Vass

On 2/9/2022 at 7:41 AM, balancerider said:

Interestingly my first E46 touring (also Jap import) had rust in exactly the same place - under the scuff plate on R rear door. Took it to a paint/panel place - they dealt with it for <$100, although that was 8-9 years ago...

Popped by one place today to get a quote - $400... For literally a matchbox sized area. DIY it is I guess.

50 minutes ago, dirtydoogle said:

Always check clearances. Plastigauge is easy enough and cheap enough 

Yeah, true. Just rewatched 50skid's videos on it and seems simple enough. Will pick some up today, $12 for a pack at Repco.

Interestingly as well, 50skid reused all of his old main bearing bolts. Apparently still going strong 3+ years later. Might just do that, clean them up properly and box on.

Also, unsurprisingly, you were spot on with the piston rings. Snagged a few photos before running off for work this morning and sure enough, the bottom ring is well gunked up. Very happy I'm changing those now.

46 minutes ago, balancerider said:

Do like where this is going.

Interestingly my first E46 touring (also Jap import) had rust in exactly the same place - under the scuff plate on R rear door. Took it to a paint/panel place - they dealt with it for <$100, although that was 8-9 years ago...

Yeah good shout, that's probably what I'll end up doing. There's a whole heap of panel beaters next to where I work so will pop around and see what they reckon. Would be well happy if it's something like $100-200. Anything to avoid messing with paint myself.

Water just seems to get stuck under that ledge of the plastic every time it rains, the rear sills especially. Can see a wee line of rust running the whole length of it. Must have been in a salty environment this car in general, a whole lot of surface rust all over the underside, drivetrain etc. Nothing too serious but does catch the eye.

33 minutes ago, dirtydoogle said:

Oil control rings, pull a piston, I dare ya 

Pistons are out yeah, will take some pics tomorrow

48 minutes ago, dirtydoogle said:

Check for colored marks on the backside of the bearings before ordering, measure the clearance of the old bearings (plastigauge or micrometer, either is fine for this application)

Yeah I read about the bearing coloring. What's with the whole plastigauge though? Is that absolutely necessary or enough to just order the same color as the current ones?

Took off the cam tray studs today to be able to flip the head over and have a better look at the valves.

Quite a lot of carbon caked on. Don't have much experience to gauge how bad it is. Doesn't look like anything that won't clean up but what does this generally indicate? Lean mixture? 91 fuel? Car did have a lot of oil leaks, CCV was clogged up and also split, valve cover wasn't sealing properly being cracked and I assume had a bunch of vacuum leaks as well, so a bunch of things wrong that would all have contributed?

Will borrow a valve keeper tool off a mate and see what the valves are doing beneath the surface. Will also remove the crank and then pretty much set for the machine shop.

11 hours ago, dirtydoogle said:

Main bearing bolts are not particularly worrisome and aren't under a lot of stress. Using a 10.9 grade fastener is fine. 

You're taking all the right steps 👌

Be very gentle cleaning the cam caps up, I would remove any high spots and leave it at that. The rod bearings aren't really a worry with that "wear" pattern, thats pretty standard. There however has been some contaminated oil judging by the scoring

Doesn't appear to have anything worrying going on, just a lack of general maintenance casting the oil control rings to stick 

Thanks mate, pretty glad to see there ain't anything catastrophically wrong in there. Bit of encouragement to soldier on.

OE rod bearings look to be just $49 USD from FCP so not a big shell out to switch them out. The main bearings are $106 USD so won't be too terrible either if they'll need replacing. Will take the crank out in the coming days.

9 hours ago, HalfJobHarry said:

It was a total rebuild down to the bare block, machined, oversized bearings the lot. 

Probably many things I'd do differently , the biggest thing I'm glad I did though was fit an aftermarket oil pump. 

I did not have any issues with torquing the head down. 

I had the supervision of an experienced engine builder as this was my second proper rebuild. 

In hindsight I'd have a clearer goal for the project, given this is an NA engine and I wasn't aiming for vastly increased power the rebuild didn't have much point other than gaining good experience. In later builds I've had a clear goal (like super charging a K20, or hitting 500 WHP with the N54) etc. 

Good fun though. 

