89is Alpine Progress Thread: e30 Hibernation - e90 swap complete

[VBe30]

Annd it's dead

Update...

So one nice friday last month I decided to drive the e30 to work. Welllll halfway through the drive a noticed a large plume of white smoke coming from the rear of the car. I stopped and noticed the trans fluid gushing out from in between the engine and trans. Fluid was dripping down on the exhaust causing the white smoke...I said "f' it" and charged on and parked in the back of the parking lot at work...



Snail Trail


Puddle


Resting Place

I had my father pick me up from work and the car sat over the weekend, as I had plans of going out of town.

So after a couple of days of debating to either fill up and drive or get it towed...I decided to charge it home. I stopped a few times along the way to let it cool down a bit and fill it up with more fluid. 10 qts gone between work and home..

And here it sits until I figure out what I am going to do: Fix the Auto so I can drive it OR get it to my parents garage and start the m30/5 speed swap...


In the meantime I am still buying parts in preparation.


Spal Fan, IX Washer Bottle (Thanks Classic Daily), 633i single mass flywheel, power steering seal set, stuff to reseal G260 Trans, water pump, and other random stuff from ECS.

I have also spent a lot of time at the junkyard. Not so much for the e30, but to start slinging some parts to make some cash.


2 - e34 Oil pans, pickup, dipsticks. 3 - M50 Manifolds and brackets, and a set of e39 style5's.

Continued tumbling and cleaning up BMW hardware

Surplus

Walnut shell

"Jordan's Method" - Water, Purple Power, and Ceramic Media (partially broken)

Also spent numerous weekends fixing up my garage.




And lastly - I just got the Air Compressor from my Father-in-law. I can go ahead and get to soda blasting all my parts and prepping for paint and powedercoating.

[Haystack]

Interested in seeing more of that parts tumbler..

[VBe30]

Interested in seeing more of that parts tumbler..

So far I've used a few different methods

1 - Harbor Freight green pyramids: Good for cleaning off heavier deposits, but still doesn't get everything nice and clean.

2 - Crushed Walnut Shells: Shines up the hardware quite well. From this picture you can see the cleanest part and the most pitted part that came out of that batch.


3 - Harbor Freight Ceramic Triangles (partly crushed), water, and Purple power: This was the method Jordan used during his restoration of the white 318is. He also bead blasted them before plating (I believe). These are some pictures of that batch I just pulled out. It leaves a duller finish than the walnut shells, which I assume would be better for plating





I still need to find a way to "finish off" the hardware...sure they look nice now, but would immediately rust without any sort of coating. I have them coated in some WD-40 right now.

I stumbled across this last night and it may be a solution...
Caswell Plug-n-plate

[spiDmang]

Definitely M30 swap at this point! Perfect excuse to get in there and knock it out

[TheWipprSnappr]

Your garage looks awesome. Super jealous

[VBe30]

Definitely M30 swap at this point! Perfect excuse to get in there and knock it out

Shit, I know! The only thing holding me back is the $$. I still want to get the engine rebuilt (head resurfaced/block checked). Plus all the other ancillaries...I'm thinking I should just start it and sell off the M20 to make some cash.

Your garage looks awesome. Super jealous

Thanks man! I've put some blood and sweat into it. Still need to paint some other stuff, but I'm pretty pleased overall. A shed is on my wish list to get all the yard equipment out for more space.

[paynemw]

Dude, glad you threw up this thread man. I ended up moving to Germany, sad I couldn't stay in VA Beach to continue building stuff like you. Keep up the good work man.

[VBe30]

Dude, glad you threw up this thread man. I ended up moving to Germany, sad I couldn't stay in VA Beach to continue building stuff like you. Keep up the good work man.

Thanks Man! - I still have that sunroof panel I got from you on the shelf waiting for paint. Hopefully you can snag some sweet euro parts while you are over there. My assumption is you are going to move back stateside eventually? Or are you over there for good?

[VBe30]

Soda Blast

I spent all day saturday testing out my new air tools. I got so excited I didn't take many pictures.

I sent up a makeshift outdoor tent to shield my from the rain. I was so eager to try, I didn't want to wait for a nice day...and believe me it was a a shit day out - Cold/rainy, but worth it.

I blasted through 50lbs of medium grit soda from HF. I did a bunch of small parts, but my m30 getrag 260 was the only thing I documented with pictures.




Original Pic straight from the Junkyard



Progress





"Finished product"
I still have some spots I need to clean and power wash off all the leftover soda. Needless to say, I am quite pleased with the outcome.


I think I have also settled one a plating process for the hardware to try - Black Oxide kit from Caswell plating. As I mentioned before, I am more of a fan of the black hardware than the shiny zinc/gold colors (although OE).

I'll keep everyone posted on the outcome..

[VBe30]

Power Steering pump

Dug into the m30 power steering pump some. I have everything disassembled now. The damn circlip took me awhile to get off..














I am going to paint and refurbish the hardware prior to putting everything back together with the new seals. One step at a time.

I think i'm going to use Eastwood "aluma blast" for all the small silver aluminum parts on the engine. I will get the valve cover/intake manifold powder coated though.

[2mAn]

I want you to know that I had a spare auto trans and I never wanted to offer it... because nobody deserves to be stuck in auto

[spiDmang]

I want you to know that I had a spare auto trans and I never wanted to offer it... because nobody deserves to be stuck in auto

This makes you a good person <3

[warshark]

hey do you still have the oil pan if you do call me at 203 354 2389 and leave me a message if i am not home

[ATL_E30]

I saw on the Facebook group that you pulled the M20! YAY FOR M30 BUILD! Updates plz and ty!

[VBe30]

Update

I saw on the Facebook group that you pulled the M20! YAY FOR M30 BUILD! Updates plz and ty!

Yep! Thanks dude. Update coming:

Soooo...First things first...I picked up a new car for an absolutely steal. It’s an 06’ e90 325xi - 6 speed. The engine has no compression, but I plan on swapping in a newer low mileage engine. Still doing some research, but it looks like I can use any version of the n52 (n52, n52n, etc) and use all the original sensors/harness from my car and everything should work. Also looking to use the 3-stage intake manifold and tune to gain some more HP. Essentially making the 325 a 330.






Jumped head first into ripping off the front of the car. Ran out of time, but haven’t been able to get some more time with the car. It’s sitting over in my parent’s garage.


But on to more important things...The e30

I started removing the transmission with the intention of possibly just fixing the auto seal and putting it back in....WAY to much work to remove again later. So out it came.





You can see the offending front seal hanging on the torque converter.




So after all that work, there was no way I was putting the slush box back in. I then started removing and labeling everything




Harbor freight was out of stock for a few weeks, but I was finally able secure a shop crane. Now it’s Go time.







M20 OUT!





This weekend I picked up some HF wheel dollies so I can maneuver around my small garage. Also picked up a new iPhoneX so I’m going to be testing out this portrait mode a lot more.

Next up: clean up the engine bay, remove the rest of the automatic stuff, and sell off these miscellaneous parts.

M20 and all the automatic parts are for sale, so PM me.