A long time ago in a galaxy far away....

 Well, not so much a galaxy, but certainly a different continent, and certainly a long time ago..

Below, cos you'll have looked already is the only remaining picture of my awesome (and second) BMW E30.

Behold the majesty...

No, it did not buff out.

What happened? Well... to quote one of the attending officers "Were you going too fast?" - Yes officer, if I'd been doing a pedestrian 4mph I'd have not punched through the telegraph pole, which you can see on the hill above. 

As a distant memory, it's all a bit hazy... but it was on the B4077, around about here.

I did have passengers, and whilst everyone was fine, there was some blood - from where the glass traveled through the cabin on one of the rolls.

I ended up closing the road, with an air ambulance on call. 

As we watched the car burn (they do occasionally catch fire, like in the movies), the fire and police had a hard time believing the four of us were OK and apart from some shock and a minor cut all good.

Would I do it again? In someone else's car maybe. But it's a helluva gamble to take.. you see what launched us over the wall and down the hill was a stump of a tree that was around 2metres across. 

It's been a while

So it has been a while since I've updated everyone on the E30 (still no name) and where it's up to.

In that time Evan has been up a couple of times to help out - and they do mark the points that have gained most ground.

So what's been done, check for yourself!

Yes, it has a red bonnet, silver bumper, 185 tyres and hub caps. Pretty much the polar opposite of "racecar" - but it's a work in progress.

Further to this, there's also a higher rear end (the old king springs were "drift" suitable) and new seatbelt clamps - the latter, top tip, take the seat out to fit. We've learnt that the 2 hour job always has a 1/2 hour option, just a couple more bolts...

So  what's left?

I need put the back bumper on (again), repair a tyre, swap the exhaust with the donor car and errr, check that it's suitable for a garage visit - no point giving the work away...

At the garage? Clutch, an oil leak or so (many so's), lighten the flywheel please and get a roadworthy. Easy!

So this car, cost $800, was most certainly a wreckers rescue (you know when they say "spares or repair" in the ad - this one was that car) and thanks to a donor car has largely cost me less than $2.5k total cost to get the car nearly ready, including the original car.
I'm not sure how much the garage will cost, but a grand is certainly going to be in the ballpark.

Done by Christmas I reckon!

It Runs! Mostly.

So a big thanks to Evan for another day working on the E30. It's funny, this car needs a name (thinking El Loco) but it just hasn't earned one yet, and of course the Top Gear opinion of not naming cars sticks in my head too. Perhaps this car is destined to be a car with no name. Or El Loco.

What did we do today, well we had had all day planned to put the hub in. With my compression doobry tool it took something like about five minutes. Yeay.

What took longer was the "dust cover" which we trashed as we pulled the old bearing out. Getting that working with the drum brakes proved to be a messy, ugly job. But I think we did it.

Pics of the day:

Gubbins (and an exhaust to replace)

It moved!

Didn't realise it was that low at the back.

Dat stance.

And the finished product, a day well done...

Sadly not.

And, proof of movement...

So, other than some questionable gear selection from Evan, the hooligan moment of his driving over my garden (just) and my discovering that I laugh like Muttley, a very productive day indeed.

What's left? Well we decided not to do the rear sub frame bushes, big job that and we're shy of breaking the car again - the hub was a big job for us.

And for me? Bodywork, that's about it. Then it's off to the mechanic, and most likely a large bill:

Mechanic Jobs:
0. Check engine is suitable for working on - i.e. no catastophic failures (has compression tested OK).
1. Replace Clutch - standard is fine.
2. Replace rear main seal.
3. Check and replace any other appropriate seals whilst gearbox removed.
4. Check and replace seals around engine - i.e. stop any leaks.
5. Fabricate new exhaust, post extractors with stainless steel - will source back box etc from eBay.
6. Supply and fit rear battery mounting point.
7. Machine/lighen flywheel. Basically a mild tune job.
8. Rear sub-frame bushes - replace with parts supplied.

Still, a major milestone has been reached. An excellent weekend!

Learning curve

Hopefully I've seen a back of unproductive weekend work on the E30 for a while.
Last weekend was this:

Which doesn't look too bad, well, it does. It looks like the finest 70's Italian designed electrics. Sadly it was about as functional as that too.

But I've learned about relays, feedback loops and poor earth connections. And as a result of this I now have a three way switch instead of the BMW standard window circuit breaker.
What did that do (the breaker?) well, it allowed you to override the entire circuit for the power windows. Which seems like a good idea. Except, on my car it meant illuminated switches the entire time, or windows off. And with no air-con/heater (more on that later) they're going to be turned on a fair bit. And that means a flat battery more often than not.

