The Ugly E30

[tspangle88]

Long time no update! I have been working on the car, but it's been bits and pieces, no major stuff. But here's where I stand right now. In my last post, I had removed the subframe and was preparing to do an E36 rack swap. This, of course, meant removing the steering shaft. I still have nightmares of doing this job on my E36, so I was prepared for the worst and had a full bag of tricks, including soaking in PB Blaster, using heat, forcing the two sides apart, etc. If you don't know what I'm talking about, there is an aluminum block that slides over the splined steel shaft that comes down from the steering column, and they are not fond of coming apart after 28 years and 220k miles. Long story short, after trying everything I knew, just just cut the bastard:


This meant a new steering shaft, of course. When swapping an E36 rack into an E30, the stock shaft is too long, so you must shorten it by grinding off a couple of rivets and replacing them with bolts with spacers in between. Here is the new shaft in the middle of surgery:


And here it is installed with some washers in there to space it out. Also note the red Loctite on the ends of the bolts, the nuts aren't on yet:


New E36 M3 rack from Rackdoctor:


Front subframe with reinforcement kit installed and minor surface rust cleaned up and treated with Rust Bullet:


New engine and tranny mounts from Bimmerworld came with German gummy bears, which my kids enjoyed:


I also changed the transmission lube to this:


I'm hoping that it helps with the shifting, the shifter felt like it was stuck in molasses before.

[tspangle88]

So, the pan is back on, but now the front subframe is off. And now I'm doing more stuff (warning: project creep ahead!).

Originally, I assumed that the subframe had to come off to get the oil pan off because that's how it was on my E36. However, reading the Bentley manual, all you have to do is unbolt the steering rack, then you can remove all the oil pan bolts, lower the pan a bit, reach inside and remove the oil pump bolts (pan won't come off with the pump in place), then remove the pan and pump together. This is what I did, you can see in my previous post that the pump is sitting in the front sump of the pan. So, after giving the pan a good cleaning inside and out, and cleaning out the screen in the oil pickup, I dropped the pump back into the pan and put the whole works back into position. But I couldn't get a good enough grip on the pump to be able to put it in it's proper location to get the bolts started. After messing around with it for about half an hour, I decided to suspend the engine from above and remove the crossmember. Fortunately, I have one of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/automot...bar-96524.html

Dropped the crossmember and I could easily get the pump back into place and then the pan. New gasket with some fresh black RTV and I've hopefully licked that little problem.

So the subframe is out:


One thing I'm definitely going to do is clean it up and install the reinforcement kit that you see there. I think there are also some reinforcement plates that came with my sway bar kit, need to look for sure. But since literally everything else is out of the way right now, I've decided to go ahead and do my E36 rack swap now, too. I just ordered a reman rack from Rackdoctor.com. As I mentioned previously, I have a 98 M3 rack left over from my old car that I will be using as a core. I also decided to go ahead and replace the worn, old engine mounts, too. I ordered some stiffer rubber ones from Bimmerworld.

Supposed to be a nice weekend around here, and we have no plans. I will be wrenching!

[tspangle88]

Oil pan removed. Yep, I'm pretty sure that was the source of the leak, judging by the condition of the rear part of the gasket:


The soft underbelly of the M20B27:


Doesn't look too bad considering it's 200k-plus miles. Bearing caps still feel nice and tight. I'm going to call the bottom end "good" until proven otherwise.

Of course, even after my ATF de-sludging, the oil pan still had a lot of crap in it:


I really want to put in a push to get this car on the road ASAP. I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of when I bought it!

[tspangle88]

On to the next thing. When I bought the car, the PO told me that it had a rear main seal leak. Sure enough, there was a pretty darn good drip from the area where the engine meets the trans:


So I removed this cover (don't know what it's called):


Correct me if I'm wrong (please!), but I think that looks like an oil pan leak:


Further evidence: it leaks a lot worse with the front end up in the air. It's been on jackstands for months. It had leaked for a while then pretty much stopped. But last week I jacked it up a bit more (needed the smaller jackstands for something else) and all of a sudden it was a gusher again. Now it's pretty much stopped again, but for a week or so it dripped like crazy. Also, the back of the flywheel looks bone dry, and I would think if the rear main was leaking it wouldn't be. What say you?

[tspangle88]

And then a few months passed.... Haven't touched Ugly much lately, hence the lack of updates. This is why:


We remodeled our kitchen. Took it right down to bare drywall and replaced everything except the appliances, which were fairly new.

So anyway, with that out of the way and warmer weather finally here, I was finally able to get back to Ugly. As of my last update, I needed to replace the corroded fuel and brake lines that run along the driver's side frame rail. As expected, the brake line came apart when I was trying to remove it, so I just cut it off:


Since that's a hell of a long line with lots of bends in it, I decided to just replace the bad part. I bought an 18" piece of hardline at Autozone and patched it in. Had to flare the ends of the old line first, of course:


A friend of mine's father was an engineer/mechanic at GM for 30 years, and one time he gave me a bunch of NPT and AN fittings. Like, a BUNCH:


All connected together:


Normally, I'm loath to adding new connections because they are just new opportunities for leaks, but in this case, it was by far the easier course. I'll check them regularly once the car is moving, of course.

