4drPwr's 89 Alpine Project - Back from hiatus

[4drPwr]

I took advantage of the great weather yesterday to undertake probably the most necessary cosmetic modification to my car: replacing that old battered valence! As pictured in a previous post, I had the valence professionally stripped and powder coated, instead of being painted. I was having my wheels done and had never heard of anyone powdering a valence so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Here's how it went:

First I removed the front bumper from the car, which is a sub-1-minute procedure. Take a 10mm allen/male hex socket and undo the two large bolts that connect the bumper to the bumper shocks. Mine were not rusted and didn't take an unreasonable amount of force to get off; I've heard some people have trouble with these.

Pull the bumper most of the way off and disconnect the plugs that go into each turn signal bucket. If you have US bumper trim, remove the running light lenses and disconnect the wires before taking off the bumper, and push them inside of it. I have european trim so my running light wires were long since wrapped up and stowed away. You're left with a bumper-less E30:



Pop the hood, but do not open it. Undo the clips on top of the headlight grills and kidney grills. Remove kidneys. Remove two screws on bottom of each headlight grill and remove grills. I did this later so my pictures don't reflect this yet, but now is as good a time as any. Make sure to keep track of the clips and screws, there's going to be a lot of them floating around by the time everything is removed, so don't lose or confuse 'em.

Now it's time to start actually removing the valence. There's a bracket on each side of the valence, that the bumper slides into when on the car.



Each bracket is held in with two screws, accessed from behind the valence/fender.



I jacked up the front of the car at this point to get some more room under the currently installed valence; for those of you with lower cars this is probably a necessity. In the picture above, you can see the two empty holes on the right where the bracket was held in. The nut towards the left holds the horn in place on each side, and undid the horns to let them dangle in order to get more room around the bracket screws. Next to the brackets is another screw on each side, that also goes through the fender and valence:



Also remove the screw(s) that hold the lower fender liner/thing with brake duct hole as there was one screw on each side of mine that attached it to the valence. Next up, focus on the lower left (for the passenger side) and the lower right (for the driver's side) where the top most valence panel slides into part of the fender. There are two fasteners on each side, one from above, one from below:

The top is another 8mm (I think?) head like the rest that have been encountered so far, it.s the one that screws in from above:



BMW decided that for this particular applications, the metric system used on fasteners everywhere else through out the vehicle wasn't good enough, so in their infinite wisdom, they figured out a T25 torx would provide maximum security for anyone trying to steal your valence, and the maximum annoyance for owners trying to do the same. This is the screw that goes in from the bottom:



I took a picture of this for some reason, I'm pretty sure that this is one of the upper mounts that attaches to the left and right of the radiator, near the high beam on each side:



Remove the brake ducts to reveal each of the lower mounts:



This also segues nicely into the next part. Once the valence was fully removed, I had to transfer all the plastic grommets and such over from my old one, which can also be viewed in the picture above. I also transferred the fogs at this point.





New valence fully dressed with fogs and all grommets:



Nekkid E30 face:



I also took the opportunity to hit my brake ducts with some fresh SEM trim paint. I have another pair with fully intact tabs that I
m going to paint white in the future, but these will do for now, secure just fine, and look a lot better than they did before, where white paint was showing through the chipped black paint that some fool decided to hit my front end with:



I also did the same with another oil cooler grill I had. I decided to try something a bit different with this, though. One of the fins was snapped, so I decided to remove all of them, sand them down, and see how it looked. I think it came out quite acceptable, if not nicely:



Installation is the opposite of removal. Out with the old:





In with the new!





I still can't get over how it looks like a new car to me. After having that bent, mismatched black valence, the car finally looks color coordinated and like a real E30. The color match is actually fantastic. I was worried that the powder I selected, which was a non OEM, powder only color, would not match well, bit it's actually imperceptible, even in perfect daylight. I'll try to get some brighter pics next weekend, as the sun was setting as I finished this, but it really looks great.

