One Lap Forward, Two Laps Back...

A lot of work this weekend on the BMW...some good things, some not so good. Here's the latest...

Teammate Jim Ballard came over Sunday to help wrench on the car; ready for the tally?!

• The engine oil & filter
  
• The differential lube
  
• The rear drum brake adjustment
• Rear springs & shocks
• Front springs & struts
• A/C condenser removed (saved probably 20 pounds!)
• Radiator removed, hosed out, refilled with water (we'll talk about this in a minute
• Fuel pump in the fuel tank removed...and broken. ;)

Here's what we found; in an attempt to fix the low fuel pressure issue, we decided to start at the in-tank fuel pump. There's a filter on the bottom that commonly gets clogged. Well, we broke the damn thing getting it pulled out of the tank. We hear rumors that you can run the car without it...we're probably going to give that a try! Just to be safe, we'll be ordering replacement parts from MSMAutos.com. Again. We're using them a lot. Yeah.

We pulled the radiator out of the car, gaining access to the A/C condenser which now completes the removal of the entire A/C system of the car. Our guess is that we've saved a good 50-60 pounds off the front of the car by taking those parts off. We rinsed out the radiator & a ton of gunk came out of it...reinstalled it & filled with water. Hey Jim, bad news: it's leaking just sitting there in the car...and it appears to be weeping from the fins somewhere.

The suspension went in surprisingly well: rears were a piece of cake, fronts were great thanks to leverage (grade school science class paid off!). The one bummer so far is the removal of the old tie rods. They're in there pretty tight & may need some heat to help them out. I'll work on that later!

While we had the wheel assemblies out, Jim decided it'll be prudent to re-pack the front wheel bearings. Good call!

So, it's been a weekend of good & bad. We got a lot done on the car, but we found more things that need work. Here's hoping we can beat the clock as our race date looms closer; the first weekend of April.

Gulp!