My 1988 320i Touring Project: Ambitious but Rubbish

[Grime]

Nice update. I hope I never find rust on my car, I've been lucky thus far. What show was that?

[Roadrunner]

Nice update. I hope I never find rust on my car, I've been lucky thus far.

Thanks! :) It's awesome that your touring is in such good condition. Not driving it in the winter must help keep it that way, but it's frustrating that we only get a few solid months of nice weather up here before it starts to snow again.

What show was that?

The show I was talking about was Tedfest (www.tedfest.ca), a classic BMW car show in Mississauga (Toronto area), Ontario. Check out pictures of the show here - look at all of the beautiful E30s that showed up! You should definitely make the trip and come next year - Montreal is not that far from Toronto. :mrgreen: They have free stuff for everyone who registers, and almost everyone who stayed until the end won prizes in the raffle draw (the prize I won is going to be a lot of fun to add to my car - more about that later!). There are a bunch of other local BMW car meets and cruises around here if you're in the area over the summer. It would be cool to see another E30 touring!

[Roadrunner]

After using all of the available daylight hours working on the car outside, we headed to a local spray-wash to clean the engine bay. Judging by the decor, the owner of the place was strongly influenced by the fake palm-tree fad of the last few years and based the entire business around it. It was like being transported to a spray-wash located in a dystopian version of California with glowing neon palm trees (was going to get pictures, but most of the lights were shut off by the time we got there to save hydro I guess)...

... And then there was the music in that place. WOW. It was cranked loud enough that you had to shout to be heard over it. I would describe it as aggressive instrumental elevator music from hell. The kind of music that slowly erodes your sanity while you're at the grocery store, but at that volume it would eventually make you snap and go on a murderous rampage. To normal people, it broadcast the message, "Wash your car and GTFO! No detailing!!" loud and clear. After what seemed like hours there working on the engine bay, I was convinced that it could double as an enhanced interrogation centre for terrorists. I know I was ready to confess to anything just to get out of there!

The insulation under the hood was on my list to remove while we were there. It looked like it had rotted from age:



Once it was soaked with an orange degreasing gum remover, most of the insulation came off with a makeshift scraper (a yogurt container cut into four disposable "scrapers") before being rinsed off. Finding a replacement for the insulation is now on my to-do list:



Since I'd never cleaned my engine bay before :oops:, I read through this guide, which seemed overly cautious if anything (he recommends that you remember to bring a pen and paper to write a reminder that you did something that serves as a reminder to not do something else... :???:), but it does explain what to protect while cleaning the engine bay.

With the electrical components safely covered, we sprayed the engine down with degreaser, let it sit, scrubbed, rinsed, and repeated for as long as we could tolerate without going mad due to the music, then removed the plastic on the electrical components and gave the car a quick rinse. The car started and drove with no issues other than a sensor being tripped for a minute and turning off.

The engine bay is still not perfectly clean (which is not my goal anyway since the touring is my daily driver), but it's much better than before:



The rear hatch cover needed to be fixed before it could be put back in. There was still tar sticking to it from the Dynamat that a stereo installer put in that had to be removed, and part of the backing needed to be glued on again:



I had a used set of tweeters that got installed, too:



I would've liked to have put the rear wiper arm and blade back on the car, but rear wiper arms are back ordered and won't arrive for another 2 weeks or so. The side skirts along the bottom of the front fenders will have to wait to be reattached until I replace the hardware that disintegrated when I pulled them off the old rusty fenders.

I'm happy to report that my original two mini-projects, installing the caps on the window crank handles (well, "installing" turned out to be way too grandiose of a term), and putting in my cup holders, are now complete. For the window crank covers, I finally found the part number to order them from the dealer, and they just pop right on. For the cup holders, I found a used centre console that doesn't have the cassette holder cutout, and the cup holder pops right in as well.

The only slight problem is that I haven't put my carpets back in yet, so I can't really put my centre console back in properly. I did a half-assed job putting it in on the morning of the car show (too sleepy and disorganized to find where I put the hardware or to take a decent picture... and forgot the rear ashtray, oops) just to be able to use the cup holders temporarily, since coffee is not optional for me.