So, now I have a three way switch - Off / On / Ignition - which literally means I can forget about the switch now. Handy, as I want to.

The heater? Yes, the heater. It's disconnected on my car. So I reconnected it. And then I flooded my garage. And then I disconnected it again.

No heater for me, or rather, quote from a mobile mechanic time: "Please remove from car B and place in car A" - I'm not doing it, it's one of the all time worst jobs out there. Anyone fancy earning a couple of hundred give me a shout.

Finally, this weekend is get car running weekend, finally.

Wish us luck!

In my head...

In my head my E30 looks, sounds and goes like this...

Classic in-car E30 driving.

I'm going to need a roll cage and some serious insurance. And a much faster car.

Win

E30 Sit Rep Time. And this time it's well worth it...

So this is the culmination of a lot of hard work - too much hard work. I now know how to remove a bearing (thanks Evan for the help - actually I think you masterminded most of this).

I also know that I don't want to do another one. Not fun really. 

Heat & Hammer. The duo that fixes most if not all things...

So that's the bearing inner off the hub shaft. I think I should use the word "flange" and "back bracket multiplier tool" in this somewhere. But in reality it was just a lot of hot air and hitting it. So right in line with my career in IT then. 

And a shiny new hub bearing.

Lesson to us all - don't ever try to repair a bearing. Replace it and walk away. I/we wasted several weekends with this, and in the end buying a new one and drifting it in was by far the easiest thing to do. Doing it wrong - 3+ days. Doing it right - 2-3 hours. Lesson learnt.

But what's that below...

This is new (to me) chrome bumpers. The eagle eyed will remember my car had white ones. But these came up at a reasonable price, and look pretty good - so I bought them. Is this important? It is, this is pretty much the last part that I can do to the car before it gets "professional". Exciting times.

These can never be shiny enough.

It does mean that my panda car might have to be rethought though. Black wheels and lots of chrome is going to make my car look like a kitchen implement. Thinking that now the original wheels might be in order. Though I still would rather be at 15" at least instead of the 14". Hmm, a happy problem!

Lights... camera... inaction

Sit rep...

As you'll have seen from a previous post I had the cabling to sort the lights, behold:

We have working lights, at least at the front!

Next weekend is 'run the car around the block' weekend - we'll see...

Unreasonably excited

I am, I'm afraid to say, unreasonably excited about this:

What is it? It's all the clip things to reattach my headlights and ancillary lights to my car, which in turn means I can rebuild the front end, albeit with 'Ron' redness - if I so choose.

Certainly this weekend will be spent tidying up the wiring down the front (not a euphemism) as it's 24 years of no-touch badness.

And, I have ample spares to do all the other clips around the car too should I choose to - including the speed sensor on the replaced diff. Handy!

E30 Update - big one at that.

So it's been the weekend for my E30.
As pre-arranged Evan came up for a day pulling cars apart to help me move some big steps forwards...

As you'll know from a previous post, I needed to unlock my diff. Not a small job and the plan was to unbolt the rear subframe and move the lot over, solving a small issue of trashed hub on my car (two snapped bolts for the rear wheel, not good).

But, given the underside of the Ron looked a bit like this:

Unbolting all sorts and shifting across didn't seem such a smart move. What's more, without a solid beam rear axle there's quite a lot going on under there. So shuffle the diff it was.

And so we did: 

That there is a 4.45:1, Auto, open diff for an E30 circa 1989.

That there is something similar, on my 'good' car. Except somewhere in there it's welded.

And so we got to taking off the open one from the donor car.

Sit rep, T+2mins. I do not like oil on my hands...

The recipient, waiting patiently to be able to go around a corner.

We left the diff here for an hour in the hope that it would magically make it's way into place.

It most certainly did not.

Happy campers, job done.

And we got used to the oil. 

Overall a grand job for the day, removed two diffs and fitted one. Things we learnt?

• Fitting is much easier than removal.
• BMW diffs aren't too bad to remove, just the bolts holding them in place.
• It's a two person job for sure. No way I could have done this by myself.
• Sway bars are easy to remove (I 'found' one on the Ron).
• Sway bars should be fitted before the diff (now waiting on the floor of the garage, doh!).

Sunday..

