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Yeah we're definitely replacing the filter. Q400 ran a thing of injector cleaner through it already but this is clearly a bit beyond that. We figure on replacing the injectors as well, although we could have them serviced? Not sure which is better. Or which injectors we should get if we just replace them with new ones. FCP has a Bosch set/kit for $240, seems like $55-65 each everywhere else, then there's lots of refurb sets on eBay for like $100, or servicing seems to be pretty inexpensive. We can do $240 no problem, so why not? Thoughts?Originally Posted by dj Roo
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I guess that's just further confirmation of how well-built these engines are, injectors looking like they went through a carbon hellpit and still firing well enough to drive.
Rebuild vs replacement usually comes down to a judgment call and what time/money allows. It's hard for an injector to truly break. Most issues with their flow can be resolved by a new filter basket and an ultrasonic cleanse, then of course new o-rings. Sometimes the caps crack but those pop out easily (ours don't seem to have the caps though). There's also a simple DIY procedure to power the injector with a loose battery, allowing you to spray through the jets with carb cleaner.
Unless you have a shop nearby that can clean/refurb them, ordering a new set will get your beast back on the road faster. Refurbishing them yourselves would probably be the 2nd fastest action.
You sound ready to pull the trigger on the new set. If you go that route, it might still be worth cleaning your original set as a backup.
Always worth replacing an old fuel filter. Mine left me stranded on the left side of a narrow mountain, at like 1am and with AAA seemingly overbooked. After cranking it randomly for about an hour, trying not to kill the battery, it finally powered up and let me finish the 20 minute trip home. Thought it might have been the fuel pump but that situation has not been replicated since replacing the filter.
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I know, right? Unreal how this whole car just seems to *want* to go. Can't really say that about the E21, although it's really great right now. That car's name is Clio, after my late grandma's Siamese cat (sorry, no, nothing to do with the Renault, I just spelled it wrong, it should be Cleo), who was the complainingest cat I have ever known in my whole life and I've known a lot of cats!
Yep, just ordered new injectors and a filter. Sounds like a fun night... yes, the E21 did that to me once too. It was thankfully daytime, but I was headed up the ascending side of one of Portland's many bridges and it took a crap before I got to the crest. No breakdown lane or even bike lane, so I had to roll backwards very very slowly with the hazards on, which was a small sacrifice in itself
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We also did a smoke test with one of those little paint can setups, which was interesting! Copious smoke from just below the throttle body, which turned out to be coming from the nipple under the TB that is for .. uh, looks like evap purge valve and connects to charcoal canister? So we plugged that nipple. Not a huge change in running, sort of surprisingly given the amount of smoke coming from there. Did another smoke test straight into the TB since we'd removed the intake boot. No smoke anywhere at that point. So I guess that's .. good?
Now I really want to smoke test the m10 and maybe see why it idles at 1400!
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so Clio did something 8AFCC981-3EFB-4EAD-959F-AD85741028F7.jpg5279BD04-FB9C-4630-A6E7-9B624C352A97.jpg
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I love the idea but the OCD in me hates the hash marks. Easier than masking it off to spray it though for sure.
dj Roo
‘87 325is, ‘06 Z4
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the inspiration was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914
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l haven't seen it in person yet but Clio says it won't even sand off. whoever did that Maaco overspray made a perfect canvas for colored pencil
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The inspiration is period correct for the car at least.
dj Roo
‘87 325is, ‘06 Z4
Member
we are dirtbags. it would be strange to have a nice looking car!
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Exactly! And oddly enough, I happen to be a (mostly) Norwegian musician. The situation just could not be avoided lolThe inspiration is period correct for the car at least.
At least we are consistent with all these shitboxes!
UPDATE for today
Currently enduring a painful wait for the new fuel injectors from AutohausAZ, and really should be under the car scraping that 1/4-1/2" of road slime/oil/dirt off of everything rather than drawing with colored pencil on the thing. But since we're lazy dirtbag procrastinators, we opted to just replace the OBC backlight. Now we can see how many liters per 100km it thinks it's consuming! Does anyone know how to switch this to MPG? We like the temp in C and the clock in 24-hour, but my old brains ain't great at converting from l/100km to mpg...
Also don't tell Q400 but we'll have yellow hi-beams pretty soon
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For the OBC units, press AVG MPG, then press the small “reset” type button on the bottom right. You’ll need something small and pointy to press it. Maybe one of those colored pencils you have.
dj Roo
‘87 325is, ‘06 Z4
Member
so Clio320i has the new injectors installed in the rail and may have it running again tomorrow. lt'll be wild to see how it runs on 6 cylinders! also we have an idea for continuing the "paint" job, check this out:C33E1C11-2BE7-4C91-B79F-E405949F53ED.jpeg
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Weirdest livery ever but we can't not do it! I can't wait to make this car even weirder (also know that this is all likely temporary; we'll buff and polish this turd in time, probably, but for now we're having fun).
