Project Chronicle

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The 500E is originally from California, and moved to FL/AL in the early 2000s. It is more or less rust-free, with just some typical bubbling on the C-pillar. A very small spot and can easily be wiped out by a body shop in a day. 

However, in an effort to keep it this way, we noticed that water was settling into the spare tire well of the trunk. This area of almost any Mercedes from the 80s through the 90s is rust-prone on even the driest of examples, so water pooling were was a distinct threat. 

The cause? The broken trunk plinth on the decklid, and some busted hardware behind the rear emblem. Just enough liquid was getting through the tiny gaps caused by the trim piece being broken in three places and the swollen hardware that no longer kept the badge snug against the bodywork. 

A wrecking yard in VA that had just opened up was more than happy for the business that came over the transom and shipped a minty plinth up to my shop. Easy-peasy. 

I sent the 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS - which stands for Really Short (not really, but it is 14 inches shorter than a standard Trooper, which makes it a one-of-800 RS) - up to Jay's 4WD in Rhode Island back in August for a variety of fixes. 

Jay is the guy who brought the truck back to life when I rescued it out of a junkyard in Western Massachusetts in 2020. It has a genuine 55K on the clock and runs great. But, like any major project, you notice a few things still undone after it's on the road for a bit:

1. Biggest issue was the original starter died in June, and I left the truck sitting for 2 months. Jay swapped that out right away.
2. The OEM headlight washer system Jay pieced together after I found the parts in the UK had died; turned out the pump had some rust in it and needed re-lubrication.
3. Vent tube on the diff disintegrated; Jay replaced.
4. Transmission cooler lines were beginning to succumb to rust and leaking; Jay replaced.
5. Parking brake cables have never worked so I had the mental bandwidth to add that to the mix this time.
6. Aftermarket junk DEPO "European" headlights leaked like hell so we put the OEM units back in; Jay smartly re-used the DEPO frames as they weren't rusty like the originals.
7. Oil/transmission/coolant fluids flushed

And yes, we added another set of Hella 4000s because they just look straight bad-ass.

My 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth has been in my possession since October 2018. The fall month is always a bit nostalgic for me when I think about this car's arrival in my life and the many events it triggered. More on that at another time. Right now, however, it continues to sit on a lift at my mechanic in Rhode Island, having hit a series of ongoing delays. 

The issue is lingering fuel injection issues. The entire fuel system was rebuilt following its retrieval from the junkyard, as the tank was yanked out as standard operating procedure. The last time it stopped running was due to a clogged filter on the fuel injection assembly, and we suspect some other contaminants have entered the system at another point and fouled the fuel injectors, which were replaced two years ago. At least, that's the last stone that remains unturned. 

The shop owners are people I now consider friends, but I do hope this vehicle returns home soon. I hate being testy but it's time for her to be driven! 

Nothing too crazy here, but as someone who makes it a bit of a sport to find OEM roof racks and cross bars, these were a very lucky find: the OEM Mercedes bars for a Metris van with the exposed roof rails.

This is the first time I've had a vehicle with raised roof rails and MY GOD is this the easiest way to mount cross bars. I thought having them bolt into the roof was straightforward but even then, you sometimes have to deal with corrosion in the mounting holes. This was a 10 minute install. 

On the hunt now for an affordable gray MB "dachbox" to mount on top, but In the meantime, these bars add some much-needed visual toughness to the Metris' docile exterior. 

At long last, the ancient 90s-era tint has been removed from the 1990 911. This was a big deal to me, as it was distorting the intended visual impact of the D. Morris hardtop which had crystal-clear OEM glass.

Tint - especially old tint from the 80s/90s - just looks awful after a few years. It looks 10x worse when directly adjacent to clear glass.

A few minutes with a hair dryer and it was all a distant memory. Success! 

This has been a long time coming: the installation of my D. Moris hardtop on the 1990 911 C4 Cabriolet. 

My satisfaction with this project is complex. First, the important details: it is quiet. There is much less noise in and around the cabin. It feels like a coupe. There are no rattles or other untowards sounds. 

Still, the labor was intense. There are many hours in this project. There's a reason many people attempt to do this themselves because it requires lots of fine tuning, evaluating potential leaks, and removing and reinstalling to get the fitment just right.

The other issue is solely cosmetic. With the top painted, it is more evident than ever that this 911 is three different shades of blue. Inside the garage, it looks uniform; out in direct sunlight, it's....not great. Will most people notice? No. But it means I may someday repaint the entire thing.

For now, however, the important details were achieved: the 964 is truly coupe-like in feel and I'm sure this unique accessory will only go up in value as it becomes harder to find. 

I shipped my 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS up to Rhode Island today, where it will spend a few months with my long-term mechanic who originally brought the truck back to life. 

Right now, we're dealing with a no start issue that is either the original starter (yes, original) giving up the ghost or a failed replacement alternator (Chinese-made garbage, who knows). In addition, we're going to perform an annual service involving fluid changes in the transmission, cooling system, and brakes. 

There's also a missing vent hose on the differential and a non-existent e-brake cable I'd like to install. One of the Depo-made H4 headlights has developed a leak and fogged up and the other light is doing the same, so we'll put the originals back in. So much for upgrades! 

Last, the headlight washer system we rigged up is no longer working so that needs to be messed with. 

Sadly, my wife was so excited to see it out of the driveway, I don't think anyone here will miss it. 

After many months of doing nothing on it, I’ve made room in the garage for her. Sorted some electrical issues. A melted headlight wiring was the issue. Also installed an Alpine tape deck, and fixed the wipers and blower fan.. We now have a turning engine. 
We can now attack the infamous CIS system. Replacing the gas tank, fuel pump, filters , etc… 

We also declared the Wrenching Wednesday Nights on the Jetta with my sons. I sure hope we will make progress this way!

The replacement transmission is in the 500E, and I was able to put some miles on the car this weekend. The good news is, we've resolved the biggest issues the car had, which was a near non-existent reverse gear and very lazy forward shifting. One thing that stands out right away is how urgently this car upshifts. I've read it's adaptive, meaning you need to manually shift it to set the preferred shift points; I've also read that the Bowden cable can sometimes need adjustment. Regardless, it drives down the road nicely, but the lack of rapid downshifting requires further investigation. 

The D. Moris hardtop is effectively done on the 964, with all major hardware installed and the interior back together. 

The fitment is excellent. The kit itself was pretty minimal on hardware, which is a backhanded compliment because it means the design aligned with the bracketry already on the car. The gaskets went in as intended, with the only area of concern being the back glass. When the top was smoke-tested for any leakage, some appeared at the top left corner. Because the window was already installed and the high unlikelihood of prolonged exposure to rain, we're living with it.

I haven't driven it yet, so I can't report on whether there's any odd wind noise or sounds suggesting the top isn't completely snug. My biggest gripe is that this large painted surface further highlights the different shades of blue this car wears, but that's a topic for another time. 

I installed a new catback exhaust that is slightly louder than stock but not too loud. 

In the days after deciding to plunk down a bunch of cash on a hardtop for my 1990 911 Cabriolet, I saw a picture of the same hardtop on a later 993. I will admit: I didn't love how it looked. There was something about it that just looked "off," which is always a risk when dealing with aftermarket parts. However, every photo of the D. Morris hardtop that I saw on the 964 seemed to look bang on, which is largely what drove the purchase.

I'm happy to report at these early says that the results, now visible in-person, seem to validate my hunches. The top is just resting on the car in the photo, but it looks absolutely bang on. There are some issues with the brackets - this is a common complaint about the D. Moris kit fitment - but once we get that straightened out, it should be pretty straightforward to wrap up installation. 

I had major reservations about taking the plunge on this investment, but I'm happy to report it looks like a sound move at this juncture. 

I had a sneaking suspicion when the 500E arrived that I was due for transmission trouble. The seller was an honest guy, but it seemed he was in the camp of being able to live with some flaws that I wouldn't be able to abide.

The 722.365 automatic transmission found in the 500E is used across the W124 lineup. It's a fairly reliable transmission but does have a certain life expectancy. The tell-tale sign is longer and longer engagement to go into reverse. Two seconds is normal; anything longer is considered indicative of the gearbox being on its way out. My delay was about 4 seconds. 

We did a bunch of work hoping to remove any doubt about the transmission. The transmission bushings and differential "guibos" were all replaced to tighten up the gearbox action. While the shifter moved more confidently through the gate, it did nothing to address the delay going into reverse. 

No dice. So, after weighing a transmission rebuild, we bit the bullet and ordered a rebuilt transmission from Sun Valley, a known rebuilder of Mercedes gearboxes. It's on order and will be installed in the coming weeks. While unfortunate, it will be a major value add to the 500E's future price tag.

I replaced the worn OEM shift knob with one found on eBay with the same color scheme as the recaro driver seat. 

The progress on the 500E has been slow, but I'm not terribly worried; there's been no ugly discoveries at the moment, and it seems like my fears about transmission issues are unfounded. Most of the issues with regards to slow shifting and noises in reverse have nothing to do with the transmission itself but rather heavily worn rubber components that help to support the transmission and driveshaft. 

Knowing that the transmission itself is likely fine is a major win. In addition to the shifter bushings, the transmission mount itself is very tired; both "guibos" on the driveshaft are heavily cracked and overdue for replacement; the noise heard in reverse was actually an insulation pad that was dropping down and rubbing on the driveshaft; ball joints, steering linkage, and the lower control arm bushings, all shot; and the shop also discovered a long-festering fuel leak coming from the charcoal canister in the driver's side wheel well. 

Right now, the exhaust and the driveshaft are dropped in preparation for repairing all that I just mentioned. Once we're through that, we'll see how much the drive quality has improved and what may need to be done next.

Installed a Recaro Sportster CS driver seat with a planeted seat bracket. 

I have been enjoying my time with the '02 G500 I bought back in July. It's a treat to drive; the color is gorgeous; and it is far better as a daily driver than any ex-military vehicle has a right to be. It's also been surprisingly reliable, with the only maintenance performed so far is addressing some oil leaks flagged by the PPI I had done prior to purchase. 

Well, it had to happen. There had to be a reminder that I'm driving a truck with 150,000 miles on it. The first sign was a no-start condition outside a store after driving the truck for an hour. And then, it happened again outside an neighbor's house. Finally, in what was a worst case scenario, the truck died while running in the school drop-off line for my kids.

