Or just call me at 505-320-9666
These People Seem Nice
- Thread starter JayWltrs
- Start date
Richard, I will call later today, I’m in Boise with wife and son checking out Boise State on Saturday.
Chris
Chris
At your convenience
Gary, its amazon - i saw the car when it was at your ex-buddies shop a few years ago
A lot of this car is a time capsule & not all in a good way. 5/74 temp sensor still on an 11/74 car? Is that common? Seems I’m finding lots of original things that should have been replaced in regular maintenance long ago. They’re in such bad shape I can hardly tell, but I think all the gaskets are asbestos. Haven’t seen one since I was a kid.
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Jay -- Your below hack level skills will improve as you work with your car. Start with the easy stuff, rely on the books, ask questions here and your skills will improve over time. Review the steps in each task before you start a project, making sure you understand the entire process. Be realistic. (In the immortal words of inspector Harry Callahan: "A man's got to know his limitations"). If there is a piece of the process you cannot do, determine whether you can farm out that piece or whether you need to farm out the entire process. There is no shame in farming out specialized tasks; even the most seasoned mechanic farms out specialized tasks.
To give you a real world example I encountered, when seeking to install leather skins on my rear seats, I found that I simply lack the forearm strength to properly stretch the leather. I had to find a guy with forearms like Popeye to do the job.
Drive the hell out of it and when you get it out of your system, you can start tackling more major stuff like rust repair. Possible you can get the rockers re-done and still not have to repaint the whole thing. Remember, those covers can hide quite a bit.
Thanks. That’s generally my approach. I have tons of patience, at least with respect to this. I have a 4-year plan, understanding that’s likely to be diverted at some point by the shaking head or wild estimate of a mechanic or body guy. Wife’s already getting concerned by all the deliveries from places she’s never heard of, which could also divert the plan at some point.
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if at all you're interested in a conversion, be on the lookout for early-style bumpers and hardware now. Supply of good ones are drying up so best to get a hold of some sooner rather than later.
Yep. I’ve got a great detail/paint refurb guy, and my first and last words to him were, “do not take off the rocker panel covers. Seriously, do not mess with it.” That’s for another day.
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It would be an obvious aesthetic improvement. But this thing’s really quite original, and I can’t decide. That’s a couple of years down the road probably, unless I decide to do a full repaint and all the body work sooner.
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Yeah, I suggest you begin now the process of educating your wife on the fact that vintage cars require life support systems. The majority of the folks here accumulate parts for our cars. Some are "planning to install someday", some are "took off a good part to install a better one and kept the good part", some are "bought this to get something else in the same stash" and some are "seemed like a good idea at the time."
As you begin to introduce this topic, also introduce the notion that our cars are increasing in value, and as you upgrade even little parts on your car it becomes more and more valuable.
And finally, remind her that a man with passion lives a better life than a man without.
Welcome Jay, I'm in Austin- just down the road... ha. Let me know if I can help with anything. Ask lots of questions as you move along!!
Hope you enjoy working and learning as some of us are doing, nothing is hard when one puts his mind to it, pays attention and of course a lot of pics!
Trying to get it in regular driving shape while I discover the gremlins and demons. Like tonight. Slowly been working the coolant drain plug and finally got it off to find this:
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Looking through your thread and super impressed with what you’ve done. Have family in Austin. Thinking I might load this thing up and bring it to Sayther to give me a better take than I’m getting here. I haven’t researched who is in Dallas, but other than my wife & a Scirocco, I’ve never had much luck with that town.
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Thanks! Definitely bit off more than I can chew, but I needed a new challenge. Didn’t mean to slag on Dallas, but I’ve dealt with more con men in my work from there than anywhere else—plus in-laws are there!
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Welcome Jay ! And welcome from a fellow Okie! I empathize as well having bit my bullit from a eBay listing last summer. Still sorting my e9 out. So far replaced various parts including getting new exhaust manufactured by a local custom muffler shop using 2.5 inch aluminized steel from manifolds back and inserting Magnflow resonator and rear muffler - sounds great !!
Many other upgrades too and pictures will for sure be forth coming of the new stance (lowered using Nelson linear lowering performance springs and really could not get the front stance low enough until I removed the 1" front shock tower spacers that were stock on US Spec cars that raised the front end to meet 1973 US bumper height standards. Got my Alpina wheels and tires installed and new stainless steel brake lines, wiring and rewiring some previous repairs to the 40 year old wire harness to get all the electrics working.
Next is a new blower motor as the bearings are shot on this one.
Still having trouble getting those dual Webers in sync for optimum performance. Also, Curious where you got your shifter rebuild parts as mine is absolutely horrible and is in desperate need for new bushings etc.
But, all in all, a fun project and looking forward to many miles. Original Color Ceylon Gold and one day, full restoration and take it back to the Ceylon Gold.
Jay, maybe see you at a Sunbelt Chapter event in the future. I won't be able to miss that green machine !!! ;-D
Many other upgrades too and pictures will for sure be forth coming of the new stance (lowered using Nelson linear lowering performance springs and really could not get the front stance low enough until I removed the 1" front shock tower spacers that were stock on US Spec cars that raised the front end to meet 1973 US bumper height standards. Got my Alpina wheels and tires installed and new stainless steel brake lines, wiring and rewiring some previous repairs to the 40 year old wire harness to get all the electrics working.
Next is a new blower motor as the bearings are shot on this one.
Still having trouble getting those dual Webers in sync for optimum performance. Also, Curious where you got your shifter rebuild parts as mine is absolutely horrible and is in desperate need for new bushings etc.
But, all in all, a fun project and looking forward to many miles. Original Color Ceylon Gold and one day, full restoration and take it back to the Ceylon Gold.
Jay, maybe see you at a Sunbelt Chapter event in the future. I won't be able to miss that green machine !!! ;-D
Your car sounds like it is well on the way! Saw what looked like a Polaris with CSL front air dam driving through my neighborhood recently. We were both kind of shocked & laughing but couldn’t turn around to see more of what the other was about.
I pieced together the shifter parts from Plaza BMW’s website (St. Louis — decent stock but you never know what they actually have until you see the shipping confirmation), BAV, and Pelican. In the future I’ll probably just call LaJolla. Would have been much quicker and cheaper to do that first, but my only time to do this is after hours.
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