1971 BMW 2002tii

[Chris tii]

I thought it’s about time I would start a members car thread on my 2002tii. I have owned this car since 2015, before I had joined RMS. Since I’ve had it for almost 9 years and done so much to the car over the years, I will try and keep this summary as short as possible.

I’ve always had a soft spot for old BMW’s and one evening, after watching an episode of Wheeler Dealers featuring a BMW 2002tii. I had a quick look on Gumtree and discovered there was only one Tii for sale in the UK and it was in Newcastle, Co Down!
The advert was a pretty vague but seemed to describe and show a car that was a restoration project that was almost complete. It was also for sale for a very reasonable sum. (Now I know why)

I grabbed my mechanic and my Dad and the 3 of us went to view the car.
The seller was an “interesting” old bloke who as well as the 2002tii, had a running and driving red 2002 and the remains of a rusty 1602 in the garden. He talked a good talk about how he’s been restoring the car himself over many years. Not only had he done all the welding and paint but rebuilt the engine as well. The car was stripped and in primer and seemed to back up his story.

 

[Chris tii]

After buying the car I started to research exactly what I had bought! You can email the VIN number to BMW Group Archives and they will tell you a little about the car from when it was new.

My car was built on June 16th 1971.

It was the 28th RHD Tii ever built.

Factory colour was Bristol Grey.



Bristol Grey was discontinued in 71 and since the Tii was first built in 71 this might just well be the only Tii that left the factory in Bristol Grey. No one knows of another and I’ve actually been accused of lying on an American BMW 2002 Forum about the colour being factory, I had to share my email from BMW Archive to prove it.



The car was sent to Paul Dunston in Bangor. The plan was simple, he was to remove all the primer, fix any body work and paint the car. Then my mechanic will put it all back together. Paul started to sand the car and we soon discovered it wasn’t as described. There was mountains of isopon and bathroom filler under the primer.

It was sent off to be media blasted and came back looking like a cheese grater. This wasn’t the plan, and although Paul was able to work on the car now and again. It was just too rough and wasn’t something he could really take on. After a year with little progress, I decided it was all or nothing and the car needed to go to somewhere that restores classics and knows these cars.
I found Jon Millar (Classic Carreras) in Limerick. He had restored a few 2002’s in the past but mainly restores classic Porsches.

Pretty much every panel was too far gone. Apart from the roof, every panel was replaced! Some parts are hard to come by and took me a long time to source, but a good few are still available from BMW.

Front wings, doors, rear quarters, fuel tank, front and rear panels are all still available from BMW. I got a perfect used Bonnet from Jaymic (very good parts store who specialise in 02s). Boot lid was sourced by Jon from somewhere in England. Boot floor was bought in America and was NOS. And I managed to buy a set of NOS front grills from a guy in Jordan (Middle East).

 

[Chris tii]

 

[Chris tii]

The bumpers are no longer available, I bought a set of after market stainless steel ones from Vietnam! They also randomly build half size “junior cars”
Home - Group Harrington

Suspension is Eibach springs and Bilstein shocks.

Exhaust is a S/S Larini. Manifold is S/S from Fritz Bitz.

The supposedly “rebuilt” engine was a mess. It unfortunately needed totally rebuilt. As did the Kugelfischer fuel pump. It was sent to Philip Stevenson near Donaghadee for the rebuild.

As for the seats, I managed to find a pair of e21 Recaros on Ebay. For the rear, I used a bench seat from a 1602 LUX. The LUX edition 02s came with a rear armrest so I chose that over the original. All the seats were trimmed with brown tan leather. They were done in Limerick.
I found a place in England making carpet sets and the floor mats are Coco Mats from America.

 

[Chris tii]

The first set of wheels on the car were a set of 13” MOMO Cloverleafs. I tracked them down on an Italian classified website and convinced the seller to ship them to NI. They are super rare and were a dealership option in Italy only. I also bought a set of Magnesium Campagnolo wheels from Italy, but unfortunately after sending them off to a Mag wheel specialist in England, he found one was cracked. And I’m guessing welding a 50 year old magnesium wheel is not a good idea.

The second and current set of wheels I bought 3 years ago. They are a set of 14 inch BBS Mahle. When I bought them they were dark bronze, last month I changed them to gold. And I haven’t seen them on any 02 before, I think they may have been an option for the mk1 Golf? I bought them from a guy called Frank, who lives in the Czech Republic. For a short time, Frank was all over the 02 forums and Facebook groups. He had loads of very cool retro wheels for sale, mostly for BMWs. It turns out he’s a bit of a con man. Plenty of people from all over the world have paid him for a wheels that never arrived. There’s some people on an American Forum who paid thousands of dollars for some BBS RS wheels 3 years ago, and are still waiting for their wheels. Frank has since vanished from the face of the earth. I was lucky, I waited maybe 4 months for my wheels? I kind of got the impression that he stringing me on, he always had a new excuse why they were being delayed. So I pretended I wanted to buy a set of very expensive RS wheels he had, but I said I wanted to wait until I was happy with the 14 inch set first. The plan worked, and he shipped my wheels. I wonder how many other people have also paid for my set of wheels and are still waiting for them.

