Car of the Month

December 2007

(sorry for delay due to hosting site error)

Richard Venema from The Netherlands & his Stunning Tii

Want to see your 02 featured here? Email me any 02, any condition.

This TII was bought new in the begining of '75 by a guy living in the same place (Veendam, Holland) as where i live. The dealer had 2 tii's in the showroom, inca and golf: He wanted the orange one, but it was allready sold.. The customer had a negativ thought, because normally they were sold "out of the folder", and after a half year he got the answer: The new 3 series came out, info he didn't get from the salesman and furious he got him a new 3 series (he said: "A terrible mistake, the 02 was far a better car")

After 7 owners a brother of mine found the car at a garage/ junkyard with only BMW cars and told me about it. It wouldn't run but interior was great!! A week later it was in a garage in the north of Holland. Engine ran, but hot it sounded terrible after a foult made during the overhaul: The first problem...

The body wasn't in a bad shape: The idea was to put on a new front and new front wings, replace some sick metall, but i went the other way. On the question: "How many can you spent and what is the easiest thing to do" i went over to Germany and bought allmost a new body in parts: 3 car rides to get the parts home... All coating tectyl under the car was removed, all rust out and all forms in sheet metal was made like it was original ( Good to have a brother who works in a car shop, it was his daily work!).

Another engine was bought (old one couldn;t be used anymore) en revised with new oversized pistons, bearings, seals... even all the nuts and bolts were ordered new by BMW ( a days work to sort it all out) and then the second technical prob: cilinderhead was cracked, so a new one was ordered incl new frontplate (sam hight as head).

All used parts (like alu inlet parts were cleaned, metall was sprayed etc).

My brother and mutual friend welded the car (point welded: as original) and i had the honour of cleaning it to bear metall, a terrible job to do, with a "gritt" gun and renewed suspension and brakes on the car ( all original BMW parts): allso ordered all new chrome parts, clips screws and nuts, strips , rubber light parts, grill, bumpers, head lining etc etc in Germany.

The body was ready for sanding etc, this was out of our hands and done by a body shop ( the car was then 3 years in his shop for the thing we did; metallworks, suspension and brake installing on the car. all in all: 7 times the car was sprayed (anti rust, primer underbody , colourbody, coloue loose parts, and finish). All in all: This took a 3/4 year when the car was ready for building up ( the best thing to do: You're building a car with clean and new parts, no dirty hands and the first thing: Emblems on the car!!!!).

After i bought a own house (wiht garage of course) the final things were done (electrical, windows interior) it was time to start the car..... with no success. It took 2 months to (weekends) for have it running and find one problem; A mass cable of the "zeitschalter" wasn't screwed on properly. The fine tuning of the tii i thought should be done by a dealer: Costed me a fortune and still ran shit!!! A tuning company helpt me for 1/5 th of the dealer price and since then it's perfect!!!

I have the car for 19 years now, only driving it on sunny days and to meetings (when it's allways raining!!!!!) ans still trying to improve it and keeping it in good shape. Nice thing if you drive it to my mother's house and see her enjoying the memory of my father (owning the 1502 in the same colour) and the good times they had with his pride and joy!!

Richard.

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