No ’02 is complete without some rally gear. Chrome headlight screens look great on Brit cars, better on 02s.

And the one item I can’t believe I didn’t think of adding to my 02 first, a vintage bottle opener! Very handy as we usually keep beer coolers in the trunk.

And here are some shots of the car as it looked at Vintage at the Vineyards 2010 along with the clever rally name and beautifully refinished BWA Sportstars.

The original trunk lid was pretty nasty looking. Someone had taken a grinder to the corners and essentially squared them off. Or so I thought. Before I went looking for a replacement, I did the standard bondo check that has become routine for me at this stage of 02 restoration. And behold, the squared edges were just bondo, thankfully.

I decided to take the drill and brass wire brush to the paint and strip it down to bare metal. After about two hours and only 1/3 of the paint removed, I wised up and bought some plastic composite paint stripping wheels. A much faster alternative and they don’t seem to heat up as much as the brass wire brushes did. The lid turned out great with only a small dent and few areas of surface pitting, both can be touched up with some bondo and glazing.

Using the new dual action air sander I picked up from Lowe’s, I gave it a once over with 320 grit sandpaper to clean off any residues. Next I mopped up the dust from the trunk lid using paper towels and a paint prep solvent then laid down a protective layer of rattle can Krylon Self-Etching primer. Great stuff and I love the olive green tint. I’ll fill in the dent and the surface pitting next, then lay down a second layer of proper gun-sprayed primer before sanding and painting…and sanding and painting…and sanding and painting…

Here are a few handy tips I’ve picked up after photographing over 40 different car shows and races.

Tip #1 – Get yourself a polarizer.

Circular polarizers are a must have for shooting cars. They can reduce glare in bright sunlight but they also help to make colors appear more saturated. By adjusting the polarizer’s orientation you can really bring out some nifty details in reflections as well.

This is more of an option for DSLR users as I’m not aware of any point ‘n’ shoots that incorporate polarizing filters. I’ve bought cheap polarizers from eBay and Circuit City and have been happy with the results.

The nifty blue reflection on the chrome is enhanced by the polarizer in this shot:

Tip #2 – Don’t shoot from the next county

I really dislike photos of cars that are taken from 20 feet away at car shows. You don’t always have to get a picture of the entire car, group of on-lookers and the show field behind all in one shot. It’s OK to just get a pic of one vehicle, even if you don’t capture the whole car. And there is no rule that states the subject has to be dead center with 4 feet of empty space surrounding that Mustang.

Sometimes I’ll take a whole car snapshot for later reference but I feel the better looking shots are ones that don’t necessarily look as if you are trying to capture the whole field in one snap.

Tip #3 – Find the lines

Vintage cars have some serious body lines. You don’t see sculpting like this on new cars and it often makes for great images.

Tip #4 – Get up and get down

Viewing pictures of cars shot from eye level is just fine if you want to showcase everything you saw as you saw it. But when you actually have a close look at a sexy vintage car, who stands at their full height to have a peek at the rich wood grain and leather interiors or the one of a kind tail lights? Take a seat (or a knee), get some ground level pictures that really detail that GTO’s stacked headlights. By the same token, creative shots are often as simple as holding the camera up above your head and snapping a few un-aimed pics.

Camera held at arms length above my head:

Shot while kneeling:

Tip #5 – Don’t forget the peeps

I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t get enough shots of people at car events. But the interaction of people and vintage cars is what racing or concours shows or swap meets are all about…and there are usually some characters at any one of these events.

I snapped this one inconspicuously as we were just stopping our drive though the WV hills for a lunch break:

Tip #6 – Do something crazy

Some cars are so fast that they look as though they’re moving even when standing still. Others are so sexified that they hardly require any thought at all to make a fine looking picture. But not every image has to be a perfectly composed portrait of automotive genius. Tweak your shutter speed and take a long exposure image to get interesting blur effects. Do a zoom burst exposure to highlight one area of the car. Photoshop the heck out of the image to really bring out those vintage paint schemes.

