Bringing my dad's car back to its former glory and beyond

[dadsbmw]

great work on the coilovers!

Thanks jeenyus

Was hoping to get a bunch done over the Thanksgiving break, but of course today is the first day it decides to rain! Thankfully I had some indoor stuff to work on, so after running a few Tgive related errands, I started on the e30. First up was to finish the front suspension. Literally only got one picture, and it's after I got one of the struts into the housing.


The rest is obvious of course... springs, top hats, and strut mounts installed. Mounted the front struts, lower control arms, brake calipers etc. Need to find the steering rack hardware to mount it to the subframe, but plan on doing the tie rods first. As it got darker I decided to swap out the steering linkage guibo with an Ireland Engineering poly unit. And that was basically the day!




Still plan on making some big headway through Sunday, including converting the AC over to 134a (been dreading this), brake booster, master cylinder, clutch master cylinder, accelerator/brake/clutch pedal bushings, modify the firewall to fit the steering linkage correctly, reinstall the underbody shields and shift carrier, and hopefully get the motor dropped into the bay!

[dadsbmw]

Continuing! Notice my persistence and recall!

Skies were relatively clear today but there ended up being scattered showers throughout the day. I had originally planned to do some "indoor" work last night after Thanksgiving dinner, but was NOT feeling it when I got home... so unfortunately that all bled into today.

First things first, I knew I wanted to get the front end back on the ground. To do that I needed the suspension buttoned up, and to complete that I needed tie rods and a steering rack. Pulled out the new (to me) e36 m3 rack and began the first of the indoor work.


R&R'd the inner/outer tie rods and the front power steering line/cooler.


Received the e36 AC compressor lines (1 new and one used) to cut and modify to fit the e30 system. The #8 to #8 and #10 to #12 splicers also came today, but I forgot to include them in the picture. Need to figure out which line goes where and generally how they route, so I can cut em up and take them to get spliced at an AC shop.


Decided it was also time to start putting together the shifter setup. Had a new shifter cup my girlfriend had gifted me years ago, bought a used shifter arm off a local guy and also sourced a 1.9 z3 shifter and e36 m3 DSSR from Garagistic. All went together pretty well with a slight bit of DSSR bending and the use of one thinner spacer.




The engine cover no longer fit correctly now that I had the obd2 ignition coil harness in place, so I had to make provisions


Drill and a couple snips


And she fits like a glove


Now time to get this lady back on the ground. Finished mounting up the front struts, calipers, and other little odds and ends. Love this picture... new Koni struts, eibach springs, coilover sleeves, and Arc Asylum front subframe. Brake pads, rotors, ss lines, front wheel bearings, 21mm swaybar, IE Motorsport swaybar bushings/mounts/endlinks, control arms, and CABs are all essentially new.



And bolted up the steering rack and attached the tie rods to the front knuckles


I really had no idea what to expect with this new front suspension. I'd taken ~1.25" off each strut, but I'd also put on 7" springs. I guess now we'll see! Threw on the wheels and tires, and the gap when at full droop was obviously much smaller than previously


But we're not ready to put her down yet! Hopped under the car to replace the shifter carrier. The old one was absolutely shot. The rubber was actually pulled out with the shifter. New one will hopefully work out much better, although I do plan to expirement with cutting and offsetting the old one to allow the shifter to sit more centered




And reinstalled the exhaust shields and brace




Now it was time to put her back on the ground.


And boy is she ever low! This is without a motor in the car! Sitting here missing ~500lbs from the front of the car, it sits probably an inch lower than it used to sit WITH a motor. Pretty funny. Thankfully I've got at least a few inches of upward adjustment.




