My E30 Rehabilitation! ft. Boost Noises

[frshmaestro]

Great work man, if you don’t mind me asking. What size is your nardi steering wheel? I’m wanting to order one, 360mm. How do you like it? Do you wish you went with a different size?

Thanks

[kpg2713]

Funny, I just repaired the same rusted heat shield stud on my passenger floor as well. I put some seam sealer down before covering with Rust Bullet, not sure if that was really necessary. Thread is coming along great though, keep up the good work!

IMG_20180216_220523 by [URL="https://www.flickr.com/photos/153148878@N02/"]

[zwill23]

Great work man, if you don’t mind me asking. What size is your nardi steering wheel? I’m wanting to order one, 360mm. How do you like it? Do you wish you went with a different size?

Thanks

Thanks! It's a 350mm wheel and so far I've been very happy with it. Comparing it to the airbag wheel that was previously on my car, it is a night and day difference. Steering feel is more direct compared to the flexy airbag wheel and the increase in steering effort is pleasant.

The only downsides I can think of would be if you have sweaty hands (wood might get slippery), or if you removed your power steering. I think I would really have to muscle the car around if I didn't have PS with the smaller wheel, especially with a tighter ratio rack.

At the end of the day, 10mm isn't much of a size difference. I think you would be happy with either size :up:

Funny, I just repaired the same rusted heat shield stud on my passenger floor as well. I put some seam sealer down before covering with Rust Bullet, not sure if that was really necessary. Thread is coming along great though, keep up the good work!

Hah! Those studs must be more problematic than I thought. I peeked at your flikr, your repair looks damn near identical to mine. The only other thing I did was use a bit of 3M undercoating to re-coat the bottom of the car.

Thanks for the encouragement!

[zwill23]

Playin' with my rack, diddlin' my sub, and jimmyin' my wheels

Big Update!

As per usual, a series of unfortunate events lit the fire under my ass to tackle a project I've been shuffling my feet on. Fortunately, I was about as prepared as I could have been to get the ol'girl right again.

I'll get to that. But first, some more dumpy pics of my dumpy car ;)

Sister came to visit so we went buzzin' around hill country:



Lurking in the shadows:



My posts have been lacking in roof rack pics lately, so here is an old one to get it back on track:



Okay, back to a healthy dose of wrenching.

Heading home the other week, I noticed some wretched screeching coming from my power steering. Only being a mile or so away from the house, I decided to limp her home and inspect what was going on. I popped the power steering reservoir and sure enough - bone dry.

After jacking the car up it was apparent the rack itself had sprung a major leak directly under the oil pan. With the car running, ATF would completely gush from what I believe was a blown seal.

This annoyingly soaked the undercarriage in ATF, but I also saw it as the death sentence for my stock rack.



For nearly the past four months I've had a Z3 steering rack, extra front subframe, and ground control camber plates stuffed under my bed ready to get swapped in. So I used my rack leak as the motivator to get everything knocked out.

I gave a coworker a ring to explain the situation, and he begrudgingly obliged to drive me to work for the week ;)

With everything set in motion and extra parts ordered, it was time to get it knocked out.

Steering Rack Prep:

Since the rack spent a few years in the junkyard, I cleaned it up and drained the old power steering fluid.



The tie rods were also shot, so I opted to replace them and save a buck by reusing the old inner tie-rods. Although, I had to pull out just about every trick in the book to get the old outers off.

A vice, PB Blaster, and some heat ended up doing the trick.

PB Blaster and heat!



Smack it!



Freedom!



Front Subframe Reinforcement / Prep:

Front sway bar mounts reinforced, not the prettiest, but it'll get the job done :up:



Reinforced engine mounts and subframe partially boxed in. After this was initially welded, Kid8 and I used a torch and hammer to bend the rest of tab flush to box the rest in.



Fully boxed in:



Sway bar mounts after a little clean up:



Painting jig:



Painted up with POR15:



Finished! The subframe looks good from afar, but a couple bugs of course got stuck in the paint while it dried over night and it has quite a few runs. I've come to realize POR15 needs to be applied in very thin coats.



Steering Rack / Reinforced Subframe / Camber Plate Install:

Back to this leaky mess



To get started I removed the skid plate, which is just two bolts for the hoop bar and the two steering rack bolts:



Then I removed the control arms, tie rods, etc. using the sacrificial nut technique:



Subframe and steering rack (not pictured) removed:



GC camber plates installed.

It's the same process as installing top hats, but realize that top strut nut is the only thing holding the strut assembly in. I mistakenly thought the three nuts holding the strut mounts also held the assembly inside the shock tower... wrong. I accidentally put stress on the brake lines because of this.

