill.

After heading back home and cleaning out the garage, I enlisted the help of my neighbors Justin and Kyle, and had them help me push the tilux out of the weather and into it’s new temporary home.

On Monday evening, my buddy, Fenton, stopped over and picked up the set of 5 factory 14″ steel wheels, the air box, and a valve cover.  He will media blast and powder coat them for me.  The steel wheels and valve cover will be the normal alloy silver color, and the air box is going to be a matte black wrinkle finish.  I should have those back in about 2 weeks and can’t wait to see how they turn out.

Today I got my last shipment of parts from Blunttech and have most of the things I need to really get down to business.  I will still need to tear down the struts before I figure out what I will do with the strut mounts and inserts.  Other than that, and a set of motor mounts I hope to get from my friend Mike, I am ready to rock ‘n roll.  My wife has to go to Las Vegas this weekend for a work trip so I plan on making some good progress.  

Anybody want to come over and wrench this weekend?

Gone over to the dark side….

With the exception of my 2004 Ford Ranger 4×4 which is my work truck, we very recently owned 4 BMWs.  The ’70 and ’76 2002s, the ’67 2000 tilux, and my wife’s daily driver, the 2011 135i.  We had previously owned 2 other ’02s – a ’74 and ’73, the 2001 323Ci she owned when we met, later a 2004 325Ci, and a 1989 535im with 300,000 miles.  That’s 9 BMWs in a little over 7 years.  Pale in comparison to some of the FAQers, but still not too shabby.

In fact, since we’ve been together the only other car that we’ve owned that wasn’t a BMW was a 1986 Volkswagen GTI VR6 swap that I bought and had shipped up from Corpus Christi, Texas.  That car was the absolute worst abomination of a car that I have ever purchased in my life and nearly killed my enjoyment of working on cars.   It’s a very long detailed read, but if you feel inclined to read about my nightmare experience, you can find it here:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?4929044-My-MK2-GTI-VR6-rebuild-thread-and-the-nightmare-that-it-has-been…….

After that experience, I swore off all Volkswagens and swore that I would never ever own a Volkswagen/Audi product so long as my lungs would hold air.

Back to present day – We recently took a trip to Nashville to visit my Mom and my brother and his family.  We drove the 135i.  The 135i is a beast of a car.  Ours was Black Sapphire Metallic  with Coral red Boston leather interior, sporting a 6 speed manual, twin scroll turbo’d inline 6 that pounded out 300 horses and 300 torques.

Unfortunately, for every day driving, the BMW 135i wasn’t all that practical.  It’s small.  The seats, although they are snug fitting sport seats, are not very comfortable.  It gets pretty lousy gas mileage, especially around town.  Getting in and out of the back seat is basically unbearable, and my wife, who is tall, spent the entire trip with her knees jammed into the dashboard because her sister, who is also tall, was sitting in the back seat. Plus,our initial buying experience was so lousy and our salesman was such a tool bag, I think that was always a negative in the backs of our minds.

Those things added up to a less than “Ultimate Driving” experience for my wife.  To be honest, the 135i sat in the garage for most of the last year, while she drove her 1976 2002 everywhere.

With winter approaching, I didn’t want her driving the ’02.  We needed to consider trading the 135 in on something more practical and enjoyable for her to drive.  And so the search began….

The same BMW dealership that gave us a less-than-satisfactory buying experience was also only willing to give us a less-than-satisfactory trade-in experience.  We could lease a 2012 328xi for about the same payment as we had on the 135i, but after 3 years we would be out all of that money with nothing to show for it. Plus there was the mileage limit, and to be honest, I have never been too keen on the 328 to begin with.  We liked a CPO’d 5 series wagon that they had, but with the negative equity in the 135i from a single year of ownership and a higher interest rate due to the wagon’s age, we decided against it.  It was starting to look like we might have to consider *gasp* a non-BMW!

After being given the dog and pony show by some sleazy domestic car dealerships who didn’t even know what a 135i was, we ended up at a Volkswagen dealership to look at some of the non-VWs they were showing in their inventory.  While waiting in the showroom for the salesman to pull some of the cars around, we were pleasantly surprised by the price and features of the Volkswagen CC.  We drove a white 2012 with DSG and were impressed with the comfort and quality.  Could it actually be that our needs would be met by a Volkswagen?  After  looking at another local VW dealership, we shifted gears again, this time trying to decide between a 2012 CC Lux Plus edition and an intriguing little 2012  toffee brown Jetta Sportwagen TDI.  We stood there and went back and forth on those two cars for several hours, and after reviewing their trade in offer, coupled with the financing specials and rebates, this is our new car:

It’s been about two weeks that the TDI has been in our stable, and I must admit….I am a changed man.  I’m thoroughly impressed with the Jetta Sportwagen.  The ride is extremely comfortable.  With the DSG, an early torque powerband, and 140 horses, it’s surprisingly quick, and we put well over 400 miles on the car before I was even down to a quarter of a tank.  The fit and finish of the interior is top notch. The stereo is leaps and bounds over the 135, both in sound quality and in ease of operation.  It has a touch screen, and the iPod interface is completely user-friendly where the 135’s was clunky. Owning our first four door vehicle (less the tilux which is not on the road yet) is rather novel.  With passengers in the back, we still have plenty of leg room, and there is tons of cargo space.  In fact, I bought a new 2 stage snow blower the other day, and brought it home in the wagon.  It seems that Volkswagen spent all of the money on the right features, at least for us.  Not only all of that, but the dealership, Kempthorn Motors in Canton OH was an absolute joy to work with.  Our salesman Tom, and the rest of the staff made our buying experience easy and enjoyable.  My wife says how much she loves driving the car several times every single day.  She looks for excuses to go driving now, which is not something she ever did with the 135.  I’m happy that she’s happy.