And looking down into the engine bay


Next up was the brake booster. I knew I would have to go from the drivers footwell, which is something I was dreading. While I was preparing to do this I decided I'd replace all the wear items down there as well... brake master cylinder and all the bushings/springs for all three pedals. Upon getting down to inspect, however, it was all in like new condition. This car is so funny to work on. Some components feel like they haven't been replaced in 400k miles, while others look brand new. You never know! Looking around an drinking in the shittiness of the job, I decided to just leave it all. I've still got the parts and can do it in the future if I need to. Moved on to the task at hand, disconnected the spring and pulled the pin from the brake clevis and removed all 4 bolts holding the BB in place. God I love my 3/8" impact. Out she goes!





Took it into the garage to compare to the x3 booster


I'd originally assumed I'd need to chop a significant portion from the rear thread on the x3 booster, but after measuring and comparing, I'm so happy I didnt! We'll see how it aligns with the brake pedal, but I installed the clevis at the very end of the shaft.


Unfortunately I couldn't install the x3 booster and master, because I still needed to modify the firewall to allow my airbag equipped steering column to work correctly. Unfortunately it was getting dark and obviously was going to pour rain tonight, so I moved on to other priorities. My hood latch hasn't worked in quite a while due to a stretched latch cable, so I quickly replaced that. This way I would feel confident closing my hood and know I could open it again in the morning! Unfortunately didn't take any pictures of this process, but know that it was been done. As I closed her down for the night took a couple more pictures




So funny to me that despite this only being ~4 hours of work, I ended up doing so much more. Shows that cleaning and fixing little issues really is a time suck! Hopefully it will continue at this pace as I continue!

[dadsbmw]

Rained most of the day and I felt like crap, but still managed to get a bit of work done. Pulled out the new splicers and cut up the AC lines to get that process started. I really want to get them crimped up and installed before the motor goes in, but I think I'll need the motor in first to make sure I get the lengths just right.




Replaced the stock throttle cable as well


And started on getting the firewall modified to fit the new steering rack. Little bit of a PITA to get it all out, but managed to do it without pulling the carpet, which made me happy!

[2mAn]

The joy of swaps, always take 3x longer and costs 3x as much, but it will be worth it on the end. Keep it up!

[Albie325]

Wow that's a lot of great work, very gratifying I'm sure. Just went back in the thread to see what rims those are as I didn't recognize the bolt pattern as being correct for BBS RS1001's, they look fantastic on this car. Excited for more, keep it up!

[dadsbmw]

The joy of swaps, always take 3x longer and costs 3x as much, but it will be worth it on the end. Keep it up!

So. Much. More. I remember doing the math when I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to buy the initial parts. I really have spent like 3x the initial investment. Once I agreed I would open my wallet, it just never closed!

Wow that's a lot of great work, very gratifying I'm sure. Just went back in the thread to see what rims those are as I didn't recognize the bolt pattern as being correct for BBS RS1001's, they look fantastic on this car. Excited for more, keep it up!

Thanks, I did a lot of searching before I landed on them. They're Emortal RS's in 16x8 with +25 offset and 4x100 bolt pattern. Always on the lookout for something better though... would certainly give them up for a pair of Impul Silhouettes or custom 16" bottle caps.

[dadsbmw]

Did NOT get much done today. Made a list last night hoping to get the motor dropped today, but didn't even come close. It rained all day and in the midst of fabrication I cut my thumb. It wasn't a terrible cut, but boy did it bleed! My girlfriend thought I'd cut my thumb off at first, but after calming down we ended up not going to the emergency room/urgent care. Only worry at this point is tetanus, which I think I've had the shot within the last 10 years...

Anyways. Finished fabricating the bracket for the steering linkage




While I was under the dash I decided that I'm truly a glutton for punishment, and to do it right and replace all the extra pieces I'd bought. So out came the clutch master cylinder and soft line




And that's it! So close yet so far!

[jeenyus]

i get it. especially in the winter season (not sure you're location). I keep mounting things to accomplish now that I have my whole car apart. I really want to finish this month though, so that's the plan! Keep up your motivation! you got this!

[columbo_01]

Love reading your thread man. Its amazing how far you've come along. Keep it up.

[dadsbmw]

Thanks guys, always appreciate the motivation! Wish photobucket hadn't ruined the first 3/4 on this build though, and you could still see the full progression...

[dadsbmw]

Update: Motor is in. What a fucking nightmare. That is all for now.

[dadsbmw]

Ok, for the real update. I was committed to getting the motor in. I have a couple buddies at work that I talk cars with, and I'd suggested the motor would be in weeks ago, and they were starting to get skeptical. I knew I was finally at the point that there was really nothing holding me back from dropping her in, so that's what I was going to do.

Saturday was committed to getting the brake booster and steering linkage stuff figured out, so I wouldn't have to deal with any of that when the motor was in the way. I haven't mentioned it yet in this thread, but the x3 brake booster setup isn't quite as straight forward as I was lead to believe. First of all the mounting bolt holes don't line up. Being a lazy asshole I made the now regrettable decision of just trying to more out the holes to give them enough space to fit. I eventually found even that wasn't enough, and I ended up buying some new bits for my die grinder to slot them a bit. I really just have just slotted them from the start... you live and you learn. Unfortunately no pictures of this.

I also came to the conclusion that the clevis, even when extended as far as it would safely go, was still slightly too short to let the pedal fully extend. This would cause the issue of both not engaging the brake pedal sensor properly, and the brake pedal to sit slightly lower than the clutch pedal. So I cut that bitch off and welded on a bolt in it's place.




Notice the washer that I now have to use to allow proper tightening of the mounting bolts. Much better length and adjustability. I also found that my modified shift column cover wasn't quite modified enough. Ended up cutting out and painting a new one to take it's place. In the below picture you can see the old cover underneath and the difference between the two


Test fit and it looked good, but I had to do a bit more clearancing near that left mounting bolt.


There's a rubber gaskety guy that needs to fit on the inside lip of the cover, and the captive nut which holds the mounting bolt was in the way. So that got a quick trim, I ran the column shaft through the firewall to see how the clearance looked now.


Sitting pretty! How about the gasket?


Doesnt fit terribly. Unfortunately theres a bit of a gap at the top, but the whole thing's been moved down, so what are you gonna do? But the real test is to see if the inner seal is correctly mounted on the cover


Bingo! With all of that in working order I fit the steering rack into the end of the column linkage and mounted it to the subframe. Perfect, we're half way there!


Next up is the brake booster. At this point I'd already test fit it a few times to I had it down to an art. Push it in place, line up the clevis with the brake pedal, tighten the mounts, install the brake pedal sensor and check for full engagement, make sure the brake pedal and clutch pedals are the same height, perfect.


Now to the engine bay side. Cut off the little pluggy guy on the clutch master feed line, bent up the brake lines and fit them into the line adapters for the larger x3 brake booster female fittings, tighten it all up.


Lastly, installed the ss clutch line and e36 slave cylinder


The engine bay is officially ready! Went into the garage and worked on some of the small odds and ends on the engine to get it prepared. Installed the fuel hard lines on the intake manifold to feed the fuel injectors. I had the hard line floating around this whole time and never bothered to figure out how it mounted. Picked it up, held it against the underside of the IM and it became pretty obvious... it's like it was meant to be there!


Finally got around to finding a length of hose to connect to my little 3D printed crankcase vent. The hose is about 8" long and connects to the stock hose which in turn connects to the oil separator. Purposely made the outer diameter of the crankcase adapter 21mm to match the 21mm OD of the stock hose where I would be cutting.


And fabricated a mount for the dipstick tube. It's a bit hard to see, but it's a little black bracket somewhere in that mess.


Time to take the motor off the stand. Got out the trusty hoist and attached what I'm hoping are the proper lift points. With the motor pull we didnt have enough height or angle, so this time I was sure the cut all slack out the chains to give as much height as possible, and extend the rear chain a ton to provide enough angle. And with that, I closed up shop for the night.





And Sunday is here! Time to finally get this bitch in! All I needed to do was get the flywheel, clutch, and trans mounted and drop the motor... no problem! Flywheel went on without issue.