I had it towed - with some suspicions confirmed by my mechanic. Over the summer, when left to sit for a week, the truck was dead when I came back to it. So, the battery was losing a charge when not used, In addition, the G-Class is known to suffer from faulty crankshaft position sensors, and mine was full of oil from a slightly weepy rear main seal. Put two and two together and a bad alternator, likely killed off by our cold snap, and a crankshaft position sensor overdue for replacement, and you have a periodic no-start and shut-down when idling. 

I got word today that the hardtop I spent the past year obsessing over - should I, shouldn't I - was leaving the workshop in France, headed for JFK and then onto Baltimore. This is a big gamble on my end, as it cost a fair bit of money and I certainly hope it makes it here in one piece. 

The rational has always been this: buy a Porsche 964 cabriolet, the cheapest air-cooled on the market by far. With the savings, buy a hardtop from D. Morris in France and effectively have a coupe for about $50K less than what your average 964 hardtop was going for. The company does an incredible job of recreating the factory hardtop that was sold in very limited quantities. They even use OEM Porsche glass and rubber seals. You have to remove the entire soft top mechanism in order to install it, so you're committing to the hardtop in more ways than one. 

The other thought here is that accessories like these don't stick around forever. D. Morris will someday cease to exist and these hardtops will become very sought after. Combine it with the fact that the dark blue paint on the 911 will mask the line between the hardtop and the body and I feel it is a win-win. 

Time will tell if this investment is worth the money and the labor associated with installing it. But I'm confident this is a smart investment in a car that seems to only go up and up. 

My 1992 500E arrived this week, and I have some thoughts. First, I bought this car on the basis of the honesty of the presentation and the seller. The seller, who I believe is a legitimate rocket scientist, had clearly been proactive on some big items, and the 500E had been passed between him and his brother since 2003. 

I feel a paid a very fair price, and with that, comes the expectation that there will be some issues. The bigger and better news is, however, is that the cosmetics were better than expected; the interior smells good; the portfolio of records that accompanied the car are solid; and there's lots of OEM parts, from the glass to the body panels, still affixed. The widebody fenders are much more impressive in person and the car has a great stance. The disclosure about the faded paint was accurate, but the car still looks better than expected. 

The issues seem to stem solely from lack of use. The suspension feels a bit tired. The shifter bushings are non-existent, and make it difficult when cold for the shift selector to move between gears. There's a whine in reverse that has me nervous - these cars are known to need rebuilds of the various clutches in the gearbox - but we'll do the shift bushings first before I start shopping for rebuilt transmission. I don't have records of any major cooling system work, so I'll likely proactively replace the water pump and thermostat. The other major disclosed flaw is an errant battery drain that could be traced back to a replaced under-dash wiring harness, but for now, the seller removed the number 9 fuse which controls things like the flashers to ensure it doesn't drain the battery while it sits.

Overall, a pretty manageable lists aside from some cosmetic repairs, and when complete, I feel confident we'll have a car worth more than the cost of the repairs and purchase price. 

The oil change is easy at this point, nothing to really say here.  The transmission service, while not specifically easy, is time-consuming and requires you to run the car and then top it up.  It seems like the BMW-authorized procedure has been bastardized by the numerous YouTubers that have done this before, so I cannot provide a 100% accurate method for making this happen.  What we did was drain the old fluid, remove the pan, replace the pan, fill it up until it's running out, run the car on the lift until the transmission is up to temperature, and then re-fill.  No kidding, and not just the placebo effect, the car shifts way more smoothly than it did before.  

There was no metal within the pan, and the fluid, while a bit stinky, wasn't even really that dark. 

We also took the time to decontaminate the underside of the motor.  What a mess these things make of themselves when the valve cover leaks over time (our first repair to the top of the motor, but this is the first underneath cleanup).  This will allow us to watch for new leaks, etc...

Here's to another 137k.  

Since I purchased a 1990 911 C4 Cabriolet, I've barely racked up 50 miles on it. Driving has been limited; this is due to a few things, including the fact that I owe a little bit on it and don't want to risk an accident or other adverse event that could impact its value. But there's also the general fear that comes with owning a car like this and that a pricey repair could rear its head at any moment. 

However, I have to admit that after taking it in to my local shop for its annual servicing, it has been a surprisingly reliable vehicle to own with no major issues to report. Now a year in, my shop again confirmed it didn't need much: in fact, the only work I had done was at my own hand, including an oil and filter change; the replacement of the front bumper with a freshly painted bumper cover; battery replacement; and replacement of the heavily chipped front wiper arms after finding a set of NOS arms on eBay.

There was a differential leak flagged when the car first arrived and the shop verified that the leak hadn't changed and was something that could continue to be monitored. Really, this 911 has asked very little of me and everything still works - the windows, locks, rear spoiler, seats, and so on. 

It's also a treat to drive. Unlike my 996, this is a car that is still quite visceral, with pops and burbles and a silky smooth gearbox. It's hard to believe that a 4WD car has both a superior transmission and chassis dynamics over a RWD Carrera, but here we are. 

Overall, even with my limited use, I feel better and better about taking a chance on this C4 Cabriolet from Arkansas - and don't expect to sell it anytime soon. 

It has been years since I had a hobby car I made an excuse to drive. Despite having an ongoing rotation of vehicles stretching back about a decade now, it hasn't been since my departed 1995 M3 that I tried to find excuses to get out for a drive - but I've found that in the car infamously known as the clownshoe. 

The 2002 BMW Z3 M Coupe is quickly nestling its way into my cold, dead heart, blending together all the rubber-bands-and-bubble-gum construction of an E36 car that I find so endearing along with the bonkers S54 powetrain that has all the smoothness of a classic BMW I6 but actually wants to rev to 9,000. Combine that with the classic BMW traits of the door being at the perfect height for your elbow and the fact that this car is tiny! - my head hits the ceiling - and you have a vehicle like nothing else on the road. It's what I imagine it's like to drive a TVR with airbags and ABS.

All in all, I am so happy I took a chance on this forgotten breadvan, and I'm eager to correct its remaining ills to bring it all the way back as soon as possible. 

After selling my 996-chassis Porsche 911, I was pretty relieved to be done with the looming threat of bore scoring and a replacement IMS replacement to my existing IMS replacement. The fear mongering was pretty intense, from both fellow owners to individuals who own shops that service 911s. The makers of IMS kits are now suggesting that you may need to replace your original replacement, which is a big change from the "one and done" approach. And even if your car has no evidence of bore scoring, there are legions of enthusiasts who will say your car probably has the issue. 

I hate to admit this, but it got to the point that I couldn't enjoy the car. That being said, I didn't like it that much to begin with, so it wasn't all that heart breaking to see it go. So now, with this in mind and the 2001 Z3 M coupe in the garage, we move to the next persistent threat: rod bearings. In the BMW world, rod bearing replacement is the equivalent of IMS replacement for Porsche owners, but with perhaps less risk because your engine won't instantly blow up but rather slowly degrade.

When I got the Z3 M Coupe, there, of course, was not evidence of bearing replacement, so this was first on the menu. However, once the original rod bearings were replaced, it was evident they were in fine shape and could have remained installed for years to come. Should I have had them done? Well, most M car enthusiasts would say it's worth the insurance and comfort of knowing the job has been done, but I could have delayed the job and dealt with some other more pressing maintenance needs in the meantime. 

Regardless, the condition of the original bearings suggests a history of frequent oil changes and lack of abuse, so there's the silver lining - along with knowing I won't have to tackle this job for years to come. 

The M Coupe went to the shop this week for the long-awaited rod bearing servicing. As part of this, the engine mounts and oil pan gasket will also be replaced. Since I was waiting for both the title paperwork to come through and to avoid driving it without the bearings done, the car hasn't seen much use except for around the neighborhood. As such, one of the main concerns was how notchy the gearbox was. I'm happy to say, those concerns have all but dissolved after taking it on a meaningful cruise. 

The transmission became much easier to live with within 10 minutes of driving as the fluid warmed up; otherwise, there were no surprises with this car despite four years of inactivity. When I got to the shop this week, the front subframe had been dropped and in looking under the car, I was pleased to see how many OEM stickers were still present on parts; some, like the shocks, are original Sachs units that will need to eventually be replaced, but it's amazing how stock this example remains. 

The transmission notchiness could be explained by the fact that it had the incorrect fluid. In addition, the rear subframe is mint with zero popped welds. The engine internals are beautiful with no signs of metal shavings or any other damage. I will need tires but I knew that; otherwise, there have been no ugly surprises thus far.

When I moved to Maryland, I had to leave a few cars behind due to being "in progress" once the moving van arrived. The Isuzu Trooper RS and the Lexus Land Cruiser were among them but had clear expectations of being down south before too long; the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth was far less certain due to needing a wide range of "finish" work.

I had a trip up north recently where I stopped in and visited the Cossie, as it's been parked at my longtime Rhode Island mechanic's shop for the past year. It received a short burst of work wherein the timing chain was replaced and some other mechanical sorting was done, but it still has fuel delivery issues and needs an assortment of work related to the interior: dash replacement, window regulator replacement, factory alarm troubleshooting, and other odds and ends.

I would very much like to see this car home, but it's been almost six years since it came home from the Pennsylvania junkyard. Since I plan for it to go back to my body shop for some additional paintwork before it comes home, we're still likely six months out from completion. It's a drag, but at this point, a few more months is relatively meaningless. 

It has been a long while since any updates have been posted here, and for that, I apologize. Like everyone else, there's 10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound bag, and that's my one and only excuse for the lack of posting. The most exciting news I have is that I've acquired a bit of a unicorn in the last few weeks in the form of a 2001 BMW Z3 M Coupe, one of a handful equipped with the snorty S54 inline-six and made rarer still for being a sunroof delete example. 

I found the car fairly close by in Silver Spring, MD on the ancient BMW message board, Bimmerforums. The seller was going through a few things lifestyle-wise that meant the Clownshoe had been relegated to the back burner, and was left parked in the driveway of a house he didn't own. Covered with a cheap car cover and not registered since 2019, it was clear this M Coupe was in need of a rescue, and after very little haggling, I agreed to buy it. The price was fair for a car that will need a fair amount of preventative maintenance to drive confidently, including rod bearings, rear subframe reinforcement, and shift pins in the gearbox. 

Just 678 S54-powered M Coupes came to the U.S. in 2001 and 2002, making it one of the rarer cars I own - but also slotting nicely into the assortment of vehicles all built in limited quantities, save for the E30. My 996 will be leaving soon, and that will freely up space and resources for bringing this forgotten Clownshoe up to snuff. More to come! 

I'll keep this one short as this is unplanned project work...  A little boo boo has pushed in the fender.  Luckily, a white 2014 X1 was at a local pick-n-pull, and it donated it's no-dings fender to our cause.  

