E30 Resurrection Intro

[Stanley Rockafella]

That sounds dismal

what does?

[Jshbrwr]

but it's just going to progress regardless of the type of spray sealant you use.

good luck

That does. Seems kinda hopeless...but hey, I'll try the PO-15 stuff maybe

[Jshbrwr]

Ha! Things are funny sometimes. So there I was, sitting in the driver seat, as I like to pretend that I'm driving the car, and while sittin there, I decide to put on the seat belt to see how it feels. Well, whadya know? The seat belt latch is missing. Oh but it's not. It just happens to be on the left side.

I guess it's good that I haven't bought a passenger seat yet, seeing as how I already have one on the driver's side!

So, now my two big ticket interior parts are the carpet (still) and a black comfort driver's seat.

[Jshbrwr]

Hey fellers, little update. Finally got the steering wheel after about a month! Looking to put that on maybe this week. Also got a carpet from @Wanganstyle. Hope to finish up the floor pan protection before putting that carpet down.

Still need a drivers seat in black. Comfort is fine if you know someone in the SE...

[Jshbrwr]

Well, again it's been a while, but I was determined to get some progress over the long holiday.

And without comparing my project to some forum-wizards (Das Beast: My E30 track / street build
http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=370906), I do still count it as progress.

So I've tolerated that camry-esque 4-spoke crap wheel for too long (longer than I would have if I'd actually been driving this car), and I've had the 3-spoke wheel since some time in November. Here's the before:



During:


Was a little perplexed by the wires and terminals within the new wheel. They were for the horn mechanism in the center button.




I learned this goldish metal ring on the inside actually makes contact with this metal plunger thing (with the orange dot below the bolt):



I took it on faith that the horn button, once connected to those wires would do its thing when pressed.





All done!

[Jshbrwr]

Here's another interior update....

Got a driver's sport seat in the mail from DasGerman, a parts place up in Tennessee.

Here's what it looked like in the box:




So I was left with a few parts to put together. I was able to check out some tutorials on how exactly to piece the thing back together.

Here are both seats out of the car, while I was still assembling the sport seat:



After all is done, things look great! Actually looks like a car a normal person would drive:

[doorman]

Looking good!!!

I just emailed your parts source about some parts I'm looking for.

[Jshbrwr]

Looking good!!!

I just emailed your parts source about some parts I'm looking for.

Yeah, both Kristen and Donnie were very helpful. I believe Donnie is the owner.

[Kershaw]

Nice progress man. Have you done anything with the hole in the trans tunnel? Any idea why that was done?

[Jshbrwr]

Nice progress man. Have you done anything with the hole in the trans tunnel? Any idea why that was done?

Not yet. I have a friend that is very comfortable with welding things and I'm waiting for a good time for him to help me weld that stuff shut. Then in goes the carpet.

The cuts were done I think to get to the drive shaft/guibo business. Not really sure.

[Jshbrwr]

Well ladies and gents, I have an update - last we checked, I had two front seats. The next "small" thing was the carpet. It was to be the one last cosmetic task, before diving into the real troubleshooting. The carpet was purchased many months ago and I'd packed it in the car's trunk, just waiting for the right time. That right time was early September. Here it is in its cacoon:



The install would of course necessitate taking out both of those lovely seats, but after doing it once, the second time was much easier (that's what she said).

The carpet was in pretty good shape but needed a quick vacuum before installing:





The gas pedal gave me some trouble, but I persevered.

I realized while working that this meant that all the dash and random interior bits could be permanently fixed into place, not just set like a mock-up in Walmart. That was pretty satisfying.



In the end, it was just cool to see something other than rusty floor.



Again, just to remind you all of what a dump the interior looked like previously:



Fast forward to more recently. The last two weekends have been especially good for the E30 project. Great weather, no extra work outside of the house, my school coursework is coming to an end, and basically all has been leading up to a good opportunity for a re-attack on the car. Having most of the cosmetic stuff taken care of, I was ready to move into phase 2.
I took out the Bentley manual and really got into troubleshooting the starting issue.

