My Retro Resto - E30 325i Cab

[InvaderGIR]

Ok so...where to start...

Some of you may know I've been through 2x e36s, a 328i that lasted ~4months and a 318iS that I ran for a year. The 318iS was a good car although it had various issues that I just wasn't prepared to fix as whilst it was good, it wasn't great. I sold it and bought a more practical car as I'd been moving house fairly often and figured I wanted the boot space etc.
It's now nearly a year later and I'm chuffing bored of the Mondeo so have been keeping my eye out for potential new cars to replace it. I was eyeing up E36s again but the cost of a decent one with a proper engine made my eyes water, the shoddy ones, well, they are/were fairly costly for what they are and would need loads throwing at them to bring up to the level I'd want. I was also then looking at Mk1 and Mk2 MX-5s as they are brilliant little RWD cars. I decided to wait until I'd driven a mate's Mk1 before I made up my mind, which also gave me plenty of time to get the money I'd need for a half decent Mk2 or a fairly nice Mk1.

So that's how I left it about a month ago, then, last week I was browsing ebay ads and spotted a fairly decent E30 325i Coupe (2 door 'loon if you're picky) that I linked to a few mates saying to them "that'd be an awesome little project" but I also knew the car would go for silly money. One of them though, being the sort of bloke that he is said "do you want an E30 then?" after saying how I'd have one if I could get a cheap one he went on to say about one that one of his friends had a 325i Cab and wants rid. To cut a long story short, we agreed on a price (low for an E30 325i Cab but with good reason...) and I went looking for transport companies to get it the 200miles to my house. Booked (on Sat) a brilliant company via Shiply who picked the car up on Monday morning and delivered it to me at 8:30am this morning. Absolutely outstanding service from the guys and very cheap too.

I was at work all day so was feeling like a child at Christmas when 5pm came and I could get back to inspect my new purchase...that's right I hadn't looked it.

Rolled up at the house and grinned ear to ear, then got out and inspected the car. Well, it isn't a minter but I knew this, it'll need lots of work to get it to a pristine level and I'm prepared to do this, have loads of the tools I need and will buy more if I need them. After checking the car out I gave it a fairly good clean, didn't want to go too wild with the hose as I spotted a few spots where water will (and have in some cases) get in the car.
The car had been sat for around 18 months so had gained some moss/algae which I've mostly cleaned off, just some areas are impossible to clean without removing parts. The hood was fairly new when it went off the road so that is good, it needs a proper scrub with a wetvac though to get the soaked in grime from being sat, no biggie. The body had also had a respray a little while before it was laid up, so for the most part it is very tidy. It is however a 24 year old car and so it does have it's problems. The arches, all of them, will likely need cutting and welding, especially the rear driver's side as that is flaking quite badly really. There are a couple of spots of rust in other places but it is mostly rust free which is ace. The window seals though, these are a big problem (luckily I should have it in the garage before it rains on the car) as the pillar seals sit about 5mm from the windows when the doors are closed which is likely going to let rain in. On the interior side of things, it is quite shabby to but it bluntly, but that's fine.
The reason why I got it for a 'low' price is because the engine has gone, as far as the previous owner is aware. He was driving along on the motorway, it stalled and the AA man said it had seized. I've had a look and it is showing signs that it may have blown the head gasket but I can't fully tell until the weekend when I can get my hands grubby in the garage.

All in all though I am very happy with my purchase and I really can't complain for £500 (I'm sure a lot of people would/will complain ). I look at it in terms of cost of car + required parts to get it road legal = less than a shoddy running car (£1200+ for a running car when I looked over the last few days). However I don't plan on just fixing/replacing the engine and then rocking around in a tatty E30, ooooh no, this will be a restoration project for the most part. I want to bring it back to it's former glory and potentially make it much more interesting too.

Anyway, enough talk, on with the pictures!

Exterior before I put some water on it:

Interior:

145k miles

Engine:

Arches:

Exterior after a quick clean:

 

[InvaderGIR]

You're mad.

Yes I am.

Looked at the jacking points and inner sills yet? Might save you some time...

Yup, perfectly sound. Only dodgy areas are the arches although I'll know more once I've taken most of it to pieces.

 

[InvaderGIR]

You've got to love the sudden panic of people on here when they see a car without a pristine interior...

Indeed. I've had some comments that it is mouldy, it isn't, it is cracked/ripped the camera hasn't shown that very well.

Have you checked the battery tray and scuttle corners for any corner. If you've got holes there you need to be very, very careful and make sure that water hasn't gone further down and rotted the bulkhead.

All appears to be sound as I say, apart from the arch edges.


I fully expect this thread to get many flames to be honest but thought I'd share anyway.

 

[InvaderGIR]

What's your overall plan for the car?

Fix it.

I'm under no illusion about the time, effort and money that will eventually be involved, it won't be cheap and it won't be quick or easy.

