Thanks man!
Started disassembling the subframe today. Will do a lot of clean up and touching up of a few areas of rust.
3.73 posi rear end. At 156k miles the clutches may be a bit worn but I’m not really up to dive into a rebuild. Stick to new output seals. Not sure about screwing with the pinion seal, doesn’t seem to be leaking so probably leave well enough alone. I have to have some limits.
Must be a way to test it.
Last edited by clarkitect; 11-26-2020 at 04:53 PM.
I am sure someone will know
No e30s again.
Well, got a bunch of stuff cleaned up and rebuilt.
Pulled diff cover and output flanges to replace gaskets and seals. Cleaned everything up and touch up painted the housing. Looks better.
Decided to use the OEM type diff mount since I had it on hand. Old one seemed fine really, but replaced anyway.
Rusty ass brake parts in need of some attention.
Vinegar soak to remove rust.
Vinegar soak worked better for other rusty parts, but coupled with the 6" wire wheel on my bench grinder, parts cleaned up nice in preparation for repainting.
Painted with Duplicolor Caliper Paint spray can.
Ready to install!
These speed sensor wire coverings rot like autumn leaves.
Solution: some flexible wiring covers from McMaster. 3/16" ID, 1/4" OD flexible UV resistant should last the lifetime of the car.
It was a bit of pain to dismantle, cut the connector, slide wires into new tubes, solder, and reassemble. ended up with a bit of taped harness at the end, but will all be under the seat when installed, so nbd I guess.
Also recovered the brake pad wear sensor wiring.
Next up are the trailing arms. Pulled the TABs to replace. They didn't seem bad to me, but will be replaced anyway since I am here.
Need to figure out how I am going to pull part the hubs and bearings so I can refinish all the parts and replace the shot bearings. Probably going to need to rent/borrow the tool from O'Reilly's since that is one item not in my toolbox.
Last edited by clarkitect; 12-07-2020 at 07:54 AM.
I made a bearing puller from some 2.5" schedule 40 pvc and big washers. then used some all thread as the rod and its worked on four bearings, so far. it was just junk I had laying in the garage and around the back of the garage but it keeps pulling those bearings out
No e30s again.
Oh and one other thing. I was hoping to rehab the axles with new boots and grease etc, but unfortunately the inner CV joints are far too worn out. the grooves in the main housing for the little balls have too much play in them now, including a little ridge, so the joints bind up. Disappointing. I plan to hold onto them for now, and if I find a decent set of used axles, will rebuild eventually. For now I thought it was worth $98 to throw at these cheapo replacements from China. If they don't work out, I will just change them again.
Anyone ever use these:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SurTrack-Pa...ac18%7Ciid%3A1
Not as nice as original.
You’re an inspiration haha. Used some steel plates and the lug bolts to pop the hub, then 3/4” threaded rod, 3” pvc pipe coupling, a large 3/4 drive socket, and some steel plates. Boom.
All this crap disassembled.
Not too bad for going on 33.
Sanding and painting can start now.
Added some pix to this post because I know people are interested lol.
Last edited by clarkitect; 12-21-2020 at 01:00 PM.
awesome!
No e30s again.
Well, continuing to clean, paint, and starting to reassemble. Plated parts I painted with this stuff.
While I got the driveshaft out, might as well deal with this nastiness:
New delrin bushing pressed in. Bought from ebay seller.
Pressing in the TA bushings. Went super easy with this assembly lube and highly specialized tooling.
Milled the inside edge of a 2" PVC pipe coupling to make a super duper handy tool for the subframe bushes.
All my nervousness was needless, these things go right in no problem. Again with the lube.
Yeah, I got some green blanket wedged in there. Grr.
Forgot to take a picture of the wheel bearing press tools, but it was a 3/4" threaded rod with nuts, washers, and some discs cut from 1/2" plywood. Used Lubriplate assembly grease to make them glide right in.
Getting anxious to start getting this thing reinstalled.
Question on torquing the TABs - I assume I need to have the trailing arms set at normal ride height before torquing them down. Will be easiest with the whole thing in the car, but looks like the nuts and bolts might be hard to access? How have people done this?
Last edited by clarkitect; 12-21-2020 at 11:21 AM.
Looking good, again
No e30s again.
Thanks, trying to be careful and do a nice job. Not screw anything up.
I gotta say, overall this is pretty enjoyable. Much more so than the 37k mile E38 I screwed around with last winter, that was a waste of time. This car is in much nicer shape underneath, not much rust to deal with.
Last edited by clarkitect; 12-21-2020 at 12:28 PM.
Well, got the rear end basically put back together. Hard to take decent pix on the ground, but a couple highlights.
Old nastiness.
Refreshed:
Bearings installed, painted backing plates, and springs installed, shocks installed.
Rebuilt the shifter while I was at it. Ten years of rubbery crap shifting have come to an end.