Good stuff! I'm probably in a similar boat as you were with your first build - doing most of it more out of interest rather than necessity. Not really chasing any serious power so will be keeping most things stock, just wanting to recondition and have a reliable engine to power the daily driver/weekend cruiser for the next 10+ years. Power output wise I was actually reasonably happy with the 2.5L, it just made more sense to rebuild a 3.0L.

With the oil pump, do you mean you upgraded the shaft & sprocket or just changed out the whole thing? I was going to just give it a good clean and fit a slotted nut with a safety wire. Didn't think it was a problem area unless it's a race build?

Just a few minor things to report on. Have mostly been busy with dismantling the donor engine, which I've been documenting in a separate thread here, so the bulk of the progress was made on that front.

With the car itself, all I've done is clean up and swap over the rear door cards as well. The new ones do have a few marks and dings themselves but do look tidier with the leather inserts instead of the sagging fabric. The leather rear seats are still sitting around, biding their time to go it. Still hoping to find some tidy Msport black leather front seats to match them up with. If anyone's got any leads, shoot them my way. Not looking beyond the South Island at the moment as shipping would take it beyond what I'm reasonably willing to pay.

Annoyingly, whilst I was at it, I discovered a patch of rust peeking out from beneath the rear right door sill. Not really sure how to deal with it as I'm always hesitant to mess with paintwork but probably worth cleaning up and addressing somehow. Just don't trust myself to do a tidy enough job with it. Product recommendations very welcome.

Also, the window tints are really starting to annoy me now. I do like having tints, but the current ones have way too many defects that let the car down. Will probably ponder an action plan for those for after the new engine and transmission is all up and running.

Otherwise yeah, she's still kicking on, seen here pretending to be a grasshopper.

Are these a straight fit for an e46 or is there a difference in bore size or something? Staggered set is it?

Right, so I phoned around a few machine shops on Friday to get a gauge on an approximate budget for machine work. For the head, I've currently settled on a hardness & pressure test + getting it surfaced; for the block I'm getting a hardness test and a cylinder deglaze/hone, and have both the block and the head acid dipped & cleaned. With some variations in scope between different shops, I'm looking at around $600-1000, which I guess is fine.

Also asked about timeserting/helicoiling the head bolt threads in the block and was strongly recommended to not take it on as a purely preventative measure as it's likely to be a waste of money for potentially a poorer outcome. The recommendation was that a hardness test would give a good indication whether the original threads are likely to strip out or not, and if the test indicated that the block has gone soft, then there are bigger problems to worry about.

That seemed to make sense and, having read through a few more engine build threads on e46 fanatics where the standard head bolts have re-torqued just fine, I decided to box on.

Quite a bit of gunk stuck all over the cam tray studs. Lifters were also quite gunked up. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the car had been blessed with regular servicing.

The exhaust cam bearings looked mostly fine, but two of the exhaust ones had a wee bit of a munch at some point. Does look pretty bad but hopefully nothing a bit of fine sand paper can't fix.

The oil pickup tube spit out a whole bunch of RTV worms as well as tiny plastic particles, likely chunks off the cam cover.

The pistons had quite a bit of carbon buildup. Those will take some scrubbing.

The cylinders looked in pretty good shape. Bit of varnish but the factory hone marks are still clearly visible so I'm hoping to get away with just a minor hone/deglaze. Only visible defect was a mark on cylinder 6 which I'm not sure what to make of. Hoping the hone will sort it out.

The rod bearings looked worse than I'd hoped for. Did read that they'd supposed to be pretty solid on the M54 but these looked well shot. Another item added to the shopping list.

At this point, all that's left on the block is the crankshaft. Made the mistake of checking how much replacement cap bolts cost and got cold feet.

Yikes!

Read a few threads of people using just regular M10x90mm 10.9 bolts (instead of 92mm factory) from a hardware store for years without issues. Also of people reusing the old bolts similarly trouble-free. So... one to think about.

Anyway, long weekend well spent. Will get onto a further teardown and cleaning duties next.

Most affordable e30 on the market right now. Drivetrain might need some work but otherwise seems nice and tidy with some tasteful mods. 

https://www.trademe.co.nz/3456420351

3 hours ago, tawa said:

Good stuff guys, I have an M54B30 in my garage awaiting a rebuild so shall watch for any tips and trick here

Feel free to go first so I can learn from your mistakes instead hahah 😄

2 hours ago, HalfJobHarry said:

Great to see this project, M54B30 was the second engine I ever rebuilt from my 330i back in 2012/2013. Brings back memories. 

Aye cool! Would be keen to hear more about your experience, how deep you went into it, what you'd do differently if you were to do it again etc. Cheers

6 minutes ago, dirtydoogle said:

Vw stuff, I don't care for their gear 

In all fairness if you are rebuilding, the oem replacements are fine anyway, they only start consuming oil after 15 years of neglect and low oil temps. If yours was an oil consumer it will have a bunch of varnish combined with carbon around the ring pack 

Yeah will check it out.

I've kinda started having second thoughts about lifting the head now, not for the first time. Had a chat with a few more people and they're all telling me it's real likely the bolts would strip the threads out of the block the second time round and you'd need timeserts. Really not keen on having to do that. Will do some more digging around..

11 hours ago, dirtydoogle said:

https://spareto.com/products/goetze-engine-piston-ring-kit/08-137400-00

No idea what part number I pasted there before sorry. Its a VAG fitment part ,but just consider you will hopefully remove one VAG product from the road by buying them 😉 

Sorry to be that guy but I'm not particularly clued up on the VAG inside joke. What's the deal? 😄

44 minutes ago, Young Thrash Driver said:

I refreshed some injectors once. Then one of them went mental and stuck open about 2 weeks after I stuck them back in- so ended up sending them away for a proper clean/flow test etc etc. Was about $30 each from memory.

Yeah good call, probably worth going that route too. Thanks for that! 

9 hours ago, dirtydoogle said:

GOETZE P208678534 should be the ring pack you're after with the m54 1.2mm top ring and m52tu 3 piece oil control ring 

VAC do a kit too i think. Probably a few options these days 

Thanks for that. Couldn't find the part number you specified but these seem to be what you're referring to?

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/273104514430

8 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Looks like its had a rough life and your right it probably deserves a rebuild. Im going say likely an import?

You know it, good old Japanese expat.

8 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Are those codes that have been cleared already? Factory software is good as it logs details of the fault and how many times it has occurred.

Can't remember if I cleared them or not but the car's in bits and gone to scrap now anyway. Did keep the ECU off of it but don't know if I'll bother hooking it up just to check old codes. Planning to reflash the current one in the wagon. The one that came off the donor was an MS43. I suspect the wagon will have the same?

Really need to start getting to grips with the software side of things. Did get my K+DCAN cable in the mail a couple weeks ago but haven't gotten round to installing standard tools yet.

8 minutes ago, Eagle said:

You could add:

1. O2 sensors to the list but they are hard to find without going universal (well one bank is anyway hence why i haven't done mine yet).
2. Injectors cleaned and tested + seals. Maybe fuel lines to rail

True, good points, thanks for that. Are O2 sensors something that you can just clean up the tips on to prolong their life a bit or that's not how they work at all?

The injectors yeah, was definitely meaning to clean and put new seals on. Is that something you reckon that's DIY-able or best have someone that knows what they're doing look over it?

8 minutes ago, Eagle said:

The rear main seal should come with a plastic cone tool which does the job.

I was looking at this video on it and guy had some sort of special tool that seated the seal a certain depth within the housing, 22 minutes in. Can probably make due without somehow but... meh.

https://youtu.be/5S7-gNEgJoM?list=PL691E5829632F8FF7&t=1329

Thanks for the reply. Keep 'em coming 

This thread is dedicated to my efforts of rebuilding an M54b30 engine to drop into my Touring. I figured as this is the biggest and most essential part of the project, I'd best separate it from the main thread to avoid the details getting lost amongst the rest of the noise.

The engine came out of a 2002 330i sedan with 160,XXX km on the clock. The internals seem to be largely untouched.

Before taking the engine out of the donor car, I ran a compression and a leak down test. The testers used were on the cheaper side of the scale so that might have contributed to the results jumping around somewhat erratically. Did give some indication of the state though. All cylinders did hold compression but obviously the engine isn't as fresh as it used to be.

Spark plugs 1, 5 & 6 came out being completely drenched in oil. I soon found out that the reason had been that the valve cover had split in several places, from someone clearly "making sure" the bolts were tight enough.

The cover was also missing chunk out of one corner, a chunk I would later find swimming in the oil pan, so I'll either be using the cover off of the current engine or getting a new one at some point.

