1.8l of Cockiness & LA-mobile. - Page 3

tigger · May 5th, 2009, 9:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedguy

So I'm tempted by the panasports, but unsure how they look on the e30...thoughts?

I've seen at least one E30 with them and I thought they looked great. The last one I saw was a black car with the wheel spokes painted black, I thought it was a good looking combo.

thedguy · May 6th, 2009, 3:14 AM

Was the hub painted as well and the lip polished?

thedguy · May 6th, 2009, 7:25 PM

Fuck you previous owners
Fuck you right in the god damned ear, throat, ass, pee hole, and anywhere else that could possibly be fucked.

Wasted 3 hours trying to get the damn shock assembly apart, I now heading to the junkyard to try and find a strut mount I can use.

images/smilies/mad.gif

starfox07 · May 6th, 2009, 11:59 PM

That sounds pretty horrible. LOL

Good luck with your part search!

thedguy · May 7th, 2009, 6:49 AM

Hit up the junkyard, had 1 e30 left with suspension still in it. tore apart the strut, and got my top hat ($10!)

I then spent the following 8 hours trying to re-compress the spring with the autozone spring compressor, zip ties, and hose clamps.

The zip ties didn't hold, unit exploded sending pieces of zip tie everywhere. Luckily I'm not a COMPLETE moron and decided that before I let the whole thing loose I'd just back out the spring compressor, and also used a bike lock style cable to keep the spring from doing to much damage. I don't trust spring compressors, and I only used the zip tie method at my fathers advice (fuck you Darwin, I survived!)

20 hose clamps later and the spring went on. New bearing, top hat from junkyard and all my clunks are gone.

One tip for anyone that has to mess with struts, loosen, but don't completely remove, the nut on top of the shock with weight on the car. If you're lucky you can get a 1/2 spark plug socket to fit the nut on top and use a 1/4" drive socket to hold the shock shaft still when you goto finish pulling the strut apart. This is only if you do not have an impact driver/wrench.

Specifically for the E30, an 8mm 1/4 drive socket on the shaft, the spark plug socket over that on the nut, and a 1/4" drive extension through the hole for the spark plug socket. You use spark plug sockets because they also have hex heads that let you use a normal combination wrench on them as well. O2 sensor socket may work as well.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/07/peices.jpg

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/07/assembled.jpg

thedguy · May 8th, 2009, 2:16 AM

You can see some of the weld on the left. This is after an hour of grinding.
For those that don't know, that shaft in the center is supposed to have a hex head like on a nut so an 8mm socket can fit over it.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/07/22.JPG

This is the other side, I damn near was able to just break the weld.
The part with the 3 studs on it was all I wanted to replace, should have been a simple task had the welding not been done.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/07/33.JPG

And here is what a sawed off 3/4" (17mm) thick shock shaft looks like. If I had the money for a new wheel bearing and the tools to pull it apart (fucking BMW and special tools!) I would have just bought a new used strut assembly from the junkyard and used this one as a core instead of spending 2hours cutting this bitch to get the spring and housing off.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/07/44l.JPG

My land lord informed me that a pipe cutter would have made this shock shaft cutting a much quicker job.

Spectre · May 8th, 2009, 2:34 AM

Were you using a grinding wheel or a specific cutoff wheel? I recently had to chop up a similar shock and I went through it in about 3 minutes.

thedguy · May 8th, 2009, 3:20 AM

I had to use a damn hack saw. My grinder didn't have a wheel, and even if it did, I didn't have the room to operate one with the spring compressor attached.

The entire time I was dreaming of a damn grinder.

tigger · May 13th, 2009, 6:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedguy

Was the hub painted as well and the lip polished?

Yep: black hub, black spokes, polished lip. I really like that look. A friend of mine has a LT1 Firebird with 17" Torq-Thrusts and the same color combo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thedguy

I had to use a damn hack saw. My grinder didn't have a wheel, and even if it did, I didn't have the room to operate one with the spring compressor attached.

The entire time I was dreaming of a damn grinder.

