Granitsilber Coupe: x-country warrior kicking it in SoCal

[2mAn]

yeah, that I lip help up great until just a couple weeks ago. I just dread having to replace is lips all the time.

Thanks for posting the photos!

It's all in how you drive. Were the same height and I haven't had an issue

[thatphysicsguy]

It's all in how you drive. Were the same height and I haven't had an issue

That's encouraging. Plus now that I'm not driving the car on the cratered landscape of upstate NY anymore, perhaps an is lip might survive.

[thatphysicsguy]

Haven't updated in a while and a lot has happened.

P/S rack gave up the ghost. Took it to Oceanside Motorsports to swap in an E36 M3 rack. Owner said it was the leakiest rack he had ever seen. I was filling up the p/s resevoir almost every other day.

Paid a pretty penny to swap the rack, replace a leaky clutch master cyl, and get a new diff gasket and fluids. BUT the new steering rack feels amazing very glad I did the upgrade. That said, the P/S belt (I'm pretty sure) is making a fierce racket on startup even though the belt is new as of the summer. After a couple mins it quiets down to normal, but it is very loud on cold start. I got a new belt, but maybe the P/S pump is getting worn out and chewing through belts. We'll have to see.

Also got new tires. Put on nitto neo-gens in a 205 45 16 size which is a slight downsize from my previous 205-50-16 continentals that I had before. Car seems to be a little more neutral (less understeer) but I have less grip in the wet compared to the contis. So far I'm liking them though.

Car is very close to 150k mark. Going to do a valve adjustment and throw on a new O2 sensor in anticipation of trying to make smog again this year (fingers crossed).

For Xmas, also going to order a new trunk emblem, new front lip, and maybe new bumper trim. also planning on giving the car a thorough detail pretty soon too. Should be a nice 150k anniversary present.

For things still on the docket:

-I'll be looking into ordering a sssquid chip

-Still need the plastic rear cover for the passenger sports seat (anyone have a shredded seat laying around?)

-Still trying to sell my alloy m52tu: $1200 for a low miles and LTW motor.

Here are a few photos of how the car is now:





I've driven some faster cars recently and it makes me realize (even more) how slow the e30 is. But it doesn't matter because I'm still having a blast driving it everywhere.

[iwantspeed]

nice work on getting that rack replaced

[2mAn]

I had those same tires on my car a while ago. They aren't bad

[thatphysicsguy]

Changed the P/S belt on saturday and the thing still screams like a banshee, except now it isn't just on cold start, it's whenever the car is below 3k revs...

New list of culprits:
-Alternator in process of chewing a bearing (wouldnt be a surprise b/c its a rebuilt O'reilly's unit)

-P/S pump is on its way out and dragging the belt with it

-Water pump bearing?

-T-belt tensioner

I'm going to take off the alt belt and see if I can feel the Alt bearings and if they're toast or not, but any advice from r3v on how I can more accurately pinpoint the issue without chucking parts at "mysterious engone bay noise"???

[thatphysicsguy]

Turns out the alt belt was on its way out. Put a new one on and we're all set.

Got a nice care package from blunt for xmas with o2 sensor, rear emblem, hood shock, and VC gasket. Going to do a big service soon once I'm done with hectic holiday travels.

Car still running great! It's nice to turn it on without letting the whole neighborhood know...

[2mAn]

Car still running great! It's nice to turn it on without letting the whole neighborhood know...

Thats what a free flow exhaust is for

[thatphysicsguy]

Car hit 150k a couple weeks ago. Did a valve adjustment right around then and recently did an oil change at 152k. Still working well. There's a tiny coolant leak off the lower rad hose and I don't know if its the rad or not. There's coolant residue and the occasional drip on the hose but I replaced that hose recently so I'm not sure where the leak might be coming from. In any case it's very small so I'll keep monitoring it to see if it gets worse.

Took the car up north to the bay area for a week and did a lot for driving up in the santa cruz mountains. There are some great roads up there (when you're not stuck behind a prius)



There was one road in particular "old la honda drive" or something like that over by the SLAC that was a real trip. It got down to one lane at a couple points and had some crazy hairpins and drop offs. It felt like driving through Endor with the mist that was hanging in the forest.

On the way back, I wanted to take hwy 1 all the way down the coast, but the recent heavy rains caused a mudslide that blocked my plans:rippedoff:. So instead, I had to take the 101. But this brought me right past Laguna Seca, so not all was lost.



Even laid down a couple little 11s in the paddock ;D

After ventura I rejoined hwy 1 and finished the last leg of the trip.



Car is still running great although it looks like someone stole my front BMW emblem off my hood while I was up in Santa Cruz . The metal base is still there, but the decal got scraped off or something. So I have to get a replacement for that and I still am looking for a sports seat rear cover.

Just another season in the E30 life.

[2mAn]

Love to see updates on this

[thatphysicsguy]

Bad News everyone,

Car developed a driveline vibration last week. I was pulling out of a parking space and heard a very loud, sharp CLUNK! when I started to roll away in first gear. I thought nothing of it and drove back to my house with no issue. But the next day, I felt a vibration above 50 mph. And it only happened while on throttle, car ran smooth while coasting.

So I took the exhaust off to look at the driveshaft and there's no discernible play or slop that I could feel while rotating the driveshaft by hand. CSB was still tight (no obvious failure) and the giubo and all associated hardware were still present and in good condition.

Are there less obvious ways for the CSB to fail that I might not be seeing? I feel like I can move the driveshaft around a tiny bit if I really push side to side by the CSB, but the rubber cupping seems to be designed to dampen motion like that.

The vibration itself is not (yet) extreme so I accept that I probably won't be able to feel the source of it with my hand, but I don't want to pay a shop to rebuild the driveshaft when there's a possibility that it isn't the main issue.

Ideas anyone?

[c0rbin9]

Could be CV axles.

[thatphysicsguy]

Verified that it was indeed the U-joints on the driveshaft. At a certain angle, the u-joint slop became really obvious. Struggled with taking off the nuts holding the driveshaft to the diff but finally managed to get it off today and over to the shop to be rebuilt.

Another item I need to investigate is why the motor keeps chewing through alt belts. Would a misaligned pulley or something of the nature chew belts? or would bad alt bearings cause that? The wear is like random cunks missing with some separation--Not much fraying. Most of the belt is pretty fresh considering it's about 5k old.

Car is currently filthy, going to get it detailed once it's back on the road. Also going to refresh the shadowline and maybe get a new is lip because the current one is busted.

Further down the road, I gotta do the rear subframe bushings, they are definitely on their way out. I just hope they can last the summer.

[thatphysicsguy]

Got the car running again last week. Putting everything back together was much less of a PITA than taking it all apart. Those self locking nuts are still so soft for the torque they need to be tightened to: I almost stripped one of them with my crow's foot while tightening.

I was able to get the car successfully smogged (guy almost failed me for having an aftermarket air filter...CA problems) and the CEL popped on right as I pulled out of the shop lol. great timing. I think it had something to do with the dyno running and the electronics hooked up to the car because the CEL turned off the next day.

The next thing to break was the odometer. It lasted 154,610 miles before it stopped turning ~200 miles ago. I never reset it while moving but it's quite a POS design if they all seem to break around this point ugh.

So I guess that will be the next project. For now, I'll keep track of mileage by gas fill-ups. I get around 200-250 miles per fill up so i'll just add that to keep track in the interim.

Other things on the docket include getting a new front lip and putting a fresh coat of plasti-dip shadowline on.

[thatphysicsguy]

Posting a big update on this since a lot happened since the last post!

I got the odometer fixed and rolled forward to 155,500 which was my estimate based on fuel consumption. The guys at Oceanside motorsports helped take care of that. They do great work.

I left the USA to go to Spain for grad school in August of 2017 and stored the car for the year in a self-storage locker. When I got back I got a job in the Orange County area and daily-drove the E30 to work for a few enjoyable months, but eventually saved up enough money to get a Subaru STI (world rally blue STI hatchback) so that I could spare the E30 the commuter miles.

Managed to pass smog again in 2018 and 2020: the secret is showing up with hot cats and having them test right away!

In 2020 I took the car back to oceanside motorsports to do the brakes (new pads, disks, and fluid) and to change the timing belt for a gates racing timing belt. While the mileage wasn't a concern yet (last TB was 117K miles and new TB around 157K) the years on the rubber where in my mind and I wanted to just be safe. Also I had the gates racing belt sitting around and wanted to use it before it too got a bit dried out in storage.

I was driving the car way less now that I wasn't putting commute miles on it and I only put about 2k miles on it in ~2 years.

I then moved from California to Virginia for work. Managed to find indoors winter storage for the E30 the first winter (2021) than covered storage for 2022. For the warm months, I enjoyed occasional trips along the blue ridge parkway near my house but still didn't do too many drives. The water pump started to leak coolant through the shaft so I needed to get that swapped. Luckily I found some good local mechanics who could handle it because I didn't really have good space to work on the car anymore.

After a couple years in Virginia, I moved up to Boston earlier this year and got both the STI and E30 trucked up here. It's come to a point where I just am not really able to enjoy the E30 because the Boston roads are terrible and other things in my life are just taking up more time and attention. So I have decided to sell the car. I've been cleaning it up and gathering the info in preparation of listing it online (aiming for BaT) and will miss the car immensely but it's time to move forward and let someone else appreciate the car now.

I will update this thread with sale details once I have them, but If you're interested feel free to reach out to me directly here.