MyE28.com DEV

Replaced both right-side tie rod ends on my daughter's Civic this morning. My eyeball toe adjustment left a lot to be desired, but thankfully my favorite alignment shop had some time to work on it. He adjusted the toe for me (for cheap) but also found the top ball joint to be lacking on that same side. They gave me a $280 estimate for doing the job; thanks but no thanks guys. I'll do that one at home.

Broke the POS overpriced plastic fuel door hinge trying to install it.

BMW and their plastics. Almost as bad as their electrics.

Washed the e30 only to have it COVERED in pollen within 15 minutes. I then moved the e12 out into the daylight for the first time in years in order to make room for my oldest daughter's 13th birthday dance party. (They painted t-shirts and listened to music in case you were wondering).
Plan is to fire up the e12 tomorrow and see what else has fallen into disrepair.

oldskool wrote:Washed the e30 only to have it COVERED in pollen within 15 minutes.

Awwww CRAP! I totally forgot about this phenomenon. Spring IS coming!

Started to look into why the headliner doesn't pop up when I pop the sunroof in back on the E36. Got all pissed off with the idiot key chimes, so I had to stop and disable that thing. Does anyone actually like those things? Or do most people just put up with it in silence? I just absolutely hate the f'ing things. Surely it was a sadist who designed it.

So back to the sunroof. No luck, and nothing I've seen online is of any help either. Might head down to P and P tomorrow to see if they have one there I can take apart. The Bentley was as useful as always, which is to say not at all. I love that M52 engine with muscle car performance and 28MPG, but the rest of the car is just another modern plastic POS.

Mike W. wrote:Started to look into why the headliner doesn't pop up when I pop the sunroof in back on the E36. Got all pissed off with the idiot key chimes, so I had to stop and disable that thing. Does anyone actually like those things? Or do most people just put up with it in silence? I just absolutely hate the f'ing things. Surely it was a sadist who designed it.

So back to the sunroof. No luck, and nothing I've seen online is of any help either. Might head down to P and P tomorrow to see if they have one there I can take apart. The Bentley was as useful as always, which is to say not at all. I love that M52 engine with muscle car performance and 28MPG, but the rest of the car is just another modern plastic POS.

The seat belt ,keys in ig, etc dinger in the Transit connect is a wimpy little thing I can barely hear.

Finished installing my Viair onboard air compressor set up on my JK Rubicon. Ready for the beach now!!

Pulled the 'only a few good strands left' throttle cable from wifey's ///M anticipating it's replacement arriving early next week.

I worked my butt off in the garage today. In the last 30 hours I've wrenched on 4 cars.

1. Bandit my E28. That's over there.
2. My neighbor, who is also a huge car nut and much more experienced than I, came over looking for a 3/8" universal joint for his wrench. We get to talking and he mentions that he's replacing the HID lamp on his wife's 2005 Mercury Montego. I mention to him that those things should never need replacing. So I scoop up Ellie and walk next door passing Ellie to his wife who is a frequent babysitter. We had to loosen the entire front bumper cover and the shroud on top to get that headlight assembly out. Of course we got the new bulb in- he used plastic gloves I might add- and of course the thing didn't work. We popped inside and I hopped online and apparently I'm right, the HID lights should never fail and there is a ballast apparently in the headlamp fixture that typically goes out. So that appears to be the problem. The dealer usually just replaces the entire headlight assembly when this happens. I told him to buy the ballast and we'll swap that out but it is, of course, up to him. This is the same neighbor that is hot rodding a 1938 Plymouth. He rebuilt an older Hemi and had a newer Camaro 6-Speed bolted up to it in his garage. And the 38 is in primer right now. I'll post a thread sometime when he get finished.
3. My wife's RAV4 needed an oil change. So I went down and dropped off 5+ gallons of used oil and bought the $20 oil change special form NAPA. I hate that filter position on that car. I got it hand tight and then couldn't tell how much further I was getting it with the wrench. Hopefully I'll be able to get it off next time. And I may have also over-done it on the drain bolt too. That one's not too hard to get off though. The nice thing about the RAV4 is that I don't have to jack it up, I just park it at the edge of the garage and the incline gives me enough working space. Don't worry though the car is parked on a flat surface.
4. And I pulled the snow tires off of the E90 and put the summers on. I'm going to need that car in the next few weeks to make a road trip and I wanted the runflats on it. I bought my Blizzaks used and they're not runflats.

Tomorrow I'd like to clean out the garage but that may be ambitious as I have my normal Mr Mom detail plus a photo shoot. I'm exhausted but too achy to want to sleep right now. Ugh.

My youngest son came over and swapped the wheels, with good tires, from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the HVAC controls and surround from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the trim panel under the steering wheel from the '91 to the '92.
Finished installing the new accelerator and cruise control cables.


She took it for her first drive.
Wants to know when she can start driving it.

Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

1st 5er wrote:My youngest son came over and swapped the wheels, with good tires, from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the HVAC controls and surround from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the trim panel under the steering wheel from the '91 to the '92.
Finished installing the new accelerator and cruise control cables.


She took it for her first drive.
Wants to know when she can start driving it.

Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

I hope you can bring one of your E34s to the Vintage. I'd love to see them!

Not my car, I don't know why I agree to fix cars that belong to a "helpless lady from church"...

Mazda protege5 - timing belt job. (BTW, I've never done this job before. I've done one on an e30, but for this one, I just watched a video on youtube. So far, the guy has been bang-on.)

So, after turning on the compressor "after curfew", then whaling away with the impact for about 30 seconds, I secured it, and decided to try the billybob route. Put the socket on there, handle and extension on the ground, engage starter.

Crank hub - 1 Craftsman - 0



So I grabbed my 1/2" ratchet handle next, same setup, *crankWHIZZZ*! (Score is TIED!)
Loose, and I didn't need a puller to get the balancer off. YESS!!

rmiddendorf wrote:

1st 5er wrote:My youngest son came over and swapped the wheels, with good tires, from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the HVAC controls and surround from the '91 to the '92.
Swapped the trim panel under the steering wheel from the '91 to the '92.
Finished installing the new accelerator and cruise control cables.


She took it for her first drive.
Wants to know when she can start driving it.

Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

I hope you can bring one of your E34s to the Vintage. I'd love to see them!

If I'm able to make it, it's not yet determined what we'll be in.
I'd love to be in the E12 powered S38, but I don't see that happening.

ldsbeaker wrote:Not my car, I don't know why I agree to fix cars that belong to a "helpless lady from church"...

Mazda protege5 - timing belt job. (BTW, I've never done this job before. I've done one on an e30, but for this one, I just watched a video on youtube. So far, the guy has been bang-on.)

So, after turning on the compressor "after curfew", then whaling away with the impact for about 30 seconds, I secured it, and decided to try the billybob route. Put the socket on there, handle and extension on the ground, engage starter.

Crank hub - 1 Craftsman - 0

So I grabbed my 1/2" ratchet handle next, same setup, *crankWHIZZZ*! (Score is TIED!)
Loose, and I didn't need a puller to get the balancer off. YESS!!

So the breaker bar broke and the ratchet held?

Mike W. wrote:So the breaker bar broke and the ratchet held?

My thoughts exactly. I've been waiting for it to break for about the last 3 years. I thought the hinge pin or one of the ears holding the pin would go first. Oh well, off to sears tomorrow!

A 3' bumper jack rack makes a great cheater on a 1/2 Craftsman ratchet

1st 5er wrote: Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

Passed state emissions inspection with flying colors.

1st 5er wrote:

1st 5er wrote: Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

Passed state emissions inspection with flying colors.

Sa-weet!

rmiddendorf wrote:

1st 5er wrote:

1st 5er wrote: Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

Passed state emissions inspection with flying colors.

Sa-weet!

You got that right.

The wifey detailed it after she got in this afternoon and transferred her personal car stuff and will begin the DD thingy tomorrow morning.

1st 5er wrote:

rmiddendorf wrote:

1st 5er wrote:

1st 5er wrote: Hopefully we'll be able to get it to the inspection station tomorrow.

Passed state emissions inspection with flying colors.

Sa-weet!

You got that right.

The wifey detailed it after she got in this afternoon and transferred her personal car stuff and will begin the DD thingy tomorrow morning.

This is awesome on so many levels Sherman. My wife can't drive a stick shift, for one, and she doesn't even like to ride in my vintage BMWs. You're a lucky man...

Also how's the treatment? Good vibes still going your way.

Thanks Rodney.

It's going OK.
Well, not really, but it's as expected.
I should hear whether it's working or not next week.
Either way, I will not be disappointed.

We also have y'all in our prayers, Sherman.



Changed oil in the truck and spent some time staring at the front suspension. The thing has monster torsion bars, inch thick tie rods, and an upper a-frame that could support a house. It still surprises me to see grease nipples on a 2004 vehicle.

Another cool thing is the "gooahj" indicator that shows when the air filter needs changing. I didn't trust it and bought a new filter but upon removal the old one was clean so I put it back.

Working on a write-up for my M5 clutch change but that was a month long saga complete with special tools and machine shop delays (go figure) so it is taking a while to get it all down. I'm 370 into the 500 mile break-in and it's getting harder and harder to keep my foot out of it.

Put a new water pump on dad's Dodge Dakota, after a two day fiasco with Fisher getting the right one.

Managed to crack the vanos cylinder on the M3 while trying to do the rattle fix procedure on Beisan System's website. My fault, as I got too excited and didn't realize the piston wasn't all the way seated before cranking down on it in the vice.

Oh well, gives me time to paint/powdercoat the valve cover completely instead of just the vanos cover part like I'd planned.

djazz wrote:We also have y'all in our prayers, Sherman.

Working on a write-up for my M5 clutch change but that was a month long saga complete with special tools and machine shop delays (go figure) so it is taking a while to get it all down. I'm 370 into the 500 mile break-in and it's getting harder and harder to keep my foot out of it.

Clutch break-in complete. Now to see how long it takes to fry it!



That's just crazy talk, of course j/k

Does expanding the fleet count for this thread? Picked up a more than slightly ratty '89 525i for cheap today with the thought of yanking the motor to transform the 528e into a 525i. The chassis has ~270k on it, but the seller had the head refreshed about 60k ago after the timing belt said good bye. Runs great, has a 5-speed behind it, and the car actually drives quite nicely. Also came with a set of Style 2's (that makes three sets in my possession ) with a nearly new set of Winterforce snow tires on them. The biggest problems with the car are the rusty doors and the trashed interior, but that's not what I bought it for either. Schwartz over PB; not that it matters, but...

Not sure when I'll get around to doing the swap; we may just title it and drive it until then.

Finished the brake plumbing on the Ranger. Gonna start a gravity bleed tomorrow after work whilst I put the evap line back in. I ordered the clutch and stuff from partsgeek earlier this evening. This gives me the rest of the week to figure out where all the stuff I unplugged goes. So far, I've spent over 500$ in parts.

Shot the throttlebody with some carb cleaner and a rag on my little Toyota truck, trying to stabilize the idle. Also hunted for vacuum leaks (none!). Dunped some seafoam in the gas tank before I filled it, did a quick hot soak, and dumped some in the crankcase too. Need to adjust timing tomorrow. Also peeled of most of the PO's business lettering.

It'll be nice not pulling up to a jobsight in the touring. And even nicer to have 'just a car' to drive, that's not full of tools and material...

Wifey left the lights on. Jumped it.

Repaired and repainted both driver and passenger door mirrors on wife's Mercedes.

After about 2 years of tossing and turning, I've finally picked the colour my e28 will be painted.
Now It'll be painted within 2 weeks and then I can upload some photos