E30 Zone

Engine is idling high so did a smoke test to locate leak. Its coming from the throttle body central shaft. I suspect the bearing seals are dry and need replacing. Im in a region where all second hand TBs will be similar, being over 30 years old and baked to death in the sun so I am looking at replac...

Thats a good shout. I didn't install it myself. Ill check next weekend when i have some time.

I took some images too which give an idea of what I'm on about.

: Routing of the hose over the alternator (MAF removed)

: Damage caused by chassis nut

Hi - in the final stages of restoring my 1983 323i and have most of it sorted, happily using it as a daily driver. I did some routine maintenance recently and noticed that the lower radiator hose was very poorly routed. First, it is crushed between the top of the alternator and bottom of the air box...

I’m in the process of restoring a 2dr manual 323i (Nov ‘83) and have finally turned my attention to the suspension - which after 10 years sitting motionless in a basement do need some attention. I’m looking at the recommended Bilstein B4/Eibach setup which I need to source out here in Asia before ge...

Picked this up abandoned in a basement a year ago - today was her first outing for gas so had to take a picture.

It’s all getting a little silly now...

Original VDO pre-facelift with modified S.I. board and non functioning petrol gauge, a post-facelift VDO board with US style fuel gauge and broken odometer gears and a pre-facelift Moto-Meter for a 4 cylinder with a clock instead of a rev counter.

Yep, new sensor with one pin works, although still not convinced the reading is right. Ran the engine (stationary) for 10 minutes and needle shifted slowly to just short of half way. While this is encouraging, the top rad pipe was fairly sizzling and I could see some feint smoke coming from the fron...

Fair ‘nuff. I’ll bolt the one I have in and see if that solves the problem.

I thought as much, but I really wanted to keep the car as factory spec as possible. As I said before it has only 55k on the clock (although I now have three clocks so it could read anywhere up to 256k depending on which I put in...) and sports the original interior and carpets. Last owner even left ...

Hi Ian - sorry for being quiet for so long, I had been waiting for a secondhand cluster to arrive from Denmark, it took a month to get here to Kuala Lumpur! Popped the shipped cluster into the car and the fuel gauge fired up directly which is good. Temp gauge still flatlining - so I turned my attent...

Thanks for that B’mooore, I think I’ll have to reflow the board.

Just shorted out the brown plug which had no effect on temp gauge and now I have located the C101 plug (it’s the square plug round the side of the fuse box) I’m going to try grounding pin 4. I’ll post results when done.

So resoldered the grounding nuts on the back of the instruments and after reinserting and smacking the binnacle a few times I now have a fuel level showing - still no temp though which is worrying. I’ll look at testing the temp sensor next before checking for breaks in the wiring. This is turning in...

Capacity of the batteries (within reason) isn't important or relevant. Check the voltage across each of your replacement batteries to check they are charged. They should really be charged before fitting, if they're not supplied fully charged. Temp. gauge and tacho. are often affected by battery iss...

flybynite wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 08, 2019 3:05 pm
Is there any reason a larger AA battery would not work, say 800 mAh or 1000 mAh ?

Apparently the higher the mAh, the longer it would take to charge, if the charging apparatus of the dashboard could charge them at all. Best to keep as close to spec as possible.

Well spotted flybynite- I took them to the electronics quarter of town and they matched them as best they could. The batteries work the S.I. board well but not the gauges. I remote mounted the batteries in a dedicated box under the dash in case they leak again. If you want NiMh 700’s I can look abou...

Temp gauge does flicker and raise very slightly (still below 0 or blue) when ignition is turned on if that helps

So could the batteries be the issue? I assume not as the dials get their supply independently from the blue and white plugs no?

Worth noting that the gears all look good inside the instruments too. The car has only covered 55K kilometres.

Yes, very sure. The batteries that came off both original and second hand boards were the red Varta type. I had them matched for modern NiMh batts 700MAh as per the forums.

Thanks for quick reply Steve, really appreciate any pointers at the moment as I am contemplating re-soldering all joints which will be a total ball ache.

Yes - checked that. That’s what lead to new sender and bits above. To be honest I have only tightened the brass nuts this evening and have not had a chance to check if that solves outer gauge issues but will give it a test tomorrow. I’m more concerned as to why none of the gauges work while the ligh...

Hi there I am in the process of restoring a dormant 323i coupe which needs a lot of TLC. I have attacked the oily bits and now have an acceptable idle which is half the battle. Current issue is that the instrument cluster is generally unresponsive - all dials are not doing what they should. I have d...

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M20 throttle body bearings advice

Re: 323i radiator hoses

323i radiator hoses

Front strut inserts - what size?

Re: Your favourite photo of your E30

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Re: Newbie instrument cluster woes

Newbie instrument cluster woes