Update Fourteen - xx/11/2012-xx/02/2013
So last proper update I'd left it at saying I needed to fit a big pile of brake parts so I figure I shall carry on from there. I do have various pictures and will try to include them but this will be a big update with mostly text.
So, now that I had the engine in and running the car could go but looking at the braking system, it wouldn't stop. I stripped off all of the braking components, callipers, discs, pads, shoes and flexi/rubber lines.
Once I had the callipers off I inspected them, inside the pistons they looked a little tatty but over all they looked fine. I tested all four with an airline on the fluid feed and they all pushed out fine. I wound them back in and again, all nice and smooth. I was worried that I would need to get replacements, especially after phoning around various suppliers and being told I was looking at £100+ for each calliper (that was on an exchange basis too).
I also removed some scummy solid lines. One of the lines wouldn't come off from the flexi, so out with the cutting disc...
I recall with that one, I had to cut the bracket that holds it to the car because the access is a right pain when you have the beam in place and so the nipple ended up rounding. As I was replacing the flexi with braided and had loads of spare solid left I didn't really care, cut the old crap out, put new stuff in!.
Yummehh!
Ooooohhh
Shiny
Fresh lines
As you can see in the last couple of pics, I did remove the rear beam. I did this between removing the brake lines and refitting them due to access. The beam isn't too difficult to remove, if you have fresh bushes and a 4 post ramp/lift. As I had old bushes and no ramp/lift the task of removing the beam became quite horrible.
The easy bits were removing the diff from the prop, the half shafts from the diff and the diff itself from the beam. With that out of the way I wanted to remove the .trailing arms before getting the beam off. Unfortunately due to the design of the car and where the filler neck is for the fuel tank, I couldn't remove the driver side trailing arm. The beam is secured to the car via two long bolts through the chassis at either end. The bolts go through bushes that locate themselves in the chassis.
Manky bush
Once I had the bolts out it should just have been a simple case of tapping the beam and it dropping out. Due to the bushes being old and knackered though it stuck fast. I had to use heat, drills and all sorts to free them. Kept at it though and ended up with the below (also removed the trailing arms in the pic).
Free beam
This then gave me a problem, I couldn't remove the old knackered bushes and fit my fresh new ones because you ideally need a press. I phoned a couple of local garages, some places were too busy others didn't have the right size press, one place though suggested I try an agricultural mechanic just down the road from them. Rocked up, got the old bushes burnt out with Oxy which took all of 2mins per side, and then they fitted the fresh new ones which again took a couple of mins only.
I realised once I got home that I should have taken the trailing arms with me too, to get them to burn out the bushes. However I found a canister of gas, a blow lamp attachment and my trusty ginger chinned sidekick (a good mate) buried in the back of the garage. Together we made short work of the old trailing arm bushes and pushed the fresh new ones in easily with a bench vice.
FIRE
With all of the bushes replaced I reassembled the rear beam (with trailing arms) and refitted it to the car, not too difficult a task really although it is awkward as the trailing arms are bulky and try to drag the beam at odd angles. The diff goes back on easily too, although I had some problems initially as the prop seemed too short. Turns out that there is a length adjuster and I'd managed to knock the prop shorted. Slackened off the adjuster, knocked it back out in length and all went back together nicely.
Prop adjustment / Centre bearing.
Refitting is the reverse of removal....
One of the nice things about the setup of the E30 (not really paid much attention to other RWD cars) is that the half shafts can be unbolted to remove from the diff, so you don't need to drain the fluid or anything messy, just undo the bolts and the shafts drop off from the diff. Refitting is them also a nice clean job, line up, bolts in, done.
I happened upon an issue when putting the trailing arms back on...
Coil
One of my suspension coils had snapped on the passenger side. Oddly, it wasn't noticeable when the car was on all four wheels. I fitted a replacement from the spares car (unfortunately the spares car only had one) and will sort out getting a full suspension refresh at a later date, probably with a small drop to allow the wheels to fill the arches a bit better instead of it looking like a 4x4.
I don't have any pictures of the following bit.
With the beam sorted I then fitted the new brake pads, discs and shoes.
