Alpine e30 progress/build thread

[YoungCR]

This is rad!

[Jdesign]

Earl said:

Do you mind hinting towards the price you paid so we can all be even more jealous? =P

I prefer not to know this, Im sure it was a good deal if they have all that nice reading material.

[m42b32]

Earl said:

Do you mind hinting towards the price you paid so we can all be even more jealous? =P

It was a 3 digit number, but both myself and the seller were happy with the deal!

[Earl]

For 3 digits, you sir got a great deal=P

[m42b32]

Everything is pulled from the front end except the AC condenser and a few odds and ends. Anyone who has cut the core support out, do you think it would be wise to put in some additional bracing to keep things square before I start cutting it out? or is it still pretty sturdy with it removed? I am keeping the engine/subframe in so it ties the bottom frame rails together, and I'm thinking about buying a strut brace to secure the strut towers.

[GunMetalGrey]

Do you have any reason to believe that the front end had ever been hit before? If so, do not brace it.
It is not a weak area without the core support in, so you should be fine without. 

You can measure from bumper shock to bumper shock before removing the core support and after to see if they do move.
The new core support fits very tightly, and will kind of be a guide for the frame horn spacing as well.

[m42b32]

GunMetalGrey said:

Do you have any reason to believe that the front end had ever been hit before? If so, do not brace it.
It is not a weak area without the core support in, so you should be fine without. 

You can measure from bumper shock to bumper shock before removing the core support and after to see if they do move.
The new core support fits very tightly, and will kind of be a guide for the frame horn spacing as well. 

I don't believe it has been hit in the front before this, glad to hear it is pretty sturdy without it. That is a good point against bracing, it could hold things in the wrong place and not let them spring back to where they should be when the damaged metal is removed. Thanks!

[KaiserRolls]

I cut my old twisted one out and junked it. Ordered a new one and it basically slid into place, the old areas that you'll have to cut and grind away can almost be used as a template.

The only part that may be less sturdy than the others is the front fender area, there's not much bracing

[straight6pwr]

i would say its probably good to make sure the car is sitting level as possible and if you have it on stands,  have it supported at identical points on each side so you don't have twisting of the entire chassis before you begin. 

e30s don't have the most rigid chassis. the doors tend to be hard to open/close if you jack just one corner up and we've all heard about how lifting the front end of an e30 can widen or narrow the strut towers to help fit a strut bar in some instances.

[m42b32]

KaiserRolls said:

The only part that may be less sturdy than the others is the front fender area, there's not much bracing

Unfortunately I have to cut that area out too, I figure I can use the new core support and a lot of measuring to get it all back to square.

I'll definitely be taking measurements of the shock tower separation and squareness of the bay before and after I cut. It should be interesting to see how things move around. Thanks for input everyone!

[m42b32]

So when I pulled everything out the other night I got a better look at my radiator and it's pretty much junk. The end with the integral expansion tank is bent and it looks like the majority of the bend was taken by the core right where it joins the end tank. This sucks because this radiator had only a few thousand miles on it. It holds coolant and has held pressure when I've run the car since the accident, but I just don't trust it because, with a few heat cycles, the stressed areas of the aluminum will probably start cracking. its not too expensive for me to buy a new OEM radiator but then I'm still left with the plastic parts and not-so-great design of the integral expansion tank. The only available quality aluminum m42 radiator option I am aware of is almost 1k from zionsville and since I'm sadly not Mr. Moneybags that's not an option.

So... here is what I am thinking. I started looking at the m20/m50 mishimoto radiators, and they can be found for a fairly good deal and have the inlet and outlet on the correct sides. The inlet/lower side is in the correct place and I can use the stock radiator hose, but I will need to swap my passenger side radiator mount for an m20 mount, this is cheap so no big deal. On the driver's side, the stock radiator hose is too short and will need to be either lengthened (opportunity to install a coolant temp sensor to feed a gauge) or a different hose used. Since I would be deleting the expansion tank I would either need to modify my system to accommodate an m20 expansion tank or use an e36 6-cyl style tank. There isn't much available for m20 aluminum expansion tanks as the OEM late model design is pretty durable, but I want to get away from plastic parts if I can. Also, the m42 has a crap load of room between it and the radiator so if I can put something there instead of elsewhere that is a bonus. 