Apart from that, oil leaks were aplenty. The return line going from the CCV down to the dipstick had somehow completely split, the valve cover was obviously leaking, as was the OFHG, VANOS pressure line, oil pan and seemingly the rear main seal as well as the crankshaft seal. Funnily enough, the one component that didn't have any visual leaks was the head gasket.

The two hard coolant lines under the intake were not unexpectedly completely rotted away at the ends and came off leaving the tip inside (hue hue).

A couple of minor observations that I'm not sure what to make of. The first being the water pump had seemingly gone right up against the separator wall and tried to eat away at it a bit. Probably nothing to be concerned about, but would be good to have some assurance?

Also, taking off the intake, I found a few of the bolt holes surrounded by rings of oil. Is this a sign of anything at all or just safe to assume it had dripped onto it from the outside somehow?

My biggest concern and dilemma at present is whether to take off the head and preventatively change the head gasket. Ideally I'd love to avoid doing that, especially knowing the threat of pulling the threads whilst re-torqueing the head bolts (would be getting brand new bolts of course). I'm leaning towards 'yes' in that regard. I'd pulled off a "high oil temperature" code from the ECU which made me a bit concerned so would be great to have it checked to make sure it's solid.

Apart from that, everything looks tidy enough so far. Will be taking the timing gears and the camshafts off in the coming days and deciding the full extent of the rebuild.

The plan of attack as it currently stands:

• Take off the head, have it checked for cracks & hardness, get the surface machined.
• Have the cylinders honed.
• Install new piston rings, will try find a kit with M52TU oil control rings.
• Install a slotted oil pump nut.
• New timing chain guides.
• New hard coolant lines under the intake.
• Rebuild VANOS with new seals & anti-rattle kit.
• Rebuild DISA flap and possibly diaphragm as well.
• New CCV & associated hoses.
• Clean throttle body, idle control valve.
• New coils, spark plugs.
• Obviously all new seals & gaskets throughout.

Things I would ideally avoid doing:

• Boring cylinders, new pistons - really don't think it'll be necessary.
• Rod bearings - shouldn't be a problematic component on these engines so shouldn't need to be replaced?
• Stem seals - haven't looked into this one much. Probably worth doing but require some sort of special tool?

Still not done with research and assessing the cost-benefit of some of those 'maybe' items. Advice and feedback very much welcome.

If there's any additional items worth addressing or minor mods/upgrades worth doing or considering while I'm at it, please do let me know. I've never done an engine rebuild or anything close to a task this big before so am bound to have a bunch of blind spots and obvious things I'm overlooking. I'm very much learning as I go along and would love to have others' experience and advice to fall back upon and guide me along the way.

Equipment wise, I'm near enough set. Have all the generic tools as well as torque wrenches of all 3 sizes and a few specialist spanners & sockets. Have also ordered a camshaft locking/timing tool kit. Might need some specialist tool to install the rear main seal so will figure that out at some point.

Probably missing a bunch of things so feel free to point it out if you notice anything.

Cheers

23 minutes ago, Eagle said:

I'm curious what the shipping process for gearbox etc is like. What did it cost or you still waiting for a tax bill etc?

I'll report back once I actually receive it. With it being air freight, it could apparently take as little as 2 weeks, which I'd be mightily surprised and impressed by. Hoping I might get away without duties but will see. Should still be cheaper than any of the ones I've seen go recently, especially with the 2.93 diff included as well.

Just read through the whole thread with great interest. Truly amazing attention to detail. The amount of time and effort that's gone in is mind boggling. One to keep an eye on. Well done sir 👍

11 minutes ago, Cement said:

I've recently (sorta now as things drag on !?) done the RACP reinforcement (CMP products) along with 330 running gear swap into my 318 project car. Nothing that isn't covered elsewhere on the internet many times over but may be of interest to take a look at my thread for ideas. Also cleaned all of the underside and painted plus did poly bushings etc while in there.

Aye cheers! I've flicked through your build before but will have a keener look at the subframe part. Those headers of yours are looking mighty impressive! I'm more or less keeping everything OEM, the fabrication on yours is looking absolutely mad, next level stuff that. Keen to see how it all comes together.

January '22
223,XXX km

To take a break from the demolition job, I got onto installing the trunk trim bits I'd scavenged earlier. Not that it made an astronomical difference, but pretty satisfying none the less. Also helped get rid of a couple pesky squeaks & rattles as well as properly securing the side bit that the cargo cover latches onto, where the bolt hole had been ripped out.

