Well, here I am again.
I've owned my e30 sedan for 11 months now. Over the course of those 11 months, my e30 has brought me nothing but pain and agony.
First it was the motor not starting, then the e30 gets hit, followed by more technical difficulties, and finally coming to my current situation.
For those of you who have no clue about what the hell I'm talking about, feel free to read how it all starter here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=272111
So I'll start this thing from where I left off in the first part...
After the e30 got hit in September/October, I stopped even paying attention to the piece of trash sitting outside my driveway. I honestly haven't touched it for at least a month or so after the accident. Finally, as December came around, I decided to at the very least get it running. The car at this point still didn't want to start. I looked at my engine harness, and decided that it looked like toast and got a one from Portland in an almost immaculate shape. Plug it in, get all the connectors where they needed to go, and voilà!! Cars starts right up! Only, there was a problem. I'll let you listen to it.
Puurrrrrs like a kitten, am I right?! I wish.
The sound was definitely coming from the head and you could literally feel it if you would put your hand on it. Called up a few friends to help me inspect the noise, and then took off the valve cover. We cranked up the car with the valve cover off, and the noise was just crazy! We couldn't figure it out at first, until one of us noticed that the little bracket that was suppose to hold the rocker arm shafts in place, was not placed where it needed to be. It was placed on TOP of the damn rocker arm shafts. We put the bracket back in place, and also decided to see how the valves were. Well, turns out they were also way off and needed to be adjusted. At this point, I was furious! This head went through a machine shop, and they were suppose to do their damn job, not give me a head that was half-assed. That same night, we adjusted the valves, set the bracket in place, and then close up the head. After all was done, most of the noise was gone. I say 'most', because I couldn't make out all the noises the car was making, due to it being parked near the street with car's passing by.
The next day, again, I had 4-5 friends come over and help me push the car into the garage(driveway is a very steep hill). I was tired of working on it in the middle of the street, but could never move it into the garage due to us having another car always park there. Finally decided it was the e30's turn to get some shelter, and we went ahead and pushed the car in.
Due to being a full-time college student AND having a full-time job, working on the e30 wasn't always something I had time for. Over the next month or so, I slowly worked on it. First I bled the clutch and brake lines. Then I continued to change out some of the super worn out rubber hoses under the hood. After wards I had to bleed the coolant and make sure there weren't any air pockets. I just basically did all the small things in order to get the car to run smoothly.
A week of the car being garaged, I find Robb's ad on craigslist about having a whole rear end that I will need to fix my damage. Robb owns a local shop called GodSpeed. He fabricates roll cages and is also a great mechanic. I decided to pick up all the parts I needed to make my body straight again(discluding the rear bumper).
A month of the car being in the garage, the piece of trash decided to just start, run for 5-10 seconds, and then die. It then wouldn't start for hours until it cooled down, and then it repeated the same process. I then remembered that right before the accident had happened, I had this 'mechanic' that my friend knew, come over and try to figure out why the e30 didn't wanna start. After about an hour of poking around, he popped open the AFM. The idiot told me that it was way too 'tight' in there, and that it should be loosened up. Not knowing anything about these older BMW's, I said sure!
Who knew that such a small and idiotic mistake would cause me so much hassle and worry. After a little bit of research, I found out where exactly the meter was suppose to be, and set it back into place. Even though it was set back into place, these AFM's are laser calibrated and CANNOT be messed with. Even with the meter in place, the car would idle very poorly and would die after about 5 minutes of running. A few days ago, I decided that I needed to find another one and slap it on!
This is what it sounded like:
Having never been able to drive my car since I've owned it, I decided it was time to give it a go. Knowing it wasn't the smartest idea, I still went for it. Shortly after leaving the house, the car started to overheat to the point where I had to let it cool off for about an hour or so, before I could drive it back home. Got it home, and to this day, I don't regret taking it out. I love that little thing!
