Wednesday, July 4, 2001
So the daily posts stopped for a while. I was repeating myself too much. I scored an extra day off because of the 4th of July. The perfect workweek would be Mon-Tues, work, Wed. off, Thurs. Fri. Work, Sat.Sun. off. I am starting to think I ought to start a political movement based on giving people more time off. I'm not lazy, I just want more time to do my stuff. Schedule for tomorrow : Get boxes at IKEA for Shane and Jenn's move. Deliver them to Federal Way so they can pack with them tomorrow. Grill burgers and stuff with Jenn and Shane for lunch/dinner. Blow shit up to celebrate the Declaration of Independance. Sounds like a day.

Monday, June 25, 2001
Well, the shortened weekend was not too great a hardship. We caroused around the yard with Jenn and the freshly shorn Shane so late that they decided to crash on our guest bed for the night, then we has a lazy sunday where we watched "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" the Cohen brother's latest offering, and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Thumbs up for both. Today I washed the GTI, and applied the "MK1" sticker to the hood. It is a white triangular vynil sticker, with the letters "MK1" cut out so you can see the paint below. It looks pretty sharp. In case I had not mentioned it, I got all of the lights working, and adjusted. The nice thing about all of these recent actions taken on the GTI is that they cost next to nothing, so I am not taking anything away from the BMW project which is more or less on hold until I can scrape together the money to tow the parts car to the shop, get the engine removed, have it towed back, and have the engine pulled from the "running" car and replaced with the engine from the parts car. I was hoping to have suspension work done at the same time, but I am going to have to do it in stages.

Thursday, June 21, 2001
So I got the driving lights hooked up with another Pilot harness, like the one I use for my PIAA foglights. The Blazer wireless harness did not work, and I still have not tossed it, but I will probably do so soon (after cannibalizing anything I can use). Well, about 10 things bought on e-bay and one lemon, them's not bad odds. I think am going to swap the old pasengers seat out with the nicer new one, the height of the newer passengers seat is a hassle, and I can't imagine fitting a helmet in there too, so I'll need to do something. We'll see...

Wednesday, June 20, 2001
So I went out and pulled the seats on the GTI, bolted both of the seatbelt clips to the passenger's bolt point. then I installed the nice leather/cloth passenger's seat in the driver's side. It sits nice and solid, but I am having trouble adjusting it fore and aft, but that has to do with the fact that the controls are on the wrong side! It also seems to sit a little higher than the old seat, but that is probably just the fact that the padding is still intact on this seat. I have just been informed that "doh" is going to be added to the next Webster's dictionary, defined as an expression of frustration or anguish. Homer Simpson has left his mark on the world.

Tuesday, June 19, 2001
Well, despite the looming week, I managed to have a pretty good 3 day weekend. By "looming" in mean...making a rug. No, not really, I mean that I am going to have to work through Saturday this week, then have one day off (Sunday) and then go another 5 days. I know that this does not sound like any big hardship, and I have lived through worse, but my sanity seems to be walking a tightrope these days and anything can make me fall into the "cash in the 401k, watch Oprah and eat twinkies" net. The prospect of a 1-day weekend would usually make it hard to enjoy a 3 day weekend, but that did not happen here. I had a good time spiffing up my GTI, and I watched both the Argentine and Cyprus rallies on Speedvision. I worked on the BMW some on Saturday, and I bid on a new duckbill spoiler for the GTI. I also bid on a Simpson 5 point harness. I only bid $5, and I was the first bid, and there are 5 days to go, so I don't think that I have much of a chance of getting this at this lowball price. I really only want a 3 point anyway. The drivers seat in the GTI is on it's last legs and I have a really nice passengers seat waiting in the wings that would work well for this. The only problem is that the seatbelt "clip" attaches to the right side of the drivers seat itself and not the car. I just had an idea while I was writing this, I could potentially attach both the drivers and passengers seatbelt clips to the passengers seat bolt. This could allow me to put that seat in now so I didn't have to wait until I can get a harness. We'll see. More later.