Somehow I didn't get any pics of the fender install, but suffice it to say the fender has been installed and you wouldn't know that it was swapped out.  The color is exactly the same, and even the texture of the paint looks the same.  I guess good job BMW with your paint?  

Not sure if someone who wasn't familiar with this device would think it was a piece of coal with a partially rounded-off bolt threaded into it--  If they did that would be a good guess.

I know O2 sensors can be a pain in the ass to remove; the upstream was about a 5 out of 10, but this downstream--  I'm going full 8 out of 10, with 9 being failure with recovery, and 10 being failure and you just throw stuff and go home...  Once again, there have been struggles and this was another one.  We just snuck this out before it was rounded off; I really thought we were gonna fail on this one.  MAPP gas, hammer taps, and it finally broke loose.  Had to go slow to make sure we didn't pull the threads out, but it came out.  Extra suckage was around the wiring up behind the head, as you have to take the plastics off of the top of the enging compartment out, again...  Once again, the positive is that we're getting really good at pulling that stuff off, but it's still a pain each time you have to do it. 

My 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth has left the body shop after being there for over a year. To say the owners of the shop were glad to see it go is an understatement; there is still some finish work left to do but hopefully, if it does go back, it will be in the paint booth for a day or so and then completely done.

Right now, it is back at my mechanic's for the second phase of mechanical work that will hopefully see the car fully sorted out after starting with the basics of getting it operational, which took place over three years ago. The first order of business was to replace the chain tensioner, a known failure point, and completely devastating to the these engines should it fail. 

Upon inspection, there was a good deal of slack in the chain. This was not entirely unexpected, and I bought both the tensioner and the chain when I acquired the Cosworth in 2018, figuring it would not have been done based on who owned the car last. At the same time, the water pump was replaced along with the thermostat. 

Other updates include replacing crushed sections of hydraulic hard lines supporting the rear load leveling system; these were obliterated when the 190E was moved by forklift in the junkyard. In addition, the Cosworth-specific oil cooler that hangs adjacent to the radiator is an obsolete part that was removed in the salvage yard, stripping the threads on the oil lines in the process. The shop made it work on a temporary basis but the cooler was rendered junk when it was removed as part of the radiator removal process. Incredibly, a radiator shop in Rhode Island that maintains a large stash of obsolete components in a warehouse on the Cape had the *exact* replacement part, and OEM to boot. I'm blown away by that ridiculous stroke of good luck. 

A few more things to button up and then it's onto the interior for dash replacement. 

Not a lot to say other than this project is actually on the road.  Need to get a few weeks worth of shakedown miles so that we can figure out what are best next steps.  Observation #1 - The suspension is shot.  This was not unexpected, but it's pretty bad.  However, everyone's pretty psyched we got this far this fast, so, still focusing on the upside...

I'm going to keep asking myself how this happens, but I already know the answer - BMW shop rates, that's how.  Original shocks obviously, so dead that they don't do anything other than let you pull the piston in or out with ease.  Every corner of this thing was springs-only, unbelievable if someone was actually driving this thing.  

Replaced with the obligatory Bilstein B4 OE replacement. 

More tips, as there's zero information on working on an E84 X1 available.  Anything I can do so that someone else doens't have to endure the agony that we did has to give me positive karma...

• You cannot get the front struts out / in with the lower tie rod end attached!  You have to remove the tie rod end from the spindle, which will allow the front suspension to fully extend, and then the strut will come out.   You will need a tie rod end remover / spreader cuz this guy is really in there, and an impact gun is a nice-to-have.  Don't even attempt without the correct tools.  Rent them if you need to. 
• On an old rusty install, the end of the strut won't want to come out.  Once the lower strut jam bolt is removed, you have to spread the housing apart.  Some people say they use a 3/8" to 1/4" adapter and turn it, but I didn't want to put that much initial pressure on it.  A tapered steel punch works fine.  Spreading it sufficiently will alleviate the need to beat on it with a sledgehammer.
• ON AN XDRIVE THE HALFSHAFT WILL FALL OUT OF THE TRANSFER CASE WHEN THE SUSPENSION DROPS.   WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T SPIN THE HALFSHAFT.  BE NICE TO IT, AND JUST PUT IT BACK IN PLACE.  You'll feel if it's not going in, and can see the inner boot twisted if it's been moved.  DO NOT pound on this to get the shaft back in.
• Assembly is fairly straight-forward once it's apart; just mind the halfshaft.  

Now the ride is great; not super-stiff, but what I would expect.  On to the next issue!

Rear wheel bearing on a 10 year old car with a bit of corrosion.  Maybe my biggest DIY challenge so far--  This job is no joke.  We had access to a lift, air tools, impact gun, etc., and we needed all of those things in addition to fire, patience, penetrating oil, and ingenuity.  

In the pic, you can see a nice shiny axle nut.  When new, this thing is torqued to 150 ft. lbs.  So getting it off a week after it was built was already going to require breaker bars and leverage.  This nut was rusted so heavily that it was basically round, and it's only shiny here because it's been cut down by a die grinder, which was a fabrication move to make this 32mm nut into a 30mm nut so that we had 12 points to grab onto.   We finally got the nut off, but 10 years of rusting together plus factory press-fitting of the hub made hub removal nightmare #2.  Enter slide hammer, which was an emergency measure auto parts store tool rental (thanks AutoZone!) on 12/23 @ 7 PM.  15 mins of slide hammering and the hub is off.  Now the actual bearing which is secured with four internal to the trailing arm bolts that are not only rusty, but hidden behind the axle, shock and trailing arm.  Doesn't matter if they break or not, but they're large bolts so breaking them will be a challenge, so lots of extensions, some heat, finally bolts are out.  Bearing removal - Once again, slide hammer with a wheel hub puller, and the bearing is out.  

Next challenge - Built a press to install the new bearing on the old hub.  Parts houses say use a new hub, but seems like it's going to require the same work to reuse the old hub.  OK so the press is probably the easiest part of this job; straight-forward process but still sketchy as the bearing is a tough push.  Patience and the bearing is seated and hub is ready to go.  Finally some forward progress. 

Time to install the hub back on the half shaft.  What nobody tells you, and what's not in any of the how-to videos that are out there (and you don't know until you try to assemble the hub back onto the half shaft) is that the splines of half shaft don't really go into the hub without some sort of miracle.  Seems like the hub may have been hot and the axle cryogenically frozen when originally built to ensure a tight fit.  The general idea is to try to get enough threads on the half shaft exposed so that you can thread the new hub nut on (nut is now 36mm), and then slowly pull the shaft through the hub via tightening the nut.  You can't do this unless you catch several threads with the nut, and getting the shaft this far exposed is almost impossible.  I'm like, WTF, I've never seen this; if you search "E92 can't get axle in the hub", you'll see various horror stories on how bad this job is.  It's that bad.  Several hours later, careful heat on the hub, hammering the axle flange from the rear with a 3/8" extension while turning 90 degrees to coax it through just enough, by some miracle the axle exposes enough threads to carefully start to draw the axle through the hub with the nut.  Victory is close.  

Reassembly of the parking brake (the mechanism of which is another clever puzzle dreamed up by BMW's crack engineering team) complete, reassemble rear caliper carrier, put the brake back together, and it's done.   
 

The 190E Cosworth, which arrived in my garage as a soggy, rotten, trash-filled mess from a Pennsylvania scrap yard five years ago last month, is near the finish line. I've lived in three houses since I bought this car, and I'm hopeful it will be a permanent fixture in my garage sometime in the next six months. 

The bodyshop is buffing out the paint and assembling the body kit. The interior is going back together. And those two details are super gratifying considering I bought a complete spare body kit and interior sometime in December 2018, all with the expectation I would someday have a car worth putting them on/in. 

Today, I ordered a wiper blade insert and two pieces of reproduction hardware for mounting the bodykit doglegs ahead of the rear wheel arches. Truly nitty-gritty stuff, and my body guy should have the car fully assembled by the weekend. Or so we think; there's always something that shows up missing. For instance, I plan on having the lenses replaced on the European headlights because - why not? Well, because, the car will be otherwise mint and pitted lenses will be a serious let-down. 

But don't get too excited: there's still a laundry list of mechanical work to be done before we're truly "done." 

Initial reassembly complete.  Not much to say other than we were able to sort a bunch of stuff out, replace a bunch of broken plastics, size up what we need to do to re-mount the radiator (coat hanger support still hanging tough...), and will start to work towards the mechanical repairs list.  
 

Look at how happy Boy Genius is...!

Going forward and focusing on the positive--  The inside stakeholders on this project are in love with this thing.  My first car was a 1980 Monte Carlo that was two-tone Dark Claret metallic and Claret Metallic red.  The Dark Claret had turned into baked horseshit with no more metallic, and it smelled musty because the passenger side rear footwell always filled up with water when it rained.  So this is a major step up for Boy and Girl Genius.  

Back to the car--  The non-geniuses that owned this previously must have decided that the undertray that lives under the engine was a nuisance item, and decided to not bother reinstalling it.  This person also had the parking sensor that was missing up front (torn out during the stunt show...?). 

We also noticed that the all of the cowl plastics were not even installed when we first looked at it in the junk lot, which we thought was a positive because anyone else looking at it would think it's all broken (which it wasn't, but made things look really bad).  So we're starting to think that someone started to work on this and just cut their losses, which seems plausible.  So, used undertray and parking sensor from eBay, and have extra bolts from the E46, so will keep mending all of these things as we find them. 

Nothing crazy to note here. Putting the car away for the winter in a week or so here - Whenever we get our first snow fall is usually the appropriate time. I also took an oil sample to send off to Black Stone Labs. Its a pretty cheap service, and I think it would be really cool to see what they say about my 272,000 mile engine. This was a great time to do it, because this oil was in the car all summer, and definitely saw some hard drives. Replaced the OEM Mann filter and added 4.5Qts of Valvoline 10W-40 Full Synthetic.

Really not that important, but I realized I did something backwards with my seasonal oil changes. Next time, I will keep the 10W-40 for my Spring time oil change, and then use the 5W-40 for my fall/winter oil change...Just helps a little with cold start oil flow. Cheers!

272,606 Miles at time of change 

Initial upper engine disassembly and seeing what we have to deal with is starting.  First observations - Leaks oil heavily.  BMWs are notorious for valve cover gasket leaks, and this thing looks like it's a candidate for the leaking gold medal.  This was a known, but man, this thing has to have been leaking for years.  Next challenge--  One of the plugs was like "I'm not coming out, no way..."  This was the scariest moment, because something dumb like a spark plug either pulling out the threads of the head, or breaking off in the head, would pretty much wreck this project before it even gets going.  Patience and good learning for Boy Genius as well as myself--  Whatever you do don't break something off in the head. 

