325i Touring resto thread - damp footwells

[G-Bear]

Looking great, I'm loving this thread..

[Grrrmachine]

The new engine arrived today, courtesy of three burly blokes in a 3-litre 5-series:



It's a genuine M20B25, from an E34 so it'll need some minor adjustments. But I've put in my order for spare parts, and the first little lot turned up today:



Contitech timing belt and roller, new sump gasket, prop bearing and throttle cable. There'll be exhaust and gearbox gaskets in the post, a new prop donut, a completely new shifter assembly, a new clutch, dizzy cap, rotor and spark plugs, all the fluids, belts and filters and the injectors are going off to Injectortune It's been an expensive birthday...

So I need to crack on with the engine bay to make it nice and shiny for the new lump!

[Grrrmachine]

Time to come back to the engine bay...



What an unloved den of filth and grease this was. The car came into Poland in 2004, and I doubt the engine bay was cleaned a single time in those 8 years. The PAS reservoir had leaked all over the place, the wiring loom was corroded and cut up, the sound deadening was falling off and there was the scars of my inner wing repairs to deal with.

With that happy setting, I set about stripping the engine bay as much as I could. Brake cylinder out, wiring disconnected, all ancilliaries unbolted and the pipework pushed to one side so that I could sand back the surface blisters to this:



The front left corner has had an argument with something in the past, so the headlght bracket is a little squashed and the lower corner of the slam panel is chewed. The fuse box is also still in, so this isn't going to be a mirror finish job. But the rust has been dealt with and sealed with epoxy converter, and she's going to get some new paint to stop the orange lichen coming back:



Two coats of high-build primer to mask the scratches, and some seam sealer to protect the edges. Then it all got rubbed back with grey wool (about 500-grit) before the colour and clearcoats go on:



And bang, in with the black magic. That's an engine bay ready to house a better engine than the one before, so I can FINALLY get on with reassembly!

[kitch]

WOOO HOOO. It's looking good. Bet you can't wait to get it on the road.

[e30325itourer]

[Grrrmachine]

Just one little update since things are now being reassembled.

I spent a whole day organising all the parts that have spent months in boxes, crates, in the boot, and working out the refitting order. It doesn't help that I've got about 5 tubs of nuts and bolts, unlabelled and disorganised, that need to be sorted out so that everything can fit back together.

But sod that, I spray painted the brake servo instead, scrubbed the fluid tanks clean and started fitting things to the engine bay :



Tomorrow is reserved for getting the new engine into a healthy condition for reinstalling, which will also mean removing the broken exhaust studs...

[Duke137]

Well done Rich, epic work mate

[TouringMatt]

You dont hang about much dude - keep up the good work

[capri_rob]

fan bloody tastic

You gonna refurb the head before it goes in ?

[Grrrmachine]

I won't strip the block down, but everything that's removable is coming off for a clean/service.

The injectors should come back from Injectortune this week, the new shifter should arrive from BMW so I can do the gearbox, and this weekend was spent dealing with all of this:



I did the cambelt, waterpump and oil sump gasket today. That sump gasket is a proper b!tch, I can't imagine doing it with the engine in situ.

[spook]

So much hard work,well done dude

[capri_rob]

Headgasket/skim/pressure test/stem seals etc ?

[Grrrmachine]

Headgasket/skim/pressure test/stem seals etc ?

Not yet. I'm not allowed to add a one-year engine rebuild to the one-year body restoration, according to the missus

[Gortour]

Lola

[Grrrmachine]

A week of monster engine work has taken place, so here's the update.

To start with, something needed to be done about the state of those exhaust studs:



Five were trapped in there. Three twisted out with the old double-nut technique (winding on two nuts, tightening them together and then using a spanner on the inner nut), but two of the studs were not only snapped but brutally corroded, so there was no thread to grip on to. No matter, I fired up the welder and got some nuts on there; the breaker bar did the rest. Then I cleaned out the holes with a tap, and put the new OEM studs in:



I also replaced the cam belt, water pump and tensioner, and put on a new sump gasket. I didn't know when I ordered it that the BMW OEM gasket is the cork one, which is flimsy, feeble and a pain in the arse to put on, so it was "helped" with a bead of gasket sealer.

While all that was happening, the injectors had been removed and were being dealt with by Injectortune. They went from this:



to this:



yielding a 58cc/min increase in flow, or something like 6%. That's a lot of horsepower reclaimed, hopefully.

Then I separated the old Getrag 260 off the engine, and put a new LUK clutch on:



The original Getrag 240 gearbox was filled with fresh oil, the shifter seal was changed, new mounts screwed on and the box fitted to the car:



I used the 240 instead of the 260 for two reasons. The pikey explanation is so that I didn't have to find a new prop to match the gearbox, but I also want the sportier ratios that the smaller box has. The Getrag 260 mated to a 3.64 diff in a Touring will give very sluggish performance around town, so by using the old 320i gearbox I should get decent acceleration from the traffic lights as well as a relatively quiet cruising speed on the motorway.

With all that assembled, it was time to drop the lump into the car!