You need a reciprocating saw. You might have been able to pull off that cut with a long blade. I've just got a cheap one, and it's paid for itself many times over.

thedguy · May 25th, 2009, 7:37 PM

Alright, roughly 4 or so days of screwing with the paint and I have this to show for it ... on the trunk

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/25/Untitled-1.jpg

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/25/Untitled-2.jpg

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/25/Untitled-3.jpg

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/05/25/Untitled-4.jpg

1/2qt of rustoleum and equal parts mineral spirts + one 4" foam roller, lots of sand paper from 120grit up to 2000 grit. Oh and this was done UNDER a tree or 2 with the windows blowing.

Due to the massive damage to the original paint, and my attempt to be lazy, I put more work in than I needed. I ended up putting on 2 coats before doing a thorough job getting the cracked paint off and I ended up sanding 99% of it off, then getting the bad paint off... 2 days of work down the drain. Needless to say when I started on the hood, first thing I did was spend several hours just getting the damaged paint off before even thinking of applying paint.

What I've learned so far? As thin as I had the paint, I don't think it was thin enough, or at least applied thin enough. The reason you do it thin is to keep the orange peel down to a minimum and in doing so you reduce the massive amounts of sanding I've had to do between coats.

I'm working on the hood next, then once I get that figured out, I'll do the roof, then re-do the deck lid as it could definitely be a lot better.

Der Stig · May 25th, 2009, 10:45 PM

Looks much better than when you got it, good luck on the rest of the car!

thedguy · June 2nd, 2009, 8:22 PM

So some progress updates on my paint.

I've been working on the hood when I cant (which has been at least a little bit each day). I've got I think 10 coats of paint on it now, sanding between each 2 coats.

Something I couldn't show before on the trunk that is now showing up as I tried to finish the hood, and consequently stopped

The hood: that is with a little bit of sanding, in that area the paint is perfectly smooth, yet I'm getting these lines showing through, driving me nuts! I know black is the hardest to do, but holy crap man!

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/06/02/miata_03.jpg

Here is a shot of the stuff on the trunk after it's been rubbed out, polished and had a week and a half to try and get dirty: (if you cant see it, look just near the center where the shadow of the tree almost ends.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/06/02/miata_09.jpg

thedguy · October 4th, 2009, 10:29 PM

Alright, believe it or not, I have updates!

Fixed the odometer a while back (didn't think it was worth posting pics)

Put on a new shifter knob and boot... really amazing how that can make a car feel SOOO much better.
Installed an ipod connector, complete with charger, on the already installed old pioneer CD player.

Lost a hub cap.

And over the weekend I installed 2 cloth sport seats, the factory vinyl "comfort" seats will draw sweat out of a pig in sub 40 degree (f) weather. I also installed a Volvo 940 lip.

First the sport seats: No one has confirmed it, but supposedly these are actually Recaro seats, others claim they are copies. They are built and feel like some factory (unbranded) Recaro's I've seen in other cars. Only problem is the hole in the cloth on the drivers side bolster.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/10/04/100_1741.JPG

Volvo Lip.

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/10/04/100_1740.JPG

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/10/04/100_1745.JPG

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/10/04/100_1739.JPG

I picked the volvo lip up from the Junkyard for $25. Funny story, went to go find anything I could use for my e30, found a boatload in the yard and ended up pulling more stuff off of the 2 Volvo's in the yard than I did any of the e30's.

edit: shot of it before the lip

http://pic.phyrefile.com/t/th/thedguy/2009/04/24/passenger-side.jpg

Der Stig · October 5th, 2009, 5:54 AM

You should lose all the other hub caps and be proud of your steelies! images/smilies/mrgreen.gif

Or get those Panasports!

thedguy · October 5th, 2009, 7:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Der Stig

You should lose all the other hub caps and be proud of your steelies! images/smilies/mrgreen.gif

Or get those Panasports!

I wish the miata had panasports, they are Rota replica's. I keep meaning to slap these on the BMW for testing.

