91 e30 318is rally/x build

Did you try starting it with the fuel pump relay jumped and the pump running? 

Yea I thought about that last night after going in. Tried it today and didn't help. Didn't mess with it much today. Decided I needed to do some stuff at home. Was supposed to be moving but now staying in this tiny apartment for a while longer so going to have to make things work.

I'm not sure if there's a way to check the timing. Since I did change the belt, maybe I messed that up and I'm looking in the wrong place. My understanding is pin in the flywheel is tdc. It would make sense if I'm getting spark but at the wrong time.

There should be a timing mark on the crank pulley up front too, IIRC.  I think it points toward an arrow on the oil filter housing at TDC (it's hard to see, as I recall). 

To check, you could pull cyl 1 plug and stick a dowel down the hole and feel the piston come to TDC as you turn the engine by hand, in order to verify that you actually are at TDC

Cool. I'll give that a try in the next few days. If I recall there's an arrow on the block but I couldn't figure out what it corresponds to on the crank pulley. The camshaft pulley just lines up with like part of the case. Doesn't make any sense imo.
 

In other news, had the grilles off so tried epoxy on the back side to hold it all together. Seems to have worked.
 

As i recall, the mark on the pulley is kind of on the backside of it - REALLY hard to see. I think you need to use a mirror to actualy see it. At least I have a vague recollection of going crazy trying to figure out where it was until I realized it was on the backside of the pulley. Not saying for sure it's the same for yours or not, of course. 

Well it turns out that on the m40 engine, the arrow on the side of the block is supposed to point the the first tooth on the crank pulley. There's a small gap between a section. Well mine doesn't of course, it's about 7 teeth off. But there's a paint mark there and the crank pulley is keyed to go on only one way. There's also only one hole in the flywheel. So I'm not sure why that's all like that.

I got a suggestion that the timing could be off 180 deg and so went about checking that when I got home because it was bugging me. After a lot of time, I determined my timing was correct. But while being agitated but the ugly mess of the plug wires, I thought I'd check that again. Well I had them backwards. Firing 2,4,3,1 instead of 1,3,4,2. That'll do it...

So it runs now! Poorly. But it runs! I had to pull the thermostat housing because I put it together wrong and it was leaking everywhere. So once I get more coolant in the morning it'll be good to drive I think.

There's a wandering idle when cold. I've read that's a common issue and since my intake boot is new I'll have to look into that. The exhaust is currently held on poorly and rattling, I have flex pipe for that this weekend. And I determined that it has raceland coil overs, so I might try to raise them up some until I swap out the suspension.

First drive today. Went to work, added more coolant afterward. Was told I get to work 12 hour graves now, but glad to have a job still.

Drive went well. Didn't want to push it too much but man it's slow. A clunk from the front right, that noise that is supposedly the input shaft bearing is absolutely the diff. Going to do a diff fluid change, get the muffler back on, and make sure nothing is loose up front.

Pretty excited to be driving it! I know rally cross is a long way off right now but it's pretty fun to be in a tiny little car again.

Well it's been a little bit. Or maybe it hasn't. I started working 12hr graveyard shifts and my concept of time is completely shot. Seems like I've done a few things since my last post though.

Car is running decent it seems. Drove it up to park city and tried getting a decent photo.

Figured out the suspension is raceland coil overs and even with no real knowledge or comparison can tell they are garbage even if I think it looks cool low. Got used strut housings though for the front so suspension swap should happen soon.

Got a 4.10 medium case lsd that supposedly needs a rebuild. For $125 with a good condition oe bushing though I think that's OK. Haven't tested it yet to see what lockup is like.

Also got my blinkers working after getting a used hazard switch. All the wiring works and rear works just need to pull the bumper to install the front blinkers.

That clunk I was hearing from the front right was the ball joint not being tightened at all. Not even finger tight so that went away when I tightened it down.