It wasn't easy. Despite having a balancer and a crane, it still took three attempts to fit a rope of the right length so that you can get the engine and box into the engine bay but also angled enough to drop the gearbox into the tunnel. It didn't help that I'd fitted one of the engine mounts upside down so that it was miles away from the engine bush...



But it went in eventually! Everything bolted down secure, and ready for wiring up. I also took the time to replace the gearbox rubber guibo and fit a new propshaft bearing so that all the drivetrain rubbers are fresh.

Since the shifter had to come out, I figured I might as well refresh the shifter mechanism too. So ALL the bushes were replaced (HOW much from BMW?!?! ) and a Z3 Short shifter purchased and fitted:



And that was that! I got all the tools packed away and the last nut tightened about 5 minutes before the rain started, so it was perfect time to push the car back into the garage:



where I can tinker with it, tighten up everything and deal with the loom and the exhaust without getting soaked by this lovely summer weather.

[capri_rob]

Nice work - not much to do now

[TouringMatt]

Impressive stuff chap

[WillRoy]

This build is awesome!

[Jos]

Legendary save dude!!

[G-Bear]

Excellent work.. A great turn around in just under a year..

[mcbonio]

Good work Grrr,
Enjoyed this thread a lot, what are you plans with the car after? Gonna garage it? Daily driver?

[Grrrmachine]

Cheers for the comments lads.

I have a deadline of October, which is when I plan to drive the car from Poland to England for a week's holiday. But I'll need plenty of time for shakedown tests, a new MOT and the inevitable adjustments the tester will demand, which is the reason I've been putting so much work in.

The car won't really be a daily since my job doesn't require the use of a car, but she won't be a garage queen either; no point putting a 2.5 lump in if it's not going to get used!

[Grrrmachine]

IT LIVES!

Finally got everything around the engine wired up, bolted on and plumbed in. Turned the key with a massive clenching of buttocks and... nothing. Flat battery.

Popped the backup battery on, turned the key. 5 secs of cranking, stop. 5 secs of cranking, stop. Next turn of the key there was a cough, then another, then a thunderous boom as the engine roared out without an exhaust fitted.

I didn't run it for any longer than that, and the battery's now on trickle charge so I can look forward to a morning of coolant bleeding and leak checking.

But the elation of hearing an E30 engine after 9 months is really really satisfying

[JM2012]

fantastic to hear mate, deservedly so!

[Grrrmachine]

Exhaust Time.

The original system was a two-piece with a catalyser, which I'd removed and stored months ago:



The plan was always to just bolt this back on for smooth easy running. That was, until I came across a Hartge six-branch manifold online for stupid money (100 quid, because it had one tiny hole in it) which I snapped up and stored "just in case".

Of course, running this with a catalyser is a bit daft, so I got my hands on the centre box from a 323i (20 quid!) to see how things line up. By taking angle grinder to the centre box I'll be able to mate it to the standard rear section; that way if the MOT man wants to see my catalyst, I can swap back to the original system relatively easily. So here's a mock fit of all the pieces:



As you can see from this pic, the Hartge pipes have been flared and sized exactly to fit into the 323i centre box. This isn't my doing, so I'm guessing the previous owner used the same method. Really grateful to jmc330i for showing me how the gasket rings work here:



I got the manifold and the backbox mounted to the car, and then offered up the centre box for trimming.



But with the manifold bolted tightly in place, the front pipes are nowhere near where they should be.



This isn't my fault; it's the atrocious angle of the pipes entering the centre box, as well as the old home-made straight pipes coming out of the sixfold. That's what you get for paying 20 quid for a centre box. So I got those lengths off (they were held on with clamps), and looked at what I could knock up with the cut-offs from the 323i section. A cut here, a cut there, and here's some I made earlier (sticky-backed plastic not included):



Those babies lined up a treat, and with flared flanges on one end and bolted sleeves on the other, they slid on a treat.

So now the engine bay looks like this:



That's more like it

[capri_rob]

Nice pipez bruv

[steve_k]

Well done dude

there's no better sound than an M20 firing up only on headers & no exhaust lol

[Grrrmachine]

Cheers fellas. And yes, the sound of just the downpipes was properly awesome

While the car's still essentially a shell, I decided to tackle the most dreaded of tasks... changing the roof lining.

I'd been led to believe this job was a complete nightmare. But with the sunroof panel and windscreen already out, it was just a matter of undoing a few screws and prising off a few clips, and bob's your uncle...

Manky old beige one removed, and the new black one laid out



and that's the interior properly blacked up!



And the dangling cables you can see? That's a map light mirror, going through an interior-light conversion

[TPS]

I did mine a couple of years ago, wasn't that bad. The pig was getting the old glue off the sunroof & the door shuts.

[capri_rob]

Nice work - not long now

[jmc330i]

Amazing work dude
Exhaust looks good, especially for the price

Whereabouts you holidaying when you come over?

[G-Bear]

Great progress. A touring with a black roof lining looks so good, always got time for a map light mirror too...

[capri_rob]

Did you buy that liner from BMW or get one recovered ?

Would also suggest fitting a grab handle on the drivers side and the mounts for the luggage net before you finish it off All the captive nuts are already in the shell and the cutouts for the mounts for the luggate net are marked on the back of the headlining - you can buy black mounts from BMW