MadE30mike wrote: i opened the coolant lid and it all come spewin out the top.
The system is pressurised on E30's (or at least on M20's) so it'll always spew out the top when hot - whether it's overheating or not!
I had something similar happen and it was the thermostat; took it out and cleaned it (covered in yeuch!), then flushed the radiator* and re-filled with decent coolant (actually coolant & water), then everything worked fine again - and has been working fine for ~a year since.
*use good rad flush, and leave it in there for long enough to actually do it's job not "10mins" as they say on the bottle, that's not long enough to do it right, preferably get her out on the road and use the engine properly get 10-20 miles on her before getting the hose out!
Fingers crossed for you mate, that it's nowt BIG.
If it's anything like mine so much cr*p will come out when you flush her you'll wonder how she was running at all...!!!
'89 325i - was an SE but not anymore, was bronze-beige metallic (yeuch!) but now techno-violet (thankfully)
'89 Toyota Corolla GTi-16 - track, hillclimb & sprint car (yeeha!)
'08 Buell XB12Ss - American engineering at it's 'best'... good fun though
