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Thread: 1979 320i Daily Build

  1. #76
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
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    San Antonio, Tx
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    430
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    1977 320i
    If I had seen this earlier I would have offered to buy a rear strut brace. That is a very nice set-up you made.

  2. #77
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    Sep 2005
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    monterey, ca.
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    14,486
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    e21, e30 m3. e46 330ci
    I assume you got the driveshaft from the same car you got the G240 from so the first thing I would do is check that the OP didn't misalign the ujoints, I've seen it before.
    Tom D

    77 e21 - m42
    88 e30m3
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  3. #78
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    Feb 2016
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    Sacramento, CA
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    1979 E21 320i
    Entirely possible...I replaced the csb and marked everything, so it went back as it was, then put it in. That'd be the main variable. I might suck it up and get a refurbished one though, just because the later models were so much more adjustable spline-wise
    -John

  4. #79
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    DFW TX USA
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    1,447
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    1983 320I, 1986 325E
    Quote Originally Posted by Somjuan View Post
    Well, the good news is that the air conditioning system now works, the bad news is that the compressor sounds like it has a knock. I added 27 oz of R-134a to the retrofitted 1984 318i bosch compressor, is it possible that the system is undercharged? Vent temps are great at 30+ miles an hour, so that's nice, but no idea how long it will last
    My York brick compressor has a knock. It worked all of last summer though.

  5. #80
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    Feb 2016
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    1979 E21 320i
    Quote Originally Posted by Thecatmilton View Post
    My York brick compressor has a knock. It worked all of last summer though.
    The yorks must be made of sterner stuff! I'm just going to save up for a new compressor. I'm fed up with having them fail. I'll slap in a new condensor and a bigger aux fan. The aux fan gave up the ghost too, so I'll probably do the electronic fan conversion at the same time.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by WantingAfunE21 View Post
    If I had seen this earlier I would have offered to buy a rear strut brace. That is a very nice set-up you made.
    Thanks for the compliment! It seems like it was pretty effective at getting the job done. Now that I have the measurements, I'd be happy to supply you with what ended up being my final drawings if you or anyone else wants them. For programming on an older machine, the public ones were missing some measurements I needed.
    -John

  6. #81
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    Feb 2016
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    Sacramento, CA
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    1979 E21 320i
    A small update, I've been gathering bits and pieces as the local yards had a sale and I found a source for a few things locally.

    So far I've sourced:
    -Rear sway bar
    -E34 headlights / spare buckets to experiment with
    -Clear turn signal indicators
    -LED strips to solder together and see if they will be bright enough in the rear tail-lights
    -Rear battery installation kit

    So I'm gonna install those and see what's what. Just pulled the starter today because it finally went. Zero fun, and so tempting to just pull the smog equipment while I'm there. What gauge wire should I use for the replacement ground wire? Thicker, or the same? I was going to add a engine to chassis ground while I was at it
    -John

  7. #82
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    1979 E21 320i
    Whoohoo! Got the e34 lights to sit properly in the modified buckets. Small victories. Now to do the other side, clean/paint them,and properly wire them up
    Attached Images Attached Images
    -John

  8. #83
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    Feb 2016
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    1979 E21 320i
    E34 lights fully installed! Nice and bright
    Attached Images Attached Images
    -John

  9. #84
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    Sep 2007
    Location
    Houston, Tx
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    1,978
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    '78 320i
    Very nice! That's a good mod

  10. #85
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    Feb 2016
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    Sacramento, CA
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    1979 E21 320i
    Let me preface this by saying my friend had a free subwoofer for me in need of some repair.

    One thing led to another, and I now have a solid sounding, stock looking (save my head unit) sound system. Pretty simple setup that I had help figuring out and spent about five hours soldering/stripping/installing wires. It's not looking too clean in the trunk right now because I wanted to be sure I wired everything right, but it sounds absolutely beautiful. I have a single RCA output, so it could be better surround wise, but it's more than adequate for my needs.

    Before this, the analog fader knob prevented me from playing more than two speakers at a time, and introduced a lot of distortion.

    So here's what I did:

    -16ga wire for all the speakers, two polks and two kickers (both were on sale from when I got them with the car)
    -12 ga wire for the sub (JL Audio 10w4)
    -Clarion five channel amp (late 90s, fully integrated)
    -8ga power and ground to amp

    Again, it sounds great. I haven't added any sound deadening yet, which might change it up a bit, but the subwoofer comes in nice and subtle. Still tweaking all the settings. Terry Gross sounds better than ever
    -John

  11. #86
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    Feb 2016
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    1979 E21 320i
    Adapted hub drawing.png

    A little sneak preview at what I've been working on while I've had the front hub out for new races and bearings. While I was in there I took just a couple measurements. With this I'm hoping to open up e28 front rotors and some form of four pot brake. Haven't worked it out entirely yet, but this'll have the benefit of not being impossible/expensive to find (e12 hubs, anyone?) as well as not changing the wheel offset or the stock bearing size. That said, I might change the bore sizes for larger bearings just for reliability, but as it is I already have a replacement set. I intend to combine this with the e28 rear end for a medium case diff and all the extra fixings that entails.