Next observations - No doubt thing thing had an off-road excursion that didn't go all that well.  Off comes the front end, and initial review shows that the radiator is no longer on mounts, and parts of the core support are broken.  The intercooler is holding in the radiator, and the intercooler is held in by coat hangers that were twisted together to form supports.  Yep.  The fan shroud is totally broken at the bottom but somehow the fan still runs and somehow the radiator is not damaged.  However, the radiator is off kilter, and my OCD is flaring up almost in an uncontrollable fashion.  This would explain the upper radiator hose weeping, and now I can tell it's because the radiator isn't where it should be.  

The plan will be to get the oil leaks stopped, get new plugs in it, change the oil, fix up the broken radiator mounts, fan shroud, and whatever else we find in there, and run it just a bit to get some sort of baseline as to how bad the rest of it is while we get more parts ordered. 

OK so kicking off this project; hoping it's going to be a fun one, and also hoping it doesn't cause too much pain.  The ingredients are as follows - BMW with a clean CarFax but zero maintenance history; appears that it fell into the ownership of someone who decided not to maintain it at all; appears to have had some sort of off-road adventure that negatively modified some front end plastics and broke the radiator support.  Who knows what else we'll find, but one positive is the small wagon layout is allowing us to fill it up with an initial load of parts we know we'll need.  Commence project...

When you see a car finally wearing a consistent shade of paint after years of being naked or otherwise clad in shoddy paintwork, it's a big moment. It's as close to being reborn as a car can be. For the 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth project, this represents a major milestone that hits just shy of its fifth birthday in my possession. 

Smoke Silver has never been a particularly sexy color, but it is a staple of 1980s-era Mercedes-Benz products. The Cosworth came in either this champagne-tinged silver or black, and while the latter is harder to find, I have fond memories of my Dad's 300E that wore the same color. Right now, the car is supposedly looking good but I'm no longer in RI so I can't even view it. But the guy painting is said he'd just like to buff it out a little before turning it over. 

Then we begin interior re-assembly, which is far cheaper to have my body guy do than to have the actual mechanic's shop take on. So, we're still a few days away from it leaving the body shop for good, but it's safe to say the hard work is finally done. 

While I hadn't intended to put any more money into the Trooper RS before relocating - especially with the news that the headgasket had started leaking - logistics demanded that I do something with the truck before moving it over to my mechanic Jay's house as a fall/winter project. 

The bodyshop I use has been performing some smaller projects so I can focus on simply maintaining the vehicles going forward rather than also dealing with cosmetic repairs. When the bulk of the rust was repaired on the Trooper, it was a grueling, messy project. The shop hit a breaking point where they just wanted the truck out of the way, so we left one section of rocker un-repaired on the passenger side.

With a gap in their schedule and the Audi S6 Avant not quite ready to come over to the bodyshop to replace the windhshield and fix some very small rust on the A-pillar, the Trooper slid in to get the remaining rocker rust taken out and repaired. As of now, the RS is effectively rust-free - which will make parking it outside at Jay's place for the colder months a little less unnerving. 

One of the lingering details about the E30 - the 1987 BMW 325is - that has always bothered me is the lack of an OEM windshield. Or, for that matter, even a windshield from a respected aftermarket manufacturer. About five years ago, when the bulk of the bodywork was done, I had a new windshield put in before I knew how bad the domestic glass market had gotten.

What I'm speaking of is the prevalence of Chinese-made glass from a company called Fuyao. In the blink of an eye, Fuyao has essentially taken over almost every domestic glass manufacturer's operations, leaving virtually no other options when you call the local installer to replace your busted glass. I've made a point of visiting junkyards and grabbing OEM used glass whenever I see it, and had a very nice piece of BMW-stamped Carlite windshield in storage after spotting it at a New Hampshire wrecking yard. 

I finally found a guy willing to install it, despite his protestations that it made no sense to remove a good piece of glass with virtually no imperfections - aside from being made by a Chinese company. The replacement OEM glass also has the very elusive bronze tint strip at the top, which is virtually unheard of with almost every windshield having a teal visor. The final bonus? It still has the factory sticker with break-in instructions. 

Overall, this is yet another one of those projects that got expedited with our upcoming move, and while it wasn't anything I wanted to get done on any sort of timeline, I really dig seeing OEM glass at every corner and the bronze tint is surprisingly distinctive - and handsome. 

I have been attempting to check off some long-standing to do's, and one of them was installing period-correct audio components in the 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS. I had snagged an old Blaupunkt and have long had a vintage K40 CB radio to install and finally found time to get to Sights & Sounds in Wakefield, RI for the install.

First, the Blaupunkt I got out of a junkyard was no good. Fortunately, Scott - the owner of Sights & Sounds - reached into his deep inventory of NOS equipment and found an awesome JVC cassette deck with perfect backlighting to match the neon green glow of the Trooper gauges. It works beautifully and the stock speakers still sound surprisingly good.

The K40 CB I rescued out of a junked Mercedes eons ago powered up as expected, and Scott drilled a small hole in the drip rail to mount the whip antenna securely. The unit itself mounted neatly under the glove box on the passenger side.

All told, for a very modest investment, the Trooper has a tidy audio setup that matches the cabin perfectly and gives some classic 90s audio equipment a new lease on life in a truck that came back to life itself just last year. 

To say I am tired of seeing my Cosworth in primer is an understatement, but it is (sadly) par for the course with a complete respray of a car that has been painted poorly many times before. 

Right now, the hood is off for some detail work. The remnants of the hood pad have to be scraped off, and then the hood gets primered and painted before the replacement goes on. The side skirts and fender flares all need to be coated in primer and prepped for paint. And once that's done, we will likely be tossed out of the rotation again before the actual paint work begins.

There's a very big part of me that is done with the bodywork stage on this car. Frankly, I just to backburner it for a while, but that can't happen. This project will be more or less done in 2023, come hell or high water. 

There's a point in every project where you begin to feel actual excitement that the end is approaching. For the 190E 2.3-16, I haven't felt anything approaching this in the last four years. From seeing it sitting outside my mechanic's shop for months at a time to waiting for my one-man-band body shop to get me into the garage rotation, it's been difficult to make significant progress at any one time. "Keeping the faith" has undoubtedly been critical to not ever giving up on this long-term project.  

Fortunately, we are in the home stretch for bodywork. The original body kit was actually bolted up to the car on the driver's side for checking fit and how flat the pieces laid on the body, but all I could think about was how good the car looks with its lower cladding installed (The kit was previously torn off by the junkyard employees when the Cossie was waiting for its day with the crusher.) 

The side skirts and door trim pieces are so integral to what the car "is" that even in temporary form, seeing them suspended against the body reminded me of how good this Cosworth will look when it's finally done. We'll prime the whole car next, block sand all of the panels, and then prime it once more before getting a proper paint job. 

Speaking of paint, my body guy grabbed the Smoke Silver paint and set about prepping it for application. That tells you just how close we're getting to finishing this major phase of work. 

The next phase of bodywork has begun on the 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth, and now we are truly counting down until we paint this long-term project. The bodywork phase has been arduous, with the rear quarters basically being rebuilt; the rockers being repaired at all four corners; and the front quarters inside the fenders have been patched up with new metal.

When you sand a car down, it reveals the battle scars and bruises it has encountered along the way. It's clear this 190E was completely repainted, poorly, at one point, and that it has been needlessly repaired with body filler to correct small dings and dents. Quite honestly, this poor car - despite having a history of only two owners and being well-maintained by the first caretaker - fell into cheap car territory wherein it was "freshened up" as cheaply as possible. 

This is not at all surprising for an older vehicle such as this, but it does highlight just how much work a bodyshop does to get a car prepped for paint. I'm going to take a day next week to sand down the primer that will soon be sprayed across the body, as you need to wet-sand the entire car afterwards in order to smooth it out and prep it for paint. It will be a learning experience, and hopefully shave a few bucks off the final bill as well. 

Well, unfortunately my first maintenance log for the 2023 season comes on a negative note. Usually, changing your oil is a fun and therapeutic activity to engage in with your vehicle, and gives you a nice sense of pride when done. Sadly, when I went to change the oil after getting it out of storage, my drain bolt spun freely, and after fooling around with it a bit and not having any luck, I realized the reality of this situation would be replacing the oil pan unit all together. 

This is not a huge deal usually, but in my case, It was a little bit of a process. I was able to locally source a used but good condition oil pan for $100, and my local shop Revenant Motorsports (big shoutout to Jarrett!) was more than up to the task. Unfortunately he had to drop the lower cross member, and labor hours add up...Its definitely a bummer, especially considering up until this point (besides modifications) the car has not needed any unexpected maintenance items. 

All in all, here are the entries for this maintenance log:

- 5W-40 Mobil 1 Full Synthetic (European Car Formula) (5QRTS)

- W719/15 Mann Oil Filter (1x)

-OEM Replacement M20B25 Oil Pan (1x)

-Fresh Drain Bolt + Washer(1x)

This is a milestone day for the 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth I harvested out of a junkyard in 2018: we have eliminated all rust from the body, save for some meaningless surface spots that will be eliminated during the sanding process.

The rockers are repaired and the rust spots that were revealed when the fenders removed in the lower footwells have also been fixed. There were also small spots in the rear floors underneath the rear bench on either side; those, too, were repaired. The only remaining concerns before we get to paint is straightening out the right front bumper bracket (pushed in from a previous collision) and replacing the charcoal cannister inside the driver's fender which has rotted away. 

I will be putting in some sweat equity on the next phase, working alongside Nelson, the master body man, to sand the rest of the body down and prep it for primer and paint. This will also have the added benefit of saving me some money (hopefully). To know this car will soon be ready for the final phase of bodywork - by far the most painful part of this whole exercise - is a relief. 

There's still another heavy lift of mechanical work to do, but by God, we are nearing the end of this journey to rescue an 80s four-door performance car from the jaws of junkyard death. 

We are nearing the finish line on the bodywork phase of the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth. The rear bodywork was the most labor intensive; the next section are the rockers. 

The rocker issues are twofold: one, there's typical rust that all neglected Mercedes of this era tend to have from the northeast. And two, the rockers were damaged when the forklift from the junkyard moved the Cosworth around the yard. The good news is the rust really isn't all that bad and, because it's hidden by the side skirts and body cladding, the repair work doesn't have to be pristine. It can be effective but not beautiful. 

