gouba

So a bit of an update. Had a pretty mixed day, I lined up the bonnet properly as it was a few mm out of line, worked out that one of my front component tweeters was blown (lined up some nice silk ones to replace them with) and sprayed the two replacement wing mirrors to put on tomorrow (more photos of that to come) It came to doing the valve adjustment when i realized I had a big problem and was in way over my head. I did a valve adjustment about 6-7 weeks ago which quietened everything down considerably. That was all good up until about 2 weeks ago when it started to get really quite noisy again, I simply put this down to one of the tappets being a loose and needed adjustment. Fast forward to today and I take the valve cover off to find can you see what is missing? after a bit of fishing about I find this but no eccentric bolt (time to take the sump off). It seems that the right side of the arm (the nut side) has been damaged somehow and the bolt has flown loose. This is strange in the sense that the damage is to the nut side and not bolt side which could have sheared off. There is some markings on the wall indicating some metal on metal fun. So the damage is bad enough to be really concerning but after a quick trip to pick a part my brother and I managed to find a replacement bolt and reattach the eccentric to the arm. On the good side the engine is really quiet now and sounds great, the bad side is that I now have to get it urgently fixed :/ As I dont have the time to get this fixed, how much should I expect to pay to get this sorted?

It's definitely clearer this way.Great update btw I was going to do nothing today, but now I feel compelled to work on the car

Details about the wheels if you are getting some? I'm really keen for a set of 16inch steelies

Good luck man, dont let the sh*t get you down. Eventually you will reach a point were you stop finding crap and it turns into a great project

Definitely interested in a write up if you have time. Looks good

Yeah I notice that, i need to steal your 16s though to make it that much closer

So following that you then did a cut and polish?

Things i plan to do this weekend include A valve adjustment replace my valve cover with a black painted one (I accidently cracked my old black painted one) fix up the tweeter wiring on my rigth front component. Install newly painted and refurbished wing mirrors If anyone has the following, ill happily come buy them off you a grey e30 boot carpet drivers side fog lamp replacement an e46 armrest/cupholder/arm rest shroud

Sweet, done!

That's mean. Definitely one of the best in this thread!

I think they are nicer than the mtec1 wheels. I have one on my car and it feels nice to drive with. Pity about the missing roundel on the horn

What would that actually be worth out of interest? Looks very clean and tidy

Gra a shifter from Ray, definitely worth the $120.The bushings at the gear box end need to be replaced at the same time, otherwise there is lots of lateral play still remaining

Any particular angle you would like to see?

Any chance of getting some more detail on this overall process? I need to try clean up some paint chips this weekend

i never expected to find a perfectly dry car, supposedly there is a good panel beater in Barrys Point Road. i'll let you know

fixed the doubled up images, sorry about that.

*managed to rip the oilcooler out after hitting a pot hole today, not looking promising* Firstly thanks all for your help on this forum, I have very quickly learnt how to do more than a simply oil change with this vehicle. My previous rides have been japanese POS, nothing too exciting, reliable, but too common and boring. My car was written off and as a result I needed something new. So after a bit of looking this came along, a 1990 320i auto converted to a 320 manual. A few things needed doing to it, a busted O ring which leaked oil, the gear box was a little noisy, interior needed replacing, needed some general maintenance and was in need of a valve adjustment (so nothing too major) So i took it home and started working on it. I wanted to swap the rims for something a bit more classic and picked up a refurbished set of 15 inch bbs rs rims from Eagle. and a test mock up I got some wheels from the boys at Precision wheels and slapped them on (highly recommend these guys if you need wheels) After this I grabbed some new interior pieces from 0ghost0 and trademe in the form of a leather interior, new steering wheel and gear knob. (photos to come of this) The car got some general maintenance (oil change, coolant flush, gearbox and diff oil change) and this is when issues started to arise. I found that carpet was getting wet in the interior, so out that came. I found a leaking heater core and a rust hole in the floor pan in the drivers side about the size of a 50c piece. I did a quick job on that for later professional fixing. At the same time I found more rust in the boot of the car, it looks like water has leaked through the rear lights and has rested below the car jack and battery. and and If anyone can recommend a good panel beater for this I would be very very grateful. Next stage was the installation of a new headdeck, front components, rear splits, amp, and sub. I didnt get a chance to wire it up properly initially, so it looked terrible. a basic plate was made (which will be skeletonized later to reduce weight) and amp installed This needs further work in the sense of cutting out the majority of that panel and making a covering panel out of 3mm mdf and matching carpet. If anyone has a spare e30 boot carpet they don't wan't ill happily buy it from you. Then, the zip tied lip came off (also need to replace the broken fog light on the drivers side) and the replacement clips from Blackie (you're the man for hooking me up) were used to replace the broken clips Parts that hadn't been properly prepped were painted with Color Pak Vinyl Etch and satin black top coat and a z3 shifter from Ray was installed. This took way too long as I dropped the circlip (don't do this ) and I was trying to rotate the plastic shift holder anti clockwise from the top rather than from underneath the car. Use some white lithium grease when replacing the z3 shifter into the shift holder. I really recommend this upgrade. Two things I noticed while doing the work, I need a new battery (expiry date is 09/2003) and im going to have to sort out my exhaust before I do my rear suspension upgrade. The welded brackets mean I cant remove it as the mounting rubber is one nasty bit of work. It's a good opportunity to clean it up and get some decent tips on the back as well. [ So this is what it looks like now Plans for the future include dropping it another inch or so, replacing the bushings in the rear end with solid bushings, completing the stereo install, fitting front and rear strut braces, fitting a rear sway bar, fixing up some chips in the paint, replacing a noisy release bearing (this will be my biggest job yet), putting in a decent diff (hopefully a 3.73 lsd), doing another valve adjustment as I keep missing one or two, and finally giving it a good cut and polish. Thanks for looking guys, any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Matt

The white one looks awesome, it was the car I wanted to recreate *drools*

if you root up the valve stems, Harley Davidson has replacement stems that supposedly fit (cheaper than $40 a pop as well)

I got one of these from Ray the other week and fired it in, definitely worth it. such a nice improvement over stock

Can you get anything higher for an e30?

This car looks gorgeous, i'm aiming for something similar as well. Project looks like it's taking shape nicely

Sweet will fire them a message. If anyone has a second hand one lying about, ill grab it

Awesome! will check them out this weekend