Lira (euro DS mtech II 318is reshelled, 24v swapped, also now BAR'd)

[ohthejosh]

How long is the process for the BAR to inspect and decide?

[kronus]

it took maybe 45 minutes for them to go through everything. In an ideal situation, they give you the sticker/certificate at the end of this process and you can go to the DMV and register if you need to.

[delamaize]

And shit like this is why I'm glad that I don't live in commiefornia, and I live in a no-emissions county...

[kronus]

hmm.

[kronus]

couple new things here.

spliced and wrapped the radio harness. The late 318iS harness is awesome and doesn't have a fader, so this was probably the least fiddly radio connector splice I've done.



popped in the Kenwood KDC-252U. No-frills but decent head unit, I have two more in other cars.




cleaned the block some. a lot. my wrist hurts.



got new pulleys and a tensioner, since the old ones were making noise




pulled the driver's seat apart to fix the tearing lower cover





the shocks were a bit broken.



lower cushion off








these held the cover to the foam pad.. I don't think they'll go back in easily, so I'm wondering what else I can do. glue seems like it won't be totally secure.




this guy (which holds the seatback up) is held on by a rivet, and frequently comes loose or cracks in half. this specific one has already cracked and been welded back together in the past, but now the rivet was loose.



the other side had already been spot welded to the upright to hold it more securely, so I decided to replicate this.



so, recline mechanisms off



bag it up



sandblast the place we're welding



spot weld and grind!



paint and put functional shocks back in



the cover is off to my upholstere...girlfriend to stitch in a new panel I salvaged from a rear seat.

[2mAn]

hopefully 2016 we will both have our E30s with CA plates

[kronus]

some good news and some bad news

good news: replaced the torn seat panel with part of a rear seat! everything is back together. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was before, by a lot.



also did the front suspension rebuild. control arms with new lemforder balljoints, new THR-type CABs, cleaned up and reconditioned some other stuff I had lying around.





The green springs are Weitec, which appear to be more common in Europe than the states, we'll see how good they are.

CA's in



Car back on the ground with its sister




now, for bad news, here's part of the m50's chain guide



now I have to take it even further apart :(

[2002jm]

those cars are nice

Wish I had your shop!!
Cars look so nice. Will be looking for information on the white one; I am trying to build one too....white 87 mt1:)
jm

[kronus]

Will be looking for information on the white one

i've got a whole project thread for it ;)

[2mAn]

that stupid motor... wtf is going. I dont think this car wants to have a 24v motor... or one of the M5x variety

[kronus]

I think it heard talk of maybe receiving the S50, and is now throwing a tantrum because it wants it over the pedestrian M50. Little does it know...

[kronus]

this whole time I've been storing the donor in a out-of-the-way spot in the shop, but I finally got sick of it and figured out a way to junk it. This involved trailering the shell to the DMV and annoying them until they gave me a junk slip, which took about 4 hours and the support of a very gracious DMV employee who also liked e30s.




Now, back to Lira and her stupid-ass motor. To get at the timing rails, you have to take off the front timing cover. It was actually a pretty easy job with the head off, the only problems being the crank bolt and the 20-something screws holding it on.

cover on:



cover off:



exhibit A, chain guide with the teeth cracked off



exhibit B, chain tensioner rail that took a faceful of chain at some point



exhibit C, sadface mcbrokey




With the rails replaced (side note, get the correct rail for the year of your motor. M50tu's had an update in early 1995 that replaced the metal-and-plastic rail with an all-plastic one, and they do not interchange easily), it was time to get the rest of it together.

The cover went on with new gaskets, but doing the crank bolt alone was a challenge. I ended up doing it with the car in 5th gear, using

some bolt goo



a tire prop



and an "extended" torque wrench



and then it was on. 410Nm baby, yeah!




for getting all the timing cover and pulley bolts in properly I like to use a mirror at a 45 degree angle to see what I'm doing.



pulley bits all assembled with a new idler, new tensioner, and a power steering pump that's hopefully not fucked..



head on



trays in



at this point I discovered that my exhaust cam was pretty scored up, got annoyed and went home.

the next day, wh33lhop came over with his old M50 cams and we got them in, timed, the vanos installed, and most everything else assembled.



The last thing remaining is the wiring harness, which I'm installing tomorrow. It's all labeled so it should be a 20 minute affair. Then we'll see if I managed to fix anything by rebuilding the top end and blindly replacing random parts!

[ian e30 318is]

Awesome!! Would love to stop by again to see this in person.

[325ix]

I have a real love/hate relationship with style 10s. In this case I love them.

[kronus]

Awesome!! Would love to stop by again to see this in person.

come by anytime! shoot me a pm

I have a real love/hate relationship with style 10s. In this case I love them.

they're getting swapped out for a set of something neat once I have the time to refinish the something neat. in the meantime they're growing on me a bit..