# 1958 BMW Isetta Restoration



## IsettaBob (Dec 7, 2006)

*Before and After*

Well things are wrapping up on my restoration. I just have to get the seat covered and wait for my rear bumper overiders to get back from chroming then its done. I want to thank everyone for the words of encouragement that you gave throughout the life of this thread. I plan on putting a lot more content on IsettaBob.com now that I am basically done with the car and have more time. So check it out everyonce and a while to see whats happening with the car and me. Cheers!

Before:










After:


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## Alex Baumann (Dec 19, 2001)

Bob, that's an awesome restoration. Good job!


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## Patrick (Dec 23, 2001)

Wow. Absolutely amazing!


.


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## Salvator (Oct 14, 2003)

IsettaBob said:


>


Looks great! :thumbup:

Just noticed... no Roundels... any reason? :dunno:


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## IsettaBob (Dec 7, 2006)

This particular Isetta was a Canadian export model. All of the Canadian models were built in Brighton England as opposed to Germany like the American cars. The Canadian models for some reason never had any BMW logo's or badges on them. You will notice that the American cars had the roundel on the hubcaps as well as the door. The Canadian cars had the "300" badge in place of the BMW badge. These were the only cars to have this badge. Just about everyone who restores their Canadian cars ditches the 300 badge and plain hubcaps for the ones with badges. I decided to stay original although it would be nice to have the BMW roundel on the door. In fact the only place on our car that says BMW is the VIN plate mounted on the inside fender.


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## CaliJeff (Jan 28, 2002)

Fantastic job Bob. Thank you for documenting and sharing your progress. :thumbup:

What's next?


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## crowz (Oct 28, 2006)

Thanks a ton for sharing that awesome car. 

I wanted to get one as soon as I saw this thread today and the wifes like sure go for it. After pricing one I was informed Id be in the dog house for alllooong time if I did buy one 


Still want one though....

Looks like it would be a blast to drive.


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## IsettaBob (Dec 7, 2006)

I took the Isetta to Palouse Days this weekend. I drove her over on Friday night just in case I had any mechanical issues. At 15 miles this was by far the longest journey I had taken it on. On our first attempt to drive over we ended up having to turn around and head home due to a broken natural gas main over by the AutoBody Supercenter in Pullman, WA. After waiting about 30 minutes we made another attempt and luckily they opened up the road so we were able to continue our journey to Palouse. Everything was going great, the sun was setting and the car was chugging along at a brisk 50mph. Then about 2 miles outside of Palouse I lost all power in the engine. It was still running at idle but there was no top end at all. We pulled to the side of the road to check it out but were unable to diagnose anything. I decided to keep limping along to my friends house to get it into a garage for the night. We made it the rest of the way after stopping a couple of more times but we made it. I decided that I would come out to Palouse early the next morning to hopefully fix the problem before the show.

Saturday morning I got up early and headed out to fix the car. After tinkering with it for about an hour I was still unable to fix the problem, but I had thought that I had it narrowed down to an issue with the carburetor. I thought that a jet was plugged and that the engine was running lean because of it. I started seeing hotrods pouring into town so I decided to limp down to the show. I made it and the put me right at the entrance of the show! I met a lot of cool people and had a great time explaining what the car is to everyone. Our chances were looking great for a class win, but then a really nice and complete 1961 Austin Healy Mark III showed up and brought down my hopes of winning. However we had a constant crowd around our car of about 10 to 15 people (more than anyone else!) at all times and all of them seemed to be voting for us!

At about 3:30pm it was time for the awards. And when they announced our class I was hopeful of a win. But unfortunately the Healy got the trophy. I was a little bummed but their car was nice and our cars interior isn’t finished yet. I was debating on leaving at this point but I stuck around to see what cars got chosen for the “Event Organizers Choice”, “Sponsors Choice”, and “Best of Show.” These awards were open to the entire 200+ cars that were at the event. I can’t tell you who won the Event Organizers Choice award because I wasn’t really paying that much attention at this point. And when they called my name and car for the Sponsors Choice I did a double take. That’s right at our first show and not being 100% done with the restoration we were picked out of over 200 beautiful cars! As I walked up to take the trophy the owners of the Healy congratulated me for doing a fabulous job on the car. I was feeling pretty good!

After the show I limped the car back up to my buddy Jakes house and pulled the carburetor off so I could rebuild it at my place that night. I rebuilt it in under an hour and headed off to the WSU football game with my wife Ashley and our friend Don. 

On Sunday Don and I piled in my truck with the carburetor and headed out to Palouse to bring the trophy car home. After five minutes of installing the carb it was ready to test drive. I definitely had more power but something was still not right. The rocker assembly seemed to be making more noise than it should. Like one of the valves had come very badly out of adjustment. Since it was just ran and the engine was hot I could not check or adjust the valves. The engine must be stone cold to be able to do this job properly. So it was off to rent a flat bed trailer to get it home where I could work on it properly and not risk damaging anything trying to drive it all of the way to Pullman. 

So the car is back on my garage awaiting me tearing into it. I was really disappointed that I couldn’t drive it home but it wasn’t worth the risk of really damaging it. So we came home with a trophy but came home on a trailer. But we had a great time and have a good story to along with a great win.

Cheers! :thumbup:


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## Salvator (Oct 14, 2003)

Sorry to hear about your mishap, but congrats on the trophy! :thumbup: At least its something you will hopefully be able to fix relatively easily... years ago, a guy rolled up to a car show I was at, he'd been hit by a hailstorm on the way to the show...  Dings all over the whole car... had just finished it too...


