E30 318is - This is what 200k and $1300 looks like

[E30 Wagen]

Wow, it's like my cars clone... I think yours is in better condition, though.

[Nick_S]

Welcome, great write ups so far. Interested to see where this goes!

[dullrot]

Welcome, great write ups so far. Interested to see where this goes!

could say the same, just read through your thread and really enjoyed it so far. Even if you are from Columbus.

<- Born in Cincy (go Bearcats)

[irish44j]

sub'd. Where in Virginia are you?

[dullrot]

Just up ffx parkway near Dulles! Cool to see another wrx guy on here as well. Seems like the mx5, wrx, and e30 guys are all from the same genome. Find an owner of one, good chance they'll have, have had, or plan to have one or both of the others.

Digging your Triumph as well - reminds me of the MG Gt that I daydream about sometimes when I'm feeling particularly self loathing.

[irish44j]

lol....yeah, I think about the GT6 when I'm feeling self-loathing as well. I meant to do some work on it this summer, but after working on the e30 and e21, which are so sensibly constructed and so easy to find parts for, I have no desire to work on the GT6 at all, lol.

Yeah, WRX keeps me satisfied for DD duty. Ironic that I rallycross an e30, when most cars out there are Subies....

Anyhow hit me up if you need anything. I have a pretty good feel for M42s at this point, and I know many don't like them, but I actually really do like the M42, personally. btw, the e36 rack feels pretty much exactly the same as a z3/m3 rack. I have one in the rally-x car and have never felt a need for a quicker ratio. But get rid of the trucker steering wheel :)

[dullrot]

But get rid of the trucker steering wheel :)

Nardi classic ;-) I have a black spoke/leather and a black spoke with wood rim to alternate between, and an e30 hub. Both 360mm. Love me some nardi.

The Mtech wheels are cheap enough (sometimes) that I might try one out at some point. I do appreciate an OEM wheel that makes an effort.

Glad to hear the 3.2 rack is worth the upgrade. I have it apart for rebuild now, and the main seal kit ready to go on, but there is an "installation kit" with other seals/bushings that is a separate part number/kit, that I'm waiting for from Tischer for final reassembly. Really odd that they are not sold together, since I can 't fathom doing part of this job and leaving some worn seals while changing others. After careful consideration I've decided that the steering linkage guibo is stupid, and will be deleted.

Thought getting the tie rods off the e36 rack was as hard as it could get, but getting the e30's off was worse. Must have chiseled at those locking tabs with five different modes of chisel and three types of hammers.

At least two hours worth of work, which left me completely covered in the combination of every sort of oil/fluid in the car, mixed with road dirt. Must have looked like Clarkson trying to fix a car at Burning Man. My Swedish steelworker Grandfather probably looked down from Valhalla that night and nodded approval, before presumably getting on with the business of terrorizing the dreams of British people.

[irish44j]

Nardi classic ;-) I have a black spoke/leather and a black spoke with wood rim to alternate between, and an e30 hub. Both 360mm. Love me some nardi.

The Mtech wheels are cheap enough (sometimes) that I might try one out at some point. I do appreciate an OEM wheel that makes an effort.

Glad to hear the 3.2 rack is worth the upgrade. I have it apart for rebuild now, and the main seal kit ready to go on, but there is an "installation kit" with other seals/bushings that is a separate part number/kit, that I'm waiting for from Tischer for final reassembly. Really odd that they are not sold together, since I can 't fathom doing part of this job and leaving some worn seals while changing others. After careful consideration I've decided that the steering linkage guibo is stupid, and will be deleted.

Thought getting the tie rods off the e36 rack was as hard as it could get, but getting the e30's off was worse. Must have chiseled at those locking tabs with five different modes of chisel and three types of hammers.

At least two hours worth of work, which left me completely covered in the combination of every sort of oil/fluid in the car, mixed with road dirt. Must have looked like Clarkson trying to fix a car at Burning Man. My Swedish steelworker Grandfather probably looked down from Valhalla that night and nodded approval, before presumably getting on with the business of terrorizing the dreams of British people.

yeah, I just had to do the locking tabs on my e21 rack, which was just as bad. Luckily it's not a powered rack, so at least I didn't have to deal with fluids all over like I did with the e30 one. I just put mine in the sink and scrubbed it with dawn, lol.

