cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

I went to get my e39 airbags checked out since I got the free inspection for the takata recall. The service tech called my car a classic, I'm not sure what that makes my e30 lol!



I discovered a leak in my e39's radiator (the one part of the cooling system that wasn't new of course!), so I ordered a new Behr radiator from FCP and got in on Saturday and installed it before work, what a dumb idea that was!






the comparison photo was taken at an angle and the new radiator was on top of the box, so it appears larger, it is not. It took a little under 2 hours to swap and bleed the system while taking a/c breaks.
The radiator and clutch fan were the only two things in the cooling system that I didn't replace during the swap, but the clutch fan was actually replaced not long before I acquired the car and is still good, but the radiator was in much worse shape than I remembered it being the last time it was out.



either way...it's nice and new, and with a fcp liftetime guarantee. While the radiator was out, I noticed that the fittings for the factory ps cooler had enough leakage around it, which was enough to get me curious and pulled off those lines just to see how bad the o-rings were...both o-rings were basically disintegrated / basically non existent... so I ran to my local bmw parts counter and got 2 of those, and finished a 2hrs before work. Everything is working great, no more seepage from both areas. All in all today was successful!
--------------------
I'm not a huge fan of the racing dynamic wheels on the e30 or pretty much the wheel choices I have for my e30 with e36 m3 front suspension/5lug. I may have impulse bought some style 5's today. The fronts are 17x7.5 +41 e36 fitment which I guess is pretty rare, rears are e39 17x8's. I'm so dumb though, I forgot I have 82mm stud conversion on there, so I won't be able to run the center caps unless I change those and my lug nuts...UGH






the top pic was from the for sale ad. 2nd one is inside the e30 in case I decide to swap the tires over ASAP. I don't think there's a shop in town i'd trust to take apart the wheels and polish them right now, nor do i want to pay for that really so I decided to fix the curb rash here at home. started rough at 80 grit then moved up to 220, 400, and stopped with a 400 wet sand because it was actually getting shiny and all i really wanted to do was fix the edge.




I'll have the fronts mounted first, I may have found a deal on a set of 17x8's with tires that I could use for burners.

---update----

here are the fronts mounted up




rears with cheap 235/40/17



I wanted a front strut bar purely for reinforcement of the front towers. I got rid of my UUC bar and picked up a cheap megan racing bar. I'm still not sure if I'll run the actual bar, but definitely wanted the endplate that covered all 3 holes vs just 2.





The bar is silly high. I might be able to fit a fist under there, but it does the job and the plates/fitment is spot on! also....I do have a megan racing carbon bucket seat...but I usually don't like talking about that much lol

[s14brent]

i really like how your e30 is sitting, and although i'm no great fan of overfenders, they look great on that car!

Thanks, I wanted more wheel clearance but in all honesty the standard kamotor flares don't add much at all. In hindsight I probably should have gone ultra-wides, but I thought the standard ones looked better lol.

--------------------------------------------

I should have done a few things differently, but now I'm trying to put this thing back together and have some fun with it even if the changes are minimal, more creature-comfort things.

I put a red bulb sleeve on the coolant temp gauge to match my somewhat fading gauge cluster. I might need to look into fixing the bulbs on the cluster in the near future.



threw the nakamichi cd400 back in and ran an aux cable since I decided to keep the car



I decided to upgrade the oil cooler thermostat....I noticed one of the fittings on the derale thermostat was sweating after a 20-30 min drive. I went with mishimoto because it came with fittings and the heat sink, the earl's was the same cost (no fittings) and both earls/mishi have different thermostats you could throw in there 165/180/200F, but I kept with the 180 temp (close or same as derale). Anyways, I ordered it on amazon and it arrived with 3 of 4 fittings, so they had to send me a new one which got delivered today (sunday).



added high temp thread sealant, mishimoto includes dowty seals also, but the oil cooler thermostat is such a pain in the ass to remove (not to mention the waste of 6.5qts of oil). hopefully this fixes the last real issue I know of.



Install was messy and unavoidable....going to fill up with oil before the sun comes up and check for leaks when the engine noise won't piss off the neighbors.



got kind of annoyed at the way the cooler line was routed and decided at least one of the fittings needed to be changed from straight to 45 or 60 degrees. Only thing I could find locally was a 45 degree.



I also trimmed one of the hoses to the oil filter cap (not shown) just happier with the cleaner setup now.



Here's one of that corner all put back together



also....another thing happened today, sold my s1000rr - pretty bummed but happy the e30 will be getting attention.



the e30 will have a safe place here as long as I can get some use out of it! can't wait to dial it in and do a track day already!

[Ludwig]

i really like how your e30 is sitting, and although i'm no great fan of overfenders, they look great on that car!

[s14brent]

Same thing happened with my Recaro SEs

https://www.2002parts.com/bmw/recaro-seat-parts/rec-strap-kit.html

These straps are great but they started to tear up the foam underneath

PERFECT!! Thanks, btw did you order 1 strap kit and 6 hooks? I'm getting kind of confused by the verbage on their site.



"If you're converting from the single sling-type suspension to our 3-strap version, you'll need to order 12 securing clips to fit the straps to your seat pans.)"

