nzhaystack

EDIT: Car will be available for sale as such from may 1st - sorry should have mentioned in above post.

Something else has caught my eye and means my e30 has to go. Car was a bit of a mess when i brought it to be honest. However me and my father have spent well over $1000 getting it back into business. I might just list a whole bunch of sh*t instead of writing.

Pros:

Replaced Gearbox 2 weeks ago (All syncros are good!!)

Valve Tappets adjusted when brought

Car has been lowered (not to an antisocial point)

Exhaust system is clean and rust free

Dash is crackfree apart from a minor crack starting to seek through

New Gearbox bushes

New Slave Cylinder

New Clutch Fluid

New Gearbox Fluid

New Diff Fluid

New Brake Fluid

New Pads on Front

New Thermostat

New Coolant

Cons:

Paint work is pretty good for its age and clear coat is 100% intact. However there is a little bit of Rust at the rear bumper got quoted $120 to fix.

Doesnt have a gearknob

Coolant temp gauge not working, minor fix (cost about $15-20)

Car is certainly reliable and started on me 1st time everytime. Previous owner done the cambelt and water pump etc roughly 15000km ago.

Sitting on 286000km for now and engine still has plenty of life left in it, surprisingly good on gas!! Run it on either 98 or 95 and seem to get about 500km out of it, Car was originally an Auto which like most has been converted to manual.

Next oil change due at 294000km

Will be looking for $2200 ono. If I get what I am after the car will be sold with stereo system and 4 brand new tyres.

Cheers

Mitchell

(Kidney Grill has been blacked out)

hey guys,

have convinced my father to stop been a lazy c**t and do an oil change on his 635 by himself instead of taking to mechanic. Need to know what oil would be best suited for it. car is 1985 with m30b35 engine with 170000km.

Cheers

Mitchell

Mainly coz they dont get paid enough to give a f**k and they have to deal with muppets all day is how i look at it(always an exception to this rule haha).. I have a mate that works at a supercheap auto.. the sort they deal with daily sometimes leaves you rather un inspired in life I imagine

yeah i guess i hold a grudge against them, went in there not to long ago and was after a 30 amp fuse for ciggarette lighter and they tell me they dont have them, walk around the corner and there i find a 30 amp fuse.

Sorry I have no suggestions.

Funny that you call it a lemon though, poor old thing, surly anyone would expect issues with a 300,000km european car that is near 30 years old?

Or maybe its Yellow and i'm missing something.

Motor itself runs fine just little bits around it that are failing, most of them have been replaced since i brought the car thermostat, radiator pipes, spark plugs, filters etc. Will have a look around and see what i can find

Supercheap carries a range of frost plugs, on the two revolving "Champion" stands with the nuts and bolts. Don't expect the staff to know what or where they are though...

LIKE!! those guys are the dumbest c**ts

not coming out of the expansion bottle or overflow? (PFL yeah?)

just started it up and had a look now, looks as though its the frost plug on the gearbox side of the engine. anyone know where to get these from?

Hey guys,

Noticed today that my e30 was leaking coolant in little dribbles onto the exhaust pipe. I checked the engine coolant drain bolt and it is tight as f**k, seal around it is also good. Seems as though leak is around the left side of it. I will have a look this afternoon. Anyone got any suggestions on what it could be?

ps. i dont think its head gasket as car drives fine, also headgasket was replaced by previous owner as well as cylinder head about 15000-20000km ago according to him.

Cheers

Mitch

I only seem to come back on here when I have a problem...

Anyhoo, the 735 overheated randomly yesterday while in traffic (car had been driven a short distance, parked up for 15 minutes, then driven a short distance again in slow traffic). The warning bell alerted me the temp was on the way up, so I immediately pulled over and turned the car off. After 5 minutes, I started the car and the temp gauge quickly dropped back to operating temp. I needed to get to work, so risked the drive and spent another 20 minutes in crawling traffic, temps normal, but with the heater and blower on full (luke-warm air only). To test, I turned off the heater and blower and it overheated again almost instantly. Turned the car off again, turned the heater and blower on full and restarted. Again temp gauge quickly returned to operating temp. The rest of the drive was all good, 10 minutes out from the end of the journey, I turned off the blower and put the heater on cool, but no overheating. Wound down the window and could hear the fan engaging, as it should.

On journey home, car slowly got up to temp, but when waiting to get onto the motorway it started overheating again. The lights were green, so just drove onto the motorway and watched to see if the temp would drop with the extra air flow. It did, back to operating temp. All was good for the rest of the journey, even when siting in my driveway with the blower and heater off and reving the engine at standstill.

Done some quick searching on here, there's a few posts that are very helpful, but nothing specific to my problem. I will attack the issue on the weekend, will replace the thermostat, check the fan clutch, check the return hose to the expansion tank and bleed the system fully.

Any other pointers that anyone can share would be greatly appreciated!

Hey,

I had the exact same problems with my e30, turned out my thermostat was shot. took about 20m to replace on mine.

My temp guage sometimes needs a gentle knock to work.

A slap on the dash usually does the trick.

Loose wire to the cluster maybe?

