1989 e30 Touring... this is Betty

[cbouchez]

Did you locate the water leak in the rear?

[MC Hammered]

Damb that looks bad,but nothing is unrepairable..

Looks worse than it is since i took a macro shot of the rust. Just going to cut out the cancer and del in new pieces.

Did you locate the water leak in the rear?

Not yet as I am trying to seal up all the big items before tackling the smaller ones.

I think the rear leak is due to a bad tail gasket and maybe side vent gaskets as well.

[MC Hammered]

Time to get rid of the rear sound deadening so first thing to go is this 20 year old insulation… and I was scared to breathe in the dust when I pulled it out



Just takes some patience and a soft touch to get it going



GONE!



So this is what we have left.



I went out and bought another 10lbs of dry ice and went to work hammering out the old sound deadening. The material located above the muffler turned into the same obsidian like substance as the sound deadening by the shifter which is heated by the transmission. It took 4 hours and made a mess but this is as good as it gets. There is still a 1"x3' strip left underneath the hatch area.



Here are some surface rust spots that will be cleaned up




I decided to pull off the rubber seal and see what is hiding underneath… not too happy when I found rust on the entire edge




The entire time I was working in the trunk area I kept looking at the fabric covers that were sitting on top of the wheel humps




To satisfy my curiosity I removed the left hand side one and found nothing out of the ordinary



However… when I removed the right hand side one I saw this






I took a little screwdriver to probe around the area and rust just fell to pieces




Time to send it back to the shop to cut out and patch up this spot too

[MC Hammered]

One of the last leaks up front came from the big fusebox bulkhead gasket. It must have shrunk just enough over the last 20 years to let water seep in now



Using a tool to confirm the location of the point of entry




So how is water getting there? Well there is this tiny gap you can see underneath the hood gasket



Gap shown with gasket removed



Rainwater will run down the side of the car, drip through the opening, run underneath the fusebox and down the outside of the front strut tower where it eventually meets the side of the fusebox bulkhead gasket.

Since the gasket is not sealing the water will just seep through over time and enter the cabin.

So I began by removing these remnant pieces of sound deadening from fusebox area. Doesn't do much except hide dirt and debris and wait for rust to form



What it looks like with the sound deadening removed and you can see all the dirt built up underneath it. If you look carefully at the lower center part of the image you can make of the bulkhead gasket.

Path of water flow from the above gap to the edge of the gasket is shown with the red arrows.



I don't have a before picture but there was a lot of debris built up in the gap you see in the image below.





To seal up the edges of the bulkhead I used Proform PF224 urethane based body sealant



My very special tools to do the job



I pumped in a bunch of the sealant into the gap and then proceeded to smooth a bead of it around the entire edge of the gasket.

Obviously the caulking gun will not access the area, so putting small amounts on a gloved fingertip and smearing it into place it how it was done.

[bmwandhonda]

Sharing the love for another Touring :) love it mate, good to see you are fixing it up in such detail. Nice work mate, also I am jealous of your engine!! lol

[MC Hammered]

I am jealous of your MTech2 touring as well as the body seems to be in excellent condition.

My touring has all the right puzzle pieces, now it is just a matter of me reconfiguring them a bit to make it work the way I want. I just hope to get it all done before the rain comes back.

[cale]

Taking this car to places it would have never went with me. Simply did not have the attention to detail re. OCD Winston possesses to get this car where it needs to be.

Seeing all these leaks makes me feel like a chode though. I thought I had nipped the sole major flaw in the butt with this car prior to selling but it seems as though there were many more.

[MC Hammered]

Here is what the backside of the elephant drain looks like



and this is the view from the driver side vent towards the blower motor as I was looking for leaks

[MC Hammered]

Taking this car to places it would have never went with me. Simply did not have the attention to detail re. OCD Winston possesses to get this car where it needs to be.

Seeing all these leaks makes me feel like a chode though. I thought I had nipped the sole major flaw in the butt with this car prior to selling but it seems as though there were many more.

I don't blame you for not finding these issues as you would have to tear down the car like I have to find them all.

I made up my mind that I am going to make this touring help me forget about selling the vert, so going 200% into making sure it is not going to die of cancer it my main goal.

[MC Hammered]

The last leak that I know of up front is coming from the blower motor area





After removing the last piece of carpet that is wedged between the dash and the transmission hump I could peek into the spot where the blower motor gasket is.




I set the hose on a fine mist and set it up to spray the right hand side of the windshield, bent myself into an awkward position and proceeded to see what happened… the drip indicated with the red arrow is what I wanted to find, but as I let the water keep flowing you see what happened next.

[MC Hammered]

Since I have an s52 swap, unless I lower/drop the engine, I am unable to extract the blower motor in order to put some sealant over the deteriorating 20 year old seal.

If water can't get past the driver side grill opening then the water leak problem is solved right? So I decided to seal up the drive side grill.

First I had to flush cut off all of the little plastic nubs




Sanding them down smooth



Using some cardboard to make templates






I used an old vinyl chequebook cover for the waterproof barrier








Pulled out the tube of PF224 sealant, spread it all over the vinyl piece with a plastic knife and put the piece in place and let it dry.

[MC Hammered]

There is nothing like necessity to light a fire under your ass and get things done… a dose of procrastination from doing any more work helps a lot too.

So while there was some light out I decided to start installing some sound deadening into the car.

The sound deadening products I have selected are Dynamat Extreme, 1/4" Dynaliner and 3/8" Dynapad. For the doors I will use 1/8" Dynaliner to replace the vapor barrier.

Here are the high tech tools for the job



Some people like installing the Dynamat in big sheets, I prefer to cut them down into smaller pieces and them fit them together.




If the pieces line up then that is great, if they don't I won't let my OCD run out of control since this much Dynamat is overkill anyway.

So this is how much one sheet of Dynamat Extreme will cover




Sometime you just have to make a hole




The sun has set, the temps have dropped as I can feel the Dynamat harden up. Two sheets took 90 minutes to install and the J-roller does come in handy making the sheets conform to all of metal.

This is how much two sheets of Dynamat Extreme will cover.

[MC Hammered]

Today we start doing the driver side of the car… just like playing Tetris



The driver side layout is not as pretty as the passenger side but it gets the job done.

This is how much one sheet of Dynamat Extreme will cover




Finished with the second sheet




Starting the front console section



As I am rolling around I realize the butyl is squeezing out of the edges of the Dynamat pieces and sticking to my coveralls… the butyl is nasty stuff and isn't going to wash out so I decide to start taping up all of the seams with aluminum tape.





Front driver seat area all taped up so I can move around in there again without any more issues



Front console section done with Dynamat





Now all taped up






Front driver section completed



Working on the rear console section




Now all taped up





Driver side section all completed.. I probably have the same amount of aluminum in my car as a Russian satillite.






Taping up the passenger side before calling it a day





Everything done today took 7 hours, I used up 6 sheets of Dynamat and have 50% of the car done.

[MC Hammered]

Rear seat area done and taped up




I chose to use Dynapad in this vehicle to help block/absorb noise. It is a sandwich construction of foam and heavy vinyl material.




Making templates and cutting the Dynapad





Pieces fit together perfectly and they are heavy so they just lay there.

Total Dynapad used for the front & rear footwells and the rear seat top is 1.5 rolls.

[MC Hammered]

Starting on the hatch area where if you rap the metal with your knuckles you can just hear the metal ring.





One of the worst vibrating parts is the bottom of the spare tire well.

I didn't want to use multiple Dynamat pieces for this so I made a template to maximize the coverage.





Hatch area done and next step is to put Dynaliner in the spare tire well and Dynapad on the upper flat surfaces.