Ok Q400 was right, somehow I got the thing buttoned up today with brand new Bosch disc-type injectors and hey! No more raw gasoline smell out of the tailpipe at idle! And I *swear* it feels smoother and pulls stronger! but I could be making that up. Anyway, it's nice. Check engine light is more on than off, and stomp test still gives 1222 code - mixture off. I think it's time to replace the O2 sensor.
Small bitch here. This car has a problem with fasteners. One of the injector electrical connections has lost its little metal clip. I could only get two of the four bolts that hold the fuel rail in to thread properly. I hate mis-threading stuff into aluminum and I am pretty sure I did exactly that. Or maybe they were already screwed up and I just didn't remember. Add this to the following list:
Some of the valve cover studs are stripped.
I sheared one of the bolts that holds the upper timing belt cover on.
One of the threaded holes that you screw the distributor rotor into is missing its threads.
(At least) One of the studs for the intake manifold is missing a nut.
This is all really reminding me of my 20s with all those air-cooled VWs when we seemed to hold all the cars together with duct tape, rubber bands, paper clips and maybe a zip tie if we were fancy. So I guess it's not unusual for me but still I find it annoying because *expectations*
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Oh! Also did this today
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I actually kind of dig the yellow lights. Pretty unique and fits the classic style. Reminds me of how much I'm craving some ellipsoids, but that's a different world!
Whilst tag-teaming maintenance with my dad, he loves to remind me of the various odd fixes from "back in the day". Typically due to the lack of availability of various parts, him and his buddies would do all sorts of things to get their cars back on the road. If my memory were better and I wasn't relayed these stories while knee-deep in wrenching, I'd have some actual stories to share :P
One thing I do remember is that my dad had his own VW Beatle, which he modified with fiberglass bumpers to alleviate some weight. He enjoys speaking of the day he got pulled over and was kindly reminded that his vehicle was not street legal. Pretty sure he kept driving it like that until the next encounter and he could no longer feign ignorance.
On a different note, perhaps I'll fancify my E30 by replacing the worn CSB with some metal zip ties
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OMGE30 that’s hilarious about your dad and his VW! Come to think of it, the only thing I’ve ever been pulled over for is nonfunctional lighting; tends to go with old cars as we know. In fact my E21 is the first car I’ve ever owned that is younger than me!
Speaking of that one and CSB’s… it had this really annoying slappy sound from around there for some months, until last week when we finally tore into it, thinking it was the heat shield over the cat. Well, it *was* that, and more specifically it was the CSB flapping against the heat shield because the nuts were completely gone and the bolts were just sitting on top of the heat shield, CSB doing nothing, good inch, inch and a half of driveshaft play going on… we just laughed and bolted it back up. It’s so quiet now I can hear the 37 other rattles in that bucket of bolts!
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So I can definitely press that reset button, but nothing happens. Guess we’re staying in metric, which is fine really. Incidentally that same type of button is implemented in the digital clock in the E21 and it recently gave up the ghost, but since it defaults to 12:00, we just waited until midnight to set it. Used to be able to set that one to 24-hr but I forgot how (or never knew and only ended up doing it accidentally)For the OBC units, press AVG MPG, then press the small “reset” type button on the bottom right. You’ll need something small and pointy to press it. Maybe one of those colored pencils you have.
dj Roo
‘87 325is, ‘06 Z4
EDIT nevermind, Q400 is apparently a magician and capable of some kind of discourse with electrical gremlins and we now have MPG
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Last edited by Clio320i; 02-08-2022 at 08:39 PM.
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Good things happened when l was at work! Clio320i put it back together and it runs markedly better. l hit the rev limiter a couple times because l wasn't used to how hard it pulls now! l also got the windows working again, you old hands probably know what was happening: the window lock switch! We hooked it up backward when we put in the new OBC backlight.
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We are now on PAGE TWO of the maintenance pages in the back of the Bentley. Man, it's like every time we do something to this car it gets better! It's almost as if it likes us....
