Project Overly Ambitious

[jpod999]

The column came out this weekend and the steering lock assembly has been transferred over to the non-airbag column. I also pulled out my clutch and brake pedals- I remember installing these on an auto to manual swap I did a few years back and can't believe I was actually able to do it back then! It's a serious pain to get the pivot bolt out!

Here is a shot of the non-airbag column with the steering lock assembly installed:


It was pretty easy to do. Pull the lockring off the shaft and cut a slit in the black conehead bolt big enough to fit a flat head screwdriver- remove screw and pull off steering lock assembly.

Here is a comparison of the two different types of columns:


Work marches on!

[dugly52]

Good work! Love the idea of a M60/62 E30, but have other projects. Glad you are still trucking away!

[jpod999]

Good work! Love the idea of a M60/62 E30, but have other projects. Glad you are still trucking away!

Thank you sir!

[jeenyus]

Every time I see you post and I see your white e30 in the picture of your post, I get so jealous of how nice your car looks. This build is also wonderful.

[jpod999]

Every time I see you post and I see your white e30 in the picture of your post, I get so jealous of how nice your car looks. This build is also wonderful.

Thanks! I unfortunately don't have those wheels anymore but I'm hoping the V8 makes up for it ;)

[iBazooka]

Amazing build, looks to have allot of potential, i'm just as balls deep as you right now subframes off, reinforcing all the things, all the poly is getting installed, full 0 mile rebuild on S50B30 for my '89 sedan.

Can't wait to see your build finished & spinning tires

[jpod999]

Amazing build, looks to have allot of potential, i'm just as balls deep as you right now subframes off, reinforcing all the things, all the poly is getting installed, full 0 mile rebuild on S50B30 for my '89 sedan.

Can't wait to see your build finished & spinning tires

I can't wait to feel the suspension after all of this work, good luck on your project!

[jpod999]

Column installed! It wasn't as straightforward as I thought it was going to be.

Apparently BMW changed the column opening on the firewall sometime in '85, they opened it up quite a bit. The column I bought is from an '84 so when I went to bolt it up, it was no where near correctly lined up. Long story short, I cut up the stock firewall mounting plate that came on my car and welded it to the '84 plate to get it all to line up. It ended up working out perfectly!

Here's the firewall hole in the later cars, I think that the hole on the earlier cars were much smaller and circular:


This is a bad picture but it's the only one of the welding process I got. You can see the shape of the early mounting plate on the left side:


Here's the finished product:


Bolted up, seen from the other side of the firewall:


Installed!


Now I guess I'll move on to the brakes? I still need to buy the Wilwood pedals and the clutch master, I already have the brake masters and the Garagistic mounting bracket.

[htseng]

Started reading your thread. Some nice work being done. Can't wait to see the final results, but also enjoying the process.


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[jpod999]

Started reading your thread. Some nice work being done. Can't wait to see the final results, but also enjoying the process.

Thank you!

[jpod999]

I finished up my E46 sourced steering linkage. I did this for a few reasons. First- after the column swap the stock linkage would no longer work so a new one needed to be made or purchased. Second- this linkage is much slimmer than the stock E30 unit, space needed for the drivers side exhaust.

I bought the two stock E46 pieces for about $90 on ebay, much cheaper than the Flaming River stuff.

Last night I pulled the ABS pump. I want to finish removing all the brackets I don't need, clean the bay, and then spray it in white so that I don't have to keep looking at the cosmoline.

[iwantspeed]

nice work so far

i have some tips on the e46 knuckle send me a message

[Zacm829]

We ended up having some clearance issues with our driver side header clearing the two e46 shafts. We ended up welding the inner and outer sleeves to gain some clearance over using bolts. Just a heads up!

[jpod999]

We ended up having some clearance issues with our driver side header clearing the two e46 shafts. We ended up welding the inner and outer sleeves to gain some clearance over using bolts. Just a heads up!

Interesting...Alex (iwantspeed) was telling me how his E46 shaft developed a bunch of play even though it was bolted down tightly with nylocks and that I should weld mine up. Seems like there's another vote for them to be welded!

[jpod999]

Christmas spending and a new furnace for the house has put an indefinite hold on this project. I have stuff I can do without having to purchase parts so that will likely be happening soon. I need to finish cleaning the bay so that I can respray it- then I think the motor will go back in so that I can continue on the wiring.