gmccormack

Turns out he had reverse changed the battery. New battery in the car now and things have improved......slightly. As soon as the battery was connected the front passenger side park light comes on as does the front and rear fogs on the drivers side (lights are switched off btw) rear windows went half way down on there own then stopped, now no window or light controls work. Engine cranks but will not fire, what damage has he done?? is it a write off ?!!!

I have a small problem. A 1996 528 had been sitting unused for 6 months. Try to start......battery dead. Removed and recharged the battery. As soon as the battery cables are refitted every exterior light comes on, brake, tail, head, indicators on solid, reverse lights everything also the wipers and washers run too all while switched off. Every other electrical circuit is dead, no dash lights no crank or start.......nothing. Any thoughts.

Is the thud there when you go from reverse to drive and/or back again, or just from park in to reverse? Could just be all the play in the drive train being taken up by the trans. Worn CVs, broken mounts etc make it worse.

Havent driven the Mazda 6 thats out now, but have had both the mk1 and mk2 generations in the family, have driven both many many times.

The first gen was amazing at the time, on par with anything else in same sector. More than enough power. Given the alternatives of that or a Mk2 Mondeo, i would choose the Mazda only because of the badge on the front, there is no other advantage of one over the other. May even be the same platform, not sure??

Which Mondeo are you talking about here??, the early ones have no Mazda content at all, the later ones only share engines.

Mondeos, a great car to lease when new. Not good to own second hand. As bland as a Toyota but not as well bolted together.

You really have no choice but to use everything from the 90. The 90 gearbox doesn't have the holes for the hall effect sensors that the 86 ecu uses.

FL began mid 88. And this clearly has chrome bumpers, no smileys etc.

FL happened late 87 (September I think) The car can still be an 88 and PFL if it sat in the dealers showroom until 88 unreged.

Looks like from what I can see, replace the front bumper (looks like the fog lights are still perfectly fine as well, new grills and possibly a new drivers high beam, new guard or panelbeat it then you have got a nice M325i there. Wouldn't cost much at all if that's all it is, doesn't look like there's even any damage to the radiator.

Plus the cost of three engineers inspections and re-vin

How much do you think this is worth, as is?

I have paid anything from $100 up to $1000 for E30 insurance write offs.

The belt may be glazed from the earlier slipping, so the tightening wont help. Replace it. Is it an M20? and when you say "new" alternator, is it new or just a second hand replacement, the rubber mounting bushes could be worn. If they are, tightening the belt just pulls the alternator to a funny angle and it continues to slip.

3.64 is too short even for the 2.5L engine for which it was intended. You need to load the 3.5L up, 3.45 or lower if you can find it.

A 83 will be a single pump car, at least my 84 323 was.

Fuel pump relay?? Pull it out and have a look at the terminals, do they look like clean shiny copper or burnt and brown. Pump relay can cause unexplanned cutting out and/or hard starting

How does it idle when the ICV has it's wiring disconnected?? Also check for play in the throttle body shaft

I thoughht the reference sensor was on the front pulley and the sensor on the plug lead went straight to the diagnostic plug on the engine. The sensor on mine was broken and seemed to have no effect the running of the engine.

Checked the throttle position switch???

Just wondering if it was head gasket, the car has been driving around with this problem for about 30-35,000km. Also haven't noticed any milky or sludgy oil during oil changes. Would I have noticed this if it was a blown head gasket?

The gasket may have failed or a crack formed between the combustion chamber and water gallery only, so you don't necessarily get any oil contamination. Sometimes electrolysis can open up the water gallery until there just isn't enough cylinder head for the gasket to seal against anymore.

They are NOT generous and include possible sizes of:

195 for a 7"

205 for a 7.5"

215 for a 8"

245 for a 10"

etc.

These sizes seem a little extreme. My old Toyota would fail on its factory wheels/tyres. 195 on a 8"rim.

I don't think the facelifts use two pump setups like the PFL.

The PFL uses one pump in the tank, a low pressure one.. and another near the engine somewhere for high pressure.

Not exactly, my PFL 323 and 325 had single pump systems with no intank pumps at all, my 88 FL 318 had twin pumps and I have had two 89's one had a twin pump set up and the other only had a single high pressure pump in the tank.

Keep things simple and replace like with like.

I believe a lot of them mount on the firewall tho?

Some might, mine doesn't. There must be thousands of variations to choose from

Why limit yourself to Nissan racks??, just about all front wheel drives use racks that steer from behind the king pins.

The windows will have the brand name "Armourplate" on them if it is South African assembled as opposed to Sekurit.

If the fuel filler says you can use leaded petrol then it cant use a oxygen sensor, the two are incompatable.

As for the smell, I would suspect an old/bad fuel line before I suspected bad mixture control.

I had a brand new thermostat from TMBMW cause the exact problem you describe. The temp would sit way too high at around the 3/4 mark even when the engine was not working all that hard, then when you really pushed to it would get even hotter (almost into the red) then drop suddenly back to normal for a few seconds, then settle back to 3/4 again. Just a dud thermostat striaght out of the box, a replacement fixed it. The fan has no effect on the cooling system once the cars road speed gets above a fast walk, I have driven around with no fan to test just what effect the fan has and it appears to do almost nothing unless the car is sitting still. Even with no fan at all the temp is rock steady as long as the car is moving.

my warning light in my e30 came on yesterday for my brakes when i broke, i drove it up the road today but no light. can anyone tell me how much longer i can safely use these brakes as i need to use my car to get to uni and dont have any money till thursday

If the light has come on and gone off again it is more likely to be caused by a loose connection in the wiring rather than actual pad wear. Once the sensor wire has been broken by touching the disk the light stays on until it is replaced.