Same with the clutch


It was about this time that I realized... FUCK! I dont have transmission bolts! Did some test fits of other bolts I had and figured out what the sizes and pitches were and made a trip to the hardware store. And they actually had them! Ordered a few cap head bolts and a few hex. Got home and about half of them fit. Went and exchanged the rest and BAM! She's on!


Now I've done a few motor swaps in my day, albeit none of them on an e30, but I had just pulled the motor from start to finish in a single day, so just getting the motor in and on the mounts shouldn't be much of an issue... especially since I'd had a chance to learn a bit and made efforts to get the angles and height better. I started the actual drop at 3pm and even though I starts getting dark around 4:30pm these days, I figured it wouldn't be an issue. Getting it up and over the front clip and started into the bay was no problem.


But that was it. Despite not being able to get enough angle onto the m20, I still had no issue removing it with most of the accessories in place... I realized this would not be the same. Removed the AC belt tensioner... not enough. Removed the AC compressor... not enough. Around 5pm it was getting pretty dark and I started STRESSING. Everything I'd read (which frankly wasn't all that much) suggested this wouldn't be an issue, bit it was already dark and there was no end in sight! Theres no way I was going to leave it on the hoist sitting half way out of the car overnight. Even if I did, I had work for the next 5 days and surely wouldnt be able to find daylight to complete it. So I pressed on. Thought I could leave the AC condenser in place during the motor placement... I could not. I've got more money than brains these days.

To make this long arduous story short, I discovered through trial and error that because I was using an Arc Asylum oil pan and front crossmember:

• The front swaybar could not remain in the stock location- period. There's actually a little extension on the front of the subframe that I was always curious about... apparently it's to relocate the swaybar
• The steering rack would need to be dropped
• The front subframe would need to be dropped

So I discovered and corrected these issues to get the motor in place in the dark by myself by 9pm that night. It was not enjoyable. The ground was wet with rain, I was soaked even with my full coveralls, but I made it work. I swear I learn everything the hard way. I left the night with one final picture


Today is my work from home day so I took the latter half of the day to try to button a few things up while it was still light out. I've got to say, I left the underside of the car in such disarray, I was very worried about the effort required to finish everything. This is what I came out to


But to my excitement the path forward is looking pretty straight forward! Reinstalled the AC compressor, tensioner, and belt. I know I want to get the AC lines crimped up ASAP, so I started on those. A bit of test fitting and trimming with the motor and new destroyed condenser in place.


And I've got these babies cut to size and oriented. Now to call around and find a shop who will actually do the work! Fingers crossed.


Started mounting the steering rack but having issues getting the bolts in. Also need to paint this little Arc Asylum engine pan shield I have. Once the rack is in place I can mount the power steering reservoir and run the lines to the rack and pump and throw the front sway bar on. As it started getting dark I pulled out the wiring harness just to get a quick mockup. Ended up routing it, mounting the support bracket, and connected a majority of the connectors. Main pieces I need to figure out now are the correct hookup for the power and ground at the distribution block and the starter cables.


So this weekend I have what?

• Finish wiring
• Mount ECU
• Tighten guibo to trans bolts
• Mount clutch slave
• Bleed brakes and clutch slave
• Steering rack and swaybar stuff already mentioned
• Mount and modify midpipe and connect to rear of exhaust
• Mount new AC condensor
• Run AC lines
• Mount radiator and puller fan
• Run cooling hoses to radiator, heater core, and overflow
• install intake manifold

I think thats about it? I mean sure, it's a list, but I'm hoping to at least get a first start by Sunday! We'll see...

[mike.bmw]

Awesome work. I've been enjoying this so far.

[rzerob]

Any hydraulic line shop can crimp those adapters for your ac lines.

[dadsbmw]

Any hydraulic line shop can crimp those adapters for your ac lines.

Truth. The issue however is that hydraulic line shops don't really exist in the SF Bay Area. I did manage to find an AC shop near me though, that can do it. There are some problems with crimping one of the lines though... we're gonna have to move towards fabrication.