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Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped


straight6pwr

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welp, I rented a small garage for the winters, so I'm excited I'll get to slowly plug away at my spring project list and just get to driving once the snow goes away.

list for over the winter:

1.replace power steering lines due to leak

2.fix speedo - working intermittently. pulled it and reconnected all the plugs, no change. will dive into the internals to check for borked connections: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1617464-Intermittent-speedometer-and-mpg-gauge

3.replace the windshield

4.swap rear speakers to premium units

5.wire aux fan properly, currently running with an on/off override switch and no temp control.

6.detail interior

7.detail undercarriage

8.sell bbs RS wheels and buy cheap daily wheels + auto-x tires setup.

 

this weekend I got the garage setup better and the power steering hoses + res done. for the inquiring minds, here is the part list. exact setups may vary, but my situation is: e30 with e36 rack and s50 swap and the stock res in the stock e36 bracket on the driver's side motor mount. an extension is needed on the return line with this configuration, as the hose loops towards the back of the motor and needs to make a turn. there may be a better solution out there, but this is what exists on the car, so I left well enough alone. as well, you need to cut the feed line shorter than it comes.

 BMW Power Steering Reservoir (ZF) - 32416851217  
 BMW Power Steering Return Hose (E30) -  32411133401
 BMW Power Steering Hose (Res to Pump) - 32411135936
 BMW Crush Washer  (16x22mm) - 32411093597
 BMW Hose Clamp -  07129952109                      

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1 hour ago, Boris3 said:

Curious about this as well. Most area garage ads I see are just for storage and prohibit working on cars, or are overpriced.

I found a private garage for rent, nothing commercial in mke fits the bill. You can find varying single/double private garages for rent in town for $75-300. It took a bit of looking/waiting. Its a single car 11x20 which is plenty spacious for an e30. 

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  • 2 months later...

well, i went to work on the e30 two weekends ago, and got a no start. it felt a lot like a flooded engine, which makes sense. i've had leaky injectors since I bought it, and have had a couple of pretty good backfire starts in the summer if i didnt drive the car for a week or more, suggesting there were some fumes built up in the manifold. 

i got back to the garage today to get the injectors and spark plugs pulled so everything can evaporate and I can swap in rebuilt injectors next week. 

sadly, the no start cranking attempts combined with the cold weather flatted the battery farther than my trickle charger could keep up, and i arrived to find a frozen, bulging battery. 

one step forward, two steps back! 

 

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  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I got really good at pulling injectors

update: rebuilt injectors and spark plugs came in, so time to swap them. I went with rebuilt original green top units for the injectors and Denso Iridium IK20 for the plugs

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hello old friend. it's sure convenient to leave the car disassembled and already to go for the next car day. (i've never had this luxury)

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well, not everything went as planned. after swapping everything in and trying to start the car  it didnt fire. cranked fine, but wouldnt fire. with how long i cranked it, it didn't flood so I assumed it was fuel related.

so, starting from square one on diagnosis.
1. I made sure the gas was OK since the car has been sitting in such cold weather for a few months without running. I pulled the sender to check the tank and the fuel smelled and looked fine.
2. I checked the pump by jumping the relay pins and it chooched just fine.
3. I checked the fuel pressure at the rail by popping the line. plenty of pressure.
4. Lastly, I pulled the rail/injectors from the manifold and connected the harness and cranked the car over to see if the injectors were firing. Only 1 of the 6 was pulsing:

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so, still not wanting to assume that my new parts were bad, i had to make sure it wasn't the wiring or ecu. I checked all the connections and grounds. I have no real way of diagnosing misfire codes or ecu codes, and the car ran just fine before I changed anything,  so I decided to start swapping the old injectors in place of the new ones one-by-one to see if I got a different results. sure as shit, all 6 of the old injectors fired just fine.  it turns out that the 'rebuilt' injectors I received were totally useless.

it sounds like the seller i bought them from is willing to work on getting me working ones, but not sure how much i trust them at this point...

-------------------------------

so, after getting the car warmed up running with old injectors, I turned my attention to other things.

New (properly sized) battery installed. my too-short battery bit the dust on that cold snap.  it'll be nice to not have this ghetto-rigged anymore.

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the 'standard' speakers in this e30 have always been too quiet. with the windows down on the highway, it was hard to hear the music.  swapping to premium rear speakers on an e30 is easy.

standard speakers on the rear shelf:
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backside of the shelf. you can see it is designed to hold both styles of speakers. there are punched lines on the cardboard under the insulation where you need to cut for the premiums.

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cut out the new opening:
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install new speakers:
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note that the inner front screw holding the speaker to the shelf has to be shorter than the other 3 in order to not hit the metal body under the rear shelf.

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59 minutes ago, snap said:

Pintle injectors can become stuck when stored dry/not used for a while. 

