Meet Lorelei (1989 325i)

[car_gal_jenni]

So today was semi-successful. Keep in mind, it's like 20* outside, and our garage doesn't seal very well so it's still pretty darn cold even in the garage. We didn't feel like tackling anything electrical today, so my fiance did some reorganizing of his toolbox while I tackled some of the sap problem.

I found this tiny plastic "non-marring" type of tool and decided I would give it a go. Well, this little mystery tool has been a huge success. This was not the first go-round with the sap on this car. I used a razorblade to get it all off the windows a couple months back, and that worked great, obviously. Then I tried some goof-off and similar products to get all the gooey sap off, which worked, kind of. When the goof-off stuffs quit working, we went to laquer thinner, which barely did anything.. About a month went by with me stumped on what to try to get this crap off of my car. And then today happened. And needless to say, I am quite pleased with the results.

Before (after goof-off and laquer thinner):



After (using the non-marring tool):


I still have a lot to do, but... It's REALLY cold out there, and I ran out of microfiber towels.
I used the non-marring tool with some windex, and the sap just chipped right off. Once everything is cleaned off, she'll just need a cut/buff and she'll be good as new!! About time..

[car_gal_jenni]

Yeah, things have been a little slow lately... Sorry about that.

I was laid off back in August, and was fighting the unemployment office for the longest time. I just started a new job a month ago, so I've been playing catch-up on bills and whatnot. Things financially should be settling down within the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I can get back into it.

On the plus side:

I do have her tucked away in the garage, dash all torn apart. We're working on sorting through why the OBC lights up but doesn't display any data (it all worked perfectly in my 318is, so not sure why it's not working here), sort out the cluster (maybe we can figure out why my tach doesn't work; honestly, I think it's the diff speed sensor/connector/wires), and get the courtesy lights to actually function.

Oh, and Santa was very nice to me this year.



Trust me, they need a LOT of work. All lips and barrels need to be replaced, and the faces need to be refinished. But! I couldn't pass them up, not for the cost I got them at. All credit to getting these goes to a friend named Frank. I cannot wait till things money-wise settle down and I can give these things the treatment they so desperately deserve. I've gotta save these!!

Hopefully the start to the new year bodes for a better rest of the year: my boyfriend proposed at the stroke of midnight as we watched the fireworks display from the Space Needle last week. Took me by complete surprise, and I'm excited to start the next chapter of our lives together.

[car_gal_jenni]

Congrats! What area did you move to?

Woah, sorry for the huge delay in response... We bought our house in Lake Stevens, which is about an hour north of Seattle. It's been great, and it's got just as long of a "mod wish list" as the car does I just can't help it, so it seems.

[cblock406]

Congrats! What area did you move to?

[imschwaggy]

damn beautiful i want one so bad

[car_gal_jenni]

As promised, all that house-y update crap really has lead to a car update.

After we got the house done and the garage cleaned out, we were finally able to move the toys into the garage.



It feels great having the e30 & supra in the garage. There's so much room in there to work! Such a great asset to have with the house.

Time to get back to wrenching on the e30. Remember a few posts back about the head I had sent to the shop and abandoned due to it being too spendy to pick up at the time? Well, time for that sucker to re-enter the picture. After the belt fiasco, I needed a known good head to swap onto the car to make sure everything was ok. So, I worked it out with a good friend to help get that thing paid for, reassembled everything, and got it all mounted back on the car.













One thing we figured out: even though we didn't hear anything at the time, and even scoped the motor to check the pistons, don't assume everything is fine. When we took the suspect head off, we discovered 4 bent valves. Well crap (for that head). At least I had this one refreshed and ready to go. Decked, hot tanked clean, new valve stem seals, new valve guides. I wish I could have had it ported, polished, and done over-sized valves. But, well you saw the house post.... No funds for that right now.

The head swap took a weekend, and good lord does it feel great to be back behind the wheel of the car. Now, I just have to sort out some cluster wiring issues (yay, more friggen wiring gremlins in this damn car....), get the OBC to actually display data again (worked in the orange e30, not working here. I'm stumped), and then get all the sap off my car from when she sat under a tree outside the garage while we worked on the house.

[car_gal_jenni]

So! It's been a couple of months since I've had the time to update this thing, and for good reason too. At the last update, we had just discovered that the over-tightened timing belt caused plenty of damage that I needed to fix. The motor blew up just a mere two weeks before we closed on our new house, so we didn't have time to fix the car right away; bigger fish to fry in the coming months.

(Caution: non-car related update to follow, which will lead to a car update, I promise)

We closed on our house on 6/29, and I feel we did pretty good for our first house. Single story, 1500 sqft, 1/2 acre, in-ground heated pool/spa, 3bed/2 bath, 2 car detached garage. The interior was a bit dated, so we decided to remodel a few (re-read this: a bunch) of things before we moved in. ..... I guess I'm a glutten for modding punishment.

There was huge fiasco with ending the lease at our rental house, and it forced us to move all our stuff 3 weeks ahead of schedule into the hosting garage while we worked on the inside. It was a hassle at the time, and a huge headache, but now that everything is done, it's all worth it. The inside of the house has turned out awesome so far; I love it.

When we first bought the house, the walls were a very mildly tinted baby blue ish color, with sparkly popcorn ceilings everywhere, a drop ceiling in the kitchen, and zero lighting in the living room. The house needed some help, and we were about to just tear into it.

Here's some before shots of closing day before we touched anything.








First step: remove the popcorn ceilings and retexture them. WHAT. A. MESS. I never want to touch ceilings ever again haha. We also removed some beam caps in the entry hallway and master bedroom.











I mentioned that there was zero lighting in the living room, to include no switched outlet either. So, we had to add lighting in that room. Not only did we add lighting there, we replaced the chandelier in the kitchen area and added more lighting in the kitchen, front entry way, hallway, and the master bedroom. A total of 26 recessed can lights went in. We also added a 3-way switch for the living room lights. I feel sorry for my boyfriend, who is the poor soul who had to climb into our crappy, over-insulated (yes, that's a thing..) cramped attic in the middle of summer to run the wiring for all these lights... Turned out great though.









We also removed the drop ceiling in the kitchen, removed one section of cabinets, and added 2 pendant lights there.







And then we painted. Everything. Ceilings, every wall everywhere. The finishing touches were the replaced lights in the bedrooms and closets, and then we swapped out every outlet and switch in the house.







While we were stringing up wiring for the lights and whatnot, we decided to run network cables to a few spots in the living room and the master bedroom. We also ran the wiring for our 5-piece surround sound system. Our entertainment cabinet is PACKED, but very well cable managed (my OCD thing..).





Needless to say, it's been a busy couple of months. With the house remodeling finally complete, we were able to move everything in, get settled, and move toys into the garage. Car update to follow in next post.

[car_gal_jenni]

(The following events happened in June. Sorry for the super late update)

Well, time for another update, to include the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good:

She runs!! Boy, does it feel great! That z3m rack is incredibly responsive; I love it. Probably my favorite mod so far. I took her on a cruise through the mountains this past weekend to a German car show in a town called Leavenworth. She looked amazing, all shined up and parked in the sun. We had a blast wandering around looking at all the dolled up Germans. It definitely makes the past few months of headaches all worth it, to see her all shiny.



The bad:

We drove home Saturday evening to get a good night's sleep for another event we were going to Sunday morning. We got within 2 miles of the show venue, and the oil pressure light came on and the motor died suddenly. We got to the side of the road quick and popped the hood. It smelled hot, like burnt rubber. Think a burning belt. We tried to crank over the car, and got no response. Tow truck, to the rescue. She got towed the 50 miles back to my house, away from the show. When we inspected a bit closer, not having disassembled anything yet, we thought the timing belt snapped. Crap....

