eric – Fountain Square Roundie

Camping by the corn in the E30 at Nowhere Else Festival in Martinsville, Ohio. More photos from the festival here.

Enjoyed helping out again at a local charity car show with fellow mechanic friends from Wheels.

Enjoyed a Cruise-In Car Show at Duebber’s in Cincinnati.

Enjoyed a drive in the E30 with Rivertown Gear Busters friends to the covered bridges of Greene County, Ohio (east of Dayton). Thanks to Jim Denker for organizing it and Mike Self for route planning.

Enjoyed helping out again at a local charity car show with fellow mechanic friends from Wheels.

Drove the E30 to The Vintage in Hot Springs, NC, as a daytrip from Ohio. This was my fifth trip to The Vintage but first time solo. (Daughter was sorely missed, and I wonder when she’ll next be able to attend.)

Enjoyed helping out again at a local charity car show with fellow mechanic friends from Wheels.

Celebrating the release of the book The Best Of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges and assorted automotive mayhem from BMW CCA Roundel Magazine by Rob Siegel. Author-inscribed books available here. This is my fifth* book design for the author. The design challenge was to create a page template to allow each magazine column to…

“When one organism is in distress, others in the species will gather and raise their tail as a form of help.” At the Rivertown Gear Busters 2021 Spring Drive there was both driving and a pitstop; the latter involving (I think) differences between an external and internal voltage regulator. (And I need to fix the…

Happy 50th Birthday to our project car, made on this day in 1971. You’re stuck in a cold garage now and missing many parts, but your day will come. You Are Not Forgotten. From info.grouparchiv@bmwgroup.com: The BMW 2002 US VIN 2571026 was manufactured on February 19th, 1971 and delivered on February 24th, 1971 to the…

Update: SOLD For Sale: 2001 Saab 9-3 SE turbo. 5-door, 5-speed, black/gray, 235K miles, sunroof, heated seats. Runs and drives but is rusty and needs driveline repair. VIN YS3DF55KX12006314. For project or parts. Car is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Price: One Adriatico’s Bearcat pizza, $50. Email eric@kingandsons.com. Detta kommer inte att hålla. Jag vet vad jag har. God Jul. Mechanical Motor…

Really enjoyed assembling the front subframe. It’s great to finally put new parts on—instead of taking rusty parts off! This is still a “loose assembly”–nothing torqued correctly, no cotter pins, etc. Next up are front hub wheel bearings and struts.

Good overview article of Wheels at which we volunteer.

Rivertown Gear Busters 2020 Fall Drive included 20+ cars, an Ohio River ferry crossing, and driving in Kentucky and Indiana.

Recent work on the 2002 includes replacing front hydraulic components (brake and clutch master cylinders, brake calipers/hoses), finishing the steering box rebuild, and putting new tires on really old rims.

Celebrating the release of the book “The Lotus Chronicles: One man’s sordid tale of passion and madness while resurrecting a 40-year-dead Lotus Europa Twin Cam Special” by Rob Siegel. (Author-inscribed books available here.) This is my fourth book design for Rob Siegel (“Resurrecting Bertha”, “Just Needs A Recharge”, “Ran When Parked”), and all have been a delight…

We’re making more vintage BMW emblem shirts! Pre-orders only, by midnight ET, August 22, 2020. October 2020 update: The shirts are printed and all of the pre-orders have shipped. Even got some international orders, yay! Extra shirts are for sale here.

[ Sold ] For Sale: Vintage Gretsch Round Badge 14×14 floor tom in rare black/gold Anniversary Sparkle from 1960-ish. Condition: Fair (partially torn wrap) to Good (everything else). The wrap is shiny but has a section missing near the seam, opposite side of the round badge. The chrome is bright but has some micro-pitting. Drum…

On the 2002 we painted the cleaned-up steering box, tossed the old (and bent) control arms, got the subframe bits ready to paint, and wrestled with a bushing mount bolt. (Thanks to Paul Wegweiser for the HEAT suggestion to get that sorted.) Many thanks to Wil Tinker for his gift to us of painting our…

For Sale: RGB stickers! Got a new batch, 3” wide with adhesive on the back. $2.50 each, shipped. Paypal to eric@kingandsons.com or Venmo @Eric-King-177.