 

these were stored for 2 month since purchase, all in individual ziplock bags. 

 I found an article. should I attempt to free these and test with the 9v battery before sending them back? Or is it risky since they've been stuck?

http://injectorrepair.com/knowledge-base/

Quote

Long Term Storage of Injectors:

        The internals of some injectors are made of various steel alloys that may corrode / rust with prolonged exposure to moisture.  Many injectors are manufactured with stainless steel, but some components may not be stainless (pintle spring, etc).  Large parts of North America experience enough atmospheric humidity to cause corrosion and rust damage to unprotected metals.

        For long term storage, it is important to lubricate an injector with a good quality light weight machine oil like 3 in 1 oil.  The injectors should be then placed in a sealed plastic bag or a sealed container and stored in a cool, dry place.

 

 

Sometimes Injectors Get “Stuck” Closed After Sitting Around Too Long:

        Use a small 9 volt battery to check for stuck injectors before installing them in an engine.  Just listen for a click.  If it clicks, then it is not stuck.  If it is stuck, a light tap on the body of the injector can usually free it.  BE GENTLE!!!

 

 

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Definitely give it a go. ive had success unsticking an injector or two like that before. Careful with any oil/solvent you may want to add to coerce them. The seller may get weird if they can detect something has been run through them besides gasoline.

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  • 2 weeks later...

installed a turner motorports conforti chip. +19hp and +15tq, apparently. also 7000k limiter, mmm. i would occasionally touch the limiter in 2nd gear on straights at auto-x (60ish mph), but this might just give me that extra moment of acceleration. great gains for the $127 deal i got during the holidays. 

the swap is running on a 413 red ecu. turner's 506 ecu chip works for both the 506 and 413 red.

disassemble the glovebox and panels beneath to access the ecu:

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read instructions: 
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pry the tabs on the ecu case and just swap the chips. 
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while i was in there, i discovered the glove box had begun to crack. this is pretty common on e30s, and you should inspect yours before it gets broken beyond repair. 

one of the 3 mounting locations was cracked:

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applied some PL adhesive and connected the mount back together and let it dry overnight:

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i added a small piece of steel on the inside to span the crack and hopefully add reinforcement:
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then I added a bracket for insurance: 
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while i was in there i decided to fully remove the rest of the AC system. more weight removed!

the existing evaporator core and lines under the dash, complete with some weird tape/shmoo:

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lines pulled from the core: 19mm/24mm fasteners, IIRC. 

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the other end of the lines were just hanging out in the engine bay:

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lines removed:
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after removing the 4 screws that hold on the plastic cover, i could simply pull the core out. note: if you intend on reusing the core, do not do this. the fins get damaged. if you need to save the core, or install a new one, you'll need to remove the mount bolts that hold the whole HVAC unit to the car to rotate it a little to give the clearance needed. 
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core removed:

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you'll be left with two things to plug. the rubber grommet in the firewall was easily closed with some plastic plugs, then reinstalled. 

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the cover for the evaporator is left with a big hole. there is actually a BMW part that replaces this for cars with no AC (Canada spec), but it costs $75. Too rich for a plastic cover.

I guess some duct tape on its own would solve this, but i didn't want that deteriorating over time and possibly getting sucked into the vents. 
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so i cut a piece of plastic and glued it in place:

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and added duct tape just for extra insurance:
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last thing for the day was fixing the speedo. symptoms included the speedo randomly dropping to 0, or sitting at zero until i smacked the dashboard to bring it back to life. thats a pretty clear indication of a loose connection or solder joint.

removing the e30 cluster is cake. steering wheel off and 4 screws later and its out:

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the cluster splits in two via 9ish screws on the back, then, remove the 4 screws on the back of the gauge in question to remove it from the cluster. i inspected the back of the speedo, and it looked fine. i couldnt see cracked or broken solder anywhere. 

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i moved onto the cluster itself and found 3 offending solder points. the three that you can see the orange flux stains are the three I fixed. they were behind/near the fuel gauge. on one of the three, the component was completely separate from the board, so I'm hoping that was the issue.
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back in the car. *crosses fingers*
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whittling down the list! whats left before spring: 

3.replace the windshield

check out those scratches on the original windshield! someone must have ran a wiper with no rubber on it for a long time.

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5.wire aux fan properly, currently running with an on/off override switch and no temp control.

6.detail interior

7.detail undercarriage

8.mount tires onto new wheels. having real BBSs was fun for a hot second, but I'm going to reinvest the extra $$$ to a full rear-end rebuild next winter. the knock-offs these days are pretty good, to boot. I'm also excited to have a square 16x8 setup. the 7" fronts I had were not optimal for the wider tires. 