My tach doesn't work and neither does the instrument cluster lighting. Makes driving at night hard. Contacted bavrest and they are 2.5 months out. Figured I needed a new si battery. However I thought replacing bulbs is easy enough. New bulbs and it still wasn't working. Went through the fuses and found 21 was out. Replaced it with a smaller correct amperage fuse and... my tach works hooray! Wasn't expecting that. But interior dash lighting doesn't. From my reading it leads me to think it's the light switch. More testing to be done. Going to wait a bit to see if the new fuse pops again and do more digging from there.

yeah, you can direct-wire the lighting switch and take it out of the loop, as I recall

Well let's see. We've gotten the go ahead for our first event of the season. This Saturday the 23rd. That kinda kicked things into high gear from half finished projects into gotta get it done.
 

We had removed the track and motor and stuff for the sunroof and had drilled out out some of the cassette. So that got siliconed into place since we won't be able to finish. Then moved on to important stuff.
 

Lower oil pan off and I think maybe it's been replaced before considering how clean it looks. All bolts were in place and tight in the upper which was good. Pulled the upper as well and cleaned the gasket surfaces. They were both leaking. 
 

During this got the motor mounts replaced. The m10 revshift mounts fit well to my relief. And now the engine sits in a bit of a different location. Turns out one of the old ones was already busted.
 

Then moved to suspension. I had the wrong front springs so I got a hold of some stock front ones. Had some issues with the driver tie rod. The bolt was stripped under the nut by the po. Cut it off and actually have a replacement so that's good. Turns out I have an e30 m3 rack not an e36 rack. Also couldn't get the springs in the rear either so gotta get the compressor again.
 

Working late.

Car is an hour away at my friend/co-driver/coworkers house. But having two people working on it is hugely helpful. He's new to cars but been a bike mechanic for a decade.

The one real concern I've had came when I drained the transmission fluid.

Just a ton of metal and took forever to clean. Based on all anecdotal evidence, my transmission should destroy itself now that I've changed the fluid. Hope not. New redline in there.

Still a bunch to do but I think we'll be good to go race on Saturday.

Well it's done. 8 hours before we should be at the race but we got it there with a lot of help from my co-driver.

Couldn't manage to get the muffler on with those stupid donuts. We decided since it exits right behind the cat and that's behind the driver, it should be fine.

Also there's a ton of positive camber on the front. I'm running stock 318i springs, new top hats, Billy HD. So I'm not sure why there is so much positive camber other than something being bent or assembled wrong. It's bad enough that even though it's raining lightly, I can't break the rear end loose before the front outside tire folds.

Oh well. Off to the race in a few hours. Let's see how it goes.

Well we made it! Got real sun burned and had a ton of fun. 27 racers turned out with a fair amount of rwd cars. 3 e36 but we were the only e30. My Codriver finished 30 seconds ahead of me over 12 laps. He had 3 cones and I had 4. We were the only car in MR.

My favorite photo I saw posted from the event of our car.

The e36 springs worked well. I had trouble controlling the rear of the vehicle but alex had trouble losing traction in the front. We were running 23 psi in the afternoon and I think that was probably pretty good. We had some rare rain the night before and the rally tires kept us from loading up on mud in the first few runs, but by the afternoon all seasons would have been fine with people leaving rubber on the track.

As for the car itself. Well it did fairly well. There's a clunk on the right front suspension that I didn't notice on the drive in, over the mountains, through the snow storm. But it was there when they inspected the vehicle. Something came loose but have yet to inspect it.

The input shaft bearing, which was already not great, is extremely loud now. I have another one so we are going to drop the trans and replace it, the trans mounts, and the guibo. And maybe the shift shaft seal if that's not too difficult. The clutch will be left alone due to finances and the lack of consistent information about what to do with the flywheel. In addition to not knowing if I have single or dual mass flywheel.