I changed the gearbox to a 5-speed from an e21. I’ve had a bit of nightmare with gearboxes. To summarise years of messing about with gearboxes;
Bought a rare 5 speed gearbox in Holland.
Turns out to be very loud.
After a couple of years I send it to a “specialist” in England to be rebuilt. Comes back months later with a leak.
He sends me another one, and I send him back my leaky one.
The new one pops out of 5th gear.
He ships me yet another one. I don’t send back the other one until I know the 3rd one is perfect.
This one feels like a bag of spanners and is just awful.
I send this one to another guy my mechanic knows and he rebuilds it. All is finally good.
The “specialist” in England promises to refund me what its cost to have it rebuilt a second time. Though then goes silent and totally ghosted me. So no refund. I still have their gearbox that pops out of 5th gear though so I’ll hang onto that as a spare for now.

I sent the diff away to Portugal to a guy who rebuilds them into LSDs using internals from an e30. Even this came with dramas! My diff was stolen from his car just before he was about to post it back. Luckily he sent me another one shortly after.

 

[Chris tii]

Heres a few pictures of the engine rebuild.

 

[Rigger]

Cracking!! A lot of love, attention (and money), but it looks beautiful Chris.

How does she drive compared to a more modern car?

 

[carmad.]

class job

 

[BIGDAVE]

That looks the part but i prefer the cloverleaf alloys on the car. Brilliant work .

 

[gav525]

What a brilliant build, fair okay to you mate. Mad the amount of running about all over the world you've done to get it to where it is now.

Has definitely paid off though, car looks great!

 

[NickR]

One of my favourite cars on here. Serious amount of effort and money getting it to where it is now. Fair play!

 

[WSK]

Cracking work, beautiful car. Takes a lot of time, stress and resilience to carryout a full build - Must feel great to be able to hop into it for a spin whenever you fancy now!

 

[Gambit]

Some effort has went into that!! But the outcome is just stunning

 

[Woodcutter]

I had no idea that this was such a project car for you, that is a tremendous amount of work, and what a result!

This is such an awesome wee car, I love it, I had no idea that colour was factory.

 

[RevT]

Love this thing, always one of my favourites on here. Fair play for the work you’ve put in, it’s paid off.

It seems like you always have absolute torture with cars mind you.

 

[Chris tii]

Cracking!! A lot of love, attention (and money), but it looks beautiful Chris.

How does she drive compared to a more modern car?

It weights under a ton and is 130bhp so it goes rightly! The feel from the steering and handling makes it really good fun on a back road. But the brakes suck, I’ve got EBC green pads on them and they still scare me how bad they are sometimes.

That looks the part but i prefer the cloverleaf alloys on the car. Brilliant work .

Yeah the Cloverleaf wheels are really cool and rare but the 13 inch wheels look a bit dinky for me. If only they did them in 14 inch.

What a brilliant build, fair okay to you mate. Mad the amount of running about all over the world you've done to get it to where it is now.

Has definitely paid off though, car looks great!

Yeah, I’ve gotten pretty good at tracking down random parts now. If it wasn’t for forums and google translate, the car probably would still be unfinished.

Love this thing, always one of my favourites on here. Fair play for the work you’ve put in, it’s paid off.

It seems like you always have absolute torture with cars mind you.

Yeah I think I’m cursed sometimes when it comes to cars.

 

[Chris tii]

I had no idea that this was such a project car for you, that is a tremendous amount of work, and what a result!

This is such an awesome wee car, I love it, I had no idea that colour was factory.

Thanks. Everyone asks me about the colour as the “Primer” grey looks like a modern colour nowadays.
It’s weird how colour trends always seem to come back around. Nardo grey and pastel type colours are back in fashion again. And the new M4, M3 can now come in Neon Yellow which was also a 70’s colour for the BMW 2002, it was called Gulf Yellow.

 

[Graham2]

Wow, what a project! Fair play for persevering and seeing it through.

 

[PeteL]

That is just awesome. Amazing build. The standard of work finish is fantastic. I love the seats and interior.

Agree with a previous comment that the original wheels look much better.

 

[Boabybooster]

Unbelievable amount of work. Some job. Love threads like this. Certainly beats spacers, lowered slightly and new wheels.

Ones man’s restoration is another man’s bodgit job.

 

[Boydie]

Great story, gutted I can't see the pics on my laptop but will catch up on my phone over the weekend

 

[Rocko]

Those seats

 

[Chris tii]

The steering wheel I went for is a period correct Raid steering wheel.

I changed the gear knob for wooden one made from reclaimed skateboards, its from 'Built by Basil'.

I have also recently changed the centre console to an aftermarket one with cup holders. And I removed the period head unit and speaker as I'm planning on replacing this with something better very soon.

 

[Rocko]

@r16vka had some OEM looking old beard looking headunit in one his Audi's, some fancy make that now escapes me. Looks old, but has all the fancy modern gubbins.

 

[Boydie]

Becker is the popular choice for retro units with modern tech