Project E30

[Chris]

3 day weekends are incredible...

Got a lot of small things done this weekend. Finally picked up both cars from the cage guy. The roll bars look great and are exactly how I wanted them done. I painted the bars and weld areas with rustoleum primer and will finish them up with a flat black next weekend. I'm not going to paint the entire inside of the car for now, but just wanted to get paint on the bar to protect it from rust.

I dropped my car back off to have a skid plate welded under the engine to protect the oil pan and have a battery tie-down fabricated to my battery so it doesn't come flying out.

My to do list is getting much smaller now, and my fear of not making Hyperfest is improving. My biggest concern is getting my new MD license and registering both cars. I just can't find the time to get into the DMV.

Next weekend I'll install the seats and then I just need to order harnesses, roll bar pads, a helmet, and possibly tires. Oh, still need to fix my gauges, but I found a group of ground wires under the steering column that someone cut and spliced back together- possibly why the gauges dont' work and keep blowing fuses. I'll probably have to take it to this European shop to figure out.

Check out the pics, there are a ton of them!

under "BMW project album 2"

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[BLINGMW]

kick ass man! Looks great! :!: :!: :!:

[ScottyB]

looks hella nice boobies!

[Chris]

Seats and roll bar are done!

I also had my cage guy weld in a skid plate to protect the oil pan and weld in a battery tie-down. Here are a few pics, the rest you'll find in the link at the bottom. Besides this, the car is "almost" finished. I'm going to bring it up to Annapolis this weekend from Richmond, so my hours and hours of traveling can stop. Enjoy!

Driver's seat:



Both seats in:



Cage primed and painted:




Skid plate:



Battery tie-down:





The rest of the pics are under "BMW project album 2"

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[ScottyB]

that rocks man. considering how much you love cages i can't imagine how happy you are

[Chris]

I trailered the car up to MD last weekend and also installed my 6pt g-force harnesses and roll bar padding. Now all I need are new tires, solve the electrical issue with my gauges, and inspect/register it.

I've got a question regarding mounting the harnesses. I just bolted the ends to the car in the stock seatbelt locations and for the sub belts, I drilled holes and used a backing plate. Should I re-do the mounts and buy eye hook bolts and clips so the ends are vertical rather than bolted flat to the floor? Hopefully that makes sense. Here are some pics:

Under "BMW project album 2"

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[Maengelito]

i ended up drilling the floor board and using the eye hook bolts for my sub belts.

w00t for b00bies, cant wait to see this car

[Evan]

bolts and backing plates are fine, thats how mine are

[Andy]

Boobies,

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but from I gathered from harness install manuals, it say that the attachment points should be perpendicular to the floorboard

[Chris]

damn gauges!

ever since I bought the car only the speedo has worked. If I replace one of the fuses, all the gauges will work for about 15 minutes or less and then it blows again. After looking through all the wiring under the steering column and pulling off electrical tape, I found some idiot in the past had cut and spliced tons of wires! Who knows why, probably some alarm or other component. Either way, its really frustrating and I spent some time troubleshooting, but it was beyond me.

I took it to a European shop in Annapolis, one of their mechanics has owned 12 E30's and has an E30 M3 with an E36 M3 engine, blah, blah... but has tracked it at Shenandoah... so I knew he had some real experience. Long story short, $350 later, they tell me everything works perfectly. I start driving it and within 3 minutes it blows the gauges again. I took it right back and left it for them to fix again. As of Friday, they said everything is working again (although I haven't been able to pick it up yet).

Anyone have any suggestions? I only have 2 weeks to get them working, and I don't want to spend any more money if possible. I feel I have enough of a reason to have them fixed and not be charged anymore since they wrote in my bill that "instrument cluster is operational again." The only thing they said about further repairs was that it would need to be driven for a long period in order to determine if repairs were successful.

