BMW 2002 Slow progress

It's been a while since i posted my last instalment, In this time i have had to replace my MIG welder with a new unit and swop to bottled gas instead of the thow away bottles from machine mart. The cost of which has slowed me up a little.

The good news is the both inner wing repairs are now complete, the drivers floor is finished for now. It will need seam welding and the engine chassis rail leg repaiing when i roll the car onto its side later this year. And last of all the rear window opening is about 50% complete as well. The pictures are below.

I have found more rust in the rear subframe mounts and the front panel. Nothing that cant be corrected. Hopefully most of the small repairs plus finishing the windscreen surround will be completed this week and some more next week.

I have started the intake system for the engine by buying a BMW 5 series intake manifold. On the ebay picture the bolt pattern for the cylinder head looked similar. I turned out it my be a little to far out for me to use the whole system. Also the ports on the 02 are a lot larger than the 5 series whick would leave some wall section to thin. More thought needed in this area before i make my next move.

Also the alternator is going cause me problems as it sits close to inlet runner number 4

Bmw 2002 boot repair part 3

Ive got all the panels i think i need to repair the shell, namely the rear wheel arch parts and drivers floor. To start with the near side rear wheel arch.

These are the parts involved, the grey wheel arch outer and the black inner reinforcement. The inner panel is genuine BMW and looks very well made.

Unfortunately the wheel arch isn't the panel is made of two parts spot welded together. It also has many ripples in the panel. The seams will need seam welding and the ripples gently smoothed out. The yellow line is probably what i am going to cut off the repair panel.

The hole is open and the panel was plated over pity whoever did that didn't remove the rust before they hid it. so good job the panel is out as it would have been dangerous.

Bump stop mount to cut off clean and weld back on. I might tweak it to allow for full suspension travel when the car is lowered. Further investigation shows this one buggered and the other side stop is crushed. These parts are not available so i will have to make them from new.

The shock mount need also to be cut off cleaned and refitted.

This underside view shows the two new panels and a repair panel that sits behind the rear seat. It's all held together with self tapping screws.

This shot show the upper side. The welding sequence is remove the three panels still screwed together and weld the two wheel arch panels. Then remove the reinforcement panel and drill a spotweld hole every inch along the edge. the holes are plug welded and ground flat. Last of all all the edges will be seam welded on the inside and the outside of the panel so that i know the panel is strong and lock out moisture that will get into the panel gap and cause more rust.

All that left is to do the whole thing again on the other side. This repair has taken about 20 hours to complete.

BMW 2002 floor repairs

The boot repair is progressing but as yet i can't get the new panel to fit as well as i like. I will eventually get it in, but in the mean time i have been stripping the car, The sunroof is out of the car the picture below shows a surprise. I have also removed all glass, doors and dashboard. This has thrown up some more rust. mainly in the window openings and front bulkhead area. The boot lid and front wings will come off soon.

A sprinkling of rust flakes from the underside of the roof, i have never seen rust on a car here. WOW a new place for rust to lurk!

The water getting into the car is from bad welding repairs and via the fan unit, as i removed one of the fan ducts i got cover in about half a litre of water. both area fixable i think. I have started the floor repair, i cut a bad patch of plating out the passenger rear floor the floor wasn't that bad so why the big patch i don't know. What i do know is that water was helping the whole thing to rust out again. The picture sequence below shown the repair to the floor.

The floor repair in this area is now complete, not completely invisible but better than the previous attempt. Once the Stonechip is on the underside you will have to look hard to find the repair. Job done next repair.

Boot repair part 2

The boot repairs are progressing slowly, the pictures below show the new panels have been formed. There is still a long way to go to finish this repair, lots of dressing flanges and welding. The boot area will need to be stripped of all paint and grot before the new panel is welded in place for good. Then just some small repair patches to finish this bit of the boot repair.

Now the rest of the news-

I have removed most of the sound deadening pads inside the car and it seems the rust isn't actually that bad. The only bit that might need work is the drivers front floor pan. It might turn out to be better to replace with a repair section. The car is now in the garage as the spitfire is over wintering in sunny Weymouth. When the footwell finally dry out i will run a wire wheel over the floor to remove some of the crud.

I have also managed to get the engine running, not easy seeing as the car had two types of spark plugs ( two of which were faulty), HT leads that were knackered and a distributor that was incorrectly set in the engine block, The coil was also knackered the rotor arm had also been tweaked. A new set of leads, plugs, coil from the spit and cleaned point had the car running. Albeit badly, there is an air leak in the the inlet system oh and clouds of blue smoke from the exhaust ! Bugger that put the idea of getting the car back on the road next summer. Plan B i think.