I can see the arguments against the car and to some extent, I do actually agree, it certainly isn't in a lovely pristine state or anything (far from it etc.). However, taking risks can be fun and rewarding and if worst comes to worst it is £500 wasted. I'd much rather waste £500 than £1200+ on a just as dodgy, but running version.
Life would be boring without risks and threads like these wouldn't exist, count yourselves lucky that you get to experience such idiocy as mine without the hassle.

 

[InvaderGIR]

How much is the parts bill going to come to?

Not small, same would happen though if you got a runner, unless you spend 3k+ (and even then to be honest) there will be old worn parts needing replacing if you want a shiny tidy car.

What happens if you throw £500 at it and it's still a shed?

I own it, it'll always be a shed, even if it is a shiny one.

This should be good to watch, glad I'm not the only mentalist that takes on a restoration

Why thank you.

As yet I'm not sure it'll be quite on par with some of your work, but I do hope it'll be far from a rotter by the time I'm done. I have no time limit on this though, aside from a couple of years but I'd like to have it ready for summer '13.

 

[InvaderGIR]

He doesn't. As he explained in the OP, he had an e36 that was in need of money spending on it to bring it back to it's former glory, which he then got rid of as he didn't want to spend the money on it.

As I said before, I fully understand the lust of having a project car to restore, but I just don't think the e30 325 cab in the OP is a great starting point, especially when compared to the e36 he deemed unworthy of investment.

The e36 was my daily a year ago when I had barely any money spare and no garage to work in. Sorting it would have meant no car and big debt. I didn't deem it unworthy to repair it at all, I just didn't deem it worth my time and the financial trouble it could have landed me in to be worth it for me. It has since been kept on the road so I'd assume the new owner has sorted what needed doing.
This on the other hand is just some fun and gives me something to do in my spare time. Money won't be thrown at it either, it'll be trickled into it as I don't have to get back on the road for a good long while.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Wow, that interior is worn!

The fronts are rather worn yes, the rears should come up fine after some leather treatment. My camera does appear to have made the seats look a lot worse than they are with regards to cracking in leather etc.

Is it a sport or an SE? The sport is the one of the two to come with an LSD as standard right?

SE. The Sport would have had the Tech I or Tech II body kit (depends on year face/lift). Like so: E30 325i Sport. The Sport does have the LSD yes although they are fairly available these days for the E30 (at about £300) unlike the E36 where they are very hard to find.

Just noticed, i thought these had headlight wipers / washers?

It is/was an option as far as I'm aware, E30 320i Cab - that has projector lenses same as mine but no wipers, same seems to be the same for most of them.

what he spends on restoring it will be about what its worth when its done

thing is will he get the monies worth from doing the project this is why a lot do it .

Well, I don't plan on doing it to sell it but to have a tidy fairly practical drop top classic (obviously there is debate on it being a classic etc.) to pootle about in.

Tidy ones do fetch a scary amount of money though as they are appreciating, same with the E36s now really.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Projector lenses how olds the car?

24 this year...roughly, it was first registered in 1988 (I forget the month) so should be on an E or F plate but at some point in it's life it gained the dateless plate. The letters mean nothing to me but I do quite like having the dateless look and, embarrassingly, quite like the pressed 'D' plates.

When it comes to getting it on the road I'll have some fresh, flat UK plates made up I expect.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Been watching to much Wheeler Dealers?

Haha, no. I rarely watch it and if I do I cringe at how badly they 'restore' cars. If I did this in their fashion I'd source a new engine, paint over the any rust and replace the interior then sell it on for £5k.

I've done car stripping and rebuilt engines before as well as done various work to bring cars back towards life although never a full project on my own car so this is an extension of what I've done previously really.

TBH as a project that's probably about right, it doesn't look like its in all that bad of a shape. Interior wise beyond the leather, it looks to be in sound shape?

Yeah, generally the interior is in sound shape, as is most of the exterior.

 

[InvaderGIR]

After getting the car in the garage on Weds I decided to wait until the weekend to work on the car. My plan for the bank holiday weekend was simple: Remove boot/contents of boot, remove bonnet, remove interior, maybe do a little bit of work on the engine.

With that in mind I decided to take things slow...


Day One - 05/05/2012

I removed the contents of the boot (carpets and all) to find that my suspicions of the boot's gas strut being about 10mm too long when closed did indeed result in rust in the boot! Luckily though the rust was not the car, it was in fact a handful of old screws and bolts that someone decided to leave in the jack/tool well on the passenger side. Panic over I removed the strut and closed the boot which confirmed that it was the strut causing the boot to remain slightly higher on the passenger side than on the driver's side. The boot lid then got removed, spoiler taken off and apart, all bits cleaned, dried and stored safely away. The rubber part of the spoiler is going to need treating with some black revival stuff, but for now whilst it is sat in the dry it can stay as it is.

Clean


Next up on my list was the bonnet, whilst the design is cool it gets in the way when working on an engine (as do all bonnets in fairness) so I pulled that off and again, stored it out of the way. The paintwork on the bonnet is very good so I want to avoid it getting damaged. I'd been told the car has had a respray shortly before it stopped working and this was evident when inspecting the bonnet. No stone chips or anything.

