Paint it black

Just picked up some suspension parts at the powder coater this afternoon. Rear springs, sway bar and sway bar brackets.

Adding some Nardi

I had been looking to the 700RS spyder(top pic) for inspiration and found it in the form of this Nardi mahogany steering wheel off e-bay. I backed it up with a matching shifter knob just to add some continuity. I'm still not sure weather or not to use the BMW logo'ed horn button, especially since the 700's horn is on one of the column switches and not on the wheel itself. Next step is fabricating a steering hub adapter which is not available for this model(big surprise).

Interior panels

The original interior and door panels were in pretty rough shape. I salvaged some trim from the two full sets of panels included with the car and had S & S Upholstery in Longmont make up some new panels using some matching leatherette material we got from Stefan when he made our seats. They use identically spaced pleats as the new seats. They also look so much better than the plastic covered stock panels and are one more piece in the process of converting the interior to black. I still have to figure out what I'm gonna do to cover the rear seat pan now that there isn't a seat there. I'll probably get a matching panel mounted to the top just to finish it off a bit more.

Pistons

So I got a hold of some vintage BMW accessory pistons. According to a Feb 17 1992 Autoweek magazine clipping I received as part of the original sale, they pumped the compression up from 9 to 1 to 9.5 to 1. The article(written by William D. Siuru Jr.) also says they were part of a "dealer-installed performance package" that boosted power from 40 hp to 55hp. The kit also included carb modifications and dual exhaust. I sent the pistons to Swain Tech Coatings and had them coat the domes with a ceramic heat reflecting material and had the skirts done with a molly impregnated coating to reduce friction. I took some side by side pics with the OEM sport coupe pistons. You can see that they are slightly taller, use an extra compression ring and have a taller dome with valve relief pockets on it.

Mirrors

I wanted to get some side mirrors that looked like the Talbot ones used on the Rennsport and Martini cars(and many other european sports and race cars of that day). I found some replicas with a removable style base at a Porsche parts mailorder place. I also got an interior rear view out of a 356 cause it had that same bullet style leading edge. Plus its bigger and only has a single mounting bolt to allow me remove the sun visors in a really clean fashion at the same time.

NOS chrome from Germany

I got another shipment of parts from Germany last week. Among them were some genuine NOS outer door latches and rear window hinges. I may not be replacing all of the original chrome bits, but those parts looked especially pitted and without a doubt needed to be replaced.

Brake wheel cylinders

Rebuild kits for the wheel cylinders are ridiculously expensive and the ones from the car weren't looking so hot any way. So I gave Ireland Engineering a call. They set me up with brand new ones for little more than the cost of rebuild kits. The 700 used 20 mm cylinders in the front and 15mm in the rear. I was able to find a 22mm for the front and a 17mm for the rear. I think the 17mm ones are off the rear of a 2002 Tii and the 22mm ones are off the front of a New Class 1600. Some modification will be required for the one set but that looks pretty simple and straight forward. Next up, getting custom pads made.....

Coils

I decided to use a "matched pair" of coils from Hot Spark out of TX as an ignition system upgrade. Which according to the manufacturer are for "1970-1980 BMW R-Series Motorcycles with original points-based ignition system with two Bosch 6-volt coils, wired in series (for 12-volt electrical systems)." The 700 uses two Bosch 6 volt coils wired in series in a 12 volt system, they are just much smaller than what was used on an R-series airhead a decade later. I will probably also upgrade the condenser to one from a R-series bike of that era to ensure max performance in the system. Otherwise the ignition components will remain stock. I feel a little bad replacing the originals as they are beautiful pieces of art in their own right, but we NEED extra power wherever we can find it and this is a pretty obvious place. I do prefer the stainless steel bodies of the new ones though.......

"Special" paint

I got this amazing product made by a company called SEM that is a three part process for painting leather, vinyl and plastic. They claim that you can even use it for seats. I am using it for the door handles, dash knobs and door sill plates. Since I am doing a custom black vinyl interior, the various shades of off white and grey that these parts came in had to go. I did the handles first just to make sure I knew what I was doing. I have two sets of them, so if I had screwed this up I had back ups. Glad to say it went on smooth and tomorrow I will do the other parts.

Dash

I made a number of plugs and filled the holes in the top of the dash today. Those holes are where the ashtray and dash cover went. Those parts won't be going back on. I welded it in short sections to keep the dash from warping due to heat. its like 18 gauge steel, and that's fairly thin. I will also be filling the holes on the face of the dash where the trim, lighter and stereo went. Those parts will also not be returning. I didn't take a before pic, so I cropped an old one to show the holes.

