E30 Zone

Well, I finally got a new e30 to replaced my totaled one (I miss it! ) I figured I'd introduce the community to my new lady.

Everyone, meet Lorelei.




She currently sits on bottlecap wheels (which will eventually change as money comes up) and ground control coilovers (which ride less than comfortably, so I'm changing them out for some H&R springs and Bilstein shocks as money comes up). The red seat has already been evicted and returned back to the previous owner (part of the agreement of purchase, which is totally fine by me) to be temporarily replaced by some dark grey heated comfort seats (which will eventually be replaced for some heated houndstooth sports, as money comes up to get them reupholstered).

I'm excited to get a fresh start with this car, and am already knee-deep in projects on her.

I pulled a really poorly installed keyless entry/alarm system and fixed up all the wiring from that fiasco, and am in the process of sorting out some surface rust in the driver's floor pan with POR15. I'm also rebuilding a secondary m20 motor, since the one she came with was blown when I bought her. She's far from done, but I'm taking very good care of her!

Looks better than the other one, but lose the dodgy front splitter (upsidedown Volvo?!)

Nice!

Good luck with this one!!

So, I haven't updated the thread in quite some time, so I apologize in advanced for the wall of text/photos, but I figured I'd share all the progress that's been happening to my dear Lorelei in recent times.

So the interior has been completely gutted.




I've fixed the driver side floor pan rust with POR15


I've completely torn down the motor, and gotten the head to the machine shop. I'll be taking the block there as well as soon as I get some time. Needless to say, this motor is in definite need of a good thorough cleaning, which it will be getting.





I've also gotten all of the previous suspension crap taken off the car as well. While pulling the previous owner's Ground Control coils, I noticed that I need to replace just about everything else suspension-related under the car. Every bushing is shot and/or rusted, so I'll be replacing inner/outer tie rods, ball joints, front/rear sway bar end links, sway bar bushings, new H&R sway bars front & rear, rotors, calipers, ... everything.


I've finally got my HVAC control unit replaced, since the light cables were busted in the previous one. Got the 13-button OBC mounted & the harness run. I've also gotten her waxed pretty well, too. With everything that's been going on with the car, I just have to look at pretty pictures to remind myself that I'm doing her right by tearing everything off LOL.


I even managed to snag a couple of goodies as extras too


Needless to say, it's been a busy month (give or take), and I am nowhere near done. Things are slowly starting to come back together, but the more I do, the more I come to realize that it needs my attention.

Nice to see geting stuck in after your bad luck!so good luck with this one
Andy

So, another major update, minus a giant wall of photos.

I've gotten all new brake components ordered (front & rear new calipers, brackets, rotors, pads, sensors, & stainless steel braided brake lines). I've also put in a healthy order with Ireland Engineering. I've got their 22mm front / 19mm rear sway bar kit with poly bushings, their short shifter kit with the DSSR and all related bushings on order as well. I'm sure the receptionist at my work is going to think I'm crazy in the coming week or so as parts start coming in. *shrugs* oh well!

I've also managed to snag a set of these:



OEM French high beams, legit yellow glass. I am beyond excited to get these mounted up with my smilies and other headlight goodies. I'm hoping to have everything wired up either this or next weekend, weather permitting.

Things are finally starting to button up and come together!!

Well this weekend has been a whirlwind of activity. We did a bunch of work in prep for a new motor going in. As I'm sure a bunch of you know, in order for the motor & trans to come out, the exhaust and drive shaft have to come out. It all came out with relative ease. Except for one minor problem.

The exhaust was rusted out... Let's not forget that the guibo was completely shot.




I'm sure my neighbors that kept driving by thought I was crazy as parts continued to creep all over the yard.



This was the last time that this particular motor sat in this bay.



When I bought the car, the motor ran like absolute dog-s h i t. As we started disconnecting everything in prep for the motor to come out, the draining oil smelled like gas. That gave us a clue as to why the motor was running poorly: we think the rings are blown. Of course, we won't know for 100% certainty until we tear into the motor & do some diagnosing, but it's our only running theory at the moment. It definitely had other symptoms; it was pissing oil everywhere (you can see cooked oil lines down the exhaust in the above photo), and was getting into the intake.



After many angry words, smashed knuckles, and skinned fingers from slipped grips, we finally got this sucker out of the car. Our driveway now needs a good thorough pressure-washing, with all the oil & coolant that kept seeping out of disconnected lines & hoses.




It was a small miracle that this car ran & drove & stopped at all with all the rust, dirt, and grime everywhere. The transmission was straight up disgusting.