Then off to meet up with a few people for the car show! :)

[Roadrunner]

To finish off my story, we met up with the others who were going with us and gave the cars a quick wash (no point doing it earlier because of all the dirt roads) before heading to Tedfest. The cars in our mini-cruise to the car show were my 1988 320i touring, a 1993 M5, and a 1991 318is.

It was the first time I'd brought my car to a show, and it was quite an experience to have people approach me who were excited about my car and interested to hear about the various things I've done and have planned, as well as to have other enthusiasts happily give me tours of their cars. :)

A couple of people even tried to convince me to trade cars with them - I think I'm going to keep mine, though. ;-) Here's a shortened version of a conversation I had with another E30 owner:

Him: You should trade cars with me! Mine has nice leather seats!
Me: No thanks, I prefer cloth.
Him: You could switch the interiors. My car is perfect!
Me: That's okay, my car keeps me busy with things to work on.
Him: I could break some things on my car...

I had a great time and would definitely go again next year (hopefully with my car in even better shape by then)!

A few more pictures of my touring:





...the M5:



...and more pictures of the E30 section (which I found here):

[Julien]

Your build reminds me of my first touring, a 1991 324TD in Sterling Silver.. Funny thing it died from a tree hitting in the exact spot as yours while in school in france :(

[Grime]

The show I was talking about was Tedfest (www.tedfest.ca), a classic BMW car show in Mississauga (Toronto area), Ontario. Check out pictures of the show here - look at all of the beautiful E30s that showed up! You should definitely make the trip and come next year - Montreal is not that far from Toronto. :mrgreen: They have free stuff for everyone who registers, and almost everyone who stayed until the end won prizes in the raffle draw (the prize I won is going to be a lot of fun to add to my car - more about that later!). There are a bunch of other local BMW car meets and cruises around here if you're in the area over the summer. It would be cool to see another E30 touring!

I'd be keen on coming next year, depending on if I could get work off or not for the weekend. We'll have to see

[Roadrunner]

Your build reminds me of my first touring, a 1991 324TD in Sterling Silver.. Funny thing it died from a tree hitting in the exact spot as yours while in school in france :sad:

Aw, that's terrible! I can see how it could've caused a lot more damage or easily have become an insurance write-off if the tree had hit an inch or two higher up on the hatch. I was really lucky that the touring was still driveable, that the damage was relatively minor, and that the cost to fix it was low enough that the insurance company didn't consider it totaled (although good luck to them finding me a replacement if they tried that!).

I'd be keen on coming next year, depending on if I could get work off or not for the weekend. We'll have to see

Awesome! Hopefully a year's notice will be enough to get the time off, haha... Seriously, though, I'll keep you posted about any details I hear about the next one.

[Roadrunner]

I can't believe it's only been about a month since I started this thread! Thanks so much to everyone who has commented and helped me out so far so I don't feel like I'm writing all of this to myself in an oddly car-focused diary. :up:

When I first started this thread, my goals were to get the touring into shape to bring it to my first car show (check!) and more importantly, to get the heater core fixed (parts ordered last week - should have them soon!). So, I could just pack it in and call it a day once I fix the heater core like I'd originally planned... but I don't think I'm going to now.

I may have started with no mechanical knowledge or skill whatsoever, but I'm slowly starting to feel more and more like a shade tree mechanic of sorts. (And yes, that's the shade tree that damaged the car to begin with. I've found it in my heart to forgive it.)



Cutting back on the sappiness for a moment... Once I got the touring back from the shop, it was a huge relief to drive a "real" car again compared to the rental, but it was also evident that the car was in serious need of a tune up and new brakes.

First up, it was clear that the front brakes had served out their final days and the pads and rotors needed to be replaced (the rear brakes had already been done not too long ago). The brake sensor must have failed long ago, as I would have expected to see a brake warning light popping up.



