Betty the Black E21 BMW 320i

[Senor_Taylor]

Slept on my sunroof disaster, did more thinking, and figured out where I had gone wrong.

Took it all apart and tried to massage my managed pieces back into the correct shape. I believe the rails are too damaged to ever get working properly, but I was able to get the sun roof to go back in, be aligned, and even have the sunroof headliner installed correctly! It can't open, but it can at least tilt now and the headliner looks a lot better.

It's wild that it took me 4 e30s and 2 e21s to finally understand these sunroof mechanisms.



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[Senor_Taylor]

I made a video to explain these crazy sunroof mechanisms. I fear that mine is too far gone to ever be saved. We'll see what the future holds. 

[Senor_Taylor]

Made a low offer on a set of OE Sport Package wheels (13"x5.5"!!!!!!!) BBS wheels with good summer tires on them. Buyer accepted it and turned out he was in Richmond. I was already heading down to meeting a buyer for a transmission from VA beach and I also needed to pick up a free M3 bumper I was getting from Cobetto, so the stars aligned and I knocked out all three in one round trip to Richmond this morning.

As I was walking out, I spotted one Recaro seat in the corner and inquired about it. Ended up getting that for a very good deal too! Now just to find one more seat and I'll have an almost complete 320is!

The Fiesta was completely packed on the way back.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Having a parts car is so nice.

Swapped intake boot to one not shredded.

Ordered an owners manual from eBay for completeness.

Also bought a gas lid off of someone else doing a part out and now have good paint on the whole car.



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[Senor_Taylor]

Engine is out of the parts car. About to start harvesting the fuel injection parts as the person buying the engine only wants the long block for his Weber converted e21.

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[Senor_Taylor]

This car was originally optioned with fog lights (big deal!!) But did not have them installed when I bought it. It came with one fog light that was broken in the trunk. The parts car also has two dogs and one was broken. Took some time to piece together the good parts and got one fog light that works and one that doesn't, but both are complete (one is cracked) and they bolt right up. Got them wired up and the switch still works! I really love the look.

The OE bosch fogs are NLA so it's a bit of street cred to have these on there.

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[Senor_Taylor]

I take the E21 to cars and coffee about 40 minutes from my house every Sunday. I've made friends with another E21 guy out there and have been bringing him little parts he needs for his beautiful hennarot 320i. This weekend he returned the favor with some 323i trailing arms with disc brakes! I can't wait to get these installed.



Later that day I took the E21 on a trip about an hour away to buy an E39 for my roommate (Tyler).



The car did well the whole way back until I was 4 miles from home on a dark, narrow, steep hill with lots of traffic. Engine died halfway up a hill and I couldn't make it into any driveway and there was nowhere to turn off so I dumped it in a ditch and partially blocked traffic. I waited a while for traffic to die down and I rolled back down the hill and into someone's driveway. Knocked on the door of the house and explained my situation, and the lady's little puppy came out to see me, then peed on my shoes. I went back out to the car and started checking things and figured maybe the ignition module had died, so I asked Tyler if he could bring me a spare from the house (thanks parts car!). I posted on an E21 group asking for suggestions for things to check and someone suggested I check the fuel pump fuse. It seemed way too simple and I had overlooked it. Popped a new fuse in it and we were good to go. It's funny because I was checking voltages at each fuse the night before and noticed the fuel pump fuse was a newer style glass fuse and it was running pretty hot. I may clean up the contacts on all of the fuses and see if the car runs better. It seemed peppier, so I think the fuse may have had too much resistance and the fuel pump was not getting the amperage it needed. E21 adventures!

[Mateo8]

The car did well the whole way back until I was 4 miles from home on a dark, narrow, steep hill with lots of traffic. Engine died halfway up a hill and I couldn't make it into any driveway and there was nowhere to turn off so I dumped it in a ditch and partially blocked traffic. I waited a while for traffic to die down and I rolled back down the hill and into someone's driveway. Knocked on the door of the house and explained my situation, and the lady's little puppy came out to see me, then peed on my shoes. I went back out to the car and started checking things and figured maybe the ignition module had died, so I asked Tyler if he could bring me a spare from the house (thanks parts car!). I posted on an E21 group asking for suggestions for things to check and someone suggested I check the fuel pump fuse. It seemed way too simple and I had overlooked it. Popped a new fuse in it and we were good to go. It's funny because I was checking voltages at each fuse the night before and noticed the fuel pump fuse was a newer style glass fuse and it was running pretty hot. I may clean up the contacts on all of the fuses and see if the car runs better. It seemed peppier, so I think the fuse may have had too much resistance and the fuel pump was not getting the amperage it needed. E21 adventures!

if it is not the fuse (something to be determined later down the road after some miles of driving) check fuel filter (start at the driver side rocker, in the area between the seat and where the dead pedal is). Clogged filter can lead to overworking the pump, and resulting in popping fuses

[ViPER1313]

Also make sure that it’s not a poor connection with the fuse itself that is causing the issue. That might be why the fuse was hot.

This was a fuse I pulled out of the BMW that was not blown, and was the correct amperage, but had gotten so warm due to a poor connection with the blades that it melted all the plastic away.