Saturday, June 16, 2001
Ah, the cornucopia of my BMW 2002 time capsule continues to produce a bounty of goods. This time it is one of those mechanical pencils made to look like a real yellow pencil, some nasty gold plastic mardi gras beads, the dregs of a roll of green duct tape, another cassette, this time it is a Maxell with Dave Grusin on one side and Maceo Parker on the other, and two pretty good size rust holes under the spare in the trunk. These holes are so big that it made sweeping the gunk out of the spare tire tub much easier than it would have been had they not been there. I attended a meeting of the BMW CCA's 2002 SIG. Ok ok, that's the BMW Car Club of America's 2002 Special Interest Group. It was a very nice meeting of like-minded car folks, and some of them brought SA-WEET cars. There was one Sahara colored one that really peaked my interest. It was just exactly what I would do with a bottomless checkbook. Nothing crazy, it even had the stock steel wheels, but those wheels were p-e-r-f-e-c-t. He had them bead blasted and painted. They looked like they just came off of the factory line. These wheels are an example of exactly the way everything has been done on this car. Not concourse factory perfect, upgraded perfection. Perfectly low, perfect airdam, perfect shortened front bumper struts. I was in awe. I had spent the better part of the afternoon swapping the 320 alloys from the parts car onto the "funtioning" car, I also swapped the trunk lid, before I realized that it was no better than the one on the non-parts-car (parts car - rust on the leading edge, non-parts-car - rust on the trailing edge) And I managed to be the next to worst car there. The worst couldn't have a spare because there was on bottom to his spare tire tub. It was hard to believe that he was driving it around, but he knows his shit under the hood. That car purrrred. The event we decided to do was drive out to the Sunrise visitor's center at Mt. Rainer on Sunday the 8th of July. I'll probably drive the GTI, 'cause the '02 will not be any shape to do a trek like that, and I want to have FUN! On another note, I got the bolts to put the center caps on the 16v "teardrop" wheels I have on the GTI, so from the outside it looks pretty complete. I'm gonna try to hang a bunch of lights on it tomorrow or Monday. That should look SCHWEET. I know, who cares, I DO. Many lights on the front of a car just looks COOL. Party at Staci's tonight.

Thursday, June 14, 2001
So the All-Star game is coming to the Safe. The Mariners who professed to love the "Signature sound" of the train horns are now saying that because of the WTO and Mardi Gras riots that Seattle should ask for an exemption to the federal train whistle law. What the fuck is that? There is some kind of implication that the train whistles will ruin the event. I'll tell you what will ruin the event, someone getting run over by a train. The Mariners have some balls. They obviously think they are the most important organization in Seattle, and by invoking Mardi Gras and WTO they are obviuosly promising an incident free event. We'll see.

Wednesday, June 13, 2001
For those of you who do not know, BMW has two versions of their popular two-seater, drop-top. The Z3 (which has had several engine configurations over it's short life) and the M Roadster. The M roadster is the performance tuned version of the little beast. It can be recognized by the "M" logos that appear in 3 places on the body, and by the fact that the BMW "roundel" on the trunk lid is more towards the top and faces up instead of back. I drove up and passed an M Roadster this morning on SR 167. In it was a woman driving at about 50 in a 60 zone putting on lipstick in the rear view mirror. I felt like smashing my beat up Rabbit into the side of that expensive sheet metal and explaining to the driver that she should have bought one of the lesser Z3s, maybe with an automatic, if all she was going to use the car for was a mobile makeup compact. She will never use this car for the kind of driving it was meant to provide. She will newer know the joy of getting just past the apex of a turn and instead of stabbing the brakes like the panic reflex in the back of her mind is instinctivly telling her to do, slowly depressing the gas until the metallic blue rocket is nothing but a blur for anyone watching on the sidelines. It's thoughts like that that make me want to take up grand theft auto as a career.

