E30 Zone

Starting a thread to collate a few pics of my "tinkering".
E30 320i purchased Feb 2020, just as the Covid crisis started kicking off. It was in pretty good condition, but it's surprising how many little things needed doing.
Bought as a hobby - I have an engineering background, but haven't done anything hands on for a long time. Limited time, space and skill means that I've been concentrating on smaller jobs (so far at least).

An easy one to start - bonnet insulation. The old/original stuff was turning into dust and getting a lungful of it every time I looked at the engine was not ideal.

About time...
Great to see you've started your E30 memoirs

Radio... the old headunit was cool and gave me a reason to dig out my old cassettes, but it didn't function very well and obviously had no connectivity options. So following some recommendations on here I bought a Continental TR7412UB-OR. I naively thought/hoped it'd be pretty much plug and play... it wasn't.
There are, I think, four different factory setups, so it took me a while to find the right instructions online (my setup wasn't 'premium sound' - so no amp to worry about, but it did have a fader switch) . Threads like this one - https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/ ... =1&q=fader - helped a lot.
This was quite a satisfying job. It did, however, uncover an unholy mess of wiring behind my dash (to be covered later).

Some minor cosmetic upgrades...

Tzantushka wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 14, 2021 11:26 am

About time...
Great to see you've started your E30 memoirs

Only a year and half late. Work, kids, life got in the way.

Hell of a good looking motor you have there mate, as usual more pic`s please

Mart.

One of the first jobs I did was replace the rear suspension struts with new Bilstein B4s. Something didn't feel quite right when I first drove the car (turns out one of the struts wasn't compressing at all), which was a good enough excuse to try a relatively easy job...

However, this turned into one of those jobs that made me want to give up and return to a life of spreadsheets. There was a lot of swearing. Firstly I couldn't even get the wheel off and managed to break a breaker bar in the process. Once I eventually got the wheel off, I couldn't loosen the lower bolt holding the strut - it took me probably a week of trying various methods before it budged. Then I realised I didn't have all of the parts I needed to finish the job (the struts I were replacing had dust covers, bungs, etc that were part of the unit and couldn't be re-used). After waiting for parts to arrive from Europe, I thought I was finished... but then couldn't get the lower bolt back on and managed to wreck it in the process - yet another trip to SuperCheapAuto.
Oh yeah, and when I finally finished, I got in the car to go for a test drive and discovered the battery was flat.

Simple jobs can make a big difference. I waited far too long to tidy up my pedal box - the bushings and rubber grommets were absolutely destroyed, so there was a lot of play in the pedals.
I did a quick fix, but if you intend to do a full refurb I recommend you watch this:

Pretty much every rubber part in the engine bay seemed to have had a hard life. I didn't get many pictures, but correcting multiple small vacuum leaks has certainly made for a smoother drive. Fixing the leaky fuel lines also improved the ride... as well as the smell and danger.

A slight hiccup in the restoration came when some yoofs decided to get up to a bit of criminal mischief. They smashed the front quarter window, wrecked the driver-side lock with a screwdriver, bent a few things and ripped off the aerial. The bright side of this was that I got try out a few new skills fixing the mess. And yes, I did buy the wrong lock barrel repair kit.

A few pics of my repairs below. I also took the opportunity to fit a new keyless entry system (thanks to Tzantushka for sending me a RightClick kit - which works brilliantly), remove the remains of the old alarm system and immobiliser, and fit a fuel-pump kill switch.

coopman wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:22 am

A slight hiccup in the restoration came when some yoofs decided to get up to a bit of criminal mischief. They smashed the front quarter window, wrecked the driver-side lock with a screwdriver, bent a few things and ripped off the aerial. The bright side of this was that I got try out a few new skills fixing the mess. And yes, I did buy the wrong lock barrel repair kit.
Driver-side lock - broken.jpg
Snapped aerial.jpg

That sucks bigtime, but I suppose the upside is they did not have the intelligence to finish what they began.

flybynite wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:17 am

coopman wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 08, 2021 5:22 am

A slight hiccup in the restoration came when some yoofs decided to get up to a bit of criminal mischief. They smashed the front quarter window, wrecked the driver-side lock with a screwdriver, bent a few things and ripped off the aerial. The bright side of this was that I got try out a few new skills fixing the mess. And yes, I did buy the wrong lock barrel repair kit.
Driver-side lock - broken.jpg
Snapped aerial.jpg

That sucks bigtime, but I suppose the upside is they did not have the intelligence to finish what they began.

It could have been worse - they didn't finish the job, and they didn't rip the convertible roof. I think I've written about it before on here, but they made a right mess of whatever it is they were trying to do. This was in the "secure" underground parking beneath my building. They tried to break through the shutter doors, before realising that the fire escape was open. They tried to get into my car, but didn't finish. They got into my neighbour's car, but didn't do anything (it's a Land Rover that's he's restoring and it was a non-runner at the time). They completely ignored a couple of very expensive cars (Mk II Capri, Silvia race car). They ignored all of the tools that people had lying around. Then they took some petrol from a guy's bike by cutting the fuel hose, spilt most of it on the floor, and used it in another guy's bike, which they eventually
escaped on. Seems like they would have made more money just going to work for the evening.

I’d say they snapped off the aerial in frustration...
Like, WTF are you going to do with an aerial mast you’ve just broken off???

On a more serious note, is your dash grey?
Looks a bit lighter in the photos compared to the headlight switch panel.

Tzantushka wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:50 am

I’d say they snapped off the aerial in frustration...
Like, WTF are you going to do with an aerial mast you’ve just broken off???

On a more serious note, is your dash grey?
Looks a bit lighter in the photos compared to the headlight switch panel.

Yeah, probably frustration. I found the mast and it's since come in useful for retrieving dropped screws from hard to reach places!

It does look grey, doesn't it?! I think that's just poor lighting and a bad phone camera... but you've got me wondering now. Most of the dash is hidden under a dash mat.. Australia.

My brakes have been relatively useless for a while, to the point where I was relying heavily on engine braking to slow down for things like roundabouts and red lights. Despite miraculously passing Australia's equivalent of the MOT a week beforehand, I figured it was time to fix the issue. It terrifies me that vehicles that clearly aren't road safe can get signed-off so easily over here - https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/transact ... pink-slips

It was pretty obvious to me that the brake master cylinder was the culprit. Anyway, it was a fairly straightforward job and everything seems to be good now. The old brake fluid was disgusting, and the reservoir was full of gunk - I did a full flush two weeks prior to see if that improved things, so this was a bit alarming to see!

Also, my brake bleed valves require a tiny wrench (5mm?). My car constantly throws up weird and annoying surprises.