Alpine White Zender Kit E24 633CSI

[Jdesign]

I plan on driving this to Georgia in two weeks with a few friends for Alpine Vag Fair. 

Mechanically, I feel like I have very little left besides flushing the coolant, flushing the diff fluid, and recharging the AC.

I have started to Clay, Buff, polish the entire car. It took two full days to just do the roof, trunk, and hood. It is an astounding amount of work.

Before that I also attacked the interior, installing new speakers and amplifier and finally removing the remaining tint glue from the rear window. While I was doing this, my girlfriend shampooed all of the carpets, interior panels, trunk, and cleaned and moisturised all of the leather which was in dire need.

 A little compare and contrast to the clean and dirty body panels. 

I assume the wheels will match after all...

I have this buffer to thank for the beautiful work. This thing is amazing.

Some videos to get some reflections. Sorry for the snapchat words on the videos.

KRFO2675.MP4

[YoungCR]

Test drive to Lake Mills on Sunday?

[suspenceful]

Paint is looking good!

[Jdesign]

YoungCR said:

Test drive to Lake Mills on Sunday?

Mayyyyyybe 

suspenceful said:

Paint is looking good!

Thank you!

[SteelBlue]

I would love to see this thing lay frame.

Looks great.

[Jdesign]

SteelBlue said:

I would love to see this thing lay frame.

Looks great.

Stop that.

[SteelBlue]

Jdesign said:

Stop that.

[Jdesign]

SteelBlue said:

MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24

I hope I dont catching feelings driving it.

[SteelBlue]

Jdesign said:

MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24, MUST NOT KEEP E24

I hope I dont catching feelings driving it.

Sorry bro

[Jdesign]

Feels trip yesterday.

And in BMW fashion the turn signals failed, yet again. IDK how, but everytime they fail, it's a different way too. There MUST be a bad wire somewhere that I can't find. I took the hazard switch out again and cleaned all of the connections, and the pins and reassembled, and it worked perfect. A day later I went to drive it, and they didnt work. 

I also have a pretty nasty shimmy on the freeway above 65, and it comes and goes, and is very inconsistent. This really concerns me as I am about to make a 13 hour drive. My first thought is the wheels, so I need to swap them out and see if that's the problem.

Luckily I have a second set of style 5's, so I might need to do some swapping.

On the plus side of things, I picked up more Alpine white for the front lip, the rear diff gasket and the new center caps arrived today.

One last important thing on my list is coolant. I realized on my 20 minute drive to Cars & Coffee yesterday that I never flushed the coolant and or replaced the thermostat. I know that hasn't been done for at least 10 years, and in those 10 years alone the car hasnt been running...  My temp gauge was all over the map.

[Jdesign]

I wish I would have taken more pictures of it when I got it.

[YoungCR]

Did you replace the lower control arms?

[jc43089]

Get you some blue coolant son!

[Jdesign]

YoungCR said:

Did you replace the lower control arms?

Yes. I confirmed last night its the wheels. Anyone have some Style 32's for sale. 

jc43089 said:

Get you some blue coolant son!

According to the bigcoupe guys, peak works fine, and with my time constraint, this is what I did. I ordered the thermostat next day at the parts store and went to pic it up last night. I will give you one guess of what happened......

YUP not the right thermostat. 

Lucky for me I discovered that AFTER it was all apart. I cleaned up the old one and popped it back in there. The coolant was gross so I am hoping that was the issue. I spent 3 hours bleeding the coolant system last night and it seems to be okay. I plan on driving it for 3 hours tonight to see if anything breaks. 

Im cutting it close. I leave for Georgia tomorrow at 1am. 🤪  As the kids would say, "Boi you is Wild" 

PS: I still have no turn signals, but I have summed it down to 1 wire. I just need to find where its grounding out.

[Jdesign]

So I should prolly give a follow up on this.

I did not drive to Georgia. Here are the reasons why:

1. I swapped wheels out and it fixed the vibration for about 20 miles and it came back. I think it might be the spacers now. I still need to prove this theory. 
2. My temp gauge was still climbing occasionally in the wisco temps, Georgia would have been much too hot. I ordered a new water pump and thermostat.
3. According to the radar the entire time there it was going to rain. This reason alone was a deal breaker, and no one else was driving anymore either. 
4. I didn't want to spend the trip fixing the car and wanted to enjoy my time at the show.

Sad reacts only.

[B C]

all im hearing are excuses about not wanting to build character through self inflicted pain and trials.

[Jdesign]

B C said:

all im hearing are excuses about not wanting to build character through self inflicted pain and trials. 

That's pretty accurate.

[jc43089]

wah wah wah, I drove an e30 convertible with my family in it to Alabama through torrential rains.  There were lots of napkins and towels needed to absorb the water leaking in.  Also the wipers didn't work so it was up to the Rain-X to keep the windshield clear.  But it drove flawlessly despite about 100 test miles after a manual swap before leaving.

Just send it.

[Jdesign]

jc43089 said:

wah wah wah, I drove an e30 convertible with my family in it to Alabama through torrential rains.  There were lots of napkins and towels needed to absorb the water leaking in.  Also the wipers didn't work so it was up to the Rain-X to keep the windshield clear.  But it drove flawlessly despite about 100 test miles after a manual swap before leaving.

Just send it.

I 100% agree.

I drove my vert without wipers to the same show 4 years ago. Rained the entire trip, was well worth it. This car just didn't seem worthy yet and I want to make sure its not going to be a thorn in my side.

[Jdesign]

HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SUCCESS!

I tested my theory on the spacers and I was correct. There was about .55mm of additional space between the hub centric portion of the wheels and the spacers. this would cause a shift under a heavy load or impact no matter how straight I installed them. This would offset the rotational mass causing a vibration at higher speed. Yesterday I did a 90 MPH trip on a flat freshly paved road and it was smooth as butter. 

I was also to finally get the side skirts back on and all of the nutserts installed.

Next step is the water pump and thermostat update to try and get that temp gauge under control and all of the mechanical items will be checked off the list.

I also I bought a new radio to replace the 90's style kenwood that sounds terrible. Nothing special here, but it will be less of an eye and ear sore. 

Sorry I haven't added any pictures, I have been jumping from one project to the next and havent been documenting as well as I should.