I followed a DIY guide on E30 tech that is no longer working [EDIT: their forum has been down for the last few days], so here's another one in case anyone is about to tackle this job for the first time. Unfortunately, that guide refers to pictures, but does not in fact have any pictures. The guide also suggests resurfacing your brake discs, but I opted to replace them as they were too far gone. I was also very fortunate to have the help of my SO on this one to guide me through the steps, since it would be a safety issue, not just a cosmetic issue, if I screwed something up.

Some of the best tips I picked up: Use a 15mm wrench to hold the caliper pin / nut in place while you use a socket or wrench to remove the bolt on the outside; otherwise, that pin will keep spinning and you will go crazy:



Similarly, it helped to have a screwdriver or something to wedge in to stop the brake disc from spinning during the step where you remove the allen head bolt:



Although the guide is optimistic that "the brake rotor should now come free" at this point once the other hardware is removed, my rotors were rusty and seized on enough to require extra convincing to come off with a rubber mallet:



You'll also need a c-clamp to help push the piston into the caliper - you need to put a piece of thick plastic or wood on top of the caliper piston and torque down on that to prevent damaging the piston:



Overall, I was surprised that the whole job was relatively easy once I got over a slight amount of initial intimidation. After getting the final wheel back on the car as the sun was setting, it was time for a test drive and some strategic braking to seat the brakes. The new brakes made a *huge* difference in the experience of driving the car!

Up next: A few of my exciting car-related plans for the Canada Day long weekend that did not exactly work out (why does it feel like that's an ongoing theme?), and cracking my engine open for the first time! :grin:

[Roadrunner]

We woke up early on the weekend and headed out to meet with someone a bit closer to civilization to sell some wheels. A bit further down our road, there appeared to be...



Ermm... is that...? :???:



Yup, there she goes, making a break for it. Well, as long as she follows the rules of the road, who am I to judge?



Now that we'd made it through the worst of the traffic, we were on our way again. I was planning on doing some work on my car and detailing it before heading to a local car meet, since I had a rare opportunity to park the touring on an actual paved driveway. As soon as I'd unpacked the car, and the sunny skies present in the previous pictures turned into this:



Then, it actually started hailing.

We waited for that to pass, and I had just enough time to steal the hood liner from one of my S.O.'s cars. He originally got it from a 325 and it didn't fit his car properly, so he generously donated this hood liner to the cause. :up: I used a small flat head screwdriver to carefully pry the plastic rivets off. It took a bit of practice to find the right amount of force to remove them without causing them to fly off onto the ground or into the engine bay (not that that happened... :oops:), but popping them back into place when reinstalling the hood liner in the touring was super easy.



That night, we went to maXbimmer's Midnight Cruise, an annual BMW meet and cruise in Woodbridge, Ontario (north of Toronto) that departs at midnight, with the route and destination remaining a complete mystery until the moment the cruise begins. We went to one of the previous midnight cruises together in another car and had a blast, so I was excited to bring the touring to this one.

We found out that this year, there would be no maps and no indication of where the first stop would be. The majority of the cars that showed up were E36s and E46s, with only one other E30 (with an engine swap) there besides mine with my poorly tuned stock engine, making my car the slowest of the bunch by a significant margin.

We drove along, reassured by the distinctive engine noises from the other cars on the cruise that we were on the right track, until the two cars we were following pulled over and explained that they weren't actually going on the whole cruise. By that point everyone else was gone - we didn't see where everyone turned off of the main highway.



It was fun to chat with people at the meet beforehand, but it's disappointing that we missed out on what sounded like an amazing cruise after coming that far. Better luck next year I guess.

[Roadrunner]

It was time to give my engine some much-needed attention! On the to-do list: changing the spark plugs, doing a valve adjustment, replacing the valve cover gasket, and putting in my refinished valve cover. These videos from E30 Source and CoastalMotorWorks were helpful for understanding how to do a valve adjustment on an M20 engine, which seemed confusing and daunting as a beginner. There were also some good tips on this DIY thread about replacing spark plugs and adjusting the valves.

