Bronzit E30 - OBDII S52 shaved bay - weekend/autox toy - Journey

[Sh3rpak!ng]

The same thing happened to my heater valve. Luckily I caught it before it dumped as much coolant as yours, no fun. Love all the little touches on your car, it's such an animal.

Oh well, it's all part of the game. I'm halfway through all the work to pull the carpet out with the center console already removed. After that it's just a matter of removing the seats, kick panels and door sills. I guess with the carpet and seats out it'll be easy to get to the rear where I have two small areas over the wheel wells that I never got around to covering with the microsuede...

Thanks for the compliments though! I'm looking forward to seeing your work on your bronzit

[Mr. Me]

Regarding that heater valve. I would highly recommend pulling the new one back out, removing the 4 bolts, replacing the o-rings with new ones, and then adding RTV to the metal block/plastics housing faying surfaces and then reassembling. I went through 2 brand new valves that leaked straight out of the box. It took a little while for the first 2 to leak (a week or so of daily driving), but they ended up leaking. After disassembling the first two after use and finding pinched/sheared o-rings I opened the third one straight out of the box. Unused, it had pinched o-rings. I replaced the o-rings and sealed with RTV and haven't had any issues over the last year or so of use.

P.S. I love this build. i have been reading in the background and it is massive inspiration for my own autox/daily driver toy.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Regarding that heater valve. I would highly recommend pulling the new one back out, removing the 4 bolts, replacing the o-rings with new ones, and then adding RTV to the metal block/plastics housing faying surfaces and then reassembling. I went through 2 brand new valves that leaked straight out of the box. It took a little while for the first 2 to leak (a week or so of daily driving), but they ended up leaking. After disassembling the first two after use and finding pinched/sheared o-rings I opened the third one straight out of the box. Unused, it had pinched o-rings. I replaced the o-rings and sealed with RTV and haven't had any issues over the last year or so of use.

P.S. I love this build. i have been reading in the background and it is massive inspiration for my own autox/daily driver toy.

No kidding, thank you for the tip! I'll pop it all apart over the weekend. Still have to pull up the driver carpet to let it dry out. I also didn't have all the right o-rings for the heater valve tubes so I want to swap them as well. Any chance you remember what sizes the o-rings were in the valve?

And I'm glad you enjoy the build, thanks!

[s14brent]

man...the color matched flares look GOOD. I was wondering if it'd be weird looking in bronzit and left mine black

[Sh3rpak!ng]

man...the color matched flares look GOOD. I was wondering if it'd be weird looking in bronzit and left mine black

they do look good :) thanks!

[Rain30]

OP I apologize if I missed it, but would you mind sharing where you got or what type of fender welting you used? I am getting ready to install the Hard Motorsports fender flares on my E46 and want to use welting with them.

PS: we need more updates, I'm having Bronzit withdrawals!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

OP I apologize if I missed it, but would you mind sharing where you got or what type of fender welting you used? I am getting ready to install the Hard Motorsports fender flares on my E46 and want to use welting with them.

PS: we need more updates, I'm having Bronzit withdrawals!

Don't think I mentioned it before. Bought it from Jegs. It'll pop up if you just search "fender welting". Pretty sure Summit and a few other places carry it too.

Bronzit updates are coming! I've just been busy, but not putting it off :)


I pulled the whole carpet out. Initially I thought I could just lift up the driver side to dry it out, but it was SOAKED literally like a sponge saturated with water. When I squished it, water came gushing out. Luckily its mostly distilled water... So I sucked up as muc as I could from both carpet and footwell and have been letting them sit exposed to dry. Probably best that i pulled the carpet anyway as it seems the 2 weeks of water sitting already started to cause some light rusting which I'll wire wheel and spray.





In my quest to finally resolve the weird clutch engagement/disengagaement I picked up a clutchmasters hydraulic TOB. Going to drop the trans again and also make some mods to the clutch as per clutchmasters suggestions. They recommended removing the return springs in case they were binding up anywhere and causing the clutch to slide unevenly.





Lastly, I finally got the M52 from my e36 convertible from my other garage so I can start working on it and get that car closer to completion. I'm also probably going to pull the head from it, have it checked and swap it onto the e30. At this point I'm fairly certain there's a high RPM/heavy load HG leak putting pressure into the coolant system. Now that I've replaced literally every single component of the cooling system and it holds pressure, I notice that after the car is cold and has sat overnight, pressure comes out the cap when removed.

