Don't Call it a Comeback

[Heezea]

Cool thread, good read.

I was thinking about the cluster. You're not getting fuel level or speed. Obviously it may need rebuilt. But, at least for the speed, it may be worth switching out the speed sensor with a known good one from one of the other cars? If that fixes it, maybe the fuel issue is also not on the board but in the sender? If you're feeling up to it, you could also switch out the clusters between two cars. This seems more involved than the first option though, but it would be more definitive about where the problem is.

[TeXJ]

I just did it very quickly to see if I liked it or not. I literally washed the wheels, sanded them a bit with 400 to rough them up, sprayed them and mounted them. Used flashcards stuck into the bead for masking. Easy peasy. So no clear but it seems to be good so far. I've always used 400 or 320 to sand wheels before painting them and never felt like I needed rougher or finer than that.

Thank you! Sorry for all the questions. Did you yourself mount these or did you have them done? I've been thinking of doing that as well but have only seen the crap machine from Harbor Freight.

[Danny]

I just did it very quickly to see if I liked it or not. I literally washed the wheels, sanded them a bit with 400 to rough them up, sprayed them and mounted them. Used flashcards stuck into the bead for masking. Easy peasy. So no clear but it seems to be good so far. I've always used 400 or 320 to sand wheels before painting them and never felt like I needed rougher or finer than that.

[TeXJ]

Dupli Color!

This is what I used. Took about 1 and 3/4 cans for four wheels. https://www.amazon.com/Dupli-Color-W.../dp/B086MGS78Z

nice! Did you happen to use a clear as well? You said you used 400 grit, would you use a higher grit or is 400 good to go?

[Danny]

wheels look pretty good. what's the brand of the paint?

Dupli Color!

This is what I used. Took about 1 and 3/4 cans for four wheels. https://www.amazon.com/Dupli-Color-W.../dp/B086MGS78Z

[TeXJ]

wheels look pretty good. what's the brand of the paint?

[Danny]

Plug looks nasty, lots of deposits usually mean crap fuel full of additives to try make it less crap. Impressive they worked with the gap that large.

I think someone has been running 87 in this thing for a while before I got it which kind of sucks. I would like to say that the new NGK plugs woke it up but really... its the same lol.

This is a fun thread. Love the content and the awesome stories. Keep it up.

Thanks brother!

Accomplished some big stuff today! First up was the headliner in the M3. I recruited my parents to help because well... my parents are super cool and they wanted to be involved. The headliner in the M3 was in absolutely terrible shape and was being held up with tape and some staples in places.





Took down all the trim pieces and were able to pop the headliner out in less than an hour with my dad helping out.



I bought four yards of suede material from the local Joann's fabric store which was much more than I needed. Everything I read online said 3-3 and a half yards would get it done but I really didn't want to do this twice so I bough a little extra. I think it cost me like 35 bucks after a 20% off coupon? Not bad.



Cut out all the holes for the trim pieces and various things. This turned out okay, not great but certainly not terrible and and absolutely better than what was in there.



This is what I mean by it is just "okay". There are some bubbles and wrinkles because I did this in my front yard with wind. I would give our efforts a 6/10 with the difficulty of this particular job being a 4/10.



My mom wanted to be more involved so she used the extra material to make a new e-brake boot and shifter boot. Not bad. No pics of the shifter boot because I forgot.



Then while I was at the parts store getting some brake fluid and some wax and some bulbs and some blah blah I noticed some cool copper colored wheel paint and thought... that might look decent. I did this with almost no prep other than some scuffing with 400 grit paper and spraying it. I took a picture with just the front wheels done for perspective (I also bought silver wheel paint in case I decide to switch back to that color).



I thought it looked kind of cool so I did the rear wheels.





I'm on the fence. I am pretty sure I'm going to sell this car once I get the title after I go to the DMV (with the smog that I passed today!) and fix the cluster (fuel gauge and speedo are still dead). I'm not sure if this car will command a higher price with the JDM/DTM HotBoi community or with some more purist type of people so I may go back to the silver.

Oh and last but not least I popped some new roundels on the car. Always looks so much better.



Any tips on the cluster? Let me know!

[econti]

Plug looks nasty, lots of deposits usually mean crap fuel full of additives to try make it less crap. Impressive they worked with the gap that large.

[paynemw]

This is a fun thread. Love the content and the awesome stories. Keep it up.

[Danny]

Yesterday I went out and put on my Thunderhill east and west track stickers on the red E30.




We're going to need to buy two sets of tires for the green car. We're stuck between deciding amongst these:



We've had the RE-71s and liked them a lot but boy, they sure wear out fast. I have a total of one (1) 15 minute session on the ZIIIs and liked them a lot as well. Curious if anyone here has any experience with the RT660s. What tires do you guys think we should get? We're going for a 205/50/15.

After that I got under the M3 and started work on the front brakes. They still had maybe 5% on them but I'm pretty sure I'm going to flip this car so in the interest of doing what is right, I felt I should replace them. Went with Akebono pads and Zimmerman rotors.

Old and busted:



Quite a lip here. Thinking these have been pad slapped at least once.



New hotness:



I also changed the oil and spark plugs just to get a new baseline on the car. Inside were Bosch 4 prong spark plugs which I have never been a fan of. I pulled them out and they looked like this:



I'm no expert in spark plugs reading but it looks okay to me I suppose. Would love to hear opinions. To my surprise, the NGKs I installed were also four prong. Maybe there's something to the four prong thing after all...


I threw the vanity cover back on the engine because you know, its the little things.



Okay so now I really need a hand if you all would be so kind. The two really big issues that I'm dealing with now are 1. aftermarket alarm kills the battery overnight (I am going to work on pulling this out completely). 2. The fuel gauge and the speedometer do not work. My theory is to send the cluster off to be rebuilt but if anyone has some insight I would love to hear it. Electronics and wiring is NOT my strong suit.

[Danny]

Thunderhill is always a great venue and Saturday was no exception. We ran with NCRC, which is our favorite group, on the east track using the bypass. The forecast was for 100 degrees and very smoky (lots of fires in CA right now). I went out on the first session and was starting to feel confident with the car, the temp was staying exactly where it is supposed to and I was happy with the performance of everything. The new Dunlop ZIIIs were nice! I think I had them a little too high on tire pressure because they were a little skatey but it could have just been the cold track and first session jitters.


Until the last lap of the first session where I came over the bypass of turn 5 and hit some uneven pavement. My car made a loud noise and started to feel very shaky up front. I actually thought I had popped the bead of the right front tire off and was riding on a flat. Half a lap later with my hazards on I had limped the car into the paddock.




Diagnosis: blown up wheel bearing. Called around to the few parts stores in the area and what a surprise, nobody carries a front hub for a 30 year old German sedan.

So my day was done at 9 am but my Dad's and brother in law's wasn't. I loaded my car up on the trailer and drove the hour and 20-ish minutes home to drop it off with plans to come back and run the green car in the last session of the day.



While I was gone my Dad and BIL kept running the green car and that was going well! Temp was staying consistent even in the heat and smoke, tires were almost gone but we knew that going into the day.



I got back with the trailer and learned the throttle cable broke, causing my Dad to have no throttle while coming around turn 11. He was able to put it in neutral and coast into the paddock with no issue. My Dad and BIL attempted a heroic fix with bailing wire and duct tape (which I was not aware of).




They kept running the car successfully (somehow) until the throttle stuck wide open on my Dad causing him to have to just drive off track and into the dirt.

So, fun day but now I have two broken cars to contend with.

[Danny]

I am eternally jealous of Americans just finding E30s for free/very cheap in fields etc

This thing is ROUGH my friend. But still, free is free lol.

We're in the middle of a serious heat wave right now so I couldn't get out to the cars to work on them until about 9 pm tonight.


I bought rear pads and rotors to replace the ones on the burgundy car. So I popped off the rear slide pins and pulled the caliper and found they have at least half life left... Apparently I underestimated how long they have to go. So I just regreased the slide pins and put it all back together. Now I have some cool Hawk HPS pads and rotors for the rear of the silver car I suppose. While I had the rear tires off though I looked at the state of wear of all four because I'm headed to Thunderhill for a track day on Saturday the 22nd. I ordered up four of these:





225/45/16 is a weird size that not much comes in. I debated with myself about buying some R888s but decided against it since the burgundy car still gets driven a lot on the street. I was very happy with the StarSpec ZIIs that are on the car and everything I have heard is that these are even a step better. I'll let you all know how they perform on the 22nd.