At the end of the day, I have an empty engine bay, and a pile of parts that need to be scrapped and a pile of parts that need to be cleaned in prep for new install.

So! It's been a little while since I've updated this, so I figured I'd give y'all something worthwhile to look at. Boy, have we been busy....!

First off, my front subframe has been welded with reinforcements, sandblasted, and powdercoated. It looks awesome!


Then, we pre-assembled all the goodies prior to getting the motor in the car. Powdercoated and reinforced subframe, z3m power steering rack, 22mm IE sway bar with polyurethane bushings and reinforced mounts, and adjustable sway bar end links.


Speaking of the motor.... I was originally planning on using the 2.5 block with the 885 head, as I had received it. I had the head sent off to be rebuilt, and they WAY overcharged everything, so I abandoned the head. I had another plan already in place at this point. A good friend of mine was pulling his motor out in prep for an S52 swap he's undertaking with his e30, so I snagged his motor. It's the 2.7 block, with a good MLS head gasket, ARP head studs, and the 885 head. Perfect for where I'm heading with my build, eventually!!

We spent the majority of this weekend building out the motor with all the appropriate accessories and brackets and all that bulls-hit. Learned way more about the differences between early model and late model brackets, water pumps, and the like....

But alas!! We got the resurfaced stock flywheel, sachs fx kevlar clutch, and pressure plate mounted to the car. And then we cleaned the transmission....


Before:


After: not perfect, but much much better than before.


With the motor and trans mated together, we got busy getting everything mounted up!





And finally!! Mission success!! Motor, trans, and subframe with goodies are finally in the car!! Gahh it feels amazing to be done with that part of the project!


We still have a LOT to do, but we're definitely making progress. We've gotten a bunch of little stuff done too, like deleting the stock oil cooler, deleting cruise control, and working on mounting up all my audio stuff. Speakers, deck, two amps, and two subs. I had the setup in my orange e30, and LOVED how it sounded. I'm excited to get to hear it in this one!!

Looking good, enjoying the updates. What's the plan for the diff,?

Nice work.

aimlessrock wrote:Looking good, enjoying the updates. What's the plan for the diff,?

I haven't been able to get under the car to clean up the diff in order to find the tag yet, so I don't even know what I have. If I could find one, I'd LOVE a 3.46 LSD, but they're hard to find here in the States.

here's today's progress:

new lollipops with poly bushings. got the old front rotors taken off, cleaned up the strut tubes a bit, and got the new front rotors, calipers, pads, & wear sensors mounted up.





now i've just gotta do the rear suspension & brakes, and get the correct steel-braided brake lines so i can get that piece all done. the correct outer tie rods will be showing up tomorrow as well. i expect suspension & brakes to be 100% done tomorrow evening

And the progress continues!! This long Memorial Day weekend proved to be VERY fruitful for the car. We got all new black silicone hoses mounted up, and somehow managed to make sh itty ebay headers actually fit and seal. What an adventure that was.



We also got the headliner dyed black, which looks a million times better IMO.




We also did the parcel shelf, and got all my audio stuff wired in and working. Looks and sounds amazing.



We also managed to get my new Ireland Engineering short shifter kit, with the dual-sheer selector rod and all new delrin bushings, installed Friday as well. It sure does feel crisp!! I can't wait to take it for a drive.



We also got my euro trim and headlights sorted out this weekend. All trim has been resprayed black, and the headlights have been refinished as best I can. OEM smily low beam, OEM french high beam.




I also got all new brakes (calipers, rotors, steel braided brake lines) front and rear, and new suspension (bilstein shocks, lowtec springs) front and rear. Not sure how the springs are going to do, so if I don't like them, I'll swap them out for H&R sport springs. Springs came with the shocks from a local e30 owner, so I wasn't going to pass them up.

And now, a brief (HA!) story of how we managed to get those headers in the car.
I got them Friday when I got home from work. My boyfriend and I decided to do a test fit and see how they lined up. With all the mixed reviews on ebay headers, I was curious. Well, the test fit didn't go so well. Shocker, yeah I know. I submitted for a refund, and started shopping for the IE long tubes. I hadn't quite pulled the trigger yet, since we wanted to tinker with them in the morning. Glad I waited; we managed to get them to fit! But first, while there were still no headers, we wanted to crank the car to make sure we had the starter connected properly. We initially didn't, so it was a test to make sure we fixed it. I really urged my boyfriend that I didn't feel comfortable with trying to start the car yet, but... he's as stubborn as I am. Well, the fix worked and the car cranked over and started. The excess fuel from cranking over got spat out the open exhaust ports onto the strut tower, and the heat from the motor running caught the fuel and cosmolene on fire. Yup, engine bay fire. Not a good way to start the day on Sunday. But alas! We got it put out quickly, thanks to a hose on the front of the house, and the car is completely unscathed, unlike my nerves which were immediately fried. I also discovered that there's something extremely sharp on the back side of the hose spigot knob, as my newly sliced open finger could attest to. I always say you're not working on a car properly until you're bleeding... Fancy that, right after the fire got put out and we calmed back down, the headers lined up perfectly.

And for those that are curious, yes I took a video of just the open headers.

http://vid1215.photobucket.com/albums/c ... 512355.mp4

All in all, a successful weekend! Now I just need to bleed the brakes & clutch, & get this bish to an exhaust shop (this weekend) and get an alignment (next Thursday). And then she's all ready for the remainder of the show season this summer!!

Good work!

How did you go about dying the headliner?

Did you mask up and spray it whilst still in the car?

jonathanyeah wrote:Good work!

How did you go about dying the headliner?

Did you mask up and spray it whilst still in the car?

We masked it and sprayed it while in the car, using a product called Duplicolor Fabric & Vinyl dye. Worked great! I love the new look.

Well, time for another update, to include the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good:

She runs!! Boy, does it feel great! That z3m rack is incredibly responsive; I love it. Probably my favorite mod so far. I took her on a cruise through the mountains this past weekend to a German car show in a town called Leavenworth. She looked amazing, all shined up and parked in the sun. We had a blast wandering around looking at all the dolled up Germans. It definitely makes the past few months of headaches all worth it, to see her all shiny.



The bad:

We drove home Saturday evening to get a good night's sleep for another event we were going to Sunday morning. We got within 2 miles of the show venue, and the oil pressure light came on and the motor died suddenly. We got to the side of the road quick and popped the hood. It smelled hot, like burnt rubber. Think a burning belt. We tried to crank over the car, and got no response. Tow truck, to the rescue. She got towed the 50 miles back to my house, away from the show. When we inspected a bit closer, not having disassembled anything yet, we thought the timing belt snapped. Crap....

The ugly:

Well, the timing belt did not actually snap, so all of the valves are 100% ok. Phew. The intermediate shaft pulley and front main housing, however, are not ok. As we had come to expect, the tensioner was over tightened. My fault. That caused it to bend and had actually started pulling the tensioner out of its housing. The bent tensioner pushed the belt forward, causing it to hit on the front main housing. The belt being too tight also put too much strain on the intermediate shaft pulley, which caused it to collapse on itself and break. Fortunately, I have spares, thanks to a few donor motors I had in the garage. Let the replacing begin. Guess it's also good that this pulley broke; I learned that the early model intermediate shaft pulleys are weaker than the late model ones. So, I''ll be putting in a late model one that'll hold up. And then I'll be tensioning the belt correctly this time around. Lessons learned.

car_gal_jenni wrote:

jonathanyeah wrote:Good work!

How did you go about dying the headliner?

Did you mask up and spray it whilst still in the car?

We masked it and sprayed it while in the car, using a product called Duplicolor Fabric & Vinyl dye. Worked great! I love the new look.

Thanks!

Another job to add to the list!

car_gal_jenni wrote:

jonathanyeah wrote:Good work!

How did you go about dying the headliner?

Did you mask up and spray it whilst still in the car?

We masked it and sprayed it while in the car, using a product called Duplicolor Fabric & Vinyl dye. Worked great! I love the new look.

Thanks!

Another job to add to the list!

So! It's been a couple of months since I've had the time to update this thing, and for good reason too. At the last update, we had just discovered that the over-tightened timing belt caused plenty of damage that I needed to fix. The motor blew up just a mere two weeks before we closed on our new house, so we didn't have time to fix the car right away; bigger fish to fry in the coming months.

(Caution: non-car related update to follow, which will lead to a car update, I promise)

We closed on our house on 6/29, and I feel we did pretty good for our first house. Single story, 1500 sqft, 1/2 acre, in-ground heated pool/spa, 3bed/2 bath, 2 car detached garage. The interior was a bit dated, so we decided to remodel a few (re-read this: a bunch) of things before we moved in. ..... I guess I'm a glutten for modding punishment.

There was huge fiasco with ending the lease at our rental house, and it forced us to move all our stuff 3 weeks ahead of schedule into the hosting garage while we worked on the inside. It was a hassle at the time, and a huge headache, but now that everything is done, it's all worth it. The inside of the house has turned out awesome so far; I love it.