Before we started this project, I manage to track down brand new rocker panel replacements. They have come in handy already, both for offering section cuts for the specific areas of rust and for using the excess / unused material to fix other small holes. The dented rocker on the passenger side was pulled out using heat and a hammer, and the one on the driver side is much milder which will hopefully mean less work. 

After this "affordable" phase comes with big one: sanding, priming, and painting the car. 

Trying to keep the status on my 88iS mostly OEM+....I really like the factory 14" basketweave that came on the U.S. iS E30s, but sadly another thing the US market didn't get from BMW, the 15" 'Euroweave'. The European spec sport wheel/basketweave was superior to ours, and though its subtle only being 1" bigger...It also has a deeper lip, and its extra size allows a lot more tire options. 

Knowing this, I started the hunt and eventually found a very friendly fellow E30 Enthusiast from the UK. From him I purchased a freshly refinished/painted set of 15" Euroweaves. These really help fill in the wheel arches and give it a more aggressive look. 

For tires, I decided to go with the Continental Extreme Contact Sports in all four corners. Up from 195/55/R14 to 205/50/R15, the new tires really dialed the car in and reduced a lot of roll. The grip from the summer tire vs. All season compound truly makes it a completely different experience!

Now this last part may make me sound crazy, but I swear I have noticed the steering has gotten a little heavier due to the extra weight of bigger wheels...Trade off is worth it though!

P.S. 

Anyone have a lead on Euro caps? They are harder to find than the wheels! 

For me and most of us enthusiasts, hearing the car is an extremely obvious and exciting way to enhance the driving experience. But, like I said in my previous post, I want the car to remain relatively OEM+ without doing anything too crazy and obnoxious. After a lot of research and hours on YouTube finding sound clips, I decided to go with the Strömung E30 325i specific catback exhaust. I read some good things on the R3V forums, but quickly realized the posts were years old. I reached out to the company and the owner, Scott, was extremely receptive and personally interacted with me. Though they didn't currently produce them at the time I bought mine, he got the BPs and made one for me anyways. The quality is second to none, finished in a super nicely crafted polished stainless steel construction, resonated exhaust tips, and some of the better welds I have seen on an exhaust system.

Quite honestly, its not as loud as I wish it was, and sometimes I feel dumb spending the $ to make it just a little louder...But, it looks much better, and is probably the equivalent of a modern day factory optioned 'M Sport Exhaust'. Again, OEM+ was my goal!

When I first got the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth home, I reached out to the dealership in Pennsylvania that was listed on the service reminder sticker in the windshield. I asked if there were any records of repair available, to which the service manager confirmed that yes, they did.

Amazingly, the service manager said he'd send me copies of the records they had on file, which were surprisingly complete. Now, most dealers will never release the service records, so I'm forever grateful this advisor agreed to do it. I look at the report every now and again, which confirms the 190E was well maintained before it ended up in the hands of the last owner before it went to the salvage yard. 

The most interesting detail is that it dropped a piston at just over 66,000 miles. In terms of the Cosworth engine, there's not much evidence that the DOHC mill has a tendency to burn through pistons. Although the details are sparse on the service reports, I've always been curious how extensive the repair was, and if the dealership made other fixes "while they were in there." 

We'll never know for sure what else was fixed at this time, but it's a fascinating anecdote in this car's colorful history. 

For years, I have proclaimed my undying love for the 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth I rescued out of a junkyard in Pennsylvania. Let me explain why. 

It's the car I wanted since I was 16; it somehow corrects the emotional debt I carried for years following a junior prom date not becoming the girl I would marry (despite hoping with every fiber of my being that it would be so.) I looked at a Cosworth at a local car lot with my Dad shortly thereafter and he was ready to buy it as a consolation prize (my father did not spoil us, but he followed a code that prompted him to act impulsively and out of love when his kids were truly hurting.) Suffice it to say, his colleague that owned the lot specializing in desirable European stock told him I'd put it into a tree within about a week, and that was that. 

I know, there's a lot to unpack there, but this is why I buy needy cars - it absolves me from seeing a therapist. Anyhow, a Cosworth has remained on my car-buying radar for years. I've had opportunities to buy driver-quality examples but never felt inclined to do so. For some reason, buying this rusty, half-pillaged junkyard find was the trigger for finally bringing one home, which I find aligns curiously with the state my sixteen-year-old self was in when Liz and I didn't pan out way back in the year 2000 (God, that is a long time ago now - why am I still talking about this?) 

So, to see the Cosworth entering its most prolonged, expensive, and agonizingly tedious phase - that is to say, bodywork and correcting years of neglected rust concerns and shitty repairs (I swear, they repainted this car with three times the necessary material - the finish is so ungodly thick) is giving me heartburn. Look, it's expensive, and I'm using the most sketch-ass version of a body shop there is, the equivalent of a backdoor card game in a bad neighborhood with prostitutes doubling as bouncers. It's the only way someone like me can afford to take on a dumb-fuck project like this. 

I hate it. I love it. I hate seeing updates from the guy working long hours in a dingy garage with no ventilation because I know I owe him another $300 for something I didn't know was broken; I love it because I see that shape come back to life and all the emotions come roiling back, like I'm going to drive past Liz's house in this car and flick her off, just like I planned to do when my Dad was ready to pay Chuck Mitchell the measly $9,000 that would've bought a nice one of these 20 years ago. 

All of that is in the past. It's just in the past. But the Cosworth is here now, and while I continue to chase every side hustle I can find and chuck shit onto craigslist in hopes of a quick buck or two - all driven by getting this project done this year - I find myself in that uncomfortable middle ground of wondering why we do this to ourselves as car enthusiasts, while simultaneously already knowing the answer. 

Just a quick update here: the Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 is coming along. We're chopping up the bodywork into phases so I don't go broke. First is the rear of the car, which is the worst and most complex. 

Fortunately, $160 worth of replacement rear quarter panels and a $180 taillight panel are saving my butt and budget. These pieces have been chopped up to repair various sections of the rear quarters (with the exception of the taillight panel, which was just cut out entirely) and have yielded significant time and material savings. I have no idea why a Japanese company sells replacement quarter panels for a W201 chassis car, but I am glad they do. 

The trunk lid has to be repaired next. I bought a junkyard lid which we will use to swap the Cosworth spoiler over to, as the original trunk was too heavily damaged by the bozos at the salvage yard that ripped it open when they couldn't find a key. 

Once this is done, it will be sprayed with primer and parked until I can scare up the cash for the rockers. 

I feel like I'm at the meeting in the church basement, admitting that this was not a good week for me. I gambled, I drank, and I ate too much. Some avoidable missteps where I failed my friends and family after a few solid months of avoiding what leads me to sin. 

My body guy pulled the rear bumper and lower skirt. As expected, this was pretty distressing. I knew this was going to be the worst part of the car, but I didn't know how bad. The rear taillight panel is actually pretty straightforward, as I have an OEM panel to weld in. Frankly, it's the easiest part. 

The lower rockers are pretty bad. That's the disappointing part. I was foolishly hoping I'd see clean sheet metal underneath the rear skirt but I knew this was unlikely given how we could already see daylight in the lower pockets of the trunk on either side. 

The shop is still trying to knock this out in a week to keep costs contained; fingers crossed we're done with the rear panel by Friday so my budget isn't blown out before we even get started. 

Not much to say—  she’s headed to a space filled with other interesting cars for some winter R&R.  You have to drive them; she’s been sitting for too long.  So, going to go through everything and give her a clean bill of health, and be ready to hit the road.
 

Most people would be excited to hear from their local service department that an update is ready on their vehicle. Not me. 

So, I've had this Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 since 2018. Since that time, it has been made into a runner. But really, just a runner. Nothing more, nothing less. Considering it arrived from the Pennsylvania junkyard I found it in with no fuel system, radiator, or rear windows, being a runner is a pretty big deal. 

Now, my body shop that made the Trooper RS into a whole vehicle is taking on the Cosworth. This is sort of my siren song in the project car world. I can't do more big projects. Other responsibilities need to take over. Family, retirement, and all that. Those things have still been humming along just fine but I'm tired of spending money on cars. It's time to take the kids to Disney World, or something. 

Still, the Mercedes has to get done. And my body guy called and said, "It's time." Time to tear out the back taillight section and weld in a new panel. Time to patch the holes the floor with fresh metal. Time to do something with the rear quarters involving a bit of filler, fiberglass, and metal. Time to replace the trunk lid with one that wasn't torn apart by the salvage yard when they couldn't find a key. I've gotten too close to this project being complete to stop now, and while the next few months will be brutal, I'm optimistic it will be worth it. I do love driving this car and have wanted one longer than any other.

More updates to follow. 

There comes a time when a project is finally to the point that you can drive it - for an extended period - and you realize it was all worth it. 

More than other efforts, I struggled at times to understand if restoring this rare 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS - code for short wheelbase and 3.77 gears - was worth it. I had to move it multiple times, starting with going from Massachusetts to Maryland, where I thought my brother would hook me up with a shop to work on it (he didn't.) I then decided to haul it back north to a shop that was all of 15 miles from where it was originally found as they promised to work on it (they didn't.) I was about to lose all hope when a chance encounter on Instagram of all places led me to a guy named Jay Gaston who offered to bring the Isuzu back to life as part of a moonlighting gig he had working on Japanese four-wheel-drives. 

Jay did everything he promised and then some, revealing the Trooper was a healthy truck under years of faded paint and gummed-up fuel systems. However, as is often the case, it was not just bad gas that needed resolving. The floors were gone, as were the rockers. There was a heavily compromised control arm assembly on the driver's side. The time in the body shop was far from cheap and made me question my decisions on a very personal level. 

But finally being able to drive it for 30 minutes like any other car and finding out it fits like a warm glove with the perfect door placement so your arm rides on the window sill with your hand gripping the vent window frame - all while it bounds happily down the road like some metaphor involving a labrador puppy - well, that's the stuff, kids. That's what you hope for when it's all done. All the mental anguish caused by small problems that become big and only you alone can solve make owning a restoration project a master's class in project management. 

This Trooper RS is a honey, and we are psyched to finally give it a forever home.

As we know by now, I've had some unfortunate surprises related to rust on the '89 Trooper RS. The first was the driver's side floor, which was effectively, gone. What I thought was floor turned out to be a very robust carpet pad and when lifted away, there was daylight everywhere. 

While this was a monumental job in and of itself, we weren't out of the woods. Jay - my mechanic - noted that the driver's side control arm assembly was compromised by rust. Not the arm itself, mind you, but what it bolted to. There had been, at one time, a little housing that held the brake line and likely also provided some reinforcement to the shims that were used to align the front end. That housing was effectively gone on the driver's side, along with the plate that lent support to the motor mount. Needless to say, there was no avoiding this work given how deep I am into the truck. Not going to roll the dice on life safety. 

