1987 BMW E30 316, 41,000 Miles, Scotland

[alex230ro]

Wow this car is new!! Very very nice car,i haven't seen one like this in years.

[RustyRuss]

Maiden run this morning, to say it drives beautifully is an understatement, nippy, smooth, quiet - delighted with the little thing :-)






Kind Regards

Russell.

[RustyRuss]

Hi Russell, Yeah I would imagine with your car all of the carb's main electronic parts are in good working order, considering the very low mileage of your car and its condition (unlike mine which I know for certain had lots of detrimental tinkering before I owned it). It is actually a really neat little odd piece of equipment overall, being the last carb BMW ever put in a car, and as you discovered an odd hybrid of traditional carb operation (making air/fuel adjustment on pressure differences) and modern computer controlled fuel injection like adjustments to pass emissions requirements.

As an aside, I would have said one of the last carbs ever put into a car but while working over in Switzerland my University owned, as a collective group car, a base model 1992 Renault Clio. From the factory it had a manually operated choke! More of a glorified go-kart than a car.

Even if you haven't driven it that much, if the ride is more or less smooth and it cold starts without a lot of fuss then the main components are almost certainly in good shape.

Yes you did find the right book! The beginning has a really nice overview of traditional carb functionality and design, which I found to be really useful having not had any prior experience myself working on them. The part on the 2BE is also quite detailed. It gives you all the info you need to totally take the carb apart and do a through cleaning and gasket refresh, which I strongly recommending doing at some point if you have a free day and have the desire to do something mechanically adventurous. Following the book the whole process is very straightforward. Giving mine a thorough cleaning really did make a noticeable difference while driving, it really doesn't take much varnish to build up in certain areas to have an impact on the carbs performance.

The nice part is you can still buy new gasket sets. Doing a quick search on eBay I found this listing but with a bit of searching you'll be able to find others up for sale.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/BMW-316-518-P...item2c4eb09985

Hi Johnny, many thanks again for your kind reply. It certainly is a strange hybrid but one that makes it really cool and appealing to me!! Funny you saying that about the Clio, my first car was My Gran's hand me down 1991 1.4 Fiesta Ghia..auto choke albeit but was certainly Carb fed! A friend had a late Peugeot 205 and it too had a manual choke. It was a very lucky find on the book, it arrived today (was a nice surprise getting in to it after work). It looks great, very informative and the Chapter on the 2BE is brilliant. Interesting in that it gives a list of all cars that used the Carbs featured in the book - that 1800CC BMW Unit (in the E30 316 and E28 518) were the sole cars ever to use the setup!! Ill certainly give it a good old clean as you suggest come the summer time!! I really appreciate the link to the gasket set...ill be purchasing one of them!! :-) Hope you are keeping well? Kind Regards, Russell.

[RustyRuss]

Thanks Blackcharm, much appreciated indeed mate. Utterly love your 325i there, the caps look great and the car looks so mean - bet that surprises a good few people!!!!

[johnnyp]

Hi Russell, Yeah I would imagine with your car all of the carb's main electronic parts are in good working order, considering the very low mileage of your car and its condition (unlike mine which I know for certain had lots of detrimental tinkering before I owned it). It is actually a really neat little odd piece of equipment overall, being the last carb BMW ever put in a car, and as you discovered an odd hybrid of traditional carb operation (making air/fuel adjustment on pressure differences) and modern computer controlled fuel injection like adjustments to pass emissions requirements.

As an aside, I would have said one of the last carbs ever put into a car but while working over in Switzerland my University owned, as a collective group car, a base model 1992 Renault Clio. From the factory it had a manually operated choke! More of a glorified go-kart than a car.

Even if you haven't driven it that much, if the ride is more or less smooth and it cold starts without a lot of fuss then the main components are almost certainly in good shape.

Yes you did find the right book! The beginning has a really nice overview of traditional carb functionality and design, which I found to be really useful having not had any prior experience myself working on them. The part on the 2BE is also quite detailed. It gives you all the info you need to totally take the carb apart and do a through cleaning and gasket refresh, which I strongly recommending doing at some point if you have a free day and have the desire to do something mechanically adventurous. Following the book the whole process is very straightforward. Giving mine a thorough cleaning really did make a noticeable difference while driving, it really doesn't take much varnish to build up in certain areas to have an impact on the carbs performance.

The nice part is you can still buy new gasket sets. Doing a quick search on eBay I found this listing but with a bit of searching you'll be able to find others up for sale.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/BMW-316-518-Pierburg-34-34-2B4-Vergaser-Rep-Satz-/190298757509?pt=DE_Autoteile&hash=item2c4eb09985

[BLACKCHARM88]

Wow, very clean bro! Wheel caps FTW! Caps make my 325is "sleeper-ish", its so fun to troll mustangs and diesel pickups.

[RustyRuss]

Absolutely, I have many happy memories of being in his car at the time, I have some pictures somewhere ill look out :-) Your 325i sounds lovely, hope you enjoy the car, id love to see some pictures! I know what you mean, I was without an E30 for a few years there and you sure do miss them!!

