Bronzit E30 - OBDII S52 shaved bay - weekend/autox toy - Journey

[jeenyus]

this is awesome! great work man!

[Digitalwave]

Nice welds! Wheeling the car out of the garage like that looks sketchy as hell.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Got some work done over the weekend.

Finished up the front spindle mods applying some CAD to make the swaybar mounts. Hammered the bends with a BFH in the vise. Not bad I think? We will see if I measured the end links properly! Threw a set of brake ducts on them too. Only one setback - while unthreading one fo the shock inserts from the spindle, some threads galled and got tore up because of rust. Now they do not thread back in without getting stuck. I ordered an M50x1.5 thread tap from China to chase the threads.

And in the category of: one of my stupider ideas; I put the front of the car on wheel dollies, the rear on the engine hoist, and rolled it a few feet out of the garage to give the rear underside a bath.... why do I do these things to myself. What a horrible nasty exhausting mess that made. Making a serious mental note to stop this madness and just take the car to have the undercarriage steam cleaned next time.

Rear subframe/diff/trailing arm updates coming next.

















Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Sh3rpak!ng]

yea the blue bolt bins. those are sick!

yea, got them for free ages ago. But you can search craigslist etc for them. Also you can buy them new all over the internet.

[jeenyus]

yea the blue bolt bins. those are sick!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Nice Garage Charlie. LMK When you want to hang out, youre too close for us not to hang out more often

thanks man - any time! just hmu!

nice job charlie

thanks alex

that blue shelving unit, can i get a link to it? looks legit.

you mean the heavy duty racks more of a grey color that I setup in the corner? or the blue bolt bins?

the racks I got from home depot, the bolt bins I got for free ages ago from a previous job

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I got one of those HF compressors at a sidewalk sale for $200 (was a repaired return, no warranty), back in '08-ish. That compressor ran my shop for several years. Want to say it was for 7-ish years, running all day every day trying to keep up with a die grinder and media blaster. Literally, run all day several days a week, with a few breaks to let it cool off. What finally killed it was kinda my fault. The air lines are so tight at the shop, not a single leak, so it was rarely turned off. We have 3ph electric, so three transformers, and one blew in the middle of the nigt - so the compressor motor was trying to run on one leg (110v) and completely meted down until the braker popped. The windings were just a big mass of copper sludge. Stuck a 3hp real industrial motor on it and it stayed like that until we got the Quincy 325 compressor head (up to 500psi!). Since upgraded the motor to a 5hp 3ph and have the switch to cut off at 190psi and regulate it at the ends of the galvy pipes. The tank is still that same HF tank, though. Had to upgrade the switch for the 3ph motor, but now it's quiet and I can maintain 90psi, even with a wide open 3/8" hose. Now considering fabricating an after cooler for it since the lines near the compressor (they all pitch towards it) have a lot of moisture, even with a quality water separator.

That thing should last light duty for quite some time. They are just a hair loud.

that's awesome feedback! thank you. Great steal of a deal too. I paid clearance price, but it was still "expensive". I was happy to do it though considering the long term benefits. Cool to hear the upgradability too.

Do you have any tricks for quieting it down? I've seen people swap out air filters, but this looks like it kinda has it's own design? maybe I could fabricate and adapter... haven't looked at it too closely yet.

[2mAn]

Thats a legit upgrade on the compressor! Nice.

[ForcedFirebird]

I got one of those HF compressors at a sidewalk sale for $200 (was a repaired return, no warranty), back in '08-ish. That compressor ran my shop for several years. Want to say it was for 7-ish years, running all day every day trying to keep up with a die grinder and media blaster. Literally, run all day several days a week, with a few breaks to let it cool off. What finally killed it was kinda my fault. The air lines are so tight at the shop, not a single leak, so it was rarely turned off. We have 3ph electric, so three transformers, and one blew in the middle of the nigt - so the compressor motor was trying to run on one leg (110v) and completely meted down until the braker popped. The windings were just a big mass of copper sludge. Stuck a 3hp real industrial motor on it and it stayed like that until we got the Quincy 325 compressor head (up to 500psi!). Since upgraded the motor to a 5hp 3ph and have the switch to cut off at 190psi and regulate it at the ends of the galvy pipes. The tank is still that same HF tank, though. Had to upgrade the switch for the 3ph motor, but now it's quiet and I can maintain 90psi, even with a wide open 3/8" hose. Now considering fabricating an after cooler for it since the lines near the compressor (they all pitch towards it) have a lot of moisture, even with a quality water separator.

That thing should last light duty for quite some time. They are just a hair loud.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Small progress. Ground out the ugly welds I did ~5 years ago on these struts when I first tried my hand welding with a HF stick welder. Went back over with the MIG. Much better. Additionally made some gussets and welded one in. Next I'll make some swaybar brackets and weld those one. After that I'm considering disassembling the hub to have the whole thing powder coated and replace the bearings. Spent most of last weekend wrestling the biggest power tool I ever bought into the garage. 60 gal 2 stage 165psi 15cfm at 90psi. Been waiting to have the ability to run 240v to upgrade to a big boy air compressor. No regrets. Believe it or not its quieter than the HF 2.5hp 10 gallon compressor it replaced. Also believe it or not that compressor is still going strong 12 years later with 1 oil change.... it's a bit overkill for the moment but I want to do some more painting, eventually get a blast cabinet and expand my air tool collection so this ought to cover all my future needs. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[2mAn]

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Some updates...

Started the suspension refresh. Rear is completely torn down and disassembled. Overdue for maintenance. The condor rear trailing arm bushings took quite a bit of abuse since installed around 5 years ago?!?! Easily over 40-50k miles on all my "new" suspension at this point. Subframe bushings still look great but they were softer poly. All rear bushings getting replaced with AKG 75D. Went with 12mm subframe riser bushings to improve rear roll center. Hopefully I can still get the camber where I want it. Also noticed a small crack starting to form around the base of the inner passenger side adjuster. I'll do some minor reinforcement all over including where the diff mounts to the subframe. Between all that and the e36 double ear diff cover, rear end should be rock solid for years to come. Trailing arms will get reinforcement too.

Front is 50% disassembled. Going to do reinforcement of the spindle and go over some of the "less than ideal" welds I did years ago with my shitty stick welder. Got my eye on the ground control roll center/bump steer kit to add adjustment to both tie rod and control arm mount point. Initially was considering the MRT/SLR type kit but both seem to give a significant minimum offset with the mounting block plus regular adjustment. Besides likely not fitting inside my 15" joengbloeds, looks like they will overcompensate the adjustment I actually need. After spot checking the suspension angles at ride height it doesn't appear I need much major adjustment. Tie rods are ~3/4" from parallel to the ground, and control arms maybe 1/4" - 1/2". The ground control kit should provide that and clear the barrel of the wheel.

I am also going to switch from standard control arm mounted swaybar endlinks to strut mounted like the M cars. My front end links are toast and were never at ideal angles.

on to pictures....

Chopped out the spare tire well. Long overdue.




Had to order some maintenance parts for my wife's car and noticed rockauto also carries a massive variety of oils including my favorite liqui moly (and at decent price). So I loaded up on supplies to do oil changes in all three cars. They're all overdue.




I am also going to switch from standard control arm mounted swaybar endlinks to strut mounted like the M cars. My front end links are toast and were never at ideal angles. I started taking measurements for the end links, but then realized I have a little problem... When I installed and modified the new headers and merge section, I did so with the swaybar at the odd upwards angle (forced by the end link mount position). Clearances were very tight, but they fit. Now with the swaybar at the correct angle, it pivoted the center section under the car closer to the exhaust... and now they touch with the swaybar parallel to the ground. I suppose I have three options:

Space the swaybar mounts further down
Accept less than ideal swaybar angle
Modify the exhaust

I very much do not want to dent or modify the exhaust (there just isn't space unless I remade the whole thing). So I think I'll do a combo of options 1 and 2. And I'll create a bit more beefy swaybar mount spacer. Maybe I'll dent the exhaust a teeny tiny bit. Every millimeter counts!



Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[TeXJ]

I mounted one to a grinder stand so it's mobile in the shop....

https://www.amazon.com/WEN-4288-Benc...07&s=hi&sr=1-3

aww that's cool! I didn't know if those were heavy enough for a vise to be used on them. Thank you!

[jeenyus]

that blue shelving unit, can i get a link to it? looks legit.

[iwantspeed]

nice job charlie