1990 E30 320i Touring Restoration

[kdevitt]

Got this back from its respray just before Christmas - very happy with how it came out



Collection Day -









Lots of boring stuff done since - like new indicato lenses -



New bonnet insulation - pig of a job





... and non stop parts orders



Has had new headlights, grilles and rear lights fitted, and lots of other minor bits. Dropped it around to Coolmine Motors last week who fitted a new viscous fan and sorted a few other small problems.

[Tzantushka]

looks sharp!

[kdevitt]

Have been using this a bit lately to try and shake off the cobwebs and see if any issues pop up. The main issue has been a horribly stiff accelerator pedal - which has been the case since I collected the car. It required significant effort to just blip the throttle, and I reckoned that some of the idling issues were related to it. Lots of links suggested that the accelerator cable would make a massive difference. It was a bit of a pain of a pain of a job - working in and around the pedal box always is.

I ended up using a soldering iron to melt the retaining clip after several others methods failed - the difference is night and day. Two quick vids show the difference between the old and new cables -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlExGMo_SjI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39bmwNX8Ghw

[kdevitt]

Put this through the NCT (roadworthy test) a few weeks ago, passed with flying colours - somewhat surprisingly - not sure why it was such a surprise given the amount of work done, but it been a while since it was done, and something trivial always crops up. Have been using it daily since, which is a pretty good way to discover all the other jobs it needs done. It actually drives very well (again - not sure why that's such a surprise) but did need some issues resolved. The main one of those was some horrendous idling - way too high, with the car shaking, poor starting, and kangarooing at light throttle (which I'm pretty certain is a clogged up TPS) .

Starting point was the ICV - cleaned it up, seemed like the internals were moving freely - and refitted. Absolutely no improvement. Decided to tick off the quick jobs - so swapped out the blue temperature sensor next. Its a simple job - with the right tools. I think I ended up spending more on a ring spanner (which didn't fit) and a long socket than I did on the actual sensor. Anyway - started the car up and the revs were sitting bang on where they should be at roughly 700rpm. Idle was still very rough though.

Decided to swap out the plugs, ignition cable, rotor cap etc at this stage. The plugs were definitely past their best - or connected to a boat anchor at some stage.



Again, no real improvement. Read of several people who had more or less identical symptoms and put it down to injectors not flowing correctly at idle. Its turns out that brand new injectors from Bosch are now more or less the same price as having the old ones refurbished - so put in an order for a set. In the meantime (and as of writing, the injectors haven't arrived yet) it was bugging me that the ICV might be to blame. The Bosch original ones aren't available anywhere at the moment, and paying BMW €700 for one isn't a runner. So a spurious German one was bought from eBay which was fitted yesterday, and, the idle is more or less perfect now. There's a tiny hint of a misfire at idle, so I'm still happy enough to be replacing the injectors, but it looks like its more or less resolved.

Also went ahead with a new chip - sourced from the Zone, which is meant to give a modest power increase, but mainly assist fuel consumption and driveability. Considering its been averaging 15MPG, any improvement would be great. Someone at the post office decided to stand on it though, so when I opened the package I was greeted with this -



Luckily I'm pretty gifted with a pair of tweezers, so I was actually able to straighten out all the pins and get it seated correctly in the ECU. I haven't spotted any significant difference as yet - but it gets good feedback, and it was cheap - so we'll see how it goes.

Otherwise its being kept clean, most of the time.

[kdevitt]

Another minor job out of the way this weekend. If you've ever owned an E30, there's a good chance you've drained the battery after leaving the lights on. A warning buzzer was available as a retrofit, but have never seen one, and the lights aren't particularly bright when the ignition is off - so its easily missed. Anyway, after another incident of killing my battery I decided to finally resolve it.