For my e36 rack, I didn't even rebuild it, just replaced the boots and the main bushings. It wasn't leaking, so didn't feel the need to mess with it. So far after 2 rallycross seasons it's still fine with no leaks. I do still have the guibo, however. For RX I like it absorbing a bit of the shock. There is a urethane steering guibo out there as well, but I forget who makes it.

[dullrot]

Welp, I've screwed that right up.

Resealing the rack has been fairly straightforward, which I've countered by being a clot. The secondary seal kit, which contains not seals, but clips, nuts, and crucially, the plastic spacer for the other kit's main hydraulic seal, took well over a week to arrive. In the meantime I figured that in the interest of progress, I'd get everything apart, and reseal what I could.

Most of it came apart cleanly - if you've rebuilt any car's rack before, it won't be much different. This guide on another forum is excellent, and specific to the e36 rack.

The only seal I had issues with was one on the hydraulic end of the rack. only way to get at it was with a bar or very long extension + socket, once the rack gears/piston were all removed. In the guide a linked to, guy gets it out with a breaker bar. I had no such luck.



A 21mm socket was too thin and would pass right through the seal, and a 23mm would get stuck before reaching the seal. 22mm was close, but after a few whacks it only succeeded in driving out the spring inside the seal, at which point the 22mm socket would drive right through as well.

It took the better part of a day to get that thing out. I tried every method I could think of, including fabricating some tools.



In the end I had to change the shape to this to get a good purchase on the seal and slowly work it out.

So where did I screw it up. Well, in this assembly,



pic borrowed from other thread, you see what looks like three seals/parts inside the aluminum housing, all of which slide over the hydraulic end of the rack (note - when I say hydraulic end, I mean the passenger side, which is where the hydraulic bits are - the driver side of these racks have the pinion/gears, which aren't hydraulically lubricated, but instead use regular old grease). It's actually two seals - the top green rubber and white thin plastic ring are connected, and one part.

The plastic bit at the bottom doesn't come in the main rack rebuild kit, it comes in the secondary one. The secondary one isn't made by third party manufacturers, and isn't regularly stocked by any dealers. Tischer had to order it for me, hence the wait.

Well, being a fool. I hadn't taken note of how these three bits went together, and assumed that I could get the thick plastic seal in last, once it arrived, after I put in the other seal that sits on top of it. Uh, no.

So when the secondary kit arrived, I didn't have much choice, and had to remove the replacement seal I'd put in. Which trashed it.



And of course, you can't order a single seal out of the rebuild kit. They have no individual part numbers. So you have to buy another complete kit. Which is $80 at best from the factory. The Febi kit I'm using is $40. So now I get to wait for that. It'll leave me with an e36 rack kit that is complete, apart from one seal - which each kit has two of, the other going at the bottom of the pinion gear housing - a seal that doesn't really go bad. So I'll probably put the 99% complete new kit up for sale in the forums for $20 or so, and advise that the buyer leave in place the pinion seal. My loss..

But in the meantime, there is plenty to keep me busy. Though I can't finish sealing it, the rack can still be used to mock up the linkage. I wasn't yet sure if I'd have to modify the firewall, shorten/lengthen the steering column, or what to do about steering guibo replacements/spacers, etc.

So let's hack up that linkage. Note that it's pretty unique among e30's - the late model 318's with airbags are different to the 325's, and non airbag cars.

Removing the guibo isn't really different through - dremel off both ends of the metal grommets, and then pry/tap them out of the aluminum linkages.









to get the other two out it was easiest to saw off the rest of the guibo to get the linkage into a vice





All done. I dug up some spacers that will basically replace the guibo, and allow the column shaft to join up and sit in the proper location, with its tip in the little plastic bushing in the linkage





I used nord lock (aka cam lock) washers on the nuts/bolts. Those things are legit, they can handle turbo mounting stresses easily, so they should have no trouble keeping things together here.

Test fit - the angle is no good, and indeed it looks like modifying the firewall is in order.



That's not a terrible process - and it's covered well here

Basically you shave a little bit towards the ground/tunnel, and fabricate a new plate that the column passes through/boot attaches to.



Here's rmeuro's new plate on the left, OEM on the right. They're pictured rotated 180 degrees for some reason.



