DirtE30 - 1990 BMW 325i

[ScottyB]

so you have one rear wheel toed in hard, and the other is toed out? toe-out on a RWD car sounds like a disaster.

if the right side is already toed out when its lowered, you might get severe toe-out when you raise it and it'll be way more NOPE than just having a wheel badly toed in.

i'm not sure springs are going to fix the problem....your rear wheels are pointing different directions. the only way to actually change that is fix the source - busted bushings, new trailing arm, etc.

[Jake]

Yeah dude, fix the toe problem the right way. Lowering springs may change it a bit but you have over half an inch to deal with. If the other side aligns properly, think about what controls just one rear wheel's toe - trailing arm. Talk to some SE30 guys (or FlimFlam, he works on enough of them) and replace whatever is bent.

[Senor_Taylor]

Yeah, I'll look today after work and see if I can find what's bent. I suspect something is bent as opposed to a bushing causing this, but I'm still going to put the wheels and tires on so I'm not driving on time bombs anymore.

[Jake]

Yeah, I'll look today after work and see if I can find what's bent. I suspect something is bent as opposed to a bushing causing this, but I'm still going to put the wheels and tires on so I'm not driving on time bombs anymore.

Agreed, I highly doubt a bad bushing(s) would allow so much deflection for that kind of error in alignment. 

This looks like a good read: http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/index.php/Suspension

[Ryan T]

Might I suggest a cheaper solution?

[Senor_Taylor]

Impossible because this literally just came in the mail today.

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[Senor_Taylor]

Tires and wheels came in today! Crawled under the car to look at the suspension. Oil pan, steering rack, or both are leaking and leaving drips on the floor. Front control arms look new (left side) and okay (right side.) Subframe bushings from what I could see, seem okay, rear diff bushing looks fine. Sway bar end links look awful, but I have new links to put on when I put the bilsteins I bought today on. Both axle seals on the diff are leaking, and the left hub looks... weird. It's covered in something, and it looks like it's missing the top of it? The end of the axle looks exposed; not sure what's going on. I don't see an obvious bend in the control arm, but I'll probably just snag a new one and put it in and do bushings on both sides. I took the car for a drive, and it kind of scared me a little bit. Both miatas, and the e46 were so weak that there wasn't enough power to lose the read end. This car is different. First and even second gear have enough punch to spin the rears and I can even get loose in second going straight on a hard shift. I think this is mostly due to bad bushings and shocks, but I can also see what people mean when they say E30s will try to kill you. The short wheelbase, high torque, and top heaviness really make it rotate quickly. I also know that these tires hate the cold, but I didn't think how the power difference would change how useful they were comparing e30 to Miata.

I also gave up the dream of buying new front seats and just got cheap seat covers.







Notice the top of the hub.



Minty control arms on the front and nice new tires.



Leaky leaky

[ScottyB]

oil leaks are just the car self-cleaning its seals. no worries.

dat hub tho - there's your problem. i wonder if someone slid it into a curb and the torque of hitting at that angle chipped part of the hub casting off as the wheel/bearing assembly tried to tilt into positive camber for an instant.

looks like you just need to do a trailing arm swap, shouldn't be too bad since its what, 2 bushings and a wheel bearing?

[V1GiLaNtE]

Wheels look good with the color!

[Senor_Taylor]

Thanks guys. I think I'm going to do RTABS (my favorite thing ever) and see if I can reign the toe in. I only need to get .2 degrees back in check to be factory spec. If that doesn't fix it, I'll grab a whole arm/hub. Believe it or not, Dave has kind of talked me down from going full idiot on those car as I was planning on doing RTABs, Subframe/Diff bushings, axle seals, oil pan gasket and such, but I haven't even driven a full tank of gas yet. The oil pan gasket is leaking quite a bit, but I think it'll be okay. I bought the oil and a garden sprayer to do the trans and diff, so I'll do that this weekend probably. I'm waiting on a tracking number for the bilsteins, so hopefully the tires can survive a few miles on them before I get the suspension and bushings in. The car pulls to the right ever so slightly now with these new tires, so I'm sure it's that toe out on the left side trying to turn the car.

