E30 Zone

Took my car to a garage a couple of doors down from my work today, to just replace the rear brake lines because they've rusted.

Apparantly took him 2 hours at a cost of £65 an hour

I know garages push their luck but I need to start DIY'ing everything now!

He also says a seal's broken on my gearbox, and it's pissing out gearbox oil (which it is). Reckons he's got to take the gear box out to repair.. and it's a job that's going to take a day. So what. that's £700 to change a seal?

There a ball ache to take out! I dropped a 320i of to a guy and he said it took him longer than he thought it would, still stuck to the agreed 250 price which i thought was robbery anyway!

Nothing more satisfying than doing it yourself if your physically able to get under a car that is and that it just takes ages!
most garages use apprentices for stuff like that to keep the cost down and the profit up. In my expercience anyway...
This site knows way more than the average run of the mill sort of garage.

The gearbox leak will be the selector seal, which is pennies and can theoretically be done in situ. However, they'll charge you for the main seal which won't need doing but earns them $$$.

However, doing the rear brake lines is a ballache of a job and I'd rather pay someone else to do it if it wasn't part of an overall rear-end refurbish.

Most of the basic stuff is covered in the Wiki - start reading!

I even supplied him the cunifer pipes, fixings and brake fluid to do the job. Didnt think it could be that difficult to unscrew the exisiting ones and bend the new ones and put them in.

Is this autogear box seal issue do-able for a novice? I don't mind getting underneath and all that, but unbolting a gearbox and all that comes with it

Problem with the rear brake lines is that they run above the fuel tank, so to do the job properly, that has to be removed. Easy going then, as long as you scrap all the original and just chop it all off, then refit new cunifer pipes, flexible hoses and the U shaped clips that hold them in place.
If it's an auto. box, then it won't be the selector seal, since it doesn't have one. Most common leak on an auto box is from the joints of the oil cooler pipes, which are very simple to cure.
Unusual for the output seal to leak, but not impossible, but this still isn't a gearbox out job. That would only be required if the torque converter shaft seal into the box had failed.

With a community as knowledgeable as this - I'm just itching to get my mitts on an e30. (:

[quote="Mitchen"]I even supplied him the cunifer pipes, fixings and brake fluid to do the job. Didnt think it could be that difficult to unscrew the exisiting ones and bend the new ones and put them in.

The difficulty is in access, they are right up by the beam and usually a swine to remove without wrecking the one that runs down the car due to corrosion etc

Must admit,I have yet to see an E30 that needed it's fuel tank removing to replace the rear brake pipes.
I have done this job three times,only once on an E30 with the tank out,the other two jobs were done with only moderate swearing and the tank firmly in place.

Well he was a to**er to be honest. I always let him park his bangers all outside my work building so thought he might hook me up. But yeah that didn't happen!

In terms of this auto gearbox fix, have we got any guides for this? Oil cooler pipes etc. Had a browse through the wiki but couldn't see anything. Seemed to be leaking from what looked like this round filter like thing directly below the gearbox.

Any help appreciated.. Don't want to be paying someone £500 for something like this!

Grrrmachine wrote: However, doing the rear brake lines is a ballache of a job and I'd rather pay someone else to do it if it wasn't part of an overall rear-end refurbish.

Indeed. Same issue on the E36 too.

Parts are cheap enough, but labour is a bugger. As mentioned above, to do it 'properly' the tank has to be dropped.

Call the labour charge a 'necessary evil'.

Mitchen wrote: Seemed to be leaking from what looked like this round filter like thing directly below the gearbox.

Any chance of a pic? I've no idea what you mean.