"Jaywatch" Lemons E30

[KenC]

I think we finished like 127th... our car was on the track for a whopping 90min on Sunday. We did, however, win the Most Heroic Fix for making one semi-working Franken-tranny out of a broken i and a broken e transmission.

[kronus]

^ 144 for us, all but 4 laps were on sunday.

[XvillainousX]

I think we finished like 127th... our car was on the track for a whopping 90min on Sunday. We did, however, win the Most Heroic Fix for making one semi-working Franken-tranny out of a broken i and a broken e transmission.

That was you guys? The Los Seis Amigos blew two trannies.

[KenC]

That was you guys? They Los Seis Amigos blew two trannies.

Yep, that was us. None of us had ever really worked on a transmission. It took us six hours to get it all put back together. A transmission was just about the only spare that we didn't bring...

[Justin B]

Hah! When I texted James, and he replied that you guys made it, I didn't think he meant it like that!

[CorvallisBMW]

We barely made it with about 40 minutes left before the checkered. None of us had ever pulled a tranny open, let alone tried to fix one. Thank god for the Bentley!

[Farbin Kaiber]

I need this in my life.

[Justin B]

writeups!

[kronus]

I'm waiting on one of my teammates to get the videos up on youtube. We have hours and hours of track video for analysis.

The basic outline was:

- get to Infineon on Thursday evening
- sign up for five test sessions (each 45 minutes) on Friday
- in second session, rusty thermostat disintegrates, blows shut, car stalls on track after overheating and fluids mingling. We don't notice, think it just died randomly, since it starts up some time later and seems fine.
- I go out for the third session, lose all power after 3 laps. Car towed back in, we fuck around with it a bunch, trying to get it to start. We have no oil pressure, foolishly think it could be the gauge or the sender. The driver-side of the engine bay is covered in oil, we don't realize why. Change the oil and water. Try to start the car again, no dice. Pull the plugs, notice that they're covered in fresh oil. Pull the AFM, oil is coming out of the intake. Cylinders are hydrolocked by coolant, cranking pressurizes the crankcase and blows oil out of the pan gasket. Head gasket is fucked, rings are probably fucked, head is probably warped. Any input here would be appreciated, this is guesswork, not a proper diagnosis.
- I walk around, meet Darrin (CorvallisBMW) and James Crivellone and the rest of their hilarious team, mid-gay-tank conversion. They have a spare eta motor. After some panicking and arm waving on our part, they agree that they would like to see four noobs (us) try to pull off a complete motor swap overnight in the pouring rain with hand tools, and sell the motor to us. We contemplate celebrating.
- (this is about 8 or 9 PM Friday night) We bring the replacement motor over, and start pulling the old one out.
- (2 AM) we have the old motor out
- (3 AM) we are attempting to attach the new motor to the old motor's trans
- (4 AM) after trying for an hour, we give up and go to sleep (it has been raining this entire time by the way)
- (8 AM Saturday) wake up, resume fucking with the torque converter
- (noon) by this time, we figured out how to get the motor and tranny mated, done so, and did everything we needed to with the motor out of the car. (attach coolant hoses, torque various crap)
- (~2 PM) putting the motor in
- (~3 PM) motor is in, filling fluids, reattaching exhaust manifolds, alt, PS pump, auto trans hoses
- (~5 PM) it fires! Much celebration! One of our guys suits up and manages to get it out on the track for four or so laps, taking it super easy because the engine was unknown. He comes in because we realize we have no idea how much gas is in the car, and should check fluid levels. Since we hadn't actually ever pitted before, we take like half an hour to figure out the fill cans, and the Saturday race is over before we have a chance to get back out on the track.

Saturday evening, we mess with it some more, clean up and check over the various swap bits. After the first pit, the engine had developed a very bad misfire, so we spend some time trying to diagnose it. Eventually, most of the team gets frustrated, grabs the pot of vodka gummi bears we had in the RV, and convinces the proprietor of the rolling chicane limo to let them drive it around the paddock handing out booze candy. I (along with several others) remain with the car, and eventually bitch and moan loud enough for Criv to come over and point out that our ECU temp sensor is not hooked up. The misfire disappears and I am a hero. Teammates swing by and give us some gummi bears.

Sunday, the car runs perfectly. Nothing interesting to report. I spend roughly five laps trying to pass the 80's truck, start to get a bit high on its exhaust fumes. We take the checker having done roughly 130 laps, pack up and go home.

[kronus]

I need this in my life.

You really do.

[Justin B]

Sounds like fun!

[Danny]

I enjoyed the arm flailing immensely.

[CorvallisBMW]

writeups!

KenC wrote this up:

Our e30 tank (which was quickly converted to a "gay tank" overnight in the rain) took the Most Heroic Fix award.
The car ran flawlessly during the test session on Friday and all day Saturday.
After an hour on the track Sunday, our driver radioed in that we lost all gears after the chicane. Luckily it had enough speed to roll off the exit.

We got it back to the pit and determined, after smashing it with a hammer, that our selector rod was jammed. We were able to find a tranny off of a 325i... that was stuck in reverse (big thanks to Caffeine e30!). Our next problem was that an "i" transmission has a different bell-housing than our "e" transmission.

After the 16-hour drive down from Portland, we sure as hell weren't packing up. Luckily one of our teammates brought a Bentley Manual (Chilton manual has one sentence on transmission repair: "Take to BMW transmission specialist"). At this point I should mention that none of us had ever worked on a transmission.

We had tools and hands so we just started tearing both of our mismatched broken trannies apart in hopes of creating one semi-functional Franken-tranny. After several hours of head-scratching at cursing, we had them both apart. For future reference, the BMW Special Tool to press the input shaft out of the bell-housing can be substituted by a big f@&$ing hammer. After several minutes of standing in awe/confusion, we began to look for obvious broken parts. The donor tranny had a horribly broken selector fork (a term added to my vocabulary this weekend). It took us another hour or so to to swap a good selector fork from our tranny to the donor. After more cursing, we got out bell housing to bolt up to the donor. More cursing ensued when neither the input nor output shafts would turn! We ripped it apart again, and got it back together. This time we were able to spin the shafts! Success! First, good. Second, good. Third, noisy. Fourth, gravel in a blender. Fifth... don't use fifth.

Since it was nearly 4pm by the time we finished up, we decided that the four large trans bolts and one starter bolt would suffice.
There were many jubilant cheers when the car actually moved!

We were on the track Sunday for the first hour and the last 40min. The happiness of getting that thing through the checker on Sunday was priceless.


It was our first LeMons event, and we've been bit by the bug.

[XvillainousX]

Maybe its time for an I conversion and motronic 1.3 in your car. Just for the simplicity of finding parts at the track. Also the late model will cut out of gas after you reach 1/4 tank. Thus your on track time is 30min less than someone with a early model. So do a gas tank conversion while you're at it. The big benefit of the late model chassis are the bumpers and taller rear tire arches. The bumpers can take more of an impact than early models. All the years I have been doing lemons I have never heard of so many e30 trannys going out at the same time.

[Kershaw]

Maybe its time for an I conversion and motronic 1.3 in your car. Just for the simplicity of finding parts at the track. Also the late model will cut out of gas after you reach 1/4 tank. Thus your on track time is 30min less than someone with a early model. So do a gas tank conversion while you're at it. The big benefit of the late model chassis are the bumpers and taller rear tire arches. The bumpers can take more of an impact than early models. All the years I have been doing lemons I have never heard of so many e30 trannys going out at the same time.

dont you mean early model?