My '73 Roundie Revival [BMW 2002]

[maneeno325e]

this is so awesome man, i love the fact your fabbing everything up on your own, thats what a real project is all about!

[Tuee]

Awesome job, I really want a 2002 now.

[lambo]

Awesome build! Sorry about the loss, though. Keep up the work, man!

[NotColtonOrr]

Keep puttin in work! Seems like you have a good idea what you want the car to look like finished. I'm sure it'll turn out great!

[pureaudio]

Making great progress, keep it up. I was hesitant when I first saw the seats but they look pretty good installed.

[CubbyChowder]

Fuck me, this build is looking epic. When I was 16, my neighbor had a rebuilt '69 '02. The thing was tits! Cornered (literally) like it was on rails. I've been a roundie fan ever since. I applaud your go-for-it DIY attitude. Suscribed.

Thanks man, I appreciate the comment. Right now I want to focus on finishing the car with my original plans and have it done within the next few months. Once I drive it for a while and start making some money again, I might consider doing an M20B25 swap.

[Cha Ching]

Fuck me, this build is looking epic. When I was 16, my neighbor had a rebuilt '69 '02. The thing was tits! Cornered (literally) like it was on rails. I've been a roundie fan ever since. I applaud your go-for-it DIY attitude. Suscribed.

[CubbyChowder]

Just received this in the mail, I'm pumped on it. It was only $40 shipped brand new! eBay at it's finest haha seems to be good quality though. It's actually a bit darker wood than it looks in the pictures, I think it'll look sweet with my all black interior. I'm thinking about painting the chrome part black as well:





Finally got to work on the car again today. I've barely been able to work on it the last few weeks, but in about a week I'm going to be on it 3-4 times a week again.

So I started today by taking off the steering wheel and taking out the dash:




Also removed the front windshield:



The 2002 is pretty much completely disassembled, I have never been this deep into a project. I get a nervous but excited feeling sometimes when I look at it like this:



Started tearing away at the old shitty headliner and got it out:




And this big package came!



It's a Getrag 245 5-speed manual trans out of an E21. There was gear oil everywhere! Need to replace all the seals. The seller also failed to mention that he wasn't including the release fork, which kind of sucks, but whatever:




Gave it a good wash and emptied what was left of the fluid. It looked similar to a science experiment, it was 3 different colors all separated. I'm sure some water leaked into it while I was washing it. Can't wait to replace the seals and put some fresh fluid in it:





Lastly, I made a pretty big order of random parts like gaskets, seals, release fork, etc. More updates later this week!

[ayemattyyy]

Looks like a fun project. My friend's first car was a '70 roundie. Many good times horsing around with that thing, trying to make it better. I wish you could still by 1,000 stamps for $2.95... people might actually use snail mail.

Matt

[CubbyChowder]

Alright got some more work done. Got the driver's seat fully mounted and done and I'm about halfway through with getting the passenger's side done.

Beware, these mounts might look ugly to some of you. I basically had to weld three separate pieces together for each corner. I started off by welding a flat plate on the floorpan (roughly 2"x2") as reinforcement for the rest of the mount. I then took a piece of the 1" square tubing and mounted it to the slider and mocked it up and then made whatever was necessary to fit between the bottom plate and top mount. Hope that makes sense, it basically came out like this:





And now I have a new driver seat! Here is a picture of it all mounted up and ready to go. The second picture is it popped up and forward to allow passengers in the back:




Then I pretty much duplicated the same design for the passenger seat. This seat will require a slightly different approach to allow the "slider stopper" or whatever it's called to work:



After nearly a week of not being able to work on the car, I got back on it today. A few friends and I made a new concrete box at our skatepark and I fucked up my fingertips/hands pretty bad haha I know that sounds pathetic. My hands were pretty much useless for the last 5 days. Anyways...

Tackled the passenger seat today and got it 95% done. Started off by lining everything up and welding in reinforcement plates over the floorboards where the mounts will go. Here is a picture of the front two welded up:




The two outer mounts done:




All 4 mounts done:



And now both front GTI seats are all mounted up and ready to go! Pictures are kinda shitty and the headrests aren't pictured so the seats look kinda funky. The reason I said they are 95% done is because I still need to fab up a little stopper for the passenger side slider stopper thing, which basically locks the seat to prevent it from sliding back and forth.

The seats are super dirty by the way:

[MattAvino]

I already said 10

[CubbyChowder]

Well I finally decided on a set of wheels, at least for now. They were cheap, had the specs that I'm looking for, and I actually really like how they look. A lot of people dislike these wheels, and I agree that the car deserves classier wheels. But for the time being these will help me dial in the fitment and I can always upgrade down the road sometime. I will probably rock these for a while though, I love the look.

15x8 et0 powdercoated black, they're a bit dusty from the cardboard boxes. Getting 194/45/15 tires mounted tomorrow:






Got tires mounted today. 195/45/15 Federals. Cheap but whatever, I'm not building this car for performance haha $300 out the door:



A couple comparison shots with the original wheels:




Very mild stretch. That's how I want it though, I love the way it looks. Not a huge fan of excessive stretch personally:



Random mock up picture. I had to space the wheels out with some washers just so the lugs nut would tighten all the way. I will probably throw on some 10-15mm spacers all around just to dial in the fitment once the fenders are welded up and ready to go. This picture doesn't really mean anything, I was just excited haha:



Started getting back on the seats. I'll just explain as I go. Picked up some 1" square tubing and got to work. Here is a piece clamped on ready to weld:



Welded on. I went pretty thick to make sure it was sturdy:



Then I made this little guy:



For this:



I originally had a different setup for this mounting spot but after I finished I realized it wasn't going to work. Kind of hard to explain in the pictures but I just ended up welding a bolt to the big round bar for the slider to mount onto:



For this:



Each slider required a different mount for the rear section, which is why one side has the bolt sticking out and the other has that weird little piece that I created (the bolt isn't pictured in the first picture because I messed up the first time around, I'm rambling). Painted everything up so it looks clean and now I have a GTI seat that is adapted to 2002 sliders :). Tomorrow I need to make mounts in the car for the seat to bolt on to:

[MattAvino]

10

[CubbyChowder]

Alright, so today was cool. Since I bought the 2002, I've been searching for a specific set of seats which come in later model MK4 GTI's. I think they only came in GTI's from 2004-2005, but I could be wrong. A guy in Sacramento had a nice set for sale, and he agreed to meet me in San Jose, which is about 3 hours north of me. So to San Jose I went this morning, and picked them up. Very happy with them, I just love them for some reason. They're going to require custom work to make them fit, and I'm going to have to chop up the rear seat a bit to make them sit flush on the back, but once they're done I think they'll look really good. Super comfortable too:





And I forgot to post this a few days ago, but I had to take my buddy down to LAX last week, and I wanted to utilize my time down in the LA area since anytime I need ANYTHING car related I either have to order online or drive at least 3 hours either direction from me. My area sucks when it comes to used car parts :(. Anyways, I checked the night before and found a guy in the LA area selling a bunch of '02 stuff, and he happened to have a driver's side door in good condition, so I picked that up after I dropped my friend off at the airport. My current driver's side door has about 1/4" of body filler lining the entire thing and the bottom corners are rusted out so I wanted one in better condition. This one is in much better shape with no filler and solid corners. Pretty stoked I got this, it will provide peace of mind and a relaxed soul for me in the future:



Made a small amount of progress today. Spent most of the day figuring out how I want to mount the front seats. The way the GTI seats are mounted is completely different than the 2002. Here is a picture of how the bottom looks, it has a triangular configuration where the front is bolted in the middle and the rear has a wheel on each side which sits in a slider:




One feature that I really like about these seats is that they pop up and forward when you want to let people in the backseat. I wanted to keep this function, here is a picture of how it sits normally and the second picture is when it's popped up:




So I decided that I'm not going to use the mounting system on the GTI seats. I want to use the sliders from the 2002 seats since they are pretty simple, so I'm going to just weld up some brackets for the sliders to bolt to on the seats and the floor. I won't be able to use the original mounting location for the seats since it will cause the GTI seat to sit too high.

I decided to just start cutting haha both "legs" from the GTI seats off:




I also removed a bunch of unneeded stuff from the bottom of the seats, but didn't take any pictures. I also removed the original seat mounts in the car, some might cringe when they see this haha I'm basically just ruining this car and scaring all purists away:






I'm going to finish up the driver's seat tomorrow, I need to go get some hardware and metal so I can make brackets and mounts and what not.

Also, I received these in the mail. After a lot of thought and consideration, I decided to use MK1 rabbit fenders as flares rather than try to shape my own. I love the way they look on Heist's '02, and feel they were the best option for me:

[CubbyChowder]

Haven't made much progress on the car lately, we had a very unfortunate event. My best friend since first grade passed away on Saturday after a hectic year-long battle with cancer. He was such an awesome dude, and I'm going to miss him so much. He died much too young at the age of 21. The past couple of days have been really cool though, hanging with his family and all of our friends a bunch has been great help in dealing with the whole situation. Rest in Peace David King!

Got a chance to finish up the other 3 CV boots, so the axles are ready to go:



And also received all of my stereo stuff. I'm not really an extremist when it comes to car audio, so I bought some pretty basic stuff. I based all my purchases off reading product reviews, and tons of people were really happy with these speakers and receiver so I figured I'd go for it. Spent a little under $300 for everything and I feel it will perform perfectly fine for my standards. I'd like to focus more of my money on different aspects of this build:




Got the rear subframe all back together and back on the car. Some might wonder why I didn't repaint the whole thing and make it look all titties, but I decided against it. I just didn't feel it was totally necessary:





Then I started getting at the point in my build which I've secretly been dreading: body work. I decided to start with the worst section first, which would be the driver's side quarter panel. I knew there was gobs of body filler and boy was I right. It's almost a half inch thick in some spots. It's interesting to me that whoever owned the car while it was repaired, they cut out the wrecked quarter panel, and replaced it with a pretty trashed quarter panel. There are dents everywhere all over it, and the more I grind away, the more body filler and dents I find. Kind of discouraging but whatever:




Had my first go at "shaving", looks pretty haggard, but everything is sealed:





Also started doing all the trim holes:





Then there's this whole area. Basically everywhere you see bare metal was previously covered in 1/4"-1/2" of body filler. Pretty bummed on how beat up this whole area is, it's going to be hard to make it look perfect again. It doesn't look nearly as bad in the picture as it does in real life:



On a lighter note, my 7" crosshairs came in. Pretty excited on them, I think they'll look really cool. Love them on MK1's and MK2's: