My new e30 resurrection project

[shawmcbigdis]

So finally another update. Working on the e39 took way longer than expected, so the e30 was my daily for a few months. Then went back to Cali to visit family and pick up parts I had waiting for me.

So I got the un-dented fender, ES air damn with fog lights and brake ducts, the last piece of the under dash (driver knee bolster), a super clean no tears black rear seat bottom, and I was also able to score a set of basket weaves with tires. So here it is with all that installed, but very dirty



Of course the new fender isn't even in this pic, because its on the other side, but whatever. I didn't' paint the air damn yet, because I'm just to darn lazy right now.

The air damn mounting still needs some work. I don't have the outside passenger side bracket, but that's easy to make with some parts from Home Depot. Also on the passenger side the side bolt bracket thing that bolts to the bottom of the valance (or is it the fender, whatever) is missing, so I need to do something about that. Also on that side I'm missing the screw bracket thing for the bumper side molding, so everything on that side is droopy.

After it being my daily for so long I've rearranged my priorities for it. It's needs a new exhaust, no matter what I can't plug the holes in the muffler and it sounds awful. Also it needs a skid plate. I purposefully got the BAV Auto springs because they seemed to be the tallest lowering spring out there, but the oil pan is still uncomfortably close to the ground. I've been thinking of putting a spring spacer between the spring and strut to raise to raise it up a bit. Something like this Amazon spring spacer But I'm a little uncomfortable with how that will effect the seating of the spring, and if it will make it possible for it to kind of "fall off" the perch. For the rear I'll just add some extra thick bottom spring pads.

Oh, also annoying the cruise control went out on it. It had worked fine since I bought it, but it just stopped working a few weeks ago. Not really sure how to even troubleshoot that.

Still dreaming about an IS head swap and a 3.73 LSD. But everything is on hold for a while.

[shawmcbigdis]

OK, so I finally got around to taking care of the over spray that got on the hood and roof when I painted the rear of the car, so the paint has some shine again. Wet sanded with 1000, then 3000, then rubbing compound then polish. I did it all in the garage, but it was still about 90 in there, so I was exhausted, and didn't clean up the polish splatter very well. SO got the car out before it got hot this morning and cleaned up most of the extra polish flung around the car with some rubbing alcohol and a microfiber towel. Decided to finally try and clean the wheels while I was out it. I didn't take a ton of pics, but here is one of the wheels before cleaning, its actually one of the less dirty ones;



And here is a shot of one of the wheels after cleaning, this wheel was actually a lot worse than the one above, but i didn't take a before pic.



Holy cow are these things hard to clean. Before I put them on I tried some kind of spray on hose off no scrub cleaner. It did very little. This was Armor All Extreme foaming wheel cleaner, used a wheel brush that's kind of like a large bottle brush to get into all the nooks. This wheel I went over twice, so its probably the cleanest. Still needs a bit of work. Brush wasn't getting the bits where the spokes connect to the wheel very well, I tried a microfiber cloth, but that just wiped up the cleaner, not enough scrub to it. The finish on these wheels seems to be in pretty good shape (outside of the curb rash) so I don't want to use anything to abrasive. Any ideas what to use to get the last bit off?

[Tzantushka]

Try Carpro IronX or Sonax wheel cleaner. There are a few other Thioglycolic acid based wheel cleaners that oxidise and remove the embedded iron particles and brake dust in those hard to reach spots.

[shawmcbigdis]

So I barely drive the thing and stuff is still braking :-(

Took it out to get some ice cream with the fam a few nights ago and while I was turning (kind of hard, making a left turn against a 3 lane road, so trying to get out of the way, but not crazy since the kids were in the car) my seat kind of popped, and now the seatback on the driver seat is kind of loose. It can wiggle back and forth, I haven't really looked at it, it seams like the connection on the outside, has lost its bolt or something.

Then I went to drive it to work today, since it's finally cooled off a fair amount, and the darn parking brake is stuck. Its been in the garage, but it has been pretty humid lately, and I obviously kept the brake on the whole time. Messed with it for about 10 min's, pulling and releasing the brake handle and giving it a tiny amount of gas while in reverse and could not get it to budge. Going to try the "tap the rotor center with a hammer trick and see it that loosens it up. If so I'll pull the rotors and see of there are any obvious issues with the brake and lube it up. If that doesn't work, how the heck do I get the rotor off to fix it?