[2mAn]

I also fell through the passenger seat recaro bottom seat support while doing a thorough cleaning (when listing it for sale), I need to order new straps/hooks (only found some on ebay in poland or something) - so meanwhile I swapped the seat rails and I'll order the replacement parts next time I need something off the bay.

Same thing happened with my Recaro SEs

https://www.2002parts.com/bmw/recaro-seat-parts/rec-strap-kit.html

These straps are great but they started to tear up the foam underneath

[s14brent]

Super lucky finding that front in a junkyard!

sure did...but i held onto it for almost half a year before I found the rear. Ebay has the copy rear bumpers for $300+, I think I paid $150 so i'm about $500 in total with paint supplies which is phenomenal since I wanted to keep the costs down on the daily.



---------------


I also decided to work on the e30 during the storm last night. I swapped out the vdo temp sensor and the 52mm coolant gauge works again. I also decided to make the car more enjoyable for me and put the cheap race seat back in after doing some adjustments on the seat height. Also threw my wood shift knob back on. I definitely think keeping it is the way to go. I don't know wtf I was thinking







I also fell through the passenger seat recaro bottom seat support while doing a thorough cleaning (when listing it for sale), I need to order new straps/hooks (only found some on ebay in poland or something) - so meanwhile I swapped the seat rails and I'll order the replacement parts next time I need something off the bay.

[jpod999]

Super lucky finding that front in a junkyard!

[s14brent]

Where'd you get the bumpers for the touring?

I got the apparent rattle canned front bumper at the junkyard for $50







The rear bumper I sourced locally (luckily) in a part out (i picked up a bunch of interior bits and the rear lowering links from him. The rear bumper was alpine white. I got both bumpers prepped and painted by a friend of a friend who did a great job paint matching.



Both bumpers are not oem, but the rear fits great for a k/o and the front is decent enough to get my by for the price.

[jpod999]

Where'd you get the bumpers for the touring?

[moatilliatta]

/\

I recently acquired a wood wheel and knob.

Its and interesting feel, but feels right in its own way.

[2mAn]

sell the bike and keep the E30 and live a long life

[s14brent]

I dropped some parts off to an independent local bmw shop here in town (Sin City BMW) and was asked if the diode was bad inside the fuse box. Anyways, I got a spare diode from them, and went to replace mine. the plastic housing basically exploded when i squeezed it, so thankfully i had a new one, but it wasn't the fix I needed.







fast forward to tonight.... i did a thing....





the black/yellow wire from pressure switch to fuse box was pinched between the firewall/cabin. ran some new wire through and a/c kicked right on!! un-freaking-believable!! I'm super happy it finally works! I knew my wiring (r12 hi/lo psi switch to r134a hi/low switch wasn't wrong!)



I'm playing with the idea of keeping it for a bit now and selling my s1000rr. The last 3 times I rode that thing, I've almost been ran off the road by some asshole with road rage, came an inch from a curb (potentially ruining my carbon fiber BST wheels) trying to avoid a suv swerving into my lane because he was staring at his phone....and lastly someone ran a red light and i swear....the brembo's (ss lines, carbon ceramic rotors/ceramic pads) on that bike saved my damn life.....and now I no longer have any desire what-so-ever to ride a street bike in Las Vegas. I wouldn't be against an r6 track bike in the future, but having a $12k+ dedicated track bike is just not in the cards right now.

-------------------------------
e39 touring

I got the m-technic bumpers on, it made a huge difference






I'm still debating if i should just move the stock exhaust over, or throw on a 2.5" can with dual tips out back so i can put the stock diffuser cover back on.....but I kind of enjoy the quiet. meanwhile I finished up the klx110 (143cc with race head and cam, 26mm carb), and here's what it looks like with my sketchy carrier in use!

[s14brent]

so this is my daily, i stopped posting about it here





the fiske fm5's didnt fit the front of the e30 as well as i liked, so i test fitted them on the wagon and they miraculously clear the m5 brake rotor/calipers.





and i installed a curtis hitch to bring my mini bikes around for lot races





and actually just got this picture from the paint shop





m-tech bumpers front & rear for the touring. next will probably be a muffler to fit the bumper exit.



also.....got rid of my suzuki and replaced it with another bmw (can't keep myself away)




(winglets are on backwards here ) bought this from my friend and it has almost as much horsepower as my e30 does after the larger injectors and bren-tune.


lots of carbon fiber here and this was after I installed the gp shift rearsets



but the mini moto stuff has really been my real focus of *fun*



setup the grom for a track day at a kart track in socal

included changing it to gp shift also

getting a feel of the track....nothing to slap your ego than 11 year olds flying past you on kx65's LOL (it's funny looking at these photos from March, I can tell how much I've improved since then on angle and body position)




then i started to build a "practice" bike for no reason at all...still not done btw



--------------------------


so basically all that plus the ever-growing costs of this home upgrade/renovation project is pretty much causing the sale of the e30.



sorry guys!! I really enjoyed when this build thread was still relevant and not stupid photobucket errors.

[s14brent]

small update...












unfortunately it's also for sale

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...32#post4905132

[2mAn]

I'm glad when I made it to the end of the post there was an E30 update! Lol shiftknob looks good. Nothing wrong with enjoying your hobby, even if it isn't the E30. I spend 20s and 50s on my E30 now and 100s on the Datsun. Lol