Wednesday, June 6, 2001
Well It's been a while, so I apologize. I have been going through a bit of a crisis. I am planning on quitting my job. I am in pursuit of a job working for MINI. Check out www.MINI.com for more info on that. I took a resume in and have communicated with them since. Every time I talk to them they are emphatic (understandibly so) that it will be months before they need anyone. I really don't want to be working at IKEA anymore. I can still do a credible, even excellent job, but I really don't want to be there. I've been told that I am viewed as a kick-ass manager at some undisclosed point in my future, so I realized that I need to make that point occur. IKEA won't let that happen, so I need to make it happen elsewhere. The place where I want to do it doesn't want me yet. So I have to deal with it. I was toying with cashing in my 401k and taking a sabbatical to deal with my emotions on the 7 years I have wasted on a dead end track in my career. I could live for about 4-6 months on what I could get from there, plus Kristin is up for a raise, so I could potentially make it further if I had to. That is a damned appealing idea. I could get onto Kristin's medical plan, sit around the house for a couple of weeks then get to work on household and yard projects. This appeals to Kristin quite a bit . Who knows? After Kristin's raise maybe I don't need to go back to work? Well, I'm sure that after a few months off I would be going stir crazy and need a job. I have been working since I had a paper route in TX when I was 13, I have not known an extended period since then that I was not in school or at work (or both). It would be nice to do my own thing for a while. I know many of you feel like this would be a bad idea, and you would like to talk me out of it, but it is an option, and if my misery gets to a point that I can't handle it anymore, I'm quitting and temporarily retiring. I was almost ready to give my notice last week. I think I will see if I can make it through July, and give my notice from there. MINI said to call back in 3-4 months so that will give me 2 months off before I push on that front, and that really appeals to me. The BMWs are still here, I am probably going to have the engines swapped and the suspesion taken care of this summer, so I can deal with the heater fan and other items this year before it gets really cold. I am also worried about having that as my only car while I am in a job hunt. I need the hang onto the Rabbit until I either trust the 2002, or I have another more reliable car (a MINI maybe?) Even If I get a more reliable car the 2002 is staying. That car just looks too cool. I am looking forward to getting to the point that I can have the dings taken care of and have a nice expensive paint job put on it. There is a shop around the corner from me that says that they can do paint and body work on it that will make it look better than it did from the showroom. That sounds nice to me. Anyway. that's enough. I'll update next week. Don't write me if it's to tell me not to cash in the 401k. That is my decision.

Check out Zane's page at: http://www.geocities.com/zane_and_ginefor/main.html He already has pictures of the racing posted.

Victory!Success! I came in 2nd at the wet, cold, autocross event yesterday! The weather was crappy while I worked the 1st session, we got rained on and the sliding and the spinning was in ample supply. the other course workers and I were arguing about who would get to run for the cones (to keep warm) I'm just thankful I bought (and brought) a waterproof jacket! Then we watched as the rain subsided over the course of the 2nd run group and the pavement dried up. Then it was my tun to rock. My best time was a 43 and change and the winning time (a Porsche 928s) was the difference between the change! The drier conditions aided my efforts but don't think that I won because I had more advantagous conditions. I was on fire! I was unstoppable. On Sunday April the 22nd, I was the autocross king.

Oh, by the way, It snowed, hailed, rained, and sunned on us on the way back. The event was cold, but the weather gods smiled on us. I won a can of "German hand cleaner" which is good, because I have half-Geman hands. I guess this means that the german half of my hands will be getting clean, where the American half will have to find it's own soap. I also won an oil filter, and an oil sticker for under the hood, a clutch and prake pedal pad (stock) and some little plastic interior trim dohickeys that no one was sure what they did. I know now, and the stock ones I have are indeed cracked. So whoopee!

