Joe's 325i Sport from the UK

[bostonvert]

m20b25 models are soaring up in value now, the local classifieds website is flooded with e30 convertibles and quite a few up around 20/25k now!

ps you should definitely drive the e30 to Spa, you will love it!

[TriggerFish]

Wow, that's a real difference the UK. I'd argue (I don't check that often) that 'verts are cheaper over here too. 20/25k (£) is getting right up to the very top of the non-M3 market.

Spa is on the list, for sure. I've driven to Brugge, which I loved, but that's all I've seen of Belgium.

I took my 330d to Russia last year via Prague, Poland (Krakow, to visit Auschwitz again - still a horrific experience, but so worth seeing), Chernobyl (just amazing - I loved this!), and back via Finland, Sweden and Norway, so I'm not against a road trip.

Next spring/summer, I'm hopeful the E30 will see the Eurotunnel and some part of Europe!

Progress update:

Block cleaned up. Sump cleaned up and refitted with new gasket plus gasket sealant. This was not the horrific job I was expecting. I loosened off the nuts on each end of the engine mounts, but left them on the thread. Then, using an engine hoist with a strap looped around both engine arms, I raised the engine up enough to remove the sump without needing to take anything else off. With the nuts still on the mounts, I didn't need to do battle with getting the mounts to line up with the subframe/engine (which isn't fun.) Without a hoist, I do not fancy repeating this job!



New crank position sensor fitted along with new brake vacuum pipes. The other vacuum pipes are to the FPR, which has been replaced already, and from the rocker cover to the throttle, which will be replaced once both those two new parts are fitted. I'm hoping that this will even out my cold idle and hot starting problems.

Now all I can do is wait for the head to turn up and then crack on with that. Although, due to wanting to give me something to do with my week off, the e46 has very kindly started leaking something from the front of the car. Yay!

[TriggerFish]

I got the head back today. It got a sign off as being OK from the guy who did it (used to specialise in building E30 race cars/engines, but has since moved onto R50/R53/R56 Minis instead). For the £80 it cost, I'm glad I didn't bother doing it myself. He removed the valves from the old head, took out the new valve stem seals from the old head, transplanted them into the new, and then lapped the valves into the new head. The tool alone would have been £40+, so it's not bad value at all, IMO.

Anyway, photos!

The head was a 2001 casting (they stopped making this engine is 1993), so is quite late by the standard of this engine. I don't know when/if BMW stopped making these. I'd be mildlywafflesinterested to find out though.

Considering it's not been cleaned, it looks lovely and new. Ties in with the 'only done a few hundred miles before the car was written off' story.







The all important 885 stamp to ID it as a 2.5/2.7 head.



And the equally important date stamp (my other two were 87, and 89, I found out)



And then my ever helpful cat arrived to assist...



Just as I was finished putting the last studs in, and scraping out some awful rubber gasket stuff, I found this rough-edged hole in the head. My heart sank. I poked it with a long, thin stick, and the stick went quite a long way. I got some water, to see where it went, if anywhere.



Much to my massive relief, it's just a badly cast hole for an oil-way to the camshaft journal. Phew!



So, onward with the rebuild, and 90 minutes later, including a lunch break, it's all back together again.





I did notice that at least two of the rocker nuts where lose, so it looks like this is pointing squarely in the face of user error! :( I shall use Loctite this time, just to be safe!

[tylerhammack]

super clean ride! love the mtech kit

[jhaurimn]

Thank god the cats been around, hes really the one pulling this project along. /s

[TriggerFish]

Thank god the cats been around, hes really the one pulling this project along. /s

I know, right?! Without him, and his brother, this would have fallen on its face months ago!

Their input is invaluable.

[MouseRat]

Wow this is some serious attention to detail. Always nice to see someone from the UK on R3V too. I bought my 318iS from Middle Aston, so not far from you.

I wish I had a garage like that. Unfortunately not that many farms around here.

[pilotskillse30]

Great work

[TriggerFish]

Cheers guys :)

The head is back on the car and timed up. All aux belts on too. Annoyingly, I forgot the two bolts to hold the top timing belt cover, so I've left all of that, and the cooling system, for tomorrow. It gets pretty hot in that garage too, so I can't say I was sad to stop!

Wow this is some serious attention to detail. Always nice to see someone from the UK on R3V too. I bought my 318iS from Middle Aston, so not far from you.

I wish I had a garage like that. Unfortunately not that many farms around here.

Cheers. While it's apart, I figured I might as well spend the extra few hours doing evertythibg else do I can enjoy it uninterrupted for a few years (or that's the plan!) I usually go on e30zone, but it's dying a bit with a lack of traffic, so thought I'd try my luck on r3v instead. I don't have much to offer (i just blunder along and figure it out as I go!), but it's still fun to read.

Yeah, it's about 50 minutes north west of me. Never heard of it until today though! Local councils also rebt out garages (£12 a week here, and property is fairly pricey, so maybe cheaper elsewhere?). The space wasn't as big, and the conditions more restrictive, hence the old Farm unit.

[TriggerFish]

Well, it's all back together again.

I went to fire it up, but no dice. The plugs were dry, and there was no spark. By this point, I assumed it was the CPS, and went home as it was late. I was thinking it over at night, and it occurred to me, maybe I've plugged the CPS and the CID into the wrong sockets...

I went back today, and I took the ECU plug off to measure the resistance of the CPS. I don't like the analogue mutli-meter I have down there, and didn't get the reading I was expecting. I bridged the two pins at the ECU with a length of wire and then checked for resistance in each of the two plugs to work out which was which (closed circuit = CPS plug). Once I'd found which one it was, I plugged them in, and tried to fire it up. Hey presto! It lives! After a minute or so of hunting it settled down in a lovely, rock solid idle. Much better than it was better. Do I thank the CPS, or the renewed vacuum pipes? Or both? Either way, not going to complain!

Bleeding the coolant was a total pain, as ever with this car, but it seems to be done now, about 10-14litres later! Luckily it's just tap water for now. I don't know how I'm going to get any decent level of antifreeze to stay in there though...

It did get a bit tappy at the end of my running session, so I whipped the rocker cover off and it all looks OK in there. I fired up the engine with the rocker off (it doesn't run too well) and cylinder 1 sounds a bit tappy. Hopefully it's just the valve clearances... The oil looked quite runny, but I don't know how runny hot engine oil should be. I'll wait until it's cold and see what it's like then. Assuming it's back to normal viscosity, then I'm happy! I just need to drain the oil (again - this was just to flush out any debris I missed) and the filter, and then book the MOT in.


And just for interest (someone might find it interesting, I dunno!) here's a couple of videos (both at 1x speed, I didn't upload the slow-mo one) of the engine running/turning over. Notice how much difference there is in thickness between hot and cold? Ignore the colour - I'm hoping that's just old mayo from the rods/crank and the filter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEM5tBYNxuo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDWuCV_ruwI

It's most noticeable to look in the pools of oil in the corners of the head and look at the speed of the ripples/movement of the 'bow wave' to get a feel for the differences.

[TriggerFish]

Since this was last updated, all assembly has been finished, and I took it for an MOT (inspection - they check for safety things like brakes, lights, wipers, rust, bushes, emissions). It failed initially on two things - handbrake weak on passenger's side and the brake lights not working (I'd knocked the switch out when troubleshooting the ECU). I fixed the lights there and then, but had to drive it away to do the handbrake. Once that was done, it was retested, and passed without any advisory items! :D

Last year for example I got all of this as a list of failures/advisories, so it's nice to see my work paid off.

Reason(s) for failure
Nearside Headlamp aim too high (1.8)
Electrical wiring insecure (1.9.2a)
Electrical wiring inadequately supported (1.9.2a)
Offside Inner Front Upper Vehicle structure has excessive corrosion, seriously affecting its strength within 30cm of the body mountings (6.1.B.2)
Offside Inner Front Vehicle structure has excessive corrosion, seriously affecting its strength within 30cm of the body mountings (6.1.B.2)
Nearside Inner Front Vehicle structure has excessive corrosion, seriously affecting its strength within 30cm of the body mountings (6.1.B.2)
Nearside Windscreen washer provides insufficient washer liquid (8.2.3)
Nearside Front Steering rack gaiter insecure (2.2.D.2d)
Offside Front Steering rack gaiter insecure (2.2.D.2d)
Nearside Body has a projection caused by damage (6.1.C.1)

