Project KEEP MOVING FORWARD

[McGyver]

Pets are easy to neglect, kids not so much and wifey is touch and go (literally ) ... I get a solid 2-4 hours a WEEK... usually a Fri/Sat Night when I escape into the garage.

Honestly, 2-4 hours a week sounds great. I'm not sure I'm even getting 2-4 hours a MONTH! Then again, my kid is only 7 months old, maybe I get more time when he's older? Maybe?

[2mAn]

Honestly, 2-4 hours a week sounds great. I'm not sure I'm even getting 2-4 hours a MONTH! Then again, my kid is only 7 months old, maybe I get more time when he's older? Maybe?

It varies. I haven't had more than 1 hour total in the last 6 weeks because we have been gone every weekend...

Gotta time it right and you might be able to sneak in a few hours here and there... just have to give up sleeping LOL

[JasonWilson48]

Update #11

*Huge Sigh* well... June/July were full of highs and lows.

Lowest of lows -> S52 seized
Highest of highs -> I'm married to my best friend, and both wedding and honey moon were amazing

Ok, let's go through chronologically of everything since the last post.

Sold the shell after fully stripping it down. Got that gone a week or two before the wedding.









Decided to do something fun with the E30 for the wedding. Wanted to make it our wedding book for people to sign, after I was able to snag a free hood from another E30 enthusiast I met recently who was scrapping a rusty shell. Thanks again Steven!




Unfortunately, the drive to the wedding did not go as planned. The venue was about an hour and a half from our house. My wife drove the Element to carry all the big decorations, so I was driving the E30 solo. Checked the oil, coolant, and did a once over from underneath the car the day before I left. Nothing out of the ordinary. Made a joke about the car breaking down on the way to my wife... She did not like it... and I completely, totally, utterly, fucking jinxed myself. 2 months of commuting to work, and the only day I needed it to work properly, it did not. Karma or bad luck. Probably a bit of both.

So what happened... I had been driving the car for about 2 hours now. Had to make some stops for wedding supplies. It was probably 90F outside, but not bad driving since it was mainly highway. The coolant temps never climbed, and the fan was kicking on properly when I came to traffic stops. As I got close to the venue it became more stop and go on backroads. I was leaving from a stop sign, and was probably around 4500 rpms when all the sudden I started hearing what sounded like piston/valve slap. I immediately let off the gas and started coasting in 3rd gear. I was probably going about 45mph. The noise was still there, so I immediately threw it into neutral. less than 5 seconds later the engine locked up. I was lucky enough to coast into someone's driveway 100 ft up the road. Tried turning the key again, and nothing. It was seized. Opened the hood and see my dipstick had oil spilling out of it. Oil was all the way up the dipstick and nothing in the coolant reservoir. I immediately knew the engine was toast.


At this point, it is the Wednesday before my wedding on Friday. I'm about 15 minutes away from the venue. I have time to figure out a plan. The options were to either tow it back to Philly, or tow it to the venue still. Fortunately, the old guy who's yard I broke down in was super cool. He towed me up his driveway with his tractor (wish I got a picture of it). Then he let me leave the car over night, and gave me a ride to the wedding venue. Helped relieve some stress from having to get my wife to pick me up.

Then I got it towed for free with AAA to the venue.



Besides the car, the rest of the wedding went great. Here is a photo at the end of the night with the signatures. I'll have to get a better photo eventually when we get all the photos from the photographer.



After the wedding weekend, I got right into it. Started stripping down the car, and could not get the engine to turn over at all. Knew we were fucked, so obviously... I buy a donor car a week after lol. 1998 528i 5speed for $1200. Runs and drives, 140k miles. Going to sell the zf and scrap the shell to recoupe some costs hopefully once I'm done.









Left it like this, and went on honeymoon a week later.

Here ere are more fun photos from the honeymoon. There was a rally going on the weekend after I left, Rali da Madeira. Got some merch and photos of some of the cars though.





Got a cheap little Fiat 500 hybrid to whip around Madeira. Going up the mountains was an adventure in 1st and 2nd gear.



Saw some E30s while there. Got a photo of an oddly stanced Baur.









Great two weeks in Portugal. The weekend I got back before going back to work... engine came out.







And that is where it sits. Still going back and forth on parting put everything or actually doing another swap. Kind of down in the dumps about all of it. We will see what I can do when I have time the rest of the summer. Oh well. I have a video of me draining the oil pan, but YouTube is hitting me copy right BS. I'll see if I can post that here later. It's a funny one.

[AWDBOB]

'grats on getting hitched! Absolutely sucks about the s52. Pretty rad that guy absorbed some of the stress that day by letting you keep it there overnight.

You have no short supply of discipline it seems which will burn you out when shit hits the fan and you try to solve the problem with brute force.

Make that 5 series disappear, put both engines on a stand, and don't touch it for at least a month while you take a pottery class w wifey and refill the tank.