The complete repair, rebuild, repaint, and v8 swap of my early model sedan

[JGood]

Got a lot going on with the car currently. The front valance, lip, fender, and rear bumper are currently being repainted. I have new euro grills and euro bumper trim as well.

My buddy and I also picked up a 97 540i/6 for $1k. It has slight front end damage. He's going to part it out, I'm keeping the drivetrain.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. Either build an m60b44, or just swap in the engine as-is after doing an OBD-I conversion. I'd really like to see someone else pave the way with the m60b44 build first. There's 2-3 running, but none really being driven regularly or dyno'd yet. Since I do 15k miles/year, I need this to be reliable. The 11:1 compression ratio kinda scares me. But running an m62 as-is isn't without it's flaws either. The timing guides suck, and the OBD-I conversion method is kinda half assed IMO.

Or I could just keep my perfectly running m60 and throw the 6 speed in with it. Sell the m62 and my five speed and probably come out with a few extra bucks.

[Batz]

Was your m60 reliable so far?

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[JGood]

Picked up the m62 and 420g and brought them to my garage. First order of business was to clean the 420g.






Then I started tearing apart the m62b44. It was an absolute greasy disaster. I used 4 cans of brake cleaner, a gallon of purple power, and a can of foaming engine cleaner. And it's still a greasy mess.






I pulled one of the valve covers off. Not bad for 200k miles! I won't be using this head, but this is a sign that the bottom end *should* be in good shape.

[JGood]

Got most of the engine torn apart today. This was my first time carefully disassembling an engine that needs to be put back together, and I realized I'm probably in a bit over my head.

First up was the Jesus bolt. What the fuck? This took over 900 ft lbs to break loose. Any more and my garage wouldn't have been wide enough for the cheater bar. I had to use a 1/4" thick slab of steel as a crank holding tool, a 6' cheater bar (2.5" exhaust pipe), had to pull up on the engine with the hoist to prevent wayyy overloading the engine stand, and had to chain the engine stand to the hoist to prevent it from tipping. I can't believe nothing broke.






Once that was done, I was able to tear the front covers and timing components off, which allowed me to remove the heads and finally check out the donor bottom end for my m60b44. It was at this point that I realized I have no idea what I'm looking at. I don't know the first damn thing about engine internals. So if anyone can tell me what to look for, what to do, what not to do, or where to go for any of the above info, it would be GREATLY appreciated. Alusil blocks aren't exactly common in the general automotive world, so I don't really know of a trustworthy source for information.

[JGood]

Cleaned the pistons and started cleaning the deck surface on cylinders 5-8. Gotta finish the deck, then do the other side of the engine. I'll probably pull the m60 from my e30 this week, to start tearing that down next weekend. Then I'll order the parts and start putting it together. I'd love to have the engine built and in the car by the end of March. April 12th is my cars 30th bday, I'd love to be able to do some celebratory burnouts that day :)

[Striker01]

Impressive build. You gave me the motivation to start cutting out rust and trying to fix it. My car isn't anywhere close to being as rusty as yours but it is still overwhelming for me. I picked up a welder and started the process. I'm also going to borrow your and Garey's removable support solution. Good luck with your new swap.

[JGood]

Impressive build. You gave me the motivation to start cutting out rust and trying to fix it. My car isn't anywhere close to being as rusty as yours but it is still overwhelming for me. I picked up a welder and started the process. I'm also going to borrow your and Garey's removable support solution. Good luck with your new swap.

Glad I was able to motivate ya! It's always good to hear someone is taking a little time to fix an e30, rather then send it to a junkyard. Good luck with your project! At the very least, you'll learn something!




Little update for now: I have been working on the engine build non-stop. Lots and lots of work done, and still lots to do.

Turns out my m60 was completely trashed. The drivers side cylinders had significant cylinder bore scoring, and the rear main bearing and thrust bearings were trashed. The engine ran great, but obviously was on borrowed time.












I placed a huge order for all the new gaskets and timing guides, nuts, bolts, etc... With the all aluminum engine and old bolts, I didn't want to re-use any new hardware. Half of the stuff arrived, the other half will arrive Wednesday. Got the timing covers and valve covers painted a while.







I had a hell of a time removing the rear coolant cover from the m62. All 17 bolts were corroded and seized. Took about an hour, but I got all out but two. One broke flush, one had some sticking out. Welded a nut on the protruding one, it came out eventually. The other one, I drilled and used an easy out (don't ever do that on a corroded bolt, it will ALWAYS break the easy out). I then dulled out 3 sets of drill bits trying to remove it. Finally ended up buying a carbide masonry bit to get through the easy out. It went VERY slow, probably 30 minutes of drilling (or you could say grinding, since it's not sharp) and I finally broke through. Drilled out the rest of the bolt, and by this time, the hole was exactly big enough to helicoil it to m8. The original bolt size was m6. Drilled out the cover to m8, and all is well now. I know a time-sert would be better, but this is a low torque, low budget application, so I think I'll be fine. All in all, it took a 3 day period, between all of the running around and research. But I now know a lot about bolt extraction and drill bits!







I'll post some more pics and progress on the actual engine build soon. Still working on cleaning and prepping stuff.

[E30_Pare]

Jesus. I went through the same process when we snapped a bolt flush on an exhaust port. Snapped an easy out dulled almost every good drill bit. Such a pita. Ended up using a little carbite grinder.


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[dirty30]

Damn man those bearings are thrashed! I wonder if they weren't getting lubricated properly, the only thing that makes that "smear" effect on a bearing is lack of lubrication. Makes me think all the miles with the oil cooler and the funny line pulsating/ possible cavitation did that. The last bearing pictured has some spotting like what coolant/ oil mixture does to bearings. That hybrid is going to be a huge improvement!

[JGood]

Could be. The engine also was opened previously. It's from a 94 740i, but the bearings were dated 96 and 97. The heads also had rough swirl marks on the deck, as if someone cleaned them with a D/A. Which is probably why I can feel a bit of an uneven surface with a straight edge.

All of the bearings on the bottom sides of the crank and rods had spotting from moisture. The engine sat for a bit before I bought it, but I don't think long enough to do that. And when I ran a cafax on the vin, it didn't have any periods of non-activity.

Oh well, either way I'm throwing the heads on my m62 block, and the m60 block will now be a coffee table.

[JCarp90]

Wait, you pulled the M60 out of your car too? Did you not out it back in after the clutch?

[JGood]

Wait, you pulled the M60 out of your car too? Did you not out it back in after the clutch?

I did put it back together, for about a month and 1k miles. Then I came across a wrecked 97 540i/6 that I couldn't pass up. Figured I'd do the hybrid and 6 speed swap before spring time rolls around. Glad I did, not sure the m60 would have lasted another summer of abuse.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Bearings are impressive... What do the journals look like?

With the all aluminum engine and old bolts, I didn't want to re-use any new hardware. Half of the stuff arrived, the other half will arrive Wednesday. Got the timing covers and valve covers painted a while.

Not that it matters now, but there's no harm in reusing the bolts, as long as they're in good condition... just use some anti-seize.

The other one, I drilled and used an easy out (don't ever do that on a corroded bolt, it will ALWAYS break the easy out). I then dulled out 3 sets of drill bits trying to remove it. Finally ended up buying a carbide masonry bit to get through the easy out. It went VERY slow, probably 30 minutes of drilling (or you could say grinding, since it's not sharp) and I finally broke through. Drilled out the rest of the bolt, and by this time, the hole was exactly big enough to helicoil it to m8. The original bolt size was m6. Drilled out the cover to m8, and all is well now. I know a time-sert would be better, but this is a low torque, low budget application, so I think I'll be fine. All in all, it took a 3 day period, between all of the running around and research. But I now know a lot about bolt extraction and drill bits!

Harbor Freight (and other places, but an HF store is just down the street from me) carries left hand drill bits. Those and "Grab-its" are worth their weight in gold when drilling out broken screws.

http://www.thegrabitstore.com/Pages/default.aspx

I just had a similar experience with the oil pan bolts doing a trans fluid and filter on the ZF 5HP19 in my girlfriend's Audi.

Time-serts are only superior to helicoils in high load scenarios (like head bolts). Helicoils are superior in high-cycle situations, where the bolt is R&R'd frequently. Not that your situation is either one, but a helicoil is perfectly fine there.

The heads also had rough swirl marks on the deck, as if someone cleaned them with a D/A. Which is probably why I can feel a bit of an uneven surface with a straight edge.

Sounds like those should be resurfaced before you reuse them.

[JGood]

Alright, time for an update.

Got the m60 heads cleaned up, and all of my new gaskets/hardware/timing guides have arrived. So I started putting everything together. Big thanks to my friend who works at a machine shop building performance engines, he's been helping me get this done and teaching me a lot as we go. I would have seriously stumbled through this project without him.















Also took some measurements to have my driveshaft and shifter shortened. The engine will be in the same position forward/rearward, so I feel confident in just doing the cutting/welding based off of my measurements outside the car. Hopefully it all works when bolted on the car!





I'm also having a friend cut and weld my oil pan for me. Basically, I'm taking 1" off of the 'shelf' that sits above the subframe, which will allow me to lower the engine 3/4". This will allow me to remove my subframe spacers, and still maintain correct drivetrain alignment. This is more complex then just welding in a 1/4" slab of aluminum, as the windage tray bolts to the pan, and needs to be perfectly clearanced. So this requires cutting and welding all of those standoffs in the exact required location/height. I'll also need to do some modifications to the steering rack mounts, shorten the steering linkage, and probably clearance a few other little things, but in the long run it's the only 'correct' option to doing an m60 swap, in my opinion.

[JGood]

Almost ready to rumble!