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raewyn22

New ride - 89' E30 Touring 325i

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On 9/13/2016 at 8:04 PM, zero said:

What was the headlight fault?

No idea! I did try another headlight assembly which worked, so I tried my old one and it randomly worked. 
I put it down to a dodgy wire somewhere but luckily the light hasn't blown since.

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Last weekend with the help of a good friend we managed to drop the subframe out in preparation for the new bushes to be installed and the wheel bearing to be fixed.

Those pesky hard brake lines can be a bit of a pig and managed to round of a couple of the nuts. Managed to pick up some decent second hand hard lines from HellBM (thanks Sam & Ray), and some brand new soft lines from Euro-Italian.

Also purchased some new Brembo brake discs for the Touring, and will end up rebuilding the set of calipers too - as well as painting them. Not sure what colour but I'm thinking gun-metal grey.

While having the driveshaft/exhaust out I thought it would be a great idea to finally fix the rear gearbox leak thinking it was the output shaft seal. Upon further inspection I found that it may not be that but the shift selector shaft seal. Photos attached... just a tad oily. Euro Italian hopefully to the rescue again.

Tomorrow's mission will be putting the subframe & trailing arms back into place and connecting everything back up minus the the brake discs etc. That will hopefully be next weekend...

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Subframe & trailing arms in place. LSD installed and new brake lines in place.
Half shafts/axles to go back in place but they're proving tricky. Springs & shocks to be put in/done up.

Am hoping to get the brake calipers cleaned up and re-built this week. Any recommendation to cleaning? Acid dipping/sand blasting/brake cleaner and a brush?

Seals can then be done and the car can finally be put together and driven!

After this it will be to sort out the pesky clutch issue - suspected slave cylinder. Will bleed first then see how it feels before replacing anything.

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Car has been back on the road a couple of weeks now. Put the brakes back together as is and will rebuild the front calipers between now and Christmas.

Seems to feel ok, however will be getting a wheel alignment this week among other things such as waterpump & thermostat replacement, oilchange and oil filter gasket replacement.

Lifters were adjusted yesterday by a good friend however unfortunately didn't make much difference in noise.

May have also sourced a cargo cover for 20 pounds from the UK - sale pending. 

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Last weekend consisted of a few minor changes to the car

New Waterpump
Added Thermostat - yes, added. I opened the thermostat housing to find that the thermostat was non-existent! No wonder it was running cold all the time... 
Oil change etc
Added a little 8" fusion sub/amp to add to the current sound system - didn't want something too over the top - it does the job perfectly!

Next up:
Custom fabric shift boot
Custom sunroof fabric lining
Attempt at dyeing the carpet black... starting from the rear since easy to get to.

On another note, found a cargo cover from the UK for 20 pounds! Having it shipped over and will also try a refurb on it.

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Went to Taupo a few weekends ago for the E30 Megameet after finally bleeding my cooling system. Sat in traffic on the Friday afternoon from the North Shore to Drury BP. My radiator hose popping off just as I rolled into BP. Thanks to Jibreel for the save.



Overall good weekend, car held up apart from the brake lights not working (fuse kept blowing) Got back to Auckland to realise that the map light mirror is on the same fuse. Unplugged that and put in a new fuse and brake lights now work! Something to look at in the future.

Cargo cover also finally arrived from the UK. Not bad considering shipping was the killer, but that's ok. The ends are a bit ratty, but it's fully functional! Would be great to be able to order in the end plastic parts separately, but appears they aren't listed on RealOEM.

Also found some different wheels for the Touring - 15" MIM 1900s. Test fitted and they look great!

Though of course all of the above are the least of my concern as after pulling the oil cap and dipstick, I found that the oil had turned into a chocolate milkshake!

Off with the head and our suspicions were correct - blown headgasket.

Time to stroke the engine to a 2.8 Litre M20. Lucky we have a spare car here I can use in the interim.

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Would never have noticed the coolent in your cylinder without the helpful finger :-)

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What did shipping on the cargo cover sting you? I'm trying to find one for my e36 touring

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On 11/17/2016 at 10:22 AM, Gaz said:

What did shipping on the cargo cover sting you? I'm trying to find one for my e36 touring

Sorry for the delay, it was about $40ish via You shop and about $30 from the Seller to the Youshop depo from memory

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It's been a wee while since I've updated this thread, progress has been made! About two weeks after my headgasket went, I was lucky enough to see a very cheap damaged E34 on Facebook which happened to have an M20B25 in it - with some convincing from a friend we headed down to Hamilton to pick it up a few days later!

After replacing a few gaskets & o-rings to get rid of some pesky oil leaks we were away laughing! A week or so later and at 11.30pm and all installed, we turned the key and it started straight away (sorry to the neighbours). The condition of this engine was a pleasant surprise!

Unfortunately while the engine was out of the engine bay, I decided to take the sound deadening away to see what would lie underneath - a little surface rust was found. A wire brush was quick onto the patches and some rust kill paint, to ensure this wouldn't spread in the immediate future. We will come back to that at a later stage (luckily the car is garaged 90% off the time these days).

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Come Christmas time it was time I did some minor alterations. Unfortunately when I had my headlining redone in black, I never got the sunroof lining done. This was when I had the idea to get creative and have a "feature panel" instead. The ideal fabric was found (and at $3 per metre it was a steal) and with the help of a sewing genius, I finally got it installed.

Also during Christmas, I managed to find some Borbets for cheap from a fellow race series member. They had been spray painted black so off to bunnings I went to get some paint stripper. Some solid hours later and I finally got to the spraying stage.
While most of you may think it's a bit "out there" I thought it looked rad in the sun. Though you really can't beat the BBS alloys on these.

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And most recently, after discovering that my clutch fluid had leaked onto the carpet due to a broken clutch master, I decided it was time to whip the carpet out yet again.

With the water blaster sitting right there, I thought bugger it. Time for some cleaning!!
Two days later it was dry and it was time to get the vinyl die - at least that would hide some imperfections!

It appears I had company while reinstalling...

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On 3/14/2017 at 7:15 PM, raewyn22 said:

And most recently, after discovering that my clutch fluid had leaked onto the carpet due to a broken clutch master, I decided it was time to whip the carpet out yet again.

With the water blaster sitting right there, I thought bugger it. Time for some cleaning!!
Two days later it was dry and it was time to get the vinyl die - at least that would hide some imperfections!

It appears I had company while reinstalling...

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Hi there, I will be dropping off my car to you next week to dye the carpets. Thanks in advance! :D

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