Once I’d road-tripped Louie, the 1972 2002tii I bought last month in Louisville, fixed, and drove home, I immediately set about doing some of the repairs I’d punted on in order to get him on the road quickly. (Why did I punt on them? Because the goal was never to fix everything on the car while I was thousand miles from home, while begging garage space and bedding, while lacking many of my tools, and while trying to hit a narrow window of mild weather before winter returned.)

I began with the exhaust. When I woke Louie from his decade-long slumber and took him for his first test drives in Louisville, the exhaust was perfectly acceptable, but after only about 50 miles, it became so loud that it sounded like I was running straight pipes. When I put the car up on my mid-rise lift, with it running, I could hear and feel a lot of exhaust coming out between the flanges where the headpipe joins the resonator. When I dropped the resonator, I saw why: The flare on the front was almost completely separated from the rest of the resonator.

It was no wonder that tightening the nuts and bolts on the flanges to get the flares to seal against the crush ring made no difference; it was just causing the tear to open up wider. Further, when I looked up into the headpipe, I could see that an elongated hole was starting to form near its flare as well.

I was also aware of other holes in the exhaust near the back end of the resonator, where it mates with the muffler, but I thought that I might be able to patch those, at least temporarily, with chimney flashing and hose clamps. So I thought I’d try to repair the broken flare section at the front of the resonator.

I measured the inner diameter of the resonator, went to a nearby Autozone, and found a short exhaust connector whose outer diameter matched the inner diameter of the headpipe and resonator. I banged the connector piece into the headpipe end, slid the resonator end over it, and tightened a clamp around it.

Unfortunately, when I started the car, it sounded as if I hadn’t made the repair at all; I could still both hear and feel exhaust coming from around the flange joint. It appeared that it was coming primarily from the elongated hole in the headpipe. Initially, I didn’t understand this, since I’d slid the connector pipe further up than the hole, but once I thought about it, it made sense; just because I’d slid the connector pipe up past the hole didn’t mean that I’d done anything to prevent pressurized exhaust gas from getting around the connector pipe and through the hole. Live and learn.

So I had to order exhaust components. I already had a good spare headpipe kicking around, so I needed a center resonator and a muffler. I initially considered trying to re-use Louie’s Bosal muffler, as it appeared to be much more recent than the other pieces. Unfortunately, it had been welded on in such a way that it was not reusable without welding it on again, and that is a Rubicon I still have not crossed.

I hadn’t bought a new 2002 exhaust in many years. Ansa has both standard and sport variants of the resonator and muffler. I sold a 1600 with an M42 engine for a friend a few years back; it had the Ansa sport exhaust, and I found it almost laughably loud. I looked on bmw2002faq for feedback on the standard exhaust, and found that people said it was fairly quiet, which was what I wanted. I found that JC Whitney, of all vendors, had an Ansa standard center resonator (BW0205) on eBay for about $93, and standard muffler (BW0207) for about $113.

I had to Sawzall the old muffler off the old resonator to get them off the car. When I had the dead exhaust prostrate on the garage floor, I could see how bad the back section really was, including evidence of exhaust leaks from the welds themselves.

I also needed to buy the clamp to attach the muffler to the resonator. The clamp shows up in Realoem, but appears to be NLA. The Ansa version of the clamp has a part number, but no one seems to carry it. I measured the outer diameter of the end of the new Ansa muffler—the part that has to slide over the end of the resonator—with a micrometer, and it was 1.89 inches, or 48 mm. I was concerned that a cheap 1-7/8"–1.875" clamp from an auto-parts store wouldn’t be large enough, but I searched online and found that 48-mm U-clamps are used on Audis, Subarus, and other cars, so I ordered one on eBay.

I was about to start attaching the pretty, shiny new exhaust when I realized that I had a chance to address something that I’d glossed over in Louisville—two somethings, actually. The back and bottom of Louie’s transmission were wet (like every 2002 transmission ever). This is usually due to a leaking selector-shaft seal, but it could also be the output-shaft seal. In either case, the giubo has to come off, and to do that, the front part of the driveshaft has to be lowered, and to do that, the exhaust resonator and headpipe have to be separated. Since the entire exhaust was currently out of the car, it made sense to squelch this leak now.

Further, the rubber transmission-support mount was pretty noticeably degraded. I had brought one with me to Louisville, but it was a 320i mount, and I’d forgotten that it has a larger bolt than a 2002 mount, requiring the transmission-support bracket to be drilled out, and I hadn’t done that then. With the car on the lift, I crawled under it, gave the back of the transmission a shake, saw that it moved freely from side to side by a scary amount, thought “Geez, I drove it this way for a thousand miles?!” and set about both tasks.

Having Louie back in my own garage, on my mid-rise scissors lift, with all my tools, I had the giubo and the center support bearing unbolted and the front of the driveshaft dropped in about fifteen minutes. I pulled the rear support bracket out, locked it into my drill press, and widened the hole.

I separated the shift lever from the selector shaft and pulled the shift platform out of the way to access the selector shaft seal. One of the reasons I didn’t attack this in Louisville, even though I had a spare seal with me, was that I hadn’t brought my hook-shaped seal-puller. I didn’t have the piece of PVC tubing I use to slide around the selector shaft and bang the seal in, either, but I could’ve run down to Lowe’s for that. Some folks note that you can bang a new seal in over the old one, and the old one just slides down into the recess in the transmission end cover, but I’ve always been hesitant to do that. Besides, you don’t know how many times that’s already been done.

When I removed the selector-shaft seal, my hesitancy to do it in Louisville was validated. First, I had a hell of a time getting the old seal out. Second, when it was out, I could see as clear as day that there was already another seal in there behind it.

I banged the new seal in, and was about to begin buttoning up the shift platform, giubo, and driveshaft when I realized that it would never be easier to also replace the transmission output-shaft seal. My experience is that a 2002 transmission almost always leaks fluid out of a decades-old selector-shaft seal, whereas I’ve only identified the output-shaft seal as a major leak source twice—but I finally decided that for the $25 cost of the seal, the gasket, and the output-flange lock plate, I should just go ahead and do it. It’s the kind of mission creep that I didn’t have time for in Louisville, but it made perfect sense now.

I’d have it all buttoned up, but I’m waiting on these three parts. That’s fine, however, as we had a return to winter, and I’m still waiting for the snow to melt in my driveway. Louie can have a little pampering in the coveted spot on the lift for a bit longer. I think he’s earned it.

Next week, the heater box.—Rob Siegel

Rob’s first book, Memoirs of a Hack Mechanic, and his new book, The Hack Mechanic Guide to European Automotive Electrical Systems, are available through Bentley Publishers, Amazon, ECS Tuning, and Bavarian Autosport—or you can get personally inscribed copies through Rob’s website: www.robsiegel.com.