Mad Max?


Next up: Interior. Rear seat base is very easy to remove, the back however proved problematic if I followed guides on how to do it. They all said "the bolts are by the wing or they may be towards the centre near the seatbelt anchor mounts" which is fine...if someone prior to you hasn't been a complete imbecile and installed a third seat belt into the wrong positions!
They had used the seat back mount bolts to 'secure' the seat belt anchors and the lap belt, this meant that in the event of an accident with someone in the back they would likely have been caused serious injury either from the width of the lap section of the harness or by the bolts used to anchor the belts having failed.
All of that is ignoring the fact that the seat base (and back) are only designed for two people to be sat in the back and the third person in the middle would be rather uncomfortable sat on the dividing spine.
Below is an image of the mounting points with the belt anchor points in the correct position for the car. You can see the two points where the belts were anchored previously ~6inches either side of the current/correct point.

Once the rears were out it was time for the fronts to come out, not like I'll be driving it anywhere for a while, so out they go.

No seats.


Just to make it look a bit neater (and for me to clean up the parts/fabricate some new bits) I removed the handbrake console area. This had a lovely tape selector in it still, how 80s! I've got some plans for where the tape unit went but we'll just have to see if they work out at some other stage. I also removed the soft top cover as it was partially in my way but also due to some of the opening/closing mechanisms having failed it was causing damage to car.

Naked.


Next up, engine!

Well, just before the engine I actually stripped off the front grille and lights to avoid damaging them and to get them out of my way when working on the engine. No pictures of that stage though.
I then started to remove parts from the engine, first item to come out was the airbox and associated parts that go with it. Once I pulled it out I was greeted with this:

Post airbox/MAF, pre throttle body.

MAF.


Ok, so I found some gunk/mayo in there. This got me intrigued as to just what was in the engine and what had happened to it. The next easy to remove item was the top radiator hose which provided me with:

Mayo hand.

Mayo radiator.


Next was the pipe on the water pump, this gave me a real surprise!

Oil.


I was surprised about the oil as I expected mayo...the oil came out, all over the garage floor and my foot. :lol:

Another water pipe, this time from the thermostat housing:

Thermomayo.


Throttle body time! It looked innocent enough...

Throttle body inlet.


...then I opened it!

Throttle mayo.

I removed the throttle body from the inlet and mayo went everywhere.

Throttle body sludge.


I cleaned up all of the mayo and stopped it from going into other parts of the engine or ancileries.

Engine.


I then hauled the plenum off (wow that is a pain to do)! I then inspected the cylinders, 1-5 were dry pretty much (slight dampness/mayo on a couple valves) but 6 contained mayo, this could get interesting.

Engine without plenum.

No. 6.

No. 4, No. 5 & No. 6.

No. 2, No. 3 & No. 4.

No. 1 & No. 2.

Inlet plenum, engine-side.

Inlet plenum breather pipe.


I also removed the radiator, viscous van and a couple other bits, but those aren't that interesting (at least not compared to the mayo etc. :lol: ).

That pretty much wraps up Sat's work at about 21:30.




So in about 10hrs I did everything I'd planned to do over the whole three days pretty much! Good thing about this means that I've got the rest of the weekend to do as much or little as I want on the car. Unfortunately I'm unable to remove the engine currently because a friend is borrowing our engine crane but it should be returned some point next week, which gives me next weekend's task of engine removal. The annoying thing about the E30 compared to the E36 is that to remove the engine you have to hoist it out of the engine bay. On the E36 you can remove the front end crash bars etc. and pretty much just pull the engine from the car without much lift on it. I always dislike having to hoist an engine in/out of a car because it always takes longer than you think. Anyway, got a bit of time before I have to worry about that.

The plan for the engine is to strip it down and see how much damage has been caused, if it is just mayo in/around the engine then I can clean out all the gunk and rebuild the engine. If there is damage to internals (pistons, sump contains metal fragments etc.) then I shall source a new engine. A new/replacement engine is more what I'd like to do because it is fairly simple, but I would also like to strip and rebuild this one so I know every cm of the block and it's internal history.




Day Two - 06/05/2012

I decided today that I wanted to have a fairly relaxed one, so in the morning I 'popped' to Halfords (50 miles away) and picked up some leather feed (Mer Leather Cleaner) and I then spent the afternoon feeding the rear seats and the front passenger seat. I decided against feeding the driver's side for now because of the hole in the side it'll need a retrim (which means I'll probably also retrim the passenger seat to make them match).
I've never used leather feed etc. before so was unsure as to how well this would actually work on the seats due to the sheer number and size of the cracks in the leather. I needn't have worried as it appears to have brought them up a treat, although I shall feed them again tomorrow or sometime after work next week as I'm sure they can get much better than they are.