Farnard Lives!
I'm not trying any of the plethora of suggestions I got on how to deal with HTML today. I will next week, and if I can get them to work, I'll go back and correct my past entries to look like I want them to. I have to communicate the sheer joy I felt today as I put my first 266 miles on the BMW. You may ask "was the name of the BMW Burgrundaline before?" You are correct. Here is why it is no longer (the following is a portion of an e-mail I sent to Shane and Scott yesterday) : I drove the BMW from the shop to work today. It rocks! I was coming down the hill from the airport to Southcenter blvd and the thing kicked up a HUGE cloud of blue smoke! It rocked! It even backfired once! At first when I stomped on the gas it hesitated and accelerated begrudgingly, but I stopped and topped off the tank with some high octane gas and it took off like a rocket. This trip down to Kelso tomorrow will be good for burning off crappy old gas. I'm gonna dump some engine cleaner in there too. I am changing the name of the car to Farnard. Some time ago here at IKEA there was a woman named Anne Picard who thought I looked more like a Bernard than a Marney. Another co-worker, Staci Byers, misspoke, or typo'd or something, and came up with Farnard, which she thought was hilarious, and we all agreed. I was called Farnard for a while, until Anne moved on to greener pastures, and Staci moved to Deco. I saw Staci today and she had a present for me. It seems her sister in New Orleans was out and about one day and saw a car with a "Barnard" sticker in the back window. (Her sister has a little boy who heard the word Farnard once and picked it up like little kids do, and would not let go. Staci told them the story about where it came from, I assume, and they too felt it was hilarious) Staci's sister talked to the owner of the car, and discovered that Barnard is a women's college in upstate New York or somewhere. She wrote to Barnard, and convinced them to send her a sticker on which she modified the "B" to look like an "F", so now I have a Farnard sticker for the car. From now on it will be known as Farnard. So this is why. It seems like as good a reason to name a car something as any. Burgrundaline is just what my cousin Chris and I called "unattractive" german chicks when we were railing around Germany shortly after we graduated from high school. I find my little BMW quite attractive. The NW '02 fest was a blast. somewhere between 50 and 60 cars showed and I got pictures of many of them. I'm gonna fill up my second camera (which I started out there) and get them developed to disk, so I can share them with the world!

HTML lessons wanted
The stupid pitas site says there is a way I can include a link and the date automatically in this text, but I have not been able to figure out how. I need a hands on lesson in basic HTML. I really just want to know how to (1) include a link in my text that you, dear reader, can then just click on. (2) I want the date and time of my posts to appear over them. (3) I want to be able to manipulate the shape of my text column. (4) I would also like to have a "links " column to the side. In short I would like my blog to look more like these : http://frito.pitas.com/ and : http://www.geocities.com/zane_and_ginefor/main.html On the the BMW... So my dad says that if the starter turns the engine, and it won't catch, it has nothing to do with gas, and everything to do with lack of spark, which makes perfect sense. So, today I am going to go out and get new spark plugs and later on today, after I am done helping Scott with his fence building (in the rain). I'm gonna flat out swap them out. Ede said she did that, but it has been sitting around for months without running, so as my dad said even new plugs corrode if you don't heat them up now and then. I will post tonight or tomorrow. I have to get it running today or tomorrow if I am gonna go to the NW '02 fest next weekend.

So It has been awhile since my last post. I am learning to live with my lovely hernia. I am told that I am lucky that there is no protrusion in my solar plexus area. Apparently hiatal hernias sometimes can cause a lump to appear where the chest plate meets the lower torso looking something like an alien trying to escape, or a third breast. Choose your joke. I went out and tried to start the 2002 today. I hooked it up to the Neon with the jumper cables and I sprayed the starter spray on the air filter. Nothing. I did that for a while, then added fresh gas to the tank (about 2 gallons) and tried again. Nothing. I removed the air filter alltogether and sprayed the starter spray right into the butterfly valves. Nothing. It just wouldn't start. The stupid parts car starts right up, but I can't drive it. The "good" car won't start. Go figure. I have got to get it started this week to get ready for the NW 2002 fest on April 7th. Ideally, I would have it running in time to drive it for a week before the event to get it ready, and get used to the feel of the car. I am just going to have to pump out the old gas like the guy from Korman recomended. We'll see.

