the alpine garage

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

944 Racecar - The Beginning - August 2005

The web server holding my earliest postings into an uncaring universe quietly expired a while ago. Rather than replacing it, I'm posting the content so it will live on forever in the cloud, polluting my little corner of it. Enjoy.

1989 944 Normally Aspirated

I bought this 1989 944 n/a from my friend Joel Wahlsten. Joel was too busy defending "our way of life"* to go racing, so he sold it to me. Though I bought it several months ago it actually only been in my possession for a scant 12 hours several weeks ago. So the pictorial history is a bit spotty. So here is a record of it's journey from a PCA Club Race car to a .....PCA club race car?

* drinking beer and going racing

Late August 2005

As bought - ac couple of pictures when I actually had the car.

Before Joel ripped out the funky cage

What it looks like now (Oct 2014) 9 years later

Doesn't look too bad does it? When it was a PCA race car it had a cage. Joel wanted to run in the 944 cup series, but the cage wouldn't meet current NASA or SCCA technical regulations. So he ripped out the cage.

Since I want go 944 cup (and PCA) racing with it, the car needs to go get a cage. Here's some in-progress shots of the cage building.

late September 2005

Shot of the back X

Rear of X tied to rear of car

Rear of X showing the boxed in tie point

Cross bar, will be behind dash panel. Feet welded to plates and sills. Original design was to run the cross bar above the steering column, but with the 1985.5+ cars, there was no room with the integrated instrument cluster. Windshield was removed to facilitate welding of the top head bar. Hopefully it will be replaced.

Top / Head cross bar

View of the middle from the top. Note the nice big plates welded for the bottom tie-in points and the gussets on the corners.

Side shot of the rear X. Note the rear cross bar still allows me access to the spare tire area. Since I have to ballast the car another 200+ lbs to run PCA races vs the 944 cup series, I can put 45 lbs of spare tire back there legally.

Late September 2005

Waiting for the cage guy (Scott at Frederick Motorsports) to be done. Summit Point PCA race is coming soon, and that will be the car's coming out party.
More pics as I get em.

Nurburgring - Nordschleife - June 2000 (Part 4)

"The next turn goes right and up". "No, it goes left and up". With 170 turns, there was occasionally a point of disagreement.

The track always wins ...

Cris in the cockpit

So time for my graded lap. I'm ready, I did another lap in my head. Chris comes along as co-pilot. Of course I don't have much brakes, so I'll have to adapt. And I did. I just went a little slower and when I really, really needed the brakes, I would just start pumping in advance so they would be there when I really, really needed them. I did well, scored 45, smack in the middle of our group.

After my lap, there really were not any brakes left. And this is where "Team PCA" scored the biggest in style points. We did a complete brake fluid flush in the paddock with just a soda bottle, straws from the cafeteria and a pocket leatherman-tool. When we were done, the brakes were'nt great, but they weren't too bad. Chris put them to good use in his graded lap. Deciding on speed over style, he burned through a lap, putting the car sideways much of the time. At the end of the day, he must have impressed the judges anyway, since he ended up with a 32, 2nd best among all the non-instructor Americans, and fourth highest non-instructor score in the entire school. Scott Smith, another American Ring novice scored an amazing 26 points.

When the going gets tough, the tough start flushing

After the graded laps the school was declared over, except for the final banquet. The Ring was then opened to the general public. We, of course, had to join in the fun. We bought our 6 lap ticket and joined the queue through the access point and headed out into the melee. And a bizarre circus it was. In theory, slower cars are supposed to move right and turn on their right turn signal to let you know it okay to pass. In reality, sometimes.

On our first lap we got caught behind some slower traffic that wouldn't move over (Sound familiar?). After a few frustrated turns, Chris tells me we have some locals coming up fast driving BMW E36 M3's. "Lets let them by and see what happens". We pulled off line and let them thru. Did they wait? Heck no, they just dived on the inside and went around the other cars. "Woohoo! That's the ticket. Lets go!" We tucked in and had a blast, passing left and right and occasionally being passed by the real fast guys, the motorcyclists.

Sweet Carrera RS in paddock - the BMW Ring Taxi in rear

Several fun laps ensued until we passed a car balled up in the Fuchsrohre or "Foxhole" section - a very fast, flat-out, tricky downhill. The track was red-flagged and in we came. That leaves me one lap on my ticket. And a very good excuse to go back. After all, that un-used lap is worth $10. I wouldn't want to waste the money.

That would be foolish, don't you agree?