I have a feeling we will be keeping this car for quite some time.  I bought the extended warranty to 100,000 miles and the fact that it’s a TDI should definitely help it retain a high resale value.  I already bought another set of wheels and tires for it this week.  17″ Momos -which should fill out the fender arches nicely once the car is lowered just a bit.   I plan on buying a set of Neuspeed lowering springs next.  I didn’t want to sacrifice too much ride quality or  loss in gas mileage by going with 18’s or 19’s, plus our Northern Ohio roads are notoriously bad.  Who wants to spend money repairing bent rims all the time…

So for now, it’s adieu 135i, and hello JSW.  You are getting a second chance Volkswagen.  Please don’t let me down.

I hate daylight savings time….

I’m at a standstill at the moment.  It’s been raining for days again.  And it’s dark when I get home from work.

On the positive front, parts have started showing up every day.  Caliper rebuild kits one day, control arm bushings and spark plug wires the next.  I have almost everything I need to get down to business as soon as the weather breaks.

I will be moving my 1970 2002 over to my grandmother’s garage for winter storage.  I have some winter projects in store for that car as well, but we’ll save that for another entry.  Once the ’02 is out of the garage, I can push the tilux inside, up on jack stands, and be able to work after dark and when the weather is bad.

I still haven’t decided what to do about strut mounts yet.  New mounts run almost 200.00 each.  Yes, just the mounts.  I’m not talking strut inserts yet.  Apparently the 2002 strut mounts will not work because the top of the 2000 strut insert is too big to pass through the bearing in the 2002 mount.  And 2002 strut inserts will not work with the 2000 strut housings without some modification. I had messaged a member on the FAQ who had apparently installed 2002 strut inserts into his NK housings, but have not yet received a reply to the private message I sent him.  Obviously, if I have to shell out for the NK mounts I will.  I’m just trying to come up with a less expensive, more available alternative.  Once I have the suspension torn apart, I can measure the inside diameter of the 2000 housing and see if I can find something that will fit.  Who knows?  Other than the shocks, struts and mounts, I have almost everything else I need either ordered or in my possession to get the car safe and driveable.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I stumbled on to a really cool vintage/retro/antique store here in Akron.  It opened earlier this summer.  It is called the Bomb Shelter Store  ( http://www.thebombshelterstore.com/ ) and is filled with all kinds of goodies.  From vintage furniture and dishes, to rat rods and cafe racers.  Over 12,000 square feet of retro paradise at very good prices.

Sorry about the crappy cell phone camera pics…  If I had known how cool it was going to be, I would’ve taken a better camera!

I got to talk to one of the owners….

He drives a sweet old Citroen

I asked him if he had any vintage BMW memorabilia, old posters, toys, etc…

He said the BMW items he had were sold off a few years ago on ebay, including some 1600 parts, and get this – a 2000 tilux.  I informed him of my project and our 2002s, and he asked me to bring them by the store when I had them out.  I did happen to drop $6.00 on a set of properly patina’d 1967 Ohio license plates that I plan on registering to the tilux.  They will fit the tilux nicely.

Peeling back the layers

So after removing the old, nasty carpet a few days ago, I knew I wanted to peel up the factory floor insulation.  I wanted to inspect the condition of the floor pans for any rust, plus the old insulation is not actually that good of a noise insulator, and it holds moisture underneath.  It’s a nasty substance, brittle and tar-like, and plenty sticky.  It’s tough to remove.

There are two methods of removal.  The first is to place dry ice on the insulation, wait for the ice to freeze the tar, and then break it up with a hammer.  Since I was fresh out of dry ice thanks to my Halloween decorations, I went with the second method; a heat gun and scraper.  After about an hour and a few burned knuckles later, I ended up with a pretty clean driver’s side floor pan.  I poured a bit of goo-gone on the remaining bits and scrubbed the last of it with a brush.  I was shocked at how solid the driver’s pan was, especially because the driver’s door was the one that wasn’t closed where the car sat.  I figured the entire pan would be gone, but there is only one very small hole, and it’s not even on the flat part of the floor, but a few inches below the pedal box.  Weird.

Anyway, here’s what I ended up with…

Note the one small rust hole just below the clutch pedal. 

Nasty tar-like insulation.

Tomorrow I plan on removing the front seats  and the lower part of the rear seat and working on the passenger side and rear floors.  I hope they are as solid as the driver’s pan was.

The beast wakes!

