My Hoopte30 Project Attempt #6 - the painless way to earn cash back every day

[Northern]

Might have to fab up an idler to increase the wrap on either the crank, compressor, or both?

[AWDBOB]

You had a belt brake? Any idea why?

On the Sanden converted car, yes. In my experience with the Sanden conversion, I can’t find the sweet spot in between belt slippage and belt breakage.

I believe two things are a factor here:

1) I used a “709” Sanden compressor instead of a “509” which takes more hp to run

2) The Sanden bracket doesn’t have a tensioner, so you’re limited on how you can adjust it, which also doesn’t allow you to gradually adjust from a tensioned position very easily to get it just right.

If I keep breaking belts like I have been I’m just going to buy a 509 in hopes that I can just have working a/c for a while instead of constantly fiddling with it.

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Took the ole bike hitch whip on its first highway outing and it bent pretty severely at normal highway speeds due to a lack of bracing/gussets on the main bar as well as from the bar to the actual receiver. Will have to resort to my roof bars and rocky mount until the daily is back.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[twright]

You had a belt brake? Any idea why?

[AWDBOB]

Crack free dash?

This car had one in it originally- I sold it to help fund the rest of the antics and put a cracked but still decent looking one in.

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OG hooptie got a VR1/Wix break in oil change, and I installed a new oil pressure sensor while I was down there to avoid a future failure.

Got a Gates 9335 belt to replace the last continental that broke on me.

Put the hitch/bike rack on sedan hooptie so I can still ride while the xterra is down. Feels a bit twisty, may need a 3rd attachment point whenever it gets finished the correct way.

Bumper delete looks slightly less horrendous on an early car because I can keep the bumper trim on.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[prisonerofdoom83]

Crack free dash?

[AWDBOB]

We have a/c! Well, kind of. My gauges broke so I couldn't pull a vacuum on it before adding freon, so it's rather inefficient at the moment. Will evacuate and recharge down the road.

I installed a strut bar I've had hanging on the wall since 2016 and a leather mushroom knob to finish the black interior look.

Changed the oil, installed a new oil pressure sensor, mounted the fender liners and front lip more securely etc.

I really enjoy driving this thing. Will hold me over as a daily until I get the Xterra clutch hydraulics in from Nissan.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

BIMMER TOWN USA
POPULATION: BOB

godbles, brother - must be nice to have an e30 with working AC

hahaha don’t worry I’m sure it won’t last more than 2 days

[e30austin]

BIMMER TOWN USA
POPULATION: BOB

godbles, brother - must be nice to have an e30 with working AC

[AWDBOB]

Budget a/c is a fools errand, but I'm going for it

I bought a new high pressure hose for the seiki compressor, a new drier, expansion valve and parallel flow. A customer gave me a good used genuine r134 pressure switch a while back, and I had some other nicer hoses on hand as well as a curved blade fan and what seems to be a good compressor from a buyout.

I'm all in for sub $200 and sweat equity, but this could potentially transform the car.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr


Found a few new firewall rust holes during this process. Had to swap evaporator cores as well with a good used one.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr



Amazon was late with my PAG oil so I had to call it for the evening, but tomorrow I'll pull a vacuum on it and hopefully we'll have a/c!

FCP order showed up and I put the new oil pressure switch on, she's almost done!

[AWDBOB]

I'm running H1/H4s on my 318is and it is a great budget upgrade over the stock sealed-beam setup. I can actually see where I'm going on those late night/early morning drives!

Especially considering what a nice set of projectors cost now and how many decent quality non-Hella H1/H4s are available, it's a solid setup for the money!

[mike.bmw]

I'm running H1/H4s on my 318is and it is a great budget upgrade over the stock sealed-beam setup. I can actually see where I'm going on those late night/early morning drives!

[AWDBOB]

I love the sealed H1/H4 upgrade on early models

This is my first time using them- the car had H4s in the high beam spot when I got it so I just fixed the broken one without thinking about it.