Whilst dismantling the passenger seat I found out something interesting (geek mode enabled), the Sports seats in the E30 only rely on cables for the flip forward function, the rest of the adjustment abilities are done using pneumatic gas struts (like you have to hold a car boot open) to provide the resistance when you're moving the seat back/base into the desired position/height.
This is a brilliant design and works well, unless of course these items are 24 years old and have also been damaged at some point in their life. Upon removing the seat back I was greeted with this:

Pneumatic gas strut.


Now it doesn't take a genius to work out that this strut is not quite in shape, especially when you compared it to the strut on the other side of the seat:

The reason for this damage is because someone has previously taken the seat apart due to snapping the flip forward cable and then lost the correct bolt to hold the back on so replaced it with one of similar length. I say similar, I don't mean that at all, it is about 5-10mm longer than the original bolt and it is threaded up to the bolt head, the original is threaded about two thirds of the way up the shaft only. Someone proceeded to then do this replacement bolt up until the head was flush against the socket which meant the back didn't wobble about, this also meant that they drove the bolt into the strut and destroyed it. Unfortunately this affects the angle adjustment of the back of the seat because it stops the struts from being able to force the seat forwards if it is set all the way back. It doesn't actually stop it from being adjusted however, so I'm likely going to leave it as-is for now. I ran some part numbers through BMW-Cooper Parts online check and ONE strut will set me back between £25 and £40 (three different part numbers for the same item), each seat has four of these struts which means to return the seats to the former glory, in pneumatic adjustment only, will cost me a few hundred pounds which seems excessive when they do work (just not as silky smooth as originally intended).

Here you can see the 'new' bolt (only done up gently to that position).

Here you can see the old bolt, done up to it's full extent.


Just a slight difference between the two I think you'll agree. I'll need to source myself a few new bolts for the car anyway so these will be added to the list of new bolts required (I'll get a few as the original bolt on this seat is in fact bent). After my discoveries I then actually did treat the leather and think it has come out rather well.
Various photos of the interior, for the most part, before and after shots:

Rear Bench Before:

Rear Bench After:

Front Seat Back Before:

Front Seat Back After:

Front Seat Base Before:

Front Seat Base After:

Headrest Before:

Headrest After:

Over all I think the leather feed has worked wonders on the seats. It is harder to tell in the pictures due to the flash and stuff but originally the seats were very cracked looking and now they look a huge amount better and make me not want to bother retrimming any of these seats. The top of the rear bench does have a rip in it on a seam so I'm going to have to do something about that. I'm thinking that if I am retrimming the front driver's seat then what I can do is create a patch from the old front seat leather an use that to sort out the hole. This I feel is the easiest and most friendly option to my wallet and, if done right, shouldn't make it look like it is patched up but who knows, I may just get a full set of leather covers made up and retrim them all, depends how flush I'm feeling later on in the process of fixing up this car.

That's it for the past couple days on the car but I suspect I'll be working on it again tomorrow so should have another update ready by the end of the bank holiday. Hope you guys have enjoyed reading so far.

 

[InvaderGIR]

impressive work on the leather, what product did you use man?

I think there is still more to come from the leather feed to be honest, it is a lot better but it can be even better. Whilst the feed was on the leather and before I buffed it out the cracks were just like normal wear marks you'd see on modern leather. We'll see though, may not improve much more if at all.

I used Mer Leather Cleaner, looked at the shelf in store this morning and didn't know what to get. I then read the bottles and this was about the only one that actually said it feeds and restores the leather, everything else said they just clean it. It also wasn't a scary cost but this bottle should last an absolute age, I used about 75ml or so on all that leather.

Suprised how well that worked!

What kind of time scale do you think this project will take? Saw this on your fb the other day, I'm impressed some dedication!

I got asked that yesterday whilst stripping down the engine and I honestly don't know or mind. At this rate, I could get it done in a few months but the rebuild work will take a huge amount longer than the strip down work. I'm kind of aiming for end of summer in my head but I'm content with it taking until next summer if need be.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Day Three - 07/05/2012

After a lazy day doing the seats yesterday I decided I'd tackle the remainder of the engine today, removing ancileries and generally getting it prepped for block removal later in the week.

Before that though I wanted to do a little cleaning up of the rust in the boot that I mentioned yesterday, this isn't body rust, just some bolts that have gotten wet and rusted.

Rusty bolts.


Removed the bolts etc. from there and gave it a going over with a wirebrush.

Tidy.



Granted it isn't perfectly clean but that is more due to the access and the state of the brush I was using than anything else. It is solid in there which actually surprised me, but in a good way. The car looks like it has been garaged most of it's life in all honesty, with the last few years it being out in the wet. This would explain why the car is so clean and tidy and virtually rust free. On that note, I've worked on newer cars that haven't been garaged and bolts etc. are rusty and snap or round when attempting to remove things. On this car though I've had about two or three bolts that refused to be undone, although the Irwin sockets we've got make light work of them. They just bite in and undo them as if they were new bolts and a normal socket being used on them.



On with the engine!

This is how the car started this morning:

Front end.


Pulled the sump plug out to drain any oil, water or engine parts that may be in there but was only oil, although saying that I had a couple of 'glugs' happen when it was draining out, didn't catch what they were and haven't fished about in my tub'o'oil just yet.

Just like a normal oil change.


I decided to pull the belt inspection panel off, to, inspect the belt although I was greeted with a rather unhappy looking belt tensioner.

Tensioner through inspection port.


To get the full belt cover off I needed to remove the dizzy (been a long while since I've had a car with a dizzy ) so figured I'd also inspect the condition of that. The cap seemed ok but the rotor has seen better days.

Dizzy rotor.


Once that was out of the way I could then remove the timing belt cover and have a good look at the tensioner which was certainly not in a good condition. The belt on the other hand looked fine so I'm not sure quite why the tensioner has failed. I'd assume it was not replaced when the belt was which is rather poor on a service, but there we go.

Timing belt and tensioner.

Timing belt and tensioner.

Belt tensioner


The belt tensioner being skewed as it is meant that the belt was rubbing on the belt cover which really isn't good, as you can see in the picture it has cut through the grime and polished itself a nice little channel.

Belt cover inside.


With the belt out of the way I was then able to tackle the water pump which I knew already had oil in it, just how much though I didn't know until I went to pull it out. I pulled it out and oil went everywhere, it seems like my water pump got converted into an oilpump when the engine died. There was barely any mayo in the pump though, just nice black oil.

Oily water pump.

Oil & mayo slick.

Oil slick.


I decided I'd inspect the water pump by cleaning it and seeing if there was much wrong with it. Aside from the fact it was full of oil it was in very good condition. The pump spins freely and nicely but the gasket is baked on, some is on the block, some is on the pump as can be seen below.

Water pump wiped down.


With the oil slowly draining from the water ways in the block I figured it'd be a good time to remove the expansion tank and pipework for it. I expected there to be a fair bit of oil the pipework but there actually wasn't much at all.

Expansion tank.


As I was removing ancileries I then pulled the starter off which was again, in a very good contion. It looks to be original (but may not be of course...I should go through the paperwork/22years of service history I have for the car) which again I thought was pretty good going considering the car is 24 and 140k up. I realise they don't get much use as they are for starting only but I've had loads fail on French cars in succession.

Starter motor.


At this point the engine looked slightly bare.

Engine sans bits.


I wanted to get the oil cooler off but found out that this meant I needed to remove the front skirt which was not at all easy (it should have been simple) due to the fact the car has had a knock. Inspecting the car at this point showed me about the knock and what has happened to various parts and why they are as they are. The front headlights don't match and I've properly discovered why. The front driver's side has taken a beating but it appears to have not been structural as the actual chassis is intact, it hasn't been bent or anything. The wing was replaced (and so has no rust on it compared to the others) along with the headlight so I no longer have two smilies.
The skirt is meant to have a few screws on the front by the oil cooler vent holes (which mine does), one on each side in the wheel arch and then another on each side below the fog lamps. On one side (driver's) this was fine and they were set used correctly. Popping out the plug from the front of the skirt and unscrewing it was nice and easy on the driver's side. On the passenger side though I came into a problem, long thin screws that didn't seem normal and also a pile of solid stuff where the front screw below the fog where a screw should be. I had to beat the nuts out of the skirt to get it to come off the car, it would appear that someone had broken this fixing point when removing/refitting the skirt after repairing the damaged wing etc. So, rather than getting a replacement skirt they decided to use filler and fire some utterly rubbish screws into the skirt and body to hold it on. Nice and *****, ffs.
So it looks like I'm going to want a new skirt thrown onto my list of bits I need to buy, that or I fabricate a better way of fitting the current skirt to make refitting a lot easier than before.

Normal screw and long ***** screw (Passneger side).

***** screw no. 2 (Passenger side).

Fillered cracks (Driver's side).

***** screw and filler replacing normal screw (Passenger side).


Once I'd gotten over how stupid someone had been I then removed the oil cooler assembly and the oil filter (a huge pain to remove on the car as it is under/below the exhaust manifold) and inspected it. It would appear the engine did seize/hyrdolock and luckily (for the oil cooler and myself I guess) it was before mayo could circulate around the full oil system and so the cooler and filter only contained black oil, no mayo at all.

Filter connection (the mayo in there is from the water lines, used the same bucket).


The car now looks even less like a car than before. A huge amount of the front can't be removed though unfortunately so (I think I mentioned it yesterday) the engine will have to be hauled out of the top rather than pulled out the front. On the E36 you can remove most of the front end and easily pull the block with minimal lifting required. Still, all is not lost, it is doable.

Front End.

Front.


Now was the turn of the cam cover to come off, I expected mayo and was indeed greeted with a fair load of it on the underside of the cover, but I was not expecting what I did find.

Cam cover mayo.

What's wrong here?