Afraid to put anything in the trunk now...

The donor also came with some decent leather door cards, so those got a good clean and went straight onto the wagon. They looked tidier than the current ones, where the cloth part had gone all saggy, plus the numerous scuffs had been a real eye sore, most notably on the passenger door. The new door cards came with the added bonus of additional smaller speakers that I'll need to figure out how to wire in further down the line. No clue how that will work, but I'm sure future me will figure it out.

The trim inserts will need a little going over with some fine sandpaper and a coat or two of paint to finish the look off.

The wagon also got the front indicators off the donor that don't seem to be prone to moisture infiltration. Another little annoyance ticked off the list.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the donor car was becoming an increasingly sorry sight. More and more bits were coming off and getting sold or put away in storage, all engine cables getting tagged, all nuts and bolts going into separate sandwich bags and being labelled.

Out came the subframe, and with the help of a mate, the engine soon followed.

Love that green coolant, yum yum yum.

Stripped the very last parts off the shell. Tried not to let anything go to waste, so kept everything from the windshield washer motor down to the brake booster and anything else I could lay my eyes on. Now all that was left was to figure out how to get the body out of the garage without any wheels on it...

Ended up lifting the rear with an engine crane and rested the front rails onto a pole poked through a couple of spare wheels, creating a magnificent wee Batmobile.

In the final couple of days, the last bunch of salvageable body panels went off to new homes, leaving the formerly glorious machine cutting a rather sad figure. Never nice seeing one of these get taken off the road, but at least the heart will live on in a new shell.

R.I.P.
2002-2021

So, finally caught up, this is where things currently stand. The rear subframe is sitting on the floor, ready to be torn apart and put back together.

The engine is up on the stand, awaiting the same treatment.

The manual parts are in England, being loaded onto a pallet and going in for freight in the next couple of days. Can't wait.

As for Barbara herself, she's still happily chugging along. Despite being a bit capricious at times, she's never left me fully stranded, to her great credit (knock on wood). With every bit of work going into it, she's feeling more and more my own and will be a whole different beast of a car by the end of year at the latest. Hopefully much sooner though.

This has grown into a bigger project than anything I've ever undertaken before, by several orders of magnitude, and I'd be very keen to hear any sort of advice and guidance all you more knowledgeable folk might care to share. If you notice me going something dodgy or spouting some utter nonsense, by all means pull me up on it. I'm humble enough to admit I'm barely informed at best of times, and desperately clueless at others, so am very open to learning from people that have been there and done it before. I'm doing my best to research every step of the process before embarking on it, but if you do see me asking silly questions that have been addressed numerous times before, point me in the right direction and I'll eagerly do the due diligence.

The goal with this process is to do as much as possible with my own two hands, and hopefully by the end of it, be left with a solid and reliable car to enjoy for years to come.

Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement! Will do my best to keep it entertaining.

9 hours ago, Eagle said:

Fair enough re engine. Guess if cost and time are no object then its not an issue.

Cost is never not an object. I guess my reasoning is, with a job this big, cutting a small corner would be a drop in the bucket on the grand scale, but leaving it untouched makes it a weak point more likely to fail further down the line. I'm not one to spend money needlessly, but if something's worth it, I don't mind paying a bit more to get a better result in the end. Do it once, do it right.

Had a chat with the local cert place today. Was keen to know how the whole certification process goes and what I could do to make it smoother. I'd been advised that I might need to install driveshaft hoops as part of the conversion, so asked them about that. Was told that hoops are only needed if the power increases by 50% or more, or if the driveshaft had been modified in any significant way i.e. welding. In my case, the gearbox, driveshaft and rear diff will all be coming from the same car so I won't be needing it, which is a relief.

Regarding welding of the reinforcement plates, they said it's not something that needs to be certified per se, unless it involves the suspension mounting points being moved from their original location. The welds would need to be done to a "tradesman-like standard" though so if the weld job is particularly poor and sloppy, you will be pulled up on it if noticed.

Just as a disclaimer, do not take this as any sort of concrete advice, your situation might be different and worth checking with your friendly neighbourhood cert guy to make sure what specific requirements might apply to your project.

12 minutes ago, KwS said:

Kind of a moot point anyway with the engine and manual swap; gonna need a cert.