Today we adjusted the parking brake, so now that works, and replaced the fuel filter, and oh wow, that produced interesting results! 1) it's overall smoother 2) at startup, all the idiot lights now turn off immediately once it's running - previously, they'd stay on until we blip the throttle. 3) it is noticeably easier to drive at low RPM/low speed. Doesn't do that thing where it kind of bucks if you're in 2nd at 1200 RPM. It's really nice and smooth everywhere throughout the RPM range! And lastly 4) the CEL is OFF! I implored Q400 to do a stomp test anyway and it produced the best code of all: 1444 - No more faults.
Oh and we turned off that damned INSPECTION light by doing the thing with the jumper wire.
An opportunity has arisen for me/us to do a bit of a road trip this weekend, so that's what's next WHEEEEEE
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All right we're back after some interesting happenings over the last several days. The plan was to drive the E30 from Portland to Seattle (170 miles), then from Seattle to Eugene (270 miles), and then back to Portland from Eugene (100 miles). So the initial trip to Seattle went great, but while we were there we discovered a New Weird Sound. Scraping? A high-pitched almost whine/whistle but more like a scrape that was definitely correlated with engine speed, seemingly emanating from top/front of engine area. Engine running great.
So we did some listening (with a garden hose stethoscope too), googleing, thinking, more listening, and finally decided that it must be the timing belt rubbing on something like one of the covers. This checked out because we remembered that when we first did the timing belt, there were some significant and impressive grooves on the inside front of the upper timing belt cover, from both a former belt and a former tensioner. Also, when we did that job, we did not replace the tensioner pin nor spring.
So I drove the car back from Seattle to Portland (nervously at first, but then enjoyed the hell out of it). Parked it at home, and took the E21 down to Eugene and back, which really did not suck tbf.
Back home the next day or two, even though advice from the internets seemed to indicate we should try other diagnostics before tearing into the timing belt, we went straight to timing belt. Here's what we saw:
IMG_6897.jpg
Ignore what looks like punctures or something at the top of that belt - that's actually just water/coolant. Sorry about my sideways pics; usually I fix them, but you'll get the idea here.
Lower down, also all shifted toward the back of the car from center of the various pulleys:
IMG_6898.jpg
When we first got in there, it was clear that the belt was indeed touching *something* but as we (well, Q400 did the vast majority of this) proceeded with disassembly, whatever was actually touching got removed. I think upper timing belt cover? Anyway we aren't making this up, it WAS touching.
Check out this tensioner pin! Toward my thumb: new one. See the wear on the other? Is that enough to make the belt move that much??
IMG_6899.jpg
And here are the springs, new and old. Old one is shorter, softer - new one felt much stiffer on install.
IMG_6900.jpg
If these are indeed the culprits, dang, I didn't realize it was that important to replace them. We replaced the belt itself, even though our fairly new one looked pretty good (we just aren't into taking chances here), the tensioner, the spring, and the pin, and bolted everything back together.
Q400 insists it runs smoother, which I am very willing to believe. I'm a dumbass and can't tell beyond the fact that that horrible sound is gone. yey!
paper mechanic
good job. nice catch on the spring and tensioner. probably renewing mine now before the engine goes back in. replace them and see if the belt the walks back to center.
the pin is really only used to guide stuff into position. once the belt is on and timing is confirmed everything gets locked down. that is some excessive wear.
can we get a straight on shot of the upper and lower timing gears ? i'm not sure of the year of your engine but it sorta looks like you have a sintered upper gear and a stamped lower. it might just be the angle of the pic. the stamped gears are a time bomb and should be replaced. it would be odd if you have any stamped gears, i'm sure both were replaced by the e30 era, but i guess anything is possible.
i scrubbed this pic from the site :
timing_belt_gears.jpg
click on it to see it full.
Last edited by 82eye; 02-17-2022 at 12:31 PM. Reason: pic
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Dang it, we already put it all back together! I don’t think I have any more pics of this area but maybe Q400 does. The engine is reportedly original except the head, so the year should be 87, I assume, maybe 86?
paper mechanic
your upper - cam drive - looks sintered in the pics as it is thick and smooth on the back side.
your lower - oil pump drive - looks ribbed on the back side indicating stamped. examine the pics you provided closer. you'll see it. that's a well-known time bomb on an m20. that gear will shear off leaving you three ways screwed.
edit : on further thought the lower gear could also be contributing to the current issue. not sure it's responsible all on it's own though.
more edit : looking at the pic again - that's where it's rubbing on the inner housing.
Last edited by 82eye; 02-17-2022 at 01:59 PM.
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Oh shit, you're right. I see it now. P/N 11311717398, yes? Q400 says it's my turn lol
In other news, the brake pedal is all of a sudden being squishy. Guess we'll start with bleeding the system and assume we'll have to throw at least a couple parts at it too.
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