My E30 Rehabilitation! ft. Boost Noises

[zwill23]

Nice writing and awesome work. Great project!

Thanks!

Just spent the last few hours reading this.
Nice work on fixing up this car.

I need to get motivated on fixing my photobucket and transferring to Flickr

Nice work on replacing the rear subframe and all those bushings

Thank you sir! Ugh I know how that goes, I was so pissed when I had to repopulate the thread, but in the end I'm glad that I did. Even when I was using photobucket it was so cumbersome with the advertisements. Flickr is miles better.

Unfortunately, I'll have a post in the upcoming months about the subframe and those bushings... I'm officially condemning poly trailing arm bushings. Switching back to rubber RTABs.

[Mike36]

Thanks for the dash writeup, Im about to tackle that this weekend and would have came across the issues too installing a non airbag dash with an airbag dash.

[Levy3Poop]

And thanks for the subframe alignment plate write up. I ordered the plates during the black Friday sale, and a new oil pan, and some 95A rear subframe bushings. All that for $75 under the cost of the whole subframe on sale

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[smellthebeans]

thanks

Great write up.

[zwill23]

Thanks for the dash writeup, Im about to tackle that this weekend and would have came across the issues too installing a non airbag dash with an airbag dash.

And thanks for the subframe alignment plate write up. I ordered the plates during the black Friday sale, and a new oil pan, and some 95A rear subframe bushings. All that for $75 under the cost of the whole subframe on sale

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Great write up.

No problem guys, glad the posts helped!

[smellthebeans]

coolant

Z,

Not sure how the rusty coolant effect is going along? My '90 also suffered from a similar problem. Essentially, it has to be managed (treated) like an incurable disease. Treatment plan was as follows. I conducted multiple flushes to clean out the system. Last step was to run Prestone AS117 Super Radiator Anti-Rust and always use Pentosin. Drain and flush yearly. Coolant will be tainted with rust but performed more than adequately.

[zwill23]

Thanks, I actually followed a similar procedure when I readdressed my issue. No problems so far!

Z,

Not sure how the rusty coolant effect is going along? My '90 also suffered from a similar problem. Essentially, it has to be managed (treated) like an incurable disease. Treatment plan was as follows. I conducted multiple flushes to clean out the system. Last step was to run Prestone AS117 Super Radiator Anti-Rust and always use Pentosin. Drain and flush yearly. Coolant will be tainted with rust but performed more than adequately.

[zwill23]

Tinkerin' with My Hot Wheels

Haven't taken on any major projects lately, so mostly just tinkering and knocking things off my To Do List. I've had quite the junkyard spree as of late, so finally catching up on installing most of my goodies. Plus... I've been getting sick of looking at the pile building up in my bedroom :p

I'm pushing 122k miles now, so I've offically put nearly 15k miles on the car :devil:

Creepin' through the night...



My favorite gloomy parking spot ;)



Okay okay, onto some wrenchin' ;D

Been giving Kid8 an extra set of hands lately as he picked up a little rehab build for himself. The thing is exceptionally clean, but has been sitting for the better part of the past 14 years. It's a well deserving survivor I think!

Nothin' wrong with a little topless action:



Workin' on this car has been getting me nastalogic, reminds me of when I first picked up mine.

Old rusty gas tank out:



andd onto some of my own projects!

I found an M42 car in the yard with no cruise control, so I pulled the bottom steering column panel off to complete my cruise control delete.

Non-cruise vs. Cruise panel:



To swap the panel I removed the knee bolster, steering wheel, and finally lower panel:



Installed.

For reference, I believe the M20 rocker shaft plugs fill the gap nicely as well if a non-cruise panel can't be found.



Dual Trunk Light Install:

Next on the list was knocking out my dual trunk lights.

For the extra light, I just popped out a trunk light at the yard and snipped out the wiring so I could splice it into my own.

Routed the wires through the deck lid:



Power and ground wires spliced for extra light:



Testing, testing, we have light!



Installed:



Kid8 sneakly hid some ellipsoid headlights off a vert in a local yard for me, so I had a little scavenger hunt tracking them down. Pretty sure these would have been gone if he hadn't hid them!

Ellipsoid Headlight Conversion:



Added some butt connectors and heat shrink to the plug wiring and they were ready to go in.



Out with the ugly old sealed beam:!



Plugs installed.

For cars with sealed beams like mine, I found there are three wires for each headlight rather than two for cars with the ellipsoid headlight upgrade. My understanding is that the extra wire is for an additional filament inside the low and high beam bulbs when the high beams are triggered. Essentially, when the the high beams are flipped on, all four head lights are used.

I believe you can add relays and get a bit crazy with the wiring, but I just took the easy approach and wired the low beams to low beam power, and high beams to high beam power by checking the connections with my multimeter. I simply capped the extra wire.



In with the new! I actually finished this job up in the rain :rofl:



Did a quick and dirty headlight adjustment.

To do this I set the car 25ft back from the wall and measured the distance from the center point of the headlight to the ground. From there, I marked this measurement on the wall and marked an additional line that was directly parrallel from the center of the headlights. Almost as if a laser beam was pointing directly from the center point of the headlights.

With my marks set, I adjusted each light to be at the top left corner and top right corner of my marks for the left and right headlights respectively. Once the low beams were set, I aligned the high beams to the same location.



I would say the low beam capabilities of my sealed beams vs. the ellipsoids currently are about the same, but I've noticed a big difference in the high beams. I think with a new set of bulbs and some new lens I might see an improvement with my low beams, but calling it good for now!

E36 vert / Z3 antenna install:

Scored an E36 vert antenna at the yard, so I decided to probe the E30 with it ;D

Please ignore my gnarly wire crimp.



Popped the antenna through the new grommet, and reused the original E30 antenna ground:



Note that the white wire is for the antenna, the red wire is constant power for the original motorized antenna. Use the white wire!



Installed, finally get to enjoy all those Austin public radio stations:



Steering Wheel / Hub install (Airbag Car):

Admittedly, I didn't have plans to replace my steering wheel but a deal popped up that I couldn't say no to! So yeah... this is a splurge. Thanks Mr. Wolfe ;)

I've eyed the deep-dish Nardi steering wheels for a while now, and I figured the wood wheel would compliment the tan interior so figured why not.

To install the hub and wheel, I locked the wheel in the center position and removed my airbag and steering wheel. Then I pulled this white plastic bit:



Aligned the new Nardi hub tab with the tab on my airbag wheel:



Slipped the hub onto the steering column, and added the spacer and washer. These spacers can be found behind any E30 wheel, here is the part number for reference: 32-31-1-120-260

For the record, a properly sized spacer, washers, etc. I think would work fine for this. These little spacers aren't the end all be all for installing an aftermarket wheel on an airbag car in my opinion. The whole point of these spacers is to provide proper thread engagement for the hub. Without it, the hub would shimmy up and down the column.



Hub installed with spacer and washer!



By the way, I highly recommend getting a proper Momo, Nardi, Sparco, etc. hub for anyone interested in installing an aftermarket steering wheel. Cheap Ebay units are essentially a large chunk of metal aimed at your chest if you're in an accident. Proper hubs are collapsible upon impact so ya don't die! Also, in my experience they fit like garbage on the steering column splines.

My original "Ebay" Hub Sports hub : :down:



Final product:



That's all for now, steering rack, subframe rubber RTABS, and gauges are next on the To Do list ;)

[Mr. Wolfe]

So glad you got the wheel and shifter installed. Looks fantastic!!

Mr. Wolfe

[zwill23]

So glad you got the wheel and shifter installed. Looks fantastic!!

Mr. Wolfe

Thanks! Very happy with it so far, it really enhances the steering feel over the flexy airbag wheel. Plus... I think it looks sweet :pimp:

[zwill23]

Sittin' on the PODI

Updates!

Had a very cool track prepped Minicooper park next to me at CoffeeShark the other day, full roll cage and everything!



The E30 also saw its first snow, at least in my ownership... a seriously rare occurrence in Austin. It was a bit nerve racking driving home in blizzard conditions with high performance summer tires, but the car made it home with no drama!



Interior Updates!

Ordered some E82 rubber floor mats that fit the E30 quite nicely. I put them in without the Velcro pads initially, but the floor mat kept creeping forward each time I used the clutch.

To prevent the mat from sliding, I used a punch to install the Velcro pads into the carpet. The pads hold themselves into the carpet pretty tight, I haven't had any issues with them pulling out so far, but I do try to avoid pulling directly up on them while taking the mats in and out.







I detailed my drivers seat the same way I cleaned up my passenger seat a month or two ago, pretty wild how much filth gets caked on these seats. They really didn't look too bad to begin with.

To clean them I just used Mr. Clean general purpose cleaner, a scrub brush, and some (p)leather cleaner and a rag to finish it off.

Just to show all the shit I got off the seat:



I drove in a torrential down pour heading to work the other day and quickly realized I haven't seen the last of my leaks. This was one of the less obvious ones I've found - through a panel gap water was leaking past the hood seal directly on top of the AC grommet. Water was then able to seep through the grommet and into the passenger side foot-well :-x

Propped up the carpet to dry everything out:



The panel gap:



The panel gap created a perfect little spout to rain water directly onto the AC grommet:



Solution: Fill that sucker with RTV, hopefully this is the last of my leaks!



