My first e30, finally. Latest Update: The Restoration Begins

[Click]

Haha yeah its hard to not spend money on fun stuff, but I need this car to be reliable.







Boom







Got me some nice weathertech mats for christmas. They came with retention clips for the driver side and the instructions say to remove the factory ones and replace them with the ones included but I don't have any factory mat hooks. We'll see how it does with out them.

[CrusherCurtis]

Seeing this thread really goes to show me just how all my money goes into the wrong places of my e30 :-(

[Click]

Thanks for the kind comments.

Replaced the intake boot today, asked for one for Christmas (already exchanged gifts with that part of the family) and I got around to putting it on today.

As you can see the old one was starting to crack. So I figured I'd ask for one and replace it before it causes problems.







Bottom was getting bad and i didn't even know it.



Pretty straight forward, loosen all hose clamps, remove boot.



Move clamps to new boot, and reattach.



Then I got all artsy and played around in photoshop and tried to make a vintage m20 pic...




I've been thinking about this m30. I'm thinking of running it with megasquirt and maybe getting a set of S38 itbs for it. Eventually its going to be turboed and I don't think itbs will offer that much of an advantage over a regular single throttlebody when its turboed. Just some random thoughts for now.

[iamsam]

man, i love these kinds of threads. Keep up the good work!!!!

[freeride53]

Awesome dude!

[schtozo]

Nice work! M30s are fun.
These are some vids of my m30 e30 overseas

First start up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw9pDG1T4pg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

First run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1KHktDpjoI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Second run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGsz-n1dQGw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Brezzi]

awesome project man. love the m30 if i ever swap my vert i wana stuff an m30 in it.

[E30ruben]

BY FAR I enjoyed reading this thread and viewing pics more than any other "maintinence" or "rebirth" of a car.. This is how they all should be, including mine lol great job!

[Click]

Look what the cat drug in...













Pulled from an automatic 88' 735i with a little less than 130k miles. Complete minus wiring harness, MAF and ac compressor. Guy bought the car and was told it had a leaking headgasket and a leaky heatercore. Heatercore was bad but he said there were no signs of the headgasket leaking, but the gasket was replaced anyways.

Guy never put the cam gear back on and I bumped the crank so it needs to be retimed before I put the gear back on and put it back together. Once thats done I can get the torque converter off and put it on my engine stand.

Not quite sure what my ultimate goal for this engine is going to be, all I know for sure is that it will be going into my car.

[Click]

No, the rear wheels are driven while the fronts just sit there and spin, different setup. They're also quite a bit harder to do from what I understand. I'm sure I'll do them eventually...

[FutureE30]

Wonderful job man. Would the process for the back wheel bearing be about the same?

[!AjHoWzA!]

Very nice work! Seems like you are doing the right things.

Way to get the maitenence started.

Keep it up and nice looking car

[Click]

So some goodies came in the mail.



And it was warm out today...



And I was tired of my wheels howling so here goes wheel bearing replacement.

Take your wheel off.



Get the "grease cap" off, I used a small screwdriver and a hammer.



Then you see this.







Bend that little tab out of the machined notch of the stub axle to the point where it doesn't interfere with it. I should have sprayed some pb blaster on the axle nut at this point.





Put wheels back on, lower car, get 1/2" breaker bar and pipe and procede to break breaker bar. *This might not have happened if I remembered to spray the nuts.



Jack car back up, take wheels off and continue to remove axle nuts with a real tool.



Take caliper off and hang out of the way.



Spray some pb blaster on the brake rotor retaining screw and let sit for a few minutes. Take screw out and remove the rotor, which usually takes a few taps of a mallet...



Pull hub assembly off. I used a craftsman puller, the center screw on it was too small and fit into the stub axle and would have surely pushed the threads off so i took a small piece of steel and drilled a hole (9/32 iirc) in it that fit the point at the end of the puller screw and sat at the end of the stub axle.







Sometimes the inner race part stays attached, pull that off too.



Take a look at that bearing you just pulled off.









Look at that clean beauty.



Back to the job. You're now looking at this.



I got new rear dust guards, I don't think they really needed to be replaced but I did anyway. So take the protective plate off.



A couple taps from a mallet pops the old one off.



Get the new one started.



A 2" piece of PVC works marvels at driving it home.



Done.



Put the protective plate back on.

Admire your German made FAG bearing one last time before putting it on....



Use the 36mm socket on the inner bearing and a mallet to drive the new bearing/hub assembly home on the stub axle.



Put your new axle nut on hand tight.



Put all assorted brake parts back on.



I tightened the nut as far as it would go with my impact wrench then put the wheels on, dropped the car and did some extra tightening with a socket wrench and cheater pipe.

Jack the car back up and take the wheels off.

The next step is to bend a part of the axle nut into that machined notch on the stub axle. I used a big punch but it didn't come out very nice. Bentley called for a screwdriver but I don't know how much better a job that would have done. In retrospect, using a dremel and a cutoff wheel to cut notches at the ends would have made a real clean strip to bend into the stub axle notch. But whatever, MOAR PICTURES







Should hold.

Tap the "grease cap" in place. Bentley calls for putting some Loctite 638 (a retaining compound) on it but all I had was red and blue threadlocker so I just put it on dry. It's such a tight fit I doubt it's going to come off.



Put wheels back on, lower car and tighten the lugs to final torque ~75 ft lbs.

In other news I "may" be going to look at an m30 pulled from a 88 735i tomorrow. The intake has the 3.5 on it instead of the 3.2/3.5. This combined with it being from an 88' makes me pretty sure it is a b35. Car had somewhere around 130k when pulled.

[bmw2002tiiagave]

sweet pickup.

[Click]

Yeah, I'll probably just end up getting a rebuild kit and replace them.

Took a pic of me and a friend and our cars...