Rivertown Gear Busters Spring 2020 Drive was yesterday in Hocking Hills; great fun on rollercoaster roads. Video here. Our E30 was sporting a new brake master cylinder, without which I would not have gone!

This weekend would’ve been The Vintage in North Carolina, but it has been postponed to October. Here we look back at some of the cars we’ve seen and some of the people we’ve met at The Vintage since we started attending in 2016.

At the Rivertown Gear Busters “2020 Off-Season Gathering” last night, Vintage BMW enthusiasts came from Cincinnati, Dayton, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington. Host Jim Denker (center) provided metts, brats, beer, sauerkraut, potato pancakes, and pies. Conversations were sprinkled with 02, E30, and E28.

Photo is of an extremely rare 20-door model…

Celebrating the release of the book “Resurrecting Bertha: Buying back our wedding car after 26 years in storage” by Rob Siegel. (Author-inscribed books available here.) This is my third book design for Rob Siegel, after “Ran When Parked” and “Just Needs A Recharge.” Each book contains a spread of fun pages (thanks, Rob!); the first…

We had a great trip to Asheville and back in the 1987 BMW 325is. On the way down we enjoyed being in the 15-car caravan with the Rivertown Gear Busters, while on the way back we flew solo. The car held up well–but I kept thinking, “What’s that noise?! What’s that smell?!” I had been…

We’ve been working hard on the E30 to get it to The Vintage, and there’s still work to do–with only two days left. 1) Valve Cover Gasket: Adjusted the valves and replaced the gasket; this will hopefully cut down on some of the oil leaks. 2) Cooling system: Replaced the radiator and we think it’s…

Wheels had an Open House to celebrate their move from Oakley to Cleves. A good time was had by all, and there was a bonus appearance of an E30 M3!

In honor of “May the Fourth” Star Wars Day, here’s a DIY family project from a few years ago. We wanted to overhaul our old cornhole set and settled on a “Death Star thermal exhaust port” design — with corn hole bags as the proton torpedoes. Make your own with this design! Download links below. These…

We’ve been spending time getting our 1987 325is ready for a trip to The Vintage in North Carolina in May. We’ve attended before (2016, 2017, 2018), but this will be the first time as participants in our own car. We’ve worked on the timing belt, cooling system, brakes, tires/wheels, the body, and the electrical system.…

We were given a tour of Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati and got to go underneath the fountain and up inside; great to see this Cincinnati icon in a brand new way. Eric and Sarah inside the fountain Many thanks to our City of Cincinnati hosts Don Eckhoff, Danny Lawson, and Earl Taggart for the…

Disassembling the steering box required the use of a pneumatic pickle fork to hammer off the pitman arm. Then, while trying to remove the two seals, I was (unintentionally) trying to tear apart the seals instead of removing them; oops. I had read about the metal inside the seals and had removed those—but I had…

Repaired the front subframe by welding in reinforcement plates–one for the driver’s side motor mount (which was cracked), and the other for the center bottom of the subframe (which was all bent up from car jack use). Also fixed a bent and broken tow eye; we’re guessing they were both bent inwards by a tow…

Coming soon: subframe and motor mount reinforcement welding and steering box rebuild.

A friend (thank you, Scott!) sold us for cheap a running E30 that needs some TLC. “E30” is BMW-speak for mid-1980s 3-Series cars. In our case, it’s a 1987 BMW 325is, black over tan, with a 5-speed. And, a working sunroof! So, we’re working on this “new” vintage BMW but not putting any of the…

The shirts (backstory here) are finished and have been shipped! Thank you very much to all who ordered; our subframe repair will start soon. Send us a photo of your shirt with your car, and let’s see how well the colors match–or not! Extra shirts from this print run are available here, along with info…

As we start a new season of work on the car, a look back on two years of fun. Video by Sarah.

UPDATE: October 1, 2018: Shirts are printed! Since BMW 2002 owners take their colors seriously–Verona, Polaris, Inka, Sahara!–we’re offering “factory color shirts.” Proceeds go to purchasing parts for our project car. Order here. As a designer, this was a really fun project. Thanks to everyone who helped us match paint colors to shirt colors. And…