First, I removed the hardware on the valve cover. I opted to remove the old spark plugs before I took the valve cover off, as I wasn't sure how long this step would take me, and I wanted to minimize the amount of time with my engine open and exposed to mother nature:



It actually didn't take long, although it was a bit more cramped on the left side due to the battery in the engine bay. The channels leading up to the spark plug holes were full of built up debris (possibly a dirt / oil combo) that I cleaned out carefully. Some of the spark plugs had oil on them, especially the one on the far right, and there were different deposits and colours on the firing ends that I'll have to learn how to "read" (any insights on this?). Here are the old spark plugs, in the order they were originally in from left to right:



1, 2 and 3:



4, 5 and 6:



I removed the valve cover and gasket, and looked inside my engine for the first time! :) There had been an oil leak under the old gasket.



Then it was time to adjust the valves. We followed the method of jacking up the car's right rear wheel and putting the car into fifth gear. I got my S.O. to help with turning the wheel while I watched to see when the cam lobes were pointing in the right direction (not sure if there's an easy way to do this part by yourself?), and then adjusted the valves in firing order.

Adjusting the valves took some practice to get the hang of... actually, I'm still not completely convinced that I've got the hang of it yet. I ended up going back and readjusting them since I didn't think I was doing it right when I first started, and I think I'm going to go back again to give it another try and make sure they're all adjusted consistently. The car seems to be running better now and the engine seems "healthier" overall, but there's still a clacking noise when the car is running. Maybe one or two of the valves is still too tight?



I put the new valve cover gasket on, and finally got to install the new valve cover that I refinished previously. I'm so happy with how it turned out! :mrgreen: Plus it was handy to have the new one ready to swap for the old one.



Then, the new spark plugs got put in. For some reason, both of the videos I watched mentioned that they didn't have the right tool for the job. I used a BMW spark plug tool that we found at the scrap yard which worked perfectly.



The one problem we ran into was that after the new spark plugs were in, the plug wires would not snap on to the ends of the plugs. It turned out that the new spark plugs had a threaded aluminum flared cap that had to be removed first for use on this engine.

Next up: Fixing the heater core at last! Right now, I'm stuck on removing the steering column (I've tried both the Dremel & screwdriver method and the hammer & chisel method so far to no avail), but don't worry, it's happening! Damn you, shear head bolts, I will not let you win!!

[Roadrunner]

I've finally started to tackle the job that I set out to accomplish in the first place: fixing my heater core!



Just doing the research to find out what parts were needed and how to actually do the job proved to be incredibly difficult, which I will explain.

Here are some preliminary things I learned:

1. There are two types of heater cores that came in E30s. The "standard" ones are paired with aluminum inlet pipes. They seem to be in all E30s that had factory-installed air conditioning. If this describes your car, consider yourself lucky as the heater core is *much* easier to replace - you can follow the steps in the Bentley manual or most online DIYs. According to this DIY guide, you can compete the job in 45 - 60 minutes without much effort. :up:

2. The other type, with plastic inlet pipes (like mine), seem to be found only in E30s that did not have AC installed in the factory. This would explain why more tourings have this type of heater core, since many tourings came with base level options (i.e. no AC). I couldn't find any DIYs for this type of heater core job, only threads like this with confused people in the same boat as me pleading for help. If you are unfortunate enough to need to replace your heater core and it falls into this category, you should pretty much just give up right now... :down: The problem: the heater core is too long to be pulled out without hitting the steering column.



3. You can confirm which type of heater core you have by finding the hoses under the hood that lead to the heater valve, and pulling back the hoses to see if the inlet pipes are aluminum or plastic (more info on that here).



As suspected, the touring had the plastic pipes. Here's what they looked like when I disconnected them from the hoses later:



4. The entire heater box is different in E30s with different types of heater cores. You can see the difference between the heater boxes of E30s with the aluminum vs. plastic inlet pipes setup on RealOEM.

According to my research, there were three options for how to go about removing my version of the heater core (other than wait for someone else to do it - already tried that one ):

a) Remove the entire dashboard and heater box to get to the heater core.
b) Lower the steering column to get enough clearance to access the heater core.
c) Cut through the heater box to access the heater core.