Advisory notice item(s)
Nearside Side repeater obscured but not more than 50% (1.4.A.2d)
Rear Brake pipe slightly corroded (3.6.B.2c)
Nearside Brake hose slightly deteriorated (3.6.B.4d)
Offside Rear Brake hose slightly deteriorated (3.6.B.4d)
Nearside Rear Tyre worn close to the legal limit (4.1.E.1)
Offside Rear Tyre worn close to the legal limit (4.1.E.1)
Fuel pipe/s corroded
Standard fitment seat belt missing
Passenger seat(s) missing at time of test

On the way home from the retest, about 1/2 a mile from the MOT garage, it cut out and died. Here it is, stranded at the side of the road.



It was cranking, and sparking, but not catching. Initially, I diagnosed it as a fuel pump, so went to collect a replacement, only to find on removal of the old one, it was OK, and it was actually the wiring repair to injector live feed that was faulty. I replaced that, and is was fine. The next day I was looking forward to a BMW centenary event at Gaydon, the National Motor Museum, so I gave it a long overdue clean, polish, and wax ready for an early start the next day.



Sadly, it wasn't the day I had in mind, and ended up (and pretty much started!) like this:



On the way to the first convoy stop it was fine. Once I'd bought petrol and hit the motorway, it started to creep around the temp. gauge. When we reached the next services and met the rest of the group, a friend, Sam and I drained and bled the coolant system, but sadly no real joy. None of this was helped by the temp. gauge's new found trick for reading maximum full all the time didn't help diagnosis! Was it really that hot, or was the gauge broken? Our thoughts at this point were that the thermostat wasn't opening properly, which is why it started to creep up.

Rather than risk it, or miss the show, I limped it out of the services and abandoned it in a village hall car park, and got a list off Sam (thanks again!) in his lovely Z4M to Gaydon. (Dunno if you got those in the US, but a Z4, with the S54 M3 engine in it. Fun would be a good description!)

On getting back to the car hours later, it was still reading fully hot, despite being stone cold, so it was clearly the gauge at fault. I whipped out the clocks, tightened the common-problem nut on the back, and still had the same issue. To try and get it home, we removed the 'stat and started refilling the coolant system again. There still didn't seem to be a decent flow of water throughout the car, so I called the breakdown people. They arrived, and, weirdly, the gauge started working again. Even without the 'stat in, it started to run hot. His suggestion was that it could be a failed/blocked radiator, and not to drive it (and also to replace the header tank cap). He called a recovery truck, and that was the end of my day.

Since getting home, I've tested the 'stat that was in the car (80c rated) and one of my spare ones so I could compare. Both worked fine, so I put the new one (80c) back in.

I've also found a spare temp. sensor, which fixed the gauge, and a spare header tank cap. Given the gauge is now working, I thought I'd try and run it up to temp., and see what happened. I didn't get chance to take it for a drive as I went out with some friends for a walk (they Pokehunted, I enjoyed the sunset from the top of a hill/vantage point) and a meal instead, but it did purge a lot of air, and sit at a stable temp.

The other morning, I took it for a couple of hour long drive down A roads, dual carriageways, and through town, and it stayed bang on 1/4 on the gauge, only creeping slightly in standing traffic on the A34. So far, it all seems promising. I'm guessing the rad. is OK, and it was just an airlock somewhere giving the illusion of a problem.

I thought everything was OK at this point, but just as I was parking it yesterday afternoon, it cut out again. This time I really have diagnosed it as the fuel pump and have another replacement on order.

Hopefully, once this is done, I can finally get some miles under my belt and enjoy the car. The 150 miles I've done so far seem very positive - it drives nicely, pulls well (although I'm r3vlimited whilst running it in), but the 50-70mph pull in 5th is quite impressive considering it's well out of the power band. It sounds lovely too. Beforehand, all I heard was tappy valve noise. Now that's gone, the note of the M20 shine through, and what a note! :)

Anyway, that's where I am now. It's MOT'd, taxed, insured, and fully on the road, bar a dodgy fuel pump that's awaiting replacement.