WIBIMMERS

I will add pics later, but progress is being made! (famous last words)

E30 has the linkage modified, rack installed, pump rebuilt, and is waiting on one section of 14mm ID power steering hose to get fully bolted together. Gotta bend the high pressure line to fit it as well, hoping I can get it right the first time without kinking. After that, it gets bolted together and test driven. Fingers crossed.

I also decided to put a new ATE clutch slave in with the new line since a) it already has to come out, b) the brand i bought apparently has a habit of stranding folks within a few thousand miles, c) ATE is the OEM manufacturer, and d) mine went to the floor once last year randomly and never did it again. I'll throw the old one in a ziploc in the trunk just in case though.

For the line, I went to Pegasus and bought a premade -4an braided stainless brake/clutch hose. I got the 21" version with one end straight and one end at 90 degrees. I also grabbed a spare 24" hose section in case the 21" isn't long enough (I measured with a piece of baling wire, it was a ROUGH estimate) and a s a spare. Total cost for both hoses and the two brake fittings needed to go from AN to M10 bubble flare was less than the Chasebays premade part. We'll see how it is to install but it seems to be a good alternative if you want to ditch the stock multi-piece clutch hydraulic setup and spend closer to $40.

I also took the time to solder and marine heatshrink the C191 connector wires. When the engine someday comes back out of the car, I will properly install a waterproof connector but for now it's permanent and i trust those more than butt splices on those itty bitty wires. I can't foresee a situation where I'd need the intake off without the head also coming off, at which point the engine is getting yanked anyways.

Snagged some headlights from @The Full Banana earlier this year, and found that the lenses were already cut off of them. Going to heat and pry the busted lens out of my low beam and silicone the freshie in for now, and source a low beam U.S. ellipsoid housing/lens (driver's side, if anyone has one) to put in the other set and restore this summer when I have more time.

Getting closer! Can't wait to get some shakedown miles in, the deadline for the vintage is creeping up fast.

Been slacking on driving and working on this. I've tossed around the idea of selling but don't think I can do it - it's too competent for the money, I have no idea what I would get to replace it short of a E9X M3, and i neither want to spend the money on that nor need another summer only car.

Anywho, some maintenance! 

149,000ish/January 2026 - new front struts, along with every associated wear item (bump stops, strut mounts, washers, dust boots, hardware) in the strut assembly. New top hats too cause they're cheap. Not sure if i put it in the last post, but I threw in some new Meyle HD front sway links last year too, so all the front suspension is brand new save the springs themselves and the tie rods, which feel fine.

150,074/This week: Oil change, LM Special Tech 5W-30 and a Mann filter. SO easy to do on these cars, I wish my F250 had a filter insert. So much less mess.

I held off on driving this car this winter until late January to keep salt off (I needed to take it to get an emissions test to renew the registration), and I think in addition to some strategic fluid film this summer, I will likely park it next winter fully unless the truck breaks. Not worth smashing the front bumper on an ice chunk or risking some yahoo sliding through an intersection into it, plus salt=gross.

Anyone going this year? I went last year and had a ball, anyone who’s anyone should consider attending!

https://www.atthevintage.com

Beyond the mind meltingly cool cars (S38 swapped E9, anyone?), it’s a fantastic group of degenerates that all love this old iron and want to keep them on the road. I met so many people with wonderful stories to tell, from a woman who took Euro delivery of her ‘76 2002 and still owns it, to teenagers buying their first projects, and everything in between. I’ve been less active with cars the last few years but this brought it back fast. Like the sticker says, do it for the kink. 

Hey all - I have some random stuff I figured I’d list in case anyone needed it before it got tossed. 
 

EDIT: HUSCO is sold! Everything else I still have. Probably going to toss the auto trans this spring when I clean all the extra shit out of the storage unit.