The fuel lines didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought once I had them off:


I decided to go ahead and re-use them since the rust was all surface and they seemed structurally fine. However, I know that the rust probably weakened the steel, and the last thing anyone wants is a fuel leak, so I "reinforced" them in a way. I scraped off all the rust I could then hit them with Rust Bullet. Then I slipped a length of brake hose over them to completely cover the corroded areas. A dab of RTV at each end and a hose clamp, and I'm pretty confident that even if they do develop any leaks, the hose should keep them contained:


I also hit the rusty part of the frame rail with some Rust Bullet. It still needs topcoating:

[tspangle88]

The parts fairy arrived!


Lemforder control arms, FAG hubs, Hawk HPS brake pads, Bendix rotors, Bimmerworld RSMs, rebuilt calipers from Autozone, and a few other miscellaneous things like SS brake lines and new front strut mounts.

Bilstein Sports:


Suspension Techniques anti-roll bar set:


Did a bit of repainting on the caliper slides:


I also painted my strut housing and spindles. Here they are assembled with the Bilsteins and new springs:


Next thing I need to do is replace the corroded brake and fuel lines, because they are a lot easier to get to with the driver's side suspension removed.

[tspangle88]

Thanks, guys!

[kalib0y]

cool build. Subscribed

[EREKSHUN]

this is going to be a awesome car once shes back on the road! great build so far.

Sub'd!!

[tspangle88]

Yay, new (to me) parts!


Thanks to user "e30rooster" for the solid deal on these Bavauto springs.

Time for strut disassembly. I've done this a bunch of times on many cars, and I have to say the E30 was one of the easier ones. I was able to use my trusty old spring compressors without any difficulty:


The spring compressed and removed. Pro tip: be super careful with a compressed spring, and uncompress it as soon as you can. In this state, it is more or less a bomb and can cause a lot of damage if the compressor were to fail or something:


On to the hub. Think it's been a while since the grease was packed? No matter, the whole thing is getting replaced:


Removing the hub nut wasn't too bad, as long as you have a 36mm socket and a long breaker bar. That thing is ON THERE! After that, a 3-jaw puller made quick work of the hub itself:


The last thing that needed to come out was the strut insert. The threaded collar was in no mood to move, so I had to persuade it with the old hot wrench:


Once it was off and I was able to pull the strut out of the housing, a ton of oil came with it:


So, now I really REALLY need to order my Bilsteins and hubs and such. First I want to clean up the spindles and housings and paint them, along with the brake dust shields.

Obligatory shot of the stock spring compared to the aftermarket one:

[E30stan]

i usually just grind the rotor bolt into a flathead if the allen strips out

[Saeulf]

If I'm not mistaken, that is the brake pad wear sensor. As the pad gets worn thin, that little metal pad will eventually wear through, breaking the circuit.

I'm a little curious as to what this wire is for. My car doesn't have ABS. This is on the driver's side, there wasn't one on the passenger's:

[tspangle88]

A little more disassembly progress yesterday. Removed all this stuff:


Exhaust had to come out because I'm going to pull the trans to replace the rear main seal. And because it has a large hole in it near the front. As you can see, I sawzalled off the back, one look at those bolts told me there was no way they were coming off. The plan is to use the catback I got from the parts car. Since it's from an 87 325is, it's dual pipe. Since I have to buy a new midpipe anyhow, I figured I'll just get the 325i dual-pipe midpipe and convert the whole thing. Hopefully my factory manifold will fit, if not I'll probably get a cheap eBay header.

So, I'm looking for the cheapest midpipe I can find. I'd like to have a cat, but it's not essential, especially if it can save me some coin. Any suggestions?

Here's the wheel well, the suspension is all removed at this point:

[tspangle88]

Went out today to work on the front suspension. Ugly had a little surprise for me:


At first I thought that my rear main leak had gotten WAY worse, but upon further investigation, it's brake fluid. Ah, that's not a shock. See, the car is very clean underneath, but there is one rusty spot right along the left-side frame rail, where 3 hardlines go:


Oh, yeah. That sucker split right open. And the fuel lines next to it don't look much better. I was always planning on replacing all of them before the car saw the road, so no big deal.

Anyhow, on to the front suspension. I expected to have trouble with the rotor retaining screw, and I wasn't disappointed. Tried moving it with an allen wrench and it laughed at me. Tried it with a hex socket and stripped it out good:


So, I commenced trying to drill it out. I don't know what that screw is made of, but I didn't have the easiest time:


After drilling it out as much as I good, I went to a combination of a BFH and a little heat:


Success! Back of the rotor is a little beat up, but I'm replacing it anyhow:


Ball joint coming apart:


Another surprise, on the other side, the screw came right out:


I'm a little curious as to what this wire is for. My car doesn't have ABS. This is on the driver's side, there wasn't one on the passenger's:


So, the struts are off. The steering rack is from my E36 M3, I'm going to get it rebuilt and put it in this car.



Next steps will be to remove the rack, the front control arms, and the sway bar. I'm replacing nearly everything. Essentially the only part of the front suspension I'm going to reuse is the spindles. I have new (to me) Bav Auto springs on the way, I'll be getting Bilstein Sports, new control arms, new hubs, and I need to pick out a set of sway bars. The E36 rack will get new tie rods, as well.

[tspangle88]

Great work!



I would recommend jumping in and rebuilding the calipers. As I found out, even if they bleed pretty well they can be filled with nasty sludge. Your right rear caliper could be completely blocked with junk. The rebuild itself is actually not difficult at all, there are some great write-ups to follow out there.

Keep up the great work! Looking forward to your progress!!

I'll probably just replace them, it's cheap enough.