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On the bright side, it looks good even towed away like that. Beautiful car nonetheless, hopefully you can get her up and running asap!Leave a comment:
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As of right now, we have no idea where the metal came from. We weren't able to get it out last night. Dave said that he's going to work on it (though I wish I could work on it with him) and get it done ASAP. At the very latest, we're both free in Tuesday to go down and spend the whole day working on it, but he sounded determined to get it done. I wish my car wasn't an hour away, that way I could spend all my free time on it.
He was saying it could have been a piston that went kaplut, but we just don't know as of now.
It hurt so much to see it on the tow truck like that :(
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Wow. Crazy story.
Where did the metal in the intake come from? Did a piston, valve, or part of the head explode downstream and work it's way back to the throttle body area?
When do you think the engine will be swapped over and buttoned up?Leave a comment:
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I just got back home now, and I need to rant about how crazy today was.
Clearly, Ruby's original engine was due to die. Whether it be now or later, it was going to die.
Had we not decided to drive to Colorado Bend State Park in central Texas today, it could have died ANYWHERE else.
It died as I was passing through Killeen, where I bought the car.
It died on the right stretch of highway, at the right time, on the right day for Dave to find us.
If we were 30 minutes ahead or behind schedule, Dave might not have ever found us. If we were 30 minutes earlier, AAA would have taken us to the shop before Dave happened to drive by. If we were 30 minutes later, Dave would have already been home by then, going on his merry way with things.
THAT, and he just so happened to have a 318i with the same engine that he doesn't need any more.
I thought it was the alternator, and he volunteered his alternator from his M42 E30 because he JUST HAPPENED to be prepping to do an engine swap (to an S52 for those curious).
If he wasn't getting his car ready for the swap, he wouldn't have gone out to buy an engine hoist and engine mount, or even offered his engine for a parts engine before we saw the shitstorm in the intake manifold.
My mind is too blown by this. The more I think about the chances of all this happening this way, the more baffled I become.
We worked on the cars until about 11:30, then decided to give his neighbors a break from the wrenching for the night. His wife joked "I'm going to have to bake SOOOO many cookies for them!" lol. To top off all his kindness, the dude even gave Lindsay and I a ride ALL THE WAY back to Waco, leaving his place at midnight, despite having to work at 6am. We felt bad for him because he's probably just getting home now (close to 2am), and probably won't get to sleep until about 3 if he has a night routine before bed. I joked that I'm going to have him cannonized to become the patron saint of the E30s for the selflessness. You just don't see that in people anymore.
I need to shower and go to bed now. What an absolutely insane day. I'm sure Dave's on here. If you see this, get some sleep, brother.Leave a comment:
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Thanks, thanks, and thanks! The self tapping screws in the trunk are just to ground the amp. I'm currently waiting on AAA to tow me to the guy's house to swap engines. Not gonna lie, I'm pretty nervous about how big of a job it is, but he went out and got an engine stand and an engine hoist.Leave a comment:
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The drama begins..... I like that.
Super sweet car, and congrats on the engagement.
Digging your build. Well except for the self tapping screws into the trunk floor part (no idea why people do this), but other than that it looks clean!Leave a comment:
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And the drama begins.
Ruby died while driving today. As luck would have it, another E30 owner, with the same engine in his car, picked me up. He's going to be doing an engine swap in his E30, so I just happen to have another engine I can use if we can get the new one in. It'd have 70,000 less miles on it as well! We're at a shop right now, waiting for someone to tow us to the guy's house.
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Some bad news, but some good news I guess. The day after the oil change, Lindsay and I drove up to Denton to see my old room mate, and as I was taking an ramp to go to another highway (hauling around the corner as Ruby likes to), it started sounding like a diesel. I shit you not, Ruby turned into a BMW Tractor. I got to my friend's place and just covered her up because it was clear we weren't driving her anywhere sounding that way.
I googled the problem, and some guys were saying that replacing the timing chain tensioner fixed the problem. Something to do with new oil can give this problem on older engines.
I ordered a new one from Pelican, and it got here super fast thank god. I took out the old one (pictured), put in the new one, and used my BRAND NEW torque wrench to tighten it to precisely about 40NM, as per the online guide's instructions, and gave my neighbors some glorious MagnaFlow M42 sounds! I felt so self conscious while revving. Thank god it only needed about 30 seconds at 3500RPM to get the oil pressure high enough for the new tensioner to do it's thing. The piece on the left side in the picture is actually compressed with a spring into the main body of the tensioner, and oil going into the tensioner extends it which allows it to do it's thing (at least that's my understanding of it).
Here's a video of me doing the revs, so you can hear the sound.
You can hear how awful it sounds when I first started bringing it off of idle, but then the sound goes more normal. It still sounded a *little* off. Maybe I'll adjust the cams soon.
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Also, I went to a big E30 meet yesterday down in Austin! We met up at Rudy's off of 620, drove whatever the lake road is that's near Oasis Brewing, and then drove the road back to Oasis. Great guys; 10/10 would recommend.
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Today we both had a big day; Ruby got her first oil change since I took the reigns, and it was actually the first oil change I've ever done myself! I got her at 212K, and she rolled over 217K on the Austin visit, so she was due!
Lindsay and I went to a pawn shop to get some ramps I saw, but my car was too low to actually use the damn things. I really needed to get the oil change done TONIGHT because we're taking Ruby to see an old friend in Denton tomorrow, so I said fuck it and took off the lip to get her on the ramps, and it worked!
I got some Castrol GTX high milage synthetic oil and a new filter, drained out the old oil, flushed the oil until clean oil came out by using some spare oil I keep in the trunk, and then dumped all 5 quarts of synthetic into her.
Notice how my skid plate is hanging? Apparently there's only 2 bolts (on front and center, and the second one on the passenger side) holding it on. I spun gold out of shit by using it to my advantage by swinging it out of the way instead of taking the whole thing off.
I spent about an hour and a half swearing at Ruby trying to get my front lip back on, and I finally succeeded and drove home to find some Ruby mail! New clips for the rear speaker covers! I'll post pics tomorrow of the new speaker covers on. The clips were easy to install in the speaker cover: literally just push it through. I noticed the bottom plastic tab is broken in the middle of the passenger side cover. I don't think it'll be too noticable to be honest. I'll post the result tomorrow and we'll see if it looks good or like shit!
2 more small things; I made an oil change sticker for myself, and I got my first toll road mail. "Horay" and "shit."
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I met another E30 at a little meet last night! I'd heard there was another one in town, but I had never seen it before, so it was cool to pull up and see another one :)
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How could I forget about when I mounted a holster to my center console?
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A while back, we got a car cover to help keep all the friggin' pollen off of Ruby and keep her clean, as well as keep water out of the car because the roof is horrid. We have a new roof, I just need to find time to install it. I've been putting it off because I know it's gonna be a whore of a job >.<
Also, Lindsay and I got engaged last Sunday :) Ruby is definitely the perfect vehicle for cruising around with my FIANCÉ!
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