Let's Get Mechanical - Neglected BMW E30 320i 5-speed - Project Marbais: Part 4

coming up we cook dinner it's like boiling an egg except you're boiling an air slide wow e30 is fighting back what is the matter with you and let's spice it up a bit well maybe we plop a v12 in it [Music] welcome back to the fourth installment of project mart bay in the previous episode we started giving some much needed tlc to the e30 completed engine service and ended up with a broken subframe built so we're picking up the action right where we left off the welding machine is here so we're gonna do some welding we need to extract this broken subframe bolt and the way we're gonna go about it i have a nut here and then my landlord he's gonna weld through the hole and hopefully that's gonna be strong enough that we can spin off that broken bolt not looking at it but welding is happening as we speak something is happening i think it's coming out already [Music] oh no it snapped it broke it broke yeah it broke again but it started coming out [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so round number two barbecue try number three oh it's hot i think it's coming out it must be there you go round of applause for future professional talk to myself for clements aka my landlord good job my man yeah i know i'm not going to touch it this could have been a nightmare very goodly good job clements you earned your lunch that worked out pretty neatly i gotta say much easier than drilling and tapping the new threads now i'm gonna use the thread tracer clean up the threads and then use brand new bolts ongoing smoothly so so it's a good thing we did this because it's full of rust the threads look how easy now it goes in by hand so i'm going to do the same with the rest of the threads and then we're ready to put back the subframe all of the threads cleaned up nicely and now it's time for brand new engine mounts that needs to go in first to understand my safety glasses you know what would be great if this crappy core gasket starts leaking again ah there we go engine months are in so i just need to slowly position the subframe that one is in finally enough that one as well let's get the bolts going check it out now funk's rubber right about now i need to connect back the steering shaft to the steering rack should slide easier with lube and now i can also drip into my eye i think while i'm already here we might as well replace the filter can i do it like this fram filtrio fresh filter going in give it a twisty do good let's write the date on it junetember 2075. now we can get rid of the support bar for this engine mod i got to go by hand because torque wrench can't fit in here time for the brand new fan clutch what oh come on what's your issue you don't want to come out thank you very much thank clutchness is going in let's replenish it with oil this is the magic potion that we're going with liquid moly 10 w40 motor protect and oil additive this is really good stuff i've been running this in project clone d46 for over 10 000 kilometers now and the engine is working super smooth it doesn't use a sip of oil i've also put it in project dubai got the same experience so i'm going to put it in this car as well cheers let's get this bundle of joy going again it wants to die because of that stupid air slide valve sounds peachy [Applause] you know what it's less tappy than before that's for sure and now we're going to replace the fuel pump since i'm not very familiar with the fuel system on this car i had to do some research and this is early e30 pre-facelift and it has l-jetronic fuel system and i thought that it has in-tank fuel pump but it doesn't it only has fuel sending unit over there and fuel pump it's located externally it's right over there and that's the thing that was screeching like a dying animal when we first unloaded this car from the tow truck so it's probably on its last legs and now we're gonna replace it this is our device that's supplying the engine with fuel and it's sporting a beautiful layer of mold and i'm thinking this was probably never replaced die mold die come on oh here we go take this to the table i actually wanted to buy all of these brackets brand new because these are rusty and ugly but they are discontinued of course so i'm gonna have to spritz these a little bit and make them nicer yes come on [Music] finally broke everything is so rusty and crusty chill pump is out this is our brand new pump original bosch unit i cleaned this up with the wire wheel and then spray them satin black it looks like crap because these parts are really rusty but replacement parts don't exist so this is the best i can do at this point new rubber thing can you guess by what it says on these gloves what kind of suspension this car is going to get so this hose here is going to be a problem this is the original one and you can see that has this kink here that allows it to be in this tight space and normal fuel hose you can't do that if i do that then i'm gonna make a huge kink and it's gonna restrict fuel that goes through it and i knew this so i ordered a brand new hose but here it is what's wrong with that picture it has a kink but it's way too short and i just double checked it's the correct part number but this is what they gave me so to overcome this i'm going to use well essentially extended so put this on put this on clamp here and then the rest of the normal fuel hose that's all done and i'm gonna dig through the parts catalog see if i can find this hose this will work but i don't really like the look of it so if i find this one i'm going to come back and replace this later monkey orange juice let's see if this thing actually runs again and the fuel sanding unit is working again i actually removed it to look inside the fuel tank off camera and it all looks good it's not rusted and the fuel looks good took a little bit to build up fuel pressure alright it works what's next the clutch if you remember from the previous episodes i complained that it takes about that much from the floor for the clutch to grab like that's it and that makes it incredibly inconvenient to drive plus all of this is that travel i know that the brake fluid is bad it's over 10 years old so we're going to change it and while at it we're going to replace clutch slave cylinder and clutch line then bleed the line and see if the clutch is any better but if it's still the same then the transmission needs to come out and we need to replace the clutch kit that'll be the clutch slave cylinder which we need to remove the trick here is going to be extensions lots of them all right let go hello look at that it's too much play alright so now we need to disconnect the line oh that was much easier than expected brand new slave cylinder and the clutch line which we need to attach now that'll do it hello darkness look how black that is i think i'm gonna remove the brake fluid reservoir to clean it oh just have a look-see that's what's inside this reservoir that's really nasty possibly one of the worst brake fluids i've seen so far that's nice and clean and ready to go back on the car press the grommets fresh brake fluidity now you can go underneath and crack open the blade nipple and hopefully you can see the fluid is coming out and it's super black so yeah that can definitely be one of the reasons why the clutch pedal was so bad and hopefully it is once you know it boys and girls we have a nice firm clutch pedal with no dead travel on the top compare this to before remember dead travel in the pedal well no more and it actually feels good not too hard not too soft let's see how it feels when i drive it oh it's perfect it's catching a half about million times better than before ah that's excellent news that really is excellent that means we have a good clutch and now as long as the rear main seal is not leaking we don't have to take out the transmission and you know what's interesting about it this is the original clutch on the car it was never a place the house 250 000 kilometers it's 38 years old and it still works and that tells you a lot about the person who owned this car michelle drove this car properly and took care of it he did not burn up that clutch anyway now i want to remove that air slide valve thingy and see if it's possible to persuade it into working oh the most boring air filter box to remove ever that's the valve that we need to remove two coolant hoses on the front and two vacuum lines on the back oh a bit more coolant is coming out okay i plucked the line oh you need tiny hands for this there it is this is our culprit the air slide valve and it's causing idle issues on this car it's idling way too high when the car is cold and that idle doesn't go down once it starts warming up and it's actually a quite simple device that serves for a cold start procedure coolant goes through here there's a little thermostat inside and air vacuum goes through here to the intake manifold so when you start the car cold this thermostat is closed more air is going into the intake manifold and making the car a bit higher once it reaches a certain temperature this thermostat here opens and closes the air passage and the revs go down and then the coolant can go through here the problem is this is a quite common failure point on these early cars because the thermostat is now stuck and the air is constantly going through it and the part is obsolete you cannot buy it brand new anywhere the only other option is to buy a used one but pretty sure it's going to be the exact same thing now i'm going to go boil some water and then dump this section of the valve in it and see if it actually open or closes so you can see that the air passageway is open now hopefully it doesn't tip over or i'm gonna melt the plastic the valve ain't valving so it started moving which is good but it didn't close all the way so now we're gonna dump some throttle cleaner in it let's boil some more water so it's moving up and down a little bit but it's not closing all the way welcome to the kitchen as you can see i'm boiling the valve cooking the valve and i've used one of these things which is for limescale for washing machines put the tablet in and i was boiling it without earlier and it actually closed all the way so i don't know if that did anything or this water just way too hot so that it closed but we can check it again yep nearly closed all the way you probably can't see it but i can so i'm gonna continue cooking it maybe use one more of these pills tablets it's like boiling an egg except you're boiling an air slide wow watch this by the way don't tell my girlfriend i'm doing this she's not home so i'm having my merry way in the kitchen later i'm gonna drink this nope see you tomorrow while on internet last night i ended up on a russian forum and i found a post that's 10 years old and someone bought this thing brand new then and tested it the way it works is around 20 degrees celsius it slowly starts to open the thermostat around 70 75 it's nearly closed but not all the way there's a few millimeter gap between being fully closed and around 95 100 degrees celsius it's closed all the way with one millimeter gap at the end and that's pretty much what i got with this one yesterday when i was boiling it it was closed all the way with one millimeter gap and boiling water is around 100 degrees celsius and when i put it in a cup and put hot water it's nearly closed so not all the way which is kind of consistent with those results will this work probably not this is 38 years old there's wax and stuff and thermostat inside it's probably not that great but i'm gonna put it back and see what happens because there's nothing else i can do at this point if this fails then i'm gonna have to do something else perhaps get some electronic clap or whatever that's gonna open and close this manually i don't know let's put it back and see what happens that's reconnected so what i want to do now is check for vacuum leaks we got smoke you gotta open throttle flap as well okay so we have no vacuum leaks [Applause] 1500 rpm which is pretty much what it should do when that stupid thing is working it's gonna idle high until it warms up yep idling like a lunatic temperature is nearly at the middle yeah now it's at 1500 rpm and it's surging up and down [Music] what is the matter with you something else is going on here it's not the idle valve sitrep i made some progress at least i think i got it to idle normally i went back and played with the ignition timing if you remember it was slightly off when i did the timing belt so i put it in the straight position the rotor arm with the distributor body now i went back and unbolted the bolt that holds the clamp and distribute the body and that way you can move it left and right and alter the idle of the car it's gonna idle higher or lower so i messed around with that for a little bit and i got a title perfect listen to this it's idling about 700 800 rpm really smoothly as well so that's it it doesn't idle like a lunatic anymore the issue that i have now is the same issue that i had even before i started doing all this work on the car and that is when you give it throttle the revs hang right now it's revving at 1 100 200 rpm and it doesn't want to come down for at least a couple of minutes so it's really strange sidling high then turn it off turn it back on [Applause] and we're back to perfect title what the issue is i have no idea anymore even when i clamp off the air slide valve everything is working perfect so i don't think we have an issue with that anymore i don't know now i'm going to continue troubleshooting see if i can figure it out you gotta admit something i find it easier to work and troubleshoot issues on the m70 v12 and the e32 and e31 then this there's just million cables vacuum lines and stuff and this controls that and that's controls that it's just a huge mess anyway while i'm still spinning my brain let's replace the transmission and differential fluid i have some pretty remarkable news i had the car running all this time i even drove it in the yard for a little bit the clutch feels great but have a look there we do not have a leaking rear main seal i can't i just i don't believe that amazing so that leak that was here was actually coming from the old pan gasket we changed it no more leaks there great news means that i have to take out the transmission anyway let's change the fluid as always first remove the fill plug there we are it's actually fairly clean put it back in going with atf i'm running this stuff in all of my cars now e60 39e46 and it's working wonderfully it cured the cold start difficult shifting on my e39 m5 let it drip out and then close the plug close the plug and now the diff that looks pretty clean as well this is an open diff so we're using 75w90 done and now we're going to proceed with my least favorite activity replace the brake lines and bleed the brakes the rear ones actually don't look too bad but they are over 10 years old for sure and they cost like three euros so might as well replace them i don't want to cut my fingers on a heat shield welcome to the rear drum brakes oh look how black that is this is the most disgusting brake fluid i've seen in a while yeah we have good breaks you're never gonna guess who's the new supporter of the channel wrong it's bill stein oh yes they're providing struts and shocks for the e30 also project rally the e60 m5 those are coming a bit later because they don't have them in stock right now but november december is when we're gonna do the suspension on that car for e30 they're here right now these are bilstein b6 shocks and project dubai the e38 750 aisle has the same and i adore the ride on that car it is extremely well balanced super comfortable and super sporty at the same time which is like number one important thing to me and i love driving it and i hope alex in the uk is enjoying it as well it passed uk mot recently by the way with flying colors anyway the e30 it's pretty slow with what 125 horsepower it does not have power string so it's all about the handling with that one and that's where these come in they're going to completely transform the way that car handles for the springs i use real oem to search for part numbers and they are between 15 to 20. different part numbers for springs for the e30 it just doesn't make any sense and i was hoping to find m technique slash bilstein springs but they're of course not available anymore most of them are not so i have to settle for these these are standard springs for 320i and 325i as well the e30 right now the right height it's pretty high i don't think it's normal and probably something to do with the fact that it's the very early one so i hope that these are going to lower it at least a little bit we're going to measure before and after these are less fuses which is a swedish word for a butterfly no but i have these on project cologne e46 for a while now and they're doing pretty well so i'm happy with the choice there at the same time we're going to overhaul complete suspension at least the front part of it and these are brand new control arms from lamphorder the ones on the car right now are super rusty and even if the ball joints are really good i don't feel like painting them new strut mounts control arm bushings tie rods and more parts scatter around to make this car feel like brand new so let's get going we're gonna start with the rear shocks now we're going to go inside the car and unbolt the top mount i love that sound it smells like mold in here mold and mildew is having the party in the trunk so i need to use the mask how do we remove this now peel the onion zipity zip and it's out about the easiest rear shock to replace in the world but we also need to replace the spring well there we are all right it's out let's compare the springs the new one is a little bit shorter and hopefully that lowers the car a tiny bit got this stuff brand new as well clean up the seating position good it's in you should go up like that as there's a load on the suspension first take apart the old one to see how to assemble the new one that's all of the hardware brand new pretty big difference wouldn't you agree that one is very very tired rubber dampener and then this needs to go in here plate and the bolt now go for good and tight yep that's not going anywhere because that's a self-locking nut my milwaukee impact gun is holding the shock for me while i start nuts brand new ones of course now i need to deploy hugh jackman jr here is perfect this one we are just going to lightly tighten and then the final torque is done with the car on the ground that's what the repair manual says thank you jackman you fulfilled your duty now i just gotta copy paste everything on the other side now we're gonna drive back and forth and then i can torque the lower shock bolt is it lower in the back it is not jeez louise it's like an suv that's the rear shocks done by the way what do you think of this exhaust i have two issues with it one is that it only has one tail pipe this is a six cylinder you should have two so it looks ugly and the biggest annoyance is that it's simply way too quiet you cannot hear this engine at all it sounds like crap so i would like to replace it with something that has two tailpipes and it's a bit louder so i can hear this engine just not sure which brand to go with i did find one exhaust from a company called simmons i want to say it's complete rear section the middle box and all the way all of the pipes all the way to the headers and the price is pretty fair around 500 euros the only thing with it it's not stainless steel it's some sort of aluminized steel so i'm not sure about the quality and how long it's going to last but the sound is pretty decent the price is fair so i might get it another one that i'm considering is super sprint and azen man of course they have top-notch quality stuff but with them the problem is they only have the back box don't think they have the complete system which i need because he only has one pipe coming from the mid silencer not sure let me know i'll think about it and then probably replace it all right i don't even need to measure it's the same right height in the back maybe even higher and it looks like an suv i can go off-roading with this car so i'm thinking eibach lowering springs are definitely going on this car the problem is if i put him now the car will not pass old-timer tooth inspection because the car needs to be original condition you cannot have lowering springs to pass that inspection so once it passes that inspection we're going to revisit the springs and do something about the right height and now the front suspension the brakes for this car are so cheap that we are just going to replace this rusty stuff as well off with the caliper what a weird looking pads [Music] whoops wheel bearing feels great unbolt the sway bar right now i can pop some ball joints i'll try a couple of hits here see if it's going to come out if not i'll get my ball joint popper ah the booty store and i didn't do that i didn't touch the boot not the smoothest one probably dirt and stuff is inside [Music] [Applause] [Music] and now we can unbolt the strut from the top and now with the complete thing with the wheel hub out now i need to compress the rusty spring that should do it i love love this spring compressor it is the best 90 euros i ever spent the top mount there's a spring and now it's the fun bit struggling with this giant nut since we're not using this collar bilstein shocks come with a new one i'm gonna make a little groove here and then slowly start hitting it with the