A further note on my autocrossing debacle. It seems to have come to an amicable close for me. I received this e-mail just now : Marney, I'm the Guy ultimately responsible for your DSQ at SCCA #1. Here's what happened; I saw what I believed to be a GTi ( I used to drive a '80 Rabbit ) leave the lot heading South and making some wheel noise. Mike Lee ( Novice Co-Chair), who was standing beside me, recognized the car as a GTi driven by one of the novices. The guy working waivers at the front gate identified it as a rabbit also. We all agreed it was black. I then check the posting board to see who the driver might be. Cars aren't on the board w/ color descriptions, so I found all rabbits and gulfs just to be thorough. After the runs where done Carol and I looked through the cards to see which one was black. Only one; #55N ,VW GTi, Black. That said, Mike Lee just emailed me and said "it may also have been a spectator". I now have much less confidence about who the driver was, as I wasn't paying much attention to the Novice's in grid that afternoon. Please accept my apologies on behalf of the NWR/ SCCA. I'll do my best to get your times reinstated. Scott Miller 2001 NWR/SCCA Chief of Timing This is how I responded : Hey Scott, Thanks alot man. I thought I was going crazy! I was pretty out of it by the time the event was over and when heard about this, I thought it could have been me, but I definetly went north (I live in Burien). I appreciate your concern, and your effort. It's a tough job you guys have, and I can respect your need to enforce the rules so that all the drivers can continue to use the sites we have had the privledge to use, but may I make a suggestion? It seems like even if it had been me, it would have done no good if I had not stumbled upon the fact that I had been punished on the website. My e-mail address is on my timing card, some kind of notice could have been effective. I'm not in your shoes though, maybe this method is SOP, and has worked in the past. I look forward to meeting you in person at the next event. Best regards, Marney.

OK...Doc Watson (his real name) says that after reviewing my upper G.I. film he thinks he knows what the problem is. I have a hiatal hernea (I'm not sure about the spelling). It is a condition that causes to valve between the stomach and esophogus to fail to close for whatever reason. This is what has been causing my nausea, and my acid reflux. I got some kind of stomach bug a month ago and it enflamed the condition . There really is no iron-clad treatment for this. One of the doctor's suggestions was that we raise the head of the bed with blocks. He has perscribed me a drug that is supposed to make that valve close a little more, so we are going to give that a try, looks like I will be trying some pharmacological hit or miss for a while. "Here try this drug" -Two weeks later - "You grew a second head, with bad breath? Well that didn't work, did it! Hahahahah!...Why don't you try this one..." My new doctor is pretty cool, and in only one office visit, and a few phone conversations he has instilled me with a lot of confidence. I will keep you all posted.

They reinstated my times. Someone apparently had my number (55) but they said I peeled out and took off to the left. This is not the direction I took off in, so they must have misread the number. They could have contacted me. They had my e-mail address right on the card they dumped my times from.

Scott, Shane and my dad have already seen this, but check this SHIT out: So I went to the SCCA website to check my results and it looked wrong, so I wrote this to the Novice head: Hello Michael, I know that being a novice, accurate results won't play a large role in standings later in the season, but I was a little upset that I went to the results page for event #1 to discover that I had run an 80 on my first run, and DNF'd the rest. I ran all 4 runs, my first one was a 55 and change, my second was a 53.003 and my third was a 53.323. I don't remember my fourth run time. I think all but the 53.003 were clean! Could you look into this for me. There was a Rabbit out there that ran his first run, and then parked. I think someone has mixed up our results somehow. I finished every run, I had Karl riding with me for my last run. Something is screwed up, and I would like to see it fixed. Could you help? Marney. This is what he wrote back: Your times are not DNF'd, your times are DSQ. There was a black VW hatchback that was seen by myself and another event chief hauling ass right outside the lot our event was on despite the warning not to drive fast on the Emerald Downs site. This was reported to the event chair, Mike Leuty and I recall that one of the novices had their times killed as a result of this. If it is you and you would like your times reinstated, my suggestion is to contact Mike Leuty leuty@nwlink.com and tell hiim it won't happen again. If it was another someone else in a black VW hatchback explain that they penalised the wrong guy. This is what I wrote back: I have a Black 84' Rabbit GTI. This is the boxy Rabbit, not a more rounded Golf. The back windows are tinted, but the fronts are not. I had the number N55 in the back windows in shoe polish, indeed it is still there (no time to scrape it off yet). I walked off of my work assignment, talked to Karl (drives a white Neon most of the time) for a minute, and left. After the last run, I was gone within 10 minutes. I took a right out of the parking lot, a left at the light and drove off to get onto HWY 167. I don't remember driving aggressively, or even quickly when I left. I am not some teenage hot shoe. I'd like to think that I am actually a little more safety consious than most drivers. If you are stll not convinced that it was not me, I will probably (90% sure) be at the event in April down at Cheany stadium. You can have a look at my car and if you still think it was me, I will accept your judgement. Best regards, Marney. I figure taking the non-pissed off reasonable approach is more likely to get me results than the "Fuck you! Passing judgement on me with half a story and no proof is the dumbest thing I have ever heard!" approach, even though that is what I feel This is where I saw that my results were screwed up: http://www.nwr-scca.org/solo/2001results/regional1.html