1. Auto trans for a M20. Shifted fine, has around 204k on it. Fluid looked good. I probably have most of the linkages and stuff for it laying around still? Pulled to manual swap. $free.99
   

2. Factory catback. Off brand, pretty sure it’s a Bosal? Small rust hole, otherwise fine. Perfect to use for the front section pipes, gut it, or patch the small hole and replace your even rustier crapcan exhaust. $40?

3. Standard 4-spoke steering wheel. In solid shape, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it without checking here first. Just dirty I believe, no major dings or tears/wear. 
   

4. E30 Husco armrest. Top vinyl is bad but new covers are available for like $120 on eBay. Metal all looks good. $100obo for the WIBimmers folks?

Tossing these out there for the crew - I have a set of 15” IX weaves that need some love but are complete. All caps are present and would be excellent wheels with a repaint. I initially was going to refinish but decided I’d rather sell and fund a 5 lug swap so I can go to larger brakes and run my M System turbines instead.

Asking $450 OBO

Pics:

will be added tomorrow - forgot to take some. Tires still on, paint peeling, yadda yadda

I vote either full analog with a tiny digital, or go full bore on digital and make it fit nicely and look as sleek as you can. A hybrid approach I think would kinda clash?

Whoo progress! This thing is gonna rip!

m42b32 said:

What other things???

That is so cool

I thought that logo and the hofmeister link sticker were two of my favorite gems of the trip - I kinda want one of the stickers for my tool box
 

And nothing exciting haha! Unless….

No, I mostly want the room to install a dedicated battery cutoff with a nice mount plate and maybe a heat shield. I keep nuking batteries in the fall when I forgot to disconnect the battery; there’s a parasitic draw somewhere and I’ve never worked that hard to find it. I hoped the new radio would do it but no dice. This is the battery switch I plan to use:

It’s a marine rated switch and we use them on all our ski team boats; some have had them installed for 15 years in what I would call a pretty brutal environment (vibration, heat, water, cold) with zero issues. This car used to have one of the screw type disconnects on the terminal and it sucked.
 

I’m envisioning doing a flush mount in a bracket similar to this, mounted right in front of the strut tower so I can reuse the factory ground location. I’ll have custom cables made (and probably put them in some sort of cable hider, maybe something printed?) so it all works and looks fairly OEM.

I never posted photos from the Vintage this year; the photo dump is at the end. Such a fun event that I’m going back this year!

I put a lot of miles on it overall last season, driving it up until late November before finally putting it away. Had a minor issue with a hanging e brake halfway through the summer but beyond that it ran and worked great! I ended the year at 212,283 miles on the odometer, so over 7000 miles? Pretty proud of that. 
 

Took it up to Hayward in June, the Vintage in May, and all over the state after that. The z3 shifter made a world of difference, and I love the Stromung catback - it’s a little droney at neighborhood speeds but it sounds so good when wrung out that I don’t care. Minimal to no drone on the highway is way more important to me, and I can’t hear any over the wind noise!

Winter projects:

- Put in rebuilt alternator. Had it done at MJ Auto Electric in Butler and they did a great job, it looks excellent. 
- E46 rack swap (AAE 3310N). Currently in progress, I’m working on getting the steering coupler shaft thingy out now and fighting the upper splined joint hard. Any tips are welcome, it’s stuck fast. 
- Rebuilt PS pump, I’m swapping in a ZF to replace the Vickers that it had in there. Luckily got a ZF with all the brackets so it’s a direct swap

- Replace all PS lines and the reservoir, goes hand in had with the rack swap. 
- Address a small coolant leak coming either from the looped throttle body heater hoses or from the thermostat gasket itself. 
- Correctly repair the C191 injector harness; I admittedly kludged it together to get it working last time and need to go back and fix it correctly with good heat shrink and crimp connectors. 
- If I can find good used speakers (or if anyone has recommendations), replace the blown rear speakers. 
- Replace the literally worn through seatbelt buckle. Old car problems!

- Valve adjustment

- New oil dipstick o-ring, the tube is dirty and im assuming the crankcase pressure is just enough to blow oily air past that o ring.

- Replace the tee fitting for the headlight washers; it’s never worked and it’s annoying. Might put in a smaller fluid bottle to give more room for other things

- Replace the cracked drivers side low beam; I scored a full set of ellipsoids from an old member here a month ago and I’ll probably refurb using the best lenses from both and new adjusters.

MY EYES!!!!

- Realign the muffler (it sits slightly twisted currently) and smoke test both the intake and exhaust to look for leaks. I’m almost positive I have some leaks in the cat section, but honestly with wanting to go to a header + universal cats at some point soon I’ll probably just use exhaust tape or JB weld to patch and send it for now if/when I find leaks.

It isn’t winning any concours awards anyways. 

Anywho, here’s the trip pics!

A sweet print they gave out at the CCA museum!

Skidplate hit I took on Shenandoah from a fat ass rock. The HIKfab plate saved my trip and maybe me - oil on the tires where I hit it might’ve sent me off a cliff.

Obligatory Buc-EE’s stop. Clean bathrooms, but man, sensory overload. You can pry kwik trip from my cold dead hands.

Tail of the Dragon!

Some company for dinner at a German restaurant in Hendersonville! As a Wisconsinite, I can genuinely say that their food was pretty top tier and on par with the best bratwurst up here.

 

One of my favorite magazine articles ever was Sam Smith’s piece on the alpina 2002 at Laguna Seca. Seeing that car in the flesh was incredible. My favorite feature was the metal strips riveted over the back window to keep it from flying out at speed!

I have never seen so many Alpinas in my life. Between the 15 or so inside and the 25ish outside, it has to be one of the largest gatherings ever in North America.

This guy won sticker of the week in my book!

Japanese market LHD e36 M3!

Group drive on Thursday! Maybe 150 cars? We caused a huge traffic jam on the way out of town, sorry not sorry. I saw at least one overheat

Mt Pisgah - one of the best drives of the trip. I want to run it again this year with the quick rack - the factory one was definitely a hindrance.

A phenomenal view, finally. I spent most of my time in the mountains in the rain and fog, even getting caught in a flash flood warning in Shenandoah. The top was far closer to “water resistant” than “waterproof” 

Leaky roofs call for desperate measures

Two days before the trip, I smoked an absolute hoss of a raccoon on I94 and narrowly avoided taking out my oil cooler. I ran like this most of the way down, picked up a new lower valance in Chicago on my way by, and swapped it once I got to NC. 

Looks fantastic! We gotta get the cars out sometime together this summer, it’ll probably motivate me to buy new wheels to keep up

Maintenance > photos

Oil change: 208,357. Used a Mann filter and trying out the Liqui Moly Classic 20W-50. Seems okay for a car of this age and appears to have a little more ZDDP than standard Castrol GTX, and falls under the FCP euro lifetime guarantee, most importantly. It’s not like M20’s are overly picky about their oil. 
 

Also installed a new valve cover breather hose, and most importantly, my Strömung catback!

The perforated old one that despite being so rusty it sounds like a maraca, weighs a good 10lbs more at least:

m42b32 said:

Sounds like an awesome trip, looking forward to photos! I'd love to take a trip like that in my e30, maybe next year...

It was fantastic!! You. Absolutely. Should. It’d be awesome to have an alpine e30 convoy!

Bonus pics of my skidplate that saved my trip:

Also found a busted headlight lens I missed. Booo!

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Tension struts got tossed in awhile back, all is good so far. Swapped to summer wheels this week.

New front struts came in this week, so going to replace those soon. I also got a new serpentine belt and crank seal guard over the winter, so I'll throw those on when I go digging for the whining noise eventually. Also got a new tweeter while on clearance from ECS to replace a blown front one.

