Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

Damn, that's a ton of work! Nice progress.

Thanks! Yesterday I made some progress and was able to cross off quite a few things from my wheel well to-do list. Mostly small stuff: drilling, sanding, painting etc. Next time at the garage I should be able to glue and weld the wheel well in place.

[Butler]

Dammmmmmn This is as throughout as they come! Amazing attention to detail. I love how you've been doing it all. I'd like to take that philosophy for myself and my cars.

I am a little surprised at how much rust repair there was, because you bought this car because it was in better condition than the previous one? In the pacific north west we are really lucky and don't have many rusted cars. :D Keep us updated!

[sonomabimmers]

this is nuts the work ethic is epic.

[Skarpa]

Dammmmmmn This is as throughout as they come! Amazing attention to detail. I love how you've been doing it all. I'd like to take that philosophy for myself and my cars.

I am a little surprised at how much rust repair there was, because you bought this car because it was in better condition than the previous one? In the pacific north west we are really lucky and don't have many rusted cars. :D Keep us updated!

Thank you! I wanted to buy a car in a better shape than the previous one and I did but certainly not a mint one. Back then I was not as experienced as now and didn't know so well what to look for. The car had some questionable bondo work in the rear that I realized only later but apart from that this is the basic condition of an early model Finnish E30. Not the worst, not the best. (you could argue that the questinable bondo work is to be expected) If I was starting a similar project now I would take my time looking for a good car to start with. On the plus side I have no surprises awaiting and I know my car inside out. Also I've learnt so much on the way.

this is nuts the work ethic is epic.

Thanks! It's always great to get positive feedback.

[Skarpa]

Wheel well glued in place and patch panel for surface cut to size.




I also test-fitted the end of the frame beam with the battery pocket and the tow loop. It fits like it's supposed to be here. Just need to drill a few holes for plug welds, replace the paint with welding primer and weld the part there.

[Skarpa]

Rear frame beam welded in place as well as a few places in the wheel well.

[Skarpa]

Today I managed to get rid of the driver's side rear arch and the outer half of the wheel well. I didn't continue with the passenger's side because I didn't have that much time and I don't have the wheel arch roller yet.

[Alpina]

Holy Shxx........

I think honestly this is the most awesome rebuild i have ever seen on an E30 on the internet

ALL DONE BY THE OWNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!

really really impressive

I wish you all the best with this and i am looking forward

Regards from the REAL homeland of the Santa-Claus .................

[Skarpa]

Holy Shxx........

I think honestly this is the most awesome rebuild i have ever seen on an E30 on the internet

ALL DONE BY THE OWNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!

really really impressive

I wish you all the best with this and i am looking forward

Regards from the REAL homeland of the Santa-Claus .................

Thanks a lot! Feedback like this makes it worthwile to keep on sharing my E30 endeavours. Also blasphemy on the homeland of Santa Claus!

[Coyote_ar]

making an e30 from scratch is likely less work than what you are doing on that car. great work, and great attention to detail.

[Skarpa]

making an e30 from scratch is likely less work than what you are doing on that car. great work, and great attention to detail.

Thanks. When I moved garage and gathered all the scrapped parts for recycling I was thinking you could just weld them together and have another rusty E30 ;D


This week I've been keeping myself busy with a small side project. I came across a set of five BBS RC090's for too cheaply to let them go. I'll refurbish and sell them. I'm thinking nogarosilber centers, polished lips, gold(ish) bolts and red BBS badges.


The spare wheel still had the tire on. I tried if I could get the tire off the bead myself and then just cut it off with angle grinder but it was a no go. (well I might have been able to do it with a jack but I decided you use professional help.


It's a shame that one of the wheels was bent. Oh well, I still have four good wheels.


Wheels came apart as they are supposed to. Bolts were seized with oxidization and took a fair beating to get them off.


Bolts are rusty but I think I'll still go with them to keep some profit margin. I'll see what they look like after yellow zinc chromate plating. I should anyway take my brake saddles and a few other things to be plated.


Then I took the wheels to have a lapdance from my favorite stripper. I think I should have put plastic over the wheels while they were sitting there. The day was sunny and the stripper kept drying on the wheels even though I added it from time to time so it will take another round until the wheels are clean.

[rzerob]

This picture shows just how much work you have into this car. Great job.

[Skarpa]

Last weekend there was a big E30 meet in Finland.

My car's not ready yet so we went with my brothers E24. It's the wrong model but at least from the right era. My plan is to have Armo in driving condition for next years meet and once again I took some small steps towards that goal: I drilled the holes for rivets in driver's side wheel well, cut the top layer to size and made the recess for the overlapping seam.


The RC centers I took to painter next to my workplace

[Skarpa]

Today I started working on the diff. It's a typ 188 2.65 LSD diff from an E28 or similar. I bought the diff to get the case and the LSD unit for 2.XX diff. I calculated that with straight fifth gear and E30 tire size the revs would be 2300 at 100 km/h. I'm thinking that might be a bit too long gearing so I bought 2.93 gears and will swap the gear ratio and replace the bearings and sealings. I will also check the condition of the friction plates and the dogplates. So it was a time to take the diff apart.




The LSD case is assembled with shallow head allen bolts. I just hate those things. I tried to be very careful but still the key slipped in one of the bolts and after that it's of course lost case with that bolt. With and impact driver it would propably still have been openable. I grinded off the bolt head and then undid the stud with pliers.


All taken apart (except for the gears and bearings)


I have no prior experience on the subject so I will need more experienced opinion on the condition of the fricition plates and the dogplates. Dogplates show some wear and I can just feel a small notch at the outside edge when dragging fingernail across it. When measuring with a caliber I couldn't find any loss of thicnkess. Probably you could with a micrometer.


The friction plates show some polishing but are not completely smooth anywhere. Again, the caliber didn't show any loss of thickness.




The center casings are polished at the outside edge. No notch.


What's the verdict?

Here's the 2.93 gears and the E36 rear cover waiting to go in.




The RC lips received another round of stripper and are now clean.

[petrolhead]

Don't worry about stripping the heads of ring gear bolts. They MUST BE REPLACED anyway. Buy OEM part no's, get the right thread pitch and so forth.
The iS I drove to Muurame meet and back has 10.9 bolts instead of 12.9 and held together just fine. But that's only because the longer iX ring gear bolts are not available OEM. ..it has an iX diff with swapped ratio.
Really hard to say anything about dogplates from a picture. You could just sand them a bit smoother. You won't lose many 1/100mms that way. New ones are available 0,1mm thicker anyway. Were you going to replace the 4mm shim with a third plate pair?