I'm excited to see how fun the car is with the fresh is suspension and new bushings! I'm going to also try to degrease as much as I can so I can figure out where the leaks are actually coming from. I don't want to be dripping oil at autocrosses.

[Senor_Taylor]

If anyone would be willing to help, I'd appreciate it next weekend. I will have the following parts to install.

- New left rear trailing arm
- Trailing arm bushings
- is springs and bilstein HD shocks
- speed sensor and wire in plug
- glove box
- front bumper lip
- new roundel
- new sway bar end links front and rear

The RTABs may not be here by then, but everything else will be here. I have all the tools I need except for a bushing press.

[RawrImAMonster]

I call dibs when/if you sell this thing.

[Senor_Taylor]

Interesting weeekend! Colton Ringgold (iBeJeepin) got married this weekend so I went down to Harrisonburg for that. On my way down I grabbed a trailing arm, new rear seats, a bumper, a lip off what I believe was an e34, full is suspension off of Dave's MCognito, glovebox, some other parts, and also a Dakar m3 trunk. (Why?)

The parts in the 4runner thwarted my plans of getting trashed and sleeping in my car, so at least I was fresh when I woke up this morning. Joey and I went to Leesburg C&C and took my car. So far, I've made a point to improve the car every time Joey rides in it and today was no exception!



After that I headed home and decided to spend the day in the garage. I planned on doing fresh fluids in the trans and diff, but I realized I don't have the huge 14mm allen key to get the plugs out, so I spent some time inspecting the bottom of the car. It seems that some of the mess on the underside is the power steering reservoir/rack and the other half seems to be a combination of the oil pan gasket and the oil filter housing. Engine mounts and other front end bushings look good, except it looks like the driver side sway bar link may be cross threaded, so we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Dave was kind enough to give me that lip for free on top of the other parts I bought from him (and will in the future) so I decided to tackle that. I'm not sure what the proper way to install this would be, but the best solution I found was the break the mostly broken clips off the valence and then used the holes they used to bolt the lip up. What a difference this thing makes! Also took the chance to rig up this glove box with a broken latch so it stays up and closed. I'm really glad I bought that bag of 500 m6x100 bolts a few years ago. I also took the roundel off the M3 trunk and put it on my trunk. I also threw in the new vinyl rear seats previously and Joey helped me clean them properly. Overall, the car isn't looking too bad! I'm moving this weekend, but if I have time, my new RTABs and front top hats should come in the mail and I can install all of these suspension bits. If not, at least I'll be moved over to my new garage and can let it sit for a while. A few leads on a new speed sensor have fallen through, but at least my body side plug has shipped, so I'll splice that in and see if I can get it to work with the current speed sensor that has a broken clip. Other than that, I got the brake ducts zip tied back in there and did some other general tidying and straightening. Once I'm a little more financially responsible for a while, I'll probably drop it off at Mach V to get looked over and have Deren figure out why I'm blowing Fuse 23 and leaving me without half of my lights including the dash.


Sorry for the snapchat photos, when I'm in the garage, I use my phone for music, so I don't take as many photos as I should.







BEFORE


AFTER

[Senor_Taylor]

Busy weekend with moving apartments and such, but I found some today to break in the new garage. Wired in my speed sensor plug. That didn't fix the problem as the guy told me the sensor itself was broken, so Luther is looking for a plug for me.

Dave gave me a unpainted bumper to swap on so I tackled that mess. The outer plastic bumper pieces are held on with clips, them the bumper cover under is held with rivets, followed by the bumper itself is fastened with two torx bolts. Of course the torx bolt rounded immediately so I had to remove to cover with the bumper on the car. The new bumper isn't painted, but it doesn't really stand up much since the car is dark grey anyway. I also painted the grills, and by that I mean painted on coat and the can clogged up so I did the next 3 coats with plastidip. I sorted the pile of parts that came with the car when I moved and found a tow hook and a latch for the glove box so I threw those on. I was painting the latch black when Zach encouraged me to go red with it. I don't disagree with that decision. The rtabs are here so I'll tackle those next weekend and see if I can get it ready for summit in November.

I also heard a clunk so I need to check the front control arm (the one not replaced) to see if it needs new bushings or needs to be replace. Yay.

Lastly, Zach and I went on a drive and found his NB is faster than the E30.