[ahrensNW]

Mmmm juicy parts

[econti]

Is there much benefit to a hydro TOB?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Mmmm juicy parts

Yes I love juicy parts

Is there much benefit to a hydro TOB?

Lol we'll see!

Based on my brief research its a better match for the aggressive twin disk im running. Its a much smaller clutch diameter clutch pack with PP fingers like half the length of oem, so there are significantly higher forces on the TOB than normal, not to mention all the mechanical movements that will be eliminated. Also hoping the pedal will be a bit softer.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

[wworm]

Based on my brief research its a better match for the aggressive twin disk im running. Its a much smaller clutch diameter clutch pack with PP fingers like half the length of oem, so there are significantly higher forces on the TOB than normal, not to mention all the mechanical movements that will be eliminated. Also hoping the pedal will be a bit softer.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

this car gets cooler and cooler. Major hot rod points man

[Sh3rpak!ng]

So I've been feeling a little bad lately that I haven't gotten enough work done on the e30, but looking at the photos made me realize how much I actually did do in 1.5 weeks. Maybe the progress hasn't been too bad after all.

Started breaking down the M52





Fun to use these big sockets every once in a while. Makes me feel like a man child.



Most of the top end apart



Head off. Looks fairly clean. Apparently, this wasn't the "factory fresh" motor I thought it was when I bought it ~5 years ago. The head has stamps on it that it was a replacement and it had a VR headgasket. Oh well.



Organization



The block surface looks very clean. Minimal corrosion around the water ports. Maybe it does have 60k on it afterall I'll make some cover plates for the top and bottom so I can sandblast it at work :devil:







Head looks okay



Water jetted and welded up my own crank tool to get the jesus bolt off. Worked perfectly.



Head was dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon... I did not expect this kind of turnaround. And $150 to get it cleaned, surfaced, crack checked, new valve stem seals and valve job :D



More shelf brackets to put all the engine parts



Parts



Here's the hydraulic TOB and shims. You have to measure the stack height of the pressure plate/clutch to transmission mounting surface (engine block) and subtract that from the measurement - transmission flange to TOB flange and then add the appropriate shims to get ~.125 TOB -> pressure plate gap. This is important because the new TOB only has about an inch of travel so with too much of a gap you may not have full clutch travel, and you want the pedal to be tight without play.



Receiver mounted in the trans



Installed



Beginning to disassemble to pull the head
ad



Got a little leak on the left of the valve cover. Can't really tell where it's coming from. I suspect that middle nut/grommet but I'm not totally sure. When I pulled it off and inspected the seals both the spark plug seals and the main outer seal were dry both on the head side and the cover side. I'll slime that grommet with some curil-t when i reassemble and see if it helps.





Looking clean under the valve cover







I got these cool russel EFI adapter fittings to help convert the fuel lines to AN/push lock. I was never happy with the hose clamped gates fuel hose because while it was "correct" for the chassis hardlines (they are flared hose barb) the fuel rail was meant for some special clip on fittings and is not flared for hose clamps so the hose isn't very tight or secure. I have tube adapters for the body hard lines.



Old head. No sign of leaking HG. Not sure why I was getting pressure in the coolant. I'll have to have it pressure tested.

[2mAn]

progress on the M52, does this mean the vert will be back in 2018?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

progress on the M52, does this mean the vert will be back in 2018?

Absolutely. I've done quite a bit of work that I haven't posted or shared anywhere. The engine bay is painted and the car is down on the ground on new suspension. Just need to transport it to my new place now.



Here are the rest of the photos I didn't have time to post yesterday.

Engine all apart and ready to be cleaned



Ran some 600 grit wet sandpaper with wd40 over the block a couple of times to completely clean the surface for the new gasket. Also removed the old o-rings



First ring in



All the rings done







Head on and torqued





Cams going in and getting torqued... torque all the fasteners. I've learned this lesson the hard way.



Sand blasted and repainted the vanos since the paint was flaking off



Polished one of the vanos thrust washers since it had some scoring on it



So now the head is assembled, just waiting to get the valve cover back on it. Then need to finish fuel lines, install exhaust manifolds and intake manifold.

[wworm]

Wow! Didn't think you could get a head refreshed that cheap and quick. I gotta call my machine shop...