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[Senor_Taylor]

Thanks guys. The entire fuel system is new. New filter, two new pumps, etc. These cars use old ceramic bullet fuses and they have a tendency to corrode. The fuse was not the correct one. Someone had replace it with one of those glass tube fuses. I don't suspect I'll have any issues after putting the correct one in.

[Senor_Taylor]

Since I bought the car, it idled at 1500 and it was way more annoying than you can think. I'm not making a joke when I saw I had to turn my car off at the starbucks drivethrough to order my coffee before cars and coffee (lots of jokes to be made there). I had been hunting vacuum leaks and found none and my last resort was perhaps the oil pan gasket leak causing a loss of vacuum. I was doing some late night forum browsing last night and saw one post where someone claimed their idle screw didn't turn as far as they thought it should. That seemed relevant to me because I had cranked on mine and it seemed bottomed out. I went outside this morning and unscrewed my idle screw to find all kinds of crud and corrosion coming out of the threads as the screw came out. Then I saw the o-ring fall out in two pieces.

Parts car to the rescue once again! I pulled the idle screw out of the parts car intake, inspected and cleaned it, then cleaned out the screw hole on my car and reinstalled everything. The screw rotates much more freely now and I was able to get the idle down to 800rpm with no issue!

Now that the idle was right, I was able to finally identify that exhaust rattle that annoyed me so much. When the idle dipped below 1000 rpm, the heat shield on the manifold would rattle around. I took it off and now I have a MUCH quieter and less shaky car!

[.RJ]

lulz glass tube fuses, my motorcycle uses those...

[Kaan]

when is the K swap going in?

[Senor_Taylor]

The original rear insulation was covered in dead mice and mouse poop. I ripped it out and threw it away immediately when I bought the car. The insulation in the parts car was good, so I cleaned it and threw it in my car today. I also swapped out one of the seat belts that was chewed up and also finished stripping the bad carpet from the parcel shelf. I plan to recover the parcel shelf soon, but I need to figure out what kind of material and whether or not I'll just buy a full carpet set for the car.

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[Senor_Taylor]

AKG is one of my sponsors for my E36, and I love their products, so I reached out about E21 parts. They only list one part on their website for this chassis, and it's delrin alternator bushings which I need. I know that the trailing arm bushings are the same as the e30 and the diff and subframe bushings should be similar to the 02, so I reached out to them. We reached an agreement and I'll be installing some AKG bushings on my car in exchange for confirming fitment and taking photos so that they can list these as E21 parts as well.

Transmission Mounts, Diff bushings, subframe bushings, alternator bushings, rear trailing arm bushings (to go on my 323i trailing arms) are all on the way!

[Senor_Taylor]

Also, some light reading.

https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article...bmw-320i-2

[Senor_Taylor]

[Senor_Taylor]

Swapped in some vinyl door cards.

Better passenger mirror.

Spent the day installing the AKG bushings. Transmission mount went in without issue. Improved shifter feel a lot. Dropped the subframe and pressure washed it. Installed the poly rear trailing arm bushings in the euro 323i trailing arms for my disc brake swap. Installed poly diff bushings as well and attempted to install the subframe bushings they sent me, but they don't seem to fit. This is kind of expected since I'm test fitting most of these parts for them, but these subframe bushings were specifically meant for the e21.

Everything is back together and there isn't much noticable changes except a bit more NVH and a smoother shifting action. That said, nothing was really worn out back there and the stock subframe bushings like really good, so there's not much to improve on. I hope to put new shocks and springs on it eventually, which make a big difference.

I recorded all of it and have a couple videos for Out Motorsports which hopefully will satisfy some folks.

Next up, valve adjustment, valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket. I noticed the differential is leaking from the pinion seal, the trans is leaking from the output shaft seal, and some other small things I need to tackle. The left speakers aren't working after I took them out to clean the sunroof drains. I have dash lights to install as well and eventually I need to nut up and do the alternator bushings, bit that requires taking off the oil filter housing and potentially the intake, which is very time consuming.

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[Senor_Taylor]

[Senor_Taylor]

New plugs and wires, and then a reset on the timing. She's running better than ever when warm.

Still seems to have a leaking injector. Running super rich and lots of pops and burbles on the overrun. I think that's my warm start issue too. These injectors are not serviceable, so I'll swap to the other set I have and start saving my pennies for some new ones.

Cold start takes a second, seemingly like there is no fuel in the lines and it has to prime. Warm start is quick, but will stall immediately unless you mash the accelerator. Then it will miss for a second like it's too rich, then clear up. If you do not catch it and it stalls in the hot start, then it takes forever to start. Like 30 seconds of cranking.

My thinking is an injector is leaking and pooling on top of the intake valve. On a cold start, it's had enough time to leak past the valve and it's just no fuel in the lines. On a hot start, there is still liquid fuel sitting on top of that valve. You get a chance to fire it off on the first crank since that fuel on top of the valve just falls into the cylinder and you can keep it alive with a lot of throttle. If you don't catch it, then the air fuel ratio is way off with that liquid fuel in there and it doesn't start, plus the lack of fuel in the lines. I think

Also, posted a video on Jake's thing of some brake service.