Fuel and spark are pretty basic things a car needs to run, so my search began there with fuel. I checked the fuel pump fuses and relays (learned how to do that with this video - https://youtu.be/GtWmYffMido) , found that they were in good shape voltage-wise, and should be sending power to the in-tank pump. Now, my task was to check that pump to see if it was getting juice.

Here I am getting at the under seat access point:



And after pulling that piece out, this is what I found:



Ew. The thing looked like it had been at the bottom of a lake for forty years. Just gross. And it turned out that even though it was getting power to the connector at the top of the pump, the pump itself was inop because the ground connection was just POOF gone.



Just hangin into the nothingness.

So I searched online for a non-$150 replacement and read a few posts about the 1975 Chevy Vega pump being a near perfect fit. Except those posts were from 2011 and no parts store had the vega pump in stock. I was however able to get a generic-euro in tank pump from Oreilly for about $50, in stock. I also got a proper fuel strainer to go with it.

Swapping out the old crap piece with the new replacement wasn't too terrible. One hose connection, a fuel strainer, and two electrical connections. And there you are:



Install went pretty good. The ground connection I fashioned made re-entry a bit tough, but ya just jiggle the handle and it all went fine.



Oh yeah, before I put the thing back in, I took the opportunity to suck out as much of that crap has as possible. And some of that stuff flowing through the hose looked like it was from a septic tank. Chunks in brown water. Nasty.

So after that nice new pump was in place, I fired her up and still no start. I then tested the pump by making a clear hose connection to the output hose to see if it was moving any fuel. It was. So what's next on the way to the engine? The exterior in-line pump! Turns out it was much of the same story as the first one - getting power but no worky. This time, no one had a replacement in stock so I went with Rock Auto's cheap Uro pump. It arrived two days later (it was super tough waiting after being on a roll) and I had not much trouble with the install. Here are some pics of that:



Old pump ousted:


New one in place:



And this...this is where things get good. Around 10:30pm, it cranks for the first time in 4 years. What a feeling.

https://vimeo.com/187510839

I wanted so badly to drive it around the 'hood, but couple of problems - no exhaust at 1030pm is just not neighborly, and also the bottle caps and tires on it are so flat, it probably wouldn't have budged if I tried. So one thing remained - get the basket weaves on.

So this morning we took the BBS wheels to get aired up, and I worked on swapping the wheels this afternoon. It took longer than one would expect but I'm starting to expect that. The lugs needed a breaker bar which I didn't have. Borrowed from Autozone and got to work. The bar worked flawlessly (+1k, mechanical advantage) and I was able to get the wheels free of the hubs with a few whacks from my mallet. What was under there was pretty nasty, and not surprising given the rest of the car:



So in order to keep things from seizing up again, I smoothed out he hubs with steel wool, sprayed penetrating oil into the lug holes, and used a good amount of yamalube grease on all the contact areas where the wheel would meet the hub.





I also took the opportunity to spray a little brake cleaner on the calipers etc.

The end result just makes all the difference in the world to me:

Before (while the sun was still up):



After:


I was now ready for the ride around the hood. Not quite late enough to wake anyone, but dark nonetheless. Not ideal but hey, I needed to clinch the long day of work with a reward. Two of my kids rode in the back and had the best time. My wife took a blurry video of us pulling in after a 3 minute ride around:

https://vimeo.com/187511058

What a feeling. It really sounds good and burbly.

Still got more to do. My instrument cluster is pretty toasted as you saw in the startup video. So I think I'll be taking that cluster out to replace lights and maybe re solder the connections. Who knows. I may replace the odo gears while I'm there.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed reading. The moral is, use the Internet and the repair manual and you can get things done. If you need more details on any part of what I've done, I've got more pics and can give more descriptions of that would help.

[Shock(/\)ave]

Nice job so far! Once you get the car running well and have more time with your welding buddy I'd pull that carpet out again and tackle that floor rust.

You didn't mention changing your fuel filter, and I would suggest that should be the next part that you replace along with your timing belt and water pump.

[efficient]

You should have power washed the carpet at the 1 dollar car wash, hit it with dregreaser on the tough spots and a lot of dirt will come off. It would have made a big difference, just takes a while to dry.

[estoguy]

Looking good! Nice job bringing that old Eta back to life.

[IzzY_325is]

This car made a big turn arond after some work, looks good.