Updates are long overdue
Hmm... lets see where I left off last. Looks like I made a motor mount for the E36, welded some stuff on the 635csi, and was making a panel to mount a wideband display in the same 6 too.
Well, I haven't had the time to finalize a new model for the new screen (they sent me blue before... I bought a red one to replace it and the size was different!
Hopefully I will get back to this soon.
The motor mount has been working very nicely in the E36 now for a month or so. It does produce some unwanted vibrations at idle, but what can ya do! I may try one with softer poly next time. Otherwise I am very happy with the design.
Too much has happened since the last time I made a major update, so I think I'll have to just start looking through my pictures in chronological order and tell the story that way.
OK first off... the M5. It isn't a project, but it sure is purdy
The only thing I have done to it lately is an oil change with the hard-to-find, correct Castrol 10W60 in liter bottles. She's been very happy lately, even in the heat we've been getting already (90 F).
My friend Justin is like me in that he tends to gravitate toward the older cars... we like to think they are just better for many reasons. Feeling connected to the road, that mechanical vibe, build quality, lightness, etc. He hasn't really driven my M5 much, and most people go easy on a car when it isn't theirs, so while I think he liked it, he didn't love it. Well, the other day we were carpooling somewhere and I nailed it lighting up the tires through two gears just pegging the limiter. That raucous noise is just intoxicating. I forget his exact words, but he just laughed and said something like, "God this car is AWESOME"
The ease with which it makes horsepower and torque, and that throttle response... it's to die for. That is, once you learn to deal with the electronic, rather than mechanical, linkage. Interestingly, it bothered me when I bought the car. Now I never notice it, but I don't drive the car more than once a week. I think it may be a combination of me getting used to the car, and maybe it learning more about my driving? I'm not sure. Anyway, good are always had in this car
These next two pictures are just a sunrise I witnessed one morning on the way to work. It was positively glorious. One of those moments you only experience a handful of in life. The second picture almost shows the true colors I saw. The purple and orange/red combination was striking. These pictures are completely untouched.
One night I came home to see this... my Dad did something pretty nice for me and actually designed these magnets to put on some of the cars for shows, my toolbox, etc... just for fun really. I thought it was very thoughtful/fun. Obviously the colors can be made into Audi S colors too
We also changed the 356k mile old differential in my/Justin's E34. It has been whining ever since I bought the car. The gears have failed due to contact stresses, a classic failure mode for VERY well-used gears. The new one is tight as a drum and SILENT. Feels like a new car! Justin has also recently replaced the front Konis and all new bushings/balljoints in the front since I replaced all of the arms with the cheapest crap I could when I was in college... it lasted all of one year before failing. Justin drove around on the failed parts for quite a while which destroyed the basically new tires I put on the car lol. He bought some new ones and learned a lesson the hard way (TOLD YOU SO! haha). More recently, one of the door pull cables broke and was fixed, all windows are fixed, and today Justin got the power head rests working again! Sweetness
The latest work I did on the 635csi was fixing the rust in the trans tunnel. That was the next most important structural area to take care of. After this, there is almost nothing of concern structurally. Just a one hole in one rear shock tower and some rot in one front shock tower. There is also a hole in the front passenger floor, but I'm not worried about that. I will fix it, but I'm not in a hurry.
The day I began welding in the new panels for the trans tunnel, I pulled a doofus move. I was grinding a piece of sheet metal with the wire wheel to get some surface rust off in prep for welding, grinder in one hand, sheet metal in the other. The wheel caught on a big bur in the metal and sent piece of metal right into my finger which was followed immediately by my thumb getting run over by the wire wheel! It was fairly painful and I was a little shocked, but I just kept grinding until it was finished, then tended to my wounds. There was a lot of surface area taken off by the wire wheel and a large chunk out of my finger. I bandaged them back up and got on with the welding until I ran out of wire. No progress has been made since then just because I've been busy. It is 85% done though.
Some new, non-car-related developments are going on with me. This was a picture out of my hotel room. I will explain later why I was in the hotel and why the view was ironic. Give me a few weeks. Let's just say the 200 project should have no fear of running out of funding in the future
For the nerds out there, I bought a completely new in the box N64 and controller along with two other controllers, also new in the box. I spent so many hours on the N64 as a kid, I just had to have a fresh one.
There is a whole story I can tell about picking up and driving the M3 home, but that will have to wait for another day. The coolest part was getting to know the previous owner a bit. He had a very sweet garage filled with very sweet cars! I even got to drive one. P-cars are the only logical progression from here it seems...
The white 968 is a very special turbo homoligation special. Apparently it is being featured in the equivalent of BMW's Roundel magazine very soon. 360whp from what he told me. Very cool! This was just two weekends ago.
