Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped

[straight6pwr]

right after it rains is a great time for night photography. i happened to have my camera late tonight after the storm rolled through milwaukee. (albeit only with a wide angle, so the variety of shots is not very...varied) 

also didnt have a tripod, so everything was hand-held and and shot wide-open, so the depth of field is not great. but i digress.

[Jdesign]

straight6pwr said:

This shot is $$$$.

[Boris3]

Agreed. Dan you've got a great eye for photo setup. Nice pics!!

[straight6pwr]

Boris3 said:

Agreed. Dan you've got a great eye for photo setup. Nice pics!!

thanks!

[straight6pwr]

welp, I rented a small garage for the winters, so I'm excited I'll get to slowly plug away at my spring project list and just get to driving once the snow goes away.

list for over the winter:

1.replace power steering lines due to leak

2.fix speedo - working intermittently. pulled it and reconnected all the plugs, no change. will dive into the internals to check for borked connections: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1617464-Intermittent-speedometer-and-mpg-gauge

3.replace the windshield

4.swap rear speakers to premium units

5.wire aux fan properly, currently running with an on/off override switch and no temp control.

6.detail interior

7.detail undercarriage

8.sell bbs RS wheels and buy cheap daily wheels + auto-x tires setup.

this weekend I got the garage setup better and the power steering hoses + res done. for the inquiring minds, here is the part list. exact setups may vary, but my situation is: e30 with e36 rack and s50 swap and the stock res in the stock e36 bracket on the driver's side motor mount. an extension is needed on the return line with this configuration, as the hose loops towards the back of the motor and needs to make a turn. there may be a better solution out there, but this is what exists on the car, so I left well enough alone. as well, you need to cut the feed line shorter than it comes.

 BMW Power Steering Reservoir (ZF) - 32416851217  
 BMW Power Steering Return Hose (E30) -  32411133401
 BMW Power Steering Hose (Res to Pump) - 32411135936
 BMW Crush Washer  (16x22mm) - 32411093597
 BMW Hose Clamp -  07129952109                      

 

[SteelBlue]

Where's the unit at? Enough space to work? Pricing?

I might be moving to Milwaukee in the future and wondering about this.

[Boris3]

Curious about this as well. Most area garage ads I see are just for storage and prohibit working on cars, or are overpriced.

[straight6pwr]

Boris3 said:

Curious about this as well. Most area garage ads I see are just for storage and prohibit working on cars, or are overpriced.

I found a private garage for rent, nothing commercial in mke fits the bill. You can find varying single/double private garages for rent in town for $75-300. It took a bit of looking/waiting. Its a single car 11x20 which is plenty spacious for an e30.

[Boris3]

You picked up a good deal!

[SteelBlue]

Reading through some of this thread just reminded me of how much work I still have ahead of me.

Ugh...

[straight6pwr]

SteelBlue said:

Reading through some of this thread just reminded me of how much work I still have ahead of me.

Ugh...

just don't forget to enjoy the car between all that work.

[straight6pwr]

well, i went to work on the e30 two weekends ago, and got a no start. it felt a lot like a flooded engine, which makes sense. i've had leaky injectors since I bought it, and have had a couple of pretty good backfire starts in the summer if i didnt drive the car for a week or more, suggesting there were some fumes built up in the manifold. 

i got back to the garage today to get the injectors and spark plugs pulled so everything can evaporate and I can swap in rebuilt injectors next week. 

sadly, the no start cranking attempts combined with the cold weather flatted the battery farther than my trickle charger could keep up, and i arrived to find a frozen, bulging battery. 

one step forward, two steps back!

[straight6pwr]

update: rebuilt injectors and spark plugs came in, so time to swap them. I went with rebuilt original green top units for the injectors and Denso Iridium IK20 for the plugs

hello old friend. it's sure convenient to leave the car disassembled and already to go for the next car day. (i've never had this luxury)

well, not everything went as planned. after swapping everything in and trying to start the car  it didnt fire. cranked fine, but wouldnt fire. with how long i cranked it, it didn't flood so I assumed it was fuel related.

so, starting from square one on diagnosis.
1. I made sure the gas was OK since the car has been sitting in such cold weather for a few months without running. I pulled the sender to check the tank and the fuel smelled and looked fine.
2. I checked the pump by jumping the relay pins and it chooched just fine.
3. I checked the fuel pressure at the rail by popping the line. plenty of pressure.
4. Lastly, I pulled the rail/injectors from the manifold and connected the harness and cranked the car over to see if the injectors were firing. Only 1 of the 6 was pulsing:

so, still not wanting to assume that my new parts were bad, i had to make sure it wasn't the wiring or ecu. I checked all the connections and grounds. I have no real way of diagnosing misfire codes or ecu codes, and the car ran just fine before I changed anything,  so I decided to start swapping the old injectors in place of the new ones one-by-one to see if I got a different results. sure as shit, all 6 of the old injectors fired just fine.  it turns out that the 'rebuilt' injectors I received were totally useless.

it sounds like the seller i bought them from is willing to work on getting me working ones, but not sure how much i trust them at this point...

-------------------------------

so, after getting the car warmed up running with old injectors, I turned my attention to other things.

