My next irrational purchase

[JasonWilson48]

Got some photos with my neighbor who has a late model cab and touring. Fun fact: He bought the touring from the guy who runs RaceGerman. So, all the videos on youtube are of his car. Thought that was pretty cool.

[JasonWilson48]

Trying to catch up on more maintenance

• I already changed the oil the week I got the car into my driveway. It was super clean, as the seller had told me there were only about 500 miles on it… but I changed it for my own peace of mind.
• I also noticed the diff is leaking very slightly out of the right output shaft. So I wanted to check the level and top it off until I planned a time to replace that seal. Well that lead to me stripping the fill screw, and attempting a multitude of things besides drilling or welding to get it off. I think I’m going to cut my losses, and not damage anything any further. Going to ask a shop to get it out for me

• Other things that have come up. I hit a big bump in the road, and scraped the exhaust mid pipe. I now am hearing an audible exhaust leak, so I need to dig into that. I don’t know the best method for pinpointing exhaust leaks, but I might also ask the shop to take a look at the same time they remove the diff fill plug. It might just be some hardware that got bent or loose from the impact. There is also a slight whole in the muffler where a hanger was welded. This might have been like it when I bought it, or I could have done when I hit that bump. Either way, it is causing some slight noise annoyance, but not a huge deal.

Got some cool photos at the Navy Yard in south Philly

[JasonWilson48]

More from the Navy Yard

[JasonWilson48]

I also picked up an a/c compressor and 24V lines. I am just hoarding them until I feel like spending the time/money on all the new gaskets/expansion valve/parallel flow condenser to get it all going. This might be a winter project.
I was about to change the trans fluid, when I got derailed with the clutch issue.

Clutch issue will be another reply...

[JasonWilson48]

AUG-SEP 2025
One day in august I was driving the car and noticed the shifting started to get difficult. It happened very abruptly while I was downshifting getting off the highway. I was on the way back out to my parents house at the time. I kept going not thinking too much about it. However, when I was stopped at a red light in the left turn lane, I couldn’t get the car back into gear. I was less than a mile from my parents. It was a major intersection, so it was fairly stress inducing. I was waving people by, and trying to trouble shoot. I eventually turned the car off, put it in gear, and started the car in 3^rd. The starter and battery were brand new, so it was able to get me going with a little bit of struggle. I got it to my parents and left it there.
It was weird that it happened so abruptly, in other cars I’ve owned, the master or slave cylinders go gradually. So I thought there was a major leak somewhere. Maybe a hose or fitting burst. However, I looked under the car and there were no signs of a leak. So I tried bleeding the clutch by taking off the slave, manually pumping the push rod while I opened and closed the bleeder valve, and was still not able to disengage the clutch. At this point, I forgot I put a longer clutch stop on the car. So I took that off, and I was actually able to disengage the clutch. However, the grab point was now at the very bottom of the clutch throw. I was able to limp the car back to my house barely. It got worse as I was driving. Had to turn my car off, put it I reverse, and start in gear to get up my driveway. I will scrape too much going in nose forward.
So after all of that, I just bought a new slave and master since they were cheap and I could tell the master was very old. After I replaced both the master and slave, I bled it once more and still had nothing, but the clutch pedal got a little better. It was still at the bottom of the throw to disengage the clutch. So thinking I was bleeding it wrong I tried it a couple of ways:

• Using a bleeder and pumping pushrod while opening and closing bleeder nipple
• Using bleeder and letting bleeder slightly open, and letting the car sit for a little while
• Open bleeding nipple and manually pumping clutch with no bleeder
• Using bleeder while pumping clutch

I’m still getting not much improvement. Also, whenever I leave the car overnight and come back to it, the clutch depresses about an inch on its own. And I have to pull it back up, or pump it to get back to normal position. All signs lead to me not bleeding the clutch correctly obviously. I am trying going to try one more method of holding the slave cylinder push rod while off the car, using the bleeder, and pumping the clutch. I didnt want to do this before as I would have to DIY some holder for the pushrod. This will be my last try before I also ask the shop to look at it, with my differential plug, and exhaust leak.
Also, anyone have recommendations for shops around Philly? I was thinking VAC motorsports since they are heavily involved in racing, and wouldn’t mind working on heavily modified BMW. I don’t want to take it to a random shop, and they start telling me how all of the parts are not from an E30, that is my problem lol. It was working before with the same parts, so it just is baffling me a little bit.

[JasonWilson48]

[JasonWilson48]

Also, on the bright side of things. I got a set of OEM plastic bumpers with the OEM trim for FREE. Came up on R3V facebook page. Only an hour away. I only need the rear bumper as mine is cracked pretty bad. So plan is to paint the rear bumper, and maybe the front if I have anything leftover. Then keep the front as a spare, or just sell it to someone else who could use it. I’m not into parts hoarding. Don’t have a ton of space to do tha


I also put the R3V sticker on the car.


That’s the end of my update for now, and gets y’all up to present day.

[2mAn]

I also put the R3V sticker on the car.


That’s the end of my update for now, and gets y’all up to present day.

Excellent!

[Northern]

Navy Yard pics are fucking awesome. I remember seeing everything tied up flying into Philly a few years back. Mind boggling seeing more mothballed there than we have ships in my entire Navy.

Unfortunate that you need to run big tires to get in the driveway, but the car still looks really good. I just hated how my bigger tires made the car feel boaty.

My car had HP+ on it back in the day and they squealed like hell. Hoping yours are more reasonable. I traded for HPS at some point and they were terrible. It took me a few years to finally listen to the forum advice and run Pagid/Textar OE stuff.

When I did my 24v swap, I swapped my clutch slave and pre-filled/bench bled everything first. Seemed to work well.