Take a look at the pictures and you can see the night and day difference. After grabbing a panel cut from a Trooper frame with the housing intact, we learned that Isuzu overhauled the front suspension in 1988, so the cut we got didn't line up with my suspension geometry. I called a friend who had a pretty rusty truck in his yard, and he managed to carve out enough of that section of the frame to give us a useful amount of metal to repair the bad areas on mine.

The work is done; the before and after is hugely satisfying, even if it means this second phase of bodywork isn't going to be much cheaper than the first. 

One of my favorite things about old-school cars is single-stage paint. It's a shame the industry moved away from this (though I understand why) as there are few things more rewarding than scrubbing off some chalky, faded paint and seeing original luster come back to life in front of you. 

As we near the end of the bodywork phase on the Trooper RS, my body man Nelson started to buff some small areas. He sent me these photos as they capture what the rest of the truck will eventually look like. It's absolutely incredible and probably one of the most rewarding moments of this journey; when I laid eyes on the Trooper for the first time, I was pretty confident the paint would come back to life. Now I have near infallible proof that it will. 

Before I picked the truck up, I had never looked at the odometer. It wasn't until it was being loaded I peered in and saw it had just 55K miles. From the lack of wear on the pedals to the cleanliness of the interior to the perfect compression numbers, we had all the evidence we needed that this mileage was genuine - but buffing ou that small corner of the fender leaves no doubt this is one of the lowest mileage short wheelbase Troopers in existence. 

The Trooper RS is over the biggest hurdle it has faced since becoming a running vehicle. The driver's side floor and rocker were basically non-existent, so this represented two problems: it was the most expensive aspect of its restoration and the most time consuming. 

It quite literally needed almost all of the front half of the driver's floor rebuilt from scratch; the same for the rocker. It took about three weeks to get this done from start to finish, and it included hanging and re-hanging the door multiple times to get it sit evenly. 

My bodyshop has left the lower panel in primer for the time being, but we're likely going to fudge the math a little bit and paint up to the molding. The next step is to repair the passenger side which isn't nearly as destroyed, and I also have a very nice piece of original passenger floor from a junked Trooper for that section. We'll also be removing the driver's side control arm assembly and replacing it with one that isn't quite so rotten.

None of this is easy, but quite literally, the hardest job is done. 

Like Rock Park is the best.  The Vintage Festival is great.  This year it was even greater as I was able to pick up a set of NOS Hella H1 headlights for a song.  Now, I really didn’t need these, but along the way one of the lights was replaced, leaving one much newer than the other three, which always set off my OCD.  The best part about this is the old ones go back in the boxes and on the shelf, so reference material is retainer.  OCD corrected!

When we last checked in, the awfulness of the floors in the 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS was on full display. Nelson, my trusted body guy who is going to charge me way more than he expected, has turned my porous Trooper into one that is structurally sound yet again.

Seeing sound metalwork back in place is a relief, especially since I acquired this for my wife to use around town. Doubtful she’ll appreciate all the work that’s gone into it, but that’s not what it’s about.

What keeps me in this is that it’s likely the lowest mileage RS in existence. It will clean up incredibly well, and even if we need to sell it at some point to make room for a new project, it should return the investment to me when we move it along.

When I bought the 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS out Western Massachusetts, I figured it had rust....somewhere. I didn't look too hard. Basically, I wanted this dumb short wheelbase Trooper badly enough that I just looked at the odometer and decided its unicorn-like low mileage made it worth saving.

I still believe this, but now that it's in my secret bodyshop, I'm mildly concerned at how much floor work is needed. The driver's floor is basically gone. Or, in my glass half-full voice, it's halfway gone. The rockers are destroyed - I knew that - and thank God I had the salvage yard near my in-laws in Georgia cut up a pretty decent truck to get the rockers off of them, as those pieces are saving my butt in a big way right now. 

Nelson, my secret weapon body guy, is blowing apart the other pieces I've pillaged from parts cars over the years, but I honestly wish I grabbed a bit more. One truck in particular had a big chunk of the floor still intact that we could really use at the moment. 

The other side has issues as well, but not quite to this extent. Plus, on the passenger side, I was able to get a huge chunk of the floor from a local truck that was solid on the right side but looked just like this on the driver's side. 

I knew long ago this project would never make any financial sense as it's purely my illogical desire to save this 1-of-800 shorty that's keeping it moving forward. But this latest phase of work will be the biggest investment yet. 

This is my new pick-up, and first drivers car in four years. Feels so good to be back in a manual car with real driving characteristics. I will do another write up post to explain my story on how I picked this car up, and found it, but for now, let me just give you some basic information on her.

Its a 1988 BMW 325iS. If you are an E30 expert, you may be wondering why this 1988 has plastic bumpers. Technically, this is an early model, as the metal diving boards were swapped out in favor of 89-93 MY plastic bumpers by the previous owner. Okay, theres definitely a trade off we should talk about. I think plastics look better objectively, but the metal diving boards definitely add some character, and make the car look much, much older, and a little more vintage. Diving board bumpers SCREAM I am A Classic 80s Sports Car. 

This car is a 3-owner, I am the fourth, and spent its entire life in the dry, moisture free climate of Idaho. Luckily it has no accidents reported, and PO claims it was never resprayed. I dont see any run off, or paint inconsistency, so I do think its original paint. HOWEVER, (again, this is trivia for our expert BMW guys) it does have the front air dam painted in the wrong color. Early Model E30s (84-88) had a different shade of Alpine-Weiss compared to the 89-93 cars. The front air dam was resprayed Alpein-Weiss2, which doesnt look bad, but definitely a brighter shade of white. Not too big of a concern though.

Everything works - AC, Gauges, ODO, OBC, Power windows/sunroof, even the antenna motor still works, though she sounds very, very tired, and I cringe everytime I hear it struggle to come out of its shell. Oh well. 

 Alpine White Paint shows nicely, has its flaws, but still cleans up very well.

Cardinal Red Sport Interior, with matching door cards, carpets, seats, rear seats, etc. Drivers side does have a tear in the left bolster. I want to get it re-upholstered, but the entire interior color has faded so well over the last 34 years, its almost cranberry colored now. I dont want it to look out of place. I am 6'4" 210lbs, and when I get out of the car that left hand side bolster definitely takes a beating. Should I feel guilty about that? No, its my car. Do I feel guilty about that? Yes. Terribly guilty. 

The highlight of this E30 is its driving characteristics. Fresh set of OEM Bilsteins, and SLIGHTLY lowered on H&R Sport Springs. Sits perfectly. It also has a Z3 steering rack - So the entire range of steering angle is cut down by 30%. 4.0 Turns Lock To Lock Standard, Z3 Rack brings it down to 2.7 LTL. I recently drove a Shelby GT350 with Pilot Sport Cup Tires, and Magnetic Ride Suspension. This E30 has better turn in. Yes, better. Granted its 900lbs lighter. The car is so dialed, and it really is on absolute rails. Body roll shows its face, but not negatively, you just need to work with it. Once the steering is loaded up, this car is one very, very sticky piggy. Limiting factor is the tire. 

This car, though it has 260k on a working ODO, the transmission was swapped out with a low mileage refreshed unit, and the head was subsequently rebuilt under the previous owners care. I will say however, the trans can pop out of first gear when its cold. Could be a shift linkage that will cost a couple hundred bucks and an afternoon. Could be the engagement teeth that will cost a trip to the shop for a new tranny. Hoping its the former. 

This car was driven a couple times a month before my purchase. I hopped in it, and drove it home 2700 miles sitting at 80-85MPH at 3-3.5K RPMS. The car runs like a top. Fresh valve adjustment too, engine does not tick at all...I thought all M20s ticked. Guess my last one needed a tune up. 

Overall, excited for the future with this thing - It is sublime to be behind the wheel on a twisty backroad

Big news! The 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS is moving out of Jay's 4WD shop and heading over to *another* shop; this time, it's for bodywork. I am very excited by a few things, namely: this brush guard. This bull bar, brush guard, whatever the hell it is was on the first Trooper II to sell on Bring A Trailer in 2016. The truck ended up in Utah being parted out, and I found the listing on a Salt Lake City classifieds sight from a very sketchy seller. Needless to say, he followed through on sending it to me and it's been in my garage for the last two years, taking up a ton of space. Great to see it finally reach its intended destination. 

Jay got it mounted up and wired in two Hella 4000 spotlights with a custom switch. In addition, he's replaced the valve cover gasket; replaced all vacuum lines; replaced the PCV valve; drained and replaced the transmission and differential fluid and transmission filter; and adjusted the valves. He also mounted the bumpers and replaced the lights / bulbs with OEM pieces; the original lights, grill, and front bumper were all stripped off the truck when I got it. 

I am getting it picked up and moved to the bodyshop this week. Unlike the Cosworth, they have not seen this truck in person so it will be interesting to see how much they hate it or love it, but truth be told, the Trooper has less rot to address than the Mercedes. Not much, but every little bit less makes a difference. 

The '89 Isuzu Trooper RS can't have too much more thrown on it, aside from whatever shortcomings are revealed as it gets driven. Jay, the mechanic who's been bringing it back to life on nights and weekends, has pretty much done all he can do short of driving it around every day for a week (he's not going to do that, by the way.) 

Over the past two weeks, he cleaned up the vacuum lines with new wires to replace some brittle hoses. I dropped off a new OEM hood replacement cable from the man himself, Jerry Lemond, who has a huge supply of NOS Isuzu parts in his barn in Georgia. The only remaining mechanical need Jay identified was an occasional stumble when it's cold, so we ordered a throttle position sensor. It can't hurt to put it in, even if it doesn't resolve the stumble - at least it's one more thing that's done. 

It kills me to take it out of Jay's shop but he wants to get paid and I need to get bodywork underway. As long it stays running well enough to get it around my property and the body shop's property, we can call that a win for the time being. If it goes back to Jay after some of the bodywork is completed, not the end of the world - but I really hope we can just keep driving it once it's home for a spell. 

I've often referred to 944s as a German Pickup.  Open the hatch, lay down the rear seat, and you have the open space to rival any comparable car.  They will swallow bicycles whole or all the camping gear for two.  Here we see my 944S serving as a communications platform for the 2011 Mt. Washington Climb to the Clouds.  Tucked away under the upper hatch lip on both sides of the car are threaded hard points for mounting a rack.  I fabricated a good looking bracket to use the right hard point and provide a mounting surface for a 60" Amateur Radio antenna and we provided radio communications support for the marshal station 3 down from the top of the mountain.