Side note: I also finally installed the window trim which had been missing since I bought the car. Two adjustable wrenches and a little coaxing, and they're on there pretty good, at least for the time being:





I'm so happy with how this all turned out, the car really looks like it really should. I also shouldn't have to worry about rock chips any more thanks to the robustness of the powder. Hope this is helpful to anyone removing/installing a valence. Next weekend I'll hopefully be smoking my headlights, fingers crossed.

[4drPwr]

Well - even if you have to paint it, any chips you get will be damn near imposable to see now. Keep up the good work.

That's a good point, the rocks will be sorely disappointed when they hop up and smack my valence only to find more white underneath. That'll show 'em. Ne'er do wells.

And thank you!

[george graves]

Well - even if you have to paint it, any chips you get will be damn near imposable to see now. Keep up the good work.

[4drPwr]

So you had the front valance power coated. That's cool - should stand up to rock chips well. But how are you going to match the color to the rest of the car? Paint on top of the power coat? Or match the cars paint to the valence?

I was given several swatches that had been baked onto aluminum cards to accurately represent the final color. Putting them up to my car in good sunlight, I picked one that seemed to match quite well. I'm hoping that once I get the valence mounted up (since that touches OEM colored pieces, the wheels will be much more forgiving) that it matches well enough to get away with. If it's really obvious that the colors aren't exact I guess I'll have to pull it off and get some color matched paint mixed up and spray over the powder. I'm really hoping it'll be close enough to get away with though, having it stripped and coated was $150 total, and I could have easily just gotten in stripped and painted it myself while off the car. I may be able to mount it this weekend if I'm lucky and find the time, fingers crossed.

[george graves]

So you had the front valance power coated. That's cool - should stand up to rock chips well. But how are you going to match the color to the rest of the car? Paint on top of the power coat? Or match the cars paint to the valence?

[4drPwr]

Excellent work and excellent write up. It is a damn shame that a euro E24 had to suffer such a fate.

Thanks! I agree, it's a shame that people can take such poor care of a vehicle, especially when it's a classic like a 6. What's worse is that the PPO spent several thousand on a full respray in some GM color, and completely ignored all of this rust :???:.

I've also decided on what I'm going to do for the rear badges once all is said and done. The E24 that the engine came out of was a 635csi, for coupe/sport/injected. Since mine is a sedan I can't rightfully use the "c" so I'll be badging this as the first (to my knowledge) E30 335ssi, as an accurate homage to the car that sacrificed to make it all possible.

[constructor]

Excellent work and excellent write up. It is a damn shame that a euro E24 had to suffer such a fate.

[4drPwr]

Today a friend from E30Tech drove about 1 hour and 20 minutes from west hartford to help me get the engine out of this hulk in my driveway. As was probably expected, we were filthy and I took no pictures except for the aftermath. I had gotten a lot of things disconnected before they got here so it only took us a few hours, half of which was spent getting the block (semi) successfully on the stand. Here's what we toiled for:

Temporarily mounted on the stand, and quite precariously at that:



3.5 liter heater:



And one more for fun:



I've got my work cut out for me in order convert this to M1.3, but it'll be a labor of love.

[4drPwr]

Got some work done today in preparation for the engine removal tomorrow, took a couple pictures of the aftermath:

Drained coolant from the block and radiator/hoses:



Someone wasn't using OEM coolant...

Disconnected the exhaust from the manifolds...with a sawzall.



Anyone want an E24 muffler?



I'm not being the most delicate with the prep for this removal since I'm only really concerned with the block, head, and a couple of ancillary components, the wiring is going to be scrapped and most items like sensors, etc will be replaced with new when the engine is converted to M1.3.

Got the crack free dash out a few days ago:



And here's an idea of what kind of "care" this poor car was subjected to, and why the guy I bought it from (2nd owner at least, maybe 3rd?) wouldn't sell it to anyone to be used as a daily:









This is a peek-a-boo from the front passenger wheel well, where you can see up to the spark plug coil and hood structure:



One of the more flattering portions of the undercarriage:



Went out and bought a Duralast/Autozone engine stand tonight and put it together in preparation for tomorrow; I'll try to take some pics during the process.

[davey101]

oh shit! awesome work man, your car will look amazing with those wheels

do you go to the uconn storrs campus or the one in stamford?

[idriverealslow]

nice work

[kronus]

white wheels is best wheels

[4drPwr]

Cool write up!

Thanks!

Got around to driving the hour each way to the powder coater to pick up my wheels and valence. Enjoy! (I am :D)











The valence was stripped to bare aluminum and then powder coated, no rock guard here. Both the wheels and valence are a color that I chose from several swatches that seemed to match Alpine White II the closest, as direct match powder was too hard to get. I'm not worried about the wheels matching so much as I am about the valence, since it's large and will be touching OEM colored areas. Fingers crossed on that. Anyway enough delay, here are my babies :-D.















And the money shot:



Almost a whole dollar!

Unfortunately the wheels will be sitting right where they are for several months, until the summer (and my associated job) are well under way so I can afford tires. I wouldn't run these right now anyway due to the shitty season, although the powder should be robust enough. For anyone wondering, I disassembled the center caps and had the outer metal portion coated to match the rest of the center, but I still have to finish prepping the plastic piece and get some paint on them. The valence may go on sometime this week before I go back to school, it may not. Hopefully in the near future though.

[Huff]

Cool write up!

[4drPwr]

So at this point I think we've all realized that I'm awful at keeping this updated. Time to put up the long overdue pictures that I took when I installed my moonroof. Unfortunately I don't have many pictures since it's pretty straightforward. Here's what I felt was pertinent to document:

First I unclipped the headliner, pushed it back, and undid the 6 screws (3 on each side) that hold the sunroof panel to the sliding/tilting mechanism. Lot's of good pictures and an explanation can be found at this gentleman's site: http://e30.bmwdiy.info/sunroof-adjust/index.html

With that out of the way, I had to figure out how to get my privacy slider into the roof cavity, and more importantly, onto the rails that go all the way back to above the rear seats. You can see why I needed to do this because of the construction of the slider:



These plastic...sliding facilitators...attach to the metal extensions on each side of the privacy slider, shown here:



Once attached on the metal extensions, they fit over the actual rails of the sunroof mechanism. Those are the only pictures I have of them; both the facilitators and the slider were cleaned before they were installed, don't worry.

The following pictures aren't necessarily in order of execution, but are ordered to best illustrate what I had to do. The rails that extend into the roof cavity are obviously secure throughout the course they run, so getting into that cavity to remove them nicely wasn't an option (it's about an inch or so of space that's a couple of feet deep). With the whole system in it's closed state (minus the sunroof panel, which I had removed), I unscrewed and removed the two small plates on either side, as well as the much longer plates toward the front of the car that cover the sunroof cable. With this done, it was time to tackle the covering for the actual rails. It's attached with a screw or two, but is also semi-riveted/adhered down somehow. I had to get them up to install the slider, so I ended up unscrewing them and then prying them up:







I know it's a bit barbaric, but I couldn't see any other way of getting them up to get enough room to sneak in the privacy slider. I also made sure that it looked like they would bolt back in well enough (the two small plates also install over their ends). With them pulled up I cranked the assembly to the "tilt up" position and then a little more in order to ease the cable anchors off so I could remove the old headliner and install the slider:



After that it was just the opposite of disassembly to put everything back together: ease cable anchors back onto the rails and below the covers that I jacked up, bolt covers back down, install front plates, install two smaller plates, install moonroof panel (1mm raised in the back, 1mm sunk in the front). Then I noticed that the rollers used for the previous fixed headliner both protruded into my new view of the sky, as well as rubbed against my privacy panel:



They were no longer necessary so I cut them off and filed them down a bit:



Installed:



I apologize for the sparse pictures, but it's really pretty intuitive once you get in there; hopefully my descriptions are enough pointers for anyone else who performs one of these installs.

I'll leave with a bit of a teezur:



This is a picture from my friend's for sale ad for almost two years ago. BBS RZ378s, 15x7, nice dished out lip, OEM qulity, pretty light. No one on the forums bought them back then and I couldn't afford them at the time. This summer I picked them up with the finish in sorry condition for $225. They've been at the powder coater for awhile and I'll be picking them up this week, along with my de-textured replacement front valence. Hopefully tomorrow will yield some nice pictures of some true panda shoes ;).