mad_machine wrote:
if you are going to update the suspension to put yourself into a different class.. have you considered ditching the E30 stuff altogether and putting in the suspension from a 318ti or a Z3?. Same style suspension, but better brakes and 5 lug hubs.. and it is easier to work on due to the seperate hub/spindle from the strut
hmm...no I wasn't aware of that, though I would imagine finding the 318ti or Z3 suspensions would be considerably more expensive/difficult than the regular e30 (non-early-318) stuff. And this project needs to stay as low-budget as possible, lol.
That said, I'll probably now be up late tonight looking into your suggestion 
I have most of the winter to sort out the suspension/hubs/etc so can bide my time and see what I can find for cheap, hopefully.
Decided tonight to go out and check the shrader valves on the AC lines and lo and behold....no freon in there. Which means....I had a project for the evening:
goodbye A/C! (still have to do the AC radiator and the stuff under the dash, but cleared out the compressor, mount bracket, and lines underhood tonight)
Also pulled the battery to check out the pan, after I noticed that my passenger-side water leak was coming down near the firewall/box junction there. Sure enough, some rust-through on the pan and on the side lip. I did some test drainage through the air intake vents with the car on level ground.....and whatever German designed that drainage path was a moron.....water pools nicely exactly where all the rust is. Oh well, nothing some fiberglass won't be able to fix...
Time to get some shuteye...
Is the elephant trunk missing for the firewall drain?
yes....it is.
of course.
that said, I did some drain testing and that doesn't appear to be where the water is getting in from, but instead from the holes in the battery tray because it tilts backwards and water pools in the far back corner where the rust hole is.
Just fixed it with some fiberglass.
will get a new elephant trunk too.
so a couple quick things:
new fiberglass on the battery tray, after cleaning up/cutting out the small rust holes. I also built up the area on the left side lip up under the hood mechanism, since it sits low and allows water to pool....once it's fully dry I'll sand it down and paint
on to inspection of some of the vac hoses. Pretty clear that someone improv'd alot of these. The plan is going to be to replace all of it with whatever I can find locally. Would be nice if there was a Samco vac hose kit for the M10, but no dice. Guess I'll have to stick to rubber unless I feel like spending a day measuring and ordering custom pieces...
really nice....the brake booster hose. Way to keep it simple, lol.
ok, so $15 worth of random hoses from the local auto parts store, a few reduction and elbow fittings, and for the price of one OEM formed hose all of the main induction hoses are now replaced and leak/crack-free....
also did some re-routing....the p/o clearly liked long hoses going anywhere. I prefer more direct as well as I can do them without any kinks.
that looks better than what was above, lol
re-oriented with a "modified" elbow/holder
anyone know what these wires here are? They come off a small loom running across the firewall, but I don't see anything that they would attach to
What a damned mess. Theres something satisfying about a whole bunch of fresh hoses isnt there.
On a side note, I am in the process of building the same thing for the same purpose, but just a bit more Swedish, Where are you planning on competing?
Also, would you guys be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo? 
Be careful using plain rubber hose for the brake booster; it can collapse under vacuum (usually after it has aged, but still...), causing you to lose power assistance to the brakes. The OE BMW hose is reinforced with stiff wire to prevent this from happening.
The Booster hose is probably not something I would "GRM". O2Pilot is right, the booster hose is reinforced. I have a new one sitting right here for my 318ti that I am going to replace this winter when I yank the engine to do some bodywork
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
What a damned mess. Theres something satisfying about a whole bunch of fresh hoses isnt there.
On a side note, I am in the process of building the same thing for the same purpose, but just a bit more Swedish, Where are you planning on competing?
Also, would you guys be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo?
I'll probably be running mostly at Summit Point
And yes, would be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo. I strongly considerd an old 240-series when I was looking....couldn't find one locally that I liked though.
02Pilot wrote:
Be careful using plain rubber hose for the brake booster; it can collapse under vacuum (usually after it has aged, but still...), causing you to lose power assistance to the brakes. The OE BMW hose is reinforced with stiff wire to prevent this from happening.
I thought about that so for the the booster hose I used a reinforced fuel hose (not heater hose). It's pretty difficult to collapse even using my hands, so figured it would be ok, but will look into it further. Thanks for looking out!
Alot of this stuff is in there for now, with the hope that I can find some good-condition OEM hoses on a wrecked e30 in the future.
of course, as a driver of old british sportscars, I'm pretty used to no power brakes :)
Brake booster Hose for the E30 $15/metre
yeah, I know about it, thanks. I have little patience for ordering stuff when I'm working on a day project Will get that next time I make an order for other stuff!
just thought I would mention. I will admit, your rendition is a LOT more elegant than what the PO did.
At the rate you are going.. you will NEVER have to buy hoseclamps again
lol, true.
although you mentioning the metal reinforcement in the OEM tube made me think about what the PO had done. You can't see it in the pic, but the reason there are all those hose clamps is because he used a larger-diameter hose (over the cut off ends of the original hose), but to keep it from collapsing, he inserted a bunch of short-cut copper pipe pieces (like, for home plumbing) INSIDE the hose - you can see the copper elbow in the photo up there. So, maybe he was truly GRM as well, because he knew he didn't want the hose to collapse, and thought of a truly improv (and ugly) way to make sure that didn't happen.
When I pulled off the hoses, I was like "wtf is up with all these copper pipe pieces in here??"
I learned about hoseclamps from my Father in passing. He was the last engineer about the PT boat "Flying saucer" here in South Jersey. A 88 foot Elco boat that had been converted to carry 90 people.
The boat had an engine room explosion the year before he came aboard.. all the cooling and fuel lines were regular rubber with hoseclamps next to hose clamps next to hoseclamps to make an almost solid line.
