No longer the daily: '87 zinno 325is

[quikveedb2]

Agent, Klaus is looking good, your pic definitely gets me anxious to finally mount my C's! Yesterday and today was designated "Mud-Season Maintenance Days!" Basically I'm bored because snowboarding is done & the bike trails are still too muddy to ride, so the e30 is getting some much needed love after a long boring winter of hibernation. Specifically;

Oil change;



Which allowed me the opportunity to replace this lovely non-factory drain plug.



The rocker shaft plugs we next, one was so hard & rotten I had to drive a screw into it & then pull it with pliers. Bits were literally chipping off of it as I was trying to get it out, they're so easily available I don't know why you wouldn't replace them if you're in there anyway.



And then a quick valve adjustment and a new valve cover gasket to replace the hard, brittle piece pictured above.



Since I was on a roll (and bored), I went ahead and did the bulk of the not-particularly-interesting-or-photogenic "Inspection 1" per the Bentley manual in preparation for some seat time during the impending beautiful Colorado summer. So excited to be back to driving my little red go-kart!

[quikveedb2]

This summer my beloved e30 has been bullet-proof reliable and a blast to drive on mountain roads in beautiful Colorado weather, I haven't done much to it besides drive it this summer, which I'm OK with (for now). Everything was going just peachy until I had a kind of scary experience this past week. Driving to work one morning I noticed the strong smell of gas as I was pulling into the parking garage. I didn't think too much of it as parking garages smell like all kinds of things, but as I was walking away for the car I noticed a trail of drips leading to where I parked. It had been snowing the night before, maybe 1/2 inch, so some melt wasn't completely out of the question and a lot of the floor was wet, but something made me stop & look closer. I touched the wet spots on the concrete & sure enough it was gasoline that had leaked out of my poor chariot.

I went to work & left the car parked overnight, and did some investigating the following day. As soon as I started the car I could see dripping gas underneath the engine compartment near the drivers side. Closer inspection found more gas under the intake manifold, and eventually, this;



Failed fuel hose. A quick run to the local parts place for some high pressure fuel hose and some new hose clamps & everything is right in the world again. Needless to say I'm glad I caught this before it turned into some kind of bigger disaster, now I'm thinking it might be time to re-do the rest of the rubber in the fuel system. And brake hoses...

[quikveedb2]

Well, it's been a while since I've updated, but I've done a few small things and I just moved into a new place with a garage so more projects are on the horizon.

Cleaned up the dash a bit. Before;



After, I still need to source a more OEM looking, modern head unit;



Time for RSM's again. I'm wondering if I forgot one of the washers above or below the mount, causing it to fail prematurely, I'll find out soon enough. Also new licence plate light assemblies, mine were pretty much disintegrated.



Speaking of disintegrated, some may have noticed the poor state of my wiper dampers when I replaced my linkage a while back. I did, so they got replaced with new units. No more chattery, loud wipers!



I finally sourced some Hella high beams thanks to Boomer, to replace the ones I fucked up attempting to smoke them, so I'll have to work up the courage to try that again...




I also got some LED upgrades from dinanm3atl for the dome, trunk, reverse, and license plate lights, and a couple "Respect your elders" diecuts as a gift from the girlfriend. Hopefully I can be a bit more productive now that I have a covered, consistent workplace. I have a laundry list of maintenance & upgrades I've been putting off.

[IzzY_325is]

WoW, great car and I love the dog.