[pipeuy]

I see, forgot to mention mine was a 316i too. Ha it's cool that your dad had a car like that it sure can create a affection for them. Indeed I changed the 316i for a stock 1989 Diamantschwarz 325i, I don't think I could handle not having an e30 at the moment haha :p.

[RustyRuss]

Hi Pipeuy, many thanks indeed for your kind words - really appreciate that :-) Have you replaced it with another E30? that sounds identical to the car my Dad had in the early 90s - it was Zinnobar, a 318i and never had power steering but had foglights! That was the car that started my love affair with E30's :-) Kind Regards, Russell.

[pipeuy]

Wow that's a really clean car!

I recently sold my zinnoberrot 1988 m10b18 e30 (with jetronic fuel injection). It was somewhat similar to your car but the only optional it had was fog lamps, not even ps haha.

Well I hope you manage to keep it as original as posible since it really looks like it's just rolled out of the factory.

[RustyRuss]

Super clean car!
Are the mirrors electric?

Many thanks indeed for your kind words, much appreciated :-) Yes indeed...the sole gadget inside are its electric mirrors :-)

[RustyRuss]

I really love the optionless of the car. single wiper, no stereo, crank window, ects.

Thanks mate, much appreciated indeed :-) Its the lack of spec that makes me love the car - its just so pure :-)

[RustyRuss]

Hi Russell, well mine was a bit more road worn than yours. Fair bit of rust and the interior was pretty beat up as well. This weekend I'll have to dig around my external hard drive, round up some pictures and make a post about it (had quite a few options on it which you wouldn't expect for a base model). At the lab where I was working there were a bunch of older cars like mine that were passed around every few years or so between people coming and going and it showed.

So yeah the 2BE... if a part electronic computer controlled carb sounds like a crazy idea, well it was. How is yours running right now? Since your 316 has pretty low mileage, probably all of the main electronic components are still in good working order (choke flap actuator especially). Probably worth it to replace all the vacuum lines, since they can dry out and crack. Also if the car has spent a lot of time not being driven over the years, the gas evaporating from the carb float bowl can leave quite a bit of internal varnish. One of the best things I did was rip the whole carb apart and clean out all the built up varnish with naphtha. A point of warning though, before you start taking apart the carb for whatever reason make sure you mark all the relative positions of how all parts are mounted to the main body (again the choke flap actuator especially since you can rotate it and get it out of whack when you loosen the hold down plate)

With a bit of work I got most things in good working order but was always at the mercy of how well choke flap actuator was working on a given day. Most carbs have multiple ways to richen up the fuel mix at different times while driving, but with the 2BE all of these are handled by the choke flap actuator and if that goes on the fritz you'll have all sorts of rough running. Mine had the habit of closing up too much during a cold start, making the only way to get the car running by standing outside and having one hand under the hood manually keeping the choke open and one hand inside the car turning the key. Out of frustration I did actually go out and buy a replacment Weber but honestly even though it was easier to start with its manual choke, it never ran as well was the 2BE. Once nice thing about the 2BE is that it really sips gasoline, which made the car great for road trips.

Let me know how yours is running and if you run into any issues. It will be awhile before I can dig up the Haynes manual from storage but I have a fair number of pictures that could be useful depending on what you might need to do.

Hi Johnny,

Great to hear from you again - many thanks for taking the time to reply :-) Much appreciated indeed. Your 316 sounded as though it has bags of character and id really appreciate seeing some photos of the car :-)

I appreciate the input on the 2BE - a picture is starting to emerge of it - no matter what I will persevere with it as it sounds as though its a great thing once setup properly and especially when the choke flap actuator is having one of its better days!! It sounded like you would come to dread cold morning with one hand under the bonnet! The car will only be used on nice sunny summer / spring days and will be tucked up in the garage at all other times. I was reading that the only reason BMW went down the electronic route was to keep the M10 meeting the ever tightening emissions laws of the 1980's - would tie in with what you were saying about it being very frugal!

To be 100% honest with you Johnny - I don't know how its currently running because ive only had the car about 3 weeks - it got started coming off the delivery transporter and run up the drive into the garage and hasn't been started since - that 2 minute journey seemed fine but as to how it is actually on a run / once warmed up I really cant say - im desperate to take it on a little run around our village but the weather has been atrocious since its arrival!

I think I got lucky and found one of the manuals you have in storage: it was the only one I could see for sale on the internet so it should be arriving in a day or two, it states to cover the 2BE, is this the same one you have? Id still appreciate any info you have though :-)



Im looking forward to hearing more about your 316 with the pictures in your thread :-) Ill keep you fully updated with my little cars progress :-)

Kindest Regards, and hope you are well.

Russell.

[cunninglinguist]

Super clean car!
Are the mirrors electric?

[mr.vang]

I really love the optionless of the car. single wiper, no stereo, crank window, ects.