As a highly disorganized person, removing the dash would probably be my worst nightmare. I could just imagine my car remaining undriveable for weeks as I searched for lost pieces that would inevitably get scattered all over the lawn in the process. Lowering the steering column looked promising, except there are two shear bolts attached to the steering column that are known to be next to impossible to remove. Assuming it could actually be done, though, this looked like the obvious choice to me. The last option would be easy, but surely there was a better way... right?

I decided to go with option b), lowering the steering column. We removed the center console, the driver's seat, and the steering wheel. This post lists the steps to remove the steering wheel - I didn't know that the key needed to be in the ignition turned one click to get the wheel off. With no airbags to worry about, it was pretty straight forward.



Okay, so now to remove the two shear bolts holding up the steering column. Who knows whether BMW decided to put them in to deter thieves or as a ridiculous "safety" measure - all I can say for sure is that removing them myself seemed so hopeless at one point that I was about to bring the car to a shop just to have them remove the two ****ing bolts so I could move on with my life.

Before admitting defeat, I searched for any possible way to remove the shear bolts. Here are the top 10 ways I found to remove shear bolts from the steering column, in case you were wondering:

1. Use a hammer and chisel – make holes around the perimeter, and angle the chisel to cause the bolts to rotate.
2. Make slots in the bolts with a small hacksaw or Dremel, and then turn them with a screwdriver.
3. Use locking pliers to grip and turn the bolts.
4. Grip the threads with vice grips and wind them out backwards.
5. Drill a pilot hole in the middle of the bolts and use a screw extractor.
6. Use a set of sockets designed to remove rounded off bolts.
7. Drill them out.
8. Angle grind the heads off of the bolts.
9. Make your own “special tool” for removing the bolts (e.g. one person used a clutch push rod from a scrap gearbox with the end sharpened).
10. Weld a lump on the top of the bolts to have something to grip.

Here's what they looked like after we tried over half of these ideas. They were not looking great by that point, but notice how they had not budged. :curse:



Back to the list. 1: I tried the hammer and chisel method. Nothing. I watched this video which explained it in more detail, then tried again. Still nothing. 2: Got my S.O. to Dremel a slot in the bolts, then tried turning them with a screwdriver. The bolts did not budge, but now we have broken screwdrivers to show for the effort. 3 and 4: Both of these ideas were ruled out, since there was not enough access for pliers. 5: Screw extractor drill bits did nothing to actually turn or loosen the bolts. 6: Same with bolt extractor sockets - they wouldn't dig into the bolts enough to turn. 7: This is what it ended up coming to.



Once I had drilled out as much of the head of the bolts as possible, my man saved the day by breaking them free with a chisel and hammer. Don't be fooled by how ordinary these bolts look - they were pure evil!



Now I'm going to have to find a replacement for those bolts. FYI, this is how much the steering column dropped without them - not a whole lot:



I looked for anything connected to the steering column that might still be holding it up - wires, turn signals, etc.



To be continued...

[bangn]

Yeh those bolts im afraid you need to wack in the right spot hard and true and follow through.. Prob just needed a bigger hammer :) Sometimes hitting them the opposite way a couple of times helps release them as well.

Good to see you got it off, now you can put regular hex flange bolts on it. The threads are nothing special, any metric bolt that size will fit in there.

down at the bottom of the column there is a couple of bolts holding it to the firewall (push the carpet out of the way), undo those and the bolt on the coupling in the engine bay.. Then you can pull the whole lot out of the way. Dont forget to take the harness off it first ;)

[Proctor750]

What's with E30 touring and trees?

Yesterday:

[jpod999]

Shouldn't be too hard to get replacements for those bolts, just take them into a hardware store and you should be able to find them.

Congrats on getting those bolts off, I find myself walking away for 5 minutes to cool down when I get pissed at my car lol

[Proctor750]

If you have an air compressor you will want to use this for the steering column bolts: