An auto e39 is like a chick with an awesome body but a face only a mother could love
An auto e39 is like a chick with an awesome body but a face only a mother could love
Did a road trip this weekend down to Richmond (about 100 miles), almost entirely cruising down I-95 form DC in the '88 924S. Car ran great the whole way, cruising mostly around 70mph in mostly rainy weather. Anyhow, as I got off on my exit in Richmond yesterday I rev-match downshifted to 4th then 3rd and then 2nd (though I didn't perfectly hit the revs on 2nd), and then braked into a stoplight. As I came to the light, clutched into put the car into 1st, and it wouldn't go in. At all. Put the clutch to the floor still no-go. As I sat at the light, I tried other gears and it would go into 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th with more-than-usual effort and notchiness. Clutch felt pretty normal, it seemed, but hard to tell since I dont' drive this car all that regularly (but had driven it a bit the day before). But I could sit at a light with the clutch fully pressed in and the car in 2nd and the car would not move forward or anything, so the clutch was definitely disengaged.
Also would not go into reverse. I was about a mile from my destination so I just started in 2nd at several stoplights and then parked on the curb when I got there. We took my friend's car over the weekend to do things since I coudlnt' really work on mine or check on much parallel-parked. My intent was to just limp it back home today using 2nd-5th and figure it out when I got home.
This afternoon I left her house, still not able to put it in 1st, and got myself to the highway, where the car seemed to shift fine up to 5th. Cruised for 30 minutes and then hit a rest stop to take the roof off (parking on a shoulder so I didn't have to back out, not having reverse). Car left running while I did that, in neutral with the e-brake on.
Jumped back in the car to get back on the road and intuitively shifted it into 1st.........and it went right in, no problem. Jumped back on the highway, everything felt totally normal with the shifting, clutch, etc. Then I hit heavy stop-and-go traffic and had to stop a few dozen times. Every time, shifted into 1st no problem at all, and throughout the range. Drove all the way home, 3 hours on the highway about half of it in stop-and-go. Got to my house, and car went into reverse just fine as well.
So now I'm stumped. Car has maybe 1000-2000 miles on a new Sachs clutch kit, reputable-brand new slave cylinder master cylinder (and all new hoses). The clutch feels totally and completely normal now in every way.
I have noticed for a few week a kind of metallic sound from the car when in gear or idling in neutral (though not with clutch in), which I assume must be the throwout bearing (though that and the pilot bearing were also replaced when I did the clutch). It's not terribly obvious since this isn't really a quiet car and it has a slightly rough idle that rattles some stuff, but still at a bit of a loss on all this.
I will also note that the car has completely new shift linkage hardware from front to back. Not OEM stuff, but the very nice parts from Only944.com that have really been a joy to shift with up til now. I have never missed a gear or had a shifting issue since I installed this stuff.
My intial thoughts:
1. Somehow an air bubble in the clutch system got knocked into the stream when I downshifted suddenly and eventually made its way out of the system through the M/C and reservoir as I drove and everything heated up?
2. Throwout bearing somehow got stuck in an odd place and didn't allow the clutch to fully disengage, and then eventually somehow let itself free as I drove? Not sure why this would have still let me get it into 2nd-5th gear though.
3. Somehow something shifted in the car, not allowing the linkage to select 1st or reverse. The car has new motor mounts, but the transmission mounts are NOT new, and I don't know how old they are. They are on the list to do this summer. But since the engine and trans are literally bolted together with the torque tube, not sure the trans could move independently enough to cause this.
4. The rear shift linkage has spherical bearings on it....I guess somehow something could have binded and then unbinded itself? I can't really see how that could happen, but I guess.
So after getting home and letting the exhaust/muffler get cool, I got under the back and found the culprit, and thankfully it was something simple and dumb. In the rear, where the long linkage rod comes through the rear subframe (or some other frame bracket), there is a plastic tube lining the pass-through. You can see it in this pic off the internet, on the left (linkage rod removed here).
Anyhow, on mine that tube, which is at least 6" long if not longer, had somehow slid out the back of the bracket and was kind of loosely hanging there on the rod itself. Plus on mine the back end of it was kind of smushed in around the lip like it had been hit repeatedly. So I guess it was getting jammed between the metal bracket and was catching on the rod-to-linkage bolt on my aftermarket setup. So I reached up there and pushed back in, and it ahs some little tabs that hold it in there firmly now. I'm thinking that somehow it just worked itself loose and slid out the back. I'll toss some epoxy up there this week just to make sure it stays in place from now on.
Here's a pic of mine:
The other takeaway from that road trip:
1. This car cruises so nicely at 70+ mph, turns about 3k rpms at 70, and returned about 30mpg over one tank of gas (roughly), and that's with the headlights up the entire way down. It's really smooth and stable at speed and is way nicer for highway trips than my WRX (other than the WRX having awesome seats and A/C).
2. With the sunroof removed and stashed in the hatchback, even on a 90-degree sunny day it's reasonably cool in the car with great airflow, but ZERO buffeting either from the windows or sunroof (it has the small flip-up windscreen). I also learned that when there's a surprise rain downpour, if you're going over about 50 the wind over the car will direct 95% of the rain onto the hatchback and not get into the car. Unfortunately, I had to come to a 20mph slowdown, and then I got really wet lol.....
3. The pop-up headlights are giant airbrakes. You can physically feel the car slow down at highway speeds when you pop them up, which is really noticeable on a car with such a low drag coefficient....
4. The big four-banger in here has more than enough torque to easily start at a stoplight in 2nd, without slipping the clutch or extra revs. The engine never came close to stalling. Not a huge surprise, but my e30's 1.8 would struggle at this.
With the wife and girls at the beach for a few weeks (their vacation), I get my own vacation, mostly consisting of visiting friends, hanging out, doing road trips, rallying, and working in the garage until all hours of the night. This is the perfect opportunity to get going on a project I've been thinking of for a while: Dash re-do.
So, into the garage goes the car, after much washing and scrubbing of Summit Point clay...
Shoulda just left it outside for another day...
Since I first built the car, the original dash has slowly become a mess of sloppy wiring, mounts, buttons, and switches mounted wherever I could easily attach them, and just general disorganization and crappy arrangement. So time to fix that.
First order of business was to pull the nice-condition (a few cracks) dash from the parts car in the shed. And pulling the old crappy one out of the rally car.
My plan here is to change things a bit by chopping the dash at the edge of the center console. With the stock dash, Jim was really getting jammed up with stuff in the way, and had to mount literally everything on the A-pillar posts, which made getting in and out of the car harder, since the OEM dash has basically noplace to easily attach anything.
The second part of this plan is to install a dash bar for the cage. Rally doesn't require it, and due to time constraints when we built the cage we didn't put one in. But in the interest of safety, I want to add one. The other upside is that the exposed bar on the passenger side will allow Jim to mount his stuff at the bar, which will make things easier for him.
Once out, the scope of the 33-year-old wiring mess is apparent...will do a lot of cleaning up, rewiring stuff, and organizing. Luckily most of the nonessential wires are already gone since I thinned them out years ago. So, on to detaching stuff and labeling wires and such. Will also clean all the grounds and add some more grounds.
Taking a break from that, I made the cuts on the dash (including a cutout for the cage on the driver's side) and then mixed some black and gray flock and flocked the whole thing.
I had also been working on some designs for the center stack to make it more useful and less totally-ghetto. So, after making cardboard templates, got some aluminum sheet and started cutting, sawing, and drilling.
And here's what I came out with:
Oh, I also made a new gauge cluster blanking plate and moved the warning lights to someplace I can actually SEE them.....