New (properly sized) battery installed. my too-short battery bit the dust on that cold snap.  it'll be nice to not have this ghetto-rigged anymore.

the 'standard' speakers in this e30 have always been too quiet. with the windows down on the highway, it was hard to hear the music.  swapping to premium rear speakers on an e30 is easy.

standard speakers on the rear shelf:

backside of the shelf. you can see it is designed to hold both styles of speakers. there are punched lines on the cardboard under the insulation where you need to cut for the premiums.

cut out the new opening:

install new speakers:

note that the inner front screw holding the speaker to the shelf has to be shorter than the other 3 in order to not hit the metal body under the rear shelf.

[B C]

Pintle injectors can become stuck when stored dry/not used for a while.

[straight6pwr]

snap said:

Pintle injectors can become stuck when stored dry/not used for a while. 

these were stored for 2 month since purchase, all in individual ziplock bags. 

 I found an article. should I attempt to free these and test with the 9v battery before sending them back? Or is it risky since they've been stuck?

http://injectorrepair.com/knowledge-base/

someone said:

Long Term Storage of Injectors:

        The internals of some injectors are made of various steel alloys that may corrode / rust with prolonged exposure to moisture.  Many injectors are manufactured with stainless steel, but some components may not be stainless (pintle spring, etc).  Large parts of North America experience enough atmospheric humidity to cause corrosion and rust damage to unprotected metals.

        For long term storage, it is important to lubricate an injector with a good quality light weight machine oil like 3 in 1 oil.  The injectors should be then placed in a sealed plastic bag or a sealed container and stored in a cool, dry place.

Sometimes Injectors Get “Stuck” Closed After Sitting Around Too Long:

        Use a small 9 volt battery to check for stuck injectors before installing them in an engine.  Just listen for a click.  If it clicks, then it is not stuck.  If it is stuck, a light tap on the body of the injector can usually free it.  BE GENTLE!!!

[B C]

Definitely give it a go. ive had success unsticking an injector or two like that before. Careful with any oil/solvent you may want to add to coerce them. The seller may get weird if they can detect something has been run through them besides gasoline.

[straight6pwr]

thanks, dude! would definitely prefer to unstick them versus open a claim and ship parts back and forth.

[straight6pwr]

well, some tapping, cleaning, vibrating, etc did not open any of the stuck injectors. back they go!

[straight6pwr]

installed a turner motorports conforti chip. +19hp and +15tq, apparently. also 7000k limiter, mmm. i would occasionally touch the limiter in 2nd gear on straights at auto-x (60ish mph), but this might just give me that extra moment of acceleration. great gains for the $127 deal i got during the holidays. 

the swap is running on a 413 red ecu. turner's 506 ecu chip works for both the 506 and 413 red.

disassemble the glovebox and panels beneath to access the ecu:

read instructions: 

pry the tabs on the ecu case and just swap the chips. 

while i was in there, i discovered the glove box had begun to crack. this is pretty common on e30s, and you should inspect yours before it gets broken beyond repair. 

one of the 3 mounting locations was cracked:

applied some PL adhesive and connected the mount back together and let it dry overnight:

i added a small piece of steel on the inside to span the crack and hopefully add reinforcement:

then I added a bracket for insurance: 

while i was in there i decided to fully remove the rest of the AC system. more weight removed!

the existing evaporator core and lines under the dash, complete with some weird tape/shmoo:

lines pulled from the core: 19mm/24mm fasteners, IIRC. 

the other end of the lines were just hanging out in the engine bay:

lines removed:

after removing the 4 screws that hold on the plastic cover, i could simply pull the core out. note: if you intend on reusing the core, do not do this. the fins get damaged. if you need to save the core, or install a new one, you'll need to remove the mount bolts that hold the whole HVAC unit to the car to rotate it a little to give the clearance needed. 

core removed:

you'll be left with two things to plug. the rubber grommet in the firewall was easily closed with some plastic plugs, then reinstalled. 

the cover for the evaporator is left with a big hole. there is actually a BMW part that replaces this for cars with no AC (Canada spec), but it costs $75. Too rich for a plastic cover.

I guess some duct tape on its own would solve this, but i didn't want that deteriorating over time and possibly getting sucked into the vents. 

so i cut a piece of plastic and glued it in place:

and added duct tape just for extra insurance:

last thing for the day was fixing the speedo. symptoms included the speedo randomly dropping to 0, or sitting at zero until i smacked the dashboard to bring it back to life. thats a pretty clear indication of a loose connection or solder joint.

removing the e30 cluster is cake. steering wheel off and 4 screws later and its out:

the cluster splits in two via 9ish screws on the back, then, remove the 4 screws on the back of the gauge in question to remove it from the cluster. i inspected the back of the speedo, and it looked fine. i couldnt see cracked or broken solder anywhere. 

i moved onto the cluster itself and found 3 offending solder points. the three that you can see the orange flux stains are the three I fixed. they were behind/near the fuel gauge. on one of the three, the component was completely separate from the board, so I'm hoping that was the issue.

back in the car. *crosses fingers*

[straight6pwr]

whittling down the list! whats left before spring: 

3.replace the windshield

check out those scratches on the original windshield! someone must have ran a wiper with no rubber on it for a long time.

5.wire aux fan properly, currently running with an on/off override switch and no temp control.

6.detail interior

7.detail undercarriage

8.mount tires onto new wheels. having real BBSs was fun for a hot second, but I'm going to reinvest the extra $$$ to a full rear-end rebuild next winter. the knock-offs these days are pretty good, to boot. I'm also excited to have a square 16x8 setup. the 7" fronts I had were not optimal for the wider tires.