The 1970 2800 Project

[Stevehose]

egyautoparts has a lot of hard to find stuff - I've bough many things from them

 

[rblongboarder]

I had a really good time at the SoCal BMW event held at Woodley Park in Van Nuys, CA.

SoCal Vintage BMW

The Central Meeting Point for the Vintage BMW Community. The SoCal Vintage BMW Meet is always the first Saturday in November so it will be the same weekend as the France and Italy car show which is always the first SUNDAY, in the same location – A great European car weekend!

socalvintagebmw.com

There were seven or eight Bavarias present amongst the dozens of 2002's and 325i's. I saw some very fine E28 M5's and E24's that reminded me of my former vehicles. Special thank you to the owner of the E9 3.0cs Alpina B2S for letting me photograph the Alpina lower front valence, with scrape strip (on the bottom).


I had the opportunity to say hello to:

• Mike Goble, owner of a Chamonix Bavaria
• Mr Friis of Friis Racing and the Bavaria Recovery Project
• Tim C (Bav3.5), owner of the Respect Your Elders Bavaria and fellow AYSO soccer coach (the blog that convinced me to buy an E3, not a 2002 !)
• Mike, owner of a very nice E9 2800 cs, who introduced me to a lot of his friends
• ET, owner of a white 2000cs or perhaps a 1600 ?
• A father / daughter pair, owners of a beautiful light blue w/ silver Bavaria
• A cool white-haired gentlemen, owner of a heavily track-modified E12 5-series, who took the time to discuss many of his modifications

When I wasn't saying hello to new friends, I was taking pictures of design elements such as:

• Taking photos of the wide variety of vintage fog lights on 2002's
• Taking photos of the wide variety of rear spoilers on the E28's, 325is, 2002 and E12 vehicle
• Taking photos of the trapezoidal and "flag" side mirrors
• Taking photos of various bumperettes from the late '60s and early '70s
• Comparing the size of USA and Euro turning signals
• Learning how the father / daughter team used E28 door and window seals to fix their E3

I will post some photos of these design elements in the next few days; they're spinning around in my mind.. making me think about what I might do with my own E3.

 

[rblongboarder]

Comparison of Trapezoidal and "Flag" sideview mirrors..

 

[rblongboarder]

I always liked the rear spoiler on my E24.. so I spent some time walking around photographing lots of spoilers...

The last 4 images in this posting seem to be variants of an Alpina rear spoiler. The last image is the exact spoiler that was on my E24. Some variants are only cover the rear trunk, while others extend onto the rear body panels.

 

[rblongboarder]

This was a very nice rear bumper mod by the father / daughter team.

I like how they used a chrome strip to cover up the rear bumper joint - an area that would be covered by the "bumperettes" - very elegant.

 

[rblongboarder]

Tim C's "respect your elders" E3.

 

[rblongboarder]

An interesting build with 17" tires and a deleted front bumper. Tail lights indicate it's a '72 or newer. Nice stance... alpina lower valence?

 

[rblongboarder]

This '72 E9 3.0cs Alpina B2S (I think I got the description correct) was very interesting to look at.

I'm not familiar with Alpina builds, but I wanted to specifically say thank you to the owner, because he allowed me take lots of photos of the lower valence. I was particularly interested in the very thin black "scrape strip" at the bottom of the valence. Apparently, the scrape strip was a custom item that could be removed from the valence, and wore down over time as a result of road scrapes... a very nice way to protect your investment. I think I'll be adding this feature to my E3 and to my Subarus...

I also liked the turning signals on this car... much larger than the E3 signals. Very elegant.

 

[rblongboarder]

Finally.. the 2002 guys had lots of different fog lights to check out. Here's a collection of these design elements...

I noticed some fog lights are mounted to the bumper, while others were mounted through the headlight grill.

Some owners mentioned their fog lights "bounce" while driving - the lights mounted through the grill - so I asked: "why not make that metal strip a T-bar to give it greater stiffness in the vertical dimension?" I'm a scientist; attention to small details really matters.

Another odd coincidence.. the Marchal cat logo - my kids are reading a set of books called "Pete the Cat" - which is also an animated show on Amazon Prime. I think the Pete the Cat author literally copied the Marchal logo... The resemblance is uncanny... but I'm reminded of a quote I believe is attributed to Basquiat: "all great artists steal from each other."

So now I'm learning about: Marchal, Cibie, Hella, Carello and others. Being half-french / half-spanish I dig the french name: "phares antibrouillard." Until next time.. au revoir...

