JohnS

Both of the shift levers that I recently rebuilt already had that little slit in them from the factory. Without that slit, popping the thing open would be a pain. I used an ice pick in that slit to pop out the little clip. Both levers were the newer style (74 and later) where the lower parts is set up for the newer style linkage. My 73 still has the older style shift lever. I'll have to check whether it has the slit or not.

Walloth Nesch makes nice ones. I have them in both of my cars and they work very well. There's several different ones. I have the one with the high cooling rate in both of my tii's. Their suggestion to use only with a 360mm fan blade is a good one. Otherwise it cools too well. I also use an 80 degree thermostat for the same reason. Otherwise my cars ran too cool. And you do need to have the proper lower hose. Radiators for cars with air conditioning cost a lot more. Check them out: Catalog picture 11/31 - BMW 1502 - 2002 turbo - Engine parts / Cooling system | Wallothesch WWW.WALLOTHNESCH.COM

That's probably what that bronze colored washer is for. I'm not really sure if it's needed or not. That's the way it came out, but I know that someone else had been in there before so who knows. I do know that there were several of those bronze washers under the lower plastic cup on my 73tii against the shift platform. There I can see that they serve more of a useful purpose. Yes, that little "bitch clip" can be a PITA to get in. This time after saying the f-word a few times it almost majically snapped into place. I was so stoked. It only took me a few minutes. I had always wondered why my shift lever was so floppy. It turns out that whoever rebuilt it before filled it with silicone glue instead of the proper rubber parts. Getting all of that glue out before I assembled things correctly was more of a pain than the clip. I should have taken pics of all that glue. It sucked.

I rebuilt another stock 4-speed shift lever today using all new internal and lower parts. I know this topic has been covered many times. Hoping that these pictures of the stock shift lever stack can be helpful to somebody as a reference. Take note, when installing the lever it tilts towards the rear and slightly toward the driver. Cheers, John

Man I miss him. He was such a good guy. We traded e-mails often. My eldest daughter is named Rochelle. I didn't know that was his wife's name too. RIP Paul. We love you man!

I'm envious Barney. That's my dream setup. You lucky dog!

Just goes to show what a dumb ass I've been for not inspecting things periodically...

Yes, it's a miracle that my tranny survived. Here's the damage that happened when my Guibo gave up the ghost at around 70 MPH. I'm going to hang the flange in my garage as a reminder to jack up my car every once in a while and inspect things... Hey, at least I know I've got a fine splined output shaft on the tranny. Gotta look at the bright side ? Does anyone know whether the driveshaft can be fixed? i.e. a new flange welded on?

I know this is sort of off topic because these are supposed to be "Beauty Shots". This monster was parked at the annual LumberJack Breakfast in Corralitos on Sunday. Can you say horsepower? ?

I had to laugh. I was looking at the Walloth Nesch web site at their complete driveshafts that come with the guibo pre-installed.

The thing that worries me is that since they made these type of rookie mistakes. How do I know that they torqued the output flange on the transmission to the correct spec? Or that they properly set the preload correctly on the center support bearing? I've already lost sleep thinking about it. To me there's no excuse for leaving the metal band on the guibo. That's pathetic ? And if what Furry Camel says is true, then the possible damage to the Guibo has already been done.

Totally understood Mike. I will look into that. For my 73tii I really care about such details. On the 74tii, not so much. It is a squaretail after all ?. It's been sort of a beater vehicle for me over the years. I use it when I go surfing and it's been exposed to salt water and sand it's whole life. I don't really want to fix it up too nice or else I'll get all anal about it (like I am with my 73tii) and not be able to enjoy it for going surfing as I do now. I appreciate the advise though. Cheers, John

Oh really? I guess I missed that in my reading on the topic. That's good news. That means all I have to do is get that little circlip off the lower part of the shift lever and rotate the lever 180 degrees and put the clip back on. I'll also remove the metal band on the guibo (which is simple). That's really good news. Yesterday I started working on it by putting it up on jack stands and undoing the exhaust pipe. I gave up after that because it was so frickin hot here in Santa Cruz and my lower back started acting up. Thanks for the perspective Andrew. I'll get'r done. Cheers, John

Yes, the gas tank has been that way since I bought the car back in 1986. I really should buy a new tank. And of course I'd install that myself. The only reason I chose to pay to have this work done is basically laziness and also I injured my lower back a while ago and am still trying to baby it a bit. I really wish I had a lift ☺️

Catalpa. It makes me really sad. I've been going there since the early 80's. The original owner Wayne Strong and his sister Louise (RIP) we're so awesome and knowledgeable. Wayne tuned both of my tiis to perfection and knew all the little details about our cars and was eager to share that knowledge with me. I've never been to Nate Smith's Optimal Auto, but I'm going to check them out if I need something beyond my skills done. I'm hoping they know the tii well. We'll see. Otherwise I'll have to travel a fair distance to get things done. Cheers, John

