The 5 Year Restoration - E30 M3 Reborn

[dwight]

Nice buy, just take your time and enjoy the ride. I just sold my e30 for the same price so you did real well.

[CurrusDei]

did the e30 m3 not have any sound deadening? or just not in the trunk?

I took it all out for cleaning. Going to shampoo the trunk lining.


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[CurrusDei]

Nice buy, just take your time and enjoy the ride. I just sold my e30 for the same price so you did real well.

E30 M3 or regular E30?


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[nbrown]

Looks like you are going to have quite a nice car and at a pretty good price too.

These are 80's cars. The manual specs 20w-50 or 15w-40 dino. With synthetics these days, you can go thinner as long as you are okay with potential consumption or leaks.

I've switched to 0w40 Mobil 1 synthetic and now there is a very small drop from the rear main seal, not a problem at all really. Plus it's the same oil I use in my other cars and possibly better engine protection for a garage queen.

Your back seat doesn't look too bad. Maybe you could just re-dye the leather. There is the stuff from Leatherique but since you have black interior there may be some better options out there for dye.

[CurrusDei]

New M3 Owner...How'd I do?

Mini update. The car is on jack stands and the wheel, brakes and halfshaft on drivers side rear are off the car. The hub is giving me a hard time. I don't have a bearing splitter handy so I'm going to try the slide hammer method if I can find on for loan at an auto parts store. Also, picked up an electric impact wrench for $100 at Lowes (display model + cosmetic damage discount). That thing has saved me so much time.

My latest discovery - the car has a cheapo tuner stud kit on it... That's gotta come off pronto.








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[Todd Black 88]

https://www.leatherclear.com/cgi-bin/store/pid_01.htm

I bought and used this stuff on my m3 interior. It really works well. Mine was very dry and faded, and it looks great now.

[Todd Black 88]

Get the harbour freight front wheel bearing kit. It's like $80 with the online coupon, and makes the hub and bearing removal and install, a breeze.

[freeride53]

Loving it. Will be following this thread and your project closely!
I'm dreaming of finding a nice little resto candidate like yours a few years down the line.

[CurrusDei]

New M3 Owner...How'd I do?

Hub set to pull



About 20 hard whacks with a slide hammer, and...


I thought the blanket to catch the hub was a nice touch. After watching endless videos of guys whacking the daylights out of their hubs and dropping them on the pavement, I figured this was a better way.


The bearing is burnt toast. I can move the inner race around a lot (side to side and in and out) inside the bearing.


Removed the retaining clip and Started to crank it out. Anyone see the problem?



It was fine until I reached the maximum length I could pull it out with the shallow pocket in the puller. Then I tried extending the puller back by putting some metal bars between the puller plate and the parking brake shoes. Not a good move. The shoes shifted around and now one is a bit crooked. Looks like I get to learn how to rebuild parking brakes now too! This thing is a project factory.

The good news is the bearing is halfway out. Shouldn't be too bad once I take the parking brakes off.




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[spdracrm3]

"The bearing is burnt toast. I can move the inner race around a lot (side to side and in and out) inside the bearing."

thats normal as without the hub to hold the two haves of the inner race tight together it will feel loose (the hub and axle provide the pre-load on the bearing when you torque the axle nut to over 100ft/lbs), check your new one you'll find its the same (usually has a plastic tube inserted into new bearing the hold the halves together that is pressed out as you install the new hub), so that is not an indication the bearing is bad ,you actually have to pop the races out and look for pitting ( the outer one usually comes out with the hub ) so i would be measuring the hub where the inner race sits to make sure its not worn would suck to get it all back together and find you still have looseness in your new wheel bearing



Removed the retaining clip and Started to crank it out. Anyone see the problem?



yea your pressing against the brake shoes and probably bending the backing plate ,hopefully it wont rub on rotor or cause parking brake issue once all back together. the correct tool presses against the thin wall of the tube the bearing is pressed into not the backing plate

[CurrusDei]

New M3 Owner...How'd I do?

Yeh lesson learned there. I have since obtained the correct tool. Now I just need a bigger socket to turn it.


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[CurrusDei]

The bearing is out. Backing plate looks like its in good shape and I'll just need to reassemble and adjust the parking brake.

halfshaft and hub dont want to go back together smoothly, going to have to clean up some of the splines before reinstalling.

[CurrusDei]

Status update...

The backing plates were bent, hammered them back out straight





New bearing pressed in!





Reinstalled the Parking brake after cleaning it up



And that's where progress was halted. The hub and halfshaft do NOT want to get back together. After filing for an hour and freezing the halfshaft for 2 hours, this is the best i could get with all my bodyweight hand pressing it together.



Does anyone have some advice? I'm wondering if I have the right parts on the car because the hub and halfshaft have different shaped splines. The hub splines come to a sharp triangle top, but the halfshaft splines as you can see are flat at the top. Any suggestions?


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[reelizmpro]

If you removed them from the car they should go back together unless you damaged the splines. Did you press the hub in all the way and then knock the axle in with wood/hammer? Once the threads appear on the front side, tightening the nut will pull the axle through the rest of the way. Final torque will be after everything is installed with the car on the ground. Also, don't forget the retaining clip, nut and new locking plate.

[CurrusDei]

New M3 Owner...How'd I do?

I was afraid to push the hub in just in case it ended up being the problem. There were some burrs on it that I filed off, and there are still some cuts into the hub splines themselves (the go in, don't jut out, have filed them pretty smooth). I can hammer it together outside the car pretty easily. If I press in the hub, is it safe to use a block of wood and rubber mallet on the diff-side of the halfshaft to hammer it through till the threads show? Just wanting to be careful before I force anything


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