[Dave]

well, obviously it didn't take a long period to determine it was fixed. If they "fixed" the problem, and it came back that fast, obviously something is still fucked up so they need to either give your dough back or fix it. $350 is a big chunk of change to do nothing to a car. Do you have a wiring diagram for the car? I hate to say it, but it sound like the only way you'll fix this is by either A) buying a new/used harness for that part of the car (not that is necessarily even an option) or B) check the wiring diagram and literally route out every wire in that area that might even remotely be related to the guage cluster (extremely time consuming and no guarantee, but you'll be able to look for a fucked up ground or something while you're at it).

Sounds to me like there might be a bare wire somewhere allowing a surge when it touches something somewhere else and therefore blowing the fuse (although I'd hope they found any of these when they "fixed" it.)

[BLINGMW]

$350, that's an expensive fuse! hock:

What did they say they actually fixed?

[PDenbigh]

Chris,

I'd quit F*ing with the stock gauges and get some aftermarket ones in there. For $350 you could have just about gotten your spedo, tach, oil temp/press and water temp with all sensors and about 1/2 of the headache.

[Chris]

well they properly spliced a bunch of wires that had been cut. I picked it up yesterday and drove it around for part of the day and the gauges are actually working. So far so good, hopefully it stays that way. The mechanic thinks the dash was removed at some point (its a little loose) and there may be a wire being pinched. I'm not really happy with the price to get it fixed, but I'm running out of time at this point.

Pete, I'd like to know what gauges you're talking of. I had an outrageous quote from one shop for autometer gauges, no where in the $350 range.

On another note, ordered a set of the new RT-615's tonight... time for some grip! (that "officially" was the last thing I needed... now just tying up loose ends!!).

[Andy]

Good job, Chris. It might be a little fustrating getting all the loose ends tied up but once you're on track, all that stuff will be forgotten. At least that's the hope.

[Chris]

well I finally got around to tackling some issues I've had with the car since its track appearance back in July. My power windows stopped working, so I took the wire from the power window regulator and took an 18 gauge wire and attached it to the regulator. Then I took the spliced end of the wire and touched each to a 12v cordless drill battery- now I'm able to roll the windows up and down! Its probably the most ghetto way of rolling windows down, but hey so far so good.

Tonight I pulled the dashboard up in hopes of finding the source of the electrical problem I'm having with my gauges. In the process I pulled out the remaining carpet and a lot of sound deadening material. I didn't get around to much of the wiring, thats for another day. Anyway, here are a few pics:


Battery powered windows!



Dash and Passenger area before:




Driver floor sound deadening material:




The remaning carpet left in the car!



Dash removed:




what a mess!

[PDenbigh]

well they properly spliced a bunch of wires that had been cut. I picked it up yesterday and drove it around for part of the day and the gauges are actually working. So far so good, hopefully it stays that way. The mechanic thinks the dash was removed at some point (its a little loose) and there may be a wire being pinched. I'm not really happy with the price to get it fixed, but I'm running out of time at this point.

Pete, I'd like to know what gauges you're talking of. I had an outrageous quote from one shop for autometer gauges, no where in the $350 range.

On another note, ordered a set of the new RT-615's tonight... time for some grip! (that "officially" was the last thing I needed... now just tying up loose ends!!).

Just go to Summit Racing and find some cheap ones that do the job. And do the work yourself, gauges are easy after you've done what all you've done. I'm happy to leand a hand or advice, just ask!

[BLINGMW]

Then I took the spliced end of the wire and touched each to a 12v cordless drill battery- now I'm able to roll the windows up and down!

wow. Chris. That is the fuckin SPIRIT man!! :wink:

[Dave]

Then I took the spliced end of the wire and touched each to a 12v cordless drill battery- now I'm able to roll the windows up and down!

wow. Chris. That is the fuckin SPIRIT man!! :wink:

seriously, Chris is becoming ghetto fabulous. He'll be teaching everybody soon on how to afro-engineer your car to meet your needs

[Ginger]

Damn Chris! That car is hot

Looks good seeing all that progress... and really, keep the battery powered windows forever, they're magnificant!