When we first bought the house, the walls were a very mildly tinted baby blue ish color, with sparkly popcorn ceilings everywhere, a drop ceiling in the kitchen, and zero lighting in the living room. The house needed some help, and we were about to just tear into it.

Here's some before shots of closing day before we touched anything.








First step: remove the popcorn ceilings and retexture them. WHAT. A. MESS. I never want to touch ceilings ever again haha. We also removed some beam caps in the entry hallway and master bedroom.











I mentioned that there was zero lighting in the living room, to include no switched outlet either. So, we had to add lighting in that room. Not only did we add lighting there, we replaced the chandelier in the kitchen area and added more lighting in the kitchen, front entry way, hallway, and the master bedroom. A total of 26 recessed can lights went in. We also added a 3-way switch for the living room lights. I feel sorry for my boyfriend, who is the poor soul who had to climb into our crappy, over-insulated (yes, that's a thing..) cramped attic in the middle of summer to run the wiring for all these lights... Turned out great though.









We also removed the drop ceiling in the kitchen, removed one section of cabinets, and added 2 pendant lights there.







And then we painted. Everything. Ceilings, every wall everywhere. The finishing touches were the replaced lights in the bedrooms and closets, and then we swapped out every outlet and switch in the house.







While we were stringing up wiring for the lights and whatnot, we decided to run network cables to a few spots in the living room and the master bedroom. We also ran the wiring for our 5-piece surround sound system. Our entertainment cabinet is PACKED, but very well cable managed (my OCD thing..).





Needless to say, it's been a busy couple of months. With the house remodeling finally complete, we were able to move everything in, get settled, and move toys into the garage. Car update to follow in next post.

As promised, all that house-y update crap really has lead to a car update.

After we got the house done and the garage cleaned out, we were finally able to move the toys into the garage.



It feels great having the e30 & supra in the garage. There's so much room in there to work! Such a great asset to have with the house.

Time to get back to wrenching on the e30. Remember a few posts back about the head I had sent to the shop and abandoned due to it being too spendy to pick up at the time? Well, time for that sucker to re-enter the picture. After the belt fiasco, I needed a known good head to swap onto the car to make sure everything was ok. So, I worked it out with a good friend to help get that thing paid for, reassembled everything, and got it all mounted back on the car.













One thing we figured out: even though we didn't hear anything at the time, and even scoped the motor to check the pistons, don't assume everything is fine. When we took the suspect head off, we discovered 4 bent valves. Well crap (for that head). At least I had this one refreshed and ready to go. Decked, hot tanked clean, new valve stem seals, new valve guides. I wish I could have had it ported, polished, and done over-sized valves. But, well you saw the house post.... No funds for that right now.

The head swap took a weekend, and good lord does it feel great to be back behind the wheel of the car. Now, I just have to sort out some cluster wiring issues (yay, more friggen wiring gremlins in this damn car....), get the OBC to actually display data again (worked in the orange e30, not working here. I'm stumped), and then get all the sap off my car from when she sat under a tree outside the garage while we worked on the house.

starting to look good...nice work on the rebuild., keep the update coming.

wiring gremlins can be a real head ache, especially when your trying to unpick a former owners bodges, keep at it, E30's are very logical to work on.

Yeah, things have been a little slow lately... Sorry about that.

I was laid off back in August, and was fighting the unemployment office for the longest time. I just started a new job a month ago, so I've been playing catch-up on bills and whatnot. Things financially should be settling down within the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I can get back into it.

On the plus side:

I do have her tucked away in the garage, dash all torn apart. We're working on sorting through why the OBC lights up but doesn't display any data (it all worked perfectly in my 318is, so not sure why it's not working here), sort out the cluster (maybe we can figure out why my tach doesn't work; honestly, I think it's the diff speed sensor/connector/wires), and get the courtesy lights to actually function.

Oh, and Santa was very nice to me this year.



Trust me, they need a LOT of work. All lips and barrels need to be replaced, and the faces need to be refinished. But! I couldn't pass them up, not for the cost I got them at. All credit to getting these goes to a friend named Frank. Not sure if he's here on r3v or not. I cannot wait till things money-wise settle down and I can give these things the treatment they so desperately deserve. I've gotta save these!!

Hopefully the start to the new year bodes for a better rest of the year: my boyfriend proposed at the stroke of midnight as we watched the fireworks display from the Space Needle last week. Took me by complete surprise, and I'm excited to start the next chapter of our lives together.

