cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

not much of an update, but made a little progress.

changed the front skidplate hardware to countersunk bolts.



much better



spaced down for optimal clearance.



in other news, i got my new tires from tire rack. i totally fu***d up on e30 front tire size. I may just use them for the rears. ibshouldawent2054516




a local e30 guy was clearing out his garage, picked up subframe with akg toe/camber adjustment and garagistic (i believe thats what he said) subframe bushings. I went ahead and placed an order for garagistic differential reinforcement plates,l trailing arm reinforcements and sway bar reinforcement plates. I'll prep the rear subframe for welding when the parts come in. The trailing arms will probably have to be done whenever i drop the existing subframe in the car.



I started to bolt up the front end again so it looks like an e30 again!! Had to make a few modifications to the front valance to fit with the additional 90 degree fitting at the oil cooler. I still have a bit of gap on the passenger side, not really sure why.....



I decided to inspect the braided line on the reservoir that goes to clutch master, and it's in worse shape than i thought. One thing led to another, I ended up ordering a new clutch master, akg bushings for brake & clutch pedal, new braided hose/firewall grommet. it's probably going to be a huge PITA with the current car location.

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offtopic...getting ready to do some work on the e36 m3. I've got an oil leak at the oil pan that's driving me nuts. I've been collecting parts for a while to take care of this. (new oil pickup, vac baffled oil pan, offset steering wheel spacer, oil change essentials and new ngk sparkplugs.) I also purchased new crush washers for the PS system.

First off tires. I took off my fiskes almost 6 mo ago due to cracking one on a pot hole. I got the wheel fixed about 3mo ago, and it's been sitting in a corner for too long. I ordered a set of 235/40 Dunlop vII Starspecs. Loving them so far. Had to raise the car to fit them though since I had something significantly smaller 205/40 on the 8" wheel prior.



test fitting the front and rear, I'm no longer running spacers. feels weird.



took the car straight for an alignment. very happy with the outcome. I took the car to get an ac recharge after. guy said I was low a full pound of freon. No wonder I was dying!!



added a few things to install on the e36.





Ever since I got the e30 gauges wired up I've wanted to install oil psi on my e36 (since I'm not sure if the previous owner welded or had a secure wire nut on the pump. I picked up the two vdo gauges locally (used) for a good price, and i had my parts list that I did on my e30, so I went ahead and ordered everything up. I love how oem looking the gauge pods are.

[s14brent]

It's funny how I keep thinking no progress will be made, but all the small things add up so quickly! I wiped the dash down with meguiars vinyl cleaner. It's starting to look and feel like a car again!!



After doing some searching, I found out who made the gauge pods, a company called euwerks. I ended up using a hole saw behind the gauges as the diy/install thread for it suggested.



i don't believe this was the final stage of the install, just one of the in-between photos taken. I left the stereo out since I won another nakamichi cd400 on ebay, but have to wait for it to come from "ze motherland".



I installed a new clutch slave cylinder sort of one of those "while you're there" things. Since I need to bleed the system, now was a good time to do the FC brakes. I got the kit from Avery (?) - everything was super simple.



Then I found out I ordered the wrong FC brake pads over a year ago, so I'm stuck with some hawk hp+ in base model fc sizing. I decided to go with hawk HPS pads this time around - might be better for street driving with non-abs and all.

I knew the wheels wouldn't clear, but I didn't realize it was going to need a 15mm spacer to clear. (picked up a full set of ecstuning 15mm hubcentric spacers locally for a good deal)



barely any clearance



I'm playing with the idea of kamotors flares or look for maybe just look for new wheels. I might mount the hankooks just to see what I have to work with. maybe raising the car and a fender pull might be enough.


meanwhile....since I'm waiting for brake pads, I went ahead and installed my UUC front sway bar. I decided to try and reuse the garagistic spacer (meant for stock sway bar), I found a large washer(s) that fit the gap perfect. I have a feeling I didn't even need to use the spacer for clearance. If it bugs me in the future, maybe I can have the whole spacer shaved down flat on a lathe. Right now I'm wondering why I didn't just do this in the first place.



Its been in the triple digits temp-wise in Las Vegas. I'm not sure how much more I can possibly get done, all I know is the idea of cutting & tack welding the new exhaust components under the car in these temps sounds like a huge bag of NOPE!

moved the catch can for a third time today. got the engine harness covers on for the most part, and threw on the uuc front strut bar finally after owning it for like 2 years.



pretty stoked how clean this looks



trimmed the s52 plastic cover and busted out the nice camera

[s14brent]

That hose looks kind of pinched, you could shorten it where it meets the radiator neck by ~1" and still have lots of engagement on the neck.

you're right, I'll have to trim it back a bit.

this is great, nice work. Keep it coming!

Thanks man

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I had no idea I'd have time this weekend to pull this front headliner from a local part out. let alone install it.



No wonder the check panel was having issues staying in place



closer up



I used the same "pliobond" glue for the edges lightly. It actually looked like the stuff BMW originally used. I'm going back to the dude I got the headliner from, my sunvisors have some tears in them so I didn't reinstall those, here's a pic of the replacement liner installed.



new (to me) visors installed!!

[JZM3]

this is great, nice work. Keep it coming!

[CorvallisBMW]

That hose looks kind of pinched, you could shorten it where it meets the radiator neck by ~1" and still have lots of engagement on the neck.