I'm kind of more asking regarding the welding job itself, i.e. would it have to be done by a certified welder and have some accompanying documentation to go with it, or am I fine just getting a mate to do it or something...?

Will definitely be getting the engine and tranny swap certed. About to get in touch with a local cert place sometime this week to get a better idea of how the whole process works. Will probably pose the weld question as well.

45 minutes ago, Eagle said:

If it were me id get the car running and driving first before pulling the head. Lots of work and extra tools required for maybe minimal gain unless you know the engine is burning oil etc.

Easier to do it now than have to muck about later with sh*t in the way. I think it's fair to assume that even if doesn't burn oil yet, it will do at some point, knowing the M54 oil rings being not the best design. 

45 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Subframe floor reinforcement is massive and exhausting job if you do it properly ie top and bottom plates. You need to be a decent welder or know someone who is and can do it on jackstands\hoist unless you want to pay someone massive labour rates - RMS say its a 30-60 hour job, lost count how many hours ive put in so far. Never heard of anyone needed a cert. You can make blend the repair in quite well if wanted.

Id just inspect the underside and internal cavities when the frame is out and go from there (see Reddish Motorsport videos and CMP write up on it). If you don't see anything then i wouldn't bother in your case. I replaced my bushings with Lemforder\Meyle ones because im re-enforcing and they are much cheaper than poly(and look better). Poly is suppose to be better for limiting frame movement hence reducing stress on floor\welds.

See my thread later on today for an idea, mine had 2 extremely minor failures but i wanted to do it anyway for piece of mind.  

If I were to do it, I'd probably only do the underside.

Interesting regarding poly bushes reducing stress on the floor. I would have thought it's the opposite with them being stiffer and more likely to pass on the stress instead of absorbing it and dissipating it. In my mind, the stiffer the system, the stronger it has to be because the stresses are concentrated and have nowhere to go. Introducing a softer rubber means that it would become the part to dissipate the stress somewhat, turning it into movement within that component. Kind of like you don't build a completely rigid bridge, instead allowing it to move somewhat to release the stress.

Might be way off the mark though, that's just my structural engineering brain trying to make sense of it, I'm by no means a mechanic

14 minutes ago, qube said:

This thread is more interesting than most shows on netflix these days. 
 

following with interest!

Hahah thanks mate, glad to provide amusement 😄

December '21
222,XXX km

One evening I took a drive down to Ashburton to have a look at a potential side project, a deregistered E91 320i going for cheap. Looked tidy enough but luckily it ended up selling to someone else before I had time to make the dumb plunge into the 4-cylinder world. Barbara here must have gotten jealous as on the way back she threw an engine code, the sassy bitch.

P0174. Classic.

To my knowledge, the DISA hadn't been refurbished, but then again could have been a whole handful of other culprits. The prospect of going on a wild goose chase for vacuum leaks didn't really appeal to me. Nor did chasing down the persistent clunk from the rear end.

Then one day I discovered a line of coolant running down the crank and it just threw me over the edge. Everything else had been replaced by that point so it must have been one of the hard plastic lines under the intake manifold. Nope, not keen. So I did what any rational idiot would do when faced with another minor annoyance...

... I went out and bought a bloody parts car.

Jokes aside, it had been a while in the making and not at all an impulsive decision. I'm sort of a 'demolish and rebuild' type of person, would much rather start from scratch and tackle everything in one go instead of playing whack-a-mole chasing down persistent issues. I settled on doing a full on assault on the engine, but if I was going to go down the full refurb rabbit hole, I figured it might as well be a 3L instead of a 2.5. I saw a few M54b30's listed on TradeMe for around $1,700, which seemed silly money for just the engine, so I started keeping an eye on Turners and Manheim damaged car auctions. Auckland had a few 330's come up, but quotes for transporting them down south came in at $2k and over so was a no go. Then when this fine specimen popped up locally, I knew it was the one.

A 2002 330i with 160,XXX km on the clock, all up cost me a touch less than the asking price on the aforementioned engines alone, written off with side impact damage.

The two doors took the brunt of the damage, with just a small dent in the B-pillar behind the door, which is what did it. Doesn't take much nowadays. Funnily enough, the previous owner reached out when he came across my part-out listing, so I got a nice insight into the car's backstory. The repair quote had apparently come in at $8k. Yikes!