Other than front tires, it really just needs a good wash and paint correction/wax. I always forget how good of a car this is, I got out of the E30 and into this after a 2700 mile road trip and it was almost jarring how smooth, quiet, and competent it felt. 

Toying with selling the busted old Performance Aero front bumper to (partially) fund a manual swap. Thoughts from the peanut gallery? I also have a set of partially finished M-Systems with 3/4 turbine covers that I could donate to the cause and get close to breaking even between the two of them. It's tempting considering those parts are doing nothing but take up space and in the case of the M-Systems, I own nothing they even fit on anymore.

I will post a larger update down the road when i get around to uploading like a million photos, but I took the car down to The Vintage in Hendersonville, NC last week/weekend - needless to say, the trip was one for the books and a must - do for anyone on this forum. No major mechanical issues either - the worst one was a bad brake light switch that I fixed temporarily with a clutch switch and some good ole manual control  . So much cool BMW brain-melt action, and even better, just an awesome group of people who love 'em and drive 'em hard.

I made my trip a bit extra special by taking the long way there, driving to Pittsburgh day one, then cutting south along Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway for around 250 miles through VA until I reached NC where the majority of it is still closed due to damage from Hurricane Helene last fall. The event went for three days in NC, then i took two days coming home (including driving the Tail of the Dragon).

All in all, a wonderful trip I'd love to have some fellow WIBimmers accompany me on with their own cars in future years!

The stats:

2700 miles

8 days

12 states

2.5 days of rain

One flash flood warning and one large rock hit to the skidplate

28.5mpg average

One failed brake light switch - found a replacement at the Vintage! (no, I didn't steal it from another unsuspecting vert owner)

20lbs of Stromung exhaust lugged home with me diagonally across the interior

25+ Alpinas viewed at the CCA museum in Greer

At least 10 E9's that i left drool puddles on

And a partridge in a pear tree

America gets shafted with our model line. That is all. 

Jeez, I’m bad about updates here. I put maybe 500 miles on it this fall, and installed factory rubber engine mounts the day I parked it to tone down NVH. The 95A poly ones were too harsh for my liking. 
 

Also installing a new Z3 shift lever and a completely refreshed OEM shift assembly with DSSR before the warm weather comes back - the garagistic shifter doesn’t have enough throw for my liking. Way too notchy. 
 

Black Friday sales were good this year too, so I bought a Continental/VDO Bluetooth head unit and will be installing that before spring as well. Super pumped to have a more OEM looking radio finally!
 

Some pics:

Just this last week, I took the time to pull the driver’s seat out so I could replace the driver’s bolster. I bought like 3-4 junk seats from someone on here a few years ago (turbo S5x in the fox valley area?) for one single bolster, and honestly, well worth it! I still need to correct the rear seatback tear but the driver’s seat is more important to me at this point. I used a cheapo hog ring kit off of Amazon and it worked surprisingly well - start to finish it probably only took me an hour or a little more including pulling the bolster off the old seat. 
 

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Installed the rear subframe inserts last night - no pics unfortunately, but I discovered that the E91 has a different rear subframe bushing than the sedans and coupes. The lower insert still went in fine but the upper was completely different. Some googling showed me that while FCP claims it’s for all chassis, the E91 does in fact have a slight bushing difference. Oh well, 6/8 isn’t bad and there was a very definite difference before and after. Firmer ride, but only because the rear shocks were now attenuating bumps instead of the subframe. No notable NVH increase, just better ride (IMO) and the car feels way more planted in really all cornering, but especially sweepers. Good bang for the buck I’d say!

Ordered what will hopefully be my last set of front tension struts for awhile from FCP today - the M3 TRW struts had a COO change to Malaysia and ever since have had major ball joint failure problems that are being widely reported. Both pairs I bought failed within the first 5k or so. Going to try Meyle M3 arms to see if that fixes it permanently; if not, I think I’m just gonna light it all on fire

m42b32 said:

Got lucky on ebay a few weeks ago and scored something I've wanted for this car since the day I bought it, an e30 Mtech 1 spoiler! The rubber is in extremely good shape and the insert is conveniently already white!

