WHEN GOOD ENOUGH IS NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH

July, 2024

For a change, a fair amount has happened since the last post about making it to Monterey last August for the Alpina corral at Legends of the Autobahn. Sure, nothing as monumental as getting it running after being dormant for seven years, or ensuring she was roadworthy, or taking a couple hundred miles trip without incident. But even if the work didn’t mean big steps forward, the many little things, and a few medium-sized ones, did add up to some fulfilling progress.

And that fulfilling progress begat a new dynamic: redoing several things that were good enough to make the car roadworthy but now aren’t good enough given how nice the car has turned out.

The little things were, well, little, but also made the car more enjoyable or presentable. First was to affixing the Alpina emblem and the model designation on the back of the trunk lid.  A little measuring, blue painter’s tape and the emblems were on. They look good, although I suspect the C1 2.3 emblem is for an e30 and larger than the e21 version. But you get what you get and this was the only one I could find.

Then I drove the car up to Santa Rosa and dropped it off at North Bay Bavarian. The did a bunch of stuff that was above my paygrade. They put in suspension adjustments both front and rear so get rid of some the excessive camber and caster.

They dialed in the fuel injection and attached the heater controls so it actually has some climate control. And they chased down some wiring gremlins. They even got the speedo working. For a day or so. Then the transmission speedo gear crapped out again. Oh well! Not sure if the replacement was also compromised--it was a used piece as it's NLA form BMW--or if there is an issue insid ethe transmission.

I’ve also been slowly getting the auxiliary gauges installed. I was going to use all VDO gauges for oil pressure, temp and voltage. But I decided to have the two oil measurements and an air-fuel ratio gauge instead of my usual voltage. The air-fuel ratio gauge doesn’t  match the VDO gauges but it’s provides some important information—at least for now, while making sure the fuel injection is all dialed it. I may later switch in the voltmeter if the air-fuel ratio gauge proves less useful in the long run.

Once installed the oil pressure gauge was vexing me. The idiot light would flicker on idle and the pressure seemed low, around 30-40 PSI. After a bit of troubleshooting, I realized that I used an old sender I had left over from another project and that was a 0-80 PSI gauge whereas I was using a 1-150 gauge. The new sender is on order and the problem should soon be solved.

And then there was some socializing. Before the car went to North Bay Bavarian, my friend Ricardo (his project blog is here: https://www.ricardoe21.com/) came by with his 320i; he’s going to be swapping in an m20 and I wanted to give him an opportunity to get behind the wheel of an m20-powered e21. We got to compare cars, drive each other’s and talk e21s.

Later, I braved the heavy rain to take it to the Bay Area 2002 Swap and Show, but the rain was so bad the show was canceled shortly after I arrived.

 The good enough but not good enough was an interesting development. My mission since the pandemic started was to get the car out of the shop in Sacramento and running.  That was accomplished, with much labor and many posts here, about a year ago. Since then, I’ve had time to digest what this car is and what it isn’t.

I’ve restored a bunch of vintage BMWs, mostly 2002s but also did a lot of improving on my e12 B7 Alpina. But none of them were that nice, which was fine with me; I like drivers, not show cars. And this car with it’s 2.8 liter engine and close ratio 5-speed is certainly a driver. But the paint is pretty nice. Not great, but a solid nice! Yes, there are flaws, but it’s shiny and looks great with the Alpina stripes. As e21s go, it’s a very solid build. It’s a nice car, a step or two above the usual drivers that I build. The getting-it-running-and-let’s-see-what-we-have approach that I had over the past several years has begat something a bit better than what I’m used to creating and, frankly, I was at a crossroads with the car: it was either time to pass it along to someone who would pay me a bunch of money for a rare and nice car or acknowledge that a sane person would never sell it but would instead drive the piss out of it and fix some of the hangnails. I took the latter route.

The beauty of this car is that the paint has enough flaws that it shouldn’t be squirreled away from the world in a climate-controlled garage but is nice and shiny enough that, well, it draws a lot of attention—and, most importantly, not so nice that I’m afraid to drive it and get another paint chip or two. With that in mind, there was work I did before that was good enough—good enough to get it running and evaluated—but wasn’t good enough for what it is I discovered after that evaluation.

So, what did I redo? I had the headliner replaced by The Resto Shop; the original installation had flaws—the cuts for the corners were too deep and showed, plus none of the interior hardware, like grab bars and interior lights, were cut out. Finding the right place to cut for them without making mistakes was a fool’s errand so it was live with those inevitable flaws or redo the headliner; I choose the latter and they did it right and now all the interior hardware is in. (They did a bunch of other little things, too.)

The old headliner--you know, the one that was 3 years old--was clean but didn't look so good. And I had no confidence that I'd be able to find where to cut for the grab bar screws or such.

The next act of replowing fields was done by North Bay Bavarian; they install a new exhaust and headers. The car had a decent set of headers and an Anza or Supersprint exhaust that looked very aftermarket. Neither had large enough tubes to flow the exhaust from the larger engine. I found Supersprint made a copy of the Hartge 323i RS exhaust and headers, which is a high-flow system and, short of a genuine Alpina exhaust (which I couldn’t find), this was the next best thing. They look and sound great and seemingly flow more than enough exhaust.

The last bit of redoing is in progress. The car is back at the auto body shop to correctly fix the rust that we ground out and covered up. While the prior repair was sufficient, it is ugly and there is a possibility that the rust will come back. The body shop will grind it all out and weld in new metal within the frame rail correctly. It will look factory and be fitting of what this car has morphed into.

While in the body shop, the 3.22 Limited slip differential will be installed and a new (used) speedo gear in the transmission--so hopefully the speedometer will work. The new diff will lower the revs at freeway speeds and make the drive down to Monterey a bit more pleasant.

Also making the drive more pleasant will be a couple of frivolities I spent the last few weeks getting done: I installed a stereo and speakers and even replaced the ugly faded carpet on the rear hat shelf with some nice black vinyl.

It’s about a month until Legends of the Autobahn 2024 and, of course, I’m planning on going. Partly because it will be my last, most likely (we’re moving to the east coast and the car will be too far away from Monterey). But mainly to join the Alpina Corral again. This time the car should be even more fun to drive there but it still won’t have air conditioning—a luxury I keep vacillating on whether to (re)install…..