patsbimmer1

Went to wire up the center gauges and install center console, but ran into a whoops moment. While testing the interior dash lights, I bumped a couple terminals with my small pick tool and shorted it out. Dash lights immediately turned off and wouldn't work again.
Checked the fuses, radio fuse was blown. Good, easy fix. Nope wasn't the issue although probably part of it. Did some googling and came up with the rheostat inside the headlight switch that dims the dash lights easily fry apparently. 
One fix is jumpering some pins in the headlight switch to bypass the rheostat. Tried that and I was able to turn the entire car on by pulling the headlight knob out. Ummm, no thanks! Reversed that.
Another fix is completely disassembling the headlight switch to solder the broken area and everything should work as normal. Let's give it a try!
Disassembled the switch

Found the spot on the rheostat that fried. Hard to see but it's the very first coil of the spring behind the silver tab.

Soldering this small is nearly impossible for my giant solder gun, so big blob it is. 

I tested the continuity between the end of the tab and the other end of the coil spring wire. Looks good to me. 
Threw it back together and into the car. All works as it should! Sorry no pics of that yet. Glad I was able to save some cash as every part of this car seems to be priced like gold. We shall see how long it lasts now. 

Not to toot my own horn, but I love how all of this came out. 

The last month was pretty crazy figuring out this whole lighting biz. But I got caught up on the first wave of orders and had a night to just work on the car. 
It's back on the ground. What I've completed up to this point: 
ABS Delete using the Chase Bays brake line kit.  Chase Bays power steering reservoir and hoses. Patch some rust in the engine bay and paint it.  New water pump, timing belt kit, transmission input shaft seal.  Ditched the Garagistic DSSR in favor for the IE Motorsports DSSR and oem shift selector joint. Rebuilt the HVAC box with all new foam on the flaps and the joints and fixed one of the recirc flaps. Redid the body harness going into the engine bay (lights, fan, etc.) with new loom. What's left: 
Finish putting interior back together and redo the gauge wire harnesses.  Paint a couple pieces. Fluids.  Odds and ends. 

My printers hard at work. 

These lighting adapters have been a lot of fun and really cool to see all of the reactions to them. I'm trying really hard to make them look and feel just as good as they do function.

A little treat arrived today....😉. Still a lot of work to get in before the Vintage!

Mocked up a bracket to mount the reservoirs. I drilled the holes in the rain tray, added grommets and ran the lines to the masters. I ran into a small issue that I might be able to solve quickly once I pull everything back out again. The middle reservoir line is right where two layers of sheet metal split, so one side might need to be trimmed from under the dash. I am NOT looking forward to that.

The new joints showed up, and to my surprise, the second time is a charm. Everything fit perfectly! (Minus the fact that my D shaft is about 4" too short, HEH ) 

Under the dash its REALLY REALLY tight to the master. I actually had to shave the mounting bracket for the pedal box and the master itself to clear, but it looks like its going to work!

 
Here is the engine bay side of the D shaft and the new U joint to replace the one I made previously. It looks much nicer and is a lower profile than what I had. 
I ordered all the lines and fittings for the masters and started to mock all of that up as well. My biggest challenge with that is figuring out where I want to drill more holes for the bulk heads in the firewall. It already kind of looks like swiss cheese, and I figure I will weld all the holes shut once I paint the engine bay, but I rather get it right first than have to revisit it later.

Dash starting to look complete once again

I didn't know this was a thing until Brooke said something Saturday.  It makes it even better.

Well, at least the design as a whole (hole?) is cohesive. At first I didn't quite understand the "puff" on the side, but after looking at the back, it makes much more sense (sents?) 

My new plate 

Really got after it with the warm weather today. Dashboard and front half carpet removed. Dashboard was fairly straight forward and simple. The carpet removal would not have been purist approved. Had to cut it back behind center console otherwise the heater core and many other things would have to have been removed in order to get carpet out whole. Wasn't going to get that involved. Plus where I cut will never be seen when new carpet goes in. 

Dashboard was disassembled and the "pods" were prepped for paint. Along with the kick panels too. New black dashboard didn't come with the "pods" and are near impossible/expensive to find.


LVP paint applied to all pieces. Need to get another can for final coats. 

Once new front half carpet arrives in mail things can start getting reassembled again.
 

You must be from Wisconsin
You must be from Wisconsin.

My new plate 

My new plate 

My new plate 

*sigh*
 
I get the idea behind the rear design but it does come out looking like you’re staring down a stink star. Disappointing because the e92 is one of my favorites too. Seems like he took some inspiration from the Baldessari car. 

This is awesome!  

Making progress tonight. Rears needed a little clearancing at a 4 degree angle to fit inside the new lips. A friend that dabbles in machining got me set up and was able to try my hand at it. Brand new center caps should be here tomorrow. Then, off for coating.

While we were down in Daytona we had the opportunity to drive a few supercars out on a cruise route.  I got the chance to drive a C8, Huracan, Huracan Evo, R8 V10, 991.2 Carrera and Mclaren 570s.  Unfortunately I didn't take many photos.  The R8 had an absolutely obnoxious exhaust on it that made it near unbearable to drive but outside of that it was a great car to drive.  The Huracan was disappointing.  Terribly uncomfortable in the pedal box, seat adjustability did not suit a man my size, the paddles are stationary and overall it just wasn't that pleasant to drive.  The Huracan EVO on the other hand was like a totally different car.  The pedal box still sucked and was crowded and off center but it drove so much nicer.  It ticks off every emotional box while you're driving and scares you just enough.  I was genuinely giggling my ass off after my first pull in Corsa mode and I'm told I had the exhaust cherry red while driving it.  The 911 is a 911 and would be the most livable car but felt underpowered after driving the others which it should as a base Carerra.  The Mclaren was the one I wanted to spend more time in.  Very comfortable, handled well and had a very predictable power train with a steady pull when you gave it throttle.  I could absolutely live with that car.  The C8 might have been the most disappointing.  I drove it first and just thought it was a great engine with a good chassis and a shit transmission.  It kicked down a couple times on me when I wasn't expecting it to and would hang on to gears when I didn't want it to.  I tried driving it in manual mode and it definitely shifted fast but it wasn't a great driving experience.  I'm told it's wonderful on the track which I could absolutely believe I just didn't like it on the street.
Side note, I'm too wide for most carbon buckets I learned.  Sad day for the imaginary cars I was planning to buy.

When I did the hot lap with the stig I asked him if he needed my pace notes before we took off.  He laughed at me 🤣

Interesting notes. The R8, 570s and C8 would be my picks to try out of the bunch but I wouldn’t care to own any of them besides the 991.2

When I did the hot lap with the stig I asked him if he needed my pace notes before we took off.  He laughed at me 🤣

Sorry guys, busy weekend/week!

I was pretty fortunate my travel plans didn't get affected by the storms, got into Newark about 20mins late on friday afternoon. Ironically my Lyft was a E53 X5 and holy hell was it a hooptie. Made it to the dealership though and literally just grabbed the keys and went after adding the temp plate on my iPass account. Motor fired right up, added my phone into the bluetooth connections and I was on my way. I of course wasnt too shy on the first on ramp.

I was heading to the Hartford, CT area for the weekend and decided to take the scenic route. I had seen a recommendation for Bear Mountain state park which wasn't too far out of the way and kept me off the George Washington bridge as well. The park was beautiful in winter, would love to come back in summer. This area is equivalent to Devil's Lake for us, a older resort from the early 20th century turned into a park. There is even a public pool nestled into the cliff which is pretty neat. I wanted to see the bridge and rail lines as well. Hiked down the *closed* path to the boat dock to get this view of the bridge. It was a little icy but worth it. Overall did about a 2mi hike which was a nice break after flying and driving. 


Made it up to Hartford friday night without seeing any snow on the road which was good, but next day was a different story. Its snowed all day but luckily I was just at an expo. No complaints about driving this in 4in+ of snow though even with all seasons. Winter storm Keenan ended up dumping 9”+ that day.

Made it over to Newport, RI Sunday night. Had to stay at The Wayfinder while Ben's wife was still in town and I would highly recommend it for anyone looking to visit the area. The rooms were incredibly nice and the most friendly staff I've encountered at a hotel.

First task Monday was to address the hood latch, at some point between the inspection and me picking it up the cable decided to not work anymore. Of course HF doesn't sell any cheap radiator picks so I got the ICON set and was able to push the drivers side latch hook and get in. The iDrive system said the oil was over capacity so I verified it WITH A DIPSTICK! I had seen mentions of the dipstick on the FB group but its not listed anywhere in the owners manual. I had to actually check the parts diagrams to find it hidden under the intake. Turns out the car lot just overfilled it ever so slightly so its good to know that level sensor is still in calibration and I'm ecstatic to have a dipstick. If I knew these had one back in the day I had certainly forgotten. 


After that it was back to vacation time. After Ben got off work we headed to the Newport Car Musuem. Very nice collection of ~100 cars including all the recent mercedes and lambo's, a Z8, all generations of corvettes, all the Porsche speedsters except the original 356 and probably the best group of Shelby package mustangs I've seen in one place. 

71BD74A5-2364-4F0C-80F3-7B4AB53A322B.MOV
Tuesday was a meh day but I got my exercise in at least. Stopped by the BMW dealership in Newport as this was the last place the X5 was serviced on the carfax before trade in which was convenient for me. I had to twist the service advisors arm to get ONE service record. The first advisor scoffed at me saying "they couldn't do that for me since it would be a HIPPA violation". What the hell does that have to do with anything at a car dealership? After dickbag passed me off to the guy next to him he was a little more accommodating after I told him the main dealership this X5 was serviced at told me it was no issue to get all the previous service records from them after showing proof of ownership. I didn't want the customers info either which was the concern apparently but after 20 min he finally got it printed and redacted their info. I'll start another post with the records once I get the other ones but yikes. It just sucks my first dealer experience sitting on that side of the desk went that way. I begrudgingly bought a keychain and some rear license plate screws.
I was told there was free public parking at Easton's beach so I posted up there for the day. Even in winter the beach was still a relaxing sight.

I walked downtown Newport to visit the Audrain Automotive Museum. I was a little bummed by the size of whats actually on display, although they were all very interesting and high quality cars. I'd literally seen 5/10 of them the previous day at the other museum and saw 10x the amount of cars for the same $18 admission price. The Audrain functions more like an art gallery which rotates its exhibit every 3 months, so if planning a visit I would check to see what would be on display first. If I were to make a trip out here again I think it would be far more worth while for car specific activities to visit during their concours week. Complaints aside seeing a 1800 mi 904 Carrera acquired from the original owner with the original purchase documents was extremely cool. 

From there I walked down Bellevue Ave to the coast past all the old mansions. Unfortunately most were closed for renovations so I continued on to the end of the Cliff walk. This was pretty treacherous in the snow but I was determined and it was worth it for the views of the houses and the ocean itself. Basically its a 2.5mi public access trail connecting two beaches along private land. I did stop to tour the Breakers though which was the Vanderbilt family summer home. My self guided tour would have been more informative if the ticket lady had told me about the accompanying app for audio tours. Still an incredible place to vist even seeing very little of the 140k sq/ft. The truly unlimited wealth is clearly put on display for a home they spent 6-8 weeks a year in  Side note though, I highly recommend the James J Hill House in Minneapolis, MN. The MN Historical society does a fantastic job touring that 40k+ sq/ft mansion with very detailed explanations of what daily life was like in that house, hence my disappointment with the Breakers. Hopefully the tours will improve more once some of the covid restrictions are laid off.



Made the walk about to my starting point totaling 18k+ steps in, great for a warmer winter day on the coast  Im in town for the rest of today and then head out for Lake Placid tomorrow. Got right around 400 miles driven so far with no major complaints.
 
 

When I did the hot lap with the stig I asked him if he needed my pace notes before we took off.  He laughed at me 🤣

What an amazing experience! Now I’m even more jealous