My 1988 e30 325ix - Garage'd

[jeenyus]

Little bit of an update since I got the car running.

Last night I was driving home from work, all seemed fine. Then I heard this slight high-pitched sound. I kind of started to slow down to see if maybe it only happened at higher speeds. Well, the car started to shake super hard, so I immediately pulled it over to the side of the road.
Not wanting to further any damage on the car I decided to just call a tow. I was close enough to where it would be free of charge under my insurance. After waiting in the rain for an hour, the tow finally showed up.


The car was put back into my garage where I jacked up the car and waited for the worst.

What was the issue?


The rear driveshaft U-joint... I didn't undo this part of the car when we started the clutch job, my brother-in-law did. I was a relief to see only this though. I put in some new nuts on those bolts, tightened it up and now I'm driving it again today. Seriously a good reminder to check everything before you drive it. I'm surprised it stayed together through test driving it, driving it on the highway into work, city driving, driving it home. Pretty impressive.

I only could locate two of the nuts that go on there, so i put those two in assuming they would last till i could grab an M10.

[jeenyus]

Awesome! I have three IX's (two parts cars and one awaiting restoration) I loved reading this thread, seems like you have a good handle on the car now and I love how it has progressed. It helps talking to the right people (You know who you are). Let me know if you need any parts lol. Keep up the great work and you are right, you never sell this car

Thank you! I'm come to you for parts... do you have a blower motor?

[Bbruins72]

Nice work so far, I dig the tint on the white. Good luck with future projects.

[jeenyus]

This weekend with the holiday I had to drive the car to southern UT. It's about a 5 hour drive and so I wanted to make sure everything would be fine for the drive. Changed the oil, replaced the oil filter, replaced the transmission fluid as well. The rear diff needs to have its fluid changed too. I'm getting a sort of high pitched sound under load and high speeds. From what I've read, this could be a few things, but the differential being examined and fluid replaced is a good idea anyway.

This drive was great with blue skies most the way.



About an hour from our destination we started to get snow. Then it was a whiteout, then it was about a foot of snow. In most cars I would have not been too thrilled about this, only in the IX with snow tires I was actually pretty excited.



Car was great. The picture above to give you idea of how much snow there was.

Drove it around the next day.



I am really growing to love this car.

[jeenyus]

I stubbled upon a pair of Z3M (2000) seats and I am having a hard time finding good information about them in an e30. I show a post from Bimmer forms and the guy said that with an adapter they are a direct swap.

Do you guys have any more information on this before I grab the seats?

The upholstery on mine is ruined basically and I'd like to swap if possible. Seats are in great condition I'd like to buy and the price is really cheap honestly (200).

Any information or direction on this would be great, thanks.

[Kershaw]

With the right adapter, anything is a direct swap. Lol. Meaningless to say unless you can make or buy the right adapter.

people have definitely done it before

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64922

http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?264922-Z3-seats-in-an-E30

You probably need to start with CAD (cardboard assisted design) to mock it up. If you have a welder, it shouldn't be that hard. Definitely not a "direct swap" though.

[jeenyus]

With the right adapter, anything is a direct swap. Lol. Meaningless to say unless you can make or buy the right adapter.

people have definitely done it before

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64922

http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?264922-Z3-seats-in-an-E30

You probably need to start with CAD (cardboard assisted design) to mock it up. If you have a welder, it shouldn't be that hard. Definitely not a "direct swap" though.

thanks for the information. that e30 thread i hadn't seen yet. so the z3m seats are completely different from the z3 seats.



here are the seats in question. I'm gonna go grab them today.

[jeenyus]

So I decided to jump on those seats. They look too good and my current seats need to be either replaced or reupholstered completely. Plus after seeing that picture of the Z3M seats in an e30 I couldn't not.

Driving to the seller I thought to myself, "do you think those seats can fit in the back of the e30?" Well for anyone wanting to know, yes they fit, barely.


e30s got a bigger back seat than you would think...

Finally got the seats home and they are in great condition. All leather looks perfect.


even my daughter approves.


It's going to take me a min to put these in, but in the meantime I have some nice extra furniture.

[jeenyus]

Last night I had the chance to replace my rear differential fluid, gasket and bushing. The job was really straight forward with no incidents. I think the hardest part was getting the old rear bushing out for the replacement with the gargistic poly bushing I got. Below are some pictures.


Did a little research and Motul seemed to have the best numbers. Found it online for pretty cheap with free shipping.


As you can see, the old bushing was toast. I could hear the clunk every once in a while.


Fluid draining


Old bushing out.


I'm not certain what this means, but I had to grid all the rust off to even be able to read it.


It looks pretty good back here. I'm not sure though if those are heat spots I'm looking at or not though...


Here it is all buttoned up (after a good salt city drive)

[rzerob]

3,91v - 3.91 viscous differential gear ratio. That is standard in the manual ix. 4.10 in the automatics.

[jeenyus]

3,91v - 3.91 viscous differential gear ratio. That is standard in the manual ix. 4.10 in the automatics.

Any idea what the next set of numbers means? 2562?

[jeenyus]

Just a picture from the other night. Can't wait till I'm done with standard maintenance so I can get to the fun stuff.

[unloadedak]

iirc the iX rear diff bushing is different than rwd.

i wanna say it's off center, shifted upward, to compensate the subframe bushing difference and maintain proper driveline angle.

others will have to chime in though; i haven't done an iX rear end refresh yet.

[jeenyus]

iirc the iX rear diff bushing is different than rwd.

i wanna say it's off center, shifted upward, to compensate the subframe bushing difference and maintain proper driveline angle.

others will have to chime in though; i haven't done an iX rear end refresh yet.

Yes the original bushing is offset a little. I didn't notice till I was putting it back in. There wasn't an issue putting it back together though and I haven't felt any issues driving the car whatsoever. I will keep an eye on it though. Thanks.

[jeenyus]

Recently did a few things on the IX. I wanted to de badge the back of the trunk, so I did. It turned out just fine, but made me realize I want to remove the spoiler, fill the holes and repaint the trunk.


Yesterday as well I was able to finally delete the power steering. I'm surprised how much smoother the power band seems now on the lower end. My butt dyno has confirmed some difference for sure.

All shit removed. This thing made a mess of my undercarriage over the years of leaks.

Here is the garagistic delete pump installed.