Cris and Chris - soaking up the European motorsport atmosphere at the 24 hours of Le Mans after the rigors of the Ring

Nurburgring - Nordschleife - June 2000 (Part 3)

Finally lunch time. We were just past the entrance to the track, and nobody was allowed to go backwards. So we got to do a full lap of the track, albeit at reduced speed. Here's where my hundred plus viewings of the Derek Bell video driving a lap of the track paid off. I actually recognized all of the turns and was able to give a running narrative to Chris as we drove. Of course it helped that we were taking more than 15 minutes to drive it as compared to the under 7 minutes that Derek did. Even so, Chris was very impressed and so was I.

After lunch we got started on our first section. Hatzenbach is a series of downhill lefts and right that keep getting tighter as you go along. A tricky section. Its easy to get up too much speed going downhill and get way out of shape for the final turns. Car geeks that we were, Chris and I brought a Nady communicator to facilitate the learning process. And a communicator was needed because we were wearing helmets, unlike most of the Europeans and a lot of the Americans. Wearing a helmet was probably a good idea anyway, since for maximum fun we were driving our Z3 with the top down. True motorsport bliss.

With Hatzenbach, the pattern was set for us. One of us would start driving, dutifully following the prescribed 1 car length distance behind our groupmate. The navigator would give a narrative of the upcoming turns, landmarks for turn-in, where the apex was, expected gear at speed, track-out point, etc. The driver would do 2 runs and then we would switch drivers and repeat the turn instructions. After the 2nd run, we would switch drivers again. But this time we would let the car in front get away from us, get some distance down the track. Now we'd put our foot into it, driving the track at speed, still with the navigation beta being repeated in our ears.

This usually resulted in us bursting out of a blind turn at full tilt and finding the previous car about 10 feet in front of us at a much lesser rate of speed. Once we were last in line and gave the group a huge lead through a very fast section. Flying around the last turn at a high rate of speed we were quite surprised to find the entire group of cars stopped just around the bend. This led to an effective demonstration of ABS, very large eyes on the part of the group, gales of laughter from the interior of the Z3, and another checkmark against "those Porsche guys".

one of the most famous turns in the world

From Hazenbach, followed the Quiddelbacher-Hohe, a high speed jump immediately followed by a double right hander that could be taken flat out. And so it went, section by section. Severe lefts and right, usually after a crest of a hill, flat out downhill sections, straight jumps, jumps while turning, flat out kinks, 40 mph hairpins, you name it, its on the Ring.

Finding the line through the Karussell - Reed and George hold a show and tell

The end of the second day we got about 90 minutes to put it all together. And after a couple of laps, it did come together. That night both Chris and I were able to do complete laps in our head, hitting the turn-ins, apexes and track-out of each turn. I could even tell you the color of most of the dots where they marked the track. The next morning we got 2 hours to play before the graded laps. And play we did. We had so much fun, that we completely toasted the brakes on the Z3. Just boiled that fluid. I guess we forgot to ask the rental agency to flush the brakes and put new Super Blue brake fluid in. An oversight we'll be sure to correct next year.

ABS on NOW! - the end of a section

Nurburgring - Nordschleife - June 2000 (Part 2)

ALL the rules and nothing more

Several days later saw us reunited with the rest of the American group in the town of Nurburg. Now this was going to be a little bit different from your usual Drivers Education event. With 200 participants, finding that many instructors might prove a bit hard. Plus having knowledgable instructors narrows the odds even further. Since there is only 1 or 2 sand traps and most of the turns are blind and off camber, the consequences of blowing a turn at speed are pretty dire. Either you hit the guard-rail or if you're extremely unlucky, sail off into the trees.

Instructor Reed Davis

We were divided into groups of about 12 cars, each with 2 drivers. There were 3 American groups. We were in Group 3. The track was divided into 12 sections, each a couple of miles long. Each group would continuously work a section for 90 minutes, and then move on to the next section. For the first 2 days, we were on the track from 8am to 8pm. A lead/follow format was used.

Our instructor, Reed Davis from Utah, would lead, showing us the line. The next six cars would then follow, about a car-length off each's bumper, trying to duplicate exactly the line. To prevent errors from magnifying, the "Coach", George Phemister from Canada, would lead the next group of six cars. At the end of the section, all the cars would reverse back to the begining and switch drivers. Also the first car behind the leader would go to the back, thus rotating every car up to follow behind the leaders.