I’m just now realizing that H4s are dual filament and thus make for a better low beam which is what I really want any way, so I’m going to swap the H4s over to the low beam spot in the mean time and see if I can get some cheaper Autopal H1s because hooptie budget.

Edit:

Remembered I randomly have a case of new H5001 high beams, this worked out perfectly! H4s are much better in the low beam spot.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[2mAn]

I love the sealed H1/H4 upgrade on early models

[AWDBOB]

External pump was getting loud and the car started cutting out so I figured it was time to swap it before it left me stranded, which turned into making a bunch of fuel line, replacing the external pump bracket entirely, etc etc.

I was about to place an FCP order when I remembered that I had a nice VDO lift pump on the shelf, as well as a Bosch external that was newer/quiet.

Hoping mastercoat buys me 6 more months with this fuel tank

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr



Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr


Now that I like this car more I replaced the mismatched drivers high beam with another H4, courtesy of mjweimer. I've had these euro grills forever that I swap from car to car, so I figured it was time to toss 'em on. This process reminded me that the car was hit in the front left which left the low beam aimed at the birds. Fuse one was blown keeping the new high beam from working, so I put a 15a in slots 1&2, and she's good to go!

Replaced flasher relay and finally got all of the turn signals blinking at a normal speed.

I also installed a chipped 173 that has been floating around in old R3V cars for two decades so I can stomp test an intermittent code.

May or may not have broke down and placed a rockauto order for A/C stuff since I'm melting this week. I found a compressor in the stash with a tag that said "Good possibly?" Good enough for me, we'll see if it pushes out the front shaft seal immediately or not later this week.

Oil pressure switch gets here tomorrow and this thing will be pretty well buttoned up.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

I forgot to take pics today because it was brutally hot, but I made some good progress on the 4dr.

Ever since I did the trunk amp delete I've had issues with the radio shutting off/resetting.

Today I went back through the entire radio harness to see what was going on and finally fixed the issue!

This car has the super odd early '87 premium sound harness (1381719) that only has the single output ground for all of the amp inputs, aka four + speaker wires run to the trunk amp, but only one ground.

So when you do a trunk amp delete on these cars, the easiest way to do so is to run new front speaker +/- to the deck, and use the four + speaker wires running to the trunk amp as the +/- speaker wires for the rear speakers. Connect those to the actual rear speaker wires at the amp connector and all is well. I went over all that again today and it all checked out.

I then uplugged the amp power and antenna power from the power distribution block because I wasn't using either of those two things any more, in the event that something was backfeeding into something it shouldn't have been- no change.

Redundantly, I grounded out both of the leftover grounds in the trunk (one amp ground, and the single old speaker ground no longer in use). The amp ground is already grounded at the g300 under the rear seat, but more grounds never hurt anyone.

I then went through my power wiring for the deck to make sure it was all good. It's so easy to fall into the trap of finding a writeup and treating it as ultimate truth, but since I was having issues, I just used my multimeter to distinguish between Constant+, accessory+,and illumination+. I had accessory and constant swapped, despite doing all of this "right" last time.

Fixed, and still had the same issue.

I had a random thought to check the pins on the Conti provided connectors, and low and behold, my multimeter leads had expanded the pins so far they were making inconsistent contact with the deck and causing all of my shut off/reset radio issues. I then disconnected blue antenna lead because I wasn't using it.

The silver lining of all this is that my Conti head unit now powers up on its own. I've had this head unit in 4 different E30s now and none of them have powered up on their own, which has aways driven me nuts. Not sure what did it, but that was a big plus.

I then threw together my most disgusting cruise harness, and ended up having to hardwire it to the actuator line under the dash due to someone splicing the wrong connector on in the past. Threw in my nastiest cruise module, a cruise stalk that has omni-movement, and I'll be damned if it didn't work perfectly! Love it when that happens.

TLDR, stereo go boom now, car stays same speed

Messing with shitboxes is so much more fun than nice stuff.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr