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

[AWDBOB]

The ole Xterra daily popped a clutch line at a hard line junction so I need to replace everything from the clutch master to the slave cyl. It's going to take a week to get everything from Nissan, so I had to deploy the crusty '87 325i sedan for daily duty for what will be the hottest week of the year.

I haven't had the heart to part this car out, so it's just been sitting ever since it sprung a massive oil leak. I use the car to test parts so I had the interior torn apart testing window motors, among other things. It's a "b stock" car, where I use parts that are perfectly fine for this type of thing but aren't really sellable to make it better.

I cleaned the block and ran the car for a half hour to narrow down the new leak. Thankfully what I thought was another bad cam seal was residual, and it's only the oil pressure switch.

Put a good set of window motors in it, buttoned the interior up, swapped rear springs for some 50406s that I got from someone on R3V FB, fixed central locking (bad passenger front actuator), started reinstalling cruise because I can't live without it, etc.

Need to finish installing cruise, fix the weird '87 premie harness amp delete that makes my radio shut off even though I followed the oddball '87 formula, do a coolant hose, flasher relay, one H4 high beam is out, and i told myself I'd try to get the A/C going if I can do it all for the cost of freon..... a good parts rummage tomorrow will prove if that's possible or not.

Pretty excited to get this car over the hump and into a good daily spec once and for all.

Fixing a bum cruise actuator to use that I can't sell

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Engine bay side of cruise on

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Clean!!!

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Working windows and central locking


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[AWDBOB]

I have been neglecting hooptie for so long that I am remembering line items from old lists as I go.

I've been wanting to do a curved blade fan install and resistor delete for a while to help with condenser heat soak which means valence off.

Replaced all my side marker bulbs. Ground off all of the seam sealer, cleaned the window channel and used mastercoat to seal it up which is the best stuff I've found for keeping rust at bay.

Mounted oil cooler properly and fixed some frayed wiring caused by those valence chassis harness clips breaking, despite replacing when I put this valence on.

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



My fancy hood ground strap crimp failed so I put a stocker back on.

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Replaced a few lip clips.

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Working AC on an old car is a fools errand


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Front end back together

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And then this is the hitch debacle. Square tube was supposed to be gusseted and attached to the inside of the plate so it could be sandwiched in between the bumper shock and the body.

I may be able to make lemonade out of it, but will have to replace the bumper shock entirely in the design. I think if some eyelet sleeves were welded on in the right spot for the long bumper thru bolts it may be a better/stronger design than I originally planned.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Burned out, Buy a Cayman?

Same fab guy who did the headers?

I don't have to write much to continue our lovely expression or shared frustration of trying to get good work done..

When people override me and I don't want to micromanage, I instantly get worn out and go you're the expert. I get burned every time. RED FLAG DUMBASS.

Cayman sounds nice, but less stuff sounds nicer.

Same fab guy- he's been great in the past. He ghosted comms when asking about the issues.

Funny how they're all mostly the same

ugh, this is so disheartening to hear. sorry, brother... wish i could help from afar.

we shall prevail- can't let this turd ruin all the fun

[e30austin]

ugh, this is so disheartening to hear. sorry, brother... wish i could help from afar.

[moatilliatta]

Burned out, Buy a Cayman?

Same fab guy who did the headers?

I don't have to write much to continue our lovely expression or shared frustration of trying to get good work done..

When people override me and I don't want to micromanage, I instantly get worn out and go you're the expert. I get burned every time. RED FLAG DUMBASS.

[AWDBOB]

fucking painful to hear this sort of story all the time. I can't trust anyone to do shit to my cars.

Last summer I took my mini to a shop for an AC charge and told them that the valve was missing a cap and was visibly leaking. I asked them to replace the valve and charge.
They said they found no leak, charged it, and added dye. After I got home, I could see that the valve hadn't been changed and the dye was bubbling out.
Now this summer the AC is dead again. Maybe I just do the AC myself with bootleg R134a off amazon.

Last few times the frustration was offset by my stoke about the header, but this time really bugged me as I was lied to to get the car out of the way.

Sucks about the A/C- I had to buy a set of gauges/pump because no one local would even touch my sanden conversion on hoopty, let alone take the money and do it poorly.

It seems that as time goes on it gets harder and harder to get people to turn their brains on in anything they do. Anyone but the owner of the car is inputting as little effort as possible to get whatever it is billed and moved on. Long term its a scary thing, as entire industries are backsliding and will eventually just get replaced entirely.

I shot the guy a message asking what he was thinking.

The more I look at the way he did the hitch, if I welded a sleeve/eyelet to the hitch on each side for the bumper thru bolt I could potentially delete the bumper shock entirely, so maybe not all hope is lost.

Also reminds me of Roysneon's 24v touring exhaust. The shop that was supposed to make nice stainless exhausts that everyone recommended ended up MIGing everything with mild steel wire, and had a massive dip under the rear axle that was maybe .5" off the ground and quickly wore through. IIRC they charged out the ass for it too.

Yeah dude, motion vs action. Theres all this talk about how it's going to be done, but when it comes to the execution, all of that goes out the window. Doing what you said you were going to do is almost unheard of, and when present, it's sold at $250/hr and then still half assed if the tech didn't like the way their hair looked that morning lol

[Northern]

fucking painful to hear this sort of story all the time. I can't trust anyone to do shit to my cars.

