Non-BMW Stuff on a BMW Forum
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Alright. So the rally was pretty awesome. I drove out to Denver the first day, and then to Mexican Hat, Utah. I did some exploring with the time I had while I waited for my friend to get there with his RS3 (in the pictures). The first day was driving from Mexican Hat to Escalante. The scenery was mostly what's in the pictures. We did the gravel switchback up one of the rock formations. The day ended in Escalante with eating at a small restaurant and a gathering at a vacant parking lot.
The next day we drove from Escalante to Mount Pleasant and the day ended at the Basin Drive-In theater where the Overcrest guys put together a short movie recognizing automotive films. The second day of driving was more long and winding roads outside of the desert/rocky area. Both days were gorgeous and it was amazing how much the scenery changed. I had no complaints at all. I ended up driving straight home leaving 4am on Sunday morning and getting home at 6am on Monday. The car did about 3850 miles with virtually no issues. I have a vibration over 80 and a rattle under the car which I think is the exhaust rubbing on something. Very happy with it though!
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I LOVE those seats.
Looks like it was an awesome time!
Thank you! It was fantastic. So much of scenery there makes everything else in life feel so insignificant. Not to sound overly cheesy, but I'm standing there looking at the landscape and can't help but wonder why I let so much dumb stuff bother and stress me out. Idk. It's nice to get away sometimes and clear your head and realize what your priorities actually are.
Agreed the seats are
. That drive in looks amazing.Thanks! The drive was super amazing. The cars we were driving with were amazing. It was predominantly aircooled 911s. There was one other e30 there - from Wisconsin actually. I get 911 fever quite frequently and these trips always give me a new appreciation for the e30. I had with me a suitcase, a bin of fluids and parts, a large tool bag, cooler, camera, computer, an aluminum jack and jackstands, detailing stuff, and a few other miscellaneous things. And it all fit in the trunk. You would never know I drove across the country looking in the car. But yet it the car did everything the 911's did. And at the end of the day, I rolled up the windows, turned on the AC and drove home listening to an audio book. It really is an amazing car.
I would like to find a way to make it quieter on the highway though. All of the sound deadening that was on the firewall deteriorated and I removed it. I did sound-deadening mat on the floor - but I know that's not so much noise but for vibrations.
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I would like to find a way to make it quieter on the highway though. All of the sound deadening that was on the firewall deteriorated and I removed it. I did sound-deadening mat on the floor - but I know that's not so much noise but for vibrations.
by nature, that's gonna be a tough one. Lots of glass, not lots of mass. basically all you can do is sound deaden behind everything. inside the door skins, under the headliner, floor pans, trans tunnel, etc.
Dan
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by nature, that's gonna be a tough one. Lots of glass, not lots of mass. basically all you can do is sound deaden behind everything. inside the door skins, under the headliner, floor pans, trans tunnel, etc.
Yeah. And I understand that. I've done the whole floor inside - but I haven't done the front doors yet. Which I've read make a pretty noticeable difference.
And for the record - the skid plate came in useful one time. I ran over some dead animal on the highway and it nailed the plate pretty hard. I'm not sure what it was, looked like maybe a small coyote - not a rabbit, opossum, racoon, etc.
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Put the car on the lift to change the oil and figure out an exhaust vibration and apparently my water pump is leaking just enough that it doesn't drip; rather the coolant turns to goo. There's even a coolant stalagmite on the bottom of the pump. lol. Anyone see that before?
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Yep, sounds like a solid one to ignore lol
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Yep, sounds like a solid one to ignore lol
Haha. I was planning on ignoring it for the rest of the year - except once I got the skid plate off I could see it was coming from the weep hole on the water pump and not the gasket.
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Parked.
I'm starting to put together my winter plans. Here's what I HAVE to do:
- Replace water pump.
- Replace RMS.
- Get rid of the garbage Garagistic solid gear selector rod joint.
- Replace rear DS axle and wheel bearing to get rid of the vibration.
Here's what I WANT to do:
- Rebuilding the HVAC box. One of the recirc flaps is broken from the rod. Confirmed last night that both motors work and the fan turns on to low speed when the button is pressed. I also would like to replace all of the foam seals.