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[Senor_Taylor]

New trailing arm is on the rear. E30 RTABs are a really difficult job and even with having one of the arms out already, we decided to not try to tackle them. If the alignment is good with this arm, I'll just wait to do Subframe, diff, trailing arm bushings and SS lines at the same time so I can drop the subframe and save myself headache.

Aside from the arm, we got the new shocks on the rear and new sway bar links on the rear as well. Pads and rotors are on, but I can't seem to get them to bleed properly, so I'll continue to mess around today if I can find someone to pump the pedal for me. We didn't do the front springs and shocks because apparently I need some really large pipe wrenches to separate the shock from the strut tube. I might try to do the endlinks on the front today, but I'd rather just get the car on the road.

[Senor_Taylor]

Joey came over this morning to help me button the car up. I got the front sway bar links off and realized the drive side one was 1) Not even connected and 2) Completely destroyed. I ordered the bottom bracket piece that is bent, so the car has no front sway bar for a few days. Joey helped be bleed the brakes with some nice DOT4 and the brakes feel great. They don't throw you through the windshield, but they certainly inspire a lot of confidence.

The rear suspension, now having new-ish sport shocks and a functioning sway bar feels WAY tighter than it did before. The car also does not pull to either side under acceleration and both wheels seem to paint straight forward with a tiny bit of toe in. I didn't expect to feel such a difference, but the speedbumps leaving my apartment were a good test of the shocks rebound and stiffness.

The next time I touch this car (after doing the front sway bar links) I will be putting the rear springs in, front shocks and springs (I need the right tool to separate the strut from the housing, and doing tie rod ends on the front. I'm going to see how far I can get without replacing the RTABs as they don't function the same way E36/46 suspensions do and don't seem to fail as often. I've also narrowed down some of my leaks to the Power steering lines from the reservoir to the rack and the oil filter/pan gasket.

Big thanks to Joey, Brandon, and Jake L for the help this weekend! The car is well on its way to feeling great.




New arm with caliper, hub, and axle. Centric rotors and Hawk HPS pads. New sway bar end link and new (to me) bilstein HD shock pictured.

[Senor_Taylor]

Got the new tie rods installed along with new front sway bar brackets and end links. Before finishing up, I changed out the diff and trans fluid. The diff came out very milky, so I'm assuming the axle seals are letting in water, which isn't a huge deal since I don't drive it in the rain and axle seals are on my to-do list.

The transmission? Bone dry. I pulled the plug and no fluid came out except a chunk of metallic sludge. How this car has driven at least 1000 miles with a completely empty transmission beats me. The trans is very happy to be full of Redline MTL and the shifter basically pulls itself into gear. The car is very planted and drives wonderfully now. Steering is much tighter and responsive. The last few things to button up before it's perfect are figured out why 90% of the running lights blow out when I turn them on, replace a power steering line, install the front shocks and springs, and fix the oil filter leak and there won't be anything majorly wrong with it other than some cosmetic stuff I can touch up along the way. Super excited.

[Deceus]

The transmission? Bone dry. I pulled the plug and no fluid came out except a chunk of metallic sludge. How this car has driven at least 1000 miles with a completely empty transmission beats me.

That'd be a full blown code brown from me. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite ya. Fun fact: my transmission going is what kicked off my build originally.

[Senor_Taylor]

The transmission? Bone dry. I pulled the plug and no fluid came out except a chunk of metallic sludge. How this car has driven at least 1000 miles with a completely empty transmission beats me.

That'd be a full blown code brown from me. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite ya. Fun fact: my transmission going is what kicked off my build originally.

Yeah the trans is fine. Don't worry.

What I'm concerned about right now is what I think is pinging. I need to get a timing light on this thing. I've never messed with distributors.

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[ScottyB]

did it just start pinging now? sometimes "winter-blend" gas can set a car off, its formulated a bit differently. our xterra gets that way.

fixing timing should be super easy. you just loosen the distributor a bit and turn it slightly when the engine's at warm idle and your timing light, aimed at the crank, will show what degree of advance you're at and if its raising the advance or retarding it depending on how you turn it. then tighten the dizzy back down when you're at the degree number you want. you probably have to unplug the throttle position sensor or something as well. i'm sure there's a hundred DIY videos to watch.