The NK 2000 Project

A Couple More Rainy Day Upgrades

2015-12-17T13:47:00.005-08:00

Seattle is suffering from the season - endless rains and cold now prevail. In order to keep my own spirits up in preparation for my departure to the Caribbean in three weeks I found some small items to upgrade.

First, I saw recently that Walloth & Nesch in Germany sell insulation pads for the floor of the car. They are not stock to my particular year but I ordered four of them in hopes that some more sound deadening would result.

After pulling up the carpets and installing I immedately noticed an appreciable reduction in road noise during my first rainy drive of the day. They cost 10 Euros each and are well worth the price, given how thin yet heavy the material is, which I doubt I could find in old carpet padding.

On a different note, a week or so ago I noticed, in the German 2002 forum Marktplatz, a delicious-looking spread of NOS Nk parts. I fired an email to the seller and turns out he was a certified BMW NK tech as far back as 1966 (he thoughtfully provided a copy of his 1966 factory certification by email). He had a collection of tasty parts and I grabbed an NOS horn pad from him. The pad even included brand new plastic studs for affixing it to the wheel hub.

I'd been looking for a new pad for years, to replace the one on my car mostly ruined by a PO who tried to "improve" it by recovering the exterior in nasty brown vinyl, as seen in this old photo.

And now replaced.

So let it rain, I say. My car is now drying off in the garage and the temperature is agreeably warm in the house.

Temperature Gauging

2015-12-07T10:33:00.001-08:00

My old mechanical temperature gauge failed. Alas. I found another mechanical gauge but was reluctant to install it.

The gauge assembly date was December 1967 and frankly, the braided wire was quite brittle. After fifty years there was nothing about to reassure me that it would work for much longer, either.

So I found a later electrical gauge and sender unit to match. The gauge date was 1982 and the sender itself brand new!

A quick check comparing the two senders confirmed that the newer version would be a perfect fit.

Then it was time to return to Midnight Motorsport for the swap. First, we removed the old combi gauge, revealing a bird's nest of wiring.

Patrick also marked the light bulbs individually, to assist in returning them to their correct positions within the gauge. It wouldn't do to have the choke light illuminating in the oil pressure position!

After pulling the old sender and cutting the now-defunct braided wire the new sender was installed and the new electrical wire was run through the firewall.

Patrick wrapped the new wire in cloth tape to give it a period-correct look.

It was nice to see that the grommet in the firewall was intact; my parts book neglects to even show a part number for it.

And then the job is done. The next morning, a wet and humid one, the gauge reads cold. Ha!

Trim Reboot

2015-11-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

A well-meaning PO had removed the lower boot trim on the car at some juncture in order to repaint. Unfortunately he or she didn't understand how soft the metal is, which resulted in some damage.

Nothing earth-shattering, mind you, but still of concern. Both sides had been bashed in the same way, which lent a certain symmetry to the car but little in the way of correctness.

My lucky day arrived when a package from Germany was deposited at my front door by DHL, who actually delivered it on time and without fuss.

New trim pieces. Lovely.

Getting the old trim off is quite easy as long as you do it carefully. My yellow plastic all-purpose trim tool works very well.

No hammer required, just palm-power.

Once the trim was removed I took the time to notice a couple of paint layers underneath. First was a flat black, which I have found everywhere on the car. Whether this was a rat-rod paint job or primer to go under the current gold color, I can't say.

There's even a bit of original Tampico under there!

I replaced, on the flange that holds the trim, the clips that had remained in the old piece, fixing them in the same relative positions.

It was an easy matter to attach the new trim without any special tool by pushing it into place.

Much better.

As always, a new item tends to show more sharply the defects in the original pieces next to it.

For the other side, the process was repeated except that the photo below was shot within the enclosed garage as Seattle s experiencing a November monsoon.

Rear Bumper Reloaded

2015-10-31T13:07:00.003-07:00

This should have been easy. The rear bumper used to look like this.

Now it looks like this.

All I had to do was find a new center bumper piece. Which I did, as the photo illustrates.

But to get the old bumper removed and ready for re-installation was not so simple a task. First, the bumper had to be removed. What was required was to cut the bolt that held the d/s bumper horn to the quarter panel, as the internal cage nut had frozen as hard as an Antarctic glacier.

The end of the bolt still inserted into the cage nut was then drilled out.

And the cage nut re-tapped.

Last step was to rust-proof the new rig.

At the end it was necessary to take some time to admire the NOS bumper center, so old the part number sticker on it only contained seven digits.

Now it was reinstalled, to be admired in contrast to the nearby long-neck differential.

