Zen and the Art of e30 Maintenance

[BrewCity11]

Awesome as usual.

Have you thought about ditching the clutch fan and shroud and replace with an electric in front of the rad? Would open up the bay even more.

Are you going to leave the bumper trim red? Just curious, thats all. I notice the side trim is still black.

[Mossman]

I used to think you were a screwball and I scoffed at you. Now I know you're a screwball but I also think you're awesome. I've done my fair share of wrenching, some haphazardly and some meticulous, but you take it to another level.

As you wrench more and more you learn what jobs you have to be careful on and what you can rush through. Clearly this car means a lot to you and all jobs are the careful ones, and I respect that. I think we're similar in that I generally plan things and work them out in my head over and over again before I attack. But when I attack I do it hard and fast :)

Can't wait for next update, keep it up brotha.

Haha...last thing to add. Like all of us I feel like E30's are special. But if you go to any car specific forum they think their cars are special too. But in reality most of them suck and their cars suck too. Threads like this prove that e30 owners don't suck, so chances are our choice of cars doesn't suck either. I'd venture a guess that 10% of this much care has never been taken to rebuild a civic or cavalier or sentra. I heart my E30 too, so I get it.

[Jand3rson]

Nothing short of amazing. Period.

[Simon S]

MMM nice works. So clean. Did you use and gasket sealer between the block and timing case I put a very fine layer of sealer just incase didn't want to have to pull it off again to fix it. LOL

Thanks.

Great question. I did a bunch of digging on dry vs sealers. It was frustrating.

It’d be like:
“I’ve installed hundreds of gaskets dry with no problems.”
or
“I’ve installed hundreds of gaskets using sealer with no problems.”

In the end, intake, head, rubber profile, and thermostat gaskets were installed ‘dry’. A thin coat of copper spray adhesive/sealer was used on everything else. Baby dabs of black RTV at recommended corners/juctions. I also let engine sit w/out adding oil for 2 days.

I kept coming back to thought of: “If all the gaskets were installed dry at the factory – and ALL of them are leaking – then let’s try something else.”

[Massimo]

MMM nice works. So clean. Did you use and gasket sealer between the block and timing case I put a very fine layer of sealer just incase didn't want to have to pull it off again to fix it. LOL

[Simon S]

Bidding starts at $40K
lol

[Schnitzer318is]

^Don't know why... but that makes me feel better about how long it takes me to do anything on the 4 cars.

Excellent work as always and beautiful documentation. This should help your resale value should you ever decide to sell the car... though I don't see how you could after all the hard work.

[bernzpeed]

Man, you never fail to amaze. I love your threads.

[Simon S]

yep

[Moto-Mucci]

oh, thank god.
Awesome work by the way. Good luck with the interview. Is it in the city?

[Simon S]

no job. lol
I have an interview tomorrow - so wish me luck.
i've been spending 50-60 hour weeks in the garage since mid-April

[Moto-Mucci]

Please tell me you don't have a job, and not that you're just 300x more efficient then I am.

[Simon S]

yep

[Moto-Mucci]

You did all that in a month!!!???

[White325is]

Amazing work and such detail. Keep it up bud!!