Some of you have been following my work elsewhere, but I finally am getting the opportunity to bring the e30 back to life. The car has been down due to a bad head gasket since Feb. I managed to get all the parts a few months ago, but never had found a place to work on the car while this whole process takes place.
But after running into an old friend from way back in the day, he offered me his shop to work on my car, and every since last Monday, progress is coming at a fast pace. I haven't shared much lately, so I figure I'll post up some pics of the process.
The car's battery was completely dead, however once I plugged in the jumper cables it instantly fired right up!! Now if only it would hold its water temp :p
Getting the car towed over to 10 Motorworks
At the shop, last time it ran before pulling everything apart.
Since this was a body restoration shop, I spoke to the owner about the horrible overspray issue that I have from when I was putting the car together (long story short, shop owners sprayed a white bumper right under my car in a small storage where you could barely fit a lift). I had tried everything to remove it, yet those fellas had some commercial grade stuff that seemed to do what I couldn't with almost no effort. Mind you that a lot of this is dust, but there is a serious overspray issue there too.
First parts arriving... e46 m3 rack, ignition components (wires, plugs, cap & rotor), etc
Starting to come apart, beginning with the front wheel bearings:
Fresh bearings! :D
Looks pretty clean for such an old motor. Turns out this motor has been rebuilt once before.
E46 M3 rack, installing new tie rods in there + steering rack spacers :)
Carlos' (silence) power steering delete. No more PS in this car! One less thing to leak, one less thing to break!
More parts gathering up!
Whoa wait... what happened here?
Bigger catch than most sh*t I saw during shark week
Motor on the stand, starting to be taken apart
Now with the cylinder head pulled, I headed over to Forced Firebird's shop, who helped me take the cylinder head apart. Ran into Carlos and Jay working on Gordon's old coupe shell.
Acid bath on the head to clean it up nice.
All the bits and pieces already off (HUGE thanks to Forced Firebird for his help with this, after taking this thing apart and putting it back together with nothing but his knowledge and extra pair of hands, I now know why it costs so much to have a shop do this.
First problem encountered:
Carlos keeping busy, in the shop where no one sleeps and 5 hour energy shots reign supreme. Everyone there works a 9 to 5 and they are often out there until 3am. And I thought I was crazy....
Here's the solution to the problem, which seems to be no problem at all if you fabricate just about everything:
Here's getting the head back from Cylinder Head Exchange, all nice and resurfaced. They told me they shaved .008 (if that's correct), which apparently isn't much at all, so good news there.
Back at the 10 Motorworks to take care of other things before reassembling the head back together. Clearly very busy at work today.
Taking the car outside to pressure wash the engine bay
Nice and clean
New e28 radiator... the shop fabricator wants to start chopping up my radiator support to mount the radiator further forward. Not sure if that's going to happen easily.
Back at John's (Forced Firebird) shop, he helps me once again assemble the M30 cylinder head.
Valves in
Many hours later
M5 head gasket installed with ARP head studs. I foresee boost in the future :D
Motor, meet car (again)
As the motor sits right now
Today there was not much progress in terms of the motor as I was short of a clutch alignment tool. I am going to have to do some research on getting a new clutch disc as my new one seems to already be failing (will post a thread on that soon), which might further delay this, but we'll see.
I took today to do a lot of minor things here and there. Installed a new water temp gauge to get proper readings, installed a passenger seat in the car, wired in a kill switch, properly mounted the ECU (instead of hanging it with zip ties), and other misc work around the car.
All in all, a lot of progress in a short period of time (considering this has all been done in about 4 work days) and I'm very excited to get this car back on the track. There's events coming up in the next few weekends, so I will surely get the opportunity to burn some tires again in an e30 very shortly :D
This is all for now. More pics as progress continues.
- E
But after running into an old friend from way back in the day, he offered me his shop to work on my car, and every since last Monday, progress is coming at a fast pace. I haven't shared much lately, so I figure I'll post up some pics of the process.
The car's battery was completely dead, however once I plugged in the jumper cables it instantly fired right up!! Now if only it would hold its water temp :p
Getting the car towed over to 10 Motorworks
At the shop, last time it ran before pulling everything apart.
Since this was a body restoration shop, I spoke to the owner about the horrible overspray issue that I have from when I was putting the car together (long story short, shop owners sprayed a white bumper right under my car in a small storage where you could barely fit a lift). I had tried everything to remove it, yet those fellas had some commercial grade stuff that seemed to do what I couldn't with almost no effort. Mind you that a lot of this is dust, but there is a serious overspray issue there too.
First parts arriving... e46 m3 rack, ignition components (wires, plugs, cap & rotor), etc
Starting to come apart, beginning with the front wheel bearings:
Fresh bearings! :D
Looks pretty clean for such an old motor. Turns out this motor has been rebuilt once before.
E46 M3 rack, installing new tie rods in there + steering rack spacers :)
Carlos' (silence) power steering delete. No more PS in this car! One less thing to leak, one less thing to break!
More parts gathering up!
Whoa wait... what happened here?
Bigger catch than most sh*t I saw during shark week
Motor on the stand, starting to be taken apart
Now with the cylinder head pulled, I headed over to Forced Firebird's shop, who helped me take the cylinder head apart. Ran into Carlos and Jay working on Gordon's old coupe shell.
Acid bath on the head to clean it up nice.
All the bits and pieces already off (HUGE thanks to Forced Firebird for his help with this, after taking this thing apart and putting it back together with nothing but his knowledge and extra pair of hands, I now know why it costs so much to have a shop do this.
First problem encountered:
Carlos keeping busy, in the shop where no one sleeps and 5 hour energy shots reign supreme. Everyone there works a 9 to 5 and they are often out there until 3am. And I thought I was crazy....
Here's the solution to the problem, which seems to be no problem at all if you fabricate just about everything:
Here's getting the head back from Cylinder Head Exchange, all nice and resurfaced. They told me they shaved .008 (if that's correct), which apparently isn't much at all, so good news there.
Back at the 10 Motorworks to take care of other things before reassembling the head back together. Clearly very busy at work today.
Taking the car outside to pressure wash the engine bay
Nice and clean
New e28 radiator... the shop fabricator wants to start chopping up my radiator support to mount the radiator further forward. Not sure if that's going to happen easily.
Back at John's (Forced Firebird) shop, he helps me once again assemble the M30 cylinder head.
Valves in
Many hours later
M5 head gasket installed with ARP head studs. I foresee boost in the future :D
Motor, meet car (again)
As the motor sits right now
Today there was not much progress in terms of the motor as I was short of a clutch alignment tool. I am going to have to do some research on getting a new clutch disc as my new one seems to already be failing (will post a thread on that soon), which might further delay this, but we'll see.
I took today to do a lot of minor things here and there. Installed a new water temp gauge to get proper readings, installed a passenger seat in the car, wired in a kill switch, properly mounted the ECU (instead of hanging it with zip ties), and other misc work around the car.
All in all, a lot of progress in a short period of time (considering this has all been done in about 4 work days) and I'm very excited to get this car back on the track. There's events coming up in the next few weekends, so I will surely get the opportunity to burn some tires again in an e30 very shortly :D
This is all for now. More pics as progress continues.
- E
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