When 2 become one: a love story

[StereoInstaller1]

Last summer I set up a weird deal. I traded a guy a subwoofer box for his parts car, an '89 M20 5 speed...in black. I already had a pile of shit M20 auto in a color I hated and with massive rust in the area surrounding the subframe mounts...so, lets see...a color I detest vs Black, 5 speed, motor is shot, but I have a great M20 in this car and whatever electricals I need, I have covered!

OK, on with some pics: first, the two shit heaps side by side:





the black cars sad, broken, filthy M20:



Someone got pretty creative with the air filter, huh?



Silver car. New Nissens radiator, nice fresh M20, ran great, pretty clean:



Not too bad:



Silver cars interior:



Door panels were, of course, shot:



Yes, I will make them beautiful this summer, watch for DIY thread

Chopped up you will be!



I got ran into by a crazy old man in a subaru. I was standing next to the car when the crazy old coot bashed my door in...flooring it...in a '91 Legacy



And now, the project.

Yeah.



Got junk in my trunk, yeah!

[StereoInstaller1]

But, should shine up nicely



I wish all this hadn't been left to rot in the rain



I could have made those beautiful; no chance now.

One day I will post pics of this set of seat now installed in my '88 Astro. They are beyond awesome. Well, if they weren't completely beat to death, that is:



Just gak:



Wait, this car is gonna be a 5erWest in 5 days?



Really?



You sure about that?



OK, so now at this point, let me point out that yes, we planned to get this car to 5erWest. We had to swap motors, interiors, suspension all while shining the thing up...well, it took Justin Bresee, Andy Carston, Jeff Williams, Brian Churchill, me and my son Nigel one week to get this thing on the road.

I am not even going to go into the madness that was. We had, at the time, an 1800 square foot shop in the boonies. Things happened.

None of it started pretty:





Justin in his natural state:



OK, WTF, I took a nap and the motor is in?



crappy pic here, but you can see, its clean!



You can also see that by this point, the drop has become rather low:



It got one hell of a bath after this:



LOTS of cleaning to do:





Yeah, Brian has this:





Yes. That really is a christmas tree hanging in the rafters of the shop. No, I don't know why.

oh yeah, meanwhile, we bought every can of Duplicolor Bumper Coating and Adhesion Promoter in the entire county. Jeff did a fantastic job spray bombing the bumpers and hood and trim...

Lets put the bumper back on!



Sorry for the weird pic, but this was just back from the first test drive



The (sorta) finished project:

[dashboardmonkey]

Fuck, we sure had fun that few days.

[slammin.e28]

So wait....that was under 5 days of work, from start to finish?

[Alpina]

Damn.. that was impressive

[dashboardmonkey]

So wait....that was under 5 days of work, from start to finish?

yessir it was. But, when I get on a mission I turn into a fucking mad-man that will not be stopped.

[slammin.e28]

yessir it was. But, when I get on a mission I turn into a fucking mad-man that will not be stopped.

That is fantastic! Bravo!

[LJ851]

Looks good Luke! Is that thing riding on those fancy italian RD springs i sent you?

[StereoInstaller1]

Looks good Luke! Is that thing riding on those fancy italian RD springs i sent you?

OK...so its 2:00AM. Night before the show. Tryna get the thing a bit lower in the back, the H&Rs that were on the black car when I got it were just too high.

Well, lets just say turns out we DID need a spring compressor...woulda been nice to have one...but a tie down strap came through in a pinch. 3 guys wrestling springs onto completely dead struts, at 2 AM, in the middle of nowhere.

RDs out back, H&R up front. 1/2 coil off the H&Rs. If left to their own devices, the front struts will collapse, so zero compression and yet still has some rebound. I am not sure that there is any hydraulic fluid in the rear struts at all, but I suppose they keep the back of the car connected to the wheels...kinda.

Not what you wanna call your best suspension setup...but the green springs will be on the next E34, for sure. I want Konis but will settle for KYBs.

Tires are 255/35/18 out back, 225/40/18 up front. I got these wheels from "DEM3N", they were on his M3 when he bought it. The car now has 20mm spacers all around.

Soon as I give it another bath, I will get some current pics. It is sad, I have beat the shit out of the poor thing in only 8 months of PNW winter driving...but it sure does turn heads.

Luke

[Dj Buttchug]

this is awesome

[Justin B]

That was a crazy fast intense build. I pulled both of those m20's in a few hours.

[poopin04]

That's fricken impressive dudes!

OKay so where's the sound system?!?!

[Tuanies]

Soon as I give it another bath, I will get some current pics. It is sad, I have beat the shit out of the poor thing in only 8 months of PNW winter driving...but it sure does turn heads.

Luke

Wash it and bring it out to Bert's tonight and I'll take pics

[JinormusJ]

Free
Ken
Dope

You guys sure do good work in such a short amount of time; The transformation from start to finish is literally night and day

[doucy2]

damn great work