No pics for today, but today I removed the hub from the Ron too. A complete nightmare to do really, not least as (and if you're in the know you'll know what I mean) the little retaining clip that you can't really get to and pulled out on the white car, wasn't the same on the Ron, so I spent an hour trying to pull a washer past a very tight nut indeed. Where's the BMW efficiency eh, eh...

What this does mean is that tomorrow I may well have a rolling car. Exciting times!

Final word.

And finally, a huge debt of thanks to Evan, fair to say that without him it would have been a. impossible and b. a lot less fun (as today was). So thanks mate, same time next week? There's plenty to do... ;o)

Racing tonight...

We'll have some league racing - promise! Last week of my holidays this week so I'll be back in a depressive work mood from next week, and looking for excuses to do other non-work related computery things. Like a season mix.

Here's some more racing of Mount Panorama, Brock in an M3...

Very nice footage I think you'll agree.

Tonight, you'll need an HRC460 and TC500 car - we'll do Bathurst for a bit too. Great track.

E30 News
Not much, this weekend Evan and I are playing at breaking cars. Hopefully transplanting an axle along the way...

And I've refitted the air filter, it runs better with this mass air sensor.

Update...

Late, sorry.
Tonight, or last night as you read this, we'll focus on the GT590-4 cars, so that's Japan made race cars including 4wd cars, at 590pp. Tyres are Racing Medium.

Something like these in fact.

But what's been consuming me? Euro old sports that's what, these sorts of things:

They keep my busy, and allow pics like these:

That's enough eye candy.

E30 update
Not much has happened. I've ordered a gear shift knob, the last one never arrived. And I'm thinking this will be my benchmark:

Season update

Errr, yes, watch this space. Umm, still doing research. Yeah, that's what it's called.

E30 Sit Rep...

Sit Rep - well, we'll find out as I now have this:

Not overly exciting to most I wager. But this collection of cables etc is in fact the business end of a diagnostic kit for my car. With this I can at least check all sensors and make sure all is working.
But also, I can reset the service interval on the car (it has one that monitors engine hours, very clever), so my car will have a little green led telling me all is well too - the dirty liar!

Jobs upcoming include the back axle/sub assembly replacement - anyone know how to install outdoor air-conditioning as it's a tad warm at the moment....

E30 Sit Rep....

I think this sums up where I'm at right now:

Turns out there's quite a lot of parts in a car - I can see why folks end up with a half dismantled car parked under their house now. Like this in fact....

Amazingly the car would or at least should still drive! Commitment to breaking this one this weekend I think!

Of my white one?

• Rear light replaced - old one was cracked.
• Headlights replaced - were wobbly, the 'Ron' had new style.
• Air box replaced - was wobbly, the 'Ron' had a proper BMW one - good for now.
• Myriad of electrical and interior parts swapped out or fitted. My good one doesn't look like the above!

Work progresses, I'm heading towards investment time though, only big jobs left really...

Bits in the boot...

Unlike the 1994/5 Alfa Romeo Touring cars the bits in my boot aren't go faster things.
The story with them was that basically you had to have a BTCC car that matched the silhouette of the road car - so when you bought a 155 Alfa it came with some extra rear spoiler bits to raise it - in the boot.

These cars in fact:

Anyway, today, it seems that I've messed about and achieved very little other than getting to know my car and the 'Ron'. I do know that parking a car in the sun all day doesn't make it easier to crawl around.

So why 'the boot'?
Here:

Altogether too much high capacity red cable kicking about. That at least has been easy to remove. But, horrors... that little black box looks remarkably like some sort of immobiliser. Certainly it was/is wired to the battery. But then it gets weird. It also seems to be wired into the rear number plate light too.

I hope it's a remote central looking kit - which would be handy as mine still doesn't unlock on the key (I wonder, connected?). I also know I'm not game to go pulling wires out and see without being able to start the car  (remember no radiator so no running).

What have I achieved - well the dash in my car looks a lot tidier now, there's a stereo waiting to go in and generally the interior is around 90% sorted I'd say. I'll take a pic once I'm happy that it's good enough.

[edit] Finished fitting the stereo, complete with power aerial isolator switch - why? because I had a switch that's why. Here it is:

Not exciting to anyone but me who's had a two day fight to get this somewhere near where it is (fixing a few other things along the way of course).
What's left in the cabin?

• Throttle bushes - sat on my shelf.
• Gear Knob and boot - $80 from ebay, five minute fit (there, tempted fate).
• Plastic gutter guards etc - I have two of everything so not concerned...
• A set of 6x9 speakers for the shelf - all ready to go, wired and mounting points are in there.
• Fix the horn either by fixing the wooden monstrosity or buy a new steering wheel - xmas treat I think.