And here's what I've been contemplating. I have to take the front of the engine apart to do the water pump. I have to take the transmission off to do the RMS. By doing those two things, half of the work is done to just remove the engine/trans. And now I have a lift and could easily drop the engine out the from the bottom. With the engine out there are some places with surface rust that I would like to address within the bay. And in general, the engine bay is poor shape. I would love to clean it up entirely - not talking about a full shave here - just a clean up and spray.
A question about a general clean up of the engine bay. I wouldn't be going for full a fully shaved bay, but I would take a grinder to it to clean up the surface. Are there any negative affects that would come from smoothing out the seam sealer to an extent that would allow me to effectively prep the surface for paint?
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- Get rid of the garbage Garagistic solid gear selector rod joint.
A question about a general clean up of the engine bay. I wouldn't be going for full a fully shaved bay, but I would take a grinder to it to clean up the surface. Are there any negative affects that would come from smoothing out the seam sealer to an extent that would allow me to effectively prep the surface for paint?
do expound on the Garagistic part, please.
given your car is no longer seeing daily or winter use, i dont see removal/reduction of seam sealer being a problem. i have no idea if the 30 year old seam sealer will give you a nice finish if you start grinding/sanding it though.
there is definitely someone here that has shaved their e30 engine bay though, Sam with the drift car I think?
Dan
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do expound on the Garagistic part, please.
It appears they now have a Version 2:
@The Full Bananaand myself went in on the preorder for when they first made them and the first version, the bearing is flush with the housing. On this one it protrudes. So after you install it in the DSSR, the bearing doesn't do shit. Plus - they made it about a mm thicker than the oem one, so I had to file down the DSSR for it to fit in it. Basically ruining it if I want to replace the selector joint. I will be replacing the joint with an OEM piece and get a new DSSR from anyone else. I don't need anything else from Garagistic anymore.
given your car is no longer seeing daily or winter use, i dont see removal/reduction of seam sealer being a problem. i have no idea if the 30 year old seam sealer will give you a nice finish if you start grinding/sanding it though.
there is definitely someone here that has shaved their e30 engine bay though, Sam with the drift car I think?
Is the seam sealer intended to provide some structural rigidity to the body or is purely for keeping the seams sealed from moisture/rust?
But valid point on the quality of finish after it's sanded. Someone posted pictures in this thread a while back. I'll have to go back and check them out. Is the seam sealer solid if it is sanded down or does it stay kind of gummy?
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I know I'm late to the party on the comments, but my engine bay had been shot with a home depot HVLP, and a 10 gal craftsman air compressor.
The only large difference is that I didn't have large flat areas that I had to worry about air consistency as much. Using an inline water trap, and a water trap right at the gun makes the largest difference.
Painting is something I always wanted to spend more time with, but takes time and space!Engine bay for reference.
Here it is. @GunMetalGrey can you share what you did the clean up the seam sealer?
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I saw those selector joint things when they had the first release. Passed because garagistic lol
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Can confirm, the garagistic selector joint is total bullshit. How they decided to release that is beyond me.
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Seam sealer will not sand. it It is soft and turns to melted shreds and smears if you use a wire wheel on it too. It's very difficult to remove. It's about like working with the undercoating. After my experience messing with it I would recommend leaving it alone lol.
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Seam sealer will not sand. it It is soft and turns to melted shreds and smears if you use a wire wheel on it too. It's very difficult to remove. It's about like working with the undercoating. After my experience messing with it I would recommend leaving it alone lol.
I’m not opposed to that. Given it’s texture, I would be concerned I wouldn’t be able to clean it well for paint to stick to it. But maybe since it’s so textured paint will stick to it really well.
Removed the dash today, was pretty straightforward other than the write up failing to mention all of the wire harnesses pass through the ducting on it.
I’m going to work on cleaning up all the wiring. I’m going to remove most of the stereo stuff since I’m going to do an amp and new speakers and will reroute all the wires a cleaner way. Also taping everything and probably use the wire loom I used in the engine bay in here too.
All of this stuff running over to the glovebox area I never used. Would it be safe to just snip them off and heat shrink the ends? The only purpose of that would be to clean and simplify things.
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@jc43089 would a needle gun be gentle enough to chip the existing paint off the seam sealer but not smash it like play dough? Even then I'd recommend that tool for most of the paint/rust removal as well. It's great for any scaly rust areas and harbor freight has 2 sizes available.
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