3 second exposure:

Zoom burst exposure, 1/6 second exposure while zooming in with telephoto lens:

Photoshopped image for comic book-style photo book:

(Initial welding to seal up the lower support shelf before covering it with a larger patch.)

(Using a piece of cardboard to trace out a template. Running your finger over the edge of the hole creates a nice crease to use as a guildline.)

(Template all cut and ready to transfer to 16g mild steel purchased from Lowe’s.)

(Large patch tacked in place.)

(A few more tacks and a bit of filling on the upper left. The dotted line drawn on the top edge is what I had to cut to make it fit just right. Still, I had a little bit of gap filling to do.)

(All welded up and just a bit of grinding on the tall bits. Removed my tacked on grounding tab too.)

(Coated with self-etching primer.)

(A light coat of rubberized under-coating for texture and finished with color matched spray left over from when I painted the turbo flares.)

And that’s that. It doesn’t look to pretty, but it will do just fine.

My first coarse of action was to replace all of the under-hood rubber seals. That did nothing. I replaced the fuel line. Nothin’. I then noticed that my 40/40 weber carb had developed a leak which resulted in a puddle of gasoline collecting on the hot intake manifold. That puddle quickly evaporated and rushed into the passenger cabin, searching for I.Q. points to destroy. A new 38/38 carb helped a bit, but I was still getting heavy fumes when I’d take quick turns on a full tank. The fuel tank itself was then suspect. But after removing it and pressurizing with compressed air, I found no obvious leaks.

So what I finally determined was that the fuel vapor catch, #5 on this diagram, needed to be reconnected. I had been running the fuel vapor exhaust line out of the trunk the way European 2002s had been fitted. Additionally, in order to make up for my lack of ecological consideration, I decided to incorporated an activated charcoal canister as well…home made, of course.

Activated charcoal is available from a number of online sellers, but I ran down to my local pet shop and grabbed a big bottle (1.8L) of aquarium filter carbon for about $19.

Next I fashioned a 1 liter screw top bottle into a charcoal canister by epoxying two barb fittings in and filling the bottle with charcoal.

I ran the vent tube from the rubber filler neck to the plastic expansion tank then into my custom made charcoal canister. From there the exhaust tube runs under the trunk. To secure the canister I affixed a piece of Velcro tape to the bottle and stuck it to the carpet on my trunk floor.

After two test drives I’ve not been able to recreate the fuel stink. And while I had the tank out I decided to scrub it down and give it a few coats of paint. I also replaced the rotted open cell foam that lines the lip of the tank support with fresh closed cell and RTV sealant.

(Close up of closed cell foam)

(You can also see the fuel vapor exhaust tube rerouting and charcoal canister in this shot)

As it turns out, McMaster sells a nearly perfect replacement for that foul little pot metal piece of crap excuse for a linkage. Part # 59935K83 is a beauty of a heim joint with an M8 x 25mm thread on it. The dimensions couldn’t be closer for an off the shelf replacement. Plus, the heim joints are zinc plated steel and come in a choice of PTFE (Teflon) lined or non-lined. I chose the cheaper non-lined versions at $6.73 a pop.

(Plus it’s made in Illinois!)

Installation is a straight-forward job. All you need is a bolt of proper length and diameter to fit through the heim joint and snug it up against the clutch pedal. You can see in this picture below that once everything is installed, the bolt actually holds the spherical joint to the pedal and allows for the head of the linkage to rotate as needed. This eliminates the side to side torquing motion that beckons the end for the pot metal versions.

So far I’ve gotten a few drives out of the car with no problems. In fact, the clutch pedal has never felt better. There is hardly any play in the linkage and the pedal motion is as smooth as butter when depressed.

So as I had the gas tank out of the car to hunt down the source of a strong fuel odor (more on that later), I decided to start cutting. Here’s a shot of what was removed. I took out a fair chunk to be sure to hit fresh metal on all sides. Normally you wouldn’t be able to see clear through to the Bilsteins.

Shouldn’t be a bad welding job. More to report after I’ve warmed up the MIG.

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