In other news, I went to move the M3 out of the driveway to work on the burgundy car and it's battery was dead. I drove it somewhere the other day and came out to see the hazards were flashing which is odd. It has some crappy aftermarket alarm in it and I think there is a parasitic draw from it somewhere. I just unplugged the hazard switch for now and we'll see if that fixes it. Also, I jumped it and now the blower motor works so... who knows? I love 80s and 90s German cars.

[econti]

I am eternally jealous of Americans just finding E30s for free/very cheap in fields etc

[Danny]

I buttoned the stuff surrounding the blower motor up and started the car, looking forward to cold A/C on my face and...


Still no blower motor. I'm thinking there must be a loose connection in there somewhere or maybe the motor is just toast. At least its not THAT hard to get at. Since I was discouraged by that and I needed some positive reinforcement, I took the M3 for a little spin to my parents place. I discovered along with the fuel gauge that the speedometer is also not working. I think I might have to pull the cluster and reflow some solder since the thing barely lights up and won't do the needle sweep dance I've seen on the internet. When I got back home I checked the wiring underneath the backseat and did not see any obviously damaged wires. I wrapped some electrical tape around some which had a bit of insulation worn away and put the back seat back in.

Glove box went back in (I hate the glove box sag but I don't care enough to do anything about it.




Being that I was discouraged from the blower motor repair failure and I didn't feel like taking it all apart again I looked into this big box of parts and deciding to replace the air filter.



Old air filter is old, but at least not original!



I continued my cleaning journey and of course the mice had gotten into the trunk also.



I cleaned that up and decided to pay some attention to the silver E30. I had previously got it to start for just a second on starting fluid and believed the fuel pump was dead. The new one came in so I decided to install it. The original one is the original from the car, which is not surprising.



Threw the new one in and we have fuel pressure! We also have a TON of fuel leaks from the original, 1984 fuel hose. I would replace one piece of hose under the hood and a new leak would pop up. So I ordered 15 more feet of fuel injection hose so I can replace everything in there. It still won't start on just the fuel but I know it'll fire once I can get the fuel where it needs to go.

[Danny]

That's a cool ride. And a great price for a great vehicle.

I was legitimately surprised to get 7k for it honestly. But hey, the 5-speeds are getting harder and harder to find and this guy seemed to be the right buyer.



Issues to address, in order:


Blower motor doesn't work. Tires are totally shot. Headliner is torn and sagging. The smell (oh my god the smell). Front brakes have zero life left.


Everything else seems to be in okay/decent shape though honestly.


Got started a couple of days ago getting at the blower motor to see if its bad or if a mouse house was blocking it from spinning.


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Initial inspection of the engine bay shows its dusty but otherwise free of mouse damage to any wires or other things. However, while I was working under the hood the smell of mouse poop was overwhelming. I looked at the under hood insulation and noticed there was a saggy portion that had some significant weight to it when I pushed up on it. I took out the insulation and found this: (warning, gross).





Yes, that is a mouse house (and mostly bathroom) under the hood between the insulation and the bottom of the hood. I just threw it all away. Unfortunately that distracted me from properly documenting the rest of the journey which was getting to the blower motor (it was uneventful). I spun the motor by hand and it moved freely, turned on the ignition and SUCCESS, the blower motor works as it should. I lost a couple of the little metal clips that put the cover over the squirrel cages though so I had to order them. Looking past the blower motor it was clear to see that the cabin air filter was extremely clogged and likely original. Getting to the cabin air filter involves removing the glove box. So I did and found even more mouse houses and mouse poop on top of the glovebox (HOW??). I can't believe where these little critters have got to.





Its apart for now while I wait for parts to arrive (hopefully tomorrow) at which point I'll toss it all back together.


Replaced the torn, dead tires with some Continental Extreme Contact Sports from tire rack. I used to sell a lot of these tires at a shop I worked at YEARS ago and I never had one complaint with them. Being that I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this car or flip it I figured something between crazy street semi slicks and crappy all seasons was a good compromise. I went with the stock staggered setup of 225/45/17 fronts and 245/40/17 rears.