All but the first two photos donated by Patrick O'Neil and Midnight Motorsport, who also did all the work (with the exception of sawing the old bumper horn bolt).

Suspension Bushings and Parking Brake Cables

2015-10-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

While renewing the differential and CV boots it seemed like it would be a good idea to replace all the rear suspension bushings. The car definitely was feeling loose toward the stern on Seattle's notoriously well-maintained streets.

The trailing arms and subframe were removed.

Crunchy cracked items prevailed everywhere.

New bushings were lined up like little ducklings behind their mother and installed.

Meanwhile the parking brake cables were swapped. Since I didn't have the correct rubber grommet a small length of hose was stretched over the appropriate area on each cable.

Sure enough, a day later I located a source for the grommet. As they say in the surfing world, "You should have been here yesterday."

Thanks again to Patrick O'Neil for the photography (with the notable exception of that cable grommet!) and all work performed, live and unexpurgated.

The Differential Equation

2015-10-28T11:44:00.001-07:00

According to Wikipedia, "a differential equation is a mathematical equation that relates some function with its derivatives." That sounds about right.

My rear drive had a number of problems, as did its derivatives, otherwise known as the CV boots. Briefly, most of the seals in the diff leaked.

As did one of the CV boots, the early clear kind with the differential fluid visible inside.

And so all were removed.

A couple of years ago a fellow enthusiast sold me an NOS diff seal kit. They are still available, but almost certainly not in this cool box:

We also discovered that the old differential mount - yet another derivative - was fried.

Now it was time to take stuff apart.

The inside of the differential looked nice.

The hour arrived to reassemble everything. A special tool was made to aid with installing new CV boots. No heat required to get them back on with this little number.

I was worried that the diff mount might be NLA but no, they even use this version on the E12! I was also concerned that the metal above this mount would be compromised by rust - this seems to be fairly common with NKs - but my rear structure was still solid after 49 years.

The differential and CV boots are installed again.

And all is well with the world.

Special thanks to Patrick O'Neil for the work, and for the photography!

How to Make a New HIrschmann Jewel-Tip Antenna

2015-10-27T13:34:00.001-07:00

The good news is that it's easy; the bad news is that you have to already have a real Jewel-tip antenna. Here is the original item on my car, bent and basically broke. The antenna wouldn't retract, either.

The first thing to do is remove the cap on the base with the H engraved on it.

That is accomplished by levering the cap off, since it snaps on. You can see in the photo below that there is a spot on the cap into which you can insert a small tool to pry it off.

At the same time, by heating the red jewel-tip you can easily remove it from the top of the old antenna.

Then it's simply a question of swapping the stem, gluing the red tip back on, and voila! New antenna.

It's also a good time to get any overspray off the bracket that holds the antenna to the A-pillar.

Thanks to Patrick O'Neil and Midnight Motorsport for the work. Thanks also for the third photo from the top.

Door Trim

2015-09-04T14:36:00.001-07:00

The outer door trim on three of the four doors had lost most of their the rubber seals, so I ordered new pieces and got to work. Below are the tools I used. Note the position of the wood; that's exactly how I placed it before hammering the chrome into place.

By placing the flat end of the plastic putty knife under the chrome and hammering, a few whacks were enough to remove the old trim.

Other than a few spots that had lost the black paint that lies below the current respray, the door flanges presented nicely. I touched up the spots and also removed the clips that had served to hold the original chrome tips (the new ones have a felt inlay and so fit snugly without these clips).

The old pieces had seen better days, too.

The new chrome was very reluctant to sit over the flange so this is where the wood came in handy. By laying it flat over the chrome and hitting it with force I was able to snug down the chrome strips nicely. They won't be going anywhere soon.

Both right front and left rear doors are done.

The Snorkel Solution

2015-08-23T13:34:00.003-07:00

After obtaining a stock paper air hose and smaller hoses to fix it to the heat shield and snorkel - thanks to my local BMW dealer and junk.se - I was presented with a dilemma. Getting the air hose on the heat shield was easy but how to manage the strange installation to the snorkel? The factory installation had the small rubber hose stretched over the much larger-diameter air hose.

While taking some time to think I installed the paper hose simply by inserting it over the rubber piece already mounted on the flange on the snorkel. But of course this did not look right.

Finally the solution turned out to be less difficult than I assumed. I pulled the paper hose off the snorkel, peeled back the small rubber hose over itself on the flange, inserted the paper hose back over the flange, and then unpeeled the rubber hose, so to speak, and it popped right over the paper hose. Perhaps not as glamorous as the original factory installation but at least the assembly now looks more correct.

