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

[AWDBOB]

Well R3V. For those who have been following the most recent hooptie sedan chronicles…. I have been thrashing to get this car over the finish line, and last night I found something that no one wants to see on their E30, let alone one with this much time and effort invested.

My gut kept saying to check the inner tie rods, and thankfully I did, as the lock plate had failed on the passenger inner and was backing out. Thankfully I caught this before it backed all the way out. Minor issues.

“While I was in there” I started taking apart my new cam seal that is hemorrhaging oil. I always install cam seals in a new spot to avoid the old groove, but apparently I got super lucky and found the groove before this groove. Groovy.

Saw engine mounts had failed as well and threw a fresh set on.

While I was working under the car on the inner tie rods and engine mounts the light hit just right while I was looking up and revealed something rusty looking...... so I investigated and found that a leaky brake master had rusted the area under the MC.

The underside of the area is fine, thankfully.


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

[AWDBOB]

those trans mounts still had a couple miles left. shame on you for being so wasteful.

Its wild how different a car feels when the entire driveline isn't moving around under accel/decel

I kinda liked it, may do a trans mount delete next

[e30austin]

those trans mounts still had a couple miles left. shame on you for being so wasteful.

[AWDBOB]

Impressive how your able to just knock out the work and get this cars back into circulation.

My motivation with these hoopties early on was to change my approach from the typical car project that is on jack stands for years and then sold off when finished to getting a car driving as soon as possible without worrying about it being perfect. So I try really hard to get these cars back on the road as soon as I can so I can enjoy them!

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I took the 100mi maiden out of town voyage straight into Indy last night not knowing what would fail to pick up some 14" weaves.

The steering felt very odd, and had a bind/clunk. Accelerator cable popped off of my new bushing so I rolled to a gas station and zip tied it.

The driveshaft vibrated like crazy on accel, diff seemed to whine on decel but could've been driveshaft noise.

Shift bushings were awful.

I had a 2hr window today where I could toss the car on the lift and assess with the above in mind.

I found that the front undertray I installed was somehow rubbing on the inner tie rod boot. Fixed that for free, steering feels 80% better and clunk is gone. Rack or USMS are still a touch bindier than I'd like them to be but not bad enough to replace a rack since the PS doesn't leak.

I had a spare d/s with serviceable ujoints and a good CSB from the orange car, so I opted to install that alongside a new guibo and trans mounts.

I rebuilt the shift carrier with a rubber front carrier bushing mjweimer gave me years ago.

I had a rando short shifter from the orange car, which was accompanied by an auto solutions looking selector joint and rod, so I installed all of that with the appropriate number of plastic washers, "rebuilt" a less exploded rear shift carrier bushing with right stuff and it feels as good as any other car I've spent a ton of money rebuilding the shifter on.

Then promptly took it on another drive out of town and the car seemed very happy.

I still have a CEL that I haven't checked since it's an early DME, but the car runs very well/smooth so I'm not expecting anything crazy there.

This thing is a windshield and a working sprayer away from being an apt daily.

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

[OSAH racing]

Impressive how your able to just knock out the work and get this cars back into circulation.

[AWDBOB]

Time to put some miles on the ole gal

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

[AWDBOB]

Found a hoopty spec '87 325i lip and early under tray in the stash to finish off things in the aesthetic department. Interior is done outside of a shift boot and glove box mech. She's close!

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Still truckin' away on the '87 4dr. I treated floor rust, got the carpet back in, made one good cluster out of 4 not so good ones, swapped the hood release cable, swapped a throttle cable, made some sedan door seals out of mediocre coupe seals I had off the orange car, got license plate lights going using my brother's repair inserts for rusty cars, installed his OBC phone mount, and drove the car around the lot for the first time!

I went to wire up a spare tr7412ub-or I had and do a trunk amp delete and discovered that '87 premium sound harnesses (1381719) only had a single radio output ground wire, so I ended up repurposing the four + speaker leads at the head unit that run to the trunk as rear speaker +/-, redirected to the rear speakers at the trunk amp connector, and just ran separate front speaker wires to the deck.

In this harness the red/green that is almost always constant 12v was 12v headlight on, aka dimmer, which I found super odd. Swapped what I had wired to orange and yellow and all was happy. I then remembered that I had a super nice set of four Polk 5.25" mids that I installed, and the whole setup sounds great. Really caught me off guard as I was quite proud of hoopties fresh premium sound with a class d head unit amp, and now it's got me questioning all the things.

I need to button up the glovebox area, put some hardware in the front splash shields, toss a passenger seat in this thing and start whipping it. The brakes feel not great despite being good components, so a further bleed may be required with two people vs the "stick bleeder hose in a bottle of brake fluid" method I tried.

I have a Momo Cavallino I'm going to run for the finishing interior touch.

Hopefully we'll see winter turn right about when I'll have this thing road worthy for some daily duty until someone wants it more than I do.

My goodness I love hoopties.

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

[AWDBOB]

New shoes got mounted on slightly cleaner 14" weaves today. Tried to buy some all seasons and ended up with a 320aa summer tire somehow.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr



Proof nothing in life can just be simple:

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

This shit drives me nuts with flickr as well

Back in the day I used to manually copy each link but gave up on that a long time ago. They're trying waaay to hard to be a social platform. We just want to host photos homies

BOBS WEINERS AND WAFFLES GODBLES!!!!!!!!!!


(forgot this forum doesn't allow all caps so my boomer sentiment is lost, lame)

hahahahhaha i saw the caps when i quoted the post, not all was lost

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Got the motor all buttoned up tonight. Stuck with the early model cooling system because it all seemed fine. The VC gasket was the worst I've seen on an E30. Hopefully that and the cam seal/oring solve the oil leaks. Power Steering needs work, the orange car came with some fresh looking used parts in the trunk, if I get sick of leaving a puddle I'll toss that stuff on.

Saleri water pump, new intermediate shaft gear to replace the stamped piece (pained me that I didn't have a used one even tho new ones are sub $40), conti belt/tensioner, new plugs and a very lightly used bremi ignition setup. Car seems very happy. I found some old euro grills under my sandblaster today, may toss them on if I'm feeling frisky

Once I can get the brakes bled and some tires on it I can finally take this thing for its maiden voyage, so in the meantime tomorrow I'll probably focus on some interior efforts.

May drive, may sell, gotta feel out how motivated I am to maintain a 5th older vehicle when hooptie and the M3 would probably be a better use of my attention.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[e30austin]

BOBS WEINERS AND WAFFLES GODBLES!!!!!!!!!!


(forgot this forum doesn't allow all caps so my boomer sentiment is lost, lame)

[Northern]

It drives me crazy that it auto copies the Flickr account nickname in the bbcode unless I manually delete it each time, so I’ve side stepped from bobsbimmers to bimmertown. I’m going to try bobsbratsandbiscuits next

This shit drives me nuts with flickr as well

[AWDBOB]

Brodego LOL Never heard that one before

That ones fresh, rolls right off the tongue too 😂

time to take one last trip.... to BIMMERTOWN

It drives me crazy that it auto copies the Flickr account nickname in the bbcode unless I manually delete it each time, so I’ve side stepped from bobsbimmers to bimmertown. I’m going to try bobsbratsandbiscuits next

[e30austin]

time to take one last trip.... to BIMMERTOWN

[808ETA]

Brodego LOL Never heard that one before