1968 Bmw 1600 (2002) With M42 Twin-cam Engine And 5-speed on 2040-cars

1968 BMW 1600 (2002) with 136 HP M42 Twin-Cam Engine and 5-Speed
Fast, Runs Well
Very Cool Bristol Grey Color (repainted original color)
Not Rust-Free, But Really Quite Solid
E30 Sport Seats
Ireland Engineering Sway Bars
Vintage Cosmic Wheels
Mileage Unknown
A Bit of a Frankencar – Don’t Buy it to Restore it, Buy It to Drive It!
Located in Newton, MA – Easy East Coast Pickup
222 High Res Photos – wait for them to load
NO RESERVE AUCTION!

                                                

Hi. I’m Rob Siegel. For nearly 30 years, I’ve been writing the monthly column “The Hack Mechanic” for BMW CCA Roundel Magazine (“The Magazine of the BMW Car Club of America”), and I’m the author of the book “Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic.” Since 1982, I’ve owned over two dozen 2002s. This doesn’t mean that I know everything, or that I know more than you, but it does mean that you can trust me to tell you everything I know about this car.

  Please read this entire description, and if you’re truly interested in the car and you have any additional questions that aren’t answered in this tome or want to schedule an appointment, you can contact me at 617-three six five eight three oh three between 9am and 11pm EST. If you actually want to make something happen, don’t text me – call me.

 

Overview

This is a 1968 BMW 1600, VIN 1561143. A previous owner in Texas repainted it back to the original Bristol Grey, and retrofitted an M42 twin-cam 16 valve engine and 5-speed transmission from, I believe, an E30 BMW 318is. The car was advertised on eBay at the end of March 2012, and linked to on Bring a Trailer. You can find the reference to the original ad on BaT if you search for “BMW 1600 M42.” In a weak moment, a friend of mine bid and won, paying $11,000. When the car arrived, he found that it was much less complete and much less sorted-out than had been represented. He spent the next two years trying to set the car right. He is not a mechanic, so this meant paying someone. I have his receipts for an additional $12,000 in work (see link at the end). He tells me the total work was close to $15,000, meaning he put about $26,000 into the car. He thinks he’s driven it only about 500 miles since taking delivery. Life, family, and other pressures are requiring him to get out of the car. He put it on BaT himself last month and it did not sell. I looked at it, gave him a warts-and-all verbal run-down of what I saw, he asked me if I would help him sell it here in exchange for 10% of the sale price, and, well, here we are. So, to be clear, I do have skin in the game, but it is not my car, I am not the mechanic who originally installed the M42, nor the one who has done the recent work. So I can’t tell you exactly what was done, but I can tell you what I see.
  The pluses of the car are:

--It is a very pretty Bristol Grey, a very rare early color.

--It has the round tail lights, short rear bumper, and no lower trim of an early 1600/2002, complete with a very cool set of vintage Cosmic wheels.

--With the M42 engine, it is right quick.

--The 5-speed is nice and tight.

--It has a loud Ansa exhaust on it, which is not my cup of tea, but together with the engine, it makes you want to go all boy racer on it wring the living piss out of the thing when you drive it.

--It is not rust-free, but it’s actually quite good as these cars go, with the only rust-through I’ve found on the driver’s side floor, and some weirdness in the nose (see below).

--Thunk, clunk, and rattle-wise, it’s quite solid. It doesn’t feel like there’s a tool box in the trunk every time you hit any little bump. It’s actually a bit better than my own ’72 2002tii, on which I’ve lavished a lot of attention. Some of this is doubtless due to the replacement of the window regulators shown in the $12k of receipts.

--With the Ireland Engineering sway bars, it handles very well.

--It seems fairly well sorted out. It starts immediately, hot or cold, and lets you take off without any driveability issues. It tracks straight and stops straight. I’ve been driving it in 90 degree heat in traffic and it hasn’t gotten over 2/3 of the way up the gauge. On the highway, it sits 1/2 way up the gauge.

--The E30 sport seats hold you very well.

  The minuses are:

--It’s more than a little bit of a Frankencar (assembled from pieces from cars from other years).

--The car appears to have been hit in the nose and incompletely repaired.

--There’s some unforgivable weirdness regarding the seats and the dashboard.

--It does not have a working speedometer, and retrofitting one that will both work and look 100% stock is non-trivial.

--Because the speedometer/odometer are not original to the car and do not work, the mileage should be regarded as unknown.

  I’ve posted two videos on youtube – the first a walk-around of the car, and the second an in-car driving video. eBay doesn’t allow “clickable links,” so search youtube for “1968 BMW 1600 M42” #0 and #1 and you’ll find them.

  If you want an original and correct car, or a correctly restored car, just stop reading right now. This is not your car. Seriously. And if you’re going to look at it from the standpoint of “it needs a $40k rotisserie restoration and then I’d be underwater,” you also may get off the bus. But if you think you might like a sleeper, a Q-ship with a modern engine, read on.

  If you want a bit of provenance, you can find a post from the previous owner that shows and talks about the car before my friend bought it by going to 2002faq and searching for “Bristol M42.” It references the car having a Dinan chip, but I do not want to risk opening up the ECU to check.

  Be aware that I’m about to show a truly insane number of photographs. That is the way to show what a car is and what it isn’t, which will help move this car along to the right buyer.

  Let’s jump right in with photos of the exterior.

 







 

As you can see, it’s pretty, and presents itself as a tidy, trim little early 1600/2002, except for the later nose. I know, I know – if it’s an early round tail light car, you want the early nose with the early metal grilles (and no you can’t just put early grilles in a late nose; they don’t fit). At some point, early noses became no longer available, so if a car was “nosed,” a late nose with the late black plastic grilles was all there was. The thing is, these days, small-bumpered “squaries” (1974-1976 cars with square taillights where someone has pulled off the big US bridge abutment bumpers and retrofitted small chrome Euro bumpers) are all the rage, so it’s not at all unusual to see the combination of the old chrome small bumpers and the new nose with the black plastic grilles. The Hella H4 headlights are a nice addition.

  Let’s show more closeup pics of the body. The Bristol Grey really is a lovely color. It’s got a nice shine, and it hides dirt quite well.  















   

Blemishes

The paint is good but not great, somewhere between a 5 and a 10-footer. The closer you get, the more you can see some paint runs, nicks, a handful of rust blemishes, and overspray on the windshield gaskets, which is strange because the front and rear windshield gaskets and their faux chrome plastic inserts actually look new. There is a tiny rust bubble at the bottom of the driver’s side door, and some faint blisters forming beneath the paint on the driver’s side rear fender arch. Of course when you zoom in with a high resolution camera, the pics make them look terrible, but the car is really quite pretty.  

   

Rocker Panels

I do not see any rust perforations on the rocker panels, though there are broad areas of surface rust and a few paint chips.

 





   

Molding

It looks like the rain gutter pieces and the passenger side chrome and felt window strip are new, but the rest of the molding else is only fair. Still, since the car is a light color, your eye isn’t really drawn to the molding. And it DOES have the 1968-specific piece of unobtainium on the rear of the car, with the embossed oval accent marks.  












   

Door Bottoms

I do not see any rust perforations on the door bottoms; they look very good.

 



     

Problem With Nose

 

So you think “looks good so far, what’s the catch?” Well… the nose is really the car’s Achilles heel (if it weren’t late, I’d come up with a Cyrano pun). Early cars don’t get later noses because they want rhinoplasty to look like their girlfriends – they get them because they’ve been hit. The front right corner of the nose, where it attaches to the fender, is problematic. Below is the left nose attachment point:

 
 

And then the right attachment point:

 

 

Interestingly, the weld looks like it could be original:

 
 

I am not a body guy, but the panel connecting the outer nose skin to the inner nose wall looks like it’s been re-spot-welded. Perhaps the nose was “skinned” (the outer nose skin replaced while leaving the rest of the nose), but I’m just guessing:

 


 

And once you see all this, it causes you to look for other issues in the nose. And there are many. There’s a lot of bondo on the nose:  




 

Though the area directly around the grilles isn’t too bad:

 


 

But then, hold onto your lunch. Here’s the view of the inside of the nose from the right front wheel well:  
 

Yeah. I know. So what do you say to that? I said to the owner “I’ll photograph it and document it, warts and all, and we’ll do a no-reserve auction.”

   

Engine Compartment

Below are photos of the engine compartment. I am not familiar with the M42 engine conversion, so I can’t really comment much. Note that there is a large bundle of wires zip-tied together on the right side against the firewall, and a large round connector flapping around on the right side against the firewall. Some of the underhood insulation is partially detached. If you’re looking for an M42 conversion that looks like it was done at the factory, keep looking. It’s not this one.

 







   

Interior -- Dash

Let’s go to the interior for a moment. The top section of the dash has been recovered, but it’s a bit of a, ahem, hack job. It looks like the dash was sliced on the left corner because someone couldn’t figure out how to detach it, then mated at the cut point. It looks like it was broken on the right. And the openings for the defroster vents are just slits. Note that the instrument cluster is incorrect – it’s a cluster with cross-hairs, which means it’s from a ’74-’76 car. Very early cars came with a silver surround before the US DOT made them stop it because of concern it was too reflective, but this one is just spray painted silver. I have a correct gauge cluster for the car, with the inset “silver dollar” accent pieces, that I’ll throw in if the buyer wants it. The car has a 320i sport wheel, but the horn contact has broken off, so the horn is not currently working.

 







   

Interior -- Seats

The car has a set of black leather E30 sport seats and three-point belts in it. They’re in pretty good shape, with a little bit of scuffing and cracking. Like all E30 sport seats in 2002s, the driver’s seat sits a little left of center. The driver’s side seat is missing the right cover. But there’s a big problem. The owner says that, when he bought the car, the seats were not fully secured, and that the mechanic who’s been working on the car told him that, apparently, the previous owner cut the stock seat towers out, and the only way to safely secure the seats was to bolt them with brackets directly to the floor, so that’s what he had him do. UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS – YOU CAN’T GO BACK WITHOUT SERIOUS METAL FABRICATION. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO INSTALL STOCK 2002 SEATS OR RECAROS INTO THIS CAR. IF THAT’S A DEAL BREAKER, DON’T BUY THE CAR. (Like I said to the owner, disclose everything, warts and all.) The carpet trim flaps cover the seat attachments, but not particularly elegantly.

 









   

Frame Rails and Floors

Having said that the seats are bolted directly to the floor with big bolts and brackets, I’ll now show the frame rails and floors. The undercarriage of the car is generally good – zero rust-through on the frame rails – but there is a good area rust-through on the rear driver’s side. Flashes tend to make surface rust look much worse than it is, so I’ll say it again. The only rust-through I see is on the rear driver’s side floor. Everything else I see is surface rust. Below are a ton of pics that walk around the underside of the car. In the first pic, you can see the brackets for the passenger seat attachment, including one hole that was drilled in the wrong place.

 















   

Wheel Wells

Other than the horror of the right front wheel well at the nose, the wheel wells look quite good. Other than the right front wheel well at the nose, I do not see any rust through. In the pics below, I start at the right front and shoot it front, then up, then back, then left front, then left rear, then right rear. You can see that the car has what appears to be a recent set of rear KYB shocks. I don’t know what the front struts are.

 















   

Underside of Engine and Transmission

Below are a bunch of pics of the underside of the engine and transmission. Receipts show that the owner’s mechanic did a lot of work straightening things out.

 







   

Brakes

Despite being a diehard 2002 guy, I’m not terribly familiar with the unique braking system on 1600s and early 2002s. But it looks like this one has stock 4-piston 2002 calipers, with adapters to have them operated by the 1600’s single brake lines (it’s a pre-tandem master cylinder car). The car’s brakes are quite good. Receipts (see link at the end) show much brake work, including replacing hard and soft lines. In addition, the owner recently had the rear wheel cylinders and shoes replaced.

 


   

Rear End

The car appears to have its original longneck differential. I believe these are 4:11 units. Together with the 5-speed, the engine spins about 3500 at about 70 mph. The rear subframe bushings appear to have been very recently replaced, as has the differential hanger bracket.

 












   

Interior -- Rugs

The rugs were replaced at some point and are in good but not like new condition. Most of the floor rugs are not cemented in place, so I’ve pulled them up, which shows the floor soundproofing. Note that the ECU for the M42 engine is at the base of the passenger side rug.

 









   

Interior – Door Cards and Door Seals

The front door cards are black and uncut (no speaker holes, but they’re not in great condition. As is the case with most 2002s, the pressboard backing starts to dissolve and the snap fittings no longer hold them into the doors. Both door cards are screwed into the doors so they won’t flap. It’s likely that both have also been sprayed or dyed, since the chrome accent strips are black (and peeling). The inside felt strip on the driver’s side door card is very week. Both driver and passenger side sit up a little high, so it’s easy to catch your arm on them if you’re hurrying in or out of the car. Both doors appear to have newly-installed door seals. However, both sill covers and their rubber seals are currently missing.

 

















   

Interior – Back Seat and Cards

The back seat appears to be from a later (’74-’76 2002). It has no tears but is discolored. The rear cards are quite good, but appear sprayed (no chrome strips). The back deck cover is excellent.

 



   

Interior -- Headliner

The headliner is perfect, having been redone. However, I’m not certain that it is the original pattern fabric, and the white headliner material continues down the A, B, and C pillars (they’re usually black).

 





   

Trunk

The trunk is very good. The shock towers have no apparent rust and do not appear to have been repaired. The spare tire well has a few spots of minor surface rust on the inside.

 







   

Glass

The rear windshield and rear side windows are good, but the front windshield has a small crack and wiper scrapes, and both the driver’s and passenger’s door windows are vertically etched.

 




   

Wheels and Tires

The car has a very cool set of 13x5” vintage Cosmic wheels with new Extensa (Toyo) A/S 185/70 13 tires and very nice center caps.

 



   

What It Needs

Despite all the foibles I’ve pointed out, the car runs quite well, and is a blast to drive.

  I’ve had folks asked me “could I drive it home to [insert your state here]?” In my book there’s a chapter called “How To Make Your Car Dependable (well, more dependable).” It starts: “What, are you NUTS? I can’t tell you how to make your car dependable! Anything can break at any time!” Then it goes on to explain that, really, the things that tend to cause a car to die while running are cooling system, belts, battery, alternator, fuel pump, etc. Fairly normal wear-and-tear items. This car has had all that done. So while I can’t say “yes, I guarantee it’ll make it to Tucumcari,” you’re in pretty good shape. If you want more, if you buy it, I’d recommend contracting the fellow who did the $12k of recent work shown in the receipts.

  The wipers and all the lights appear to work.

  As stated above, because the car has a later transmission, the transmission does not have the cable drive to drive the original cable speedometer, so the speedometer doesn’t work. I thought the trani had a digital speedometer drive, in which case there are adapter boxes, but if the trani is from an E30, those had the speedo drive in the differential, not the trani. I spent hours looking on 2002faq for how to solve this, and there’ doesn’t appear to be an easy solution that leaves the existing speedometer intact.

  The pricey way is to send the speedometer to North Hollywood Speedometer. They will take the face plate and attach to it a GPS-based speedometer. The cost quoted is $450 for the speedometer adaptation, and $120 for the GPS interface box that mounts beneath the hood. However, the GPS-based speedometer uses an LED display, not the physical gears, so it does not have exactly the same look and feel.

  You could use a generic digital speedometer, like a VDO or an Autometer, mount magnets to the driveshaft, and mount a bracket and sensor under the car. It won’t, however, look exactly like the rest of the other gauges.

  Or if you search Amazon for “Universal HUD GPS Speedometer,” you’ll find a little unit that plugs into your cigarette lighter for less than $70. That’s what I’d do. Of course, if you use a GPS on your windshield, it reads speed.

  I would replace the brown rug with a black or grey one that matches the black seats. Esty is the person to go to.

  The loud Ansa exhaust is not to my personal liking (it is LOUD), but it’s new and there is nothing wrong with it.

  The heat appears stuck on. The heater valve itself appears new. I have not yet tried to adjust the cable. If someone needs me to, I can disconnect the cable and simply try to rotate the valve all the way closed.

  The foam lining the heater box flaps is deteriorated. This is extremely common in 2002s. So even when the fresh air flaps are cold, there is a lot of air coming into the footwells.

  The console is currently sitting on the hump without any attachment. I didn’t want to screw it down because of the possibility of updating the rug. There’s no radio. If it were my car, I’d solve all of these things together by installing air conditioning and an a/c console with a radio face plate. I really like having a/c in my vintage cars.

  The front strut tower bushings are showing some cracking, but I don’t regard it as anything urgent.

   

The Purchase

I’ll say again – this is neither an original nor a restored car. But if you regard it for what it is – a roundie with very little rust, an M42 engine that makes it right quick, and some of its issues sorted out – I think you’ll be quite happy with it. You’re the best judge of whether you should drive it home or have it trailered. I certainly can assist with that and be here and help load it, but of course the car is sold “as is, where is.” Also, even though I have photographed and described the car to death, it is possible that I have forgotten or overlooked something.

  But please understand that, 222 photographs later, I have given a more complete description of the car than most here on eBay. Please do not think that your winning bid is a license to bargain me and the owner down when you actually come pick up the car. I have zero tolerance for that, and you will leave empty-handed.

  Whether the actual handover of the check and the actual transfer of the car will be handled by me or the owner is TBD, but it will be known when the auction closes.

  Any check will need time to clear.

 

The Receipts

Below are the receipts for the $12,000 worth of recent work the car has had. If they’re not readable, shoot me a question and I’ll shoot you the photobucket link that eBay won’t let me embed.