Japandrew73's OEM Euro Restore

[Japandrew73]

Andrew did you ever figure out what you're doing with the firewall? I was curious as to how you were going to deal with that.

I'll cross that bridge when I reach it

[chadthestampede]

Andrew did you ever figure out what you're doing with the firewall? I was curious as to how you were going to deal with that.

[Japandrew73]

stickers from the bay?


i bought same set on the way...

Well kind of. I know the guy selling them, I bought them directly from him. They are very good reproductions. Most of those stickers are NLA

[Japandrew73]

I've managed to get a little bit of progress done in my currently busy schedule.
Random pic of taking the timing cover off

Got the NLA oil cap that originally came on M30's. You can see that the same part number has been replaced with the oil cap we all know (on the left). The one on the right (the original) will be cold tanked soon.

Head came off, coolant was everywhere but after a lot of towels and that rock gravel that you kick onto the driveway to remove stains, all was good.

Pistons could use and will get some cleaning.
Piston 1

Pistons 2 and 3 (3 on the left)

Project slowly getting more organized

All new engine bay stickers will go on as a finishing touch along with the under hood foam I have still wrapped up waiting to be used.

Just yesterday various brackets, timing cover, thermostat housings and sensors were bead blasted. This pic has been taken right after they had come back from the bead-blaster (Thanks to Part Stig for the blasting), they still need to be washed with soap and water, little bits of silicon glue from the previous owner need to be scraped off, and then finally they will be painted.

The cold tank pile hasn't been to the cold tanker yet since the oil pan hasn't come. Anyways there is lots of work to be done but on Oct. 11 (day after the SAT) i'll get back to work at full force!

Oh, and I finally broke down and bought a photobucket pro account :D so no more bandwidth exceeded problems (except for the photos on the other two accounts, but those photos won't be viewed as much since I'll be updating using the new account so once the second and third accounts are back online, they shouldn't go down anymore).

[Japandrew73]

you still alive? its not my r3v routine if i dont read an update from you :-(

For at least a week I have to stop to work on college apps, SAT/ACT studying. Then it will pickup full speed. Don't worry though. There are a few updates that will all come at once in a week or so

[raafhimself]

you still alive? its not my r3v routine if i dont read an update from you :-(

[Todd Black 88]

Yea In my opinion "authenticity" doesn't matter if It's going to look like shit and can't be replaced by a nicer silver one. I know what I'll end up going with, thanks for the info jean.
A 4-prong relay is a 4-prong relay right? Only difference in relays is the number of prongs. Plus a good hint is all orange relays in my fusebox have the same part numbers on them.

Not always. Sometimes the pin orientation is different for coil and load sides, mix them up and it won't work and may cause damage to other systems.

Also, the original relays had resistors and some had diodes on the coil side for for noise suppresion(resistors) and to block back feeding of power from other circuits.(diode)

[Faviolosky]

I was asking cuz I have the orange ones in my car and the blueish ones in my glovebox

[Japandrew73]

The blue and yellow ones are the newer relays, most e32/e34/e36 cars have those. The silver ones are the old/original ones. I replaced all but 1 or 2 (5 pin) with the newer relays to not have any issues with the old ones.

Yea In my opinion "authenticity" doesn't matter if It's going to look like shit and can't be replaced by a nicer silver one. I know what I'll end up going with, thanks for the info jean.
A 4-prong relay is a 4-prong relay right? Only difference in relays is the number of prongs. Plus a good hint is all orange relays in my fusebox have the same part numbers on them.

[Jean]

The blue and yellow ones are the newer relays, most e32/e34/e36 cars have those. The silver ones are the old/original ones. I replaced all but 1 or 2 (5 pin) with the newer relays to not have any issues with the old ones.

[Japandrew73]

Also have noticed this about the relays. Not going to worry about it for a while but in a week or so i'll do the research. The reason relays get tricky, is in the ETK it just comes up as "Relay". Not describing it very well with part numbers. I'll no doubt have the answers and either clean the existing ones up or get new ones. I know for a fact mine are OEM. You can see the BMW Roundels on the case of them. Some relays (like the fuel injection relay) aren't supposed to have a roundel on them because they are made by Bosch.

[Faviolosky]

i saw there was a difference in the relays, which ones are correct, or do they both function the same

[e30edward]

The fuses you have right now look exactly like what you can buy at Autozone...unless they have a BMW logo on them.

[Japandrew73]

Fusebox Makeover Time.
Here's how the fusebox looks currently. Everything is in tact, but it isn't what I want.

I have recently learned (I need to change the Toolkit FAQ I made, that everybody was in fact correct that the fuses in the pictures below are the OEM fuses. However, the ones in the above picture that were in my fusebox are also OEM. It's kind of like this: They started off as the open kind in the pictures below, and slowly they started evolving into the kind currently in my fusebox. When you take a part number for any fuse to BMW, the style fuse you get is completely random. You could get the early kind or the late kind. As a precautionary action, when you took your e30 to the dealer to get it worked on or tuned, they would replace all the fuses just so corroded ones don't cause any problems. So at some point all of the newer OEM fuses were put in mine and this is why I was confused.
So now, obviously, I'm going with the OEM Period-correct fuses that were originally recommended to me. I apologize for correcting everybody in the toolkit FAQ thread.

So New fusebox lid with period correct fuses to swap out the old ones with. Along with the auxiliary fusebox and bullet fuses to go along.

The period correct fuses have the following insignias on them:


I've dissembled the thermostat housing and am about to take the head off. More progress will happen this weekend but I'm really just waiting on the b35 e34 oil pan so I can get everything cold tanked. After that the fun starts to happen. :)

[quacktoduck]

very awesome thread.. .read it from front to back and i am very impressed... kudos