hammer and loosen it that way oh movement excellent oh this is monroe so it was replaced mine wow normally i would take this apart all the way and drop it off a powder coating but it's saturday and waiting time it's five days to get the parts powder coated so i don't have time if i do that the video is gonna be late for about a week so i'm just gonna clean it up as best as i can and then proceed with reassembly in case you're wondering why is the video taking so long to make this is why because i waste my time on stuff like this cleaned it up use the war wheel scotch brite and then painted it with some high temperature resistant paint and it looks nice presentable not great but presentable it was really rusty and ugly before so now i can put it back on the car and it'll look apart with brand new suspension on the car that actually looks really good now i need to clean and make sure that the inside of the tube is free of oil if we were using standard strut inserts hydraulic ones then we would use around 30 milliliters of oil inside the tube before we put the insert in that way it's going to help with the heat transfer and whatnot but bilstein shocks they are gas-filled so they didn't require any oil and instructions say remove the oil and don't use any so that's what we're going to do [Music] time for the new strut to go in this needs to go in first because this is what's going to keep the dust boot the instructions also say to compress it one time this is the new collar or the locking nut all right the good thing is also you can hit it more once this is on the car it's bolted in place and then that way i have more leverage to hit it here so we'll do that again clean this brand new spring pad there's no bump stop for bilstein shocks they have internal bump stop so all you need to use is the dust boot brand new spring plate and spring pad now we need to compress the spring so perfect oh yeah that is good there we go that's one strut down now we're going to focus on replacing the tie rod and the control arm yeah this inner tie rod it's way too loose and it's full of rust so definitely a smart thing to replace [Music] oh that wasn't too bad and now the fun part i'm bolting this ball joint so this knot it's pretty rusty so i soaked it in some penetrating fluid and now let's see if i can get it off oh i don't believe it it's spinning off look at that i have a shorter handle oh the ball jump popped the problem is now it's kind of spinning i cannot undo the top nut because it's so freaking rusted right yes good great so i think we're gonna cut it off here actually no i can't do that and this bottom part it's a bit wider than the hole itself so i'm not sure if it's going to come out up top or not right that's off now the million dollar question will this come off on top [Applause] control arm is out yeah that's what i was afraid of oh what now genius so now i'm going to try and cut the groove in the nut finally and this is why i hate working on rusty cars one ball turns into several hours of labor should have been done by now but no did not have to be rusty so that's the results of destruction cut the nut in half and broke it off and now we need to remove the bracket and the bushing from the sole control arm say hello to my cheap hydraulic press that's out these are standard e30 control arm bushings across the line and here is the new one from lamphorder but a friend recommended that instead i use these these are off e36 m3 eurospec 3.2 reason being standard e30 control arm bushings have a lot of flex in them because they're not solid you can see holes while the e36 one is solid and has a lot less flex in them he had him on his e30 for a while and the steering response is just better it's more precise more tighter so i think we're gonna go with these and see what they feel like need to push out the old bushing you know this press was only 120 euros but it's paying off really nicely now that was good where did everything go and the bastard is still not out is it out sure isn't now it's out now we're going to line up this notch with that one and slowly start pressing it in perfect beautifully pressed in i went ahead and professionally repainted it as well need to press in the control arm bushing a bit of silicone spray so that goes like that can't even start with my hand oh i pushed it on with my hand so don't need to use the press and silicone spray we're gonna use water or brake cleaner or whatever once this is on the car and that way i can wash all of this out and the rubber is going to grab firmer the control arm since we have enough space now let's replace the sway bar bushing here we go let's see if i got the wrong one would you look at that i got the right one control arm going back in and i also transferred the sway bar bracket painted it as well so it looks spiffy ah now torque it until something starts breaking in your arm that should do it now the tie rod here is the new one so now i need to make sure that the length is exactly the same well not exactly but close to it so that the car can drive in a straight line to the alignment shop look at that that's how that should act perfect put a bit more grease here just because i have it that's full stop push this here time for the strut to make reappearance bolts nuts so this has a bushing in it we're not going to talk it now but we are going to talk it with the car on the ground if i do it now