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  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I got more horsepowers
10 hours ago, straight6pwr said:

8.mount tires onto new wheels. having real BBSs was fun for a hot second, but I'm going to reinvest the extra $$$ to a full rear-end rebuild next winter. the knock-offs these days are pretty good, to boot. I'm also excited to have a square 16x8 setup. the 7" fronts I had were not optimal for the wider tires. 

I have to agree that reps have come along way. The reps on my daily are over 7 years old now and I have yet to have issues. On top of that, since they are made of Chinesium they are lighter than real wheels LOLZ.

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On 3/20/2019 at 2:37 PM, straight6pwr said:

nice. i wish BBS reps were lighter than the real ones, but that's definitely not the case.  the barrels/lips of BBSs are featherweight.

Yeah it just depends on what brand you find. I have a set of LM reps that I feel like I can carry with one hand.

Granted they are all probably square too.

Image result for square wheels gif

 

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4 hours ago, wasnt m3 said:

What tires are you planning on running? 

same as before. 205/50r16 BFG G-force Sport Comp 2. they were grippier than the 225/45 Nexen Nferas I had previously.

however, there are a couple more choices this year in 224/45. the last couple times i've looked there was only 1 or 2 to pick from. 

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  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and I can see clearly now

so i had replaced my sunroof crank back when I bought the car 2 years ago.  the new one already is having ED issues...

the handle will not stay up in the detent, so it just sits like this.

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i bought a new one in the mean time, which sits properly in its home.
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i decided to figure out what was actually happening. well, there are two ball detents on the sides of the handle in the mechanism. they ride along a channel, then hit a detent at each end. I figured the balls or spring were worn out already, but what I found is that the actually metal frame has been stretched open by the force of the spring over time.  the green lines show how the frame has stretched open (slightly exagerated). anyways, this causes the balls not to hold in the detents. a quick squeeze with a vise grips put them back straight, but i suppose in a year or so they'll just stretch back. sad, since this probably isnt permanently fixable and is only due to crappy quality of the metal (pot-metal). i guess it would be possible to put a spring with less pressure and  test how that goes.
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next up, windshield replacement.

the replacement was from a parts car and is in better (not perfect) condition than mine. i may buy a brand new one in the future, but i didnt want to break it on my first attempt. turns out, if you break your windshield installing it than you're just an idiot and i didn't need to worry.

replacement glass:

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You'll need a Lisle 47000 lockstrip tool and plastic pry tool to accomplish this.
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first step is to remove your wiper blades. then, just pull out the old lockstrip: comes out easy, just start at the ends in the bottom middle of the windshield:
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if your lockstrip is old, it my break or fall to pieces. mine stayed together.

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next step is to push out the original windshield. start at the top corners and just push from inside the car. it pops right out.
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here's your chance to clean out those bugs and dirt chucks that have been lodged in the front corner of your dash for 15 years:

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also a good opportunity for me to test fit this dash cover for a future project:

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onto installing the new windshield. start by sliding it in to the seal at the bottom. check both sides and make sure you have it centered in the opening.

set in place:
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next, work up the sides of the seal with the plastic pry tool. from the inside of the car, just push the seal over the glass. it pushes on real easy, just beware not to stab a hole in the seal from pushing too hard. work back and forth on the top corners, then finish with the top middle.

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lastly, is the pain in the ass part. installing the lockstrip. i chose to reuse the old one since nothing was wrong with it and if i messed it up i could just use the new one i bought.

this takes some practice to get right. first, apply some soapy water on the seal to help the tool slide. starting from the center bottom, insert the tool into the seal so that it spreads it open. insert the end of the lockstrip then start sliding the tool down the seal while pushing the lockstrip into the opening.  getting the speed, pressure, and angle of the tool is a dance. it took me about 10 times starting over just to get the feel for how to do it. even after all that, i was still scratching the lockstrip and missing parts as i went.
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the tool will pop out. to get it started again, the best method i found was to stick the tool back in the seal and apply extra pressure with the pry tool directly where the lockstrip passes through the lockstrip tool as shown below. you will be left with a section of the lockstrip which is not engaged, but i was able to gently flip the seal over the edge with a small, dull screwdriver.
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overall, i think it took me 5 min to get the new windshield in place and an hour of fiddling to get the lockstrip in.

lastly for the night, i installed the replacement injectors from the rebuild supplier. they sent new ones free of charge. I tested these all with a 9v battery before install and they all were clicking open properly this time. this time, the car started up and ran great.

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the winter list is dwindling:

5.wire aux fan properly, currently running with an on/off override switch and no temp control.

6.detail interior

7.detail undercarriage

and I've added a couple new items:

8. add black trim to carpet edges along footwells, then secure them to car better.   the edge of the carpet likes to pop out from under the door sill trim.

9.shadowline window trim

 

 

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  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I shadowlined
  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped

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