The Lemony M42 swapped 1976 BMW 2002

The M42 swapped e10 that you see here is my previously owned Frankenstein of a car that I picked up from South SF out the of pure desire for owning another one. It has seats from a Honda Prelude, a front spoiler from a Volkswagen MK1 GTI, and side mirrors from a Porsche 914. Other things mods like the modified dash piece with Legacy gauges that Aviel, a buddy of mine, helped with. My favorite part being the “2002” graphics painted on the hood. Is it modern or old? Who knows...

On my drive back in the middle of the night after purchasing the car, it barely had any running lights and was ridiculously loud (and never got quieter). Aviel and I drove over to his house in Sunnyvale to check out the car before I drove back home to Santa Cruz. We hopped off I-85 and the car suddenly started jerking when I gave it throttle. It didn't feel like it was a fuel issue or engine related but recovered itself by the time we got to his house (just a few blocks away). It's late now, roughly 11pm, the perfect time to work on cars. We look at the car with slight disgust and admiration of the time and hard work put into making this THING possible. From the street sign floor panels to the barely wired m42 swapped engine, it was a mickey mouse clubhouse spectacular - and I loved it.

We fixed/added a few things like, get the lights working and try to diagnose the throttle jerking I experienced earlier but couldn't figure out what it was. I told him that it's late and that I should probably let him sleep. I start heading back to Santa Cruz and barely drove 2 blocks away before I lost all throttle response. I turn the car off and propped the hook open to peek around with my flashlight on the side of the silent road, Turns out a pin for my throttle linkage broke off and didn't connect to the throttle to the pedal anymore. I didn't have my tools with me at the time to fix anything or throw something together. Usually I have enough zipties to do a spring compression. (Please don't do that). So I ripped out what appears to be a random cable dangling from inside the car. Thinking, it's probably just a ground... to no-longer working speakers. I tied the wire to my throttle linkage and looped it through the driver side quarter panel window. "This will suffice", I said.

Long story short, I managed to get back to Santa Cruz, pulling my throttle cable (which I later found out was the GPS antenna).

Here's a video I threw together using my phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY5aSHsYzB8