I had a replacement cruise control stalk I wanted to fit, so knowing that I'd have the steering wheel off I went and ordered a cheap kit from eBay - wired it up to the instrument cluster illumination and switched 12v connections. Its not quite this loud in person - but its loud enough that I make a mental note to turn off the lights before the buzzer deafens me

Works perfectly

[kdevitt]

The issues with the idle quickly returned after fitting the new ICV unfortunately, which was not totally unexpected as I knew the ICV wouldn't be at fault for the kangarooing which I was experiencing. It basically left the throttle position sensor, injectors and AFM as the potential issues. A new set of Bosch injectors was cheaper (and more practical) than having the current set refurbished too.

The engine on this car has a different TPS to normal since it was originally in a switchable auto car - and it made it a pain to source. New ones were around €370 - whereas a standard TPS is around €150. My nightly scouring of eBay resulted in me finding a brand new Bosch one in Germany for €70 - so snapped it up as quickly as possible.

With the injectors and TPS being replaced, it was an opportune moment to do the rocker cover again. Had it powder coated originally, but the finish was beginning to bubble slightly and there was some oil weeping around the edges. Picked up a spare one and did a VHT special -

I used this a few times in the past and struggled to get a decent finish but realised the key is to load up paint like theres no tomorrow. This photo shows the drying process quite well (I applied heat!)







A sensible decision was also made to hand the car over to Xworks to fit up the bits and resolve the idling issue - Brian knows E30's inside out and is well able to diagnose issues which are beyond my ability. It was pretty good timing - the day before I was due to drop it over the idle got significantly worse, and ended up cutting out once or twice.

Anyway, firstly - and embarrassingly - I'd left a cap on one of the plugs. Wasn't specifically causing my idling issues, but probably wouldn't have helped either





Before replacing it, Brian tested the TPS - it was failing every 10/15 times - so definitely needed to be changed -





New injectors went in next - they look different to the originals, but are the correct spec and work fine with the M20 engine.







Two vacuum leaks were also found under the throttle body, which were fixed up. I can't imagine I'd ever have found them. A quick tidy up of the throttle body was done as well -





The car is idling perfectly now - Brian is doing a few more small jobs, but should have it back by the weekend - just need to find a space for it now that I've bought a new daily!

[kdevitt]

After getting the idling and running sorted - there were one or two other smaller issues that Brian looked into. The first was the water temperature not coming up to half way - I'd replaced a pretty manky looking sensor with a brand new Febi Bilstein one. Kind of applied the logic that the new one had to be reading correctly, but turns out that wasn't the case and after putting in a new BMW sensor, the temperature was reading correctly again. So the future lesson is to avoid anything other than the genuine sensors.

While the car was there, it also made sense to have him investigate the cruise control - which had stopped functioning suddenly. This was a retrofit - so theres always a concern that something was missed, or my soldering has come apart - it was a LHD loom extended for the RHD car. My own thought was that the clutch switch was acting up as the connector is not in good condition.

As always with Brian, when he's investigating an issue you know he'll be thorough with it - hence the wiring diagram on the drivers seat.



All the stalk wiring checked out fine -



And despite still not being in great condition, the clutch switch and connector were all work fine. Same went for the brake switch - which takes its feed off a space on the accessories socket behind the glove box.



Then the cruise ECU was checked - which again was working fine. Main problem with this was trying to remember where I'd actually put it so Brian knew where to look.



The only thing actually left to check was the actuator - there's a good reason I got Brian to look at this, because I never would have found the issue in a million years.



Turns out that a bad/broken solder joint on the big brown solenoid was not letting the little white gear engage with the big red gear. The red gear is the one that pulls the throttle cable on and off).

That was quickly rectified, and all was well again. Collected the car today and its running amazingly. Purple tag rack up next - the existing rack is getting worse by the day!

[kdevitt]

Got to drive this a bit more during the week - idling & hunting issues are thankfully resolved now. Engine sound great - am curious as to whether or not I'll improve on the 15MPG I was achieving. Its possible that most of the fuel was passing out the exhaust unburnt anyway - so I'm hoping to reach the heights of 25MPG or so. In rather typical fashion - and I think I mentioned it here that this car is simultaneously the best and the worst E30 I've owned - the slight steering rack issue has become a full on steering rack failure. There's next to no assistance now, and its very notchy returning to centre, which is causing some interesting handling characteristics to emerge. So that has become a more urgent piece of work than it was previously.