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## woody underwood (Feb 9, 2004)

Here's a good one. We finally got the Isetta running fairly well and my ex decided to take it for a cruise on the Plaza (Fancy shopping district here in KC) which was not too far away. It got there OK, but broke down...right behind a bus load of Japanese tourists. By the time I got there with tow rope it was a mob scene, they were swarming over it like ants...Nikons a-poppin like crazy and she was letting them sit in it!. We did manage to laugh about it later.


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## Salvator (Oct 14, 2003)

I just stumbled across this... Interesting reading, and lots of nice pics! :thumbup:

http://www.worldcarfans.com/5050328.001/50-years-of-the-bmw-isetta


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## m00njal (Oct 26, 2007)

truly amazing work =)


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## Court M3 (Dec 26, 2005)

awesome work and even better documentation!! congrats on the trophy :thumpsup:


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## IsettaBob (Dec 7, 2006)

*Long Overdue Update*

Here are some excerpts from IsettaBob.com about what has been happening with my project.

11/8/2007 10:19:04 AM

There it sat for about three weeks. The only thing that I had done on it was to take the seat frame and interior panels to my upholsterer in Troy, ID. I was unmotivated to get to work on the engine since I wouldn't have a seat to sit on to drive it anyway. Finally I got working on it again and started by replacing the float needle. No more fuel leaks, but sadly the engine was still making noise. I then thought that the noise may be from the timing chain slapping against the engine case. So I got to work building an armature removal tool so I could get the timing cover off to inspect it. Unfortunately I didn't find my smoking gun. I put it back together and made sure that there wasn't anything in the dynastart making noises. Everything checked out so I started to suspect the worse, a rod knock. My buddy Jeff came out and listened to it and suspected the same. Time to pull the engine and really tear into it.

11/8/2007 10:19:28 AM

Last Saturday I pulled the engine out and set it on my workbench. In about twenty minutes I had it torn down to the case with only the crankshaft, flywheel, connecting rod, and camshaft still installed. I had found my smoking gun; the connecting rod had some pretty good play around the crankshaft, bummer. So now I am in the process of removing the crankshaft from the case so I can take it to a machine shop to press the crankshaft apart so I can remove the connecting rod. I just hope that the connecting rod bushings are bad and that the crankshaft or connecting rod didn't get damaged. With any luck I will finish pulling out the crankshaft tonight and be able to have a machine shop pull it apart for me tomorrow so I can get some parts ordered. I just wish I knew what caused it to fail so quickly. I was told by my father in law before he passed away that the engine had been rebuilt about 20 years ago and only had about 100 miles on it. All of the bearings and the timing chain look brand new and everything else looks perfect inside. My guess is that whoever rebuilt it didn't take the time to pull the crank apart to replace the connecting rod bushings, who knows though. All I know is that I really want to get it back together and running like new again.

12/16/2007 4:34:10 PM

Well I received my rebuilt crank and connecting rod on Friday from Werner Schwark and spent yesterday putting everything back together again. I tripled checked everything, especially the valve timing, before putting the motor back in the car. This morning I got up and lifted the engine back into the chassis and fired her up! Started and idled beautifully and everything sounded good when given some gas. I let it idle for a couple of minutes before shutting it down and calling it a day. There is too much snow and gravel on the roads to take it out to test drive it. And unfortunately this will be the case for at least three more months. Here's to hoping we get a sunny week soon to melt everything and the road crews come out to pick up all of the gravel. Anyway, I wanted to thank Werner Schwark again for supplying the parts to get our car back on the road. Werner even took care of pressing on the slinger and bearings for me before sending our new unit. Thanks again Werner!

12/27/2007 10:49:13 AM

Well it happened, the skies cleared up to dry out the roads, the city road crews picked up most of the gravel and the car was ready to drive. So last Saturday Ashley and I took the car on a short drive out for breakfast. Everything seems to be working great. I didn't push it but it does seem to have the power that it should and I was able to get past 35 mph. So I am pretty confident that I got the valve timing correct, yay! But the snow is back and looks like it is going to stay for a while so no more weekend drives for a bit. Anyway I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!


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## IsettaBob (Dec 7, 2006)

*Interior Pictures!*


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## Bmwcat (Jul 30, 2004)

Great job, Isetta Bob!! My hat's off to you!! Pardon the repost but I thought this would be appropriate!! :thumbup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvIg...bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260443


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## _zee (Feb 27, 2008)

rolfmao
looks like a childs toy
must of been cool back then...


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## Salvator (Oct 14, 2003)

_zee said:


> rolfmao
> looks like a childs toy
> must of been cool back then...


They were not intended to be "cool"... they were intended to be cheap enclosed transportation after the war... don't forget, while we were reveling in our victory with larger and larger cars with bigger and bigger tail fins, the Europeans were rebuilding their lives from the ground up... From what I've read, many Isettas and other microcars were destroyed in the later years because nobody bothered to save them, because they were a reminder of harder times...

All that being said, they are toy-like in their "cute" factor... in fact, I have a nice Japanese tin one about a foot long that I picked up years ago at a flea market... the guy didn't know what it was but he asked about $100 for it since it was Japanese tin and in really good shape... A couple of years later I saw one just like it at a collector show and they wanted $400 for it! :yikes: (At that same show, I could have bought an Isetta "driver" for $5K... I wish I had...  )


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## Bmwcat (Jul 30, 2004)

I had never heard of an Isetta until I joined Bimmerfest. And Im old enough to have ridden around in plenty of Volkswagens in the late 60s and 70s. 
The Kharman Ghia was the Beemer for my age group.


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