I know, it has nothing to do with my BMW, but.... So I had my "upper G.I." this morning. They didn't have a tent-size gown for me so I had to wear scrub pants and a robe, both too small. The procedure is *NOT* what I was lead to belive (by all kinds of non-doctor-types). No camera down my throat, or through my nose, no fun pictures of my guts from the inside. I had to drink a mess of barium, which if I am not mistaken, is a metal. First they give you a cup of fizzy lemony stuff that makes you have to burp, but you are not allowed to burp. Then they make you drink a cup of barium, all the while they are snapping X-rays. Then they rock the table down and the barium comes--ulp!--up. Blah! It didn't come all the way up, just most of the way. Then they have me roll around to coat my stomach with this stuff, then I have to lay on my side and sip some through a straw. Finally they give me a cup of water. Did I mention that I was not allowed to eat or drink anything since midnight. I get to Southwest medical imaging partched, and they give me chalk to drink. Whee! So now - right now - I feel like I am going to lose it completely. I am going to try to find something to watch to take my mind off of my gut. Blah! Blah! Blah!! BLAH!!!

So I went out and did a job on my tires on Sunday. Autocrossing is such a rush. I can't wait to take the 2002 out. The GTI is fun, but I am tired of the way it pushes to the outside on tight corners. I could sink a grand into suspension, and another grand into 15"x7" wheels and tires, or I can sink that money into the BMW and have a very cool rear wheel drive sports sedan. I already went out and looked at the parts car, and the interior is not that great, but the glass, wheels, and body panels are more than I could have hoped for. It's really too bad. The guy I am buying it from is a teenager who's dad bought it so that they could explore the engine bay together, The short version is that they wanted to do some "bonding", but that sounds cheesy. The car was in perfect condition until the son drove it into a guard rail, turning it into more of a project than they wanted. They are good folk, and they are giving me a good deal on something that I can really use. I really hope they find another project. Now I have to figure out how to get that bad boy over here to my house....

Badkarmaracing
You are a rock star, Dot-commer who got out before the fall, tycoon, or nut with money to burn. You are visiting Seattle, but renting a Neon, or even a Lincoln seems beneath you. You go to www.drivenimage.com. They have what you need.

Burgrundaline the 2002
Damn! BMW people are freindly. I thought that VW people are supposed to be the nicest car owners, but my experience was that there were a lot of surly teenagers bent on removing all exhaust restrictions from their cars, and spending thousands of dollars on crap to hang on their cars. Loud and obnoxious is how I would classify them. The BMW people I have communicated with have been friendly, informative, and generally older...er...more mature, than the VW goons. I was a little worried about the actual value of the parts car, so I asked this guy who's website I found through the 2002 list (http://www.nwlink.com/~bmrfamly/ ). He came back with 3 emails! one told me that the wheels and trim alone are worth $500. I told him when I was ready to put in a hot cam and an exhaust I would call him and he responded with this: By the time you want to install a hot cam, or special exhaust, it's too late for me to instruct you. I need you whe you're interested in learning what make the M10 engine tick, and what makes it fail. The key to getting 5-7-900k miles from an M10 motor is a 1 minute procedure done during the normal annual tune. This one minute addition to the regular service on M10, and M30 motors has saved more owners more time and money than any other tune procedure than changing oil. The 2002 is an excellent classroom for desiring students. Learn while the car is running, you learn the lesson. Learn when the car needs help, you're learning the test. Any 2002 that starts, runs, steers straight and stops is worth $500, for transportation or parts. http://www.nwlink.com/~bmrfamly/