Diff going in.
Last edited by clarkitect; 01-27-2021 at 08:08 AM.
Bearings looked ugly but seemed to roll smoothly.
Hard to get these things apart without breaking the little plastic tabs on the cage that hold them together. Didn't think that was critical once they were fastened in with the nuts.
Grease the inner race, drop in ten bearings, more grease, drop in cage, more grease, eleven bearings, install seal, install outer race, flip, install inner race.
Got a little carried away with the grease, so ended up cleaning some out while putting back together.
PSA: If you haven't flushed your brake fluid or rebuilt your calipers in 30 years, now is a good time.
OMG
Guess I figured out why the pedal was so soft and spongy. I wonder what is inside the ABS pump? Deal that that soon I guess, but for now, calipers.
- - - Updated - - -
Went with the solid rubber control arm bushings. Stiffer than stock, but soft enough for my wife's delicate hands on the steering wheel of this car. It's hers.
Great use for the front wheel hub while the bearing is out. Thanks to the rtsauto.com website, pretty handy with lots of good tips!
I didn't even paint these lolipops, just cleaned them up, washed the cosmoline off with gasoline. Works like a champ.
For alignment on these solid bushings, the little tabs on the bushings align with the arrow on the (naturally) side of the bracket I didn't photograph.
Last edited by clarkitect; 01-27-2021 at 07:52 AM.
Cleaned up and touched up strut housings.
Struts have only a few thousand miles on them, so reused them, but new spring pads, strut mounts, bump stops.
Felt kinda bad replacing the mounts, old ones were solid, bearings just felt gritty even after a thorough cleaning.
Installed rebuilt steering rack from Rack Doctors. Pretty good deal but bummed they paint the rack. This @#$%ing thing is a major PITA.
Painted backing plate. Replaced a buncha fasteners with stainless steel.
Structural fasteners got the phosphate and oil treatment to help prevent any rust. Car is not even driven in the rain so hopefully won't be an issue.
Coming along.
Dang. It's going to be brand new and beautiful when you are done
No e30s again.
Well, ordered a rebuilt driveshaft from driveshaft specialists out of TX. Had the option of a new driveshaft with grease fittings on the u-joints, or a rebuilt with the OEM u-joints. What came looked great, but didn't look remanufactured, it looked new.
Compared to original DS:
Anyway, it is now installed on the car so pitter patter.
While I am at it, might as well address seeping VC gasket and give the valves a little tweaking.
Pretty clean inside.
Cleaned up the cover. Sure wish I had a vapor honing cabinet.
Couple minutes with some sandpaper to give it a little pop. Ooh.
So the car is back on its feet and looks lifted. Haven't actually rolled it back and forth on the ground to see if that'll settle it a bit more, but I am regretting not springing for lowering springs and E90 drop hats.
Been waiting on some parts and doing a few odds and ends. Sent the injectors out to be cleaned and tested. Installed some new plugs.
Ordered a new muffler from Rockauto. Was sold as a Walker 46748 stainless steel muffler. What came seems to be stainless steel, painted, a little beat up, with Starla branding on it. Whatever, for $200, ordered and delivered in less than 24 hours, I can't complain. It seems to be pretty nice quality.
I had some ding dong install a used exhaust on this car about 5 or 6 years ago, and turns out he hacked up the outlet pipes of the cat and put in some smaller diameter pipes, creating a restriction.
The innards of the cat seem fine, it's not clogged, so I took it and some pieces of pipe from the old muffler to a craftsman for repair.
Lovely work right there. Can't wait to bolt this all on and hear how it sounds. It was horribly raspy before, the old muffler is full of crap.
Fuel injectors flow tested, cleaned, then retested for flow and leaks. All passed within 2% flow, so ready to go. Pretty good for $17 per injector from www.injectorrepair.com.
He replaced the broken pintle caps, good ones remain.
Now need to finagle these back into the intake manifold.
nice.
so close to driving it again
No e30s again.
Last edited by clarkitect; 02-04-2022 at 10:46 AM.
very nice work - thanks for posting!
Thanks man! Hopefully there's some useful tidbits for someone in here.
Project is in its final stages I hope.
Exhaust system installed like stock for the first time since we've owned this jalopy. Mounting flanges properly bolted with oem gaskets.
New hangers.
Got the injectors installed and the car running. Took it out for a quick ride and noted that the brakes still feel spongy and the car is slow as hell. Shifter is not as snickey snick as I had hoped. But no rattles over bumps and car tracks straight, which is pretty good since I just eyeballed the alignment at this point. Car has settled about 1/2" but still looks like a gasser. Annoying.
Going to need to do something with this front end. I hate to pull it all apart again but I should be able to do it much faster now. Brakes I think I need to take it to a dirt road and jam on the brakes to get the ABS pump operating to see if I can bleed more air out of the system.
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