Looking good, like the red on yellow. Also wheels are nice. Keep us posted.

Very nice rims can't have been easy to find. Hope they're not to difficult to fix up

@Sasquatch: thanks! I love how she's coming together, slowly piece by piece. Now... If only I could find some French fogs whenever it happens I have extra cash....

@tha881: thank you! I got very lucky with these. The person that found them was in the right place at the right time, and I was able to pry them from him. He'll get paid back in some way when I'm able to, just to say thank you for passing these along to me.

They're going to be such a headache to have redone (they're Hartge Japan 3pc that have been welded... ughh...), but it'll be SO worth it to save these.

Not sure how many facilities you have on hand. The lips could be milled down, have the barrels drilled out. Shame to see such nice wheels butchered.

I was having a hard time finding yellow fogs. You can find them in my nech of the woods, mostly all shot to pieces. New ones are way to rich for fogs. I bought plastic copies just to keep it all yellow. Best $47 i spent.

Sasquatch wrote:Not sure how many facilities you have on hand. The lips could be milled down, have the barrels drilled out. Shame to see such nice wheels butchered.

I was having a hard time finding yellow fogs. You can find them in my nech of the woods, mostly all shot to pieces. New ones are way to rich for fogs. I bought plastic copies just to keep it all yellow. Best $47 i spent.

I don't have any of the tools needed to do the job at my house, but I have a place I'm going to send them to in order to have the work done. The welds are going to be milled down, and new lips/barrels all around are going to be put back on. And everything is going to get refinished/powdercoated with new hardware. And then they'll be returned to proper 3pc wheels. It'll be a hefty project, but worth it to me in the end.

I'll probably wind up doing plastic copies too, especially since there's a LOT of gravel trucks around here and I don't want to take the risk of the glass getting broken, which is still a concern I have for the high beams..

So today was semi-successful. Keep in mind, it's like 20* outside, and our garage doesn't seal very well so it's still pretty darn cold even in the garage. We didn't feel like tackling anything electrical today, so my fiance did some reorganizing of his toolbox while I tackled some of the sap problem.

I found this tiny plastic "non-marring" type of tool and decided I would give it a go. Well, this little mystery tool has been a huge success. This was not the first go-round with the sap on this car. I used a razorblade to get it all off the windows a couple months back, and that worked great, obviously. Then I tried some goof-off and similar products to get all the gooey sap off, which worked, kind of. When the goof-off stuffs quit working, we went to laquer thinner, which barely did anything.. About a month went by with me stumped on what to try to get this crap off of my car. And then today happened. And needless to say, I am quite pleased with the results.

Before (after goof-off and laquer thinner):



After (using the non-marring tool):


I still have a lot to do, but... It's REALLY cold out there, and I ran out of microfiber towels.
I used the non-marring tool with some windex, and the sap just chipped right off. Once everything is cleaned off, she'll just need a cut/buff and she'll be good as new!! About time..

Sounds good, so many small projects. I tend not to touch anything sensative in winter, easy to damage, brittle pastic. Keep us posted on progress.

Got link/picture of this "non marring" tool? Never heard of it before.

Sasquatch wrote:Sounds good, so many small projects. I tend not to touch anything sensative in winter, easy to damage, brittle pastic. Keep us posted on progress.

Yeah it's been a headache so far haha. The "projects" never seem to end. I've been kicking myself for even letting sap get all over the car to start with, and I'd love to show the previous owner how I feel about his lack of maintenance leading to everything broken I've had to fix, but.... I'll just fix it and enjoy a much better car than he was able to own.

steve_k wrote:Got link/picture of this "non marring" tool? Never heard of it before.

It was something like this:


I honestly couldn't tell you where I got it. I can't remember. I just happened to be digging through my toolbox for something, and found it sitting there. Worked pretty well if I don't say so myself! Now I've just gotta get the rest of the sap off, which is something I might tackle this weekend.

thanks for that will keep my eye out when i'm on my travels

So yesterday was a pretty big decision day. I made a pretty hard decision, and Lorelei went to a new home. With everything that still needed my attention, and with a new job that will soon require a bit more commute time, I made the call that the e30 wasn't cut out to be the daily commuter, and I was frustrated enough to not want to make any further spends for the car. I already have a new daily, and I'm just smitten with her.

I'd like to introduce Maria, a 2017 VW Golf R. She had a whopping 6 miles on her before I took delivery yesterday afternoon at 1pm.

Hope it went to a good home! What sort of price is a good e30 in the US?