Might have to replace those for peace of mind Edit: Replaced them with new braided lines just to be safe.



Used my engine support bar to hold the engine up while I cleaned the under belly and prepped for the subframe install:



Next, I centered the rack by making a quick and dirty cardboard cut out with the start and end angle of the rack at full lock. I determined the angle at the center position and set the rack to it.

I found it doesn't need to be all that precise, it just helps with the overall rack length measurement. I inevitably adjusted the rack angle while installing the steering knuckle, so it really isn't that critical.

Funny enough I actually counted 2.8 rotations lock to lock, but the consensus seems to be 2.7 so I'm sure I was just a little off.



With the rack centered, I made a rough length approximation with the Z3 rack by positioning each rack's mounting holes parallel to one another:



Then I attached the steering rack to the subframe...



However, I made a really stupid mistake and installed the bolts from the top down... only to realize after buttoning everything back up, that they're suppose to go from the bottom up, i.e. nut on top of the rack. The only way to get them back out is to lift the engine back up out of the car, or drop the subframe...

This was really frustrating, but Kid8 convinced me to put down the torch I was going to burn the project to the ground with and grab the engine support bar instead. :fishslap:

Steering rack and subframe installed:



Next, I installed new sway bar bushings. Kid8 recommended using a jack, and I'm honestly not sure how else you would get these bastards in.



Moving right along I reinstalled the control arms. Except I ended up botching the threads on the stud that mounts through the subframe so I had to re-cut the threads.

Harbor freight to the rescue!



Like others have experienced, my offset bushings kept annoyingly rotating in the housing. To combat this I tapped a hole for an M5x30mm bolt and called it good.





With the front suspension nearly back together, I turned my focus to finishing the rack install.

From inside the cabin, I pushed the steering column rubber grommet out through the firewall. Then Kid8 disconnected the steering shaft by removing the large nut holding steering column assembly.

Disconnected steering shaft:



With the firewall reinforcement plate removed, we installed the knuckle on the new rack and test fit the steering column to determine how much of the firewall needed to be removed. Note that we added some lube for the shaft splines to help with removing / reinstalling the shaft.



Steering knuckle test fit:



With the firewall ground out using a dremel and a file, I reinstalled the firewall reinforcement plate to mark it and match firewall trimming.



Installed:



Rubber grommet back in:



The final step was to remove one of the power steering lines and bend it to suitably conform to the new rack placement.



Power steering system bled, skid plate back on, and install complete



anddd back to Soulspeed I go:


Final alignment specs!

I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with how well my driveway alignment turned out. I drove it like this for a few days before I could go to my appointment. It was a bit towed out in the front, but overall really not too bad!



Between the camber plates and the new steering rack... this car handles like nothing I've ever driven. I have my first autocross scheduled in April, time to see what she'll do :devil:

[wworm]

Big Update!

However, I made a really stupid mistake and installed the bolts from the top down... only to realize after buttoning everything back up, that they're suppose to go from the bottom up, i.e. nut on top of the rack. The only way to get them back out is to lift the engine back up out of the car, or drop the subframe...

I did this. Ended up going out and buying a sawzall because I was doing it alone and needed my car to be done asap. Cut the heads off and installed new hardware and got the car on the road but man was that a scary moment.

Sick update too! I always like e30s with roof racks. Functional hoopties are great.

[Mpolito3355]

So did you brake the rack on purpose so you can have a excuse to install your new one :p

I love the blog deff keeping me occupied and getting excited to tear into mine keep up the good work!!

[Julien]

Awesome thread, keep up the good work! Might I recommend to give her a little polish at some point? If it's single stage paint you can get it back to life with a day's worth of work. You may also be able to get the door ding removed with a paintless dent guy.


Cheers

[zwill23]

I did this. Ended up going out and buying a sawzall because I was doing it alone and needed my car to be done asap. Cut the heads off and installed new hardware and got the car on the road but man was that a scary moment.

Sick update too! I always like e30s with roof racks. Functional hoopties are great.

Ugh, right? Funny how such a seemingly simply mistake can cause so much grief. I ended up lifting the engine with my support bar and having to lower the subframe again just to get the damn things out.

Thank you! I'm a big fan of using my roof rack / e30 for things they are clearly not suppose to be used for ;D

So did you brake the rack on purpose so you can have a excuse to install your new one :p

I love the blog deff keeping me occupied and getting excited to tear into mine keep up the good work!!

Hah! I plead the fifth ;)

I'm glad you like it! It is just a documentation of all my E30 trials and tribulations, really :rofl:

Awesome thread, keep up the good work! Might I recommend to give her a little polish at some point? If it's single stage paint you can get it back to life with a day's worth of work. You may also be able to get the door ding removed with a paintless dent guy.