 

[CSBM5]

That's funny...the first thought I had seeing those 2002s was back to 1972 when a friend bought a new 2002 and mounted Carello lights on top of the bumper, and he ended up with the bouncing/shaking lights. He added metal reinforcement plates to cure it. A few years later, I wired up a light setup on another friend's 1976 2002 with the large bumpers (no need for reinforcement on those!), and his setup was Cibie Oscars on top (one pencil beam, one driving beam), Cibie 95 fog lights below and Cibie headlight replacements. The driving and fog lights were changed to 100w bulbs. I wired it all up switches inside that allowed the fogs to come up separately or with the highbeams and driving lights separately or with high beams. The fogs were angled off to each side by about 20-30 degrees.

On my Bavaria at the time, I ran the Cibie replacements (the pencil high beams were unreal back then) with 100w in the high beam units. I also had Cibie 95 fog lights below the bumper toward the outside also angled off slightly to each side and with 100w bulbs. Fun times with lighting 40+ years ago.

 

[StephenZ]

Very cool! I used to live a few minutes up the road from Woodley park..I miss that show! I remember many years ago, going to the ‘FestWest’ in 2002, (before the woodley show started..) with my 2002…what a fun weekend that was...

 

[rblongboarder]

Ah, the joys of a new build... I got some spare Euro E3 turning signals from fechner-gmbh on eBay. Euro shipping
is quite expensive; these gentlemen were very accommodating, combined two eBay orders into one, and gave me
a shipping refund.

 

[rblongboarder]

For fog lights, I wanted to buy vintage, period-correct items - but I wanted the fog lights to be the same size, or smaller than standard E3 headlights.

I found a great article on the web about Marchal lights - it has a lot of details. Here's the link:

Marchal race & rally lights for BMWs

Marchal is a French manufacturer of high quality automobile lights founded in 1923. From its inception Marchal was very active in motorsports, especially in the 1950s through the 1980s. Marchal lights and sponsor decals can be seen on many winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Rallye Monte C...

www.bmw2002faq.com

This link is also posted in my E3 fog light forum thread:

Questions about Fog Lights

So I've been learning about fog lights for the E10, E3 and E9... I'm curious.. do most of you prefer Hella 140, Hella 160 or Hella 192 fog lights? 140's and 160's seem quite common... 192's seem a bit big.

e9coupe.com

On eBay I found a vendor in the San Francisco Bay area; he goes by the handle zuffenhaus356. I really enjoyed working with this gentleman and decided to buy some beautiful Marchal 610's. They were in superb condition! 5.75" diameter, polished stainless steel construction and very low depth profile. These are first production run units from 1965; they do not have H1 IODE bulbs.. I am considering swapping out the bulb holder to mount H1 lamps if possible.

 

[Stevehose]

Post pics when they're on

 

[rblongboarder]

I also dig these small form factor Hella 118's and matching rallye protective covers.

Hat tip to Enoz (from Belgium) who has an excellent selection of vintage headlights and hangs out in the Parts forum. I got so stoked when these arrived, I needed a glass of Delirium Tremens... haha

 

[Christoph]

This was a very nice rear bumper mod by the father / daughter team.

I like how they used a chrome strip to cover up the rear bumper joint - an area that would be covered by the "bumperettes" - very elegant.

To be honest, the father/daughter team only had to use two times part no. 51 12 1 804 413, "Covering moulding" in BMW English. These "Abdeckblende(n)" are standard on all E3 except the USA versions - and very elegant indeed.

 

[rblongboarder]

The Marchal 61x rallye lights have interchangeable lenses. Marchal 612 spotlights that work with the 610 body.

Hat tip to recambios-sebas on eBay (Spain).

 

[rblongboarder]

The Cibie 45 is virtually an identical copy of the Marchal 610 with a big change; Cibie 45's use the H1 IODE lamps.
(There is a LED replacement for the H1 lamp too.)

Hat tip to janne7 on eBay (Sweden).

 

[rblongboarder]

Some truly magnificent Cibie 45 Fog lenses from Franck (frenchbugeye) on eBay; his prices are quite reasonable.

Like the Marchal 610's, you can swap lenses on the Cibie 45's. I'll have a few photos of these powered in the near future.

 

[rblongboarder]

I've been busy working on a streaming video app for the AppleTV (Model A2169) for the last few months so the E3 is sitting idle.

A clever trick for removing the entire front sub-assembly, engine, transmission and suspension:

My new to me 73’ 3.0cs

Steve, thanks for clarification on the power of the a/c in the south. Truthfully I had hoped you had found the solution to giving modern a/c to a coupe. I may just try to install the rear a/c from one of my old parts e24 cars if I actually ever really start into the silver car like I want to...

e9coupe.com

This homemade rotisserie is quite impressive:

DIY Rotisserie

I'm exited about the rotisserie I made for the uncoming bodywork. Here's why: - it took me a just a couple of days to assemble - it's a rotisserie and a dolly - it supports the car at the right mounting points, not at the ends (bumper-points) of the car like many other rotisseries - it's about...

e9coupe.com