And here's my new one, with the stock one cut.



My intent was to put the stock plate overtop my new plate, because the factory one is much thicker. It'll keep my plate from flexing so much. Like so.



The boot that keeps the bay's heat/noise/fumes out of the cabin attaches to the plate, so if the plate flexes a bunch, or the plastic bearing at the tip of the boot binds, then the whole boot will twist out and slide down the rack. In fact, on my first inspection of the car, the boot was already sitting down at the end of the column



So hopefully the modified factory plate will help prevent my replacement plate from flexing too much. I also ground down the plastic bearing at the tip of the boot so that it wouldn't bind as easily on the rotating column.

I gave both plates a quick coat of paint, and used the wife's red nail polish to seal up the bare metal I'd shaved from the firewall. Then I put a bead of RTV between the plates, and between the firewall and plates. Result - the column and rack line up.

One thing I did find was that the rack spacers (needed to bolt rack to subframe)



Have to sit above the rack in order to make things line up better. I'd hoped to sit the rack on top of the spacers, which would improve the geometry of the tie rods once the car is lowered. At rest, you want the tie rods to be horizontal - on many lowered cars, the tie rods are angled upwards from the rack to the wheel hub. Oh well.

To make the mockup easier, I removed the oil pan. The other reason being that it's only possible to remove the pan and change its gasket when the steering rack is off. The bottom of the car is an oil slick,



and while I'm not certain that any of that is due to the pan gasket, it's a good chance to make sure it's not, and to clean the sludge out of the bottom of the pan. If I had all my facilities set up, I'd be able to do this the way I'd want to - powerwash most of the oil/grime off (it was 28 degrees out, so...uh, no), then media blast the pan (cabinet not set up yet) and then powdercoat the exterior of the pan (ditto). That left soap and water in the slop sink, and a bunch of paper towels. Then brake cleaner spray, and more paper towels.





Clean enough for now. At some point this summer most of the engine bay should come apart for power washing and more resealing.

The second rack seal kit should be here by the end of the week, and the rack should be ready to go together for good.

In the meantime I'm replacing all the stock stereo bits, and starting to deal with the worst of the rust. Also ordered a set of e36 m3 motor mounts. My passenger mount is leaking its fluid, and the driver side can't be far behind. I'll take the opportunity to weld in some garagistic reinforcement plates for those as well.

[enildeR]

I could see that being true, and I don't have immediate plans to change it out. It's more like if I do discover the m42 is on its way out, then I'll almost certainly be looking at swaps other than rebuilding the 1.8 or sourcing another. And with that in mind I'll try to avoid making parts decisions that would be negated by a motor swap. At 200k it could be next to dead, or it could be on its way to 300+ (with me or whomever is to come).

Mine is right near 300k. Still going strong. The HLA's in the valvetrain are one of the many factors that make this engine great. No valve adjustments needed.

Glad to see there are those that think it's an engine worth keeping.

They def are. They're rev happy, too. Just have to keep it above 4.2k to really see the M42's nature.

Plenty can be done to the M42 to make it even better. M44 timing case/oil pump (higher pressure), M47 crank, ITBs. Metric Mechanic even has a modified intake manifold that apparently improves the engine characteristics over the stock one. Has cups welded on the runners just above the intake ports. Pretty funny looking, but works. Also be aware that there is an idler gear in the timing case that can self destruct and destroy your chain/gears/chain sliders. Might be something to replace with the m44 idler if you ever have the front end taken apart. If you ever hear a funny noise emanating from the front of the engine, could be soon. It has always been a concern of mine because of the milage, but I don't have to worry about it any longer (engine swap).

If you haven't found it yet, m42club.com exists and has plenty of M42-specific threads. More so than on here. It's just not as active as this place or BF.com. More of a good source to dig through. I'd post questions there and here. You'll get faster responses here, but eventually you'll get some info over there from someone that really knows the engine.


Have you done anything major since Dec to the BMW?

[dullrot]

I've been keeping quiet on it since progress has been so slow. Changed jobs, took a caveat to prep my mx5 for spring/summer, and then fought the rear subframe bushings for a solid month. Finally got those out, now the car is bare underneath but for the front subframe/engine. Assembling a press to push out bushings now.

Thanks for the info on the engine! I do appreciate that it doesn't need valve adjustments!