The air leak i think comes from the rubber hoses to the brake servos, havn't checked this yet but might be the reason the servos don't work . The blue smoke comes from either or both the valve stem seals and work piston rings. Both of which require major work on the engine.

So the new plan is to go straight into a full on resto and engine build. The major repairs to the body will be completed first the new injection system will probably be next. This is only because i dont want to do the initial tune to the injection system with a rebuilt engine. I at the very least will need the fuel and spark maps to run the engine with no load up to 2000RPM. This is because i need this to break in the new engine after the rebuild.

bmw 2002 boot repair part 1

I have started work on the worst area of the car, that is the boot. I decided to run a wire wheel over the boot area. The results found a huge amount of seam sealer and newspaper filler. In the process finding that the boot is from another car and has large gaps filled with seam sealer. So it was no surprised that boot came out fairly quickly. The pictures below show that the outer panels are largely rust free and can be reused.

The picture below show the start of repair panel for this area, the spare wheel well is in the process of being cleaned so that it can be welded into the new panel.

Once this side is welded in place i will repair the other side. Then i can start on the other areas like the wheel well to boot floor repair panel and both lower quarters to the rear panel. the latter have been welded badly and will need to to redone. The next repairs will be the upper boot floor panel, which should be straight forward. Then onto the pig of a job which is the wheel well itself. In the process if doing these repairs i noticed that the rear parcel shelf is rusted out and the outside panel is in the same state. Another pig of a job to do right. I will however cut and flange 6x9 speaker holes in the parcel shelf when the window is out so i have some where to fit speakers without cutting trim panels about.

The repairs should speed up when the spitfire is safely in it's temporary home in Weymouth, at the moment dragging a dead car in and out of the garage is a pain. This will happen next weekend. Also some of the car bits will be put up in the garage loft, i have started this but need to finish. I have some new waterbased underbody stonechip to try out as well, busy then.

The waterleaks that fill up the footwells is not the fault of the sunroof, the water is dripping down the bulkhead from behind the dashboard. at some point i will remove it to find out if it's the windscreen or another spot.

bmw 2002 - Whats wrong, Whats right ?

I collected the car today, on the face of it the cars not to bad. However that is based on the condition of the spitfire when it landed on my drive.

The car has been partially stripped.There seems to be over two cars worth of bits sorting them out will be a challenge. The good news is that i think everything is in the boxes apart fron one front indicator assembly. So overall not to bad.

The car itself has a few issues as most of these cars do.

• Various bubbles of rust on various panels.
• The Bootlid and bonnet panel gaps are not very good, hopfully when i re-install the catches and adjust them everything will be Ok.
• The door gap however are very bad but i managed to twist the passenger door to fit the opening. i suspect the door has been reskinned and the not welded in a few points to lock the door in the correct shape. This hopefully is an easy fix.
• The engine bay is clean apart fron rust bubbles on the strut tower tops.
• Front wings are very good.
• Sills look good but will need more investigation to confirm.
• Roof panel and rain channels look good.
• Rear quarters are good but i suspect the wheel arch lips have been replaced.
• Rear light panel is good as are the front and rear valances.
• Now the bad part the boot and floor panels. The front floor panels have been patched badly and are rusty and full of water. These might be salvagable with some better welding otherwise i will by replacement panels. The boot Oh my God the welding looks like it been done by a blind man in a rush. So the plan is to buy repair panel from Jaymic with new suspension reinforcement panels and weld into place. Easy to say but a bitch to do properly in the confined space. The boot area is also very rusty. I will have to give it a good clean to find the full story, hopefully small patches rather than a new boot floor is all it will need.
• The good news is that the car is repairable, it could have been a lot worse.
• I will have to go over the car and soort out most rust spots so that i can halt the rust going and further SOON!

• The interior is a mixed bag the back seat cover is in good nick, i will just have to replace the old padding underneath so not a problem, the front seat will need more attention. It might also be trimmed in leather.
• The carpet is shot, waterlogged and yellow - Bin order charcoal or black replacement.
• Front door cards are in bad shape rear card are spot on, just needs a clean.
• The dash and centre console is good clean.
• The pedal work, the accelorator need sorting, might opt for a roller rather than the standard setup- worked well on my VW 20 years ago.
• I couldn't start the engine it's either fuel or spark and maybe compression. The wiring loom is part Tii which is not helping, i'll wire a new circuit and add an electric fuel pump to get her running.
• Also i will have to do the mechanical inspection and asses what needs doing.

