Ocell's 318is

[silence]

Looking Good!

[Ocell]

I spent Saturday working on the car. Since it's a new car and I'm learning, things take a bit of time.

I got the driver's side control arm swapped out. (The old one had a bad ball joint). Thankfully the passenger side got new ball joints before I got the car. From what I've read on getting to the top of the bolt for the inner ball joint on the passenger side, I'm very glad it's already been done.

I was able to get to the top of the driver's side ball joint bolt with a few 1/2" drive extensions. No problem!








Did you notice that inspection sticker? When I first got the car to Texas it failed inspection for being too low. Headlights have to be 24" from the ground, and I was at 22". Thankfully I was able to jack up the front with the coilovers enough to get right at 24" and passed. Of course, I dropped it back down afterward.


I also got the Red46 skid plate installed. It requires drilling some holes in to the radiator core support. It looks like mine had hit something pretty hard at some point, so it was bowed up. I was able to bend it straight enough to make things work. I used my jack to put pressure up on the skid plate while I used it as a template to drill the holes. Worked perfectly.












I feel a lot better driving around now. The skid plate is also doing a great job at showing me how much oil I'm leaking! I'm hoping it's just the oil pan gasket. I'll start there and work my way deeper if that doesn't ease up the oil loss.



I was doing all this work so I could go to an autocross this morning, but I got hit with a migraine at about 2am so I had to bail on my plans. I'm pretty bummed.. but there's another autocross next weekend. Hopefully I'll make it to that one.

[Ocell]

I pulled the car out this morning and checked the oil. It was below the min line... not good. I poked my head around and saw a big puddle of oil in the skid plate, and watched a fresh big drip make its way down the oil pan, just from cranking the car long enough to back out of the garage.

It looks like it's coming from under the oil filter housing. It's not the oil pressure sender, and it's not the lid on the filter housing. I'm parking it for now, reluctantly. This is a critical amount of oil loss. Hopefully it's just something I can tighten up or an o-ring that needs replacing. I'm thinking worst-case it's the upper oil pan gasket. From some quick searches I've done, it looks like that's not too bad a job on the M42.

The good news, though, is I got my Texas plates and registration! So it's 100% legally mine now.

[silence]

Chris, A quick search turned up this "How-to" on replacing the gasket and o-ring on the oil filter housing. No pics, but some good info.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...-Gasket-repair

[Ocell]

Thanks for the link!

[SSE30]

Your wheels. I envy them.

Great E30, Ocell.

[Ocell]

I'm coming after you, oil leak.

It's great having a car small enough that I can work on it in my tiny and cluttered one-car garage. I'm also really enjoying working on the M42, so far. Everything seems pretty simple and well laid out.






Air box out. Only took a few seconds. Excellent.




It took me a bit more time to figure out the alternator and mounting bracket. But here we are, down to the oil filter housing. What a mess! This photo is after I hit it with some Simple Green to soak.




I wanted to clean it up before breaking it open, trying to keep the internals clean.




Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh




Once I got the housing off, I couldn't see any obvious failure points on the o-ring or the gasket, but I'm 99% sure it was that o-ring. Now that I look closer, I think the bottom of the o-ring had failed.






The o-ring around the dip stick tube was completely destroyed, so I'm hoping I can pick up a new one at the auto parts store tonight. Then, I should be able to get everything back together fairly quickly. Fingers crossed!

[brads2002]

Love the wheels too. I haven't seen them without the black behind the turbo.

Do you know what front lip that is?

[Ocell]

Thanks. Yeah, I like them without the black paint.

It's got a Volvo lip.

[Ocell]

I bought a set of rear Premium Speakers off Ebay. I went to bolt them in and realized I'll need to make bigger holes in the rear deck.

So last night I pulled the rear seats and got the deck out. I'm debating dying the deck's carpet black. I'll have to do some research and see what's best for that. I think I saw somewhere that vinyl dye will make the fibers too brittle.(?)

I'm also going to try and remove the rear window tint while I've got everything stripped down. It has all gone purple and is scratched up on the inside.


E30 - Removing Rear Deck by Ocell, on Flickr

[Ocell]

I was all set to hit up my first autocross in this car this weekend. I spent Saturday doing some odds and ends.

I picked up some premium speaker tweeter door pods from the junk yard. I was also putting in a new bolt to hold the heat shield over the muffler (I had to take the rear bumper off to do that.)

As I was running the engine to try to find a very loud rattle coming from the back, I noticed fuel dripped off the fuel filter. I figured it wasn't a big problem, maybe the clamp was just a little loose on the line.

Unfortunately, the fuel line that runs from the fuel filter to up above the gas tank had split. On the 318is there's a hard line between the filter and the fuel pump that runs under the rear seat sheet metal, with soft lines on each end of the hard line. I cannot get to where the soft line from the filter connects to the hard line without dropping the tank.

I spent the evening trying to think of quick fixes that would let me make it to the autocross, but nothing worked out. I couldn't drop the tank low enough with the driveshaft in place, and I had already lost daylight so I didn't feel like messing with the drive shaft for the first time in the dark. The tank is also pretty full of fuel, and I could use an extra set of hands to try and avoid crushing myself.

I've got a new differential coming in this week. I'll have to disconnect the drive shaft for that, of course, so I figure I'll drop the tank down and fix this fuel line at the same time and get it fixed correctly. It looks like I won't be able to get all of that done for a couple weeks.

This is the third or fourth autocross I've missed now (I'm losing count) so I'm a bit frustrated.

[Ocell]

Oh yeah, I got the oil filter housing back on with a new gasket and a new o-ring, and everything is bone dry and super clean now. I had been driving the car to work last week without any issues.

I have noticed some oil coming off the bottom of the transmission. I guess I'll get a good look at that when I'm dropping the driveshaft.

[Ocell]

Because threads are better with pictures...


Here are the tweeter pods I grabbed. $8 each... I'm not sure if the tweeters work (they LOOK clean) but I really just wanted to fill those holes in my doors.




The nut/bolt holding the heat shield up over the muffler was all rusted away. I took off the rear bumper and removed the impact shock so I could drill a new hole and put a nut and bolt in. Unfortunately this was NOT the source of my very loud rattle, so the search for that continues.



You can see the new bolt head:




I know that's a small fix, but I was curious to take the bumper off and see if I could swap that bolt out. It looks like it's really a welded stud or something, though. Of course, when I pulled the bumper off it flexed and cracked the top of the corner. Ugh!


And here's how the car sat all evening while I tried my best to reach the clamp for the fuel line I need to replace. No luck, though. I did put the bumper back on.

[5ickride]

Thank you! I have wanted to see these wheels on an e30. I love it. I think you can go a little lower to reduce the gap. But the wheels are nice. Good stuff!

[Cephas]

Love your car man and glad to see pics of it on a track!

That being said, the wheels are ugly as all get out. Just not my style, but the rest is very nice.