Alpine e30 progress/build thread
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If you need to borrow tools for doing the rear wheel bearings or need a hand let me know=)
Same.
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Thanks Earl/Andy! Ill reach out when the time comes, probably in a week or two. I probably won't be pulling and replacing them in the same day as I will be cleaning and painting the trailing arms, so I don't know if it would be worth doing as a group for learning, but if you're interested you are more than welcome to swing by the shop when I give it a go!
I continued work on the remaining damage to the front end after work today. I started stripping the excess parts off my salvaged core support and came to the conclusion that I can't use it. I am pretty convinced it is bent a bit. There are a few small kinks I found that I hadn't noticed before that I'm pretty sure shouldn't be there:
From the top down it looks straight, but I just don't want to take a chance and have problems down the road so I won't be using it anymore. I'll likely order a new one from the dealer.
I turned my attention to the headlight mount area:
Removed this piece from the core support cutout, thankfully it and the frame rail end are definitely good and straight:
Chopped the damaged sheet metal out:
I started by just roughly hacking out the majority of the damage and leaving an overlap with the new panel. Then I carefully trimmed it back until the new part fit right where it needed to go. The top is within a millimeter of where it needs to be, ran out of time with the bottom but it is only long by a few mm. With some minor adjustments it will be spot on:
The gaps are looking really good for welding, less than a mm max! The areas where it looks like there are gaps it is actually just a shadow, it is pretty much touching the whole way down. Now I just need to line it up as best I can and weld it in without ruining it...
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Got some things done over the weekend, didn't get any pictures though. Cut the replacement piece of frame rail out of the spare core support and cleaned it up, started taking measurements on where to cut the damaged section out. This will be the trickiest part of the whole repair by far, hopefully I can get it right.
I also fab'd up a puller for the rear subframe bushings similar to this DIY: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1389953-A-better-subframe-bushing-puller
Instead of modifying a pitman arm puller, I just welded some 5/8" steel square tube in a U with the correct spacing to fit in the bushing cutouts. With the help of a little heat from a torch I had them both out in 10 minutes!
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want to do my core support next year
also, how much to rent your bushing tool?
nice progress!
Dan
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want to do my core support next year
also, how much to rent your bushing tool?
nice progress!
It would cost a lot to get me to do it again haha, Is yours damaged?
You can borrow the bushing tool for free if you want it, it's ugly but it worked. I didn't use thick enough tubing and the puller started to crush the tube in the center, so I can't promise that it will make it through another two bushings.... Sounds like Boris3 has a more durable setup haha
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The one I've got was used for removing the bushings with the subframe not fully dropped. The Pitman arms go on the edges of the bushing housing, cap goes against the bushing and puller arms go on the bottom edges of the bushing. You provide your own puller with the puller screw bracing against the Pitman unit, and hope the edges of the stock bushing hold up. Heat helps, and when all else fails drills and air chisel...or drop the subframe and burn em.
Much easier if not dealing with the original bushings!
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It would cost a lot to get me to do it again haha, Is yours damaged?
You can borrow the bushing tool for free if you want it, it's ugly but it worked. I didn't use thick enough tubing and the puller started to crush the tube in the center, so I can't promise that it will make it through another two bushings.... Sounds like Boris3 has a more durable setup haha
damaged, yes. hoping a shop can just pull it close to straight and deal with a full replacement way down the line.
sounds like your tool was a one time use!
The one I've got was used for removing the bushings with the subframe not fully dropped. The Pitman arms go on the edges of the bushing housing, cap goes against the bushing and puller arms go on the bottom edges of the bushing. You provide your own puller with the puller screw bracing against the Pitman unit, and hope the edges of the stock bushing hold up. Heat helps, and when all else fails drills and air chisel...or drop the subframe and burn em.
Much easier if not dealing with the original bushings!
i think i've seen that homemade version before, sounds familiar. but yeah probably will borrow it at some time
Dan
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damaged, yes. hoping a shop can just pull it close to straight and deal with a full replacement way down the line.
sounds like your tool was a one time use!
Thats a bummer... It's really not that bad to remove though. It would probably cost you the same (maybe even less) to have a shop straighten it as it would be to replace it yourself. The difficult/time consuming part on my car has been dealing with the additional damage, If it was just a core support I'd be done already.
And most likely, the hope was to make a reusable one but Lowes didn't stock anything with a decent wall thickness
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And most likely, the hope was to make a reusable one but Lowes didn't stock anything with a decent wall thickness
Speedy Metals in New Berlin is your friend!
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Made more progress:
Struts are assembled! The KBS came out kinda crappy, but I'm not going for a pebble beach level of perfection on the underside. I plan to drive this car as much as possible, so it'll get buried in dirt anyway. One wheel bearing needs to be replaced so I'll be doing both soon.
While I had the driveshaft out, I figured it would be a good time to rebuild the shift linkage and install a short shifter. I didn't want a z3/etc shifter as they tend drop the shift knob into the console further, and shifters that raise the knob height (akg stage 2, bimmerworld race, etc) are $350+, so I decided to make my own DTM style floor mounted shifter. How hard could it be, right?
There really isn't much for information on building your own shift lever on the internet, so I just started measuring things and formulating a plan. I got all my parts in last week and started putting it together over the weekend.
The pivot point is a spherical bearing typically used in off-road suspension, with high misalignment spacers from tie-rod ends. Typically, high misalignment spacers don't fit in plain spherical bearings, but I needed the additional angle capability.
As you can see, the spacers stick out and won't allow the bearing to rotate beyond it's normal limit. As I don't have access to a lathe, I made a jig to chuck the spacer in a drill and then used a bench grinder to trim the excess material off the spacer. The surface finish is rough so I went a little past the edge of the bearing so it wouldn't chew up the bearing liner.
I then welded the parts of the upper and lower halves of the shift lever together (I ground off any zinc plating prior to welding, don't worry). I left the lengths long on each so that I can fine tune the knob height and shift throw once it's all mounted up in the car. I worked on calculating a desired throw and planning the dimensions ahead of time, but ultimately I don't know what I want so I'm just starting at too short of a throw, and too tall of a lever, and trimming each till I'm happy.
I got some bronze bushings and pressed them into the bottom half of the shift lever to mate with the selector rod. The fit is super tight and there is absolutely zero play.
Here is where I'm at, with everything assembled to start test fitting. The actual mounting to the car is still in progress and I am attempting to key off of features already existing in the sheet metal to avoid drilling new holes in case I ever want to return to stock, but what I have so far is a round steel plate with a bearing weld cup in the center. This holds the bearing tightly with a circlip, which is awesome because it has allowed me to design this to be serviceable. The lower half passes through the bearing and threads into the socket on the upper half (loctite so it doesn't come loose on accident), then a nut on the lower half (again, loctite) clamps the whole assembly to the spherical bearing.
I'm hoping to have it finished up by the end of the week. Its a bit heavy, but it should be nice and strong.
While I was under the car, I figured out why my reverse lights weren't working, looks like it snagged the driveshaft at some point.
I also popped in an antenna plug that I got from a guy on r3v (http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=371625). Most of the plugs I have seen are plastic and require silicone, this one is a more pliable material and it fits nice and tight so it shouldn't leak. I have all the parts for the z3/318ti mast antenna conversion, but this was cheap and easy and got it done sooner haha.
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In all serious, I want to see how that turns out!
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Now that's creative. Nice work. Care to share where you ordered the materials and part cost?
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Now that's creative. Nice work. Care to share where you ordered the materials and part cost?
Depending on how it works out I can make a diy/write-up on it. I think overall I have less than $80 into the whole thing, with over half of the cost being the bearing and weld cup.
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Couldn't start testing the shifter setup with the engine hanging free so...
E21 trans mounts with AKG cups installed
Put in the front subframe with a z3 steering rack and Revshift poly motor mounts. I haven't modified the firewall yet so I held off on installing the sway bar for a bit more access. While I was at it: new control arms, condor offset eyeball arms, ground control adjustable sway bar links, and the rebuilt m3 struts with yogurtland springs, bilsteins, and e90 drop hats.
With the engine finally bolted down nice and solid I was able to test the shifter. The initial setup was insanely short, I think it was like a 1" throw from 1st to 2nd. I ended up trimming things down and ended up with a 3" throw from 1st to 2nd and the knob is at a comfortable height. It feels super solid, no flex anywhere and it should be really tight with new washers and rod joint. I tore it apart for paint and I'll get some pics of the final result this week.
On Sunday I turned my attention to the frame rail...and chopped it out
Its a bit hard to see but the internal support for the bumper shock is pretty mangled. Replacing it will require totally dissecting the frame rail so I am going to try renting a slide hammer and massaging it back into shape, hopefully that works and then I can start fitting the new frame rail piece. I ordered a new OEM core support from Umansky and should have it next week.
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Make sure the rubber bumper that rams into the back of the subframe and bolts to the lower flywheel cover is intact while you are in there.
Do m42 cars have one of those? I'll have to look, I can't remember haha
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