Luckily, we'd managed to get our own modest little place earlier in the year, so I now had my own decent-sized garage to mess around in where I wouldn't be driving any housemates up the wall with my lunacy.

Getting a whole car meant that I could go for a full 330 conversion - engine, brakes, drivetrain, whole rear subframe with trailing arms and all. The plan is as follows:

• Rebuild engine with new seals, gaskets, new auxiliaries, rebuild DISA, VANOS, the works. Was tossing up whether to pull the head off or not but probably might as well. Have it checked for cracks and hardness, get it machined and honed. Probably change the piston rings, likely retrofit the M52TU ones. Still figuring out the full scope, but don't want to leave much to chance. The main thing I'm concerned about is the head bolts pulling the threads when reinstalling the head, which I've read might happen. Installing timeserts seems like a whole heap of mucking about that I'd rather avoid at all costs. I'll probably start a separate thread for the engine build itself as that's the biggest part of the project that I'm going to need tonnes of advice on, which would probably make this thread too convoluted with everything else that'll be happening.

• Refurb the whole rear subframe - already have a full kit of rear subframe bushes sitting in a box waiting to go on. Will probably clean everything up and spray paint to fight off rust and for general visual satisfaction. The one question I have is whether it's worth upgrading to poly or any other sort of aftermarket bushes even if for some individual components. The kit I already have is all OEM Lemförder and Meyle. Obviously this isn't going to be a competitive track car, just a daily driver / road trip tourer. Seeing how I go, might try my hand at a track day or two just for fun, but won't be seeing too much abuse. Opinions more than welcome.
• Was going to drop the auto box from the donor car to hopefully cure my limp mode disease, but after staring at it for a while, I went f**k it and shelled out for a ZF 5-speed manual from a fella in England as there's currently bugger all of them available in the country. Might as well make it a full on money pit. Getting a full conversion with full driveshaft and manual diff. Hoping it all comes through without any hiccups in the next few weeks/months.
• Refurb, paint the 330 brake callipers. Ideally want to rebuild the pistons with new rubber seals - if anyone knows the best place to get those, would be very much appreciated. I think I saw some on ECS a while ago go for something stupid like $50 USD each!
• Probably refurb the front running gear as well, control arms and such are still factory so long overdue a replacement.
• Still tossing up whether I need to do the rear subframe reinforcing plates or not. Would be sensible but I'm not sure how to make the logistics work. Would I need to take the car to a shop and pay the extra labour to remove and reinstall the subframe? Do I get a welder to come to me and f**k around with the car on jack stands? And how does this affect certification? Do I even need to get it reinforced if I won't be tracking the car?
• Whatever else will inevitably crop up, will tackle it as it comes.

With the engine still in the car, I went ahead and did a compression and leak down test. The results were a bit all over the shop, sometimes retesting the same cylinder would give radically different results. Probably down to cheap-ish test equipment, but got some sort of gauge anyway.

Cylinder 4 seemed the dodgiest one, but retesting the leak down on it the second time came out to 14% which fell in line with the rest of them. So heck knows. The engine still held compression fine, car was driveable, but not the freshest.

From the outside too, the engine was in a bit of a state, leaking oil like a sieve.

Not sure how that happened, but the oil return hose from the CCV to the dipstick had completely split and was pissing all over the place, drenching everything in the vicinity.

Anyway, the slow dismantling continued whilst selling off bits to recoup some of the costs. The holiday break ended up being a staycation with me spending a better part of 2 weeks doing 12+ hour days in the garage. Bloody love it!

Also, after being on the lookout ever since I'd gotten the car, I finally came across a tidy looking wagon being parted out at a local wrecker's, so I jumped on it and scavenged it for all sorts of boot trim bits that had been so hard to come by up to now, as well as nabbing some real tidy leather rear seats that are of course touring-specific. For just $100 I couldn't pass up. Those, along with leather door cards off the donor car, and I'm two seats shy of a full interior leather upgrade. By no means a priority but something I'm looking to do somewhere down the line.

As a little treat, I bought myself a crappy wee Ford Laser as a cheap runaround, in anticipation for when the wagon will be out of action getting a heart transplant.

Ugly little duckling with barely any clear coat left on it, but cheap on fuel and being a manual, I almost enjoy driving it more than the wagon itself hahah. Maybe this whole endeavour was a massive waste of time and money from the get go...