It's Been a While

It has been more than a year since I last posted, but, to be fair, I've been busy. Last fall, the wife and I renovated our basement (with some help here and there) in preparation for our first-born son's arrival in December. What a year!

Back to the car:

Last July, the 1602 just stopped running. One day, it was running fine. The next day, it wouldn't fire. The starter would turn, but I wasn't getting any fuel pressure. I tested for power to no avail. I tested continuity from the relay to the pump: all good. I tested the fuel pump relay: working. I also felt the main engine relay click with the key turn. Then, the car sat in silence for nine months while I encountered the aforementioned time sinks. Finally, I decided in April that I had to start diagnosing the problem again if I wanted to make it to Vintage. I swapped out ECUs and got the same problem. I then decided that it must be a fault in the harness, so I sourced a pinout diagram for the ECU. Just before tackling the Sisyphean task of checking continuity on every wire in the engine harness,  Dudley and Marshall urged me to recheck the basics. So, I removed the main and fuel pump relays from the harness to test. The fuel pump relay functioned perfectly, as did the 87 circuit on the main relay. The 87b circuit gave me a strange, flickering output, however. So, we ran of to the local BMW dealership and bought a new main relay. I threw it in and the car started right up. Nine months, $12 to fix. 

In early May of this year, I was rear-ended by a rental truck with an inattentive driver. In a defining moment for irony, he hit my third brake light. The light housing pushed into the rear panel and left a nice dent. Since it wasn't too bad, I waited until after Vintage to have it fixed.

The bumper was also pushed in a little on the driver's side.

In primer:

I also had them fill the holes for the 1602 and Roundel emblems. When the tail panel was replaced in the 1980s or 1990s, it appears that the 2002 panel was more easily available, so they just stuck the emblems where the 2002 had them. Given the chance to correct that, I had them fill the holes.  I plan to source the appropriate emblems and drill where necessary. 

Done!