Project 2002
| by Adrian Burford
Momentum!
Working on cars can be therapeutic - as long as you don’t do
it for a living! In fact, that reasoning applies to many things, and
as a person who spends his day at a keyboard, the opportunity
to grab some spanners and get busy is incredibly fulfilling.
W
hat inspired these thoughts is
the front suspension of a BMW
2002, which has kept me busy
for the best part of a day at Evolution 2, our
partner workshop. The lead picture reveals
some radical changes - the steering rack
being the most obvious giveaway.
Proje ct 2002
More importantly, the radius arms
face backwards and attach to custom
mountings on the chassis members, this
mechanical Volte-face allowing
free passage for the tie rod
linkages down to the steering
arms.
In the interest of longevity, all
suspension parts were powdercoated, and the assembly process
included new high-density
polyurethane bushes throughout,
and also new ball-joints and
tie rod ends. Liberal use of
assembly lube and Copaslip
helped everything to go
together easily and our custom
anti-roll bar fitted perfectly too thanks Supreme Spring!
➲ Feeling the heat? Hard to tell yet, but
hopefully the refurbishment of the ventilation
system will send the correct amount of air in
the right direction…
By the time you read this,
the entire assembly should
be back in the car, complete
with the Bilsteins, and a set of
special spacers from Ireland
Engineering (a California-based
2002 specialist) which reduces
bump steer in lowered cars, by
inclining the steering linkages
downwards again.
A complete rebuild of the
heating and ventilation system
has also taken place. While that
sentence rolled off my keyboard
effortlessly, it
doesn’t tell the
entire story: two
heater units were
required to make
a single good one,
which now has
at its heart a recored radiator.
volume - will head effortlessly in the
desired direction when instructed to do
so, and the system will be as efficient
as it was when new. Once again, careful
assembly and attention to detail will pay
dividends, but we’ll only know the truth
when hot water from the engine’s water
jacket flows through the system…
The car has also been back to Cornrights,
where the reshaped transmission
tunnel was properly sealed off and then
repainted. At the same time, they touched
up all the nicks and scratches in the
engine bay, which is now ready to accept
the M44 engine. The powerplant has been
dressed for the occasion with service
items courtesy of Autobarn, and a new
belt tensioner and drive pulleys courtesy
of Schaeffler.
Next month, we hope to be able to
present a car which is mechanically
almost complete, and ready to go to
RGMotorsport for its perfromance
exhaust, and then on to Powermods for
its engine management system. And then
we’ll be able to fire her up!
Overhauling and
revamping all the
controls and the
fan motor will
hopefully mean
air - at the right
temperature and
➲ The M44 engine has been dressed for success with these
service items, supplied by Autobarn Midrand
| words in action
➲ The front end is ready…that’s the nose
of Evolution 2’s BMW 635i race-car project
in the background, by the way
52
september 2014
Follow the progress on the
BMW 2002 Youth Project
Facebook page.