Alpine e30 progress/build thread
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CaTuned just came out with set of stainless lines. Great guys to deal with
http://www.catuned.com/p/106/catuned-brakes-brake-lines-bbk#.Uu77Tsvnav0
Hadn't seen these, thanks!
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Well, I'm home for "spring" break which means the e30 is officially out of storage! At the end of this week I will be loading it up and driving about 1000 miles back to school. Before I go I've got quite a lot to do. I ordered a bunch of parts and over the next few days I will attempt to finish everything
Last night I did the rear shock mounts. Drivers side took about 20 minutes total:
New heavy duty RSM's with ECS Z3 reinforcement plates
And then came the passenger side aka satan's top nut. Took a few hours and ended up removing the entire shock to get it off:
\Original bmw shocks with 144k on them, total junk. Once I get some more money I will be replacing these with Bilsteins
That explains the clunk I was getting in the rear...
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Look into mustang and camaro shocks. They are cheaper than the bilsteins and also offer better performance
Never heard of that as an option, you did mustang shocks on your ti right? They're a direct replacement?
Got more done on the car today, I need to buy new H4 bulbs for my headlights because one isn't working right, not burnt out though which is odd.
Replaced the rear differential mount with a Powerflex purple bushing (middle between street and race hardness)
Really clean inside the diff, pretty happy about that
Bushing wasn't as bad as it looked on the car, still replacing it though as the rubber had softened significantly
Powerflex bushing installed, went together extremely easily. New cover gasket installed and everything torqued to spec, filled it with Redline 75w-90 gear oil.
No clunking when going from a stop or over bumps, responsiveness on acceleration and deceleration is definitely better as well and the ride quality hasn't changed at all
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Nice move on the RSMs
I have the same diff mount and I am happy with it as well.
Im not a fan of the camaro/mustang shock idea for a car that you want performance out of. Without knowing any damping characteristics, you just have to assume they are not well matched to whatever springs you will be using.
You can argue that the typical street-driven car owner may never perceive a problem with it, but a properly matched system will have a better ride and better handling at the same time.
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Snap, you get the adjustable dampening shocks=) They are a lot cheaper than e30 options and there are many more options. They are usually a bit stiffer/harsher than e30 shocks due to being for heavier cars as well.
The KYB AGX shocks are one of the common ones for either the camaro or mustang shocks. I have heard good things about the Strange 10 way adjustable mustang shocks as well=)
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A bit of a big update for the last few days!
I replaced my lower oil pan gasket to try and fix a pretty big oil leak:
Pretty sure it is the lower pan gasket (mostly at least) and I figured it would be good to crack it open anyway
Just about had a heart attack...
Turns out this is pretty common on the m42, it is a bolt holding the upper oil pan to the block and apparently it isn't uncommon to find multiple
I put the bolt back an re-torqued every one I could get to including the bolts for the oil pickup. Almost all of them were correct thankfully
Cleaned up the whole lower oil pan and the mounting surface on the upper pan:
Decided against using any RTV on the gasket since the surfaces cleaned up so nicely, it will be much less of a project if I have to open the pan again and it should seal just as nicely
All torqued down and filled with Castrol GTX high mileage 10W-40 and a new Mahle oil filter
I drove it around for the rest of the afternoon running errands and did find some oil leaking down onto the pan but from what I can tell the lower pan gasket is sealed nice and tight. I think I may have to do the upper pan gasket and front crank seal but for now I am just going to keep an eye on them. IT is MUCH MUCH less leaky than it was before though
Now for the fun bit....
I loaded up the car and set off from Milwaukee, WI to Bethlehem, PA.
Into Illinois
And then Indiana
(Gary, Indiana sucks)
Didn't get a picture of the Ohio sign but here is a panoramic view of the entire state
And by the time I got to PA it was dark and I managed to find a pretty large snow storm which added another three or four hours to my trip, had to stop regularly to clear the snow and grime from my headlights and grille
Thinking about some mud flaps on all four corners...
And here is my car after about 900 miles and 18 hours at a rest stop right before my destination, I really like this picture actually
I was hoping to never let this car see the salt and snow but seeing as it's my only running vehicle I had no choice, hopefully it will be fine over the next week or two in the winter weather. It looks like it won't be dipping below freezing here in PA anymore (And the town ran out of salt haha, what luck!) so I should be good in terms of keeping any rust at bay.
Overall, after a total of over 900 miles and an entire day's worth of driving I can honestly say I am never selling this car, every time I got out I couldn't help but turn around and stare for a bit and I loved every minute behind the wheel, it ran and drove absolutely beautifully!
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Im happy to hear you had a safe and uneventful journey, when will you be back with us in Packerland?
Thanks! I will be back near the middle of May after the semester ends, looking forward to being back home for the summer again. Maybe this time I'll be able to make it to a cruise/show/meet or something
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Just swapped in a different m42 into my sedan and when I cracked the lower pan off there were 4 bolts in there...I think the upper pan shifted due to this and the oil pickup is now sucking in air not allowing proper pressure to build. Glad you caught yours at just one bolt.