Obviously those went away.. but I remembered that when driving commercial and blew a high pressure fuel line on the diesel truck. 100+ miles from the shop on sunday, the only thing I could find was a hardware store with some rubber fuel line, hoseclamps, and a hacksawblade (no hacksaw though)
15 minutes to hack through the split metal line.. then a fuel line splint and 8 hoseclamps to hold it together under pressure.. and I was on the road again..
not much work on the project today. Woke up at 530 am and trucked 200 miles down to Va.Beach (from DC) in a stellar 2 1/2 hours to pick up a buddy who called in a favor (was dropping off his Z06 for some engine work down there) and headed back up this way in another fast time. In time for football kickoff, though my Skins disappointed of course. Fine, more time to rake leaves, ugh.
As to the car, spend a little while stripping a few interior panels and insulation and pulled the cabin a/c lines. Also re-installed the intake air box and went to pull the car out of the garage to clean up the mess of tools and general E36 M3 all over the place.
of course...dead battery. Left the trunk open and I guess the light drained it, doh. Jumped it with the WRX (a bit more hassle now that it has a trunk-mounted/boxed battery) and ran it for a while in the driveway while I cleaned up. With the vac hoses replaced, the idle is now more around typical levels rather than the high idle it had before...though the tach doesn't work, so I'm just guessing at that since I'm too lazy to count....
oh, and a small package came in the other day...
once I do the suspension/brake swap from the 325, I'll install some wheel studs into the hubs and use lugnuts rather than the OEM lug stud setup, which is really annoying...
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
irish44j wrote:
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
What a damned mess. Theres something satisfying about a whole bunch of fresh hoses isnt there.
On a side note, I am in the process of building the same thing for the same purpose, but just a bit more Swedish, Where are you planning on competing?
Also, would you guys be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo?
I'll probably be running mostly at Summit Point
And yes, would be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo. I strongly considerd an old 240-series when I was looking....couldn't find one locally that I liked though.
Too bad, im running in ny. Well if our paths ever cross, which is certainly possible, ill look toward torunning against you.
And cool, maybe ill make a similar thread, I know I enjoy reading them myself, so...
What are your plans with the diff?
plans with the diff as in what?
only plans I have for it is to drain and put some Redline synthetic in there. It's a functioning 3.91 LSD, so as long as it continues to work, I'll just leave it be! I'll have to look into what gearing is best once I do some events, but I think that ratio should be pretty good for what I want.
berkeley you zhaoyipeng024 and your canoe
fasted58 wrote:
berkeley you zhaoyipeng024 and your canoe
I've been here a while, but the meaning of this escapes me....
irish44j wrote:
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
irish44j wrote:
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
What a damned mess. Theres something satisfying about a whole bunch of fresh hoses isnt there.
On a side note, I am in the process of building the same thing for the same purpose, but just a bit more Swedish, Where are you planning on competing?
Also, would you guys be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo?
I'll probably be running mostly at Summit Point
And yes, would be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo. I strongly considerd an old 240-series when I was looking....couldn't find one locally that I liked though.
Too bad, im running in ny. Well if our paths ever cross, which is certainly possible, ill look toward torunning against you.
And cool, maybe ill make a similar thread, I know I enjoy reading them myself, so...
What are your plans with the diff?
plans with the diff as in what?
only plans I have for it is to drain and put some Redline synthetic in there. It's a functioning 3.91 LSD, so as long as it continues to work, I'll just leave it be! I'll have to look into what gearing is best once I do some events, but I think that ratio should be pretty good for what I want.
Oh, Uh... well there you go. See, Ive got to find or weld a diff fer' mines.
Canoe is GRM speak for adbots.
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
irish44j wrote:
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
irish44j wrote:
BobOfTheFuture wrote:
What a damned mess. Theres something satisfying about a whole bunch of fresh hoses isnt there.
On a side note, I am in the process of building the same thing for the same purpose, but just a bit more Swedish, Where are you planning on competing?
Also, would you guys be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo?
I'll probably be running mostly at Summit Point
And yes, would be interested in a similar thread about a Volvo. I strongly considerd an old 240-series when I was looking....couldn't find one locally that I liked though.
Too bad, im running in ny. Well if our paths ever cross, which is certainly possible, ill look toward torunning against you.
And cool, maybe ill make a similar thread, I know I enjoy reading them myself, so...
What are your plans with the diff?
plans with the diff as in what?
only plans I have for it is to drain and put some Redline synthetic in there. It's a functioning 3.91 LSD, so as long as it continues to work, I'll just leave it be! I'll have to look into what gearing is best once I do some events, but I think that ratio should be pretty good for what I want.
Oh, Uh... well there you go. See, Ive got to find or weld a diff fer' mines.
Canoe is GRM speak for adbots.
ah....
well, in the event that I decide to use this car at some point for autocross or track days I don't know that I really want a fully locked rear diff. Do you want it locked by choice, because there are e30 LSD diffs all over the place on the forums for cheap....
nocones
HalfDork
10/19/11 5:04 p.m.
You could find a long small diameter spring and put it inside your brake hose. Just cut it 1" or so shorter than the how an viola un colapsable hose for penies. For ultimate GRM points you probably could use an old spiral from an old spiral bound notebook if the diameter is close. You can usually increase or decrease the diameter of those by twisting...
nocones wrote:
You could find a long small diameter spring and put it inside your brake hose. Just cut it 1" or so shorter than the how an viola un colapsable hose for penies. For ultimate GRM points you probably could use an old spiral from an old spiral bound notebook if the diameter is close. You can usually increase or decrease the diameter of those by twisting...
ideas like this are precisely why I posted this thread here