    In other news I also ended up installing a black e28 manual seat e-brake cover. Whipping up some new leather surrounds for it for kicks and giggles. The heater valve went out, so in lieu of spending $100 on a new one I'm just gonna bypass it for now. And on top of that, saving pennies for the air conditioning system upgrade I need...again. And on top of that, I'm going really slowly on reupholstering these sport seats.

    I may have slight car ADHD.

    And I definitely have the regular kind.
    -John

  12. #87
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    Feb 2016
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    1979 E21 320i
    I'm here to confirm that an e36 318i aluminum radiator with the built in overflow tank can in fact be grafted into the e21. In order to do it though, the battery has to be migrated from the stock location for the following reasons:

    -The battery tray has to be removed
    -As a result, the carbon canister has to be moved
    -And lastly the G17 ground must be moved. I chose the wheel well.

    Here's a picture of the goods mostly installed:
    unnamed-1.jpg

    For the installation I used two radiator hoses from the local autozone and the stock e36 overflow line. If you were feeling particularly brave, I'm sure you could get away with 3/4" heater hose. In order to bleed the system the expansion tank must be attached to the flow of coolant. On the stock e36, it runs into a copper(?) pipe on the driver side, not unlike what already exists in our car in the same location. However, on the e21 there is no expansion tank as we all know unless you have a 320/6. This leaves us with the options of

    -Fabricating a new pipe with an extra, proper, adaptor for the e36 hose (Good if you can braze)
    -Splicing into an existing line with a tee fitting which is what I chose because I was feeling lazy and all my rubber is new anyway.

    There are two more options when you splice it, you can either disconnect your heater core as I did because my valve was shot or slice one of the lines in two and attach there. I simply joined the lines and teed in at the top. The angle takes some work so as not to kink things, but it can be done. I used a 3/4" tee connection with barbed ends and hose clamps.

    I found that the stock mounts worked, but I needed to slightly bend them outward. There's still plenty of clearance between the engine fan and the radiator. At the top of the radiator I used the existing bolt hole to mount it and drilled through the top of the radiator. Easy-peasy. Doesn't move.

    The radiator was then attached using these molded hose numbers from autozone which were cut to fit but have the proper angles.
    -#72115
    -#71718

    If you are using the e30 318i ac compressor as I was, you will have a rough time attaching the low pressure side without interference between the lower hose and the thermostat. The cure is moving to a Sanden 508 where the ports are on the rear of the compressor. Mine was dead anyway, so no real loss.

    My temperature gauge didn't move above half sitting in my garage in the sweltering Sacramento heat (105* F) for twenty minutes bleeding it, without the electric fan connected. All the hoses feel as they should.

    Hope this helps someone!
    -John

  13. #88
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
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    Sacramento, CA
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    151
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    82' E21 / 06 E60 M5
    nice build man! and local too .. definitely need to link up some time and check out your e21 .. cant wait till i get mines back on the road and do some of your mods to mines too!
    SemperFi
    BMW CCA Sacramento Vally Chapter

  14. #89
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    1979 E21 320i
    Thanks! Have any photos of yours?
    -John

  15. #90
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    Jan 2011
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    Sacramento, CA
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    82' E21 / 06 E60 M5
    Quote Originally Posted by Somjuan View Post
    Thanks! Have any photos of yours?
    probably the only good pic i have of it at the shop lol
    Attached Images Attached Images
    SemperFi
    BMW CCA Sacramento Vally Chapter

  16. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by carlos916 View Post
    probably the only good pic i have of it at the shop lol
    Man, I love the black coloration on these cars. The american bumpers are hit or miss for me though depending on the angle. I might put on a motorsport front bumper replacement to replace mine, there's a guy in SF with one for sale.

    Here's what I've been up to for the last week on and off. I've been removing this dash from a donor car for reupholstery. For the sake of rehosting the image I used to get it off from underneath, here's someone else's reference photo for all the nuts on the bottom. If anyone knows where this came from, I'd love to give credit. 9mm nuts were in all the locations marked.

    IMG_1289.JPG

    So many things had to be removed to get there. Lucky me, this'll coincide with repairing the vents and vent controls, and maybe the heater valve. Though frankly that's unnecessary in this climate and super low on my list of priorities vs. cost.

    Here's where I am as of now

    IMG_1335.jpg

    With that, I checked just how much black leather I have vs. the size of this...plenty to spare! Very excited
    -John

  17. #92
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    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Cool! I've been wondering how hard it would be to get out. Looking forward to seeing your successful result

  18. #93
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    Feb 2016
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    You and TheCatMilton inspired me to crack open the evap box, turns out that this is probably the easiest method. What did you end up using to reseal it? I'd hate to do that twice
    -John

  19. #94
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    Today I started to work on getting the existing cracks repaired and finding any underlying ones. Keeping in mind this is coming from a donor car and is in much worse shape than my currently installed one, here's where I ended up at the end of dremel-ing out everything. I'll be following this tutorial from Youtube. (Click here)

    1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg

    Pretty rough. They don't look it from that height, but most of the cracks extended down to the metal. Didn't find too many holes, everything is super reparable so far. For this method, I'm welding plastic to the underlying structure, so I made a large v-channel and sanded the vinyl next to the newly created channel. As far as plastic goes, the underlying material is polyurethane and what I'll be adding on top is actually a uv resistant nylon for flexibility when blended with polyurethane. Lucky me, this material can be found in...zip ties. Not all of them, but check the packaging and you'll find it. So armed with a soldering iron with an old tip and a lot of time, here's a half hour later on the back passenger side. In theory, assuming that the zip ties are what the packaging say they are, this'll end up being a more heat resistant and flexible blend at the borders of the old cracks.