Ok, so, not a huge amount of mayo really on the camshaft or rockers but something really isn't right in there at all!

Valves on 6, 5, 4. All good.

Valves on 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Not so good!

Valves on 4, 3, 2, 1. Not good!


Ok so I'm sure people have worked out now what is wrong here, but if not I'll explain, from the begining.

The M20 is a single cam 6 cylinder, 12 valve engine. The way the head and cam are set up on this car means that the valves are operated by a rocker rather than the cam itself (Single Over Head Cam / Duel Over Head Cam engines on the other hand have a camshaft (or two) that operate the valves itself). These rockers are tear drop shaped and run on their own shaft. When the cam turns the lobes push one end of the rocker up which forces the other down onto the valve to allow air, fuel or exhaust gasses in/out, as the cam continues to rotate the lobe drops away from the rocker which is then forced up by the spring on the valve.
A simple enough design and it works well enough, although modern cars are all OHC engines as it is generally just better.

What has happened here is that one cylinder has filled with mayo due to the head gasket failing (either directly into the cylinder or into the air system and then it has been injested into the clinder) which has resulted in an incorrect amount of pressure within the cylinder so when the rocker tried to open the valve on No.2 it was unable to and instead it snapped.
This means that I am likely to find some more damage within the cylinders, either the pistons themselves or potentially some scorring on the bores, both are not exactly ideal.

Snapped rocker on No. 2.

Half of rocker No. 2.


With that playing on my mind as to how much other damage there is I decided to do the final ancilery removal and pull the PAS system out of the way.

Clear block.


And that is how I left it today. I still need to disconnect the exhaust system, gearbox and/or prop shaft to allow removal of the engine later in the week. It has been an interesting day finding out more and more about the car and piecing together it's history and it's untimely engine demise. It is looking like I'm just going to source a replacement engine rather than rebuild this one after today's discoveries but I shall fully strip down this one to find out exactly how/what happened to it.

 

[InvaderGIR]

If your after any engine bits, give me an email as I am breaking a e30 320 at the moment and most parts are the same, I bought it for a few little bits for my v8 e30 project but yeah it's only going to end up weighed in so give me a message if your after any bits!

As it stands I'm probably going to source a replacement engine rather than repair this one, but we'll see when I have it in pieces across the garage.

 

[InvaderGIR]

M20s are prone to snapping rockers, usually because someone's got the clearances wrong or they've been neglected. Well worth checking when you put it back together...

The putting back together depends on there being no other internal damage really. I'm tempted to source an M50TUB25 as I prefer the chain driven, DOHC VANOS units to the rather poor belt driven single cam and it gives me an extra 20hp.

I know you said mayo from HGF, but wasn't it these engines that had some issues with the oilways and waterways being too close so the head went porous mixing oil and water?

I can't remember the model, just that is was the early 6 cylinder models.

Well, initial findings (as I've not had the block apart yet) suggest it is HGF although this could have course be water/oil ways breaking down. I'm expecting the engine to have more issues when I delve deeper so I'll probably be on the hunt for another engine soon (I say soon, I mean at some point as there is no rush ).

 

[InvaderGIR]

I may have a set of rockers, and the bar if you want a new(old) set or just one?

Also, I have a front skirt/valance thing in reasonable condition, slight bit of rust on the tips, in red and pretty well sanded down. Transport for that would be a pain however.

I think I have a few of the smiley face lights, probably without condensation if you're lucky.

My old 320iSE 2 door is sitting rotting down aswell, you can just have any cheap bits for the cost of postage.

Finally, I have a full air-conditioning kit, probably in need of a bit of refurb, which should plumb in easily for a man of your skill.


edit - Seen your response above about the engine bits, either way I'll chuck anything your way you want, if I can't have a decent E30, by god someone will!

I may well have to take you up on some of those parts although it'll wait a bit until I've decided what I'm doing with the engine.
Which 'Shire' do you class as the real one? If I was to get a fair few parts (especially sizeable ones) from you I'd probably rather just collect in person.

You know, you could have a good E30 too...just fix yours, unless of course it is a heap of rust.

Just an FYI, there is no such thing as "black rubber revival stuff" for the lip spoiler. It just doesn't exist. It will continually need retouching. It's either a replace, or respray in car colour (my preferred option).

Well, I need to re-black all of the 'black' parts of the car externally, grille, bumper trim etc. so will probably sand them all down and respray with a hard wearing black paint/dye. Same goes for the spoiler, apart from the sanding obviously. Actual 'back-to-black' products are fairly poor in my experience, they usually send the greyed items black for a short period and then need redoing.

I'm not sure spraying it in car colour would look very good at all though due to the size of the spoiler I think it looks best in black.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Oh, and I've seen more valve coking on a 30k Audi

It isn't the coking that is an issue (as there is barely any) it is the mayo sat on top of No. 6's valve that worries/intrigues me.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Awesome - looking like a fun project!