Earlier this week I had cleaned the old, varnished gas from the carburetors and the fuel tank, changed the plugs, and prepped the car to be started.  I was getting closer, but in the end I was unsuccessful.  Ultimately, I had determined that I had power,  I had fuel, but I had no spark.  I tried a few different ignition coils.  I cleaned the points.  I checked wires, and tested voltage, all to no avail.  Finally I had to summon the gods over at the BMW2002faq site for advice.

Another string of Seattle-like days had kept Mae and I indoors watching movies and catching up on TV, but this morning I needed to get out and try a few other things.  I put on my raincoat, grabbed the video cameras, and braved the cold October morning air.  I cleaned the points again, and made sure they were set to spec – 0.4mm or 0.0157″.  A few days earlier I had tested 12.6 volts on the positive side of the coil with the key in position one, and it dropped slightly to around 10.9 when cranking.  I was fairly certain the coil was fine.  I had even swapped in two others, including a spare from my parts stash and a known working coil from my 1970 2002 which is driven regularly, all with the same results.  So this morning I also swapped the wire from the coil to the  distributor cap in case that was the potential culprit.  Again I tried to wake the sleeping giant, and again it cranked and cranked with no indication that it was trying to fire.  With disappointment and a soggy coat, I called Mae to come outside and help me try a few last things.

I needed another person to start the car so I could see what the points were doing.  She sat down and turned over the motor, and sure enough, the points were opening and closing.  I pulled the coil wire from the distributor side and holding it with a pair of insulated pliers, I attempted to get a spark to a grounded point on the car.  Still nothing.  Not ready to give up another day to Netflix, I grabbed my multimeter so I could take some more readings while I had a helper.  I placed one probe on the positive side of the coil, and another to a grounding point, and instructed my lovely assistant to go ahead.  She turned the key and to our surprise, the car actually started up, idled quietly for a moment, and then stalled out, probably because the choke was not set and the temperature had fallen below 50 degrees overnight.  “Do it again!” I shouted enthusiastically.  The car started again.  This time running for a few seconds before stalling out.  “I have to get the cameras rolling!”  I yelled to Mae. “Hold on!”  After setting up a video camera inside the engine compartment, and one to capture anything funny coming out of the exhaust, I instructed Mae to start the tilux up once again, and this time to give it some gas.

My neighbor, Justin flashed me a “thumbs up” from across the street, and I shouted back, arms in the air, clawed hands, and back arched, with an “It’s aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiivvvve!!!!!!!” that would’ve given chills to Igor himself.

The motor sounded surprisingly good.  There was no noticeable knocking or smoking.  There wasn’t even much from the exhaust to speak of aside from a couple of acorns that flew out of the tail pipe.  I didn’t want to run it for too long, but now that I know it will run, I can begin changing fluids and hoses, and start replacing brake components so that it will be able to stretch it’s legs eventually.

Another interesting tidbit.  When I had the motor running, I decided to try all of the lights on the car.  To my surprise, every single bulb with the exception of one lonely license plate light, still worked after sitting all of that time.  The turn signals didn’t actually flash, but we will get into those minor details down the road.

It was a great morning despite being cold and rainy.  And thanks to my partner in crime and her magic touch, I can spend the rest of the day smiling and catching up on movies.   Bride of Frankenstein perhaps?

Start me up…

Not only am I nosy, but I can also be very impatient…

For example, when I was a boy I liked to build models.  The problem was, I always wanted to finish them in one sitting.  I never waited for the paint to dry.  I never waited for the glue to dry.  Therefore, I ended up with model cars and airplanes with fingerprints in the paintwork, and parts that fell off rather easily.

It’s one reason I’ve never tried to tackle body work myself.  I can be a very meticulous person, but I’m not sure I have the patience to work on a tiny area of a car for hours upon hours.  Maybe this project will help me learn to do that.

And it’s because of that lack of patience, or perhaps an over-abundance of enthusiasm and excitement, that I wanted to see if I could get the tilux running.

Some people would probably just throw a battery in it and hit the key.  At least I was  more thorough than that.  The first thing I had to do was bleed the clutch slave cylinder.  The pedal depressed rather stiffly and then failed to release.  A couple repetitions with a 7mm wrench and some pumping of the clutch pedal, and it was operating normally.  I also replaced the spark plugs, all of the fuses, and cleaned the contacts on the fuse panel.  Next, I had to clean out the gas tank.  I removed the sending unit to find only a gallon or so in the tank.  The tank  appeared to be in excellent condition inside, so rather than drop it, I used a siphon pump to remove the remaining gas and my shop vac with a crevice tool to get the little bit of debris that was left once the gas was out.  I also removed the fuel line from the sending unit, and removed the line at the carburetors, and blew compressed air through the line to clear it of any old gas and debris.  I also found that there was an electric fuel pump installed on the firewall, and that the mechanical fuel pump was still installed, but not plumbed.  After replacing some bits of fuel hose that looked dry rotted and cracked from the electric pump to the carbs, I started to dismantle and clean the dual solexes.

I removed the tops from both carburetors.  The bowls were both dry.  I cleaned the debris from them and  removed the main jets and sprayed them off as well.  I also sprayed carburetor cleaner on all the linkage and checked to see that it was operating correctly.

I checked to make sure there was oil in the motor, and added just a little bit to make sure the head got a little bit before starting it.   The radiator had coolant.  The alternator and water pump could both turn by hand.  It was time to put a battery in and try it!

I set up a couple of video cameras to capture the first attempt, hoping that I would be able to brag about how it started up right away, and armed with a can of ether and a fire extinguisher, I sat down and crossed my fingers.  Tape was rolling.  I inserted the key, and turned it to the first position to make sure there was power.  The red charge light immediately came to life, as well as a loud buzzing under the dash.  I turned the ignition back off to investigate the buzzing.  I suspected it was the electric fuel pump trying to prime, so I disconnected it since I had not added any gas yet.  I intended to just crank the motor before putting new gas in.

After disconnecting the electric fuel pump, I turned the key to position 1 once again.  This time the charge light illuminated, and the buzzing was gone.  This was it – the moment of truth.

I closed my eyes and turned the key.

I smiled and opened my eyes as the sleeping motor awoke from it’s coma.  The M10 was turning over and over like a troop of Russian acrobats.  Now it needed something to drink.  I added a couple of gallons to the fuel filler, and this time after I had reconnected the fuel pump and turned the key, the buzzing quickly subsided.  Once again I had the cameras rolling to capture the moment, and as I turned the key and filled the dual solexes with fresh gas, my expectations were brought back to earth.   The motor turned and turned, but did not start.

The three basic things most cars need to start are power, fuel, and spark.  The first was the easiest to rule out in my case.  Obviously, the starter was working and the motor was turning.  I was fairly certain that the car was getting fuel.  I heard the fuel pump prime and quiet down, and after pulling the feed lines off the carbs to see fuel come out, and taking the tops of the carbs to see that the bowls were full, I knew that the car had fuel.  Next I had to diagnose the spark issue, which is harder to do by yourself.  I began checking the easier things, making only one adjustment at a time, and trying to start the car again between changes.  I swapped out the rotor and distributor cap.  I swapped out the coil.  I cleaned the contacts between the points.  I still didn’t have any luck as of last night.  I need to invest in a volt meter so I can see what kind of output the coil is giving.  Hopefully today, I will be able to figure out why I don’t have spark.  But for now it’s nice to know that the motor is not frozen!

Digging up dirt….

I’m nosy.  Just ask my wife.  It’s not to the point where I try and find out everyone’s business like some people I know.  But there are times when I will hear the tail end of her sister and her talking about something, and come in the room with a “Who are you talking about?”

So maybe I’m just more curious than nosy.  It sounds good to me anyway.

So being the curious person that I am, I wanted to find out as much about the past ownership of this car as possible.  I started by emailing Andreas Harz in Germany.  He can look up your vintage BMW’s build date and importation date from the VIN that you provide to him.

He wrote back:

Dear Mr Barbieri,

Thank you for your email.

The BMW 2000 tilux VIN 1455091 was manufactured on April 20th, 1967 and delivered on May 3rd, 1967 to the BMW importer Hoffman Motors Corp. in New York City. The original colour was Granada, paint code 023.

We hope this information is helpful for you.

Yours sincerely,

Andreas Harz

So there you have it… My car has a birthday.  That information inspired me to look though some of the paperwork that was in the glove compartment.  Harvey, who I bought the car from, seemed to remember that the car was formerly owned by a fellow Northern Ohio BMWCCA club member, and he would see if he could track down some contact information for me.  Until I have that information, I wanted to write what I was able to find on my own.

2000 Ti owner’s handbook, plus the optional “Tilux package” insert.

When is the last time you bought a car that had a WIRING DIAGRAM in the owner’s manual?!?!

Some of the factory Blaupunkt radio information. These also included wiring diagrams in case you needed to do some repairs yourself, ha ha.

So here’s the oldest piece of ownership history I could find in the car…It’s a receipt for some Michelin tires.

Dated 5/6/1970, Belle Tire, 1290 Grand River Blvd, Detroit, MI sold a set of four 175/14’s to Mr. Ronald A. McMaster of Woodville. Ohio, for an exorbitant amount of $166.51

The second piece of paper I have documenting previous ownership was a title transfer from Ronald McMaster to a Mr Gary Duane Brinker of Perrysburg, OH on 10/28/1972.  This was before you had to include a purchase price, so I don’t know what the car was sold for.

Somewhere during this time period, the car did some traveling to Indiana.  There was also a very old map of Illinois in the glove compartment.

Shown on the receipt for lunch from the “Old Country Store” in Nashville, Indiana, is a corn dog for .30, a root beer float for .30, and a lemonade and a water totaling .30. Tack on that .02 for tax and you have a hefty lunch bill of .92 There was also a brochure and pricing guide from a candle-Fastmaking store in the same area.

Fast forward into the 80’s.  The car is now in Toledo, OH and is owned by Bill Shingledecker.  At the beginning of March, 1987, Bill has an estimate written up for fixing the body work and having the car painted.  It required 80 hours at the body shop to repair rust and dents, and to repaint the car.  Total cost 2120.00.  I suspected that the car had been repainted due to the way it was chipping off in a few areas under the trunk lid.  I wonder how close the color it was repainted is to the original Granada.

I’m a little disappointed to find out that the car had been repainted, but I’m glad that the body shop is called “Miracle Mile” and not “Earl Scheib”!