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Just swapped in a different m42 into my sedan and when I cracked the lower pan off there were 4 bolts in there...I think the upper pan shifted due to this and the oil pickup is now sucking in air not allowing proper pressure to build. Glad you caught yours at just one bolt.
http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/index.php/M42_Sump_Bolts
I found this when I was looking up why the bolts fall out and what to do with them to prevent it and they described the exact same thing you mentioned. How could you tell that the oil pump was sucking air? I am paranoid about those bolts now haha
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Same site I used. Read it and you start worrying about profile gaskets and bolts sucked into and damaging the oil pickup.
When I opened mine to replace the cracked lower pan after buying the car I found two upper pan bolts were missing...and not loose in the bottom of the lower pan. Just gone. Still can't figure that one out. Did some PO/tech working on the car think they were extras???
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Same site I used. Read it and you start worrying about profile gaskets and bolts sucked into and damaging the oil pickup.
When I opened mine to replace the cracked lower pan after buying the car I found two upper pan bolts were missing...and not loose in the bottom of the lower pan. Just gone. Still can't figure that one out. Did some PO/tech working on the car think they were extras???
What a convenient place to keep them haha. And yeah they make the m42 sound like ticking time bomb, at least the more common problems are well documented.
Speaking of common problems, I think I was miss-judging the source of my oil leak (Its like a greasy swamp so it is hard to pinpoint) and I'm pretty sure I have narrowed it down to the filter housing gasket and especially that o-ring. The oil is then running down the front of the engine and behind the crank pulley making it look like the upper pan gasket/front crank seal are the main culprits
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Hopefully you will be back in time for the E30 meet in May?
The one on May 10th? I really wish I could be, I will be in Michigan for the Formula SAE competition that weekend. I will definitely be at as many of the brew city cruise nights as possible though!
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Updates on the car!
I have been monitoring my oil leak for a while and today I finally got around to tackling the filter housing gasket and o-ring. I didn't get to take any pictures but I got the entire job done in under two hours which was great. The gasket basically fell off and the o-ring was pressed flat and very brittle, both of these were definitely part of the problem. So far it looks like the problem has been solved!
My glove-box has decided it doesn't want to be there anymore and basically fell off. The back where it attaches to the hinge is broken and I don't have the pieces so if anyone has a spare black glove-box laying around please let me know.
Also, does anyone have any experience with dying carpets? Mine doesn't exist and I would like to pick up a carpet and since the Indigo blue carpet will be next to impossible to find I was hoping to get a decent condition tan carpet and dye it dark gray. My concern would be that the carpet won't be soft anymore or that the dye will rub away over time and I will be left with tan spots in the 'high traffic' areas
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Well, two things happened.
First: I walked past the car after arriving at a destination about an hour away and my car smelled heavily of gas. Turns out one of the fuel lines that goes under the intake sprung a leak. I did not have any tools with me so I fiddled with it for a while with what I had (read: bmw trunk toolkit, and some things I borrowed from the maintenance people at the place I was) and was able to reach in and tighten the hose clamp (about a quarter of a turn) that was causing the leak. It did not leak on the drive home from what I could see thankfully. I will probably be taking off the intake and replacing everything under there in the near future.
Also, I bought my car with a cheap retractable antenna and it doesn't sit right so it angles toward the trunk of the car a bit. Its a bit wiggly as well and can sometimes interfere with closing the trunk. Well, a friend of mine slammed the trunk lid down and bent my antenna in half so I will be looking into replacements for that now too. Once I am through finals in a week big work days on the car will ensue!
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Yay updates!
So school is over and finals are done. This past week was the competition for the Formula SAE car my team builds every year. This meant driving over 500 miles from Bethlehem, PA to Brooklyn, MI (Michigan International Speedway) with easily 500 pounds of stuff in the car (full to the brim with all my crap). The day before departure, the fuel line I mentioned above completely let go and the car was stuck in on the street outside the shop we build the race car at. Once we were done for the night, myself and two friends stayed up all night fixing the car:
We were very enthusiastic to be doing this at 4:30am after a hectic 16 hour day
The culprit:
The 2 inch piece of fuel line under the intake manifold was leaking from both ends, tightening it had failed (and it looked ready to turn to dust) so fortunately we had enough fuel injector hose laying around to properly fix it.
With the car fixed and after a day of packing, we set off for Michigan. The enthusiastic pace was a bit much for my car with the extra weight and it started to run a bit hot, so we backed off a bit and it stayed where it should be. Made it there with no other issues (removed the grilles and headlight panels for some extra airflow), really goes to show the reliability of these cars if you look after them.
Who needs lowering springs when you can just fill it with stuff!
After the competition ended I set off for home, no problems at all with a grand total of 1050 miles traveled. Its pretty crazy to think that, of the 3000 miles I have put on the car so far, 1900 of them have been split across 3 drives!
I am making a quick trip to Canada and then once I am back the Bimmer will be going under the knife (And I will finally get to those wheels...) Stay Tuned!
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