Cheers

I appreciate it!! I believe it is a single stage paint, it had a cheap maaco paint job done at some point in it's life after a fender bender. In general, the exterior needs a lot of love, aside from paint it has enough dings, dents, scratches, etc. that leaves me with a mentality of, "why even bother?"

Ideally, when I have a garage again one day I'll be able to bring the rest of it back to her former glory, but in the meantime maybe I'll spend some time trying to give it some new life.

[kid8]

Auto-x time!! I'm still impressed you got that all done in a weekend, nice work man!

[zwill23]

Auto-x time!! I'm still impressed you got that all done in a weekend, nice work man!

I’m stoked! I think I waited wayy too long to sign up for one. We need GreyE there!

Ehh, it is more like a week with all the prep work included. It was still a sprint for sure!

[zwill23]

A lack of safety systems, mo'meat, and a weepy cooler

Small update!

The big projects have slowed, so I've been enjoying the car and doing some tinkering here and there. In just a couple hundred miles I'll have officially put 20k miles on it and I'm a month away from a full year of daily duties :) feels good. It's had a lot of work done at this point, but I never expected these old cars to be as reliable as they are.

Also, I did my first autocross in April! Had a lot of fun and the car absolutely out performed the driver. I set better times each run, but my biggest issue was staying on course. The damn traffic cones would come up so fast I would lose my line of sight and botch the following turn. Lots of room for improvement, although I'll say it was a much bigger time commitment than I had hoped. 12 hours for 5 min of total drive time... woof.

Still, I'll likely give it another go :up:

Went on a hike with the lady a few weekends ago at Muleshoe Bend, couldn't help but take some pics of the dirty girls ;)





Quite nice out there, decided to load up the mountain bike for a revisit the following weekend:



Cruised down to south Austin the other day to check out an antique store, and perused an old bmw repair shop afterward.

It was very cool to see this M1 lurking out front, albeit wasting away. Maybe another rehab build is in order ;)



The interior smelled strongly of cat piss :(



That poor exposed engine was covered up with a trash bag:



Moving on, I went on a work trip to Sarasota and spotted this golf cart at a dealer next to my hotel ;D



Onto some tinkering!

Airbag System Removal:

Since I had already installed a non-airbag check panel and removed the airbag wheel, I decided it was time to remove the rest of the system.

Unhooked the crash sensors in the engine bay:



Removed the knee bolster from under the steering column to expose the airbag module. All the airbag connections were very obvious as they were bright orange. I simply unplugged all the connections and unbolted the module.



Pulled the airbag plug through the lower steering column cover:



Un-tucked the crash sensor wiring in the engine bay and pulled it through the firewall.



Done! Feels good to simplify the car a bit where I can.



Picked up a new fuse box cover:



Glove box handle broke so I zip-tied it until I picked up a new handle:



Back to normal :up:



I've had a weeping oil cooler line for a while now and finally decided to do something about it. The bmw tax on these oil cooler lines is absurd and they always seem leaky when I find them in the junkyard, so I decided to try a different route and have the line repaired.

Pulling the line off a friend's parts car and calling around, I ended up finding a local hydraulic repair service that did an awesome job. The shop was Hydraulic House if anyone is looking for similar repairs in the Austin area.

The line had AN fittings brazed onto it with a serviceable hydraulic line, new o-rings, and was put through a parts cleaner - all for a fraction of the cost of the OEM replacement part. I felt quite good about that



Brazed connection!



Installed and officially leak free!



Beyond that, I picked up some new tires as my current S-drives were seriously used up. This little gem was just begging to cause a flat, but fortunately the tire held up long enough to get the new ones swapped on.



New S-Drives! 205/55/R15



andddd back at work with some fresh meat :devil:



Megasquirt install and a drive-shaft replacement are next on the list

[kid8]

ttuuurrrbbooooo!

[zwill23]

ttuuurrrbbooooo!

One day! :twisted:

[alkkamai]

Excellent thread. I admire your commitment to wrenching anywhere and everywhere while doing quality work and documenting well. You've inspired me to show more love to my DD. Thank you.

[zwill23]

Excellent thread. I admire your commitment to wrenching anywhere and everywhere while doing quality work and documenting well. You've inspired me to show more love to my DD. Thank you.

Thank you!!

I used to complain a lot about not having an ideal place to wrench, but complaining wasn't helping any. Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to have understanding roommates who let me work in the driveway and friends that will offer up a space from time to time.

Good luck with your DD! Wrenching on a daily just takes a bit of planning :)