** Acme [Akagi] bought a pink estate car - E30 325i project log! **

Friend tightened the aux belt which got rid of the squeal, and I replaced the backbox with straight pipes... It sounds fairly awesome but also a bit too trumpety. Will do until I get my stainless setup. Or I might get bored of the noise and weld the backbox back on. :p

Oh and I should say that he soldered up my door loom for me. He's more proficient with a soldering iron than I am!
 
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Bring on the hate. :p

I was hoping it would sound a little deeper than this, but I put that down to the diameter of the pipe. The whole system is standard 1 & 3/4" including the rear straight pipes.

@grudas :D
 
Its... Noisy. It sounds great when driving normally, a bit too loud when you put your foot down though. It droned quite badly at 70MPH with the stock exhaust, drone at 70MPH is now ridiculous, but its still fine crusing at 80MPH.
 
inflames said:
First time reading this thread, very nice car mate. I passed one of these the other day, in the same colour to, thinking to myself at that looks cool even today. I to tend have a soft spot for these as i have fond memories as kid when dad had an 325I coupe and was one of the first cars i my worked on when my dad first started to teach basic car maintenance at a young age.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. :) I think they look pretty cool too. I get a few looks every now and then, occasional thumbs ups etc, especially around Brighton way! I personally think the 'shark nose' BMW's where the grille slopes forwards look even cooler. Like the E24 for example.

Thankfully they are quite easy to work on when compared to equivelant modern cars, but annoyingly they do still have quite a lot of tech to go wrong. Like my ABS issue which is driving me slowly insane! I've been chasing it around for ages and it keeps coming and going... :p
 
Right-o, I now have everything required for welding (aside from experience) - My new regulator, auto dimming mask, inert gas, new welding tips, 0.6mm welding wire, and of course the welder itself...

Item #1 on the agenda, fix the ******* exhaust. :p

I may give that a go today with pointers from a mate.
 
Investigated a petrolly smell after brimming the tank, and discovered that the main seam on the petrol tank has failed due to rot and it is seeping petrol, so a new tank is in order... Bit of a pain to change it. Bah...
 
Yes I will practice on scrap... Obviously.

I'm getting fed up with the lack of faith here. If you can't offer any constructive advice without being a jerk, go somewhere else.

And thanks @Holst1981

I won't try and fix the fuel tank lol :p
 
I take the advice which is needed and valid, gratefully. I have done on countless occasions. If you want to ignore that, pick out the few times I shrugged it off, and paint me to be some ungrateful child, then be my guest. But don't post about it in here.

It's not even midday and you have set about sabotaging my mood. Thanks.
 
I'm not going to make a structural weld, it's on a socket join just to fill the gap to stop it blowing :p

And I AM practicing first. I've filled up my small sheet of steel with weld beads, some were good, some were not. Just fiddling with the settings. Tomorrow I'm buying some spare tips and some sheet metal to continue practicing.
 
Found out today its harder than it looks but I think I still did alright, going to do some more practice welds tomorrow. The mistake I made was that the tutorials I watched were all welding to thick steel, and thin steel just burns through if you try and weld it like that, theres an entirely different method for thin sheet steel... So tomorrow I shall do that! Muahahahahaa.
 
Yes indeed and I at least want mine to be acceptable.

Bought some sheet steel from an ex customer for cheap. Plenty for practicing and hopefully for doing some repairs with too.

Friend for scale. :p

[pic removed]
 
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Finally fixed my ABS issue, it was the nearside rear sensor as I suspected. It took me three hours to get the old sensor out of the hub, it broke apart and I had to pull all the copper windings out, followed by the core, then the metal sleeve... I broke a chisel, a drill bit, and a metal punch in the process, and cut my wrist on the brake disk backplate...

But the replacement sensor is in, I've driven 59 or so miles, braked in several different ways, did a few emergency stops, and all was well. No abs light, no funny noises, no juddering, no locking up! :)

A new issue has reared up instead now. The propshaft is rubbing in the mid box heatshield... annoying! Will have to investigate. :p
 
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