Just to be pedantic, that is a SOHC engine, because the camshaft is over the head! Most, if not all SOHCs will need an arrangement of rocker arms to operate all valves from the single shaft. Only a DOHC will operate all valves 'directly' with the camshafts.

I beg to differ...

205 GTI (1.9) head:

Valves directly operated by the cam.

The M20 is SOHC as obviously the cam is over the head, but as the valves aren't directly operated by the cam I'm sticking to my wording.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Shropshire of course, so absolutely chuffing miles away unfortunately.

It is a heap of rust sadly, and what with a new house I just haven't got the time or money to sort it out.

Well, provided you don't bin the parts in the next few weeks I may be up that way anyway (in a couple months) and if I can get some bits cheaper/easier than ebay...ace.

It *is* a SOHC engine as the camshaft drives the valves, and it's not a pushrod design. Simple.

I hate you.

Ok, so we all agree it is SOHC, I just don't associate it really due to being used to the 205 engine not having the rockers. Obviously the engine is not a pushrod.

 

[InvaderGIR]

it makes perfect sense to plonk an M52B28 in there. With M50 inlet and presumably the 3.73 FD, it will fly.

I'm in two minds on that really, the M50TUB25 is a better bet in terms of conversion as it requires less work with electrical systems (EWS on the M52 can be a pig) and it keeps the car as a 2.5 still but with 192bhp. The Nikasil issue on the M52B28 is also something that I dislike.
Either engine would suit the car and make it a brilliantly quick drop top with a good sound track from the i6. What it then boils down to ultimately is which I can get hold of easier and cheaper (I'd probably buy a scabby car and take the required parts) if I go the E36 engine route.

I'm not sure what the final drive is on this one, I know as it isn't a sport it won't be an LSD though. Helpfully LSDs can be picked up for around £300 for the E30 and they are more readily available compared to the E36 LSDs.

 

[InvaderGIR]

Day Four - 12/05/2012

Today is engine out day!

Engine crane came back yesterday and so today I cracked on with getting the M20 out. Before I could haul it out I needed to disconnect a couple of last bits, no big deal really. Exhaust needed disconnecting as did the prop shaft and obviously engine and gearbox mounts, also not forgetting the gear knob and gator.

I decided to do the exhaust first as, well, why not really, so space was required under the car (I'm a small bloke, but not small enough to just crawl under it without it on stands.

Nose air.

Mostly tidy.


I fired some spray grease (couldn't find the penetrating fluid, does basically the same anyway) onto the downpipe / manifold nuts to aid in releasing them as I didn't reallt fancy snapping or rounding any of them. As the car was garaged a lot of it's life the nuts were actually very good only minor surface rust. I've delt with newer cars that were much worse and resulted in much swearing, not today.

No photos of the downpipe undone but once I disconncted that I then dropped the exhaust at the gearbox, start at one end, work to the other.

Exhaust & gearbox.


Finally for the exhaust it was the rear box. I dislike the mounting system for this, not for any real reason other than I couldn't just unhook the mounts, I had to remove the straps on the box itself, drop it to the floor then I could unhook the mounts. Annoying and took me a while to work this out but it did the job. I also couldn't be bothered to jack the rear end in hindsight it may have been easier to bring it up remove the wheel and unhook the mounts from there.

Backbox dropped.

Full exhaust system off.

Getting some fresh air.


With that out of the way I then removed the gear knob and gaitor before I forgot about them, again, no pics I'm sure you can work out what went on there.

I then disconnected the prop shaft from the gearbox. To do this I needed to bring the rear end into the air because there are 3 bolts securing the prop onto the gearbox and you need to rotate the prop to get access, which obviously means the rear wheels need to turn. Having done this before on the E36 328i I knew that it wouldn't be a difficult task, I did however forget that space/access is a pain. On the E30 325i the securing three bolts are 17mm on the bolt head and nut. There are also three other 17mm nuts but these secure the donut to the prop and do not need removing, you also can't see the bolt heads on these because they are cast into the donut. To undo the nuts/bolts you need two 17mm open ended spanners and a fair bit of strength. One spanner needs to be slid up to the nut between the gearbox and gearbox mount, the other wants to be on the prop side of the mount. Once they are securely located on the bolt (and nut) you can then push them in opposite directions to crack them off. Once you've cracked off one nut, rotate the prop and then you can do the next one. I'd advise cracking them all off before you fully undo any of them, it makes things simpler if anything shifts about. Once undone the nuts will lilely drop out but the bolts won't, you'll need to pull them out from the donut.
All done, prop is disconnected (well, as far as is possible with the engine and gearbox still mounted).

The reason I've just explained how to remove the prop? None especially but I forgot to take pictures of the area/process so figured I'd treat you all to a big wordy section instead.

I also took the opportunity of being under the gearbox to remove the nuts on the rummber mounts, but not the main mount bolts, this was to free up the gearbox for my next step (and to hopefully avoid having to remove the gearbox mounting frame.

