Leaderboard

Was suppose to photograph the E30 for sale photos today 😓, but by the time i gave it a vac the sun had come out. Ended up washing the E46 as it's been pretty neglected lately, was quite satisfying to clean some of the gunked up drain areas in the engine bay, although note to self...do it BEFORE i clean the rest of the car next time. The steering wheel has worn in nicely now, it's not as slippery as it was at first and looks a bit more natural. Had a few mins before child pick up and the sun had ducked behind the clouds so snapped a few pics.

Just got done with the wrenching marathon that was changing the oil pan gasket and some other bits on the daily. What an absolute PITA of a job! Kicked it off Sunday morning, finished 1am that day, continued Monday after work until finally having her back on her wheels at 3am... Even with the subframe dropped down, so little space with all the power steering and trans cooler lines in the way. Quite a few hiccups along the way. The most annoying one being getting the dipstick back in. Cleaned up the oil pan, got the new gasket on, RTV'd the joins on the underside, struggled wiggling the pan in place, started it on a few bolts and then spent half an hour trying to get the right angle for the dipstick to slide into the oil pan with no luck, just too much crap in the way on top. Ended up giving up and dropping the sump back down, cleaning everything up and starting over with the dipstick in place. Bloody frustrating game of tetris. Also changed out the valve cover gasket, oil filter housing gasket, engine mounts and alternator. Probably spent half the time cleaning up all the oil that had caked everything up. Not a perfect job but near impossible to get to everything without taking off the intake, which would have gone well beyond the scope of this mission. After a good 4 hours sleep, set off for work in the morning. Car started up fine but got the ABS and brake lights go off on the dash, as they sometimes do with the wheels off the ground for a while. Drove out onto the street, parked up and tried turning the car off and on only for it not to start again... Flat battery. Ran back home to grab the spare, got her running but from the voltage saw that the alternator wasn't kicking in. Figured the new one must have been faulty. Dammit. Pulled into the driveway and started pulling the intake back apart to put the old noisy one back in, only to discover I'd forgotten to plug the alternator cable back in... Classic 3am brain fog. Hopelessly late, finally set off for work only to hear a clunking noise coming from the front. It then hit me I'd also forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts after I'd dropped the car down from the jack stands... Bloody hell After catching up on lost sleep, tidied up some of the loose ends today so hopefully that's the end of my oil leak dramas for a wee while at least. Thank f**k that's over and done with.

I was interesting in buying a E30, which I went to see today, however the number of owners in NZ is 27... (since being imported in 1998) So me that is a massive red flag of a car with problems - would other people on here agree?

And they sound incredible https://youtu.be/xNi4WYksi3o

good point, probably should've explained a bit better, I undid the brake lines that are attached to the subframe, in order to not damage them when lowering the subframe, they are hardlines on the one side and don't have much flex, didn't want to snap them when moving the subframe around to get the bushings in and out

How did you lose brake fluid replacing bushings?

Big day on the tools today, installing the new subframe bushings. Managed to borrow a subframe bushing tool to remove the OEM bushings. Overall the job was a lot easier than most people make it out to be. The hardest part was removing the OEM bushings. Easiest way I found was to start with the rear bushings, remove the rear subframe bolts, loosen the front mounting bolts slightly, then put a jack under the subframe just behind where the diff is and gently lower it until there's enough room to get the tool in between boot floor and subframe. Then spray a lot of lithium grease in the gaps in the subframe, and pull the bushing out. For the front ones, loosen the rear mounting bolts, place the jack under the front of the diff, remove the front mounting bolts and gently lower jack till there is enough room. Then remove the bushings. Installing the new Condor speed shop UHMW bushings was extremely easy, I placed them in the freezer first thing in the morning, before getting started on the car. The bushings split into two pieces, one goes in from each side and then the aluminium sleeve goes down the hole in the middle. I sprayed some more grease into subframe, and then simply pushed the bushings in by hand, took all of about 30 seconds per bushing. Then just bolted everything back up, torqued to spec and job done. Only issue I came across was the brake lines, I lost a lot of fluid, but I was planning in doing a flush anyway so will need to flush/bleed the brakes tomorrow, got some Motul rbf600 which should do nicely. Then give the car a clean and a test drive.

My main concern with that sort of ownership number is that I assume that the car must be a lemon or have had a weird history... Currently it does run but has a some electrical wiring issues that needs re-doing/re-assembling for everything to function (its in a project state, so reg on hold, no wof etc.) So I am just wondering whether it's possible that the car might have an inherent electrical problem that no one can solve and therefore it keeps getting flipped???

It looks pimp when new, but the seats don't breathe and I get a sweaty lower back that turns them yellow'ish over time. 😝

https://e30goodies.com/gearing-calculator/

Used to enjoy it on a motorcycle before the 15 kms of double yellow lines . Only needed a couple of seconds to safely pass. But of late being stuck behind a horse float doing 20kmh with 50 plus cars behind it has taken any “fun” out of it. and then the weather hits ☹️

Got some solid work in today and completed the fabrication of the trans mount / drive shaft loop !! Just need to clean up the welds and a bit of spatter etc then paint and it can go in for good at last.

Ideal fitment for e30 m3s and e24 e28 etc 16x8 et20 and 16x9 et24 Good starting point if you wanted to upsize to 17 or 18s $2500 or can refurbish for extra