The Trunk Goes Gray

2015-07-03T13:20:00.002-07:00

Taking advantage of the hot weather this week, I dyed the vinyl trunk trim back to a reasonable approximation of the orignal gray "elephant skin."

Now the car looks like a 1960s sunglasses commercial, mostly because the wheel arches are still painted a peculiar shade of Siennabraun. This too shall change one day.

A Useful Addition to Reference Material

2015-06-01T16:23:00.001-07:00

Just picked this up in the mail - publication date is 1971.

It's always nice to see the original part numbers.

Underside

2015-05-20T07:59:00.002-07:00

Life is looking pleasantly clean and dry under the car these days. Amazing what a few years of work will bring to a car. The body looks a bit crunchy, but then we all look a bit older after 50 some years.

Most of the effect on the car probably due to old undercoating and ancient fluid leaks, I suspect.

Not even any pesky leaks from those exhaust manifold studs!

Heat Shield: The Last Engine Bay Detail (for the moment)

2015-05-14T15:02:00.004-07:00

I was getting tired of the modern, upgraded heat shield on the exhaust manifold that had been installed a few years ago. (You can see this heat shield in the engine bay picture from the last post.) So I resurrected the stock one and decided it was time to remount the thing.

My first step was to weld the crack that had occured when the heat shield was originally removed. Midnight Motorsport helped me with this task, and then I repainted the metal with Dupli-Color high temperature enamel. Lastly I managed to acquire from Germany - through my local BMW dealer - the heat-resistant end piece that connected the shield to the air hose and prevented scorching of the paper hose. The dealer didn't even mark up the price of the hose, which came in at under $10.

That accomplished, I returned to Patrick's place and had him mount the heat shield in its proper place. As they say, the look counts for everything.

Engine Bay Comparisons

2015-03-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot of the engine bay taken by the PO when he had the car for sale.

Below is a photo of how it looks now.

Lastly, here is that 1966 factory engine bay shot.

Bumper Bling (Slight Return)

2015-03-21T08:24:00.004-07:00

Another recent project was the replacement of the front bumper center. The old one had numerous dings, dents, and rust spots.

I also lacked the bumper bracket bushings. I acquired these OOS - old, old stock we might stay- a few years ago but never got to putting them on, despite at least once having the bumper off the car. They are a bit crusty, but far better than nothing.

Heater Valve Resto

2015-03-21T07:41:00.001-07:00

The heater valve had presented a problem for a couple of years. First, the inlet hose began to dribble at the valve, and second, the o-ring on the valve itself had outlived its usefulness and was now allowing coolant to slowly dribble onto the firewall and even on the transmisssion housing. Not fast enough to require adding coolant on a frequent basis, but still an issue. I knew this was something that wouldn't fix itself.

We wondered if the whole heater core would have to be removed to fix the problem but as it turned out the answer was no. Even better, the o-ring was a perfect match for the early 2002 style, still easy to obtain. As was the orginal s-curved heater hose, which is NLA but still available from Walloth and Nesch for under 10 Euros.

The old heater valve inlet hose alongside the equally crusty old piece of heater hose that had been used by a PO as a valve cover oil breather hose.

So Patrick at Midngiht Motorsport made the repair and now I am the proud owner of a gleaming, clean valve, with its attendant improvement to the all-important look.

The `68 Cylinder Head

2015-03-14T18:19:00.005-07:00

I have always wondered why the engine in the car runs so well but I figure, best not to wonder too much. I do know that my cylinder head was the correct 121TI type that the car was built with.

Today, while cleaning the old oil stains off the casting date stamp, I discovered that it's not the original head, but rather was made in October 1968, nearly a year after the car's manufacture date.

Rear Door Seals

2015-03-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

I recently decided to buy a pair of new auxiliary door seals, or whatever you call the small seals that fit on the outer frames of the rear doors. They are NLA but still available in Germany at a price that reflects the situation.

They look like simple items to install. But as usual with this car, there is a little more to the job than you might think.

Basically, similar to other seals I have installed, these new ones were slightly too short. Had they shrunk with age, or rather been made that way on purpose? I don't know.

Therefore they had to be stretched, and also pushed into the curve of the door itself. Which required lots of clamps, in other words.

But the final result was pleasantly eye-catching.

The Snorkel Cover

2015-02-13T09:51:00.003-08:00

The round cover on the snorkel box had been drilled by a PO ,covered with black goo, and then drilled again for the purpose of installing a metal bracket. Whatever function it served had been deleted by the time I acquired the car.

I took the bracket off and it now looked even worse, if such a thing is possible.

Ebay.de came through again and I found an NOS round cover. Looks better now even though some day I have to get rid of that non-standard air hose below it.

