Resurrection of my coupe

[getouth]

Time for some new updates!

[N2MYE30]

Your right. This thread does need some updating but really, not too much to report. Ive done quite a bit of things to the e36 but no one here really cares about those things so that is some of my tinker time has gone. And now the weather has turned and dark sets in earlier, all my coupe gets is a change of oil, gas, and washes. Its still running great and nothing really needs fixing. I did do an alignment check. Camber was a hair off but I am lowered.


Results.


After my brief stint of insanity when I had a feeler on the car, I did put some elbow grease into bring back some more paint on the car. I just did the front right fender as it had some horrible orange peal. Im getting very comfortable with the products/techniques that I have so this result is coming easier.

Before...


After wetsanding 1000,1500, and 2000.




And after Meguires ultimate compound and Majestic solutions polish lite. Pix are not too good but oh well. It looks great in person.


I also recompounded the hood.


Man, it is tough to show metalic in pix. Im going to get to the door next and work my way back.


I did find this cell phone at my pnp. My goal is to but a bluetooth phone and wire it into this one. Winter project. :up:


One day ill get this minty dash in too. I was told it was ripped out of a 38K mile ix. I cant wait for this to happen.


Cheers!

[N2MYE30]

About a month ago, the swapped dash project started.

Tearing into it. Boxdriver86 lended a hand. :up:


Bit by bit, parts start coming out. As you can see there were plenty of cracks. When I bought it 7+ years ago, it had no cracks.


Now its just getting messy...




So many parts to this that I didnt expect but no turning back now.


A little jiggle here, and a little jiggle there, and she comes out with not too much of a fight...yet. :(




I removed what was left of this gasket. I wasnt going to cough up the coin to replace it with what looked to be weather stripping with a BMW part number on it so I just used some stuff I had in my garage.


With a dab of glue, I installed cut sections of stripping. Worked like a charm. I forgot to take a pic with the dash on but it was perfect...and free!


Out with the old, in with the new...er. Vins swapped.




Mostly back together.


...and then problems.

Everything worked (other than the odo) on my cluster before swapping the dash.

After we got the steering wheel on, I decided to see if the cluster worked. We reattached the battery. At first observation, no tach. After fooling with the connections a bit, we reattached the cluster only for the tach to read low rpms such as the real 4K would maybe read 1K.

We checked the connections again, tighted down the ~5mm nut in back, and put the whole thing back together since I was running out of time. Now, no tach at all. Then noticed that the econometer was not reading.

After a day or so, I realized that the SI was not working...stomp test wouldnt work.

This was the wierd one...After about 45 min driving to park it for the night, one of the green SI indicators stayed on with the key in or out. I pulled the fuse (21) and the green light when away but still dont have the above working.

Although my dash looks amazing, I (again) created more work for myself.

I have checked all fuses several times. From my searching, most say batteries, loose connection somewhere, and/or SI board. I even read a report of a lone wire that connects to the DME but I dont remember that lone wire. It all worked fine before.

Thread for reference.

Some reference pix of my motometer.


Boxdriver gave me some new gears and e30rapidic let me try a brand new SI board. Thanks fellas! Ill be getting to this part of the project as soon as all the xmas stuff calms down.

I got an early xmas gift...an unwanted one. This lil guy poked a hole in my KDW.


So I had to put a brand new spare on. It came out of my cabrio and I hated to mount it as it has zero miles...which it still does as I just drove it on the driveway. Interesting look. 14" in front, 16" in back. Its been a while since its have weaves on it. I just happen to have a gold cap as it bothers me to see weaves without caps.




The tire repair is done but the car looks the same.

Instrument cluster refresh next! Cheers!

[Simon S]

Very nice !

Seems like years ago, there was a guy named TJ who lived in FL..
your car reminds me of his.

[N2MYE30]

Thanks! His was similar but with out the reiger lip. His does look a bit lower too...

[BROKINBIMMER]

Very nice project thus far, car looks amazing!!! In your opinion, is the M50 swap worth it? I'm considering a similar swap with mine, but not sure if its worth the effort...

[N2MYE30]

Very nice project thus far, car looks amazing!!! In your opinion, is the M50 swap worth it? I'm considering a similar swap with mine, but not sure if its worth the effort...

I have no regrets swapping in the M50. Sure, I would have liked an S5x but not enough funds for this toy. Ive looked occacionally on clist to see if I could have gotten a better deal on an M engine since my swap and no real good results. Some say its not worth the gain and its only worth it if its an S5x. I have a great time with mine and its enough to get me in trouble...if I dare.

[Northern]

Your car looks great! Its almost a twin to mine, except the rust on the back of mine is going to be harder to fix than your valence was.

Reference:

[N2MYE30]

Alrighty then. One of those niggling things that erk my quality of work was my dipstick. Since my swap, it has never been a solid mount. I tried something way back but it failed on me. So after it making too much of a mess, I decided to roll up my sleeves and do something about it. Im sure there are other ways to do it but this worked for me AND IT WILL LAST! Dont know from what car this mount came from (maybe e36) but I had it. Its bolted on to one of the arms holding up the intake.


My dipstick tube came from a e34 and had a place/tab on the side of it to mount to somewhere originally but I didnt have that setup but where the two meet was close. So I tapped in a new hole and found a screw that I can easily get to and screw in.


This is not going anywhere. Job well done!


Now it was time to spend some time. Off came the wheel. Since I swapped the dash, my wheels as been a tick or two off center so I marked where it was to adjust later.


This evenings goal was to swap out SI board, new odo gears, center wheel.....and what ever other hurdles im presented with. Out comes the cluster. Buddy e30rapidic happen to have a brand new SI board to let me try so I am going to just change out my original (IIRC a few post back of my cluster issues). Buddy boxdriver86 happen to have an extra set of Garagistic motometer gears. So this was almost a cluster rebuild.


I decided to tackle the gears first. Apart it goes.




Its as if this gear melted off. It felt like hard wax.


Not much left of it.


The orange one was not much better. It seems to have melted!




One by one they come out


...but this lil bugger didnt want to come out nicely. I had to use some vicegrips to hold the main shaft it was on and pry (what was left of the gear) it off with some pliers. Off it came though.




And all back together.




Next was the SI board. Took a bit to take out but it did.


New one in...


And all back together! This was the first time in 7+ years that my ODO has turned so the gears are working. I decided not to push the miles up as I didnt want to damage any of the other gears...if it was even possible. My rpm is back and the inspection light is off. The problem with my CEL not working after the dash swap was that the bulb was burnt out so that was replaced and works!


Still to do? Well I over adjusted the wheel so I need to try that again. My turn cancelation tab on the stalk is broken so I will have to sort that out. Enough for now.

Cheers!

[Zreberlcoe]

That's just the regular IS spoiler you got on there right?

[N2MYE30]

That's just the regular IS spoiler you got on there right?

You are correct!

[Vdubmt]

Just read through all 11 pages of this. Awesome build. Sure seems like there are a lot more e30s out your way than over this way.

[leegf]

Just read through all 11 pages of this. Awesome build. Sure seems like there are a lot more e30s out your way than over this way.

there are a lot more e30s in north carolina than in... north carolina?

[N2MYE30]

Just read through all 11 pages of this. Awesome build. Sure seems like there are a lot more e30s out your way than over this way.

Thanks!

there are a lot more e30s in north carolina than in... north carolina?

I thought the same thing so im guessing that Vdub is from the western part of NC.

[Vdubmt]

Yeah that sounded stupid. Lol. I meant on this side of the state there doesn't seem to be too many. I could be totally wrong but I haven't seen too many e30s in the Winston/ Greensboro area at all. I met one of the forum members from King but that's all I've really seen. Raleigh/ Durham look to have a pretty good BMW scene.