my unlowed e24

[bmw85]

Hi. I'm Marshall.
I go to school in California from mid-September until June. While I'm not there, I'm at home in Marietta, GA, working on an '85 635CSi.

Since I have to leave my shark to the care of my family while I'm at school, I really want to make the most of the time I have here. So I have a hell of a lot of project planned for the next few weeks.

Problems:

• Overheating tendencies
• Awful rough idle
• Awful 55+ mph shimmy
• Stock ride height
• Cracked steering box mount
• Zip-tied aux fan
• General engine bay grossness
• Automatic transmission
• Bent valence bracket
• US bumpers
• Stock exhaust
• Stock US M30B34
• Sketchy RC090s

This summer's plans:

• Cooling system refresh
• Fix the rough idle
• Relatively stock top end rebuild (mostly for my own peace of mind)
• A drop (not enough to satisfy you fuckers, but a drop nonetheless)
• New front suspension
• Custom aux fan mount
• Fix valence bracket
• Perfect sound system - there's a little alternator whine at the moment
• Clean up the wheels
• Headers + hi-flow cats

What I'm planning to do is borrow a pal's engine hoist / stand, pull the engine out, rebuild it in my garage and clean up the engine bay while I'm at it, reinstall it, then do suspension. Or maybe do suspension first.

pixxxx:
(only a few for the moment)






NEED OPINIONS:
the rc090s are in pretty shitty shape, so I'll probably refinish them or get them refinished. To mirror polish or not to mirror polish? The car has lots of chrome on it, so I don't really want to overdo it.

[Yogi_Bear]

I'm impressed, welcome

[Jorge]

Henna Red <3 , fuck that makes me miss mine.

[evilstar]

welcome.

[j work]

Sweet 6er. New to the forum myself and bought a e24 about nine months ago. Ever need advice, info, or help just lemme know. I live in cumming so not to far away. I'm a tech too so got plenty of tools and knowledge. Might have some fixes to your list of problems.

[jasonklee]

Good looking E24, even if isn't low yet.

Welcome to StanceWorks

[Dirtyhands]

Hell yeahh love for the car know your problems but what a beautiful car can't wait for progress

[bmw85]

2012-07-09 18.23.02

2012-07-09 18.23.11

...and now my M30 is sitting on my garage floor.
The plan for the moment is to go ahead and get head/valves done at a machine shop, do a stock-ish rebuild of the top and bottom ends, fix the wealth of vacuum and electrical issues I had, clean it all up, and drop it back in with new headers. I'm relatively mechanically inclined, but not very experienced with this sort of thing. I have a friend helping me out that knows much better what he's doing, but I definitely would like all the help I can get.

More pictures:

2012-07-09 18.23.18

2012-07-09 18.26.33

2012-07-09 18.26.45

^ in pulling the motor we smacked the front against the front bit of the radiator and scraped off a little paint. whoops.

I'll be following the Bentley manual for most of the rebuild stuff. Please point me toward any information or helpful links!

[bmw85]

head came off last night. looks pretty awful: bad compression on pretty much all the cylinders, head gasket pretty badly deteriorated, pistons nasty, valves burnt up. Pictures to come.

[Anonymoose]

Good luck man. Get this beauty running!

[evilstar]

Good work. Good time to repair or remove the A/C if its not working.

[bmw85]

more pics:
the complete disaster that is my garage:

2012-07-10 23.59.20
one of the awful sensors that probably caused a few issues...

2012-07-10 23.57.27 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
we dropped the pan to get a socket on the torque converter mounting bolts. I think we did this wrong: took the transmission off without taking the torque converter with it. thoughts?

2012-07-10 23.59.02 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
grimy, nasty, disgusting block and pulleys.

2012-07-10 23.56.46 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
valve cover off!

2012-07-10 23.55.20 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
block's a bit rusty...

2012-07-10 23.55.06 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
intake side

2012-07-10 23.54.56 by seewhereweland, on Flickr


and finally, the reason my M30's run like shit for as long as I've owned it...

2012-07-11 00.46.13 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.30 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.40 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.47.48 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 00.48.25 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

2012-07-11 01.00.25 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the head's off to a head shop in Marietta, I still have to get the block sandblasted, various parts powder coated, and bottom end rebuilt. many late nights await.

[bmw85]

YO MODS move this to the builds section?


Not really going for a performance build, both since this is my first rebuild and I'm trying not to spend more money than I have.

Properly mounted it up to the engine stand last night. Took the oil pump, flywheel, and one of the pistons out. Here are some pictures...


2012-07-17 01.21.37 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the crank!

2012-07-17 01.22.17 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

the one piston we took out so far. this is after cleaning it up with a nylon brush & brake cleaner:

2012-07-17 01.22.26 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
check out that piston wear!

2012-07-17 01.23.38 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
the gunk is baked on pretty thick:

2012-07-17 01.23.03 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
flywheel:

2012-07-17 01.24.18 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
bearing:

2012-07-17 01.23.27 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
my sad, sad radiator:

2012-07-17 01.26.17 by seewhereweland, on Flickr
headers!

2012-07-17 01.29.01 by seewhereweland, on Flickr

a few more pictures of internals; just got the crank out and started cleaning a few things up. the block is still nasty though, hoping naval jelly + wire brushing the hell out of it will be enough for engine enamel to stick.


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
fresh head!


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
some of the bearings, these are the 4th, 5th, and 6th from the front.

Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
fresh from the powdercoater!


Untitled by seewhereweland, on Flickr
nasty little buildup on the bottom of one of the bores, below the stroke, must be corresponding to piston wear.

Gotten a lot done recently, with a few delays thanks to forgetting to order rod bearings and somehow completely stripping my oil pump nut (?!). Now the block is cleaned up and painted, crank and pistons are in with new bearings & rings, head is on with new head gasket, and next on the list is getting the timing back together. Pictures below.


Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
block paint

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
I tried to clean up all the sludge caked on the walls of my engine bay (some of which you can see in the first set of pictures) with moderate success.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
I also straightened some condenser fins, but a good chunk of 'em weren't really still intact.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
more cleaning...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
cleaner pistons...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
the parts table!

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
the garage after the head went on.

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
shiny and clean!

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr
this goddamn thing. I was torquing the oil pump nut to spec when it let go and just started spinning freely. Cut it off with an air cutting wheel to discover that the threads had just peeled right off. back to the dealership I went...

Untitled by Marshall H, on Flickr

Also there were some weird things going on with the new head bolts: the first part of the torque sequence went fine, but then 3 of the bolts (one by the front of the engine and 2 at the very back) just kept spinning when I got to the second part of the sequence? I put in three of the old ones in those same holes and torqued them down and they did fine. So I think I'm just leaving it that way. Really sketched out by that.

[jamle]

WOW thats very impressive, cant wait to see it all back in the bay clean

[bmw85]

Picked up some bits and pieces (bolts, brackets, etc) at pull-a-part this morning, reinstalled most of the accessories and the exhaust. Got the engine off the stand and onto the hoist to prep for reinstallation of the transmission. Pictures:


2012-08-09 22.01.12 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.02.00 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.02.12 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.20.41 by Marshall H, on Flickr


2012-08-09 22.21.00 by Marshall H, on Flickr