UPDATE:

I found out that the stock air hose was still available from my local BMW dealer and only cost a few dollars so I ran downtown and snagged one. They remarked that there were only six of these hoses left in the USA. Much better. From Sweden, of all places, I acquired the rubber fitting that snugs the hose into the air box. Last step was to remove the entire assembly and give it a fresh coat of paint.

Keys

2015-02-12T15:53:00.004-08:00

Naturally I was happy when I bought the car to see that it came with an original vintage BMW key.

However, there was only the one key so I immediately tried to make a copy. All I could find was a Volkswagen-type key blank that was similiar enough to work. But it didn't work well and I never used it unless necessary as I didn't want to damage the tumblers in the igintion.

Recently I saw on Ebay.de a key blank for sale that looked like it would work. Total cost for getting it here was 11 Euros so I figured I would take a chance. Sure enough, I was in luck, and now I have a proper spare key. It was difficult to find a shop that would cut this key since it's magnetic and requires a special machine to cut, but I found a kiosk in a local shopping center that had the right equipment.

Perhaps my imagination is to blame but the new key seems to work better than the original!

The Other Door Switch

2015-02-07T13:47:00.002-08:00

Having already replaced the door contact switch on the passenger side, I decided to have a look at the driver's side and see what kind of shape that switch might be in. I mean, since an NLA switch could be had online for $3.95, what was the downside? I found this.

Clearly, an abundance of overspray at some time in the past had rendered the ground inoperable so a PO had rigged bare copper wires as an easy fix. Not acceptable.

I quickly bought the new switch - which I wasn't sure I could even get until I looked - and put it in, after a little shine of the aluminum casing with 0000 steel wool.

It's a bit of an archeological dig when I start taking bits apart on the doors, as I discover the various layers of prior resprays and under all the paint, the original Tampico color. And I have to wonder if the machine screw is original or a hardware store replacement.

And Capping It!

2015-02-03T11:41:00.001-08:00

I found this factory photo of a 1966 NK 2000 engine, courtesy of the Brit '02 forum.

It clearly shows the rubber cap that is supposed to on top of the throttle linkage under the air filter housing. Of course, this item in my car had been removed at some time during the dim past.

So I ordered one when acquring a new inllet hose for the heater valve (more on that later) and happily added one more stock accessory to the engine bay. Whether or not it ever served a real purpose is more difficult to decide.

A Glovebox and its Liner

2015-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

Every time I open the glovebox I am reminded a few issues. Mostly concerning the glovebox liner itself, which was horribly mutilated to accommodate the now useless stereo. And how I can't seem to find a proper liner to replace it.

One item I could rectify, however, was the condition of the lid liner. Although the the bright sun in the photo above masks the worn-out black liner, it looked terrible and was even coming unglued.

So I took out my bottle of black acrylic paint and with a small artist brush repainted the liner. It came out nicely and presumably more like it looked when new. A bit of expoxy and a small clamp took care of the loose fit.

Re-Stocking the Distributor

2015-01-23T16:22:00.001-08:00

When I bought the car it came with its original distributor, which I removed in order to upgrade to an electronic ignition system. Therefore the old unit soon departed the car.

And in went a brand new distributor, outfitted with the necessary components.

Now, fast forward a few years. There I am, innocently drving around, when suddenly a distinct scraping sound begins to emit from the engine bay. I stop, and after a bit of feeling about, realize that the sound is coming from the distributor. I bring the car to Midnight Motorsport - along with the old distributor - and we conclude that the new unit is shot. Lots of play in the shaft, metal filings on the magnet, etc. etc.

A week or so later Patrick fiddled with my old Bosch distributor, trying to see if a Petronix electronic ignition would fit into it. Now, Petronix reps had told me four years ago that their systems were not compatible with NK cars, but Patrick, after taking a week to think over the matter, managed to make the old distributor work with the Petronix.

Now I have it back in the car, a forty-eight year old piece of German engineering that has outlived its four year-old younger brother by a bunch of years and then some. And as a bonus, the old distributor is has a steel body, unlike the later 2002 varieties, which are made of aluminum.

So now my engine bay is closer to stock than ever. With the condenser still there but for decorative purposes only...

Isolated

2014-11-20T19:20:00.000-08:00

A PO had gotten creative in the distant past with the isolators that dampen vibration from the air cleaner mounts.

The one above wasn't too too bad, but close examination revealed a VW/Audi stamp on the rubber. Horrors!

The other two were made of 1) a small piece of hose and 2) five or six regular metal washers.

For some reason I dawdled for years in getting these right but now they finally are correct for the car and the engine bay continues its journey back to a semblance of stock.

One of the fresh ones, a bit crusty but still new.