Also, on the 5th of March, 1987, Mr. Shingledecker took the the car to L&M Automotive to have a compression test done.  Cylinder 1 was @ 120 psi, Cylinder 2 was @ 115 psi, Cylinder 3 was @ 105 psi, and Cylinder 4 was @ 110 psi.  The mileage on the car at this time was somewhere in the neighborhood of 57,000 miles.

I had found a couple of other older compression tests written in the shop manual that was in the trunk.  One was dated 3/31/73 @ 49,234 miles and showed 1@165, 2@165, 3@150, and 4@135psi.  The other test was dated 9/17/73 @ 56,953 miles and stated “shortly after over-heating”, showing 1@155, 2@145, 3@145, and 4@165psi.  Not sure how that last cylinder could go up that much.  Maybe it was operator error.

Shown here is an appraisal done right after the car was painted, on 6/10/1987. The mileage is 57,259 and the appraised value of the 1967 BMW 2000 Tilux was 6500.00 only slightly more than I paid for this car (Just kidding). The odd thing is that the odometer currently shows the mileage at 57,266 so the car was either parked and rotted into the ground right after this, or the odometer stopped working 7 miles later. Weird.

And the final receipt is from a Napa auto parts store in North Royalton, OH dated 4/15/1993 for the purchase of a battery. I wonder if it’s still good?

So being the nosy person I am, I searched for Bill Shingledecker and Ron McMaster, both of whom I found on Facebook, and both of whom appear to be in Ohio.  I have emailed each of them, inquiring whether or not they had at one time owned this car, and if so, whether or not they could they provide me with any stories or information for my blog.  I am anxious to see if I hear back from either of them.  For now, I will have to wait and see if Harvey can get me any information, but it feels like an accomplished morning.

Time to start thinking about prepping this car to be started!

Rain, rain, go away!

Monday 9/19 – rain

Tuesday9/20 – rain

Wednesday 9/21 -rain….

Are you getting the picture yet?

Mae had a trade show she had to attend in Myrtle Beach for work, so I figured while she was gone, I would be a complete dork, eat frozen burritos, not sleep, and completely immerse myself in working on this car.  It didn’t really work out that way.  Unfortunately, for now at least, the car is outside in the driveway.  Our small, two car garage usually houses my 1970 2002 and Mae’s 2011 135i, although at the moment, the 135 is sitting out because half of the garage is filled with parts from the 2000’s trunk, the shop vac, cleaning supplies, etc.  So thanks to mother nature, I haven’t had much of a chance to work on the car until today.

Tuesday night, it had stopped raining for a little bit, but it was dark out.  I took a couple of halogen work lights on stands so I could accomplish something!  It was too dark to do any detailing, or anything too mechanical in nature, so I though I would spend some time working on those doors that wouldn’t close all the way.  I took all of the door panels off, and using some lithium grease in a spray can, I proceeded to lubricate all moving parts inside the doors, latch assemblies, door brakes, hinges, window carriers, etc.

After finishing off the can of lithium grease, all four doors now open and close beautifully and easily, all door locks work, and all windows roll up and down smoothly.

So fast forward to today.  Thursday.  I wanted to spend some more time really cleaning the seats and door panels.  But I couldn’t get past how gross the carpet was.  It was clear from the beginning that this carpet was not save-able.  It had some worn places in it.  I’m sure it contributed to the musty smell.  It was brittle in places, probably from getting wet and then drying over and over through the doors that didn’t close.  I knew an authentic carpet kit, if I could even find one, would dictate taking a second mortgage out on the house.  I was hoping that a woman by the name of Esty, who makes great reproduction carpet kits for the 2002, would be able to help me out with a 2000 carpet kit.  I emailed her.  She replied, saying that she has been contacted many times concerning Neue Klasse carpet sets, but has never had an original to make the templates from.  I emailed back, saying that I would try to remove mine as neatly as possible, and she was welcome to use it, also knowing that I would pick one up from her.

Interior without the nasty carpet.

I need to remove all of the old factory sound deadening insulation to inspect the sheet metal below it.  I don’t see how this car could sit for so long with cracked open doors, and not have totally rotted out floors.  Surprisingly, they feel very solid.  When I remove the insulation, I will use the dry ice method.  At that point, I will gauge whether or not a floor repair is necessary, and if I go that route, I will use POR 15, new insulation, and then re-carpet.  I’m not too concerned about that yet.  Need to get it driving and stopping first.

After removing and boxing the carpet up to be shipped, I worked on the seats, dash, and door panels for a while.  I started with a cleaner for vinyl and convertible tops  because everything was so dirty.  Second, I used a more mild vinyl interior cleaner, and then some soap and water.  I buffed them with a dry towel, and finally applied some vinyl/leather protectant, and this is what I ended up with:

These seats are so cool.

I love the arm rest.

Crack-free dash. I LOVE the factory “Oh s**t” bar.

I like the design of the glovebox MUCH better than the 2002. It doesn’t drop down and then fall off. Plus a 2000 Tilux owner’s manual, AND a spare set of keys. This will be the first BMW I’ve had that has more than one set!

It’s coming along!

