A Cool 320i

Happy September!  The summer has flown by in a hot and humid haze that keeps circling back with scorching intensity.  And it looks like this holiday weekend will be more of the same.  Speaking of holidays, the shop will be closed today, Friday, September 2nd, as well as Monday, September 5th in observance of Labor Day.   There will not be a Cruise-In this week due to our holiday schedule. If you need some car-related entertainment, consider driving up to Auburn, Indiana for their annual ACD Festival.  While you’re there, check out the wheels up for auction, ride around on a golf cart, peruse the swap meet, enjoy some fair food, and relax!   That’s what we’ll be doing!  If you plan on going, let us know on facebook!  We’ll take you for a spin on the golf cart!
We would like to thank everyone who made the Swap Meet such a success!   The weather was perfect, and we had a great turnout.  We made some new friends, and scored some cool deals!  It became more like a car show as the day went on.  Fellow enthusiasts met other fellow enthusiasts.  It was a really good time.  We’ll definitely do this again!  Here are a few more photos from the day:

It’s been a busy 4-day week here at the shop!  Let’s take a quick look at what’s been going on!

Last week we showed the progress on the retrofit of the A/C system on the 1978 BMW 320i.   This week Reggie and Jason finished up the final steps making this 320i ready for this heatwave!

Reggie applies some insulation to the duct work:

Cutting through the plastic quickly melted the edges!  Lesson learned!  Easy fix…we’ll show you that here in a minute.

Now for the same thing for the piece for the other end of the A/C box, this time at a slower pace:

Now back to that easy fix I mentioned above.  On the right, Reggie is carefully grinding off any rough edges made while cutting the plastic:

The pieces fit just right on the ends of the A/C box!   The duct work will run from the A/C box to the side ducts:

Reggie attaches the pieces to the A/C box:

The silver tape seals the end pieces.   Below is a look at where this goes in relation to the dash:

Now Reggie works on reinstalling the dash…no easy feat, by the way!

As you can see, Reggie moves all around the inside and outside of the bimmer to properly fit the dash back into position:

Voila!  Back together after some wiring.  Then it was time to charge the system and cross our fingers that this system would indeed blow that cool, refreshing air that we love so much.  We must admit that the system exceeded our expectations!   She’s now running cool on R134A.   Her owner picked her up yesterday afternoon.  We knew this bimmer was cool before, but now…now she really is one cool 320i.

Jason worked on this 2004 BMW X3.  This sleek bimmer got a new window regulator as well as a new valve cover gasket.

This 1986 BMW 325es had the A/C reconditioned and an R134A conversion.   Again, just in the nick of time to power through this Midwestern sizzle!

We’ll take a look at one more of the bimmers we worked on this week.  The sweet 2006 BMW 530xi!

This little valve pictured below was replaced.  It’s the stock valve for the clutch’s hydraulic system, which limits the fluid that flows through it.    We replaced it with one that allows more fluid to flow through it, providing a smoother shifting experience. We like that!

That’s all for now!  Have a safe and relaxing Labor Day weekend!