Daytonaviolett Sturmwagen E30

[Thujalvi]

Suddenly remembering that I've a thread here, an update!

The clutch business turned out be a part going between the slave cylinder rod and the fork, as pictured here, not being where it was supposed to be, which caused to the push rod to over extend and tear the rubber seals.



After that was sorted the clutch was working beautifully, so it was time to scare myself shitless with the car now refusing to start.



Luckily that was an easy fix, and the car good to go for a test drive. (Achtung! Open headers, loud engine.)

Since then I've been working on the heating and cooling systems and trying to figure out what to do with this diff I've got, which I think has a stone under the input shaft dust shield or something, as it makes quite the annoying grinding noise.



Also if anyone has any good ideas how to make getting to the rear shock top mounts any easier (it's rather tricky on a touring) I'd appreciate you sharing.


Don't bother bitching about the 'M' badge, I stuck it on the front grille so it doesn't get lost among all the other little pieces of plastic lying around.

Thanks for the comments and what not.

[Thujalvi]

It's been a while since the last update, let's see what's been going on since that.

Since the A/C retrofit project went into the backburner, the dash went back into place, though I'm still undecided as to how exactly I want to mount the DME. At least it's accessible the way it's now.







Also the cooling system is now fully operational, with all hoses in, heater working and an electric fan installed and wired with a 95/90 degree c temp switch. Also I found a solution for the temp gauge sender unit problem, which is that the stock unit doesn't really fit anywhere. I used a Rover 200 sender (also MB 190E and some Toyotas of similar vintage have sending units that work with the stock cluster) with a thread adapter and installed it into the block coolant drain hole.











Since there's isn't really much work to do up front, the front bodywork goes back on the car. making it look like one again. Also both of the front fenders were a bit rusty and crumpled up, so that was fixed, luckily it wasn't too much work.







And finally after receiving a package from Reno, all that's left to do is replacing shocks and springs, and making a working exhaust. This is where the car is now:













Basically none of the exhaust bits I've got would play nice with each other, so there's going to be a lot of welding ahead, and some more still with a couple of rust repairs looming on the horizon. But the car is looking good, I'm hoping to have it in a drivable, streetable condition before the end of the month. Without looking like this.


Sturmwagen E30 by Thujalvi, on Flickr

Thanks for listening.

[ButtJuice]

Thumbs up

[CorvallisBMW]

So cool!

[LJ851]

:up:

[nando]

wow, never seen inside the M40 head before. It looks exactly like the 885 combustion chamber. I'm guessing an M40 is basically an m20 minus 2 cylinders..

[Thujalvi]

That really depends on how you look at it. On the surface they seem rather similar, and they do seem to share a fair bit of architecture, but looking into it, they don't really share any parts, and in some ways the M40 is more closely related to the M50, as weird as it appears (I'd suppose the M42 is the missing link there.) In fact the M40 shares surprisingly few parts with any other motor.

[Thujalvi]

Holy shit it's been ages since I've updated this thread.

Since I last updated about six months ago, the car is now in driving condition, and the only reason it's not being driven and is still sitting in the warehouse, is that it doesn't quite meet the emissions requirements, at first because I'd bungled up the wiring for the oxygen sensors, and now because one of the sensors is broken, and having a broken PCV system doesn't help either.

Anyway, I hacked up and welded the exhaust back together in a slightly different way:





Only had a couple of pinhole leaks as well. I've also replaced the springs and damper both front and rear:





After that I replaced the differential, but that's not very visually interesting, so instead here's a couple of photos of the repairs done to the bit at the rear where all E30's rust:







In real life the paint seam is a lot less noticeable. Also it was a rather more involved project than these three photos might imply.

Beyond that it's been mostly finishing touches on the wiring and interior, though I did quite recently change out the radiator and water pump, both of which were of not very good quality:





While I was down there I also replaced the water temperature sender, which suffered total failure due to it's proximity to the exhaust, as it was placed in the block coolant drain hole, which I found to be a not very good spot in terms of getting accurate readings anyway, so now it's in the radiator bottom hose, which still isn't ideal, but at least more representative of actual coolant temperature.

Still despite the fact that most of the work done on the car recently has been this:



I still managed to enjoy the combination of rear wheel drive and winter at least a bit.





Cheers!

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Great project man. I love the color one of my favorites

[varg]

Nice paint, I like that color. Good that you were able to get rid of that M40 as well, it's the worst engine BMW made as far as I know.

[Thujalvi]

Thanks, you Americans are lucky you never really got the hateful lump of pig-iron that is the M40 (at least not in the E30.) As for the paint, I do love the colour too, but for the most part it looks like this:


Parking is hard by Thujalvi, on Flickr


Sturmpanzer E30 by Thujalvi, on Flickr

But it sort of adds to the character, and I want the car to carry it's scars with pride, it's not a show-car in the slightest.

Also, I've been slightly curious, does anyone know of another Daytonaviolet E30 touring with an M52TU, as I have a sneaking suspicion that this might be the only one of it's kind out there, which would be kind of cool.

[Thujalvi]

Long time no update.

Since last time I sorted the PCV along with a few exhaust leaks, which allowed me to get the sort of tail pipe emissions that the inspection office deemed passable. That combined with the sort of paper-warfare that was required to register the car with the M52TU, I was able drive the car for all of two days as fully legal until I found myself with steam poring from underneath the bonnet combined with an oil pressure warning light. Brilliant.





Which was the revenge of the cheap radiator. I was able to deduce that those plastic spirals are from a radiator that I had for a while (which as also rubbish, it leaked wouldn't keep things cool very well, made by RUF autoteile (not associated with RUF automobile, which is a different company all together)), which I still have sitting in a corner, following this incident it's going to undergo dissection by the way of an angle-grinder, mostly for cathartic purposes.

So I found my self with a slightly cooked engine including a melted heater pipe and a fucked thermostat. This might have been non-terminal in most cases, but the impression that I've got is that this is extremely unlikely with these engines, so the work began on pulling of the head.



This started well enough, the limited space being the only real issue at this point.





So the top-end was pretty much completely disassembled, and the head went to the machinist and I ordered a big pile of gaskets, including the vanos ones, which were very much on their way out.

So when we get to about two weeks before this post, I've got the head back, with 0.25 mm skimmed, everything's about ready for reassembly, new head gasket, new head bolts, everything's been cleaned up nicely.





So I start turning the head bolts, first the 40 Nm, everything goes fine, then then the first 90 º, again everything is going well. Then, during the second round of 90 º on a bolt towards the centre I hear an ominous *crack*, I'm wary but decide to keep going through all the bolts, just to get an idea of how much I'm screwed.



The final tally is three threads destroyed, A lot of work essentially for nothing.

At this point after removing the head (again) and assessing the damages, I can no longer deal with it, I had to step away from the car for a couple of weeks, I didn't want to see the damn thing for a while. The next few weeks I'd spend being angry, tired and depressed. Only this week I felt calmed down enough to be constructive with the engine again, and after much anxiety over managing to drill the broken bolt holes out straight, (the first one came out ever so slightly off-angle, but the other two were perfect, as far as I'm concerned) the head went back on after the time-serts. Wizened from the previous altercation, I was perhaps somewhat over cautious with the tightening, thus far only having done the first of the 90 º rounds, even that in two parts, I decided to let it sit for a bit and going back to it with a couple of more degrees in a day or two.



Positives? The only crooked time-sert was only negligible, and apart from slight resistance to being turned, went down without a fight, and for what it's worth I now know the straight six head bolt tightening sequence by heart. Also replacing the Vanos seals (of which I don't have any pictures, but they all look exactly the same anyway) went rather swimmingly, which was a nice change of pace to the usual "everything goes to hell" drill with this car.

Because I don't really have anything to end with, here's an M40 dangling in the air:



Thanks.

[Thujalvi]

The head went back on, with not quite the sort of strechy-torquey business as the Bavarians insist upon, but after throwing the numbers around in my head for a while I decided that I'm in the right spot, what with the machined head and everything.







I'm on the road to recovery, or massive engine failure, it's one or the other at this point.

[CorvallisBMW]

I have to applaud you for your will and determination after so many setbacks. I can understand your frustration; I would want to cut shit in half with a saw also after all of this. Props to you for keeping it up! It will be worth it in the end!

[E30stan]

I had no clue bmws painted the e30 daytonaviolet, one of my favorite colors on the e36 m3. Very interesting project, keep up the good work!