I’m super excited about the amount of work we’ve accomplished in less than a week.  This weekend, Mae and I will be heading to Kentucky with the Rivertown Gear Busters vintage BMW group (although I’m cheating and driving the 135i) to tear up the back roads and stay at a really cool bed and breakfast on 300 acres of farm land.  Once I get back, I will start with more of the mechanicals.  I need to pull the carbs off and make sure nothing made a nest in there since the airbox was in the trunk all that time.  Then change the fluids (I’m shocked the radiator still has coolant in it.) change the plugs, throw a new battery in, say a prayer, and crank this baby.  Stay tuned…..

The morning after…

Enter Sunday, September 18th, 2011, aproximately 24 hours after bringing home a 1967 BMW 2000 Tilux that some might argue was ready to be put out of it’s misery.  No chance.  We will give this car another lease on life.  After getting a good jump on detailing the car the day before, I wanted to spend a little bit of time cleaning up the engine bay.  It was filled with more acorns, walnuts, the remains of some hornets nests, and more of that 15 year old dirt.

I mixed up my own special concoction to clean the engine bay.   I added a little carwash concentrate, some degreaser concentrate, and some goo-be-gone, all in a pump sprayer.  I covered the dual solexes with plastic, and sprayed the whole bay down.  After letting it sit for a few minutes, I took a scrub brush to as much area as I could, and lightly rinsed everything off.  I am pretty happy with the results.  Again, this is an initial cleaning, and I will go back a detail more thoroughly down the road.

I didn’t have a lot of time to work on the car Sunday, but after seeing the condition of the paint in more adequate lighting, I wanted to see how much better I could get it to look.  The paint looks good, but is slightly faded.  It helped that it was parked under a mostly shaded area, protecting it from the damaging rays of the sun.

I would like to pick up a good high speed buffer eventually.  The piece of junk orbital buffer sitting inside a cabinet in my garage is better suited to be put out with the garbage next Thursday night.  Instead of even messing with the one I own, I took some rubbing compound, and applied it to a small corner of the trunk by hand.  With some elbow grease, a noticeable shine returned to the section I did.  I decided to do half of the trunk for comparison purposes, and after one application of rubbing compound by hand, and one application of polish by hand, this is what I ended up with:

It’s a shame I couldn’t polish that rust along the trunk line out….But anyway, my friend who let me borrow his trailer, also has a good buffer that he said I could borrow.  That will happen eventually.  Next I wanted to focus on finishing the interior cleaning, and I wanted to get a game plan together for fixing the brakes and attempting to start this beast.  My wife had to go out of town Tuesday morning for work, so I thought I would just spend the rest of the week working on the car….that is, unless the weather had anything to say about it.

She’s all that

Once we got the 2000 home and it’s condition well documented, it was time to get out the pressure washer.  I couldn’t wait.  I had a feeling that underneath all that algae and tree debris, there was a beautiful car waiting to emerge.  It’s like that terrible movie with Freddy Prinze Jr.  Remove glasses (in this case dirt and algae), and ugly girl now becomes pretty girl.  That was our hope anyway.

Mae got some buckets of hot water, dawn dish detergent, car wash soap, and sponges.  I sprayed concentrated car wash soap on the car with a tank sprayer and we let it sit for a couple of minutes….Again, here is the car when we brought it home….

I wish someone would have been filming Mae and I as we washed years of accumulated crap off the surface of this car.  We were looking at each other, wide-eyed and grinning from ear to ear.  Really?  Is this car going to clean up THIS well?  We washed the car a couple of times, and as evening fell, we took off her nerdy glasses, and before us stood a very, very beautiful girl wearing a granada dress.

Granted, the paint is still wet here, and you can’t wash off rust obviously, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about the neighbors filing a complaint about some ugly wreck of a car sitting in our driveway.  We were excited to get started on the rest of the car right away.  Mae started scrubbing down the interior, and I started unloading all the junk in the trunk.

There were tons of acorns hidden inside, even under the rear seat, from former residents.

As gross as the inside looked at a glance, I had a feeling it might clean up pretty well.  Armed with an assortment of cleaners, brushes, and rags, Mae dug in and got to work.

I should also mention that three out of four doors did not close all the way.  One would close fully, but not latch.  Two of them did not close at all.  They were simply open a little bit.  The door catches and handles did not operate properly, and the hinges were all pretty well frozen.  I had Mae hit all the hinges with some oil and try to work it in.  They started to move a little easier, but would still not close all the way. She started wiping everything down with a soapy rag.

The wood trim will need refinished. It just looks good here because it’s wet, but we were optimistic about how the interior was starting to clean up as well!

While Mae was tackling the interior, I began to sort through the spare parts, a few new parts, and mouse nests in the trunk.

Let’s see what’s in here….

This little guy didn’t make it out with his friends. Surprisingly, the only hairy critter I found so far.

Ti air box, and not one, but TWO repair manuals! Score!

Additional contents of trunk included the worn out headliner, under dash trim pieces, some misc bumper brackets and bumper pieces, a dismantled center console (missing one side), some cv boot rebuild kits, new rear wheel bearings, new air filters, wiper arms, a starter, jack, messed up grille, headlight bucket, and two new universal joints.