[2mAn]

Theres a way to adjust the parking brake, search and you can find it. basically an adjuster knob like most drum brakes have, because thats all the ebrake is, a drum inside the rotor...

BTW the car looks fantastic with the ES damn and those side skirts! Keep at it. These cars are usually neglected and yours seems to have been pretty bad when you got it. Just keep chipping away at it

Lets see a new pics since you've cleaned it up now!

PS I hate cleaning BBS wheels too... the worst

[shawmcbigdis]

Theres a way to adjust the parking brake, search and you can find it. basically an adjuster knob like most drum brakes have, because thats all the ebrake is, a drum inside the rotor...

BTW the car looks fantastic with the ES damn and those side skirts! Keep at it. These cars are usually neglected and yours seems to have been pretty bad when you got it. Just keep chipping away at it

Lets see a new pics since you've cleaned it up now!

PS I hate cleaning BBS wheels too... the worst

OK, tapped the rotor centers with a hammer and the brakes came loose, then turned the adjuster a bit to loosen them up. I'll also not use the parking brake whne parkign the car for longer periods to try and avoid this again.

And yes, those BBS wheels are so hard to clean, but they look so perfect on e30's, especially with those side skirts, such 80's awesomeness.

Thanks 2mAn. Nice to get some praise from another big bumper "e" owner, especially seeing as how nicely yours is coming along.

By the way, sorry about the fender dent on your car. But could be worse, this happened to my e39 just a couple days ago;



But, it will probably just buff right out right? Worse part is, it was technically my fault (I was backing out of a parking spot. But the kid I hit, is known to whip out of the parking lot crazy fast (this was at work). I pulled the security footage, and its clear that he saw me before I could have every seen him,and he started to veer away from me, but didn't stop. I looked down for a second, and bam, ran into his rear wheel (big 22" on a lifted F150, he of course filed a claim against my insurance for a scuffed wheel, damn it!. Although the good news, looking at this picture just now I realized that piece isn't part of the whole rear quarter panel, checked realoem and sure enough that is a separate panel sweet! Off to pick and pull to gt a bumper and whatever that piece is called. Although upon closer inspection it looks like it is welded on, not bolted, so that might be harder than I thought, dang it.

[shawmcbigdis]

OK, pulled it out of the garage to get a few quick pics of it in all its "glory" It needs to be washed, but I just touched up the paint on the passenger fender, so I still need to wet sand and polish it, which is also why the bump trim piece is missing there. Got the trim piece freshly plasti-dipped, and new clips, just waiting to finish the "paint work" on the fender.





Anyone know where I can get new "es" badges? The old one was in pretty bad shape, if nothing else I will leave it off till I do a head swap some day then just put an "is" badge on it.





I think these pics perfectly show the trick of my paint "skills", looks pretty good form 10 feet away, but man are there problems up close. But its not a show car, so I don't care.It looks a ton better than the pics from the first page.

[shawmcbigdis]

Wow, long time since the last update. So lets see. I added a cheap ebay shifter boot and knock off ZHP shift knob. Looks pretty good for a grand total of like $15.



Also scored a Z3 short shifter, complete with late model shifter support arm with nearly new Garagistic poly bushings for cheap on FB marketplace. Ordered a garagistic DSSR and the other misc parts I needed, including a shifter shaft seal and trans output seal and new CSB.

Old shifter plate mount, with annoying vibration dampner;



New shifter arm setup;



When I finally got it all back together the shifter was awesome, but there was a problem. Three was a horrible vibration. I marked the driveshaft before I took it apart, but after cleaning it up and everything replacing the CSB a erased the mark I made on the front half. When I put it back together I thought I saw a faint line and went with that. Well I was wrong obviously.

At the time I didn't know about the factory white dots. I took it apart again and found the dots. Turns out I had it turned 90 degrees. Well after re-aligning it, there was still a slight vibration. Some poeple told me it might be off by just a spline or 2. So I took it apart again and tried re-aligning it. It looks perfect to me now, but there is still a vibration.

So hear are the "problems" I didn't mention earlier the I think might be causing the vibration now. From what I think is most likely to least likely.

1) The u-joint on the front half of the shaft is half bad. one of the joints is extremely stiff and very hard to move, the other half is fine, moves freely and no play from what I can tell.

2) The CSB. Before I put the new CSB on, it spun freely, as any bearing should. After I pounded it on the driveshaft it kind of stuck every 180 degrees. I pounded it on with a pipe that seemed like a perfect fit. I thought maybe I pushed it to far and the outer race was just barely rubbing on the shaft? But, being lazy, I just ignored it and installed the driveshaft like that. When I took it apart the 2nd time, I realized the CSB now spun freely again, so I thought maybe I was right about it rubbing the shaft, and it had just cleared itself naturally. However, maybe there is something wrong with it, that isn't evident with just spinning it by hand at low speed?

3) I snapped on of the ears of the transmission mounting points. Again, I'm lazing and didn't want to get out from under the car when I was reinstalling the output flange nut, and used the mount to brace it when I torqued the nut down. Now obviously cast aluminum is not strong enough for that type of work. I replaced the mount bushings with some Condor poly bushings with large washers. From what I've read on the internet lots of people have broke the mounts like that and just run big washers without problem, so I doubt that is the issue.

4) the dampner on the driveshaft actually did something on my car. I highly doubt this, since I haven't heard of anyone have problems removing this, so I don't think this is actually the issue.

I do have another CSB here, as I ordered one before I took everything apart the 2nd time. I might go swap it now just to try. Can't really hurt anything at this point. If that doesn't fix it, I assume my only recourse is a new driveshaft. I have a line on a used one local here. We just need to pull it off the car it is currently on. Of course, we won't know the state of its U-joints until we get it off. If that one is bad, I guess a rebuilt one is my best bet. I've heard good things about Driveshaft Specialist of Texas. They offer a fully rebuilt e30 driveshaft, with servicable u-joints for $400 including shipping and return shipping for the core. Anyone know of anyplace better than that?

In some good news, I scored a set of late model projector headlights for cheap also. Just need to get them installed. They are not Euro smileys, but still they have to be way better than the sealed beams, I could barely see those things at all at night.

Of course without the vibration fixed it won't be driving anywhere, let alone at night.

[econti]

What speed does the vibration start at?
Do you only feel it under acceleration or is it at all times?
I have dealt with about every cause for a vibration in a E30, so we will be able to figure it out.

[shawmcbigdis]

What speed does the vibration start at? Do you only feel it under acceleration or is it at all times? I have dealt with about every cause for a vibration in a E30, so we will be able to figure it out.

It's basically constant, and gets worse as speed increases. Well constant except for when not moving of course. I decided to go ahead and swap the CSB again, just because I have another one. And I noticed something when I took it off. Behind the CSB, there was what looked like another dust cover piece, like what goes on the front of it under the snap ring. From what I've seen online that shouldn't be there, so I went ahead and removed it. Ran out of time before we had to go to dinner, so I will put new CSB on tomorrow and try again. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[econti]

Get yourself a new locking nut, the one with the plastic in it that clamps down on the splines, part number 26117514037.

[shawmcbigdis]

Get yourself a new locking nut, the one with the plastic in it that clamps down on the splines, part number 26117514037.

Why/how would the locking but be the problem? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[econti]

Why/how would the locking but be the problem? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

I'm not great at explaining things, but once the d/s starts spinning if there's nothing clamping it at the same length then it can kinda be lengthened by the motion of it spinning, which puts it out of balance, which means it spins more.
I had exactly this on my first E30 because the guy who reconditioned the shaft didn't think to tell me it was fucked and just put it back together.

[shawmcbigdis]

I'm not great at explaining things, but once the d/s starts spinning if there's nothing clamping it at the same length then it can kinda be lengthened by the motion of it spinning, which puts it out of balance, which means it spins more. I had exactly this on my first E30 because the guy who reconditioned the shaft didn't think to tell me it was fucked and just put it back together.

Interesting. I ordered a new one, should be here in a few days, then I'll put it back together. I did notice something on the parts diagram on realoem. The diagram without the dampner does not show a dust shield on both sides of the CSB, but the diagram with the dampner does show one. Mine had the dampner before I took it off. But I can't imagine why one would need it and the other wouldn't? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[econti]

I wouldn't be concerned about it to be honest.
Do note that you have to preload the CSB when you fit it, in case you didn't. Some people don't, I didn't my first time.