Last weekend I went to Carlisle. I flew in to Baltimore with my girlfriend (that's where she lives right now) and we drove to my family's farm near Altoona, PA. We stayed the night and got a fun history lesson, then left for Carlisle in the morning. We had a great day and I really enjoyed seeing old friends and making a few new ones! I'm yet to see a build thread (as promised!) from our newest T44 brother
One of the two highlights of the show for me other than talking with everyone was taking a ride with OB (mushasho), Matt (chaloux), and Kevin (atkapod) in OB's car. We did the now project-pad-famous FO-DEEP LAUNCH / LAUNCHFACE and then went for a rip. The tire shed a tread around a corner and thankfully we were able to limp it back to the fairgrounds safely. It was all just a very fun/funny experience.
The other highlight was of course watching Jim's 07K/superHX40 4k start up and *attempt* to spit FIRE for the first time. Everyone was very excited about it and the comradery was palpable. Again, good times had by all.
Next pic... lots of E30s. Justin crashed his turbo E30 around Christmas time, so a replacement was in order. The black FO-DO which crashed has been patiently waiting to donate it's organs to another chassis. Justin just recently built up the urge to get another. It's getting really hard to get E30s for cheap, especially "is" models, so sacrifices have to be made to get a deal. The new one is a 325is in Bronzit beige (ew). The good: it is a coupe, has an LSD, and the interior is pretty nice. The bad: the exterior is not so nice, it has some rust, engine was reported to be making a bad knocking noise last time it ran.
We charged the battery and turned the engine over for the first time on Wednesday. It sounded really nice while turning over. Nice and smooth. However, when it started firing, it sounded HORRIBLE. We thought it might be one of the accessories, so we cut the belts. Still had the terrible sound after all accessories were isolated. So we pulled the plugs to check out the bores using Justin's fancy boreoscope that he has been itching for a reason to use. All looked fairly good, but one piston had some liquid on top of it. I wanted to get a better look at the piston by having Justin cranking the engine so the piston would be in a different place in the bore. When he did that, the piston DIDN'T MOVE. AT ALL.
So we found one piece of the puzzle. I'm very curious about what we will find when the pan gets pulled. My prediction is that the rod is broken somewhere in the middle. It sounds so good when spinning on the starter, but terrible when the engine fires and gets up to speed. That makes me think the rod is swinging around on the crank.
OK... now on to the E30 M3. The guy I bought it from only had it for two months. He had some family issues that he needed to take care of which left no time for getting this car back up to par. I won't go into too much detail, but I will give the short list of parts I've ordered (and mostly installed) so far.
-rear brake pads (to fix the embarrassing clink I was getting over rough surfaces, the pad spring was not functioning properly)
-glove box latch
-rear bumper side marker
-BBS wheel center (was missing when I bought the car)
-trunk latch (broke on the way home! that was fun to try to rig up to shut at a gas station on the way down)
-spark plugs
-all gaskets to re-seal the intake tract from the head, to throttle bodies, trumpets, and plenum, and some misc. hoses/o-rings which also relate. (This is in an attempt to fix a rough idle issue.)
-new M badge for trunk and roundel for hood
-custom car cover from covercraft. Specifically made for extreme weather and high UV exposure (the M5 takes priority in the garage
)
-M3 Sport Evolution shift knob (suede) and Sport Evo buffalo gaitor/boot (this was a little bit of a splurge, I admit, but the knob on there now is not original and is very loose)
-Rogue Engineering reinforced rear shock mounts (wow, the stock ones were frighteningly blown!)
I think that's it.
Still need-front bumper side marker - NLA, someone from ECS tuning is working on getting these in production again
-windshield needs adhesive re-done
I'm forgetting a few things because it is way too late.
OK, here's a good one... since life plans will be changing very soon, I am trying to fix the very last mechanical problem on my Dad's... er... my E46 ASAP. That problem is the rear diff bushing. I hope it is anyway because it is a really crappy job to have to do without the right tools. I tried to order the tool, but it was back ordered, so I have to stoop to cutting it out and using delta temperature and BFE to get the new one in. I'm going to try to finish that tomorrow. The funny part is that when I jacked the car up to begin the work today, I couldn't believe my eyes! I can't believe I never noticed this before on this car.
YES, that is a vice grip being used to keep the failed rear shock mount from thunking. ROFL!
I can't believe it is still up there. WHO KNOWS how long it's been there!
Oh and lastly, I went to the junkyard today for a 50% off sale. I found some great stuff. I got a mirror to fix the one which seems to have stripped gears for up/down movement in the E46 and new window switches for the E46 (the were sun-baked and the one in the center console which controls the rear passenger window would roll the window down and then keep rolling it down when you'd push it in the "up" direction haha. I also got some harmon kardon rear speakers for the E36. Those things completely transform the sound in that car! It actually has bass now lol. All of that cost me exactly $25.
I will be putting together something of a compilation video of some recent clips including Carlisle action.