So after emptying all of that, I was able to get to the trunk boards.  They weren’t in too bad of shape.  Just really dirty, like everything else on this car.  I took them out, and with a little soap, degreaser, and water, I ended up with this:

Look how great the paint and rubber looks on the side of the trunk. Awesome!

I’ll get in there and scrub them some more, but not bad for a primary cleaning!

So after a VERY successful first day of Neue Klasse ownership, we put the hose, the buckets, the soap and all of the rags away, and stood back to take in one last look at our fleet for the evening….

Welcome to the family!

The voyage home….

It was the morning of September 17th, 2011.  It began like any ordinary Saturday.  The dogs woke us up too early.  We drank coffee and probably watched a few shows on HGTV.  Maybe we ran a few errands.  We drove Mae’s ’76 2002 over to Dunkler’s farm market and filled the trunk with peppers, tomatoes, red onions, and cantaloupes.  But this would not end like any ordinary Saturday.  This day would be something very special.

I had borrowed my buddy Ron’s 16 foot tandem axle trailer.  He uses it to haul his demolition derby car to the Randolph fair.  Ron’s latest victim was an old Honda Accord donated by Lake’s auto recycling and was named “The Quarter Pounder.”    I washed the remaining mud, a reminder of this year’s carnage, from the car hauler’s well-worn treated decking.  With the newly clean trailer behind my Ranger, we headed for Stow, a 20 minute drive through the twisty back roads of the valley.

I was a little nervous about what Mae might think about the Tilux once she saw it in person.  I was relieved when after arriving,  she started taking picture after picture, documenting it’s current state.  She seemed as excited as I was.

Harvey’s brother already had a jack under it when we got there, and I brought a set of 4×100 bottlecaps that I had as a spare set of wheels.  They would serve as temporary rollers to get the car home, and be used until the stock steelies and hubcaps could be refurbished or a replacement set could be purchased.

Ready to roll!

With the help of a chain, a come-a-long, and Mae and Harvey’s brother pushing, we easily pulled the 2000 up onto the trailer.

I don’t know why, but this picture reminds me of the movie, “Jaws”, when the shark comes up on the boat to eat the people.

All loaded up and ready to go!

Our convoy pulled out of the driveway, headed for, hopefully, an uneventful drive home.  The only tense moment was the steep drive up Portage Path hill coming out of the valley, hoping that the three come-a-longs and the transmission being in gear would hold her on the trailer.

Once home, I backed the trailer into our driveway which unfortunately is an incline.  Getting the 2000 off of the trailer and into the garage pushing it first uphill on the trailer, and then letting it roll down the ramps without crashing into the back of the garage, all with no brakes and the car not running was a real treat!  Thank you to my neighbor, Justin, whom I tricked into helping.

welcome home girl…..welcome home…..

Am I crazy?

Don’t answer that.  I know I am.  I get up most mornings, drink my coffee, and check my email and facebook.  After that, I go to the Akron and then the Cleveland craigslists, and type in BMW in the “for sale” search box, just in case there is a vintage BMW listed that I might be able to place in a good home.  I’m kind of  like a orphanage for German cars.  Then, I post the craigslist ads on the BMW2002FAQ website, or on one of my facebook BMW groups for others to see.

On the morning of September 6th, while performing my usual routine, I came across an ad that looked vaguely familiar.  It was a 1967 BMW 2000 Tilux.  I had seen the car somewhere before.  After a moment, I realized that the car was possibly owned by our local BMWCCA chapter president.  He is a retired BMW master tech who repairs cars at his home, and he had done some work to my 2002 that I was unable to do myself.  I remembered seeing the 2000 out there before, but never got to take a good look at it.  I emailed Harvey, asking if he was the one selling it.  He called me back and replied that he was, along with several other BMWs that he had accumulated over the years from various customers, in various states of disrepair.  I asked him if I could stop over and take some pictures.  I consider myself to be fairly well connected within the vintage BMW scene,  and I knew I could find someone who would want it.

I grabbed my camera and a notebook, and headed out to see the wrench guru.  I didn’t know much, if anything, about the BMW 2000, or any of the Neue Klasse models for that matter, other than they were the predecessors to the 2002.   This particular 2000 tilux had been sitting outside at Harvey’s since he acquired it in 1998 from another local car club member.  I felt saddened by the condition of the tilux, parked there leaning to one side on two flat tires, covered in algae, moss, leaves, acorns, and bees nests.  Like it was waiting to die.

I took several photographs so that I would have good documentation for any prospective buyers.  However, something happened to me on the drive home.

I decided I had to save it.

I got home and excitedly showed Mae the pictures.  I told her how sad the car looked, but how much potential I though it had.  Plus it was such a rare, special car for this region.  We don’t see many, and by many I mean ANY Neue Klasse cars in Northeast Ohio.  Especially not a ’67 2000 Tilux, the most luxurious car that BMW offered at the time. In a 1967 test, Road & Track felt that the 2000 sedan was “the best performing 2-liter sedan in today’s market and the best handling and best riding as well.” And the Tilux  featured the sporty ti engine, a wood dashboard, and optional leather seats, plus dual solex carbs.