I wanted to move the window switches back to the middle of the car, and add some more toggle switches for current and future stuff. I have some on the way courtesy of ebay. Also made new places for power outlets, the KILL switch, and a few other things. And goofed around with my new phone (Pixel 2), which should hopefully provide you all with far better action pics than in the past!
Continued to do wiring stuff, then decided this would all be easier with the windshield out, so I pulled that out too.
So, I have about 2 weeks to finish all this and get the car back on the road for the next rallycross. This weekend I should have time to make some progress and next weekend me and Jim are heading up to STPR to hang out and crew for Dan Downey and whatever other friends who are rallying that we can help out.
Ok, well progress made this weekend with the wife and girls out of town. So I made a complete and total mess of the garage, but my work OCD kept me going basically all weekend (aside from some time to hang out with friends).
Saturday morning rolled up in the Porsche to Cars and Coffee, not because I love car meets (they're ok), but to meet up with Brian Batocchi to get a piece of DOM tubing for my dash bar. But since it was perfect weather and this is a moneyed area, there was quite a turnout of cars there....
So rolled up there with Jason
Brian brought his rally car
A few 928's and even another 924S (in not as good shape as mine).
The aircooled guys got there early for prime parking...
Then got back home and down to business. Welded the dash bar in, tying in the steering column support and a similar piece on the passenger side. It's been a while since I welded anything, so as usual some not-beautiful beads, but it'll do regardless (plus, it's mostly hidden).
So, with the bar in, I got the dash back in and started putting things together, fabbing up additional parts, and doing a ton of wiring and rewiring. Apologies I'm a bit short on "in progress pics..."
Joining the two dash pieces. I cut out the passenger side to a minimal dash, so as to have access for the bar to mount stuff
The more or less completed product
Windshield back in (never fun to get that spreader strip in, but I got a nice black one off the parts e30 to replace the yellowed/cracked one that was on mine previously)
Still have to re-install all of our electronics and do some accessory wiring, and a few other things. Jim will swing by this week to help out with that.
Ah, to add to the post above, I actually did take some pics of the dash bar, I forgot. Big thanks to brian battocchi for cutting and notching it perfectly for me!
Wow, looks good! What's the "Subaru ahead" light wired to? 
On your side of the dash, looks like a pretty sharp edge- I would make sure your leg can't get up there or it could make an already unpleasant crash a really bad time.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:Wow, looks good! What's the "Subaru ahead" light wired to?
Constant 12Vdc power 
That's a lot of work cleaning up all of the wiring but the results look like it was worth it.
Adam
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:Wow, looks good! What's the "Subaru ahead" light wired to?
On your side of the dash, looks like a pretty sharp edge- I would make sure your leg can't get up there or it could make an already unpleasant crash a really bad time.
lol, it's wired to the high beam indicator light :)
See, this is why I like to post pics, to get the thoughts of other crazy rally people lol. I actually took a palm sander and rounded every edge of every panel I made to avoid nicks, cuts, and bashes. That panel is actually pretty far back from the driver (farther than my old one). I just tested with myself strapped in, and I can't even force my leg to within 4-5" of it with all my strength - so if my leg does somehow hit that in a crash, my leg is probably already broken in a worse way lol. Point taken though, and I may think about putting something soft-ish around that edge - at very least maybe some door weatherstripping or something, ikd
Meanwhile....at WMWR we took some heat at tech for not having working reverse lights (they were working earlier that day, dammit). Assuming the switch was the issue, I just jumped the wires (conveniently they come up right in the shifter boot) to a toggle switch to get us through tech. ARA rules specifically say they light has to be activated by the shifter itself (not a switch), so got under the car today (removing about 20lbs of dried Summit Point clay in the process) and replaced the switch with one out of my spare transmission. Man, IDK how this stuff gets so dirty above my huge skidplate, but definitely had to take a big brush to it for 15 minutes...
This was the 5th pile...
And voila we have reverse lights again. Yay.
adam525i said:¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:Wow, looks good! What's the "Subaru ahead" light wired to?
Constant 12Vdc power
That's a lot of work cleaning up all of the wiring but the results look like it was worth it.
Adam
lol.
man, I do hate wiring and eletrical, though I'm getting a bit better at it between this and the Porsche
Jim came over tonight to address "his side" of the car. His long-term plan is to build an assembly for all the electronics, but for now we will use the dash bar in front of him. In addition, since installed the tach has been super-bright at night, to the degree that on night stages I've just taped over it with duct tape, lol. So Jim brought his box 'o resistors and we wired one in to get it to a more reasonable brightness.
Then we stripped out all the old comms and GoPro wiring so we can more cleanly run them.
We decided to move the DME/ECU back behind the bar by the firewall to get it out of the way, so I figured out a way to securely mount it back there tucked up and safe from, well, everything I hope.
Then did a bit of cutting and found a perfect spot for our multi-port USB box (down on the left there), and mounted up our Stilo WRC comms box down on the bar (it was previously up above on the visor bar, but didn't fit well there and was hard to get to the battery access). Not ideal, but it'll work for now. Not like we need to adjust the volume often and I don't need to personally reach it from the driver's seat.
if you're wondering what's up with the dash bar weld at the right, it's just covered with some seam sealer and smoothed out nice so that our door window wiring harness can't chafe against anything since it kind of slides back and forth around that corner as the door opens and closes. Kind of ugly, I will need to think of a more elegant solution eventually (like, uh, just using the stock wiring routing, duh). It's on the list....
With a monsoon weekend of heavy rain coming, and me heading up to STPR, I decided to leave the Porsche at home :( and just drive the crew rig since it has lights and can get out of muddy fields - and doesn't leak. So stuck the Porsche in the garage with the e30 so they can hang out.
I like this thread. Your projects look like a lot of fun!
spandak said:I like this thread. Your projects look like a lot of fun!
Thanks, I try to keep them interesting at least!
Ok, last weekend i went up to Susquehannock Trail Performance Rally (STPR), which we ran in this year but this year saving our money for NEFR instead. This year I went up to help out with crew and volunteering, working with Brian Battocchi's Impreza and helping out with Alan Edwards' Neon, and also helping up in the timing tower. Though I've been to STPR several times, this is the first time I got a chance to hike out into the woods (well, not too far) to catch some of the far-away stages, to that was cool.
Anyhow, I'll just post up some of my favorite pictures I took because that's more fun than me just talking, so enjoy (sorry, they are totally out of order)
First night there we were up til almost 3am putting a new gas tank in Brian's Subie after his sprung a leak and failed tech....I did more supervising while the Subaru experts did the real work :)
Parc Expose
Downey's e30 and Alan's Neon
Higgins' SRT car
Stone/Noyes newly-built 318ti (and Amanda Skelly's new Impreza)
Louie Jonas's M3 is always good to see
With the rally masters....Rhoades and Moore
The Beliveau Boys in their supercharged Golf
Got a few good shots at the jump. Here's Sean Burke's CRX rebounding after landing
Edwards at service under storm clouds
Downey vs. Keanna at the super special
Got to watch from the tower with Tony Zanni, whose car was wrecked so he was doing the super-special announcing
ZERO CAR
Some of the fast movers
Brian and Neil
Jon Kramer and Jason Smith, who podium'd on both days, not surprisingly.
Helping Alan's wife Karen out crewing
The SRT team is a bit better equipped
More super special...the MK2's
Erik Pat's e30 (formerly Alp's, if you recall)
Seriously, there was a rainbow...
Jonas going huuuuuge
Barry McKenna, who was beating the Subaru Factory Team cars at the time
My Porsche buddies, Pepper and Mical
Downey and Brolin along with Erin Kelly
Not my shot, but Alan landed a bit nose-down
So, hope you enjoyed those :)
I know I'm far from the first to do this, but recently my 924S has been getting a mild "clunk" from the rear on upshifts to 2nd (and the occasional gear grind). I didn't feel like a transmission issue, and the CV axles are in good shape, bolted in tight, etc. Figured it must be the mounts. Note that on the 924S and early 944s, there are mounts on each side of the transmission, which makes it really easy to remove them as opposed to the later cars with the center-mounted bushings and require the subframe to be pulled.
Anyhow, this is a street driver, so after a bit of looking at what others had done I decided to go with 60A rather than the 80A that some people do. The goal here wasn't to get ultimate response, but to just improve the stock bushings (worn or otherwise) and get rid of the clunking.
Like many others, I got the stuff through McMaster for about 30 bucks.
After consulting with a visiting neighbor....
.....I pulled the old, nasty greasy/oily ones. Cleaned them up good and then scuffed up the rubber parts. They didn't seem all that worn or damaged at all, actually, I could make them deflect a bit by hand but I've seen many far worse bushings this style,
Then masked off with some tape and cardboard and mixed the stuff, filled it up and let it dry.....
Voila..
After a couple days I took it for a drive a little while ago and wow...significant improvement. Clunk gone, shifts in all gears are much more positive (note I already have all the linkage stuff from Only944.com), and no grinding gears on speed-upshifts or downshifts. Zero additional NVH that I could feel/hear.
All in all, a highly-recommended and easy upgrade for way less than the cost of a new OEM (or aftermarket) bushing.
The 924 still uses the old style 2 mount system for the trans right? The late style leaves a lot of play, it just uses one mount in the center. How's the linkage look at the shifter?
For the noise in the 924 while driving and clutch out in neutral, I'm betting its the torque tube bearings. Should sound gravely when they are going out, very common in the 924/944
Dan_G said:The 924 still uses the old style 2 mount system for the trans right? The late style leaves a lot of play, it just uses one mount in the center. How's the linkage look at the shifter?
For the noise in the 924 while driving and clutch out in neutral, I'm betting its the torque tube bearings. Should sound gravely when they are going out, very common in the 924/944
That wasn't the noise I was talking about, though I do have a bit of that noise. It was one of those things that I just didn't want to do at the time, and figured I'd do down the road someday, since the torque tube bearings looks like a pain in the ass.
Linkage is perfect, since everything is brand-new only944.com stuff from front to back. And yes, it's the 2-mount setup.
Ok, let's play some catch-up since we're leaving for New England Forest Rally (a 12-hour tow!) on Wednesday. So let's jump back to last weekend for the DC RallyCross double-feature weekend at Panthera tactical traning center in West Virginia.
Adam Moore and I with our matching shirts.
I missed the first event here, so hadn't seen it. But what I did see was the 17-car MOD RWD entry field full of fast-movers and fast drivers. Nick Drymalski won the first event here in his M3, so figured to be a power course venue.
Like I said, huge turnout, especially in our class. The weather was damn near perfect after all our rain-outs, dry with a nice breeeze.
Course-working gangstas
In actuality, the first day we used the "backside" of the venue, which was a long course but tight and technical, with tons of hills, off-camber turns, and blind crests making for challenging driving with little room for error. I tried to go out fast and did pretty well. Over the day we did 8 or 9 runs, though dust was an issue with the course winding around itself so you'd get multiple other cars' dust coming from other directions. Nonetheless, the course was made for my car and other than a couple early cones I drove pretty well, managing to finish the day in second place, 0.5 seconds behind Stephen Nichols in his 325i and with Matt Huffman in his Miata right behind me - and about 8 other cars within 10 seconds.
Everyone got together that evening at one fo the local houses and threw down a bit, talked rallycross and rally, and had a good time.