badkarmaracing
This is just a minor update, I have been having what can only be described as "morning sickness". I feel nauseous for the better part of the morning. I had to come home from work today it was so bad. So, I am probably going to be running in the afternoon on Sunday, so if any of you show in the morning, hoping to see the badkarmaracing GTI broiling some M+S tires, you will be disapointed. As long as I am making an entry...if you are in the Federal Way area and need wheel alignment, tires, battery or anything else basic and automotive, stop by Sears and be sure to ask for Pat to do your work. He is a great guy who used to autocross an Austin-Healy bugeye Sprite in Northern CA in the 60's and 70's. He is a hell of a guy and when he heard that I was planning on running this weekend, he suggested a setup with just a little negative camber to give me a little extra bite. I hope I am that cool when I am his age.

badkarmaracing
So, I am buying the parts car. For those of you who don't know there is a guy in North Tacoma with a slightly broken '76 2002. It has: wheels, a complete interior, rust free trunk lid, hood, doors, roof, a good engine and a spare one, and chip and crack free windows (incliding a 2 year old windsheild) Essentialy, the only thing it does not have is a...well look for yourself: http://members.aol.com/polodan/private/pics.html I'm gonna look at it on Sunday after I race the GTI here: http://www.nwr-scca.org/solo/info.html So if you are local, come watch. I'm gonna try to work the first run group, watch the second and compete the third. I hope I can con Kristin into sticking around in the afternoon, or simply letting me do so. She tends to get bored, but I could stay all day and not get tired of it. I am a little worried about getting the parts car, I'm not sure I can get rid of the hulk once I am done stripping it, but I figure it is worth the risk. If I had to buy that stuff new it would cost $1500-$2000. seats alone would run me $1500, so I think I am making a smart buy. Oh, did I mention, the guy only wants $500 for it. If you have not looked at it, you should. It is surprising how good a shape it its in, too bad It is T O T A L L E D, as my dad put it. That bent strut is BAD NEWS. If it was in better shape. I would not be able to make the deal I am. I don't want to hear from anyone with snide comments about my yard of cars, or the potential planters I have on my hands. When I have this: http://www.bmw.com/cgi-bin/pus/mediadownload?dir=3er&file=/common/images/downloads/heritage_4_3.jpg You will no longer be laughing. I will be laughing. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