then it's just going to twist when i lower the car ball joint we can tighten all the way that's not going anywhere that's the dust boot set suspension on the right side done and you know what's the best part of it i'm gonna be back in here replacing this off-roading springs in a couple of weeks i found used m technique springs for a pre-facelift t30 the problem is the guy is on vacation he's coming back in three weeks so then he can ship them to me i'll drop them off for powder coating and throw them onto the car they should definitely lower the car some say 10 some say 20 millimeter i have no idea but it's gonna be better than this and it can also pass tooth inspection because the springs are original for the car they're not after market lowering springs anyway let's do the brakes now brilliant brand new shiny disc you know how much this brake this costs 23 euros and it's oem techstar caliper bracket goes back i know what you're thinking i wish i had the time to refurbish the calipers as well but i don't because if i do that it's going to take me another week before the video comes out and september it's not a very good month for delays and there's a lot more projects waiting maybe i do it once i get my wet blasting cabinet it's going to be much easier than to wire brush all of this manually for now they're working and at the end of the day that's the most important thing good that's done i gotta say this was a ton of work and i've only done the half of it thankfully i can just snap my fingers and copy paste everything to the other side yeah i'm pretty sweaty hungry dirty gotta go home and then tomorrow i'm gonna pick this up again on this side because the exhaust is not in the way we can access the nut for the ball joint from the top so we're gonna try and do it that way the vultures are spinning now which is perfect [Music] there we are we are done but we need to clean up the mess now we're going to drive back and forth and then torque the sway bar bushings that'll do it and this is the old pile of parts that i'm going to recycle i'm gonna save the springs and the strut mounts those are good everything else is trash and that concludes the suspension refresh unfortunately the car is not registered so we cannot take it for a ride but let's at least take it for a quick spin in the yard and get a preview of how the suspension is going to feel here we go you know i can't get it past second gear here but i can already tell the difference in suspension it was very floaty before now it's just really firm and nice over the bumps well at least that i can feel here in the yard i cannot wait to feel it on the actual road you know it used to have a little clunk before in the front guess what now it doesn't and the clutch is really good shifts perfect the whole car feels great the engine is working really smoothly steering is really precise well how did you come did i run you over oh that's heavy do i need two hands [Applause] yes the ride height is horrendous it looks like it's ready to climb a mountain but bear with me m technique springs are coming and as soon as they come in i'm going to put them on the car and hopefully that lowers it somewhat but also bear in mind this is early e30 with standard suspension tiny 14 inch rims it just looks ridiculous by today's standards i mean i can put my head into that gap hopefully it will improve though that's pretty much all of the mechanical work done on the car certainly everything he needs to pass german technical inspection and also a lot of preventive maintenance so it's good for years to come the last piece of the puzzle is to figure out a weird idle issue i've been getting some useful tips from pierre the guy from belgium who gave me e21 parts and also another nice subscriber named mick and none other than jason camisa who is not only a phenomenal automotive journalist but also knows his way around mechanics jason i don't care what other people say you do not look like adam sandler yeah you do anyway we pretty much narrowed it down to me having an issue with sticky distributor and or ignition timing i'm gonna take that apart see what it looks like possibly even replace it and then use the timing gun to set the ignition timing never done that before but we'll see how i fare and if that fails well maybe we plop a v12 in it at least i know how to fix that all of that is coming in the next episode we're also going to clean up the interior fix the damaged door pin correction and it's pretty much ready for its clash with german tooth inspection as always thank you very much for watching if you're in the mood perhaps grab a t-shirt the link is in the description and maybe even subscribe if you haven't that'll be nice i love you all and i'll see you soon you

Channel: M539 Restorations

Views: 572,499

Keywords: e31, bmw, 850i, 850ci, restoration, revival, barn find, e39, e38, m5, 740i, 840i, 840ci, 850csi, csi, 8er, 8 series, classic cars, bimmer, 540i, v12, 535i, 750il, 750, e46, m3, m70, road trip, m73, budget, cheap, first start, car project, b7, b8, alpina, restore it, e34, e32, e24, hoovie's garage, hoovie, tavarish, doug demuro, vin wiki, vice grip garage, car throttle, samcrac, e60, s85, v10, challenge, m54, 3er, 325i, chrisfix, detailing, disaster interior, detailing geek, top gear, edd china, cartrek

Id: yFb-1lggqMc

Length: 48min 19sec (2899 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021