The next day, Adam Kimmett (our rallycross head and stage-rally fast guy) set up one of the biggest rallycross courses that SCCA has probably ever seen. Well over a mile long, using the frontside of the mountain with massive uphill climbs and rocket-like downhill runs, as well as a downhill hairpin back to an uphill, and then into a tight and technical section near the end. From the start I figured I was dead on this course, as the power cars would definitely gain a ton of time on the uphill sections versus my little M42. I went out hard again, but several guys were runnign faster than I was, even with clean runs on my part. Luckily, most of them could not keep it clean. Except Stephen. He was running a bit faster than me and ALSO clean, and quickly took a big lead over the whole class, well over 15 seconds at lunch break. Meanwhile, the rest of the field packed up in time, but somehow I managed to hang on to 2nd place at lunch, with several of the more powerful cars right on my tail. WIth the afternoon course reversed, I knew there wasn't much room for error. The car was running well and handling great so I pretty much just pushed it as hard as I could and trusted my hands to keep me off the cones. In the end, I couldn't reel in Stephen (though I cut the deficit in half) and I managed on the last couple runs to put a bit of space between me and the built 325i that was in 3rd to take 2nd on the season.
318i M10 power!
M10 2002 power!
So here's the final results in MR class:
So as it stands after 3 events, I'm tied for first in points with Stephen (one win and one 2nd place each), so that's not too terrible. We'll see how it shakes out from here on out.
Here's some video of the afternoon course....
Now on to prep for NEFR. Had a few things to take care of:
New passenger front bearing/hub
Rebuilt all four brake calipers since I haven't done it in a couple years. And replace the old fuel pump, which was covered in dried mud, ugh.
Also reinforced the fuel tank crossover pipe shield, since it's vulnerable to rocks and NEFR has lots of them.
Other little things, just getting stuff ready!
Ok, let's see if I can get through a New England Forest Rally recap.....quite a bit to say and show.
Before I get started, here's a recap of the miles we spent in vehicles:
- 1,498 miles in the Sequoia towing
- 300 miles (approx) in Dan Downey's WRX for recce
- 250+ miles in the rally car doing transits
- 100 (?) stage miles in the rally car
- 2.5 miles being towed by Heavy Sweep
- 5 miles being towed by a van towing another car on a trailer
- 1 mile being pushed by above van
- 100 miles (approx) riding among the cargo in a v10 service van with no seats
= over 2,250 miles total over five days!
So yeah, my 22 mile commute tomorrow isn't gonna seem too long :)
Anyhow, here's the recap:
We left from DC area wednesday for a 13+ hour tow up to Team O'Neil Rally School to meet up with Dan Downey and pick up his WRX for recce. Also got a quick high-speed tour of the facility in one of the rally Fiestas they use there, which was fun.
Met up at our air bnb house a few miles from Rally HQ. we shared a house with Downey/Brolin in the e30 and Pullen/Erin Kelly in their Impreza (incidentally, they did an engine swap during the 2nd day of the rally in under an hour!!)
Good times were had...
Thursday was recce day...about 9 hours of long-haul driving in street cars and doing the stages at slow speeds to check notes, etc.
On to Day 1 one of the rally. We got nice placement at Parc Expose, right next to Ken Block's awesome Cosworth Escort RS
if you followed this rally at all (or car sites in general), you would have seen got in a wreck on SS3 and burned to the ground, sadly.
Downey/Brolin and us
Other teams look more professional (because they are)
Meanwhile, Josh S. was loading up the crew rig for service
I don't have any action pics yet, since I obviously couldn't take any, but here are a handful of my favorite pics from the stages (mostly on transits and before starts)
Day 1 went fine, though the 4th stage was cancelled due to Block's car setting the woods on fire, so we did a super-long transit on some back-roads back to service. Day 1 is the faster stages and with my car being slow and me not being very aggressive, we were pretty slow. Is what it is, but I'm still not very confident on fast stages with a lot of 5s and 6s. On the very first stage I overcooked the Right-4-minus at the spectator area, lost grip, and slid out into the shrubberies, having to back up and get going again. No damage, but definitely got me even more tentative.
Day 2, a much longer day, started at the crack of dawn...
Hooper's Lexus is so awesome..
