E30 How-To's

[SethB]

Nice! You should add them on www.GarageGuides.com. Its a site specifically for automotive DIYers and creating DIY guides.

Last week, I made one for removing the M20 from an E30.

https://www.garageguides.com/guide/b...-e30-m20-motor

Oh nice! I'll check it out.

[jeanhules]

Nice! You should add them on www.GarageGuides.com. Its a site specifically for automotive DIYers and creating DIY guides.

Last week, I made one for removing the M20 from an E30.

https://www.garageguides.com/guide/bmw-how-to-remove-an-e30-m20-motor

[SethB]

Hey everybody. Happy new year! Finally got around to writing up another how-to, fuel hose replacement in the engine bay. Simple and straight forward job, but I needed to do it so I figured it'd write it up. Here's the link:

E30 Fuel Line Replacement (Engine Bay)


As usual, I'd love to hear any feedback. I've got a ton more content that I've captured in pics but haven't been able to write up yet (front and rear shocks and springs, odometer gears, rear window, front valance, hood strut, and more). There's some good write ups out there for many of those jobs already, but whenever my car needs something, I figure I'll capture it. I've also been trying to capture video for some of these jobs, it's potentially a more helpful format, but takes a ton more time to do.

I'm planning to do some cosmetic jobs in the near future, along with ix front axle boot replacement If there's anything anybody wants to see written up, let me know! It's a good excuse for me to rationalize buying more parts :)

[SethB]

I added another write-up on the site, for anyone who's still following. Just finished up power steering pump replacement.

Power Steering Pump Replacement

I'd love to hear any feedback, positive or negative, the purpose of the site is to be helpful so I'd love to hear anything that can help make it better.

[SethB]

Hi guys,
Just finished writing up the how-to for windshield replacement, here's the link:

E30 Windshield Replacement

As always, let me know what you think, and any suggestions you have on better ways to do the job, or write it up, I want the feedback!

I'm still looking for a rust-free post-facelift project car or shell, if you've got one or know of one, let me know.

[SethB]

Hey all! I'm finally back online, it's been a crazy couple months and I haven't had much time to work on the car (beyond emergency repairs - had a fuel hose split and a crankshaft position sensor die in the same week!). I also have been trying to finish pulling all the worthwhile parts off my totalled ix, so I can get make my wife happy and get the shell out of the driveway (side note, if you need any ix parts or a banged up shell in southeast PA, let me know!).

I had a lachssilber front bumper on my zinnoberrot car, finally got around to putting a matching one on. It's a pretty easy job that most people won't have any trouble with, but I figured it'd be worth writing up as a reference. Here's the link!

E30 Front Bumper Replacement (Post-Facelift)

As always, I want feedback if there's better ways to do these jobs, or if there's specific stuff that people want written up (Eddiemeister, I haven't forgotten about those seat struts, I'm getting there!).

Also, I'm looking for a project car so I can start some work that I can't afford to take the time for (or take the time to document) on my daily driver. If you know of a post-facelift 325i for sale in the Philly or Philly suburbs area, message me! I'm looking for a pretty rust-free body, but don't need the rest of the car to be in that great of shape since the intent is to rebuild it and document it.

[Eddiemeister]

Great work! Keep em coming. A write up on replacing the seat gas struts would be nice. Im sure many of us have old lousy seats that need fixing.

[Ludwig]

wow, great work putting these together!

[SethB]

Thanks cscracker, that's a good call. I'll make sure it's getting archived there. I'm hoping I stay in the E30 world for a long time, but you never know, and it would lousy for the write-ups to disappear if I can't keep the site going.

I just finished another DIY, turn signal switch replacement. Here's the latest link:

https://classicbimmerbits.com/e30-how-to/e30-turn-signal-stalk-replacement/

As always, let me know what you like, don't like, or what you wanna see next! I'll just keep plugging away at my cars and writing up what I can.

[Thunderzol]

Nicely Done!

!

[cscracker]

Nice work. If you haven't already, I suggest making sure the wayback machine is indexing your site properly. Nothing worse than putting all the work into good info like this and then it dropping off the internet years later when you've forgotten about it.

[SethB]

Happy Labor Day!

Sorry I dropped off the face of the earth for a while there... I promised my wife new living room and kitchen floors, and what was supposed to a one weekend project turned into a 3 weekend and evenings project.

I just finished up the timing belt how-to and posted it on the site. On the side, I also added water pump replacement and camshaft seal replacement as sub-jobs with the timing belt. Here are the links for all 3:

E30 Timing Belt Replacement
E30 Water Pump Replacement
E30 Camshaft Seal Replacement

As per usual with the stuff I've been working on, these how-to's apply to the M20 engines (sorry 318 guys, that'll come someday!)

As always, I'd love to hear any feedback, suggestions for improving these how-to's, or requests for new ones! you can drop me a line through comments or messages here, or through the contact page on the website. Enjoy!

[SethB]

Thanks for the positive feedback!

Mazdayasna, yup that's the plan. I'm trying to cover the essentials first, but once I've got a decent library of core repairs, I definitely plan to move into upgrades, and some restoration how-to's as well. The governing factor right now is my free time and what I can afford to do on my cars. So expect more common jobs like shock/spring upgrades, etc, in the semi-near future, but I wouldn't expect anything too huge for a while, given the time (career and 3 kids at home) and funds (those kids can eat!) that I have available for playing with the cars.

I've got the timing belt how-to nearly finished, just need to finish up the water pump as a sub-job and re-read to make sure it all makes sense.

[15Michaeljoseph]

Subscribed! Looks good!

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

[Mazdayasna]

As I was writing, I realized that capturing the whole timing belt job in one page was going to be massive, and maybe too much to be helpful. For that reason, I'm splitting out a couple of the jobs that have to be done to do the timing belt, but aren't part of the actual timing belt job. I think the key ones are, radiator replacement, accessory belt replacement, water pump replacement, and camshaft seal replacement. Radiator replacement is already up, and I just finished up accessory belt replacement. Here's the link:

https://classicbimmerbits.com/e30-how-to/e30-accessory-belt-replacement/

As always, let me know what you think, or if you have any suggestions for improvement. I wanted to post here for everyone subscribed to the thread, but I'll also post in M20 subthread if there are any specific comments for this write-up.

Timing belt How-to is on the way, I needed to knock out the belts first to split the job over a couple of pages.

Fantastic quality as before! I really like the idea of chopping all servicing work into short chunks that can be referred back to. (ie: Before attempting this job, follow "removing X" and "removing Y")

Do you think that once you've covered the basics there are already writeups for, you'll go into more specialized things? Properly depowering a steering rack, converting to aftermarket ECU, upgrading fuel pump, etc. How far are you going with this? I would be pretty sweet to have a definitive source for all E30 DIY services.
Also, have you considered using images from RealOEM to help describe parts/systems?