This weekend was spent changing the engine on my 325 Tourer, just a straight swap, M20 for M20......due to a 'cracked head'. A few other jobs were completed as well, rear disks and pads, exhaust, wing mirror, wiper motor, Z3 short shift, iS lip spoiler, replacing rear quarterlight.
Massive thanks to Iain (Templ8e30 on here) and Mat (Beardymat) for all their help, especially Iain who gave up his drive, his whole weekend plus an evening or two, and a few spare parts. The story went like this...
Saturday: Crappy weather meant a tarp had to be put up over the drive, driving rain and gusts of wind made conditions not ideal. Got the engine out only to find a split hose at the rear of the engine.....I'm going to kill the mechanic that told me it was a cracked head or gasket!!! Decided to put the 'new' engine in anyway as the lack of coolant may have caused head damage anyway, soon to be confirmed or not.
Sunday: Weather turned out ok, new engine in, with ultrasonically cleaned injectors (thanks again to Iain), along with all the other odds and sods. Mat came over from Sheffield to Manchester to lend a hand and managed to open one of my permanently deadlocked rear doors and replace the quaterlight that was smashed in April! Got to 7.30 and we were struggling with hanging the exhaust, and the car ran like a bag of nails.....cried into my coffee and admitted defeat and got a lift back to Sheffield with my cousin (he was also helping all weekend).
Monday: Iain gets up for an early shift then struggles on with the car after work, replaced an injector and re-set the tappets (which were apparently a mile out), car ran sweet. Re-fitted the bonnet on his own, hung the exhaust, fitted the lip spoiler, fixed the diff speed sensor, re-fitted my strut brace......and gave the beast a much needed wash! Monday night.....some scumbag breaks the same quarterlight that we've just replaced!!!! Luckily don't get in thanks to the trusty deadlocks.
Tuesday: Iain takes the car into work to get an aircon guy to re-charge the system....for free. Charges it but it's empty again within 10 mins....another job to sort. Also turns out that my car uses a more modern gas than most, it's a '91 model. That evening, Iain drives my car half way over Snake Pass to meet me, with his wife in tow in his 2.7.
I now have the car back and am sat here with a massive grin on my face, I've got more poke (high compression engine and de-cat Aplina copy exhaust), a 3.64 LSD, and nice crisp short shift, along with wipers that stay on the screen and stop where they're meant to!
Iain deserves major brownie points for all his help, he went far far beyond the Zone call of duty. His knowledge and patience is immense, if truth be told, he did 90% of the work, I just bumbled around doing odds and sods, my cousin was Iain's grease monkey so to speak. There are countless other bits and bobs that Iain did along the way, too many to mention really. Also thanks to his wife for putting up with us!
Mat also deserves recognition for his help, he'll be helping to sort out a few more problems in the near future....fingers crossed. Only real downside to the story (other than the window saga) is that the engine I bought turned out to be somewhat less perfect than I'd been told. Still, it runs ok so not a complete waste of time, just a bit of a waste of money.
That's about it, long post I know, but I hope it's made enjoyable reading. If it wasn't for the zone and it's members my Tourer would be sat under a Mondeo at the local scrappy.
Heartfelt thanks to everyone involved.
Gush over.
wow, now thats what you call nice........... well done fella's thats mighty fine. 
and a new job to start as well 