badkarmaracing
So here is my web log. In the interest of completeness, I am going to post the last two e-mails concerning my BMW 2002. I wanted this log primarily to keep my friends and family appraised of my progress with my leap into the world of cluttering my driveway with derrilict hulks of metal. And so the saga begins... After paying a scant $650 for my new project, I am discovering why. The new heater fan for the beast is $285! Some say "Buy a used one." I say this is a common problem in these cars, why would I buy one that has more potential to go tits up? It is apparently a difficult task to replace as well, involving the removal of the dash and much chanting and voodoo. That is going to wait until I have her running, and the weather is nicer. I wanted to get started doing SOMETHING. She's been sitting in my carport for over a month. I am staring to look like my neighbors, only classier. They only have Japanese and American derrilics in their yards and driveways, I have a Tutonic paperweight in mine! So I pulled the speakers that Ede (previous owner and freind) said she still wants and I don't. I discovered that the moisture problem so prevalent throught the car affected the rear deck speakers as well. They are moldy, and disintigrating. The original Robert Bosch units under the backseats came out nice though. They will go in a bag to be saved for the possibility of a concourse bid that will never happen. Some more stuff I can't seem to throw away. The Boston Acoustics I saved from the doors of my Kia before I sold it actually fit in those spots like a glove, so saving shit you don't think you can use until much later paid off in this case. I then pulled the banged up Alpine speakers from the front doors. when I pulled the passengers side speaker there was a large chunk of metal laying there in the door loose, that I suspect is the reason the the door won't stay open on it's own. Out that came. The drivers side door won't stay open either, but no chunks laying around in that door. Next I set about pulling the backseat. It is worthless and ugly, so it needs replacing. There is a core charge for these from the place I am getting the replacement, so maybe it is not totally worthless. After some head scratching and the removal of the only exposed bolt even near the backseat, I called Dave at Aardvarc Racing in San Diego. http://www.2002parts.com/index.html Dave is a good guy, whom I have been trading e-mails with for a few weeks concerning the seats. He informed me that the '76 2002 sunroof drains into the cabin! The tube from the sunroof runns right down the C-pillar and into the cabin behind the rear quarter panels. Yuck! Aardvarc is where I am going to purchase the replacement seats from If I can ever sell my GTI (which just went into the shop for a $230 rear brake rebuild). Dave told me that to get the backseats out you just have to force the bottom straight up, once you have the bolt removed that I had already removed. There is some kind of retaining ring around the perimiter of the of the seat that holds it in place. YANK! What do I find? Mixed in with a whole mess of old horsehair (the padding, in case you didn't know, was horsehair) An old (old!) half used package of Dentine, cassette copy of XTC, "Skylarking", tape and case, another tape case for something one of the previous owners had recorded themselves (label says "floor music"?) and a black moldy womans satin dress glove. Like a little time capsule, my car is. Unscrew the two retaining screws at the base of the backseat, pull straight up (both a-la dave at Aardvarc) and voila the backrest came out. Now get the TWO grocery bags of horsehair out, and if my vaccuum had a fresh bag I would finish the job (but it doesn't). I think I will just pack it in for now. If I pull the front seats I won't be able to drive it even if I can get it running. One of these days I will have to pull the carpeting, because it is holding moisture up against the metal of the floorboards. That will have to wait until I can do it carefully, because the carpets are in surprisingly good shape. So I have some work ahead of me still. I have to figure out how to get the rear parcel shelf off too. I want to recover that, probably in black car carpet. I want to be able to "stealth" mount the rear panel speakers. That is mount them under the carpet so that they are not visible. I would love to install the deck hidden somewhere, and mount an old Becker, or Blaupunkt in the stock location. That way no one will want to break in or steal my little car! Screw alarms, just make it so that no one will want to break in! That is enough for now. I will continue to report as I progress. And another weekend comes and goes... Nothing major going on this weekend. I went down to Magnolia Hi Fi where I originally bought the speakers that came out of the doors on the Kia. When they were installed, I never got the grills. The installation guys were great, they pulled out a box and rummaged through it until we found a matching pair of grills that fit the speakers. They are even Boston Acoustics speaker grills. That will look great, and the door panels have cut outs just as big as the rear parcel deck, so I can mount Boston Acoustics like I have in the GTI in 4 places, and the two Bostons from the Kia as well. 6 speakers, and the Kenwood sub in the trunk, that thing is going to rock! Now if I could just get it running. Since the GTI is having electrical problems to begin with, I didn't want to try to jump the BMW off of it. Besides, Ede had tried the same thing repetadly, I just figured that if I didn't try, I couldn't say I tried everything. So I hooked it up to the Neon, and gave it a shot. It really sounds like it wants to start. It almost catches when I let it charge a little. I think dumping the old fuel and getting a good charge on the battery is going to get it going. I am just going to let the weather get a little better, however if it doesn't improve this coming weekend, I am going to have to work on it the following weekend. I have to get it running a few weeks ahead of the '02 springfest http://www.02springfest.org/ So I can get used to driving it around. I plan on going to that, but I do need a running 2002 to participate in a 2002 fest. Next week, siphoning the gas out, and what to do with crappy old gas.