Rack it up

Today, I rebuilt the rack and pinion steering mechanism. The sealing boots were torn and the grease looked awfully dirty. Sure, there is a grease port on it and I could have easily settled for simply squirting new grease in and driving the old out, but that's just not in the plan. I disassembled the entire unit, degreased and then washed all the internal parts with water and blew them dry. I did this to make sure that there was no degreaser left on the parts before I greased and assembled them again. I installed brand new OE boots that I got from germany in the last shipment. I also checked the pinion end play per the service manual specs. It definitely feels better, so now I can throw it back in the parts box until I am ready for installation.

Full Custom

Well, after finding out that the rear deck lid was too damaged to be reused(a good used one is on the way from Germany) I started looking for ways to use the extra steel. After staring at it long enough and drinking a few beers I came up with the idea to use the intake vents to cover that annoying hole in the back of the car body. Every 700 I see, that hole seems to kill the overall look of the rear end for me. Most people put the license plate over it, but I had something different in mind. So, I cut the vents out of the old lid, trimmed them down, made a template of the panel, squared it up and centered on the rear of the car, welded it in place, ground down the welds, and the result is a custom grill that will not only match the deck lid but is also made of recycled parts from the original car!

More welding

I patched a rust hole in the rear left wheel well today. Because it was in a spot where there were two overlapping panels I decided to just fill it with weld and grind it down smooth. I used a rust dissolver to etch it before welding. I ground it down and will probably need to do a little leading there before the primer coat goes on.

Refitting the doors

Re-installed the doors today, set gaps to main body, and filled the trim holes with weld and ground down to smooth. Note: Front fenders are just sitting on the body. They are next, but I needed to get the doors dialed first because the fenders are getting welded on at three points and I needed the doors installed for reference first.

Vintage style custom race seats are here!

The seats showed up from Stefan at GTS classic seats yesterday. A big ups to him for the custom mounts that he hand laid into the fiberglass shells. I sent him some mechanical drawings of the bolt patterns from the stock seats to work from. The original rails bolted right up and they slid into place first try. A very nice touch since the mounts are part of the monocoque floor pan. If I had cut them out and used new generic mounts the seats would never have sat so low, plus its just a lot more "factory" looking this way too. The only modification I had to make was to drill out the holes in the rails to accept M8 hardware instead of M6. I put them in the car along with the steering wheel and column to mock things up and make sure nothing got too tight. I'm happy to say it fit like a glove, or rather a highly supportive race seat. Something a car capable of such high corner speeds deserves.....

Some finish welding

Today I welded the seams on the back of the body right below the tail lights. Then I ground the welds down to finish the surface. Here are some before and after pics.

Cleaning up the front fenders

I welded up the seam on the front and filled in the holes for the trim and mirror mounts on both the front fenders today. Here is a pic of the left one before grinding the welds down.

Total Seal

Thanks to Bobby over at Total Seal in Phoenix we got "gapless" piston rings custom made for the BMW accessory racing pistons I have coming from Germany. Its a product I became very familiar with while building big bore Harley and Buell engines at Nallin Racing's shop. Should be just the first in a number of engine mods to we'll be doing to give the little 700 a respectable level of acceleration.

From Germany with love

A major shipment of parts from an Isetta/600/700 specialist in Germany finally showed up this week. Among the parts was a transmission seal kit. I decided to replace the input shaft and two output shaft seals due to what looked to be cracking and a little seepage. I also, pulled off the differential and gearshift covers in order to inspect the bearings and gears. So those gaskets got replaced as well. And, while the covers were off, I checked several end play and gear lash measurements laid out in the service manual. Man am I glad to have one of those. Since it was included in the kit I did the speedo output seals too. I also thoroughly cleaned the inside of the trans before installing Mobil 1 synthetic hypoid oil. All of this might seem like overkill, but I need to be sure the gearbox will handle the extra power I'm planning on getting out of the engine. At any rate, the trans is ready to go, now on to the engine.

Wheels and tires are in

I got some Superlite GTR wheels last month. I had them powdercoated black cause I didn't like the logos on the rim. They just didn't go with the look I want for the car. Too modern and tuner car. The guys at Tires Plus in Longmont installed a set of Bridgestone Potenza all season sport tires on them today. The wheel wheel next to the Superlite is one of the four that were on the car when we got it. Those weren't the original wheels anyway, they are two piece aluminum wheels with Opel stamped in them. Those wheels and tires are the exact size of the originals steel wheels that came on it new though. Anyway, the new wheels and tires are 165-65-13's instead of 145-80-12's meaning the tires are almost an inch wider. The tire calculations put the new tires as 1.5% larger in terms of the circumference of the originals. The complete wheel and tire combo weighs just one pound more than the Opel set-up meaning they should still be lighter than the OEM steel wheel and smaller tire combo while providing considerably more traction. Not bad, now hopefully I got the backspacing measurements right and we won't have to run spacers.