Once that quite minor list is done I'm going to be pretty happy with the interior being fit for purpose. I'd like to wire in a fan override and activity light simply because I don't want to cook my engine, but that's a future world thing.

Happy days.

I know kung-fu.

Well, I might as well, I now have it reasonably figured how the diff works on my car(s) and what I can do to resolve the issue I have.
What's the issue I have?

1. I have a manual car, with welded diff - not drivable.
2. I have an auto car with open diff - with crazy ratio.

Ready?

320i ratio for a manual car is something between 3.45:1 (rare) and 4.27:1, the ratio for an auto is 4.45:1

What does this mean, the number of turns the prop-shaft will do before a wheel completes a revolution.

So, basically if you're cruising at 100Kph in a standard manual (diff) and fitted an auto one, you'll be going slower, or rather revving higher to get to the same speed. I.e. lower ratio diff. Excellent.

Got it? It's all in the gearing. What's confusing is that the gearing is largely outside of the diff bit.

Here's an interesting video on how diffs work:

Fascinating I think you'll agree.

So what does this all mean (I'm losing track myself actually)?

Well, I've been looking at these online, ebay has them:

This would fix my welded diff, but for $500 (the same pretty much I spent on Ron Burgundy) I reckon I must have the parts.

Consider this video... it's how a diff gets welded up :

What you're seeing is a tiny little collection of gears with a huge mo-fo gear around the outside.
And here's the money shot - that little set of gears is the bit in the pic above, the $500 part.
And... the gearing/ratio is set by the big ring round the outside.
I can use the outside gear from my manual car, on the auto good diff.

With me?

Action time:

1. Pull off my locked diff.
2. Pull it apart, check that it's welded in the 'tiny bit'.
3. Pull that out.
4. Pull out the auto-diff.
5. Pull out it's 'tiny bit' that we know is open and works.
6. Affix manual gear ratio to the auto 'tiny-bit'.
7. Reassemble as the diff for my good car (that's not the auto, did you see the woosh comment below?)
8. Never mention diffs again.

One thing I have to consider, is what the ratio is for the manual car - if it's 4.1 that's OK. But I'd like to have lower ratio gearing.

Why? Well you're into GT5, shorten the final drive in transmission settings and see what it does to your car's acceleration.

The one massive caveat to all this is how the ratio is worked out. But, ebay has the outer rings too, so I can replace them if I have to!

So there it is, I can buy the parts to sort my world, pull apart two diffs and probably get there. And in any situation there are ways forward that aren't going to break the bank.

Wear on the diff in the manual is going to be a factor - it's been welded after all. So I may invest in the ratio above and have that onto the auto diff, and ditch the risk of the track trashed one. Sound thinking actually.

I need a beer.

[Update]
This page has had a massive update. Why?
Well, like a proper religious zealot I had it in my head that the ratio was the divisible number. I.e. the bigger the number the higher the final drive gearing. But it's not, it's simpler than that. It's just the number of turns of the prop shaft before the wheel makes one revolution.
And it's been hard to change my way of thinking, I had a belief system around it, a sound hypothesis and generally made everything work with my world view.
I can't stress how confronted I was when I did the only thing that I knew would convince me... that being on the removed diff I turned the prop-shaft and looked to see if the wheels would spin faster or slower.
Slower obviously.
And now, as an enlightened soul I can see it's obvious. The gears are small to big... fast to slow. Easy.

Lowering the tone

I came home to this stuck on the back of my 'new' car...

Harsh. But fair.

I can explain...

I think that this picture needs some justification...

Yes, yes it is another BMW E30 320i. And in this picture it looks half decent.

That'll be the half closest to the camera then.

$550 has bought me a spares car!

What's good about this car:

• It drives!
• Open, and working Diff.
• Rear disk hub (so we can replace that)
• Working radiator - funny haha story to follow.
• A myriad of little bits of plastic that I needed to buy.
• A clean/straight bonnet, albeit in redish fade sort of colour.

What's not good about this car:

• Auto box - and that means that it goes with a bit of a woosh. 
• Without actually wooshing. Gutless blob this car is sadly.
• Tan interior. Somewhere in there is almost certainly a medallion.
• Rust - quite a bit as it turns out. If I pass wind in the car I reckon it would punch a hole in the floor.
• No brakes, well, some, on one wheel. But that's OK, not like it goes fast enough to care.

But you want to know about the radiator...

