So I took over Austin's (who's also a member here) project M5, and towed it to my chief mechanic Chris M (Thanks Anthony!). The car was in a small accident which damaged the hood, grille and cooling system 3 years ago and was then left sitting outside (in Phoenix). The plan is to restore this and daily it for the summer (AC and PS, which my e30 doesn't have).
We bled the system and ran it for a while, and at least the cooling seems sorted out. Fixed a small leak so it doesn't mark its territory anymore too.
After that we cleaned the car up and drove it around the block a few times, and we are experiencing white-grey-blue-ish smoke from the exhaust, after the car gets up to temp. Now the car has been sitting for a while (approx 3 years), so lets hope that is just the cat/resonator/muffler getting hot and burning off gunk. Apart from that the motor sounds ok, a little ticky but we will check the valves and adjust of needed in the near future. Plus being an s38 I don't know how ticky it gets. We will drive it some more from time to time and keep an eye on the coolant and oil, and cross our fucking fingers its not the HG.
Appearance wise it's gonna need some lovin too, it needs a painted hood, the smilies need to be wired and installed and diverse pieces of trim (like the emblems) need replacing. The paint looks really dull so work needs to be done there. Tires are going out too, planning on getting some Conti extremecontact DW's, I really like them for daily on my e30.
Small list of future plans:
First three phases:
1)safe to drive
2)legal to drive
3)nice to look at and drive
Then next winter possibly motor rebuild (Paul Burke or Memphis Motor Works have been recommended), since this one has 178k miles and I don't feel like waiting for it to blow.
In the future (12-18 months from now) I will export the car back to Europe since that's where I'm from, so the overall theme will be a restoration to OEM spec. The Belgian car inspection frowns upon non-oem parts.
Pics to follow next time we work on it!
We bled the system and ran it for a while, and at least the cooling seems sorted out. Fixed a small leak so it doesn't mark its territory anymore too.
After that we cleaned the car up and drove it around the block a few times, and we are experiencing white-grey-blue-ish smoke from the exhaust, after the car gets up to temp. Now the car has been sitting for a while (approx 3 years), so lets hope that is just the cat/resonator/muffler getting hot and burning off gunk. Apart from that the motor sounds ok, a little ticky but we will check the valves and adjust of needed in the near future. Plus being an s38 I don't know how ticky it gets. We will drive it some more from time to time and keep an eye on the coolant and oil, and cross our fucking fingers its not the HG.
Appearance wise it's gonna need some lovin too, it needs a painted hood, the smilies need to be wired and installed and diverse pieces of trim (like the emblems) need replacing. The paint looks really dull so work needs to be done there. Tires are going out too, planning on getting some Conti extremecontact DW's, I really like them for daily on my e30.
Small list of future plans:
First three phases:
1)safe to drive
2)legal to drive
3)nice to look at and drive
Then next winter possibly motor rebuild (Paul Burke or Memphis Motor Works have been recommended), since this one has 178k miles and I don't feel like waiting for it to blow.
In the future (12-18 months from now) I will export the car back to Europe since that's where I'm from, so the overall theme will be a restoration to OEM spec. The Belgian car inspection frowns upon non-oem parts.
Pics to follow next time we work on it!
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