Project Lessmeister: 91 318iS Restomod w/ MTech2 and modern drivetrain

[Jordan]

I don't see why not, provided you are willing to drill a few holes in it. That top 2" or so is an empty cavity for the most part. You'd probably want to backup the vice with a steel plate under the top for extra measure.

[jeenyus]

do you think you could install a bench vise on those tables? Everything looks great.

[faujijatt]

I see that imola red/red theme spreading out everywhere. [emoji13] [emoji4] [emoji13]

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[TimeMachinE30]

Garage is looking sharp! Those tool chests are verrrrry nice. No shame with HF goods; they offer some great deals.

Superb work too.. goes to show the skill is what matters not the name brand. You did great work on this vehicle. A wonderful chance to see what a modern E30 may look like.

[Jordan]

Nice, cool to hear you'll get it to run on essentially stock Motronics.
Any integration issues with the instrument cluster to overcome?

-Chris

There shouldn't be no. Fuel level is native to the vehicle, speedometer is native to the vehicle, there is an analog output on the DS43 DME to drive the tachometer, and the E30 engine temperature sensor is retained.

I've just about got the garage back to where I can start to put things away and get back to the E30.

Today I raised up the overhead cabinet and moved it over to the left. Then I added a 4th cabinet which will have doors like the left most cabinet when its done.

I picked out the brightest most vibrant red that Valspar makes and rolled 3 coats onto the cabinet. It is decidedly not the spot on match as the sample card would have me believe. Its a little fuchsia instead of straight red. Hopefully this eases up a bit as the paint dries. This picture is right after the 3rd coat.

[UNHCLL]

Ha ha ha Chris.

Mark D'Sylva has done the tune for the DME that also removes the EWS and certain CAN protocols rendering the DME essentially a stand alone unit now.

Nice, cool to hear you'll get it to run on essentially stock Motronics.
Any integration issues with the instrument cluster to overcome?

-Chris

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Now its time to deck out that tool box with stickers haha. My Snap on one has a bunch of stickers on it.

[Overlord475]

Looks awesome. Am a bit jelly to be honest...

[Jordan]

Ha ha ha Chris.

Mark D'Sylva has done the tune for the DME that also removes the EWS and certain CAN protocols rendering the DME essentially a stand alone unit now.

[UNHCLL]

So to get back on track about the car project... I have some questions -


What color is this paint?
What engine is that?
Did you have to modify the driveshaft to make it fit?
What brand wheels?
Is that a factory body kit?



;)
Car looks really great, nice work.
Are you having the ECU flashed to work in a non-OBD 2 chassis?

-Chris

[Jordan]

Well fine then.

Thank you.

I'm very happy with the setup now. As I said above the drawer slides feel sooo much nicer, smoother with even just a little weight in them. They feel.... kinda eh empty in the store, but firm/smooth up once loaded.

[LJ851]

Alright well that is just dandy, I'm so glad a truck brand box elitist showed up to shit on my perfectly fine, functional and nice looking HF boxes that are a tremendous upgrade over the Sams/Costco Taiwan box I've used for the last 8+ years without a single problem except having outgrown it.

I am not as you describe or assume, all my boxes are 20+ year old Sears units with 2 of them seeing daily professional use for 15+ years.

Your setup looks nice with the heights evened out.

[Jordan]

Alright well that is just dandy, I'm so glad a truck brand box elitist showed up to shit on my perfectly fine, functional and nice looking HF boxes that are a tremendous upgrade over the Sams/Costco Taiwan box I've used for the last 8+ years without a single problem except having outgrown it.

Iiiiiiin other news, I took the casters off today and lowered the boxes down onto their new feet. The feet are cut from 4" x 4" 1/4" wall square steel tubing. This seemed like it would be pretty straight forward but lowering one side at a time without trapping the jack was a bit of a conundrum.

I of course wanted the boxes as low as possible, and my AC Hydraulics DK13HLQ has a 3" saddle height.

For the 72" box I cut 4 feet 3.5" long.
For the 56" box I cut 4 feet 3.75" long, as the caster mounts are offset 1/4" higher up into the box chassis.



I shall need to shim the inside feet of the 56" box to get it perfectly level aside the 72". I cut the feet as square as possible but the chop saw did have some walk/deflection as it cut through the 4" square tube leaving me with a 1/8" step between the 2 boxes.

It looks worlds better now set up side by side and lower down to the floor. With that step on the floor as is typical of residential garages the boxes were just too tall for my liking.

The upper cabinet is going to get lifted up about 6" higher, and moved to the left until it butts against the entry door molding. Each of those 3 sections is 31", so after its in position I will add one more section to it bringing its overall length very close to the length of the boxes/workbench. When that is done I'll go ahead and make another pair of doors so both out side compartments have doors and the middle two remain open.

I think I'll paint match the upper cabinets to the boxes and then call it a day at that.


Oh, and this box siamesing nets me a 128" tool box work surface.

SnapOn also offers a 120" EPIQ tool box. It's a cool $21,000.


I paid $1099 for the 72"
I paid $699 for the 56"

That is $1798 (11.6 of these setups for the one 120" SnapOn box)

I collected $420 for my 8+ year old stainless 44" box.

Leaving me out of pocket $1378

Total number of complaints: Zero.

[LJ851]

Right. If you want a deeper drawer you'll have to pay SnapOn $12k vs. $1200 from Harbor Freight. My outgoing 44" Stainless Steel box was only 16" deep.

You can literally buy 10 HF 72" boxes for the cost of a single SnapOn 68" EPIQ box.

20" is plenty deep. In a small residential garage 20" is almost too deep when you take into consideration working on a car parked in the 20' x 20' garage that you're up against whist opening those drawers.

I didn't disagree with or even mention the fact the boxes are cheap. In fact, after seeing them in person i would say that price is their only strong point. If you are restricted by a small garage, the shallow depth could be a plus.

Apparently HF used to sell a 72" box that was 30" outside dimension (about 28" drawers) for just a couple hundred more which would be more appealing to me.

[lambo]

I'm convinced the "moar low" crowd don't actually drive their cars beyond the parking lot meets, and don't cringe when they scrape the entire car over a speedbump or shred their fender lips on their tires that are sized like a hipster wearing his sister's pants.

pretty much