saved another E30 today

[M3M3]

lookin' good! fixing the a/c on mine is what i am afraid of....old r12 system.

interested in what your off-idle stumble fix is!

[HarryPR]

lookin' good! fixing the a/c on mine is what i am afraid of....old r12 system.

interested in what your off-idle stumble fix is!

I'll keep you posted. Hopefully it is something simple and cheap. The car has been sitting for a couple of years, so I might have to go the same route as you did, cleaning injectors and changing filters. I have about a 60 mile drive to bring it home, so I might dump in a bottle of Techron when I get it to see if it makes any difference.

[M3M3]

uh oh...

i am sure it had NOTHING to do with me going around on a skidpad in the car until i was dizzy today (instructing a teen street survival school)....but...

LF damper is toast. so shot the piston is loose in the bore. these units are 40k miles and 10 years old. oem sachs replacements.

we all know what this means...an upgrade opportunity!

should I...

a/ replace the 4 dampers with another set of stock boge/sachs units or equivalent basic stuff like KYB. cheap

b/ replace with billy HD's

c/ replace with billy sports and .....oooops..H&R sport springs

d/ replace with...bigger ooops... billy touring cup kit

e/ replace with ....this is bad....complete Ground Control/Koni track suspension

it is an eta slushbox. i use it for commuting to work. but...i will be putting a lot of miles on it and it would be nice to have something that can competently carve an on ramp up....and survive a track session if it accidently ends up there.

the "st_nce" word is not part of my vocabulary. i don't want a slammed street car that can't handle a bump in the road.

leaning to option c or d...

[HarryPR]

I would go with "C" for a DD...

[M3M3]

ordered "C" from BimmerWorld today.....

[Kidasters]

Yep - soon you'll be mad because you got passed by a sub-urban on the way home, and here comes the turbo......

[M3M3]

time will tell on the turbo....;-)

but for now, i have my sat afternoon work lined up..

[M3M3]

not quite done yet...Jim and i got all the old stuff out of the car and put the new stuff in the back.

the old stuff was....old. the shocks on all four corners were dead. the front upper strut mounts were original...and dead. the front sway bar links are so shot they rattle.

we probably would have finished today if i had not wasted time with a totally rookie mistake. we could not get the rear suspension down far enough to get the springs out. pita screwing with the spring compressors. considered dropping the half shafts. then, duh, we took it out of gear and released the e-brake. drop goes the trailing arms. spring change done by hand without compressors. doh!

finishing up tomorrow afternoon.

[M3M3]

wow. what a difference.

we got the new suspension under the car and replaced the front sway bar links.

here is an after shot

the sport springs lowered the car 1 inch in front and .75 inch in rear. (after about 10 miles of driving). perfect. i did not want the thing too low.

the difference in how it drove was huge. before, the car wash harsh over bumps and felt loose all the time. after.....smooth........a much more comfortable and tight ride. i was afraid the billy sport/H&R sport combo would be too stiff for a commuter, but it seems like it will be perfect.

[HarryPR]

Nice.. I think I'll eventually go that route with my 4 door's suspension.

By the way, the stumbling off idle went away almost 100% after some fiddling with the AFM. It now does it once in a while. I'll go at it again next weekend to see if I can eliminate it completely.

[M3M3]

yeah. simple solutions good! i pulled the afm, totally cleaned it out with carb cleaner, then popped the black top off, used an eraser to clean the contact sweep of resistor and then resealed the cap back on. have done this on many e30's. noticeable difference in the afm resistance curve smoothing and throttle response.

since the old suspension was so bad it created vibrations above 65mph, i have been babying it. averaged over 29mpg in mixed driving the last 1300 miles...including a lot of long DC traffic jams. i suspect the accelerator may be getting more use with this suspension....;-)

[M3M3]

all the rear bushings were shot...no surprize after 25 years. so this weekend is rehab the back end time. dr destructo, jim g, assisted in all festivities.

rear subframe bushings

trailing arm bushings

diff cover bush

rebuild rear calipers

new soft brake lines

gotta put it back together tomorrow....

[jgerock]

Kind of chilly today when the sun wasn't shining into the shop. You need to add your special tools we used today.

And to think we were going to drag the press outside. D'oh.

[M3M3]

welded together a subframe puller tool. it is used to yank bushing from the bottom. two jaw puller hooks the bushing while this straddles the bushing and rests on the edge of the subframe.

we also used this in the press to push the new bushing into the subframe.

[HarryPR]

Cool stuff!