The ugly:

Well, the timing belt did not actually snap, so all of the valves are 100% ok. Phew. The intermediate shaft pulley and front main housing, however, are not ok. As we had come to expect, the tensioner was over tightened. My fault. That caused it to bend and had actually started pulling the tensioner out of its housing. The bent tensioner pushed the belt forward, causing it to hit on the front main housing. The belt being too tight also put too much strain on the intermediate shaft pulley, which caused it to collapse on itself and break. Fortunately, I have spares, thanks to a few donor motors I had in the garage. Let the replacing begin. Guess it's also good that this pulley broke; I learned that the early model intermediate shaft pulleys are weaker than the late model ones. So, I''ll be putting in a late model one that'll hold up. And then I'll be tensioning the belt correctly this time around. Lessons learned.

[car_gal_jenni]

Lookin good keep it up

For some reason "Lorelei" sounds nostalgic to me, anyways, good build, as guy above said; keep it up!

Thanks guys! It's been a mad scramble to get her ready for the E30 picnic on the 26th. It'll be close, but I think I can finish everything by then.

[Throttle]

For some reason "Lorelei" sounds nostalgic to me, anyways, good build, as guy above said; keep it up!

[r0p0doe]

Lookin good keep it up

[car_gal_jenni]

And the progress continues!! This long Memorial Day weekend proved to be VERY fruitful for the car. We got all new black silicone hoses mounted up, and somehow managed to make sh itty ebay headers actually fit and seal. What an adventure that was.



We also got the headliner dyed black, which looks a million times better IMO.




We also did the parcel shelf, and got all my audio stuff wired in and working. Looks and sounds amazing.



We also managed to get my new Ireland Engineering short shifter kit, with the dual-sheer selector rod and all new delrin bushings, installed Friday as well. It sure does feel crisp!! I can't wait to take it for a drive.



We also got my euro trim and headlights sorted out this weekend. All trim has been resprayed black, and the headlights have been refinished as best I can. OEM smily low beam, OEM french high beam.




I also got all new brakes (calipers, rotors, steel braided brake lines) front and rear, and new suspension (bilstein shocks, lowtec springs) front and rear. Not sure how the springs are going to do, so if I don't like them, I'll swap them out for H&R sport springs. Springs came with the shocks from a local e30 owner, so I wasn't going to pass them up.

And now, a brief (HA!) story of how we managed to get those headers in the car.
I got them Friday when I got home from work. My boyfriend and I decided to do a test fit and see how they lined up. With all the mixed reviews on ebay headers, I was curious. Well, the test fit didn't go so well. Shocker, yeah I know. I submitted for a refund, and started shopping for the IE long tubes. I hadn't quite pulled the trigger yet, since we wanted to tinker with them in the morning. Glad I waited; we managed to get them to fit! But first, while there were still no headers, we wanted to crank the car to make sure we had the starter connected properly. We initially didn't, so it was a test to make sure we fixed it. I really urged my boyfriend that I didn't feel comfortable with trying to start the car yet, but... he's as stubborn as I am. Well, the fix worked and the car cranked over and started. The excess fuel from cranking over got spat out the open exhaust ports onto the strut tower, and the heat from the motor running caught the fuel and cosmolene on fire. Yup, engine bay fire. Not a good way to start the day on Sunday. But alas! We got it put out quickly, thanks to a hose on the front of the house, and the car is completely unscathed, unlike my nerves which were immediately fried. I also discovered that there's something extremely sharp on the back side of the hose spigot knob, as my newly sliced open finger could attest to. I always say you're not working on a car properly until you're bleeding... Fancy that, right after the fire got put out and we calmed back down, the headers lined up perfectly.

And for those that are curious, yes I took a video of just the open headers.

http://vid1215.photobucket.com/album..._171512355.mp4

All in all, a successful weekend! Now I just need to bleed the brakes & clutch, & get this bish to an exhaust shop (this weekend) and get an alignment (next Thursday). And then she's all ready for the remainder of the show season this summer!!

[cblock406]

Nice work, that is going to be a sweet e30!

[car_gal_jenni]

Any reason for removing the coils that were already on the car?

1) condition of sale: previous owner wanted them back
2) during the test drive, they rode like shit
3) i preferred my h&r/bilstein setup from my previous e30

[FunfGang]

Any reason for removing the coils that were already on the car?