So I went ahead and created an ad here on r3v, and within a couple days, found someone who was willing to literally just give me one! Surprisingly, people like :up:e30Rooster:up: still exist in this world! He had driven by my house many times and recognized me when I created the wtb ad for the AFM. Today, he literally dropped it off at my front door, and went on his merry way. Awesome guy!:D
Anyways, I started the car up today again. I noticed that the motor was shaking a little, and that there was blueish smoke coming out of the exhaust. I decide to go to my local Autozone and rent out a compression tester.
This is where things go bad, again.
Here are my compression test number.
1. 155
2. 0
3. 155
4. 155
5. 160
6. 150
After seeing that my compression in the second cylinder was a dead 0, I couldn't believe it. With no compression in that cylinder, I decided to start tearing into the engine and taking out the head. I wanted to inspect the head and see what was going on. After about 1 1/2 hours or so, I finally get to it. I continue to pull off the head along with the intake manifold still attached, and lower it to the ground. My heart yet again, sank.
I'll start off with the pictures.
This is what I found inside with the piston.
One of my pistons was pretty damaged and the head was toast.
When the engine was first pulled apart/cleaned up/put back together, I was very careful not to let any kind of debris to get into the motor, and I'm sure nothing got in. What I think happened, is that there was something stuck inside my intake manifold and then made it's way down into the pistons. The somewhat good news to this is that I have another 885 head that I had as a spare. As of right now, my plan is to just swap all the parts over from the broken head and use the new one.
The head on the right is my spare, and the one on the left is the messed up one.
The spare will be going to the machine shop within the next couple days.
This is where I'm at right now. I have three ways I can proceed with this motor.
1. Replace all pistons with high/low compression ones depending if I decide to boost the motor or not, and then also get 280 cams(might as well since I'm already this far into the motor).
2. Replace the block without knowing the history of it, and just put it all back together.
3. Smooth out the broken piston and slap it all back together.
The option that I like the most is #1. I mean, yeah it'll cost more and will take lots more time, but it's the right way to finish something and not do it half-assed! I really need your guy's input into all this.
I guess this is it for Part 2! Hopefully there isn't a Part 3 to any of this. I want to finally start enjoying this car!
I've owned my e30 sedan for 11 months now. Over the course of those 11 months, my e30 has brought me nothing but pain and agony.
First it was the motor not starting, then the e30 gets hit, followed by more technical difficulties, and finally coming to my current situation.
For those of you who have no clue about what the hell I'm talking about, feel free to read how it all starter here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=272111
So I'll start this thing from where I left off in the first part...
After the e30 got hit in September/October, I stopped even paying attention to the piece of trash sitting outside my driveway. I honestly haven't touched it for at least a month or so after the accident. Finally, as December came around, I decided to at the very least get it running. The car at this point still didn't want to start. I looked at my engine harness, and decided that it looked like toast and got a one from Portland in an almost immaculate shape. Plug it in, get all the connectors where they needed to go, and voilà!! Cars starts right up! Only, there was a problem. I'll let you listen to it.
Puurrrrrs like a kitten, am I right?! I wish.
The sound was definitely coming from the head and you could literally feel it if you would put your hand on it. Called up a few friends to help me inspect the noise, and then took off the valve cover. We cranked up the car with the valve cover off, and the noise was just crazy! We couldn't figure it out at first, until one of us noticed that the little bracket that was suppose to hold the rocker arm shafts in place, was not placed where it needed to be. It was placed on TOP of the damn rocker arm shafts. We put the bracket back in place, and also decided to see how the valves were. Well, turns out they were also way off and needed to be adjusted. At this point, I was furious! This head went through a machine shop, and they were suppose to do their damn job, not give me a head that was half-assed. That same night, we adjusted the valves, set the bracket in place, and then close up the head. After all was done, most of the noise was gone. I say 'most', because I couldn't make out all the noises the car was making, due to it being parked near the street with car's passing by.
The next day, again, I had 4-5 friends come over and help me push the car into the garage(driveway is a very steep hill). I was tired of working on it in the middle of the street, but could never move it into the garage due to us having another car always park there. Finally decided it was the e30's turn to get some shelter, and we went ahead and pushed the car in.
