85 e30 318i Need some help De-Ricing and Tuning my 1st Bimmer..

[Stopher85]

First and foremost, I appreciate the info that I've obtained here in the past, and appreciate any help with solving my current issues. I picked up an 85 318i M10 177xxx miles, and solid, this spring, and have been amazed at how much work it Needed...wow....but things are coming along pretty good, no major issues...yet. I'm having a Cold Starting issue, also my temp gauge does not work? Related? Planning on pulling temp sensor, and cleaning along with the ICV, hopefully not replacing. My temp gauge twitches when key is on and that is all it does, never moves. I checked, and cleaned the temp gauge's prongs in the cluster when I replaced the speedo gears, which leads to my next Q. My Odometer still will not work, speedo works fine tho. I also noticed my tach recently, seems like it isn't keeping up with RPM's after 4-5xxxrpm's? It seems to be reading less than it should, this happened before I pulled the cluster, so ruling out me damaging the Tach, I hope...any help is appreciated, Thanks Chris

[bmwdirtracer]

The gauge's sender is not related to your cold start issue - the engine computer uses a different sensor. The temp sensor is extremely cheap...like ten bucks. The gauge not working could easily be a bad connection at that sender.

Did you get the correct gearset from Odometer gears.com? There are both Motometer and VDO types. If you got the correct set, it's likely there was an error in installation. (It was the odometer gears you replaced, wasn't it?)

The tach "not keeping up" would seem to me to be indicative that you have a six cylinder instrument cluster in your 4 cylinder car.

[dworthy]

Don't forget Chris that the SI board can cause the temp gauge not to work properly too as well as other gauge issues. (I love those old M-10's!)

[Stopher85]

Thanks for the feedback Chris. I should have probably mentioned that previous owner removed the SI board for unknown reasons. I noticed this when I was replacing the Speedo gears. The gears that I replaced were an exact match,size/teeth, as the old ones I removed, which were soft and decrepit. I will be removing my cluster again to further examine. My cluster is labeled "Motometer", I'm assuming I bought the correct gears due to how well they all fit, and mesh together?? Anyway I will be looking into this further, and eventually want to install the SI board, that was removed. With just a lil help starting cold, the car idles well when warm, and after a new fuel filter, there is no sign of misfire, or chug. At one point my Tachometer registered 6300rpms, I was pushing a bit, but the car handled it well with no problems. It seems that my tachometer now, will not move past 5500rpms, like it gets "sticky" at that point??? Hard to explain, but I feel it should be registering 65xxx vs. 55xxx....IDK?

- - - Updated - - -

Yes. Agreed. This lil 4 cylinder is growing on me! Me and Dad have always played with the ol'VW's 1600cc's, and the simplicity of this engine reminds me of the VW's! I've discovered that the prev owner of my car, removed the SI board...along with many other mind boggling decisions! Anyway, with some research, and good advice from some Bimmer Vetrans, maybe I'll get this car straightened out yet!

[dworthy]

Normally what happens to the SI board is the batteries go bad. You can find some on ebay or purchase a new one. Just remember that the valves needs to be adjusted every other inspections aka Inspection II. On that car should be around every 4 years or 30k miles. I think the SI board was set-up at 7,500 mile intervals, or 12k km's for each service, but it also depends on how you drive the car too.

[Stopher85]

I did order a new valve cover gasket, planning to check the valves, and I'm sure do some adjusting, hopefully their not to far outta whack, and then I'm going to be getting some exhaust work done, have a slight leak just before the CAT, and am planning to order a new O2 sensor just because, think I'm gonna have to superheat the exhaust to get the old one out, rusty! Then I'll be looking into shopping for some used parts- SI board/stock air box