This was just three months after acquiring the car and in the last picture you can see a pair of cosmetic details I later resolved.  The stone guard on 944s is a 6-piece set around the wheels.  The original material ages and eventually turn black.  Look at 944 ads and you will see most are discolored.  The fix is simple and relatively cheap; but so many owners miss this detail.

My mechanic Jay has been working on (what he very much wants to be) final punch-list items for the '89 Isuzu Trooper RS. I'm a little melancholy, as there was a comfort that came with knowing Jay has been fixing plenty of little items along the way, and now it will be incumbent upon me to figure out what still needs doing.

In this latest installment, Jay has installed four new Old Man Emu shock absorbers and replacement sway bar links; replaced the valve cover gasket and adjusted the valves; and even done some body work by installing a replacement bumper up front and replacement bumper ends in the rear. He did note the hood latch cable is shot and needs replacement.  

He also threw on the genuine RS grill I snatched up a few years ago along with a set of good headlights and turn signals, parts that all disappeared over the years. 

It really can come home at this point, but I'm not sure if it will be towed or if it's ready for an interstate trip just yet. Jay is going to perform some road tests near the shop to see if there are any last-minute fixes to perform. 

This was a big day. I really wasn't expecting to do much when I stopped by German Motors other than to get a code read on my 2011 328xi, which finally let me know that the passenger front axle and speed sensor are crying uncle. But Gerry tossed me the keys to the 190E so I could see how confident I was driving it out of there next week. Let me just say this: what the hell. 

May I remind you I bought this car sitting on its belly. No wheels, no radiator, no indication it would ever run again. As of this week, it happily runs up and down North Main Street in Providence, rowing through the gears, maintaining temperature and a steady idle. It's as fun to drive as I had hoped. It makes absolutely no sense that I bought this car, but I now feel increasingly vindicated that I did the right thing by saving it four years ago. 

This is also a reminder of just how incredible Mercedes products of this era are. These are overbuilt machines, a quality I certainly recognized after owning a standard 190E 2.3 and my father running through a lineup featuring two W126s and two W124s. He was not kind to his cars, and those machines held up incredibly well. 

There is still an incredible amount of work to be done on the Cosworth. But knowing I can hop in and drive this car at a moment's notice is a pretty rad feeling, even if still looks like a complete deathtrap. 

When I had the blue '86 Trooper, one of the best days was when the General Grabber 31" tires went on, mounted to the stock steel wheels. It just transformed the truck, even with the stock wheel fitment and offset. 

One of the long-standing goals I had with the Trooper RS was to get the original wheels it came with - a full set, including the spare, of American Racing Outlaws - mounted on the 31-inch Grabbers. It would transform the truck while also offering a nice upgrade for light trail driving. 

Taking the recently powder-coated Outlaws over to Melvin's Tire Pros (which matched Tire Rack's price for the tires), I had the tires thrown on and dropped them off with Jay today for eventual mounting on the Trooper. I also gave him a set of Old Man Emu shocks and he'll throw those in when he's got the truck back on the lift for a transmission service.

I also found more rust....sigh. I hope this thing stays with us for a long time once it's done. 

I swung by German Motors today to see the 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth that now runs, drives, stops, and turns without issue. It's hard to put into words how good it feels to be at this point, especially with the bodywork stage ready to begin. 

I discovered the Cosworth in a junkyard in September of 2018. It has been sitting in storage and slowly picked away at ever since. Today, I watched it go on a spirited drive down North Main St. in Providence, and the engine is healthy; the transmission shifts as intended; it holds a steady idle; it does everything you could reasonably ask of a car with such a colorful history. 

To me, seeing a car at this point after it was discarded so carelessly is incredibly rewarding. Like the Trooper RS, it's total vindication for taking a potentially risky path to saving worthwhile vehicles. Now, the list of things the Mercedes needs is still incredibly long. For instance, the windows don't work. The rear windows are just hanging in place with no regulators. The dash is cracked. The three-pod gauge cluster that sits below the radio hasn't been installed. The rear suspension accumulators are shot. The alarm was proving to be quite annoying and has been disconnected. And so on. 

But at the end of the day, I will be driving my high school dream car this summer. And while I can't go back and take the prom queen to the homecoming dance, I can rip along backroads in the car from my 16-year-old fantasies, and that's pretty great too - especially doing so in a car that was thrown away and rescued after a chance phone call in 2018. 

Incredibly, my 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth has seen the open road for the first time in 10 years or more. It only went about 20 feet, but progress is progress. 

I told German Motors that the "secret" bodyshop that is willing to work on the numerous rust spots can get the car in the first week of May. The one thing holding the project up was installing that power seat module I reported on tracking down a few weeks ago. In order to install the seat, the seat frame had to be re-assembled because the replacement Recaros I found came without bases. I understood this was a pain in the ass project, so I didn't push too hard - but I was happy to see it was finally done and Gerry, the shop owner, took the Mercedes on a maiden voyage.

You can see a quick, low-quality video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLJJq4svJj8

I'll swing up to the shop on Monday and hopefully get to drive the car myself for a few seconds before shutting it down and assessing what else it may need in order to drive it to the hidden bodyshop under its own power. 

The 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS - after two years of moving it here and there, leaving it with different shops and seeing no progress - is finally running. And incredibly, it didn't even need that much to get to the day I had this weekend, where I drove it around the lot of Jay's 4WD and it drove as if it was never parked for 15 years. 

Jay, my shadetree mechanic who is working on the Trooper as a side-hustle, did a fair amount of work. But it's still somewhat of a short list given how long this truck sat dormant. He dropped the tank and replaced it with a rust-free one; rebuilt the fuel tree and installed a new fuel filter and pressure regulator; replaced all belts, some hoses, and the water pump and tensioer; rebuilt the front axles and front and rear brakes (calipers, rotors, and the passenger front hub); wheel bearings; and that's about it. He did plenty of diagnostic and investigative work, too, but from a parts perspective, it wasn't that extensive.

And here's the crazy thing: it drives REALLY NICE. With no real suspension work, oversized tires, and zero fluid changes in the transmission or transfer case, it just hooks up and goes! The transmission feels very tight, and the Troopers with the 2.6L had a very stout Aisin transmission, so it's good to see its reputation is holding up. 

The lights work, the front and rear washers and wipers work, the horn works, the gauges work....it's really pretty shocking. And right now, we're down to a valve cover gasket, some timing work, and changing the transmission and transfer case fluids. I'm going to have Jay throw on the bumpers and lights, and install new Old Man Emu shocks and bushings all around. I'm just stunned but also feeling a strong sense of redemption that this rare '89 Trooper RS was a real-deal 55K mile truck that fell into the junkyard due to some pretty insane circumstances. And while it still needs bodywork, I am more committed than ever after driving this 1-of-800 short wheelbase Trooper RS this past weekend.

Years ago, powder coating was kind of a taboo subject. It was sort of like - what, you're not baller enough to get your wheels professionally repainted when they lose their luster? It seemed that way at the time, but after having my first powder coating experience has changed my mind.

I had a set of wheels that would seem pretty ordinary on the outside. American Racing Outlaws in 15x7 with a 6x139.7 bolt pattern. Strangely enough, these are not entirely easy wheels to find. The other factor in my trying to keep these wheels alive is that the offset is perfect. The stance has always been one of my favorite details about the truck, as they poke out just enough to fill out the fenders without being obnoxious. 

Since I didn't want to risk shelling out $600 for another set and have them be all wrong, I had the original rollers powdercoated by a local shop. I am really happy with the results as the wheels were heavily corroded and a professional wheel repair shop would have charged a crazy amount just to prep them for paint. The wheels were originally polished; that finish is impossible to re-create affordably once it's gone, so they now wear a color known as "Heavy Silver." Looking forward to getting some properly-sized General Grabbers once we're at the point of bolting on wheels and tires. 

I am planning on Good Friday being especially good for me, as I will be going to the secret storage location and bringing my E46 BMW home.  I'm pretty excited, as I have a list of things that I am planning on doing to the car during the month of May, and will hopefully have it ready to go for 2022 track days. 

I'll be chronicling the work here, so stay tuned!

After years of moving the 1989 Isuzu Trooper RS from one shop or storage locker to another, it finally left its latest home away from home running under its own power. It's a big day. 

The RS has gotten a crash course in resuscitation, with Jay over at Jay's 4WD rebuilding the brakes and fuel system along with installing a fresh timing belt in the course of a month after work and on weekends. Jay earned every bit of that bonus I promised him, and while we're not done, it was incredibly gratifying to see the truck leave the shop under its own power this weekend.

The Trooper has successfully gone into reverse and second gear, so fingers crossed the transmission will find the other two cogs before too long. Jay likely wants his shop space back - after all, we agreed to get it running, not restore it all the way back - but I hope he's willing to tackle a few more projects before I bring it home to begin the bodywork phase. 

The seat module saga for the Mercedes was more daunting than expected. There were rumors that a module from a W126 or W124 would work, which would have been helpful given those are much easier to find. Not true, as comparing photos of those modules with mine absolutely showed numerous pins in different locations.

There was a module for a 190E on eBay, but it specified it was for a 1991-1993 model. This didn't make sense, until it did: the later cars had the position of the telescoping steering wheel tied into the memory function of the front seat, which again led to pin locations not lining up with my car, which was a very early model with memory controls. 

So, I turned to Facebook, and found a 190E owners group that was predominantly made up of users from Europe. A shop in the UK that parts out and restores Mercedes came to the rescue, even going so far as sending video showing the seat moving normally with the module hooked up. Hopefully, this brings this chapter to a close and we can bolt a seat in securely and take the 190E Cosworth for a drive. 

As mentioned the other day, the Trooper RS is finally under the knife after two years of moving it around to various storage locations. My mechanic, Jay Gaston who runs Jay's 4WD, is in the thick of it at the moment, taking apart the front axles and brakes to refresh the components within.

The passenger side is back together, but we found the driver's side hub was pretty rough. The bearing race was just falling out, so I found a used replacement at Woonsocket Auto Salvage. New wheel bearings ordered front and rear, and we'll also track down a set of replacement control arms with new bearings pressed in at some point. The cool thing about that last job is this guy - known as Jerry Lemond - still has NOS parts in his barn from his days as the head trainer for Isuzu corporate. He bought out the domestic parts supply when Isuzu stopped selling consumer vehicles in the states.