I had some problems with filling and bleeding the braking system initially which took my mate and I a while to notice...there were a couple of joins I'd not done up fully so we sent a good couple litres of fluid all over the garage floor, with them done up properly we were able to bleed the full system easily enough though.
The rear braking setup on BMWs is an odd one for a lot of people but in my opinion, whilst being a pain to set up right, it is really good. To ensure that the parking brake and stopping brakes don't both foul up, the rears have both discs and drums. It is quite simple really, the rear discs have a very wide hub area which allows that to act as a drum for the parking brake only and the disc area for stopping only.
Installing all new components can be a bit tricky as you need to assemble the parking brake shoes and their mechanisms before you can fit the disc or calliper. If you're new to the setup of drums then this can be a daunting task but in reality it really isn't an issue at all, it is quite simple.
Adjusting the parking brake though isn't the most fun of tasks. To do it you need to fit the wheel using 3 out of 4 bolts and follow this guide:
1) Lower the hand brake and loosen the cable adjusters.
2) Working through a lug bolt hole turn the star adjuster until the wheel
locks using a flat-bladed screwdriver. I just turn the adjuster until it
doesn't want to turn any more. Then back off the adjuster 12 clicks. Repeat
for the other wheel. Note that the star adjuster is at the 6 o'clock position
on later cars, but at the 10 o'clock position on an E30.
3) Raise and lower the hand brake several times to settle the cables. Then
raise the lever two clicks and tighten the adjusters until the wheel can just
be turned with moderate force.
That'll allow the brake to pass the MOT easily...I however initially didn't follow that guide and had a rather slack parking brake (more on that later).
With the running gear now sorted (as far as I could tell) I decided to tackle interior problems. One of the big problems I had inside the car is that the electrics were, well, not working right. The wiring behind the dash was a mess and most of the dash bulbs didn't work.
This image from a previous update shows just how bad the wiring was:
Messy!
Most of that mess was in fact the stereo wiring which someone had really badly spliced using chocolate blocks and made a horrific mess. I stripped out the old loom for the stereo, grabbed the loom from the touring (which was clean and tidy, with an ISO connector) and again with the help of my mate, a soldering iron and a hairdryer (his, he had it in the boot of the MX5...who'd have thought it?!) the loom got spliced together and so I had a nicely soldered, heat shrink and fresh stereo loom. I got a Sony > ISO loom and was able to refit the stereo that came with the car.
Untidy stereo wiring
In an effort to tidy up the wiring I removed a few wires that seemed to not go anywhere or do anything, as you would. After this I was then doing something in the engine bay and test fired the car, everything worked fine apart from there was no spark. I got loads of help from E30Zone about the issue, tested everything with spares and scratched my head loads. Couldn't work it out.
My mate came round to help on something else with the car and I figured I'd put the car into the same state as before, ie, I'd refit one of the wires I'd removed. Once I did that and my mate turned the key it fired up instantly and sat there idling without a care in the world. It turned out that one of wires I'd removed
does do something.
The car was originally specced with an alarm system which was a little key code unit where the clock now sits in the centre console. The car was then fitted with an aftermarket immobiliser unit at some stage in its life and what was a common thing for the installers to do back then was remove the old alarm control unit, splice a couple of wires that usually run to the unit and fit the new system to disable the car differently.
One of the wires I'd unknowingly removed was this spliced wire, it looked completely standard and wasn't until closer inspection that we discovered the splice and rewrap of the wire. I coiled this offending cable up, cable tied it and securely fixed it behind the dash so it won't be in the way or cause problems again.
Green plug of doom
With that issue behind me, it was then a case of sorting out all of the dash bulbs and ensuring everything behind the dash was connected up properly, swapped all of the bulbs for new ones and tested them to be working. I also refitted the slightly worse for wear interior (and it is still fitted) because a new complete cab interior isn't cheap and I was in a bid to get the car back on the road before the end of Feb. I did freshen it up with some new parts though, like a new leather gear gaiter and a leather handbrake gaiter to replace the horrible concertina plastic one. I didn't at this point fit the driver seat as it was still in need of leather feed, cleaned, fed and fitted it a short while later though.