E30 m42 bay for reference, with the fan/shroud/radiator removed there's like a foot of space:

I got a deal on a zionsville aluminum expansion tank/fan shroud so that helps with this idea. I would be able to use the stock e36 bleeding system and since the other line to the expansion tank runs through the same side I can potentially use the e36 hose or do some frankensteining where they run along the frame rail. For the coolant level sensor, they are the same style so I can most likely just wire in the e36 one. An added bonus is that I will be able to run a properly ducted electric fan. 

Overall this will be a bit more expensive than just dropping in a new radiator, but since the long term plan is s52 swap power with m42 balance, the additional cooling capacity would be welcome as I'd rather be concerning myself with air/fuel ratio's than coolant temps.

[Earl]

Whatcha doing with the bent radiator?

[m42b32]

Earl said:

Whatcha doing with the bent radiator? 

I'm thinking I should hang onto it till I get this conversion idea working, just in case it doesn't and I need to get the car running. After that I'd sell it for super cheap if you want it? That might be a few months away though, I need to fix the thing the radiator bolts to haha

[Earl]

I would be interested and also in no rush=)

[GunMetalGrey]

I have a Behr (?) m42 rad in my car currently that I will no longer be in need of if you want to make a linear move on the car.

[m42b32]

Continued taking stuff apart today after work, Only major thing left is the AC condenser but I can't get the line from the compressor off at either side so I'm going to have to pull both of them at the same time. No big deal though, got the rest of the AC removed and a bunch of other odds and ends. Started planning my cuts as well

Recently I noticed that the passenger side wiper wasn't centered in its hole and was stuck up towards the windshield, the hood probably caught it when it was forced backwards. I pulled the wiper arm and all the cowl grills and stuff, was able to get the wiper arm free but the cowl sheet metal is damaged. Looks like I'm going to have to remove the wiper linkage so I can straighten this out from the back side. It doesn't look bad but the hole is elongated by about 1/4" and pushed down behind it by about that much. Fortunately the linkage seems to be ok. From what I can tell, the only way to remove this is through the opening the blower motor is mounted in? That's going to suck for sure...

Realized I wasn't properly storing the car, so I fixed that as well

[straight6pwr]

removing the wiper linkage and motor?

ever try and solve one of these? pretty much the same task.

maybe just add some sort of additional black plastic/rubber washer that is larger and covers the elongated hole instead? i don't like shortcuts, but sometimes personal sanity needs to be a consideration when working on cars

[m42b32]

straight6pwr said:

removing the wiper linkage and motor?

ever try and solve one of these? pretty much the same task.

maybe just add some sort of additional black plastic/rubber washer that is larger and covers the elongated hole instead? i don't like shortcuts, but sometimes personal sanity needs to be a consideration when working on cars [emoji3]

Hahaha I figured as much. Normally I would be all for just covering the hole if it meant keeping my sanity, but unfortunately it is also bent downwards (hard to see in the picture, you can see the windshield seal isnt sitting flat) so its pretty much a big dent. Given your analogy, Ill probably save this task for when I pull the engine, since I'd have to remove half of it to get that thing out anyway...

[Earl]

We swapped out Sams with minimal trouble. However, he car does not have a blower motor lol

[m42b32]

The sawzall and angle grinder I was going to borrow to start cutting the front off the car are being used by my dad at the moment so I have been working on some other projects.

My garage is not heated and with temperatures dropping (especially now) I don't have a way to be able to paint parts. Instead of heating my entire garage in order to paint something I decided to make an "oven" that I can use to keep the paint and part warm before spraying and also allow the paint to cure properly. It is a 3'x2'x2' box made of 1" foam board insulation and just held together with a ton of duct tape:

It is big enough that I can fit most things that I will need to paint this winter. There are two incandescent light bulbs to provide the heat, I used "rough" bulbs as they have a thicker filament that emits more heat than a standard bulb of the same wattage (dimmer light output = more heat output). The lights are connected to a control box that I built. It uses a small thermostat commonly found in home brewing setups to flip a relay that switches the lights on and off depending on the internal temperature. The thermostat reads the internal temperature from a thermocouple inside the center of the box. I programmed the thermostat and did some trial runs today and it works very well, it should save me a lot of money compared to heating the whole garage just to paint things. The whole setup cost me less than $60. 

I got the rear brakes pulled from the trailing arms and started the rebuild process on the calipers. I received the fronts already disassembled and started breaking down the rears. Got new rotors for the front and the rears look really new so I'm just going to clean them up and run them. Also rebuilt my driver's door lock as it hasn't been working as long as I owned the car.