Overall an Ok car, not that easy to sort but not to bad, certainly i have until April next year to sort it for the MOT and hopefully next summer i'll get all the mods done in readiness for the teardown and restoration next winter.

The plan for now is

• Stop the rust going any further.
• Get the engine started.
• Reinstall some parts to get the panel gaps correct.
• clean it.
• Start the injection system build.

Spitfire 1500 project end BMW2002 start.

Someone once said with every end there is a new beginning.

Well after 2 years with the spitfire it's finally time to focus on something else. The spitfire will stay and be used in the summer months. However there will be no more development apart from screwing bits back on when they fall off.

So what next - Well this story starts back in the early eighties. As a very young lad i saw a BMW2002 in pale yellow, no considering i was used to the family VW Beetle the BM was very futuristic. That image has stuck with me all these years, and thanks to Retro car magazine and picture of a 70's race car i just had to get one.

That decision was over six months age, tomorrow i will go and collect 02. The picture below is definitely the start.

Now the plan

Theme Race car for the road.

• Lower front by 3 inches and re-engineer the front suspension.
• Lower the back by 2 inches and modify the rear subframe.
• Restore the car, paint colour is TBA. i have a few ideas.
• Big brakes E21 rears turbo brakes front, with race/road pads.
• Engine, Aftermarket ignition, CBR600 throttle bodies, M40 injection rail, high compression pistons, Schrick 292 cam, hand made tuned intake system, Turbo manifold and exhaust. In short i want 160BHP.
• Interior, might be rolled caged.
• 5 Speed gearbox, (Easier that the spitfire 5 speed conversion).
• Electronic gauges in old pods with old dial faces.
• Body - turbo wheel arches. might have turbo front spoiler or something else. havn;t decided yet.
• Strut braces.
• Bling.

First jobs to do

• Assess how much rust this has and what welding needs re-doing.
• Make a parts list of anything needed to get to MOT standard.
• Get it back on the road.

The plan is get it back on the road. Then mod the engine for fuel injection and suspension, exhaust, strut braces ect. When i am happy i will strip the car to the last nut and bolt and restore the car to rude health. Last of all strip the engine and rebuild it from the bottom up with the tuneup goodies. Thats easy to say but i suspect that this is 2 years of work.

Spitfire brake - here i go again

Well

The wethers improving the new ignition is sorted, but now sports a new dizzy. I bought a spring pack from moss which turned out to be a perfect waste of money cause it didn't work. The new dizzy does. Wonderfull the engine now revs to 5k RPm and sounds like a sewing machine when it does. Job sorted.

I have also fixed the manifold leaks. it was the throotle shafts in the carbs ! doh. I was going to fit oversize throttle shaft but moss could not produce the good on time so i sleeved the shafts reamed the holes to 8mm. I also fitted plain throttle disks. job done some tweaking is required for the choke operation but that can wait for later.

My air fuel meter has changed, I altered the electronic circuit so that i can focus on the just lean to just rich range. Show that the engine is a little rich at idle. If reduced to be acceptable there is hesitation under 2k RPm. i think that some playing with needle might be in order soon.

Other than this i have put a few miles on the car even doing the 80 mile round trip to work down the M4 without any issues. Just a few suprised drivers to see they are being overtaken by what is now a relic.

I spotted some vitess parts on Ebay so i am shortly to be the owner of some uprights and caliper brackets. now i could go the easy route and fit the rest of the Vitess parts but um no. That would be far to practical and easy. So my plan will take one of the following routes.

• Fit Capri 2.8 disks, I think the OD will need machining. And Austin princess calipers that i will have to space out.
• Make new caliper brakets and fit metro calipers, i have been loaned a caliper for fitting purposes./
• I believe that i cheaper alternative is to use landrover disco calipers but have some more rechearch to do.

Further to this i have now tried some MG metro calipers that bolt straight up to the Vitesss caliper brackets, unfortunately i would have to use the spitfire brake disks. The standard vitess type 16 calipers not only have a larger friction area on the pads but run with bigger brake disks. so the standard setup will be used, the only question is do i use vented disks ? that decision can wait untill i have bought some calipers.

Spitfire bits and bobs

Well the ignition system lasted all of 200 miles before it failed. however the problem was easily tracked down the case was live with 12vdc when this shorted out it cut the ignition out. The fix is in progress and will be refitted to the car soon.

Other stuff that has been done is chase down the leak in the inlet manifold and seal the exhaust. Whist i had the manifold off the car i fitted non waxstat jets to the carburetters. This was not entirely easy as i had to modify the linkages slightly. All went together easily but i still have a high idle speed, looks like throttle spindles are next on the list.

As well as this i used the opportunity to fit the 02 sensor to the exhaust manifold, the gauge now works and without to much fiddling i now now that at idle the car puts out %3.0 Co and is slightly lean on full throttle. I will leave well alone until after the cars MOT and then tweak some more.

The last news is that i bought engine and radiator valances off an Ebay seller, it was spur of the moment but at least it one job i can now finish. The radiator valances i have made will be put on ebay once finished.

Spitfire Electronic ignition part 5

The ignition unit is now finished and working. I'll have to use the car a bit to see if it;s reliable. The finished picture is shown below. I will add a picture in the car soon.

There were a few teething troubles which were caused by my lack of ability more than anything else. I fried a total of 3 transistors, 1 diode and 3 resistors. Oh and gave myself a 300v shock bonus !

The other thing i noticed was a poor spark on the conventional points system. One new 12 volt Bosch blue coil helped no end. Should have done that sooner. what an improvement !

I still have a few tests to run, like shorting out part of the PCB circuit and seeing if the 300V rail drops when the spark output is at 1000 sparks per second. Now a thousand sparks a second is something to see and hear i'll try and post a clip at some point.

Another job is to reset the ignition timing as it probably a little out, a job for tomorrow.

However my main concern is reliability, to this end i'll keep the old coil and ignition module in the car for a while.

Driving

Oh my god new coil + new Ignition module what an improvement. Better idle, less choke. revs quicker when you blip the throttle and no hesitation either. BHP / Torque has also been improved especially from 3000 RPM onwards. I used to struggle to get to 70MPH but now it get there easily. It make the spitfire an altogether better experience. If it lasts i think i'll call this one job done.

Or will i there is a option to increase the output from 45mJ of energy per spark to 110mJ per spark. Now i probably don't need it but curiosity might get the better of me. I would have to rewind the transformer add another zenner diode and 1uf capacitor. that would give me 375volts and double the stored energy. all this equals bigger spark.

Spitfire Electronic ignition part 4 !

Oh dear did i say i would leave this subject, well that did not happen. When trawling the Internet i found a design for a multi spark discharge ignition. this appears to be similar to some the the MSD ignitions. I reasoned that i could make the PCB assembly myself for a fraction of the cost of the MSD system.

So the good bits are i think this will be the best ignition to date.

The bad is that i will have to make a PCB board solder the bits on and get it working, None of which i have done before.

The PCB was the first challenge. Using the front cover of a magazine, a laser printer and bits from Maplin i was able to make the PCB. Beware if you are going to do this as the chemicals involved are not nice. For that reason i will leave the actual details out from this post. However if you still want to try it contact me for the details.

As we speak i have nearly put all of the components on the PCB as per the pictures below, the rest will hopefully go on next week and i can give it a go.

Other things that have been happening - The interior of the car has gone back in and The gear lever has been shortened as per the pic below the new gearbox has now done 400 miles so I'm calling that project Done at last! The stereo has been fitted as per my wife's instruction so i had to find a place for some speakers.

So where do you fit speakers in a spit? I finally ended up making a place behind the seats as per the pictures below. The boxes are 18mm MDF with some Alpine speakers picked up from Halfords. Now all i have to do is cover the MDF with carpet and i can call that job done as well.

Yet another job started is the front Radiator valances, I pick the ally sheet up some time ago but have yet to get to start the job however i finally made the valances. They are not fitted yet as i will need to tidy them up and paint them. That will have to wait for warmer weather before i complete it. I will also have to make the engine valances but the material i bought was to small. um bugger! When i find some more ally sheet at a bargain price i will buy it for them.

Electronic ignition part 3

I have now picked up the dizzy sensor, looks good at the moment i will wire it into the car once i have driven it a bit more.

One thing that will become an issue is the trigger magnets are moulded into the rotor arm. once this wears out i would have to buy another complete dizzy kit. However when this happens i will mod the rotor arm so that it locates on the cam in the dizzy and refit a standard rotor arm on top. Should work but I'll think about that when it needs doing.

I've done this due to the rotor leaving an additional 0.5mm gap from the rotor and the dizzy cap, it didn't work the sparks weaker. It did however let me get the phasing correct. It was about 6-10 degrees out from the standard setup.

As for the dizzy sensor the supplier warned me they have a lot of returns for dead units when people fit them to Quote kit cars. I think that probably means they get blown by the sort of wiring you find on many classics that overpower the coil on engine start. However more investigation seems to suggest that the unit should cope with the extra amperage of this type of wiring. Or at least the unit i have bought can. The unit has a transistor for the switching part which from the data sheet can stand 15 amps continuous load and 30 amps peak.

Anyway for my application it matters not as the electronic ignition unit stops high current going to the dizzy sensor.

I have now tried the electronic box and WOW what a difference the car need half the choke on startup and doesn't bog down like it used to. Best £13 I've spent on the car. It doesn't seem to increase power but refinement and throttle response are immeasurable better.

As above the phasings not that bad. So where do i go from here. Well the coil is now suspect so i will change that use the electronic box with a new set of points and leave it at that for now. I need to finish putting the interior in the car and play with the lamda sensor project.

This will then lead nicely into carb tuning and the dreaded MOT time - Joy. Electronic ignition will be looked at again when I'm not in the potential firing line of redundancy at work.

Spitfire Electronic ignition Part 2

Well Ive got the vellman unit and soldered it up in standard form. I have now connected it to the car as shown below.

Not quite the perfect installation but good enough to try it out, the reel of PTFE tape is just the insulator required. I will need to box it, and i will most likely pot the PCB to stop ingress of damp that could kill it. I will also change the connectors for lucas type connectors and clip the unit properly to the top of the coil. Hopefully it should look like it has always been there once i have finished.

So does it work, of course it does, but it has got a comedy effect. Since the vellman unit is standard i cannot use the straight 12v feed from the ignition switch. The car starts but only when the ignition switch is turned back to normal running mode. At this point the engine is still spinning so starts. if you keep turning the key it won,t start. I sort of guessed this so no problem.

It didn't help that i wired it to the car incorrectly Doh. definitely works now. Also it appears to work ok with the full 12V feed on startup.

Apart from this low RPM running seems more stable and reving the engine is better, the exhaust note has also changed slightly. Performance on the road does not apear to be any better but it's early day on that from.

The pcb stays very cool so it is not getting near overheating so once i have used the car for a longer run and am satisfied that the unit will work i will reconnect the 12v feed and see what happens. At this point my guess is that it will work ok, we will see.

Once i have done 50 plus miles and 20 or so starts from hot and cold i will introduce the electronic dizzy module to the mix. After that a nice high powered coil will complete the package.

Spitfire Electronic ignition Part 1

I've been looking at electronic ignitions and there various merits.

Lumenition - loads around, expensive and plenty of rumors of failures.

MSD - the daddy of ignitions but v expensive, good selection of good high powered coils.

Magnetronic and similar in dizzyunits - Take care of spark scatter but are generally limited to coil switching capability of 4 A. The exception is Aldons ignitor 2.

So where do i go next well the answer is i would like the MSD setup. However i have found i cheap source for a dizzy sensor. for £12 delivered ! amazing as the nearest competitors price is £67. Now the drawback as stated above is that it can only handle 4 amps.

I have just seen a report on the no brand module i have bought, there might be an issue with phasing of the rotor in the dizzy- i will check it out when it arrives.

The solution comes in the form of a Vellman kit supplied by Maplin. This is meant to make point setup last longer by not putting the same amount of current through the points. The dizzy module works in the same way as points so no problems. The only issue is the 4 Amp one.

The clever bits is that the kit needs to be assembled and some components changed To cope with a higher amperage rating. In all fairness Vellman say that there kit can handle 4 amps the components are rated to 10 amps. Now they must have tested there units and concluded they need the extra headroom. So i will follow suit i need 8 amps capability so i need to respec the vellman unit to cope with nearer 20 amps.

The reason for going to the effort make these changes are so that i can keep the standard Ballast resistor circuit. Simply because a boost function for better starting is definitely the way to go.

If this works i will be offering for sale complete systems for use on lucas 45 and 25 dizzys.

So at the rate i work that probably never ! DOh

Gearbox back in again

Well i got the engine out over Christmas, the spigot bearing was damaged slightly. Apart from that there was nothing wrong, so the noise i heard was - Drum roll don't know. I've done about 15 miles and all is fine. Wilst the engine was out this time i made a baffle for the sump to help with oil surge, Don't know if this is going to work yet need better days to get the car out and drive it.

The speedometer is sorted and works well, i just need to add a bracket to the bellhousing to support the speedo cable.

I'm just tidying up the build now, getting the gearlever correct, replacing all the wiring,sealing the engine cover and a load of other small jobs and i hope i can call this one done.

Over and above this I've got caught up in the technicalities of ignitions and that where the next challenge lies i think.