I thought we picked up the pace a little, but were still only mid-pack on our class and slower than I'd like to be. Somewhere I went too wide through a hard left-hander and as I tried to accelerate hard with the car sideways, we went into the outside shrubberies and hit something hard. very hard. I thought it had hit the rear wheel, but as it turns out it hit the side of the car right behind Jim's seat area. We kept going, more on that later......
At the beginning of SS8 we were sitting a few seconds back of 5th place in class (IIRC) and I saw one of the class front-runner's cars broken (we would join them later). With a shot at the podium, maybe I pushed a bit harder in the super-rough and rocky stage, which we were running for a second time and it was even more torn up by the front-running cars. Hard rock hits everywhere, and for some dumb reason I didn't exactly slow down to the car's capabilities. About 3/4 of the way through, we came around a turn and plunged downward into a compression with a big rock in it. BANG! The hardest hit I can remember on the skidplate ever. I immediately thought of my oil pan, hoping the beefy 3/16" stainless skid and support bar took the impact. A turn later I was about to say to Jim "check the oil pressure gauge" since I couldn't see it while watching the rapid turns and roughness, and then the oil pres light comes on. Damn. Go aroudn the turn, see an open area on the left, and shut the car off and coasted to a stop.
Got out to put our triangles up the course so nobody would hit us, and there is a trail of oil coming from the turn all the way to where the car is, and a puddle under the engine. We're done.
Also noticed that our muffler had been ripped from the rest of the exhaust and some other big dents on the sides of the rockers/doors that weren't there before......
After waiting for the remaining cars to pass by, the Sweep team showed up and we got a tow over two more miles of rocky stage to the end
He dropped us at the end of the stage, while the other sweep truck was dropping Jesse Witsell's VW.
We were left there to await our crews (almost 50 miles away at service) to bring trailers....
Some local campers stopped by to provide beer and talk rally..
Eventually, Downey's van and trailer showed up to get Jesse (with someone "on the way" to get us since our trailer was at the house 100+ miles away)
But, since rally is rally, they tried to use the van to push us the 6ish miles to the main road to make it easier to find us.
Did that for a mile, but Dave was worried about airbag going off, so we hooked our car to the back of the trailer. Keep in mind the Van has no seats, so Jesse and his codriver were riding IN their car on the trailer, while we were being towed behind...
So we got to the main road, and eventually a guy we had never met, in a big white van, showed up to pick us up. Again, the van had only one passenger seat, so I got to ride for 100 miles or so on twisty/rough roads at high speeds back on some tarps and blankets piled on toolchests and tires and a Subaru bumper. This must be how they do it in 3rd world countries!
So, that's how our rally ended. We didn't get back to rally HQ until after the awards/party were pretty much over....
All in all, it was a good time, and disappointing to not finish (and to be so slow before that). We'd like to do it again sometime, but maybe when the car is built a bit more extensively and my driving is ...uh... not so sucky. The towing distance is pretty substantial too.....and at 10mpg towing, gas aint' cheap.
Left in the morning and towed 13 hours home....dropped Jim at the Rage Cage garage, and headed home to sleep....
Anyhow, thanks to our crew chief Josh Sennett (other crew couldn't make it) and the guys from other crews who helped us out (and whose names I forget some of), including the white van guy, an old-time rallyist named Dave. If you read this, you know who you are!!
I'll do a more detailed fix-up post later, but a few pics of damage....
Damn you grenaded that pan!
Sucks to go out that way. But at least it wasn't on fire! 
lol, truth! After the first pass through that stage it was damn rocky. The second time it was brutal. Should have taken it a bit easier I guess. Taller suspension is the next order of business for sure...
And some action pics! Thanks to the great photogs there!
Richard Bouchard photos:
DaggerSlade Media photos:
Andrew Pascarella photos:
(our weak-ass jump on Concord Pond)
Edward Best photo:
I can just imagine what was going through your head.... (BANG!) What the berk was that?! Oh E36 M3....