I had my 74tii towed to what used to be a very reputable BMW shop in Santa Cruz to have the following items fixed after my guibo suffered a catastrophic failure which trashed my driveshaft and also the output flange on the transmission. I hadn't been to this shop in a couple of years and was surprised that it was under new ownership. The longtime owner had retired. Bummer. #1 - Replace Guibo (I provided new disk, bolts and locknuts (all original BMW parts). #2 - Replace output flange on the transmission. (I provided new BMW output flange and lock plate). #2 - Replace damaged driveshaft (I provided new factory BMW driveshaft). #3 - Replace transmission mount (I provided new factory BMW 320i type mount). #4 - Replace stock 4-speed shift lever with one that I rebuilt using new internal parts. So, I picked up the car late on Friday night. I couldn't pick it up during the day, so I had arranged for them to leave it locked outside as I had a second key. No problem. First thing I noticed when I started the car was that the exhaust pipe was banging against the body of the car. I had made that mistake myself before, so I knew exactly what the problem was. Fail #1 - Exhaust pipe not adjusted correctly and thus hitting body. Then I noticed that the shifter felt sort of strange, but I was able to shift and drive the car home. I know that the stock 4-speed shift lever has a slight bend in it which tilts to the driver side just slightly. Could they have installed it backwards? I checked the next day and sure enough. Fail #2 - Shift lever installed backwards. So, today I jacked up the car to take a looksie at the guibo to make sure that they installed the bolts correctly with the nuts on the flanges. Fail #3 - four of the guibo bolts installed backwards. Then to my surprise. Fail #4 - They had left the metal band on the guibo. You're supposed to remove the band after you get the driveshaft all aligned properly. Needless to say I was fuming at this point. All I can say is that they will never touch my car again. What a drag. Moral of the story is that I should have done the work myself. Live and learn. Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day, John

Maybe Elsie ran out of milk? ?

Looks great JP! Ya, I wish I hadn't clear coated those Ronals when I repainted them. They yellowed in less than a year after the repaint. Good on you for not using a clear. I had used Einszett 1Z silver wheel paint for the silver and it was really nice paint too.

Hi Mike, Yes, per your recommendation I refinished the stock steel wheels on my 74tii with the same Krylon 1403 Dull Aluminum and the Krylon Crystal clear over 20 years ago and they still look fine. No yellowing. The Dull Aluminum paint is getting hard to find these days. They used to carry it at my local Ace Hardware store, but Ace no longer stocks Krylon paint anymore. I was able to find some Krylon 1403 online at Amazon and I bought the guy's last remaining 5 cans. Waiting for them to arrive and that's the combo I'll use when I repaint these wheels. I did have to pay $20 per can though. Thanks for recommending that paint many years ago Mike. Cheers, John Sieraski

This is why I will never use the Wurth brand clear coat when refinishing wheels again. First pic is before I cleaned them using Purple Power in preparation for refinishing them again. That Purple Power worked wonders and made the wheels look so much better. But they still have that beautiful "pissed on" look. ?

Local Flavor Yesterday I took my wheels off and brought them to a local tire shop and had the proper screw in valves installed (BMW part# 36121119332). These replaced the rubber valve stems that I had (which were slowly leaking). Then today I washed my car for the first time in probably about 3 years. To celebrate, I made the trip to our local meat market Corralitos Market (about 10 minutes from my house) and bought some of their wonderful apple wood smoked sausages. If you're ever in the Watsonville/Santa Cruz area. Corralitos Market is highly recommended. I've live here my whole life and their meats are legendary. Of course I got some German sausages and also a couple of the Bavarian. Good weekend. Cheers, John

You're lucky that you caught the cracked guibo ahead of time and are taking action on it. On my 74tii I had the guibo fail catastrophically (explode) because I wasn't checking it regularly. Due to the failure, the bolts ended up totally buggering up both the output flange on the transmission as well as the the flange on the driveshaft too. Expensive lesson for me. Consider yourself lucky, ? John

The important question What beer is that? Steinlager? I love that stuff...

Depends if you're using points, or Pertronix, HotSpark, 123, etc. Bypassing the resister wire and installing a blue is an easy way to go.

I can confirm that the resister wire on the 74tii is twice as long as that used on the '74 and up "regular" 2002s. It's twice as long and thus has twice the resistance. The resistance wire on the 74tii runs from the fuse all the way to the coil. It's designed for use with the "red" coil. I kept mine stock on my 74tii instead of butchering the original wiring.