Did manage to tidy up the inlet manifold this weekend though. This was initially vapour blasted - and looked excellent - but by the time I collected the car the finish has degraded. Not wanting to send it off again - I bought a tin of aluminium paint and refinished it by brush. Turned out very well - easily touched up as well if needs be.

[kdevitt]

Had a quick tidy up of some dead photo links (changing from Windows based hosting to Linux wasn't the brightest idea I ever had!)

Anyway - thought I'd provide a very brief update on this. Had the car transported to Bespoke Leathering in the UK last December -

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIQjKXTn..._web_copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIdoonQn..._web_copy_link

Work came to a shuddering halt for three reasons though - firstly, a pond had developed in the back of the car. Quickly figured out the reason for this was me leaving a gutter trim piece for the sunroof out of position when I was working on the roof and waiting for new sunroof gates to arrive. Carpets were coming out anyway - so this wasn't the complete shit show it could have been.

However - the coolant in the passenger side footwell was an issue. The heater matrix had developed a leak - so John said he'd source a new one and fit it up.

The last thing was the longest to resolve - the headliner hadn't been done particularly well - it was in such poor condition than John would rather not redo it. So we needed to track down a good used headliner - which I only managed to source last Friday. Its getting delivered this week - so things might pick up again soon.

The car is having a full retrim, new headliner, and new carpets being made. Just need to get a mortgage sorted to pay for it all.

[kdevitt]

Seems like all my headliner work is getting done at the same time - appreciate these aren't the most exciting of updates! Its also potentially bad news for my liquidity with all teh cars coming towards the end of their work - but theres still a good bit to go on this before I collect it. Both cars I have in for retrims at the moment ended up having sunroof issues - pretty similar issues too. This needed new cables and a few other bits which held us up a bit - but John has been slowly working away on it. He sent on some pictures this week as the reassembly was being done. Am exceptionally happy with how this is turning out. The headliner work looks pretty flawless to me. If you peek in through the sunroof picture you'll see the doorcards are back on too.

[kdevitt]

Cleaned up some dead photo links and updated all the progress to date - its getting there slowly but surely - interior work is exceptionally good, so hopefully it will be back with me soon enough!

[kdevitt]

Another quick update with the headliner / roof. Don't think I covered it on here previously, but one of the jobs I did with the car was to convert the sunroof from manual to electric. Its a pretty straightforward job - but it left me with the issue of what to do with the big hole that was left in the headliner. The electric sunroof only requires a small cutout for the switch, but the manual one had a whole the size of my fist for the window mechanism to fit into. Someone suggested that the front trim piece from a saloon model would work. So managed to get my hands on one, which I loved the look of.

With a new headliner going into it, it wasn't actually necessary to keep the additional trim piece - but I like how it looked, and its not going to be something you see on most tourings - so we went ahead with trimming it.

Needless to say, John has done a cracking job with it. Actually need to buy new visors to go into it - the current ones have a small bit of slack in them - so they're drooping a bit.

[kronus]

Nice interior work. Looking forward to seeing it all together!

any tips on how the touring headliner comes out? Mine needs to be trimmed and I’m afraid of breaking some unobtainium clips.

[kdevitt]

Nice interior work. Looking forward to seeing it all together!

any tips on how the touring headliner comes out? Mine needs to be trimmed and I’m afraid of breaking some unobtainium clips.

It’s a while since I took it out myself - but it’s difficult not to break some clips at this stage. If I recall correctly some of the clips around my sunroof are mounted to a piece which is itself glued onto the main headliner. That glue is hitting 30 years of age by now - and it just came away.

Think I might have some pictures from where this was repaired on my new one - I’ll post them up if I find them.

[kronus]

thankfully mine is a non-sunroof unit, so hopefully there is a bit less going on up there.