Nice score, by far my favorite of all the factory spoiler options! Want to sell me your old IS spoiler now?

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Picked the car up today from International Autos, they went in and did the PCV and VANOS recall work - they noted the exhaust adjuster already had the bolts replaced, and just did the intake ones as a result (which checks out from Joe’s thread). I’ll gladly take the free VCG!

Changed oil tonight - Liqui-Moly Special Tec 5W-30 and a Mann filter. While I was down there, I pulled the belly pan off and replaced the primary ground strap - old one was original I believe and getting gross. I found a seeping PS line while I was under there, not leaking much but I’ll add it to the list. Looks like the return line from the cooler to the reservoir. I also found blue fluid down in the PS pan, but I’m pretty sure it’s washer fluid since I accidentally filled to the brim last time and it’s still basically that full. I’ll keep an eye on it just in case. 

145,xxx - I have hardly driven this car now that it’s snowy, I find it hard to justify when my truck already has surface rust and is more tolerant of starting in the cold.

Replaced the rear license plate frame; it already had one snapped bolt and I broke another this year when putting on my new registration sticker so I figured it was time for a new one. No more rattles when closing the hatch!!

Also bought a new cabin air filter (Hengst), really high quality with the foam seal around the outside. Took the opportunity to wipe the engine bay plastics down while I was in there. Also replaced a few fender liner pop rivets that I lost the center pins for when fixing the leaking washer fluid pump seals. 
Next up is confirming whether the whining I’m hearing is indeed the PS pump (going to pull the serpentine belt and see if it goes away) or if it’s the A/C compressor or alternator. I still have rear subframe inserts to install this spring, and a new ground strap to go on at the next oil change, which will hopefully happen this week or next. 
 

Debating on what tires to get this spring - the summers need replacing. I’ve heard good things about the DWS06, but it has 300TW tires on it now and they aged/wore out at the same time, so I don’t think I need anything that’ll wear harder. Leaning PS4S unless anyone has something else they love and would recommend over it?

143,020:

Replaced air filter - used a Mahle filter (P/N LX1035) in the euro airbox and it was an identical drop-in replacement. It doesn’t show up as compatible on FCP euro for the euro airbox, while the K&N does - the Mahle is 1/4 of the price and doesn’t need to be oiled or anything. Very happy. 
 

Upper control arm ball joint is already failing again after replacement earlier this year, sounds like the TRW upper control arms have been problematic since a COO change from Europe to Malaysia. They’re letting me warranty with Meyle M3 arms instead, hopefully those work better because swapping them every year is quite annoying. 
 

Pretty sure there’s either a sticking caliper (unlikely) or a failing wheel bearing on the drivers rear, it’s generating a lot of heat after even short drives. Going to temp gun it and see if I can diagnose further. Just got parts in to fix the leaking washer fluid (pump and filters), as well as rear sway links and rear subframe bushing inserts. Going to order front struts and start stockpiling all the rear suspension parts for some much-needed suspension refreshing this winter. 
 

In other news, I used the wagon for a weekend camping trip at Mirror Lake this past weekend, it was perfect for the job and never skipped a beat. I love this car. 

m42b32 said:

Awesome!! That first drive probably felt great!

It did! Exhaust is hitting the tunnel a little and needs adjusting, and the shifter I bought sucks (garagistic chassis mount… figured they couldn’t mess that up. I have been proven wrong) but generally it drove perfectly and ran okay once the plug was fixed. Idle is a tad low and it isn’t idling perfectly but it gets up and goes once you’re moving. 
 

Slight diff leak as well, either a halfshaft or the output seal but not worrying about that for now. That’s a winter project haha, interior reassembly and shakedown starts next week! Hoping to put on some real miles this fall before it gets parked for winter.