Facebook and a Rare BMW 1802 Touring named “Lemon”

Posted by Hechtspeed on Jan 24, 2010 in Featured, Import Rides | 2 comments

You’re on Facebook right yall?  No?  Get with the program!  That’s how MyRideisMe.com and Pascal Hein got together, through the MyRideisMe Facebook Fanpage.  Go check it out and join our Fanpage, right after you read this cool story of course.

Pascal is from Germany and he has shared his classic bimmer he calls “Lemon”.  A 1973 1802 Touring model.  Sit back, grab some Kugen (yummy pastries my German grandma Hecht makes for desserts) and enjoy storytime from the motherland.  Take it away Pascal!

“My Bimmer was built in 1973. The so called “Touring” was BMWs first try to build a hatchback and also the last try until 1993, when they introduced the compact edition of the 3 Series.

Actually people didn’t like this concept in the early 70s so just around 30,000 Touring models were produced and just around 970 of them were 1802 Tourings like mine, while there were houndreds of thousands of normal BMW 02 sedans.
So in 1984 my father managed to buy this car after he wanted to have one for many years. It had two owners before he bought it and had some damage on the rear left side. My father repaired the damage and then used it between 1989 and 1991 as his car for driving to work everyday.

Well he bought his 5 Series then and the yellow Bimmer was parked in the garage at my grandmothers house. As a kid I always saw it and was fascinated by it the whole time. But I never thought we could make it look good and get it running again.

In 2007 I passed my drivers licence test. At that time I thought about buying my first car. The problem was I didn’t know what to buy. Someday I said just for fun to my father, that we could rebuild the yellow BMW and then I could use it as my own car. Even though I wasn’t serious, he took it serious and said yes. Acutally it was his gift for my 18th birthday!

So in April 2008 we tried to get her running again to drive her up the trailer and to get her home. After some tries she actually started. But after sitting in the garage for nearly 18 years she really looked horrible. There was dirt all over and she looked like she nearly rusted apart.

In the Summer of 2008 we started working on the car. The plans were to get her done and to make her pass the safety inspection as soon as possible. First of all we got the engine and transmission out.

Both things were totally dirty so we cleaned them up as good as possible. The area around the engine really looked awful and rusty.

But after we scratched the old paint off it wasn’t as bad as we thought before. After some work it was repainted.

The next and most important thing for the safety inspection was the braking system. We bought all the parts we needed and the whole old original braking system was replaced with new parts. It got new brake discs and pads in the front, new drum brakes in the rear and all those brake lines were replaced too.

But the thing that took the most time was to clean up all the parts of the engine, transmission and the interior. There were also some parts of the body that needed to be welded (the footwell on both sides). And of course we installed a new exhaust and reworked the rims+got new tires (tires mustn’t be older than 10 years or you won’t pass the security inspection). We did all this work in just 3 weeks, because I wanted to go to Switzerland.  Well we passed the security test without any big problems, even though the car still needed some work.

The only thing that didn’t work out the way we wanted to was the vehicle license. Here in germany there’s a special license for vintage cars, which are older than 30 years. It costs less then a normal license (lower tax price) and has some other positive effects to. For example you aren’t allowed to drive into big cities with a car that has no catalytic converter. But with such a vintage car licence you are allowed. The big problem was, that the car must not look bad and has to be in a certain condition. We didn’t have any problems with the technical condition but with the visual. There were some parts of the car we didn’t repaint, so there was just primer on it.

Well, we didn’t get this license so we registered the car with a normal license. After test driving it for about 50 kilometeres, which isn’t really much, I jumped in and drove to Switzerland where I was driving many winding roads for a full week. I didn’t have any technical problems at all.

Later we repainted those primered parts and got the vintage car license.
In spring 2009 we took out the whole rear axle and differential to work. We replaced all the bushings and cleaned and repainted it. We also removed some rusty spots on the doors and repainted them too plus we changed the oil in the differential.

From summer 2008 until summer 2009 I also used it to get to school everyday, sometimes even in the wintertime. But after each day in the winter I washed her, because here in Germany they use too much salt on the roads, even if there’s no snow.

Since September 2009 I have used my other BMW (a 1994 5 Series station wagon), so now my 1802 Touring is my sunny day cruiser.
The first technical problem we got was on a tour with our BMW Club through Austria in June of 2009. One day the so called “Hardy”-Disk (a disk made of rubber which sits between the transmission and the cardan shaft) broke. Well we couldn’t continue our tour with this car so it was brought home to Germany on a truck. It wasn’t a big deal and we fixed it as soon as possible.

We also have some plans for the future: The next step is to replace the old and worn out wheel bearings and drive shafts. We also want to remove the rust in the rear fenders and well…someday it’ll get a new paintjob, but it will be repainted in the same color.

The color is the reason why we gave her her name: “Zitrone”  (German for “Lemon” ). But it all takes time. We still got some other Bimmers who want to be repaired too.

Some technical details:
1,8L 4 cylinder with ~90 hp
4speed manual gearbox
Top speed: 165km/h (~102mph)
Weight: about 1000kg

Words and Photos by Pascal Hein

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Hechtspeed