Due to being a full-time college student AND having a full-time job, working on the e30 wasn't always something I had time for. Over the next month or so, I slowly worked on it. First I bled the clutch and brake lines. Then I continued to change out some of the super worn out rubber hoses under the hood. After wards I had to bleed the coolant and make sure there weren't any air pockets. I just basically did all the small things in order to get the car to run smoothly.
A week of the car being garaged, I find Robb's ad on craigslist about having a whole rear end that I will need to fix my damage. Robb owns a local shop called GodSpeed. He fabricates roll cages and is also a great mechanic. I decided to pick up all the parts I needed to make my body straight again(discluding the rear bumper).
A month of the car being in the garage, the piece of trash decided to just start, run for 5-10 seconds, and then die. It then wouldn't start for hours until it cooled down, and then it repeated the same process. I then remembered that right before the accident had happened, I had this 'mechanic' that my friend knew, come over and try to figure out why the e30 didn't wanna start. After about an hour of poking around, he popped open the AFM. The idiot told me that it was way too 'tight' in there, and that it should be loosened up. Not knowing anything about these older BMW's, I said sure!
Who knew that such a small and idiotic mistake would cause me so much hassle and worry. After a little bit of research, I found out where exactly the meter was suppose to be, and set it back into place. Even though it was set back into place, these AFM's are laser calibrated and CANNOT be messed with. Even with the meter in place, the car would idle very poorly and would die after about 5 minutes of running. A few days ago, I decided that I needed to find another one and slap it on!
This is what it sounded like:
Having never been able to drive my car since I've owned it, I decided it was time to give it a go. Knowing it wasn't the smartest idea, I still went for it. Shortly after leaving the house, the car started to overheat to the point where I had to let it cool off for about an hour or so, before I could drive it back home. Got it home, and to this day, I don't regret taking it out. I love that little thing!
So I went ahead and created an ad here on r3v, and within a couple days, found someone who was willing to literally just give me one! Surprisingly, people like :up:e30Rooster:up: still exist in this world! He had driven by my house many times and recognized me when I created the wtb ad for the AFM. Today, he literally dropped it off at my front door, and went on his merry way. Awesome guy!:D
Anyways, I started the car up today again. I noticed that the motor was shaking a little, and that there was blueish smoke coming out of the exhaust. I decide to go to my local Autozone and rent out a compression tester.
This is where things go bad, again.
Here are my compression test number.
1. 155
2. 0
3. 155
4. 155
5. 160
6. 150
After seeing that my compression in the second cylinder was a dead 0, I couldn't believe it. With no compression in that cylinder, I decided to start tearing into the engine and taking out the head. I wanted to inspect the head and see what was going on. After about 1 1/2 hours or so, I finally get to it. I continue to pull off the head along with the intake manifold still attached, and lower it to the ground. My heart yet again, sank.
I'll start off with the pictures.
This is what I found inside with the piston.
One of my pistons was pretty damaged and the head was toast.
When the engine was first pulled apart/cleaned up/put back together, I was very careful not to let any kind of debris to get into the motor, and I'm sure nothing got in. What I think happened, is that there was something stuck inside my intake manifold and then made it's way down into the pistons. The somewhat good news to this is that I have another 885 head that I had as a spare. As of right now, my plan is to just swap all the parts over from the broken head and use the new one.
The head on the right is my spare, and the one on the left is the messed up one.
The spare will be going to the machine shop within the next couple days.
This is where I'm at right now. I have three ways I can proceed with this motor.
1. Replace all pistons with high/low compression ones depending if I decide to boost the motor or not, and then also get 280 cams(might as well since I'm already this far into the motor).
2. Replace the block without knowing the history of it, and just put it all back together.
3. Smooth out the broken piston and slap it all back together.
The option that I like the most is #1. I mean, yeah it'll cost more and will take lots more time, but it's the right way to finish something and not do it half-assed! I really need your guy's input into all this.
I guess this is it for Part 2! Hopefully there isn't a Part 3 to any of this. I want to finally start enjoying this car!
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