Bill Mesker said:I can just imagine what was going through your head.... (BANG!) What the berk was that?! Oh E36 M3....
It's funny that I actually had a feeling instantly and it was just a calm resignation as we coasted off the stage to someplace safe. This was our 7th rally and our first DNF, so it had to happen enventually. I think I was actually relieved it was something like this rather than hitting a tree or rolling the car!
Plus, there were several other things in the rally that were much more "oh E36 M3.........." causing.
Hell, right on the first stage we slid off into some bushes and had to reverse out right in front of a spectator area lol....
In reply to irish44j :
Ok that's really an Oh E36 M3 moment....
Other broken stuff:
trunk latch ripped out (fixed with the one off my parts car)
spare tire well dented up about 3" (will need the sledge for this)
cracked upper oil pan (will require dropping the subframe to replace...ugh) to go along with the shattered lower pan
In the meantime, raised up the front suspension about 1.5"
And in the rear took out the IX springs and put the e36 M3 springs back in with new 1/2" spacers....time to get some height
inside edges of my rear tires shredded....more likely from the heat generated on the very long street transits and the fact that e30 rears camber negative when the trunk has weight in it.....
front skid support bar was bent beyond fixing
so I cut it out and replaced it with new DOM tubing piece
reverse drill press!
and via different methods flattened the 3/16" stainless skidplate
and other stuff....plus everything everywhere is covered in dust...gonna take a leaf blower to the car this weekend lol
And one last great pic
Sooo....got the new lower oil pan on and filled the car up with oil, and everything fired up fine, engine sounds fine, etc. Nice, right?
Until the next day I see a puddle under the car. Thinking I must have not tightened the drain plug. Nope, it's tight. Get my light and mirror out and look around and....crap! There's a 4-5-inch hairline crack on the front edge of the upper oil pan.
For a second I thought about JB weld or just having it TIG'd, but I have a spare engine here so what the hell, let's just put a good pan on. Unfortunately if you know M42's to do that you have to either lift the engine up about 6", or drop the front subrame and steering rack. Since the bar for the skidplate probably would prevent me having enough clearance for the former, time to do the latter.
Support the engine...
Remove the steering rack, unbolt the rear control arm bushing "lollipops" and unbolt the subframe and it drops right down...
Steering rack was so dirty and covered with oil from the rally, that was no fun. Then taking off the lollipops and one of the bolts shears off....E36 M3.
For those of you who know e30s, it's a pair of captive bolts inside the frame rails with a "collar" to locate the lollipop..
After trying a few things (heat, PB blaster, vise grips, etc) with no dice, I decided to cut a hole in the floor behind the pedals to see what I could do from the backside (and/or drill it out from the top). INteresting, the section is boxed inside the frame, but somehow it was totally full of wet mud.....and this rally didn't have any mud, so stuff got in there and couldn't get out. No wonder the threads were all rusty..
Before drilling it out, figured I'd try one more thing since there was still a "nub" on the broken bolt. welded another bolt to it, and I think the heat of the welding and the PB blaster broke it loose and I was able to slowly wrench it off. *WHEW*
Also noticed more rust on the frame rail just forward of that, behind my skid brace. Probably again filled with mud. Luckily not a structural area really, so I'll clean it up and patch it.
pulled the upper pan off my parts engine and cleaned it up, and removed the cracked one from this one. Waiting on some new gaskets and stuff..
Also ordered a new fuel tank and a new hub. So that should be fun to do......
Also used my HF ultrasonic cleaner to clean all the nasty (dirt/oil) oil pan bolts
So yeah, that's about it for now. This isn't gonna all get done in time for the rallycross this weekend (also have to weld in some new exhaust and a few other things), so I'm going to co-drive with Eric Eisele in his 325i since Neil can't make it. Should be interesting competing in a 6cyl e30 on the big Panthera course. May also take some runs in Nick's e36 M3....TBD.
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