I honestly felt with a lot of scrubbing, cleaning, and buffing, along with some general maintenance for a car that has been sitting for an extended period of time, that I could have this car back on the road by spring, ready to make the trip to The Vintage in North Carolina.

Did I mention there would be some scrubbing involved?

The trunk contained the original airbox, along with two different shop manuals, various bumper components, some new parts in boxes, and some former residents and their former homes.

Dual Solexes, along with a lot of acorns, walnuts, and the nests of various woodland creatures.

I couldn’t believe that we were considering another vintage BMW, but I felt like it was my duty to rescue this car.  I didn’t want it to end up as scrap metal.  I can’t describe the feeling I had when I got back from Harvey’s.  I called him right away and told him not to sell it, and that I wanted it.  It was rough, but it was nearly 100% complete, and I knew in my heart that with some hard work, there was a gem under all of that dirt.

Obvious flaws:

Exterior is extremely dirty, covered in years of tree debris and algae.

Body looks fairly solid with the exception of some rust along the bottoms of the doors and rockers, one hole in the driver’s side  rear quarter, and some surface rust on the hood, lower valence,  and rear trunk lip.

Two flat tires.  One of the ones that held air was a huge, knobby snow tire.

Only one of the four doors closed all the way.  The other three were partially open, the door hinges are stiff, and the trunk is so hard to close, you feel like the rear window might shatter

Motor turns by hand but hasn’t been started in maybe 15 years.  Engine bay is extremely dirty and full of debris and nests, but looks complete.

Front brake hoses are collapsed, so that if the brakes are applied the wheels will lock up, meaning for now, that it must be moved around without use of brakes.

Interior is missing the headliner and center console, smells extremely musty, but is other wise surprisingly complete, including some cool wood trim, and a fancy a/c unit.

Knowing what I know about 2002s, I didn’t feel overwhelmed taking on a project like this.  I knew it would be a fun project, a learning experience, a great opportunity to own a really rare vintage BMW, and something that Mae could be a part of too.  With her blessing, I negotiated a deal and made arrangements to pick the car up.  

Before we get started on the restoration…

…it’s my wife’s fault.  No really, it is!  Let me back up.  When we met, I had a Jeep Wrangler.  I liked Jeeps, and I had always liked classic cars.  That’s what I learned to wrench on – a 1979 Jeep CJ-7, and a 1979 Chevy Malibu station wagon which incidentally, was my first car that I paid 700 of my own hard-earned dollars for.

We started dating, and all of a sudden, Mae was making me drive her Alpine White BMW E46 323Ci everywhere we went.  The only time I had driven BMWs prior to that was a four year stint as a valet in Nashville during and  after high school.  She spoiled me.  How could I possibly go back to my noisy, bumpy Jeep after spending so much time behind the wheel of the ultimate driving machine?  So see?  It was her fault.

Fast forward a couple of years.  We got married.  I was still interested in owning an old classic of some kind.  I called an ad in the local paper about some kind of 60’s Chrysler or something.  I don’t even remember what it was now.  But when I went to the guy’s building to see the car, he had a little dark green 1975 BMW in there.  A 2002.  I had no idea what it was, but I knew I wanted one.  I just didn’t want the one he was selling.  It was a total rust bucket and hadn’t been driven in years.

I set my sites on reading and learning everything I could about the BMW 2002. I eventually found a Golf (Yellow) ’74 on ebay located in, conveniently enough, Akron, Ohio.  I contacted the seller to see if I could check it out in person before bidding.  He lived 2 miles from my house and worked for my wife’s cousin.  I ended up buying it outright.  The biggest problem with the ’74 was that I bought it non-running, and after hours upon hours of work, I was never able to get it running.  I had also picked up a ’73 2002 for parts and learned how to totally dismantle the car.  Most of it is in my basement.  The rest went to help other 2002’s in need.

Remember my wife?  The one who was responsible for my roundel addiction?  Well, a year or so later, she had discovered a pretty little red ’70 2002 on the Akron craigslist and had decided to surprise me for Valentine’s day.  She had even contacted the seller to negotiate a price.  Her intention was to have it sitting in the driveway when I got home from work, but she ultimately decided I should check it out first to make sure it was a worthwhile purchase.  This car was also only about two miles from our house, and was owned by a former classmate of my wife.  He was selling the car because of a baby on the way.  After bringing home the ’70, I eventually sold off the ’74 and later found out that I never got it started because of a seat belt safety switch specific to 1974.  I had never put my seat belt on in the driveway just to start the car!  Lesson learned.

the ’70 2002 the day it came to live with us.

the ’70 after many suspension and cosmetic upgrades.

We picked up a few more along bimmers that have come and gone, from a 1989 535im with nearly 300,000 on the odometer to a newer Alpine 325Ci.  You’re probably thinking I’m the only one in the family who gets to enjoy these BMWs.  Not so.  My wife has her own collection – a lovely Anthracite 1976 automatic 2002 and a beastly 2011 black with red 135i 6 speed.  Ironically, she drives the ’76 to work every day.

Basically, we’re a BMW family.  We love the brand.  We are inspired by the technology, but are fascinated with and respect the heritage.  And because of that love for the history, and because of a sudden opportunity, we made a bold decision to add one more to the stable….