Dumbest mistake youve made with your e30?

[GDA]

Working solo I pulled the old motor and auto trans out from the top with the car on jackstands. The car had no front or rear suspension on it at the time. No one wanted the auto so it was going to the scrap heap anyway.

It would have been so much easier to just drop the front subframe to the ground and then take the trans off from there

[AndrewBird]

Way, way back in the day when Josh had his first e30, I helped him try and figure out how to "open" his sealed beam headlight to install a set of PIAA super white bulbs. We stopped before we managed to break anything. lol

Not on an e30, but on my MG, I had it sitting on 4 jackstands. In the grass. With all 4 wheels off. Jack stands sunk into the ground and the whole car gracefully fell over onto the floor pan. Not the easiest thing to get back up as there was no place to put the jack under.

[kye]

Got chased in my e30 by an oinker after releasing some aggression. *Oinker never used the party lights. I thought it was my drunk redneck neighbor because it had a headlight out. Pulled in my driveway hopped out and hid and oinker couldn't find me and left. Haven't driven it in almost a year now. Fixing all the petty shit before i drive it again ugh.

[rzerob]

Using the wrong size screws on the instrument cluster, and putting the screw right into the si board.

[F34R]

Hooking the fuel lines up backwards and trying to figure out the issue for close to a month, it was my first engine swap when I was around 18, that was almost 11 years ago and I cannot believe I am going on 14 straight years on e30 ownership, time sure flies!

[Wh33lhop]

Trying to start it up right as I was finishing the swap, the battery seemed dead

I decided to confirm it was the battery by taking the battery from the other car I was using, a qx4 (keep in mind I did my swap way out in the boonies and that was my only ride home) and slapping it in the e30, they're both 12v, what could go wrong?

Well the qx4 battery was unlabeled and it turns out the terminals were in the opposite place of the e30 battery, so I hooked up the qx4 battery backwards in the e30. Car obviously still didn't work.

Confused, I took the e30 battery and put it in the qx4 to test it, hooked that up backwards, and screwed my only ride home up. I figured it out eventually and after having a mild panic attack, "repaired" the main 100A fuse on the qx4 with some pliers and somehow both cars were fine.

[James Crivellone]

First week of owning my E30, god.. like 15 years ago.. went to reset the S.I. lights..found what looked like the diag plug (it was C101.. disconnected it, jumped two pins, and royally fried several wires under the dash)

Got to learn how to pull the dash and repair the main vehicle harness.

Yep... thats about it.

Oh, and breaking over 7 rocker arms on the race car so far.. same head still!

[Northern]

Waiting to long to do the timing belt.

This.

Ruined a very nicely maintained M20. I was 6 months overdue and I thought I was 6 months under the change interval.

Buying shitty Lencas lithuania bushings that didn't fit right and I need to replace again.

Re-doing the wiring from head unit to amp, cheaping out and buying wires that were too short, so I ran them up the trans tunnel, under the seat and drilled a pointless hole behind the seat to get it to the amp

Removing the carpet, sanding rust on the floor down, but using POR15 and not letting it dry before putting the carpet back in.

Punching my jack through the floor in the front right jack point. I cut it out and fiberglassed it in.

Left rear trunk pocket was rotten out when I bought the car. I burned a ton of extra paint/primer/fill off the body using a plasma cutter to cut it out, and welded a piece of a rusty parts car on, did an awful job of it, and now it's rotten again and never looked right at all anyway.

Rolled my quarters with a jack handle (out of desperation) and left a few dents above the lip on each side.

Bought shitty ebay HIDs for my foglights. 'nuff said.

ebay/"poland"/"projectsilver" camber plates before I smartened up and bough GC ones.

If it counts, I bought a euro E28 for $700 from a friend, then it got towed because it apparently looked abandoned. It would've been another $500 in towing/storage fees, and since it wasn't in my name because said friend never gave it to me, I never went to get it.

Way more that I could come up with, but I think that's enough.

[FireFight]

most recently

-I put drop hats in with my 50mm drop springs. car rides like shit now, haven't had time to put stock hats back in, so i commute on being constantly bottomed out and high center all the time.

-I bought a e30 on a whim(a year ago) with only test driving it in a parking lot. by the time i got home i found it to have a rod knock, and had frame damage i didnt see because i bought the car at night. sold it for a huge loss

-I let my lady drive my e30 for awhile, she smashed the fender in to a concert wall

[E30 Wagen]

Buying a second e30 to drive while I worked on my project e30, which eventually led to buying even more e30s...

[Mr. Burns]

Oh I'm finishing it....I'm just being a whiny bitch about it...I know it'll pay off...just having trouble finding time between work, family and being a dad is all lol

[McGyver]

ripping out a perfectly healthy and solid engine and drivetrain to take on an engine swap...so far it's been fun/frustrating but i'm facing way more downtime than I had originally expected.

Everyone is out cruising in their summer cars, and i'm here with my e30 vert on jackstands test fitting driveshaft measurements while I still gotta install an entire wire harness...

don't fix what's not broken.
^^^listen to this saying^^^

Dude, just finish it. I've been reading about your swap for a bit since I started putting an m30 in my vert. It's totally worth it once it's driving, or at least, it would be worth it if I could keep the damn thing from overheating if it sits still for 2 minutes.

[Mr. Burns]

going on a limb and guessing m30.

Lol I think the whole forum knows:-p

I've done honda swaps galore...
The M30 swap us much harder, even tho its "easy" by r3v standards

[Reichart12]

ripping out a perfectly healthy and solid engine and drivetrain to take on an engine swap...so far it's been fun/frustrating but i'm facing way more downtime than I had originally expected.

Same situation for me. Definitely more down time than I planned for. Lots more money than originally thought too but Im getting close so hopefully it will all be worth it soon.

[Stanley Rockafella]

ripping out a perfectly healthy and solid engine and drivetrain to take on an engine swap...so far it's been fun/frustrating but i'm facing way more downtime than I had originally expected.

Everyone is out cruising in their summer cars, and i'm here with my e30 vert on jackstands test fitting driveshaft measurements while I still gotta install an entire wire harness...

don't fix what's not broken.
^^^listen to this saying^^^


oh and two years ago had a no fuel issue with my e30 for a couple of weeks.

tore everything apart only to learn the gas tank was empty.
added fuel, fired right up lol

AGREED

Ive considered swaps for my e30's, but when you consider how much fabrication is involved, it's not worth it. It's worse when you get a shop to install it since they will charge you crazy amounts for labor.

These project threads on R3v make swaps seem far too easy