Thursday, December 17, 2015

A Couple More Rainy Day Upgrades

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.

Monday, December 7, 2015

Temperature Gauging

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!