Last issue is our helmets hit the sunroof cassette and it's hot af in the vehicle. So that will be coming out and maybe we'll be able to add a vent before the next race. If for some reason we can't get everything done over the next month, the plan is to still go and just run the outback which is overall in pretty good shape.

My input shaft bearing has been whiney for about 9 years now :)

The clunk from up front is usually the upper shock bolt being just a bit loose and/or the top of the shock not being seated through the top hat where it has the little "lip" on it. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

So we had a hard time getting the top bolt on the shock to the top hat torqued. We are both firm believers in torque specs and had all the right tools, yet somewhat rounded the Allen in the strut well below the Bentley torque spec. I'm wondering if it's that bolt or something else.

As for the input shaft bearing. Well it's loud enough that Alex had mistaken it for "rocks hitting the underside of the car." It's definitely hitting the about to blow up realm and doubled in volume from before to after the event. I'm concerned that I can't get that part though and thinking swapping in a used getrag 240 might be a better answer.

Nonamedude said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

So we had a hard time getting the top bolt on the shock to the top hat torqued. We are both firm believers in torque specs and had all the right tools, yet somewhat rounded the Allen in the strut well below the Bentley torque spec. I'm wondering if it's that bolt or something else.

As for the input shaft bearing. Well it's loud enough that Alex had mistaken it for "rocks hitting the underside of the car." It's definitely hitting the about to blow up realm and doubled in volume from before to after the event. I'm concerned that I can't get that part though and thinking swapping in a used getrag 240 might be a better answer.

I have three g240s and all three of them have a rumble to them. That said I think on mine it is actually the idler shaft bearing, since it only makes the noise when you are in neutral as far as I can tell, And the noise totally goes away if you press the clutch in. But it sounds more like somebody is softly rattling a plastic container full of gravel lol. From what I have heard pretty much everybody with a g240 has this noise and basically it never leaves. And if you use solid or urethane mounts it gets way way worse. It is one reason I do not use salad mounts on my transmission. 

Well some covid quarantining means not much for done. Fortunately not much needed to be.

New HD rubber trans mounts and guibo with new bolts went on earlier this week. Muffler is finally on. Had to split the hangers and slide it through to do that. Oil pan seems to be not leaking but pretty sure the filter housing gasket is.

Transmission still sounds like it's about to die. Except 4th. 4th just sounds like an old car with no interior. So we'll see if it blows up tomorrow.

Going to try to finish my comfort+ seat tonight so that can be in, instead of using the passenger seat on the driver side.

Well it finally happened. On the way to the race today, the normally extremely loud transmission went to just normal stripped car loud. Got to the race with no 4th gear but there was some smoke so we didn't race.

I'm not super familiar with transmissions, but I think this makes sense. I have every gear but 4th. Since 3rd and 4th share a shift fork, it's likely the syncro or the gear itself. I'm wondering if I can flush it out real good and just run it without a 4th. Ideal solution? Obviously not. But I don't have money for a transmission atm and a syncro ring is $120 and way above my ability.

Was able to drive it the 40 miles home fairly uneventfully.

Sorry, didn't connect your email with your username on here lol....

Anyhow. So maybe I missed it, but this car has a G260? The six-cylinder transmission? That's strange, I would think it would have a G240, since that's what pretty much all 4cyl cars had (including the early M10, which had an early version of the transmission).

I do have two spares (both of which are whiney, but both of which seem perfectly functional), but not sure what good that would do for you, since shipping way out to you would definitely not be cheap. That said, G240s are usually pretty easy to find for cheap (hence why I have three of them....)

Nah I've got the 240. I've found a few around for about 200-300 but not in state. As I don't have the cash in hand I haven't asked on the local bmw swap site. 

I don't really think I'll have trouble finding one though. I had even considered finding a take out long block and trans of the m20 but once again, money.

There's a pretty good chance that by this time next year I'll be in Michigan and then I'm hoping I'll just be rolling in e30 parts.