92' Vert Rebuild

[2mAn]

oooo I like this most recent update

[ZeeVaughn]

Woah it’s been a while! Progress stopped as I separated from the military, started grad school, and bought a house and moved. As of late I’ve finally sorted out my garage and started working again. Since last I’ve got my wheels and tires mounted and they fit very nicely. I picked up another 5-speed swap and sold my first one. This one came with an LSD and some more smaller things that I didn’t have with the previous one. I already have a brand new clutch kit, master & slave cylinder, fork, pivot pin, guibo, and some other things I’m forgetting. Need to order flywheel bolts and new seals for the trans.

[ZeeVaughn]

Over this last weekend I went ahead and broke into all my totes and started piecing together the accessories for my engine. Although it definitely looked prettier before, I’m dying to drop this back in and get it running. Went ahead and installed a new water pump since I accidentally installed an early model one before (oops.) Also installed new timing belt, tensioner, drive belts (no A/C.. RIP next summer), cap and rotor, and engine mount brackets. Have to go in and redo my tie rods because I forgot to install the locking plate then I can be done completely with the front suspension.

[ZeeVaughn]

So I remembered that way back when I sold my stock steering rack I accidentally left the lower steering shaft coupler connected. This part is NLA from bmw and a pain to source. I found one from a guy in Texas on Facebook and it was here in a few days. Yesterday I went in and installed it. The easiest way I found was to drop the steering rack bolt the coupler up and then mate it to the steering column shaft and bolt it back in. Anyway, the rack is all connected and I went it in and re-adjusted the tie rods as well.

[ZeeVaughn]

Now that the rack is all mounted I can sort out the power steering. I ordered a chaser bays power steering kit. It came with. Triple baffles reservoir and AN lines to convert from OEM rubber lines. I’m pretty sure this mounts right up in the stock location with the provided bracket as well. In addition I also ordered a coolant overflow, ground kit, and clutch line.

[ZeeVaughn]

Drove down to the Bay Area and bought some red vert parts that came up for sale. My original fenders are wrinkled, dented, and have bad clear coat damage. I picked up a set of red vert fenders that are faded but are straight, so they will be raised to work with once the car gets wrapped and eventually painted. I also picked up a convertible top lid to match my black interior since I swapped from tan to black. I’ve been holding off on ordering one from eBay because they’re expensive and shipping is up there since they’re so big and heavy.

[ZeeVaughn]

I got around to changing the input shaft seal along with the pivot fork, spring, pin, throw out bearing, and slave. It was all relatively easy just had to stop to run to the parts store for small things like anaerobic sealer, grease, etc.. now that it’s back together I want to clean up the bell housing a bit and get to the other seals

[ZeeVaughn]

I don’t know if I updated this but I received my garagistic bits to work on my shifter. Delrin bushing kit, z3 short shifter, shift knob and new emblem, and they’re dssr. Unfortunately once I started I noticed this huge crack so I now I’m waiting on parts to come in once again.

[ZeeVaughn]

Waited about 2 months but finally received my steering wheel I ordered. It’s an mtech 1 wrapped in alcantara with tri-color stitching. Went ahead and had them make a matching shift boot and ebrake boot as well. Very pleased with how it turned out.

[ZeeVaughn]

Finished up the last few bits on the engine last night. Finished the rear main seal and gasket for the housing and swapped the fan clutch as mine was had a few fins broken off. Got the flywheel assembly all assembled but then noticed I was missing the seal for the transmission bowl thing and the flywheels shim spacer so I’m waiting on that before i mate the trans to the engine. Meanwhile I found someone selling a crack free dash so I drove a few hours and picked it up. Mine is in really bad shape so I’m happy to have found this one for a good price.

[ZeeVaughn]

So I had been waiting on some small parts to come in in order to finish up the last few bits of the engine and trans. I got my flywheel shim and trans bowl reinforcement seal and popped them in. Then finally threw on the flywheel, clutch and PP. got all new bellhousing hardware from ecs and mated the engine and trans. Just need to throw my front sway bar back in and quick change my passenger tie rod that got damaged when I trailered the car for the move. After that I’ll be dropping this engine back in. Hopefully I can get a buddy of mine to give me a hand.

[ZeeVaughn]

Update from last post: swapped the tie rod, installed the sway bar, and installed the brake booster and brake master. Tonight I spent about 4 hours by myself with some pushing and holding help from the wife and dropped the engine and trans in. It was definitely a pain but worth it. Still have a lot to button up but this is great motivation to get it done.

[ZeeVaughn]

While I’m waiting on a shipment of parts to come in I figured I’d get started on the pedal box swap. I decided to leave my auto pedal box in the car and swap over the clutch and smaller brake pedal from the 5-speed pedal setup. Disassembly is pretty straight forward. I installed new bushings and then installed the new setup in the car. It’s already a tight space and there is a ton of wiring in the way making it very hard to work underneath there. It took a good couple of hours but I got the pedals in and then loosely installed the master cylinder because I still need to plumb it. I have new accelerator cable and bushings, springs for the pedals, stop switches and some other things to be delivered this week so I’ll be back in there soon. But for now It actually feels like the car is a manual and not an auto anymore.

[ZeeVaughn]

Wanted to finish up the 5-speed swap by doing the wiring portion and figured it made sense to swap my dash at the same time. I decided to use the no splice method found here https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/top...ink_source=app opposed to splicing. That portion itself was very quick and easy, maybe 15 minutes to complete. The dash removal was pretty simple, I remembered most of it from parting out a few other e30’s. My old cracked one came out and I compared it to the new one to see if anything was missing from the new one before I put it in.








I swapped the vin plates then re-installed the new one. Getting the dash in difficult as a one man job, it’d be easier with two sets of hands and eyes. It has kind of awkward mounting points and is a tight squeeze past the a-pillars. I got it in and bolted but reinstalling the miscellaneous components that had to be removed in the process took a good while.





Looks great, hyped I found a crack free for a good deal. Threw on my alcantara mtech wheel for a quick mock up with the new dash. Can’t wait to for my shift boot components to get here so I can throw on the matching shift and e-brake boots. Before and after

[ZeeVaughn]

I’ve had the trans supported on jackstands while I waited for my new mounts and a few other things to come in. I installed a new starter, pedal springs and bushings, plumbed the master, chase bays clutch line, and the garagistic rear shifter carrier assembly kit with the poly bushing. Then I mounted up the trans very easily so now the engine and trans are both in under their own weight. My next move is to swap out my diff with the 3.73 LSD I have waiting.