At the end of the second day, we were given a chance to put it all together with 90 minutes of open lapping. The 3rd day we got 2 hours of open lapping in the morning. The afternoon was devoted to the graded laps. Instructors were positioned at 14 positions around the track. Each driver was sent off at 30 second intervals and graded on one lap of the circuit. Each instructor could see several turns, and you were graded on your accuracy of hitting the turn-in, apex and track-out; smoothness and rhythm; and finally speed. A perfect score through a section was a 1; just visiting got you a 10. Your worst section was dropped and all the rest added up. A perfect score therefore was a 13, the worst 130 - but if you wrecked the car they added a bonus 10 points.

hey guys - smaller numbers toward the front!

That was how it was all supposed to work. It seemed that Chris & I didn't have quite the Teutonic approach to the school. By the end of the school we were known as "those Porsche guys" or "Team PCA", followed by a shaking of the head. It all started in the parking lot of our hotel. The other school drivers were carefully putting on their numbers, making sure they were straight and without bubbles. Team PCA on the other hand, succeeded in placing our numbers on backwards, and even one upside down. Hey, we were there to race, not for a concours event!

Next morning we were dismayed to find out that we wouldn't really do anything on the track until after lunch. First up was an autocross slalom setup on the main straight. Now I don't know about you, but I didn't come to Europe, to the greatest racetrack in the world to do some cone-banging. So maybe we had a small attitude adjustment to make here. A cone-mowing we went. There might have been one cone that survived between the two of us. It might have been ugly, but we did what we had to do. In style, of course: Z3 top down, traction control off, squealing wheels, CD playing and lots of giggles from the cockpit.

Think we were crazy with our top down Z3? How about doing the Ring in a Sidecar?

Next bit of silliness was what we called the dumpster race. After they tired of picking up all the dead cones, we moved up to where the old pits were, across from the Grand Prix track. Here they laid out another autoX course. The difference was we didn't get to use our vehicle. They had some small sedan (a Seat 1.3L 4 cylinder). The trick part was the rear wheels of the vehicle were removed and replaced with hard swivel wheels just like you find on a dumpster.

We were told the point of this "safety" exercise was to simulate car handling on ice. I think something got lost in the translation from German. What it actually simulated was driving a car with studded snow tires on the front and bald race tires on the rear in the snow. Actually it was quite fun if totally useless. The best part was the sweeping decreasing radius turn at the end where the camber goes away in the middle of the turn. Many more cones met their maker that day.

Nurburgring - Nordschleife - June 2000 (Part 1)

Official Track Car of Team PCA ( numbers not included with purchase)

This June found Chris Brown and I cruising the Autobahn at 145 mph in a BMW Z3 roadster, heading toward the famed Nurburgring. How did we find ourselves in this difficult situation? As anyone who has been to one of the Delaware Porsche club meetings would know, car enthusiasts like cars... a lot. All of us own Porsches, but that doesn't restrict us from owning other marques. Chris and I happen to both own the other German car brand, a pair of BMW M3's. Every year, the Intl. BMW Club of Europe rents the 'Ring for 3 days for driver training and lapping. This year they invited about 70 of us Americans to join the 130 Europeans. Chris was my first track instructor and responsible for my track addiction. So I asked if he would be interested in going as payback. And so the adventure began.

We took a red-eye flight to Munich, landing about 1pm. We had a plan to quickly adapt to the European time zones - something that involved visits to the Munich beer gardens, but the details are a bit hazy after that. We had some time before we were to meet the other BMW drivers from America that evening. "Lets go visit the Porsche museum" says Chris. "Isn't that in Stuttgart, the other side of Germany?". "Sure, but that's why they built the autobahn.". "Sure, lets go!".

Off to Zuffenhausen we went. Amazingly, we navigated ourselves through downtown Stuttgart, and found the museum without getting lost. The Porsche museum is right next door to the factory. Both are small, unassuming places set in a light commercial district. That Monday was a holiday in Germany and the factory was closed. Luckily for us, the museum was open. The displays consisted of approximately 2 rows of 10 cars, ranging from a new 911 turbo cut in half, a 917 race car to a 356. True heaven for a Porschephile.

New Porsche Turbo cut in half to show detail

935 "Baby"

aluminum space frame for a 917- very lite!

Cistalia/Porsche 4WD Gran Prix Car

Late Model 962

Long Body 917

Teo Fabi Lola/Porsche Indy CART Car

Porsche 910

Short Body 917

356 SC 1600 next to Carrara Speedster

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

NJMP PCA - Race Recap

The Summit Point PCA race is looming like a locomotive in the night only 2 days away, so I'd better write up the NJMP weekend before I forget.

On second thought, maybe I should wait until I forget. Then I can write a better story as I won't be unencumbered by the facts.

Nahh, warts and all is the Alpine Garage way.

I'm a bit late with this report, as my Siberian Husky alpha male Coyote got really sick just before the weekend and passed away less than 2 weeks later. So I've been a bit preoccupied.

Overall, the weekend started strong, had a bit of dip in the middle, but finished on an upbeat note.

For a New Jersey August weekend, you couldn't beat the weather. Mostly sunny skies with a few clouds, highs in the upper 70's, low 80's, with nights down in the 50's. It got cool enough that Saturday night I flipped on the heater in the trailer in the middle of the night. Quite a change from the usual brutal 90+ temps and humidity. Much appreciated Weather Gods!

This was a typical PCA 3 day weekend, Practices and fun races on Friday, 2 sprint races on Saturday, and a sprint and enduro race on Sunday. You definitely get a lot of track time with PCA.

I started the weekend with tires with 5 heat cycles, and they worked well enough that I kept them on all the way through. Not a single tire change. But I didn't get totally free from any work on the car as you'll will see.

I ran good times in the practice sessions, steadily dropping my times. By the 3rd session I had my best time ever, doing a mid 1:36. On the next lap I had over a 1/2 second in hand when I got clogged up in the Octopus behind a couple of other racers, killing my lap. So 1:35's are in my future with a little work.

Of course, Robbie Provost, bless his little black heart, did a mid 1:34 during the weekend (bastard!) due to him practically living at the track this year. This was my first visit to the Thunderbolt circuit since last November. Congrats to Robbie, he went on to win all 3 sprints.

After the 3 practice sessions came the fun races. While I wasn't planning on the fun races - no upside for me - my front brake pads were pretty much toast, and I planned to use the session to bed new pads in for tomorrow. I lined up at the back of the grid and was the last to go out. It was pretty funny as I circled the track hundreds of yards from the last batch of cars watching the corner workers frantically waving at me to "hurry up!". While the front of the pack took the green flag, I leisurely rolled back into the pits and off to my trailer, trailing the sharp odour of freshly toasted brake pads.

Still looking pretty, but that will change soon.

Saturday dawned with a bright blue sky and moderate temps. There was short practice session early on which I blew off. Lining up for Sprint 1 I was in the middle of the pack based upon my Practice 3 times. We were having split starts for the races all weekend. All the non-SP* cars (non-944's) got the first green flag, while us 944's lagged behind about 100 yards behind the 1st group. Out onto the course, and around the track, and we all took the 2nd green flag. I had a decent start, grabbing a couple of spots and made it safely through turn 1, the point of maximum danger. Downshifting for turn 5, my clutch pedal went to the floor and didn't come back. Uh-oh....

Reaching down with my left foot I popped it back up. A couple more corners it worked fine, and then it didn't come back up again and needed to be "helped". By the end of the first lap it wasn't coming back on it's own accord any more. Now while all this in-car drama was taking place, I still was in close battle with several cars. For the next 5 laps I managed the clutch pedal and also made some more passes. Soon it became the new "normal".

Coming under the bridge, hot on the tail of David Mann, thinking I had a good run on him and should be able to stick a pass on him down in turn one, I shifted up into 5th and not only did the pedal not come back up, it disappeared!

Keith Code - author Twist of the Wrist

Keith Code, the great motorcycle racer and coach, has a theory that at any given moment you have $1.00 worth of attention to apply to any situation.That's what makes racing so challenging. There's a plethora of shiny objects to spend on that dollar. Brake markers, grip levels of your tires, which way the track goes, where is my competitor, "is that a rod knocking?" and many more. If you spend it all focused on your reference marks to doing the perfect line, you're out of money when it comes to see that waving yellow flag off to the left of the turn.

So there I was, a poster child attention deficit racer maxed out at the attention ATM. I've had originally spent a quarter on the clutch pedal issue but now clutch management was only allocated about a nickle. and only had about 2 cents left to think about the new issue since I was a bit busy at the moment. I issued some commands to the left leg to go find that pedal but it reported back that it couldn't find it. "Ok" said the brain with it's 2 cents of attention. "I heard a clunk a second ago. Could that be the clutch falling out of the car onto the track?" A second or two pause. "Can a clutch pedal even fall out of a car?".

Mr Brain finally recognizing that it needed to spend more money here or a lot of bad things could happen, made the executive decision to dive into the pits at the last moment, hard on the brakes with still no gears engaged and no clutch. About halfway down the pit lane I found 2nd gear and pulled the clutch pedal up but headed in for my paddock spot. Not an auspicious start to the race weekend, a DNF for Race 1.

So while I didn't get dirty changing tires that weekend, a hour later found me under the jacked up car, bleeding the clutch pedal which is a real PITA on a 944. An hour after that, I finally had a good clutch pedal and was ready for Race 2 in the afternoon.

Due to me making it only halfway the race distance, I was starting from the back for Race 2. No big deal, that just means I'll have a good crack at the "Hard Charger Award" for the most passes. I make a great start making it halfway through the field, moving right and then when it starting stacking up for turn 1, moved left. I picked up a couple more spots on the outside when Bam! I'm nailed from the right side by Steve Randolph. Steve went around in a spin, and a couple more cars touched as the incident unfolded. Other than body damage, my car felt unhurt and I could have kept on going. If this was a NASA or SCCA race, I would have, but this was PCA. Their rule is any contact, any contact, means everybody's race is done and you all have to come in, even if you're not at fault.

So I made my way around the track and into the pits. I stopped at the Black Flag station where the scruiteers provided me with paperwork and directed me off to Medical. Surprisingly even though there were 4 cars involved, I was the only driver who came in. All the others pretended it didn't happened and didn't come in until they were black flagged. In my incident report, it asks if there were any witnesses. I filled out: the entire green sprint group, turn 1 corner workers and everybody on top of the tower. I mean, come on, turn 1 lap 1, everybody was watching!

That poor side gets no respect ...

Back in the paddock I examined the damage. A caved in passenger side door and mangled front fender. A large sledge hammer 'adjusted' the door. A few passes of my Krylon "Body Shop in a Can!" flat black paint added the final touches. Ready for Race 3 tomorrow. We all retired to the rear patio at the Old Oar House Irish Pub in downtown for some good beer and food.

Sunday morning and it was time to grid up. Since grid position was based upon lap times in Sprint 2, I was at the back of the field. Just like the start of Sprint 1, oh well. Unlike Sprint 2 I survived turn one and carried on. I had a good start eventually making it up to mid-pack where I encountered Jim Rothenberg and David Mann. Jim couldn't keep me behind him and I got through after a few laps and camped on the tail of David. I kept on getting a run on him and he let me on by, hoping I'd make a mistake being in the lead and not being the attacker. We ran into the backmarkers, several D & E class cars. They were slow in the corners but fast to put their foot down. I was able to pass several of them and put them between me and David and Jim, just where I wanted them.

Then I ran into 'The Wall', a pair D & E cars that were determined to keep us behind them at all costs, even though we weren't racing them, they were out of class. I would be right on their bumper through a corner, only to watch them floor it coming out onto the straight. Only to brake very early where I catch them again entering the corner. Rinse and Repeat. My gap back to David and Jim rapidly dwindled as these guys blocked me. And I mean "blocked me" as in deliberately blocked. On several corners I pulled out to pass under braking on inside and car #2 would pull out in front of me and brake, go side by side with car #1 through the corner at a reduced speed, only to fall back into line and race to the next corner. This, to put it mildly, was a bit frustrating. Eventually the two out of class cars successfully pinned me into a corner, and since David and Jim had caught up by that point, David slipped by while they were concentrating on me. Once free of them, David started running away. In my case they continued blocking me until the end and we finished the race with David in front of me and Jim behind. Other than the dunderheads blocking me, it was a fun battle with both Jim and David.

Denny Wasser (112) one of the faster E class drivers, another E driver in
the 911 and I going 3 wide into turn 5.

Next up was the enduro. This time it was a 60 minute battle from start to finish with Alan Cohen. Al started in front of me but I was able to get in front and we traded back and forth, or ran nose to tail until little more than halfway when we both hit the pits for our mandatory 5 minute pit stop. I managed to get out in front of Al due to better time management, but my tires were gone. At this point in the weekend, they were on their 13th or 14th heat cycle and had the grip of a wet teflon dish sponge. My lap times were 4 seconds slower in the 2nd half of the enduro than the first stint. While I worked hard, I couldn't get the car anywhere near the correct line through the Octopus section. Sooner than later, Al was able to get past me and by the end of race had a good lead on me. Al took 2nd and me 3rd. It was an exciting battle, close but respectful with another great racer. The battle had me loading the car into the trailer with a wide smile to finish the weekend.

Getting ready for the Summit Point race

A familiar sight in 2013. Sledge hammers, sanders and bondo
were the most used tools to work on my car.

So while I have work ahead of me before Summit Point, the weekend ended on a high note with the 2 excellent races on Sunday that were close and competitive. Totally worth it.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Beep Beep

Coming back from Costco one weekend afternoon I was herded into the concrete cattle-chute under I-95 where the State of Delaware were (again) trying to fix the giant traffic mess where I-95, Del Route 1 and Route 7 all come together. This is the #1 failed intersection in the state and has been "fixed" many times before. So there I was, packed like sardines in a can with my fellow travelers, running in a concrete corridor with my old 2002 built to the highest safety standards in 1970 versus basically, everybody else.

I'm willing to bet that readers of this blog probably don't have an extremely high opinion of the driving skills of the American public. Just a guess, but if you're reading, you're probably interested in racing, or vintage cars or the like. In other works, interested in cars and driving them. But that's a minority position these days. For most folks, cars are an appliance, one that doesn't need much attention to the act of driving, time better spent texting, yelling at the kids in the back, or other activities. For those folks, Google's self driving cars can't come too fast. But for me, to keep my thin, lightweight German steel from be crumpled beneath a 4 ton F150 pickup, I rely on 2 things: driving skills coupled with a sense of paranoia (they are out to kill me) and a working horn.

As some hulking SUV started to drift into my lane that weekend, my hand went immediately to my horn button, followed by my foot to the brake pedal. The brakes worked, the horn ... not so much.

Safely back in the garage, it was time for some diagnostics. Horns are fairly simple devices, just add power and you get noise. I started with the horn button, pulled it off the wheel and the problem was pretty apparent. The wire from the carbon pin to the horn button was broken. How it works, there is a spring loaded pin (called the carbon pin by BMW even though it's not made of carbon) attached to the steering wheel. It makes contact to a electrically hot ring surrounding the steering column. Being spring loaded, it's always hot when you turn the wheel. The power is sent to the horn button from the pin. Push the button, the power is grounded and the horn blows. Simple. And the fix should be simple too. Just find where the smoke it getting out.

Backside of the steering wheel. The center fin is the turn signal canceller. The hole at the bottom
is where the carbon pin fits. New carbon pin assembly on top (with red wire), broken original below.

I pulled the steering wheel to get access to the carbon pin holder. This is a one piece device with the pin and a spring. I soldered the wire and we were good to go. Of course, this being the Alpine garage, my soldering gun died in the middle and there was a several hour pause as I had to go buy another one, but that's par for course. I reassembled the pin holder and was heading to the car when my sweaty fingers slipped (we were in a middle of head wave and the garage is not air conditioned) and the spring loaded carbon pin disappeared in low earth orbit.

An hour long search concluded that without the help of NASA it wasn't coming back so the Bimmer was mothballed for a couple weeks until I could come up with a replacement.I wasn't feeling comfortable driving without a horn.

Finally a replacement pin arrived from the friendly Penske BMW folks in CT. Not surprisingly it didn't fit. It wasn't their fault. I have an aftermarket Momo Prototipo wheel and the OEM pin that fits is probably something esoteric like an Isseta part. Not wanting to play parts roulette for the next 6 months I decided to work with what I got.

Now I could have used friction tape, silicon caulk, or some other to bulk it up. But I have something new in the garage and wanted to try it out. Enter InstaMorph, moldable plastic.

This would be my first chance to use it. It sounds pretty cool. Little plastic beads, heat up in hot water and they become moldable, shape to what ever you need and when it cools down, it's regular hard plastic that can be cut, painted, grinded, etc.

I heated a cup of water in the microwave to 150 degrees, dropped in a spoonful of the beads and waited 2 minutes. They turned translucent as they heated up. After the 2 minutes I pulled the mass out and I had a piece of squishy, bendable, moldable plastic.

The first task was to bulk up the outer cover of the pin assembly as it was too small for the hole. I applied a wrap of the InstaMorph to the outside and waited 15 minutes. As it cooled down it turned into hard plastic. Using my grinder I shaved the piece down until I got a good friction fit in the steering wheel.

Next the original pin was much longer than the replacement so I need to make a collar to allow the pin to rub against the contact ring on the steering column. A few more InstaMorph beads and few minutes later ...

Final result

Now this won't win any industrial design awards but nobody will ever see it and it is functional and that's what counts. InstaMorph, pretty cool stuff. Available at Amazon.

The Bimmer is back and ready for fall. Beep, Beep!