As part of this, he's offered to have me send him a set of replacement control arms from a southern junkyard and he'll press in fresh bushings before sending them onto me. This project is a bit of a fool's errand, but I really do love this truck and want to see it come back to life. 

One of the dumber stumbling blocks with the junkyard-find 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth had to do with the interior. The original Recaro seats were in bad shape, so I bought a replacement interior not too long after acquiring the car. The one downside is the Recaros came without bases, so they had to be swapped off of the original, battered seats. 

Since installing the replacement seat, it would do one of two things: it would shoot all the way forward or all the way backward. The 190E regardless of seat options were all powered, so the easy fix was to replace the power seat switch, which also controls the memory. We replaced it twice with no change in behavior. Now, the reason I say this is a dumb obstacle is that the car actually starts up and idles quite nicely, but you can't very much drive it without a seat. Incredibly, the lack of easy resolution with the seat is one of the bigger reasons why this project hasn't moved much lately. 

My shop finally had some downtime today and found the source of the issues: the control box that sits under the seat definitely got soaked, with all sorts of corrosion inside the box. This most likely happened while it was sitting in the junkyard with no rear windows, courtesy of the yard "help" that smashed them out to get the window regulators (those and the radiator were the only parts they sold off of the car while it was inventoried.) 

The bad news is, not many used parts still exist; the good news is, you can buy one new from Mercedes. So, we'll order one up in hopes this lets us install the front seat and actually take it out onto the road. 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I was having trouble getting the lone gun mechanic I hired for the Trooper RS revival to start on the project. I dangled the prospect of a bonus, but what seems to have gotten things moving is that I'm now paying rent for this thing. 

Bear in mind: I did not pay rent for the six months it's been stored at a commercial property in Portsmouth, RI. But here's what I realized: if Jay, my mechanic pal gets hit by a bus tomorrow, there's no connecting him to me as far as the property owner is concerned. So, I pressured Jay into connecting me to the owner to kick-start an agreement, which not only provided me some ass-coverage but also made it clear that I was committed to this project - and now had even more skin in the game.

Who knows. Maybe the two are unrelated and I'm just an idiot for paying rent when no one was asking. But the Trooper did move indoors this weekend, with the fuel system being cleaned and replacement parts swapped in (gas tank, fuel pump, etc.) Jay let me know all of the calipers are condemned, so I just ordered replacement calipers to go with the replacement calipers and pads I sent over last year. 

The timing belt still needs to be done, but I'm hopeful we're going to see some real progress over these next few weeks. 

The Audi's first real service.

Because of covid, work, life, basically everything, my '73 BMW has been sitting for almost a year on a battery tender, unmoved in a storage building off-site of my garage.  Any vehicle, old or new, left neglected will deteriorate exponentially, so it's been bothering me that she's been sitting like this.  It was a great day on Sunday to finally go un-mothball the old girl, and arrangements were made to do so.  I'm always apprehensive because I think about everything that could possibly go wrong, but I think I need to re-calibrate, and remember all the things that are so right.  All the old smells, and of course the visual, which doesn't require explanation. 

Tires aren't flat, and visually everything looks good.  Coolant and oil - Check.  All lights work, check.  I stuck the key into the ignition, and she starts right up, and settles into a choke-level idle.  She runs for a minute or so, I hit the throttle, and she comes off of the chokes, and settles down at a nice, lumpy 800-ish rpms.  Beautiful.

The 25 mile ride home is uneventful, with a mix of back roads and the highway, and the soundtrack of an M30.  Man this car--  Still tight, no race car but fast enough, and so much fun to drive.  I'll be doing regular maintenance before the winter, so I have about a month or two of autumn driving that I can fit in.  All maintenance will be logged here of course...  

Yesterday was awesome, as I was three sessions of Track Night In America at Lime Rock Park.  If you don't know about Lime Rock and you are at all interested in racing, you should really learn.  A couple of reasons Lime Rock is great - You don't have to like racing to enjoy being there.  It's actually a park.  There aren't any grandstands.  Instead, you find a nice grassy spot, preferably under a tree if it's sunny, and just enjoy being outside in a park.  Next, the track is only 1.5 miles, so you can walk all the way around it, and not be pooped.  Try that at the Nurburgring!  After this, and if you are into racing, there are great vantage points for viewing basically everywhere.  Last but not least, the food is awesome, and your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, kid wouldn't be grossed out by the restrooms, so it's a great time for everyone.  Hooray Lime Rock.

OK so on to the track day - The old 330Ci didn't miss a beat.  I was able to load all my stuff, including tools, chairs, whatever I needed, into the car after folding down the seats, and bombing out there, which is about 150 miles.  Racing car for the day, running the A/C, good times.  The weather was perfect; dry air, about 75, track not too hot, looking good.  The car was totally reliable, fast, tires and brakes felt great, and driving the track was a complete thrill.  Lime Rock is challenging in many ways, but one of the most interesting take-aways was the amount of speed you're able to carry there.  I guess I didn't realize that there aren't any 2nd gear turns, and at one point I tried just leaving the car in 4th gear, and this wasn't at all an issue, as I was able to carry a lot of momentum.

The braking you do have to do is heavy at the end of the front straight (as to be expected), and medium at the entry to The Esses, and the entry to the short straight.  I have really figured out how to trail brake the car as necessary, and also steer a bit more with the throttle - Even with my relatively tame modifications the E46 chassis is really great, and the brakes are even better.  Several cars boiled their fluid / had diminished braking, and the 330 never felt odd or missed a beat.  The tires held their own as well, providing great feedback and little understeer.  I never felt out of balance or control.

The track is amazing.  It looks simple to drive but it's not - I'm a broken record here for sure.  Getting a line through Big Bend and The Esses is really tricky but by the end of the event I felt pretty good, and am closer to having the racing line figured out.  The back uphill is pretty interesting as the car would do a tail way each time going up, as you are still coming out of the right-hander at the bottom of the straight, but I found that to be great fun.  The downhill is totally weird and feels unsafe at the outset, and the barrier on the left has some tell-tales for those that didn't work that one out quite right, but I found no issue coming out of that and carrying good speed onto the straight.  I looked more at my tach than speedo, and almost 6K RPM at the end of the straight before braking hard and setting up for the right at Big Bend.  

I had a great night, and I recommend to anyone interested to check out LRP and Track Night in America if possible. 

Designing and printing the new dash defroster vents along with more cleaning up. 

Replacing the heater core in the Audi CQ was a nightmare as it looks like it HAD been attempted before but was stopped short as firewall bolts were stripped. 

First attempt to correct some of the errors in the Audi gauge cluster.

Rebuilding Audi CQ window regulators with new cables, spools, and lots of grease. 

My over-the-winter projects included installing a new fuel pump along with an M3 baffle, H&R Sport springs, new OEM rear trailing arm bushings (RTABs, without limiters), new front sway bar bushings and endlinks, and 200TW tires.  For safety I also installed new OEM brake lines, and after all of this, had the car aligned at the BMW dealer (!).  

My take-aways:  The car feels awesome for what it is.  I can't believe the difference actually--  Night and day would be an understatement.  With tire pressures set at 34F / 40R there is almost zero understeer, and I can basically toss the car wherever I want on the track with smooth inputs, brakes and throttle.  The car feels light and nimble, and didn't feel at all out of sorts or with any bad habits during weight transfer.  In three 20 minute sessions I was passed by one (1) car, which was a Spec E46 racing car...!  The 2.93 gear, which I thought was a bad thing, is actually great in this car, as I can basically stay in 3rd and 4th gear for most of the track, with 2nd only in the slowest of turns.  

The only downside is that this thing desperately needs a limited slip diff.  This negative factor is really magnified now; it was bad before, but with the increased cornering loads the traction control is basically coming on all over the track.  I held off on the LSD thinking I'd replace with a shorter gear (the LSDs for 3.15 and lower are a different application), but there's really no reason to go away from the 2.93 for what I'm doing.  

The LSD aside, the most surprising aspect now is the ability to smoothly carry momentum through turns and exit with more speed.  I'm sure the guy with the ZL1 Camaro was like "WTF...?". 

I'll add more pictures later, but check out the before / after photos--  Holy brake dust!

I FINALLY find a cheaper Audi CQ project that I can work on and realize how much work this will be.

So the spring install went off without much of a hitch.  This included installation of front strut tower reinforcement plates and replacement of the upper strut bearings, as well as a replacement of the front sway bar mount bushings while I was in there.  

What didn't go off without much of a hitch was replacement of the rear trailing arm bushings (RTAB).  Yes there are many how-tos out there as to drilling it out, pressing it out with found items, burning it out (yikes!), etc...  I was able to get them out without issue, but no over-the-counter press or homemade tool allowed me to easily get them re-installed.  Because I'm stubborn, and was already told to do so before I even started, I stopped with the install and bought the tool.  

Kids - Always buy the tool.

All in all I think the car looks great, and the ride is only diminished by some additional harshness.  Yes it does hit bumps a bit harder, but the more noticeable thing is the road vibration.  I realize that you have to give up something to get something, so really, the tradeoff seems more than worth it.  

Last weekend I actually had some personal time, and decided it was best used with a wrench in hand and a mask on face.  In my search for suspension upgrades in preparation for reduced body roll without completely sacrificing ride, I decided to try H&R Sport springs with my already-installed Koni struts.  

In researching this route there are numerous opinions, and I realized that none of them held actual value to me, so I decided to just go for it.  Because coil-overs are expensive and because I already had the struts / shocks, my first thought was to install a Ground Control coil-over conversion, which for the E46 is well-documented and seems like a great choice (https://groundcontrolstore.com/collections/e46-coilover-conversion).  I kept thinking about it, and because I would be doing the work myself and my research said that the Ground Control setup would then require constant tinkering to get the ride height, spring rates, corner balance, etc., etc., all sorted, my best route was a conventional lowering spring.  OK great, now what to choose....  Long story short, my friends at Turner Motorsport suggested the H&R Sport spring.  While in there I also replaced the front strut mounts, front sway bar end links, installed strut mount reinforcement plates, and tidied things up. 

I am mostly distrustful of any aftermarket products where ride and safety are potentially compromised, but man, that body lean has to be sorted out, and doing it on a budget is my favorite way.  As advertised, the drop was spot-on between .5" and .75", and my initial impressions are that the ride has not changed for the worse--  It does feel different, but not in a completely detrimental way.  So initial vote for this install is a thumbs-up!

I'll wait to get an alignment until I get a few miles on the springs, check ride height to make sure nothing weird is going on, and make sure I'm good with how it feels--  I still have to drive this thing so I cannot have something terrible in the ride department, and my original springs are good to go back in if necessary.