Picture the scene. I've removed the fan, that was held in with a couple of cable ties - so time to refit.

Being me, I decided to 'ease' the drill through the bulkhead so I could put brackets in, and then blind rivet them in. A sound plan, and all was going well.

Until the last drill hole, in which I eased a bit too far. A trickle of kryptonite water and a dead car.

Damn.

In fact, if only I had a Dam, cos there's quite a lot of that green stuff everywhere. Even the roaches are steering clear of the floor in my garage at the moment...

But all is not bad. In doing this I've reworked the cooling pipes and figured out where the magic third cooling pipe goes (back to the previously defunct header tank, I had two).

And it get's better. Dona (as in Donor Car) has the gift of sensors and radiator so soon I'll be back to where I was a month ago. Yeay.

So, as the great JC would say, "Sit Rep"... now have two cars, or rather 2 2/3's of cars, so about 1 1/3 cars or something in the final analysis.

Anyone know anyone who wants the rusty shell of a BMW E30 in about a month's time? They'll need a crane...

Action Shot

Evan came up for a working day on the BMW on Saturday...

Sort of got a lot done, but sort of didn't, overall I'd say win.

The day consisted of:

• Starting the car - Evan hadn't heard it run without "hunting for idle".
• Talking about the front of the car - all the bits that are toast are off now, find and replace time.
• Swapping out the track rod on the LHS front. This looked to be a pig but wasn't once we had 'the persuader' (tm), a 32mm spanner to undo it.
• Figuring out how to do the fan, it's just engineering now.
• Talking a bit more (a lot really).
• A compression test - consistent 130psi across all six, which is not factory standard, but consistent is good.
• Deciding to take the rear hub off to sort the two sheared wheel nuts.

This is where we ran aground. Many sweaty hours trying to drift the hub off the axle have proved fruitless. 

To cut a long story short I now posses a reasonably expensive single use device which may do the job. Time will tell (a lot of time told us that it wouldn't work without it).

Once that's fixed I can actually drive the car, albeit with a locked diff and ruined bushes at the rear, which I will do to make sure I have all the gears I should have. 

I can't wait.

Special mention to the Matilda Garage near Beerwha too - thanks for the Commodore Resting At Peace - and the new battery. (in joke*).

I'll maybe post up a pick of the old track rod, if only to show the healthy bend in it... This car has had a hard life.

(* You too can have your own personal in-joke, cost, one day of greasing up with Andrew).

E30 'Sit Rep' (or Why I'm glad I didn't buy Italian)

So I've just spent an hour on the BMW.

And, in that time I've fitted the wing mirror controller (electric wing mirrors) and refitted all the drivers door bits, complete with the new OEM handle, which is a bit flappy but will more than suffice for now.
Behold:

Bonus points is that this car has central locking no less. And it works! This is why I am glad it's German and not Italian - an Alfa would have burnt out in a shower of high voltage sparks by now.

It's not all roses though, for some reason once ignition is off, the windows stay active - I can't work out if that's timing (very trick and very unlikely) or bad wiring (very likely). 

And, someone sent me a pic of this car in Brisbane - I pretty much aspire to have my car look like this

Albeit with different rims, though they do look nice don't they.

Finally, I am having second thoughts on pulling the gearbox off - the more bits I niggle away at and realise they're not too bad I wonder if it might be prudent to have someone do the whole thing in one hit. I'd be looking to:

1. Replace rear main seal.
2. Lighten the flywheel.
3. Replace the clutch.
4. Replace (with nylon bushes) the prop shaft & diff bushes.
5. Replace (maybe nylon) the rear sub frame bushes.
6. Replace/recondition the diff.

Quite the collection of tasks really, and a lot of propensity for messing it up big time - and this car is dangerously close to gender/name stakes at the moment.

Win

Dear diary.
Today I set about starting the car* for the first time. It's been sat in my garage weeping oil for a bit, and it's been sat with the previous owner for longer. Something is broke in the starter circuit.

Roll forward a mere five minutes...

Dear diary.
It lives!

So what was that all about then? Well, the previous reckoned it was something fundamental and was going to take some heavy diagnostics to get it working. As you'll have heard above, turns out that it was the relay up under the dash. What does the relay do? Dunno. But in pushing it in I shall no longer be using the term "Hunting for idle" or "not catching when you floor it".

My guess is that it controlled the ECU, and without it it both stopped it starting and ran the engine in default mode.

I didn't run the car much longer, it needs an oil change before I go much further. But, the list of things to worry about has just got measurably shorter.

*Car needs name.