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I brought the new car home Saturday. On Sunday I took most of the interior out (seats, interior trim, dash, etc) as well as the AC. Tonight the carpet and tar come out and I’ll start on the sunroof.
Pictures are at
http://trackjunkie.entrophy-free.net/gallery/the-build
Looks like a good core.
Good luck with the rebuild.
If the carpet is not torn/worn, I’ve had great luck cleaning the carpet with elbow grease,Simple Green and a power washer.
RP
The carpet is in surprisingly good condition. A bit dirty, but not worn at all. Getting the carpet out in one piece is a lot like wrestling with a large, mad, alligator. The easy way is to whack in pieces with a razor knife, but the carpet is in such good shape that I hate to do that. I got rained out last night, but if it raining tonight (which is probable) I’ll put the Ez-Up over the car. One way or another the carpet comes out tonight.
Jim,
I am really upset to hear and see what happened but like everyone else am very glad you are ok. I have a few spares lying around and I can offer a helping hand if you need it. My helping hand consists of a strong back and weak mind. LOL Just glad to see you are ok and I look forward to racing your new ride when it is done. Allen
P.S. You should get Ced to come over and get his hands dirty. :laugh: :laugh:
I’m close by too if you need a hand with the build. I’d also appreciate any time I can spend gleaning from the seemingly unlimited BMW knowledge stored in your head.
After my dad’s roll at Thunderhill a few months ago in his SpecE30, we’re also building with some of the same thoughts you’ve taken away from your incident (halo seat, improved battery location/retention, etc).
Matt
Thanks guys. At the moment I think I have the build well in hand. It will be a couple of weeks before I know what I might need and whether I can meet my goal of being race ready by O’Fest. If I get behind I’ll holler for help.
Day two was mostly rained out (and I got lazy and didn’t post an update), though I did get the heater core swapped out. I had noticed that the heater hoses were disconnected and looped. So I figured the core was leaking. While you don’t use the heater on the track, having a defroster beats trying to use rags tied to the end of a stick to clear the windshield. The end tank on the core had failed, so it had a massive leak.
It is now day three. I worked on the car until the rain started again and got the carpet (tan) out, headliner out, and made a good start on getting the sunroof cassette out. The carpet is a bit dirty, but otherwise in really good condition. I suspect it would clean up nicely. So I worked longer than I should have to get it out in essentially one piece.
The car is at the cage builder now (Kirk Racing). It was supposed to go for the cage a week ago, but work got in the way. Mark is a really great guy. The only opportunity to get the cage there was on Sunday and Mark met me at the shop Sunday afternoon to accept the car.
The engine will probably be finished this week and the cage late this week or early next week. Then I can start putting it all together.
Jim, thanks for the update.
Keep you emthusiasm up as the second-guessing can creep in.
RP
Pictures would be great. I would also like to know about your Kirk roll cage experience. As it stands right now I am planning on having them build my cage.
Kirk (Mark Stewart) did half of my cage (I already had a rollbar, and he put in the front section) a couple of months ago, and IMHO, I thought he did an excellent job for very reasonable price, even with numerous “extras,” as well as having to deal with my ignorance and lack of planning. Of course, this is my first racecar, so I’m no expert, but if I ever need another rollcage, I’ll go to Kirk.
I picked up the car from Kirk last Friday and picked up the engine Sunday. The cage looks great. Mark (as usual) did an outstanding job. I received what I hope is the last of the parts needed this week. But the daily rain over the last couple of weeks has really interfered with the build.
The old car is an immovable object that required a wrecker to get it off the trailer. There was no way to get it into the garage, so it is sitting outside on blocks. I still have to pull the engine as I need the transmission and some other stuff for the new car.That’s hard to do when it is pouring down rain.
And work has gotten in the way. This working and racing is getting to be just too much. I think I’ll have to cut back on work.
Interesting things found in the process of pulling parts of the 96 to go into to new car.
Both transmission mounts (Powerflex) were sheared in two.
The side mounts (steel) of the drivers seat are bent and the floor there is severely distorted. So much so that it required a crowbar to get the seat base out.
The front cross member was slammed by the engine moving forward and has a kink in it from that.
The forward part of the passenger foot well is about six inches narrower that it was when the car left the factory.
One tower of the distributor cap was cracked, by I guess hitting the radiator. What I didn’t expect was that all but one of the ignition wires had broken the receiver off inside where they connect to the cap.
There is a tear in the firewall where the brake booster mounts.
The new engine is fully dressed and ready to go in. It would have been in now except that when I mounted the starter and rotated the engine there was an obvious drag. That turned out to be that the pressure plate bolts furnished with the Spec clutch were a bit too long and had pushed the ring gear towards the engine. A bit of judicious work with a brass drift and hammer fixed that.