    5.jpg

    Not the greatest, but after this I'll be going over the top with a thin layer of padded dash filler followed by a thin layer of padding and then the leather. So it should be hidden.

    Cheers!
    John
    -John

  20. #95
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    Dec 2006
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    Vestal, NY
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    321
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    E30S62, E21S54, E31S85
    John great post about the dash repair. I plan to do the same to my e21 dash in a couple months. I watched the video and see it's a lot of work but when done it really could be worth it. If you sand the padded dash filler it should all turn out much better, but that's where I'd take the most time!


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  21. #96
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    Feb 2011
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    Quote Originally Posted by Somjuan View Post
    What improvements did you notice? Never put one in before, not sure if I'll really be able to tell the difference in the seat
    If you install a good quality strut bar you WILL feel a positive difference in handling of the car. Same goes for a rear strut bar. I am very pleased with the Weichers bars that I sourced from Schmiedmann, a BMW tuner company on the internet. John

  22. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Adkins View Post
    If you install a good quality strut bar you WILL feel a positive difference in handling of the car. Same goes for a rear strut bar. I am very pleased with the Weichers bars that I sourced from Schmiedmann, a BMW tuner company on the internet. John
    Funny you should say that, I just installed a front strut bar a couple weeks ago and wooooow, that made a huge difference. It's fun going one thing at a time. It's really well planted now, but if I want to oversteer it's much easier to get it there by over-revving. Still have to work on the weight distribution just a tad, but that'll come with time. In the meantime it is a daily driver so I try not to beat on it too much.

    Quote Originally Posted by M3fan4eva View Post
    John great post about the dash repair. I plan to do the same to my e21 dash in a couple months. I watched the video and see it's a lot of work but when done it really could be worth it. If you sand the padded dash filler it should all turn out much better, but that's where I'd take the most time!
    Thanks! It's definitely a chore. I'm actually not entirely certain I'll end up needing much filler, if any. The plastic is proving fairly easy to form. Once I get the whole cover sewn together I'll slap it on and see how well the foam covers the imperfections.

    In other news, I'm slowly plugging away at making progress here. I got bored with filling the cracks so I started to make a pattern and figured out the kind of stitching I want to go with. Don't let the pictures fool you, the leather is very close to a matching black to the original dash.

    1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg


    4.jpg

    I'm still kind of torn on the look for the french seam, my friend thinks that it looks too much like it's piping running underneath, and I agree to an extent. That's four layers of leather, then foam, then foam, then leather. I could get rid of the foam on the edges and give it more of a skivved look. Thoughts? Regardless I'm happy with how the $20 sewing machine is holding a good line of stitching at appropriate tautness.

    Here's the dash, plugged away on this for a few more hours today. Probably another ten left before I get into actually putting a finished surface to it

    6.jpg

    This project is definitely the most time consuming one I've picked yet. Probably fifteen hours in taking my time as I go but getting faster. The heat of the plastic welding actually made a couple more small cracks, so it's kind of unclear how much more work I'll have by the end.
    Last edited by Somjuan; 07-18-2017 at 05:55 PM.
    -John

  23. #98
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    Still plugging away, the dash is slow going but the entire back end is done. Every time I heat it up I swear a new crack forms. Almost there, the map pocket is pretty much all that's left. I did repair my snapped engine mount and tune the wur with a pressure gauge, so that's been pretty awesome. The idle stays pretty low at around 4-500 for the first couple minutes, but it evens out nicely.

    Otherwise, scared up a particularly obscure aftermarket evap box with a much larger cage fan (at least twice the size) behind the evaporator, as well as hard lines through the firewall. Cold blowing in the future, might see if I can put a modern blower in there and wrap it up nicely with the highest CFM fan I can possibly have
    Last edited by Somjuan; 09-08-2017 at 04:37 PM.
    -John

  24. #99
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    Aug 2013
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    gainesville,fl.
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    1977 320i
    Hey John,
    So what DID you do to make the e34 lights work? I've had some for a while now. Did you JUST use the single light. I forget what they're called now.


  25. #100
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    Nah, I used both. Disclaimer, this was by far the most hack job I've done on the car just because I had a spare stock bucket set if it didn't work. I literally cut the buckets down to about flush of the outer rings that the lights sit in to fit the american (non-euro) set. They work and they'll stay until I can find funds for the proper e30 setup later. Here's a photo of what I cut off, everything is working perfectly! Adjustment needs to he very gentle though so as not to bend what's left of the rings. Zero modification to the car or wiring itself so I can revert it back later on to stock if desired.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    -John

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