Wire and grounding nut are in firmly. I have gave it more than a slap and it still doesnt want to move, will rule out the cluster by testing it on Andys one

Try a new cluster. You can borrow my one for a week or so and see if the temp gauge acts normal. My SI batteries could do with the recharge anyway. It's probably the gauge itself in your cluster that's dodgy, they are quite easy to change if you get the same cluster as the one you have ie motometer-motometer or vdo-vdo

That would be great thanks! Turning the car off today i noticed the gauge came to life as the car was turning off. The Gauge moves from complete nothing into the cold position when you turn the key so the needle may still be ok.

Hey Guys,

Coolant temp gauge has gone back down to cold again, i have cleaned the terminals, cleaned the sensor (also checked the resistance of it and check out good). Tried grounding the wire and doesnt go to hot. I examined wiring from it as it goes into the heat shrink and noticed its pretty much f**ked. I will be looking at re wiring this weekend but need to know where it goes to? Does it go Via the battery? or just straight to the cluster etc?? Dont really wanna cut up my wiring heat shrinks if i can help it but if i have to it shouldnt be to hard to do.

Cheers

Mitch

Shite... We don't even do this to our cars on the track

You are meaning faster acceleration surely? - not top speed:- Will be one or other - can't be both

Yeah Faster Acceleration

4.27 diff at 6000 revs in 3rd gives you 122 kph, drop it to 2nd and it'll drop to 80kph, spells rear wheel lock up and severe spin trouble.

RPM went all the way up even more and back wheels were a bit resistant at first haha.

+1

got a box full of rockers if you need a couple

try not to undo all your hard work Mitchell

Yeah will be taking it easy from now on. I still cant get over this speed increase having seconds thoughts on selling it now.

That's ringing its nuts! F_ fuel economy? Lol

Lawnmower petrol cans are there for a reason haha

Maybe with a 3.45 it'd be possible.... just.

Not sure what ratio my diff is, however coming onto motorway i done 120 in gear 3 again and looked at the rpm which was dead on 6000.

Hey Guys,

Got my e30 all up and running today and drives like a charm!! Would like to thank everyone on here for your help as it has been much appreciated. Something i noticed is a tremendous speed increase, found the 260 needed alot of rpm as you were going into 1 or reverse to stop it from stalling, now with this 240 in the problem has been illiminated lol. Gearbox that i picked up seems to have pretty aweome syncros on it, was going 120 in gear 3 and slammed into 2 and was able to handle it nicely.

Cheers guys once again

Mitchell

After the recent weather Auckland has had, my car has decided that it wants to start leaking from the top left corner of the windscreen (passenger side). It seems to be leaking from the rubber seal but my car has a sunroof and I believe the drainage points from the sunroof run down through the A pillar, past where its leaking from.

Is it likely that somehow the drainage holes have rusted and are leaking?

Sorry for being vague and I realise that I should take it out so Glenn can look at it but I just wanted to find out if its common for the drainage holes to rust.

My Drainage holes for my sunroof have also rusted, and from what i can see it does drain down the A pillar. It is also on the left hand side and when water is flown through the holes on my sunroof drain hole on the left hand side it doesnt come out where you would expect it to. I most likely have the same problem as you however my windscreen is sealed down nicely and doesnt seem to affect anything.

After a Getrag 240 Driveshaft to suit a G240 box on a 320i. Wellington area prefered but need this urgently so any where in NZ should be fine

Please PM me asap if you have one of these for sale

Cheers

Mitchell

Noticed a huge difference with 95 in the e30. Brought it and used to run on 91 and would seem sluggish and stall easily. However notice a performance increase and never attempts to stall with 95!! Havent seen much difference if any though between 95 and 98. Defiantly worth the extra $ for 95 though!!!

Gave the car a startup after the reinstallation, everything seems to be running sweet. Starter is engaging properly and gearbox is going into gear ok

So car is almost done but the back wheels need some power now my g260 driveshaft is to short so brought a g240 driveshft to go with the current box. I tried putting the g240 dshaft in and it seems the same size as the g260 one and is about 3cm off. However the 1st half on the driveshaft (the half that bolts to gearbox) on the g240 one is longer than the 1st part of the g260 one. and the diff half on the g260 gearbox is longer than the diff half on the g240 gearbox. So if i join the two longer bits of the driveshaft together it should be sweet right?

Shifter Linkage is in, starter is in, clutch is feeling good after a new slave cylinder and just need to get driveshaft done and il be good to go

Cheers Guys, Really appreciate all the help

Mitch

Hey,

After some negotiating i have a source of funding for a e30 race car. Plan to start it mid way through April (assuming i can get a car together), at the moment i own a 320i manual which goes ok, but for my to be race car i will be looking at a 325il. Just need to know a few things before i make a commitment to it.

First off, How hard is it to strip an e30 of all seats etc?

Is it worth rebuilding the gbox/engine to race specs?

Should you use racing bushes?

How much difference would you notice between a 318 manual and a 325 manual?

For track purposes, would welded diff perform any differently than lsd?

Any other tips?

Motivation for the project will be to compete and have some fun at the taupo even later this year. Will defiantly be shat on by some of the other bmw's but might as well give it a go Will be most likely buying a 325i automatic with a bad auto trans etc and convert to manual.

Cheers

Mitchell

Crash start the bitch

Need the driveshaft for that haha. Otherwise would have been the prefered option