Last summer I took my mini to a shop for an AC charge and told them that the valve was missing a cap and was visibly leaking. I asked them to replace the valve and charge.
They said they found no leak, charged it, and added dye, $400 please.
After I got home, I could see that the valve hadn't been changed and the dye was bubbling out.
Now this summer the AC is dead again. Maybe I just do the AC myself with bootleg R134a off amazon. LR4 also needs a charge, so I have more financial motivation than last time to DIY.

Also reminds me of Roysneon's 24v touring exhaust. The shop that was supposed to make nice stainless exhausts that everyone recommended ended up MIGing everything with mild steel wire, and had a massive dip under the rear axle that was maybe .5" off the ground and quickly wore through. IIRC they charged out the ass for it too.

[AWDBOB]

Picked up hoopty tonight. Fab guy dropped the ball pretty hard. He seems like he's going through something, and unfortunately this was reflected in the work.

The car has now been there 3x for exhaust, two return trips to make it quieter, and each time something substantial has been overlooked. I have reached the end of my grace so a nice bitch session feels right.

It's an hour and a half each way, with a ride necessary on drop off/pickup. Huge time suck, miserable heavy traffic drive through the city, etc.

First iteration of the exhaust was supposed to have an ultraquiet and a magnaflow 14815 that I provided. For no reason, the ultra quiet was never added round one.

warming up....Then brought it back (and paid) to add an ultra quiet, which was added under the fucking floor instead of in the exhaust tunnel, which hit everything because it was too low. I didn't think I had to specify that I didn't want it dragging on the ground when there is a 3ft exhaust tunnel being unused.

HEATIN UP.....Then brought it back again this current iteration to add a magnaflow cat and have him move the ultra quiet to the exhaust tunnel where it should've been in the first place.

I asked how it all went, 'good good, we haven't ran the car so can't tell if its any quieter.' see: we didn't add the resonator back and I'm avoiding talking about it and am just going to let you pick the car up and find out when you get home.

Picked it up today, sounded louder than before. Get home and realize they just cut out the ultra quiet, and added the cat. I am shocked, as I purposely mentioned this very specifically multiple times to avoid it, based on my previous experiences of things being left out.

The sandwich bike rack hitch project was also paid for and I was given the weirdest description (see: lie) about how they couldn't get the bumper shocks off (they were off when I picked the bumper up today), so now I have a hitch as a rear bumper with no provisions for mounting a bumper whatsoever. Half finished project that is worthless to me.

I thought our relationship aired on the side of friendship rather than acquaintance/business, but my trust was leveraged to make a quick g, and that really pisses me off. I didn't even think to check this stuff, just paid and left since the lady was waiting on me....

I am insanely burnt out from cars and am just trying to get hoopty done so I have something to enjoy while I take a break this summer and it keeps fighting me.

Cowl rust was fixed well enough. No epoxy primer, just seam sealer in an area with high moisture and sandwiched metal, so I spent the evening eating seam sealer so I can properly prep/coat the metal before installing my new windshield.

TLDR: do stuff yourself

[AWDBOB]

So countdown to "E30 Parts Collection" Auction on BaT?

Nothing changing on that side of things! I started organizing/moving into the Pole Barn in August and was able to get everything from the old spot into the new with room to grow despite losing 2k-ish+ sq ft.

Planning, organizing, more planning, more organizing.
I have been working at it for so long I had to step back the other day and remind myself of how much stuff I've processed

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr


Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr




I heard through the grapevine that the local guy who I give my shells to is starting a shop, so I gave him all of my leftover shelving for $100. Almost filled a 40' trailer! He took all of my extra seats I was going to toss- a shared benefit.

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Finally got my new lower box set up under the ole trusty Dayton I've had since 2012. Riiiiimz

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og hoopty is almost done at the fab shop, hopefully will have updates on that in the next few days. Added a cat, rerouted the exhaust into the exhaust tunnel, got a custom hitch made for my oneup bike rack, and got the cowl rust fixed. Super stoked to get it back

[2mAn]

So countdown to "E30 Parts Collection" Auction on BaT?

[AWDBOB]

this thread is the sole reason i continue to lurk on this site. glad you are out of there, brother... FREEDOM 35

Thanks dude, extremely grateful for the opportunity that was, equally glad its behind me.

Handed they keys back today, bought a new lower tool box for the new spot to celebrate.

freedom35 underway, life is good.

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[e30austin]

this thread is the sole reason i continue to lurk on this site. glad you are out of there, brother... FREEDOM 35

[AWDBOB]

End of an era. Don't worry, I hid roundels everywhere to leave my mark

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[AWDBOB]

looks great. i'd kill for the storage racks almost as much as the lift.

Thanks man- turns out shelving is pretty cheap if you find people who need it gone!

------

Put hoopties new windshield in without a lock strip to drive to the fab shop. Did 3 steps of ceramic coat in hopes to seal in that new new freshness.

While I had all of my ceramic coating stuff out I polished/coated the daily headlights/fogs and installed some SilverStar Ultras in the headlights and fogs. Daily desperately needs front dampers and engine mounts, hopefully I'll be able to get to that soon so I can stop squeaking around town.

I noticed late Delphi HP10241 fuel pumps were only $111 on Amazon, so I bought one to replace hoopties super loud pump before I do header dyno stuff.

Got the mezz shelves all set up to my liking and am almost moving out of the other shop (finally)!

Small progress, but progress nonetheless.

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

[82eye]

looks great. i'd kill for the storage racks almost as much as the lift.