Bringing it home

So, I finally did it.  I got a basket case car.  This is a 1998 BMW Z3 Roadster with a 2.8 engine.  The body and interior are in great shape.  The tires are like new.  The car just looked good.

It idled fine, but the owner admitted it was overheating.  And there was a lot of white smoke coming out of the exhaust.

The car was in no shape to drive.  And it was 2 hours from home.  So I rented a U haul truck and trailer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I have been able to drive the car when the weather is good.  So far I have 325 miles logged. It is running great and is a hoot to drive.  If you punch it, the rear end will break loose. I tape marked the coolant reservoir and have been watching the level.  So far the coolant level has been stable.  So, I think the cylinder head is crack free. I am a little disappointed with the check engine light.  I cleared all the codes and after running 100 miles the check engine light returned.  The code was for catalytic converter efficiency.  So I think the previous engine dumped enough coolant down the exhaust to case damage to the catalyst.  I heard you could clean the catalytic converter with citric acid.  So I may try that. I currently have the seats out of the car.  I have cleaned the leather, shampooed the carpet.  And I replaced the worn out bushings in the power seat adjusters.
Read more
Image
 I have been tearing it up.  I painted the front bumper and one corner of the hood and the car was looking pretty good. So, of course I had to do more so I went after the rock chips in the hood and made a real mess of it.  
Read more
I have been looking for a car project for several years.   It was tough to decide what make and model of car, but finally settled on the BMW Z3.   I watched Craigslist in my area until one day this car appeared.   The engine was clearly in trouble, the exhaust was smoking white.   The owner admitted it overheated and was never the same.   We agreed on a price and I rented a U-Haul trailer and pick up truck.  I knew this was a gamble and the worse case scenario would be a replacement engine.  So the journey begins.
Read more