WIBIMMERS

As opposed to Earls inactive model.

We finally are buying a house.  It took a while but it's a nice house about a half hour outside of Wausau, it is a raised ranch built in 2013, 3 bedroom 2 bath on the main floor and finished walkout basement with 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.  And a big attached garage with in floor heat, I think it is about 24 deep by 32 wide.  The door is a 16' door centered on the width so there is a big space on either side.  The whole house and garage are heated with a wood boiler with LP backup.  It's on 26 acres that are mostly woods with about an 8 acre hay field.  We are supposed to close June 12th so we are pretty excited about that.  We have been living with my parents like all cool Millennial folks.

Also have a deal lined up on a very good condition Rotary 10k asymmetrical lift.  The garage ceiling isn't 12' tall but I will either modify the top of the lift to fit the 10' ceilings or box in some holes to the attic and run the top bar through the attic.  For 1800$ I couldn't pass it up, it is less than 10 years old and the guy who had it in his shop was very particular about keeping everything spotless so it looks all but new.

Tomorrow is my last day of work until August (Tech school instructor) so I will be able to get working on the BMW van and other things.  Still planning to drive it to the Hawk vintage races this year.

We won't tell mom you were chewing on a dirty screwdriver...  It builds the immune system.

suspenceful said:

Hopefully it's strong enough. I would hate for pieces of that to break and get sucked into your motor.

Good progress!

It shouldn't see much/any vacuum, it is upstream from the throttle body so it should be between atmospheric pressure and full boost.  To be extra safe I would recommend full throttle at all times so any pieces are blown out rather than in.

Well it's a big day today.  I'm putting in my two weeks notice at Hormel Foods.  I'm taking a job back in Wisconsin!  Nine years ago I graduated from Northcentral Technical College in Wausau with an AAS in Electromechanical Technology and went to work for Hormel Foods in Dubuque, IA.  Through that time I was a Maintenance Electrician, then an Instrumentation Technician, then moved to their Engineering R&D group near Austin, MN as a Programming Technician, basically an hourly Controls Engineer.

I will be going back to NTC as an instructor in the Electromechanical Technology department.  Hormel is a great company to work for it's mostly about being closer to family.  Both my family and my wife's family live near Wausau.

So this is pretty exciting but also happening pretty fast.  Yikes.

The music comes out the back dude!

Is football the one with the pointy brown ball?

I did some work over the weekend, I made some aluminum rear subframe "bushings".  That was excellent for solidifying the rear end of the car.  And I also replaced all 4 of the control arm bushings/ball joints with all ball joints like the M cars have.  I have UUC poly RTAB bushings so it is tight now.  I have dimensions for the bushings if anyone needs to make their own, just message me.

Also i got new tires put on today, I got a set of the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 in 225/50R16.  After a 60$ rebate they were 352 shipped to my door from Tirerack.  Pretty hard to beat that.  The tires I had weren't great when I bought the wheels from Pat several years ago so I sure got my money's worth out of those.  A little DIY alignment tonight and it's ready for the road trip to Elkhart Lake on Friday!

I just leave my cars dirty so you can't see the rock chips.

Decided: see you all over on WiHyundais.com

Easier to do burnouts in the wet?

Tell her the 24V engine is so reliable I swapped one into my Toyota van for my wife to haul our children around in.

Sweet pants.

Boat is sold!  More money for the shop!

I took the first long distance trip of the e36, 600 miles round trip to Road America last weekend for the Hawk vintage races, it exposed a few slight issues.  The bolts came loose on one exhaust flange to the catback, I will use locknuts next time.  I think the added heat blowing around under the car caused the fuel line to start leaking slightly at the pump, just enough to smell fuel and stop the car to unload the whole back seat to get a look.  A good reminder to replace the rubber fuel lines and pump/sender gasket rings.  And it was spreading oil everywhere causing an awesome burning smell, I thought it was coming from the transmission because I filled it before leaving but I figured out that it is engine oil leaking around the dipstick tube.  I didn't pull the dipstick yet but I am guessing the oring is junk or not even there.

On the upside I did not have any water in the spark plug holes after the last rain storm so the drain being plugged was causing the issue.  And I got 27 mpg driving to RA, calculated mpg not from OBC.  The OBC reads slightly more optimistic because the injectors flow a couple % more than it is calibrated for.

I am working on figuring out what to do to escape from the photobucket nightmare.  What a pain.

SOLD!  To a gentleman from Pennsylvania.  $9200 via BaT.  https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2005-volvo-v70-r-5/

Not quite what I thought it would bring but not terrible.  All in I paid 7200 for it in August 2015.  Drove it from 165-200k.  I put about $3500 in parts into it so that is $10,700.  If you value mileage at 10cents/mile then I got $3500 usage from it.  So if I value my time at about $4/hr it was a good deal

However I did own a unicorn car for 3 and a half years and get it prepared to drive another 200k miles instead of ending up in a facebook marketplace part out thread.

It is pretty intense to watch your car being auctioned with the clock ticking.  I learned a lot and would totally do it again.

Now to get the van driving!  Road America vintage races.  It will be there.

i_love_cars said:

The dream is still alive. I have decided that (at least for now) I am keeping the engine and all swap-related parts at Efab Motorsports. Eric will store them for me indefinitely. So I'm going to part out everything else like I planned on in order to break even on the purchase of the car, but at that point as long as I've recouped my 7k, then I don't see any harm in hanging on to a 33k mile S85 that works, assuming I will one day swap it. I don't see myself being able to replicate this kind of a deal for such a low mileage , functional example so it's hard to sell the engine. 

Maybe I could put it in a van for you...

This will be our second. Going for a dozen maybe. No snippage here. A v70 wagon may be the next family cruiser.

Sent from my potato phone

Wow, so good.  http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/4510549447.html

Welcome!  What is the lip on the non m bumper?  I'm not sure if I like it or not.  What kind of paint is on the valve cover and trim pieces?  It looks well done.  Where are you located?

Pizza cutter tires are the way to go for winter.  I always go a size narrower and upsize the sidewall number to maintain similar O.D.

The Maxima stock size is 215/55-R16 and for winter I use 205/60-R16.  Goes and stops on a dime with Blizzaks.