Erect brake
Glow
I ordered a gasket for the exhaust main > downpipe connection and found it to not fit, after a couple more orders and with the help of BMW I then had some spare incorrect ones and a correct BMW branded item. There are a couple of different designs of downpipe and unfortunately most sellers assume they are both the same.
No fit.
Too small.
I was unsure of the state of the head gasket and thought it could potentially cause some issues if it was really old and decrepit so I pulled the head off, replaced the gasket, bolts and the rocker cover gasket too. The head bolts were original non stretch hex head bolts, they should have been changed (via a recall) to Torx head stretch bolts in the past so it is a good thing that I did change this little lot over. It is known for the hex heads to snap off the bolts and play pinball around the inside of rocker area, so, change is good.
The car was pretty much sorted and ready for and MOT by this point, so I did the most sensible thing and gave the front grills a nice clean up.
Old kidney grill
Fresh grill
With chrome
Head light surrounds too
I cleaned up the old grills and sprayed them with plastidip as I'd heard good things about it. I didn't do the best job of it really but they are much nicer than they were and they should avoid being destroyed by road grime and the sun now. I can also easily peel it off and respray whenever I like, much easier than normal painting. They are a matt black finish and do make the car look much better than the faded grey they were when I got the car.
MOT TIME.
Bollocks.
Fails 001 and 004 were simple.
001 - The connection between the braided line and the solid line wasn't done up quite tight enough, cranked it up a little more and it is sorted.
004 - Adjusted the parking brake properly as per the above quote and it works fine.
Fails 002 and 003 weren't so easy though.
002 - I had hoped this was just a feed/return fuel line or at worst, the filler neck pipe. It turned out to be the stub out from the tank for the filler neck and it was rusted all around the stub which meant I had to fit a replacement tank. I did initially try to use the tank from the spares car but unfortunately that had taken a massive smack at some point so I figured it would be best to source a new one. A replacement tank wasn't too expensive (under £100) and fitted up fine.
003 - This I was stumped on as the E30 325i does not have the ability to adjust revs, timing etc. everything is controlled via the ECU and sensors. A common fault that messes with the revs is that the ECU temp sensor has failed so the car never knows when it is warm and over fuels all of the time. I replaced this but still had an idle of ~1200rpm and over fuelling. Next step was to clean the Idle Control Valve, Air Flow Meter and the Throttle Position Switch. The ICV and AFM were mostly clean and tidy anyway but I made them better. The TPS seemed clean but when I tested it with a multimeter it showed that something had failed as there was no resistance at all. I tested the one from the blown engine and it was working correctly so swapped it over, tested the car and it was idling at ~800rpm and wasn't over fuelling.
Had the car retested:
Unfortunately I didn't get a brake results sheet so don't know how well the parking brake works but having used the car, it appears to be fine. The tester said that initially it didn't pass emissions but he did some tweaks and it passed (3.15% instead of 6.78%, under 3.50% which is what matters). I suspect he just revved the engine for a bit then stuck the probe in afterwards. The car certainly isn't smoky or anything at all now so I can only assume when it went in for the test it wasn't fully heated up.
After the test I got the alignment done as it was driving badly, very much transformed the car despite it just being an ATS Euromaster place and not a full GEO WIM place.
Since the MOT I've driven it ~200mi and I'm loving it. The noise is excellent and it drives better than I had thought it would. There are some issues that still need attention, like the springs, rear wheel arches and interior but I'll tackle those at a later date when I can be bothered, for now it is road legal and drives etc. fine.
I have noticed though that the exhaust resonates are ~2800rpm which with normal town driving, or spirited lane driving isn't really an issue. When on the motorway though it is a bit annoying as 5th at a sensible cruising speed is 2800rpm (about 70mph) which means it resonates/drones on long runs, dropping a little bit of speed does stop it though so it isn't a huge problem.
It also does drink fuel, I put in ~50L (63L tank) from totally dry/empty (new tank remember) and it is about to turn the light on, so I'm currently looking at ~18mpg.
Oh the ironing
Practical
