1972 BMW 2002tii Restoration:

This project began like most other projects of mine, unplanned! I look through the classified ads about once a month, and that's only when a paper happens to be sitting in front of me at a coffee shop or I browse through the on-line listings. I sure didn't need another project, but as fate would have it, I glanced through the on-line listings and spotted this car. 1972 BMW 2002tii, all original, original owners! Hmmm, sounds interesting. I call the family and talk with a very nice guy that explains the car's past and also says its beginning to be more trouble than its worth to keep running. His daughter was using it to commute to college in and they opted for a Honda instead. I trusted his description and he trusted me, so we made the deal over the phone. Before I could get a check mailed to him he got offers for the car from as far away as Georgia (we're in CA), for more money, money wired to his bank, everything. He still trusted I would send him the money and turned down all the other offers. After making the deal, I realized I hadn't asked him where they lived. Doh! Turns out they were four hours north of us in Yreka, a town near the California-Oregon border. He said the car would make the trip back, so we planned to pick it up the following weekend.

The next Saturday my wife and I and both of our kids got up before the sun and headed north. It was an uneventful trip up, but that would change drastically on the return trip. We met the owners in the parking lot at a local market, the car was just as he had described. Riviera, a black interior, everything there and everything original except for the engine.
The long block (engine block and cylinder head) had been replaced with a factory one in 1988, which they still had the receipts for. I started the car up and it ran pretty lousy. He had mentioned that the throttle body was worn and he couldn't get it to idle very well, but said it ran fine at higher rpms. I wasn't so sure about that. We finalized the deal with a handshake and hopped in the car for the trip home.

A quarter mile down the road I knew the car wasn't going to make the four hours home. It accellerated fine, but barely ran during any other time. I figured we'd give it a go anyway and headed south on Interstate 5. Only about three miles later the throttle stuck wide open! Holy crap! Believe me, that isn't the best way to find out that the car has quite a bit of power. I stomped on the pedal a few times in hopes of dislodging it, but by this time I had caught up to the big-rig and had to turn the ignition off. After coasting to the side of the road and letting my heart return to normal I opened the hood and tried to find the problem. Maybe the big-rigs passing me at 70mph only feet away had something to do with it, but I wasn't able to figure it out. I had half of the normal movement in the throttle (from half throttle to full throttle), so I readjusted it to work from idle to half throttle and limped the car 17 miles to the town of Weed, the base of mount Shasta.

I parked in a Napa Auto Parts parking lot and started to diagnose the problem while my wife and kids went next door for lunch. Turns out the linkage rod from the fuel distributor pump had broken and lodged itself against the block. I used some parts that Napa had to put the linkage back together and reset the entire injection linkage back to factory specs, or at least as close as I could in a parking lot with no manuals to reference! The engine ran better than before, but that's not saying much. I adjusted the linkage so the engine would run well at 3500rpm, tuned the idle so it wouldn't die and headed back out onto the road. Once on the highway we cruised at 70mph all the way home!

Just another day in the life of a 2002 owner. 8-)