While I was at it, I decided to tackle some trunk leaks I was getting through the breather covers on the drivers / passenger side. You can either replace the entire covers for ~$40, or replace the o-rings for $4... I opted to just replace the o-rings. Here is the part # for anyone else in need: #64221922280

To remove the breather covers I had to remove the diving board, and unscrew the side paneling.

The nearly 30yr old o-ring:



New o-ring installed:



Leaks fixed! Unfortunately, I found quite a bit of rust under the battery tray... oh well, issue for another day.



Clean trunk!



Rubber RTAB Install:

I swear I don't just drop my rear subframe for fun... but, here it is again. Out of the car for the third time in a year :down:

I finally decided to drop my subframe for (hopefully) the last time to install rubber RTABs. I officially condemn poly RTABs. No matter how much lube, anti-seize, whatever - that I applied to these things, they would start to squeak after a few rains. I had roughly 3k squeak free miles until I started noticing the poly RTABs making noise again, if my car was just a weekend cruiser the poly would probably be fine. But alas, I drive the shit out of this car and I would prefer it to be noise free.

My car already looks like shit, I would prefer if it didn't sound like shit too! :razz:



While I was in there I installed a new fuel filler neck:



I also installed a new guibo on the driveshaft, the other one looked fine, but the peace of mind is nice.

NOTE: For E30s with the small driveshaft guibo and harmonic balancer like I have, here is the part #: 26111225624. I fucked up and ordered the large guibo initially, which several part sites showed as the correct guibo. I'm not sure which cars use the larger style, but I now know E30s have at least two different types of guibos!

I also didn't realize there was a proper orientation to install the guibo, glad I decided to check! Proper guibo orientation: https://blog.bavauto.com/wp-content/..._Disc-0192.jpg

Installed:



The offending bushings:



Poly removed, and rubber bushings installed:



My rear sway bar links have popped off a few times, so decided to install some 12mm lock collars:



Installed:



Fixing Oil Leaks:

I've noticed some oil leaks cropping up, so during my last oil change I replaced the seals on my oil filter housing and cleaned it up with some carb cleaner:



I've also had an oil cooler leak for a while, I didn't have the right size o-ring, but fortunately R134a o-rings work just fine ;)



PODI Gauge Install!!

During said oil change, I decided to get my PODI gauge up and running as well. To get my oil temp / oil pressure sensors installed I went with an oil filter sandwich plate which was a hell of a lot cheaper than some adapters and other options I found and Bonus: it also has provisions for a turbo feed line. For the coolant temperature sensor I used an M14 -> 1/8NPT adapter to be used in the thermostat housing. Lastly, I plan on running a wide-band O2 sensor, but I'll hold off on installing until the Megasquirt Plug-n-Play is up and running :devil:

Sandwich plate:



Sandwich plate installed (Don't mind the janky stock oil pressure sensor, hose clamp is temporary until I can replace the broken plug):



After installing the sandwich plate, I realized the best way to route the wiring (so it isn't near the exhaust) was along the same path as the CPS sensor. Fortunately, I planned on replacing that too so I removed the clutch fan and other bits to gain access to all the wiring.

Old CPS, looks like it was damaged at some point:



New CPS:



Cleaned up the engine ground while I was at it:



Wires routed through the same path the CPS uses:



Through the protective plastic sleeve (bit of a precarious area here):



Coolant temp adapter installed:



Installed, with tucked wiring:





Used a screw driver to give myself a little wiggle room to port the wires into the cabin:



Wires routed above the glove box light panel, above the radio, and through vent:



Wiring up the PODI gauge (I used switched power from the glove box light and ground from the flashlight to power the gauge):



IT WORKS! Extremely happy with how it all turned out, this gauge is seriously cool and has the ability to setup high / low warning limits which is a nice touch. In the future I would like to setup a power distribution block and ground bus (hat-tip to Kid8) to properly get this wired up, but good enuff for now!



Mounted the controller using 3M double sided tape:



Completed install:



Hopefully the reinforced front subframe and Z3 steering rack will be up next!

[vtechnik]

As usual I'm really enjoying this build. It's been pretty inspiring for me and my e30, in fact I think I'm convinced I want one of those vent displays now. Nice job.

[kid8]

Looking good man, love the podi! I'll have to look into those orings for the sunroof vents myself!!

[MB07]

I love this thread. I just bought an 87 sedan with 230,000 miles and I'm taking note of all the things you replaced and making a grocery list of things to purchase.

Question regarding your skid plate. Can you give dimensions on that? (Steal plate thickness, pipe size, plate dimensions, etc) I'm cheap and thinking I can build one similar. I love that it ties into the frame and is removable. Much more structural integrity than other I've seen online.

[K-Bar]

Inspirational! Keep up the hard work man, love how detailed you are. I always try and clean and lube everything I see whenever I work on my car. Makes it so much nicer when you crawl under next Time too haha. You do a great job of that