I got the crane out and attached it to the engine, disconnected the engine mounts, main nuts onto the subframe followed by the mounting arm bolts on the block. This was a very silly idea. I had attached the crane, brought it up a bit to avoid the engine dropping onto the subframe or steering rack and ended up bending the front crane mount on the engine. I then had to carefully lower it back down onto the subframe and attach the levelling bar because it is spaced correctly for engines (well, a lot better than an A shaped pull) and allows for adjusting which end is higher which the E30 needs.

Correctly attached crane.

Engine starting to move.


Due to the design of the E30 you can't just hoist the engine a little and then pull it out, unlike the E36.

E36 front end.

E30 front end.


This means you need to hoist the engine at an angle so that the front of the engine is massivly higher than the gearbox. Once I'd securely attached the crane and raised it a little, I pulled the engine and gearbox forwards but couldn't go to far as the gearbox was hitting the gearbox mount frame. So I removed the gearbox mount frame (I'd also dropped the car back onto it's wheels prior to this so access to the frame was...interesting). Once I'd removed that the gearbox was able to drop down freely (did so whilst I was removing the frame, but as I'd raised the engine and gearbox I was unable to crush my hands, which was nice.

I was then able to raise the engine hight more and being properly pulling it out of the engine bay. I needed to do a fair amount of adjusting on the leveller to get the right angle though.

Engine getting free.


I found out that due to the garage door, I was unable to raise the crane to the full height that I wanted to get the engine to clear the chassis. This wasn't the most helpful of discoveries mid removal of the engine. I managed to move the engine about though and use the leveller to overcome the lack of ceiling height.

Further out.

High angle.

Sump clear.

Little close!

Free!


Right, well, that was the engine up and level, getting it out of the engine bay and onto the floor without damaging the car was another task altogether! Due to the amount of space I had above the crane and due to the design of the crane I had a huge amount of fun (not fun!) manouvering the crane and engine about until it was free and clear of the car. In an much longer garage I'd have been able to just walk backwards from the car with the engine, but I didn't have the space. Still, did it without damaging anything.

And relax!

Empty!

http://finaldecap.co.uk/images/E30Resto/DayFour/DSCN0342.jpg[/img
Gearbox mounts.

[img]http://finaldecap.co.uk/images/E30Resto/DayFour/DSCN0343.jpg
Gunky mounts!


It was a bit grim around the gearbox mounting area, I'm thinking some oil has gone down there over time, hopefully not from the gearbox as I'm thinking I'll be using it again. It is looking like the gunk was spread there from the engine though as on the driver side of the subframe it looks like this:

Grimey frame.


But on the passenger side it looks like this:

Clean frame.


Which does suggest that oil leaked out at some stage in the the engine's life. Also noticed that the engine had been reaching some high temps (or just the car's general age showing) as the sound deadening/fire proofing just before the gearbox/prop tunnel is falling away.

Gear tunnel.


Next thing to do was to split the engine & gearbox because the 'box should be fine even though the engine isn't. Simple case of 14T and 12T bolts on the bell housing then grab, wiggle, pull and they come apart.

Split engine & 'box.

Gearbox & clutch.

Got stilts?!

Engine & Clutch.

Gearbox is now in the storage area with the rest of the parts I've removed as I'm likely to use that again or sell it on.

Time for the head to come off. Popped the rocker cover off, undid the head bolts, started to pull the head off the block and burst out laughing and nearly dropped the head, you'll see why in a bit.

Head. Valves on No.4, No.5 & No.6.

Head. Valves on No.3, No.4, No.5 & No.6.

Head. Valves on No.1, No.2, No.3 & No.4.

Head. Valves on No.1 & No.2.


Ok, it doesn't take a genius to work out that No.2 isn't right (especially combined with the fact it was the rocker on No.2 that snapped, but this isn't what made me laugh.

Here is what made me laugh.

Block.


Ok you can't fully see what is wrong here really, have some close up shots.

Block. No.6, No.5 & No.4.

Block. No.5, No.4, No.3 & No.2.


Ok, No.2 doens't look right...

Block. No.2 & No.1.


Holey (see the pun) hell that is not right. This is what made me laugh, the amount of damage done to No.2, this engine is toast.

Block. No.4, No.3, No.2 & No.1.

Block. No.3, No.2 & No.1.

Block. No.3 & No.2.



And that is basically all that I've done today. not much I know. Still, I did it all single handed, usually I have someone about to help with engine removals but not today, did it all on my own.

The engine is certainly toast and I will not be putting it back into the car. Rebuilding it would cost more than buying a known good/decent engine. This now fully gives me freedom to research engine options. Before I was partly thinking about options but mostly thinking of rebuilding it as it may have been a small problem, it isn't and so won't be used. I'll probably strip down the engine fully though to see if there is more damage and any salvegable parts.
I'm swaying towards just getting another M20 and sticking it in as the amount of hassle involved is next to none and would have the car running again very quickly. I also then have loads of spares should I need to do anything on the replacement or should anything be missing.