I may spray paint the steelies gold for shits and giggles. If I can ever remember to do it when I have time images/smilies/lol.gif

ChelsDS · October 7th, 2009, 8:05 AM

Now I know what car you drive so I can run you off the road images/smilies/tease.gif

Where in the heck do you live in Southern California? That looks like no where I know of. /images/smilies/blink.gif

thedguy · October 8th, 2009, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChelsDS

Now I know what car you drive so I can run you off the road images/smilies/tease.gif

Where in the heck do you live in Southern California? That looks like no where I know of. /images/smilies/blink.gif

Fullerton, right by CSUF. Coyote hills is right behind me. This is the backyard. One of the benefits of NORTH Orange County images/smilies/wink.gif

BTW, I've had posted pictures of my cars in every thread I posted in and only now have you figured out what I drive images/smilies/lol.gif

edkwon · October 10th, 2009, 3:05 AM

Nice car and no worries, old 3 series have no LA stigma, to be an LA douchemobile it has to be the latest and greatest model as everyone trades up to the new ones as soon their leases expire on the old cars.

thedguy · October 10th, 2009, 3:44 AM

You mean they wait for the lease to expire? images/smilies/tongue.gif

I LOVE the car with the "new" seats. It feels like it's a whole new car now. I can finally enjoy my drives when it's 74 out with the windows down and not be uncomfortable!

Also, as ugly as it may look, looking at it in the parking lot after landing and seeing the front lip I fell in love with it.

Makes me want to dump so much more into this thing now! images/smilies/biggrin.gif

argatoga · October 10th, 2009, 3:59 AM

I bet the Miata is jealous.

May 6th, 2009, 3:14 AM	#42
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	Was the hub painted as well and the lip polished? __________________

May 6th, 2009, 7:25 PM	#43
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	Fuck you previous owners Fuck you right in the god damned ear, throat, ass, pee hole, and anywhere else that could possibly be fucked. Wasted 3 hours trying to get the damn shock assembly apart, I now heading to the junkyard to try and find a strut mount I can use. __________________

May 6th, 2009, 11:59 PM	#44
starfox07 Joined: Oct 7th, 2007 Location: Ennis, Tx, USA Age: 20 Posts: 3,378 Car: 1984 Mazda RX7 GSL-SE Rep Power: 81	That sounds pretty horrible. LOL Good luck with your part search! __________________ -Environmentally Hostile-

May 7th, 2009, 6:49 AM	#45
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	Hit up the junkyard, had 1 e30 left with suspension still in it. tore apart the strut, and got my top hat ($10!) I then spent the following 8 hours trying to re-compress the spring with the autozone spring compressor, zip ties, and hose clamps. The zip ties didn't hold, unit exploded sending pieces of zip tie everywhere. Luckily I'm not a COMPLETE moron and decided that before I let the whole thing loose I'd just back out the spring compressor, and also used a bike lock style cable to keep the spring from doing to much damage. I don't trust spring compressors, and I only used the zip tie method at my fathers advice (fuck you Darwin, I survived!) 20 hose clamps later and the spring went on. New bearing, top hat from junkyard and all my clunks are gone. One tip for anyone that has to mess with struts, loosen, but don't completely remove, the nut on top of the shock with weight on the car. If you're lucky you can get a 1/2 spark plug socket to fit the nut on top and use a 1/4" drive socket to hold the shock shaft still when you goto finish pulling the strut apart. This is only if you do not have an impact driver/wrench. Specifically for the E30, an 8mm 1/4 drive socket on the shaft, the spark plug socket over that on the nut, and a 1/4" drive extension through the hole for the spark plug socket. You use spark plug sockets because they also have hex heads that let you use a normal combination wrench on them as well. O2 sensor socket may work as well. __________________ Last edited by thedguy; May 8th, 2009 at 2:50 AM.

May 8th, 2009, 2:16 AM	#46
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	You can see some of the weld on the left. This is after an hour of grinding. For those that don't know, that shaft in the center is supposed to have a hex head like on a nut so an 8mm socket can fit over it. This is the other side, I damn near was able to just break the weld. The part with the 3 studs on it was all I wanted to replace, should have been a simple task had the welding not been done. And here is what a sawed off 3/4" (17mm) thick shock shaft looks like. If I had the money for a new wheel bearing and the tools to pull it apart (fucking BMW and special tools!) I would have just bought a new used strut assembly from the junkyard and used this one as a core instead of spending 2hours cutting this bitch to get the spring and housing off. My land lord informed me that a pipe cutter would have made this shock shaft cutting a much quicker job. __________________

May 8th, 2009, 2:34 AM	#47
Spectre Joined: Feb 1st, 2007 Location: Dallas, Texas Age: 32 Posts: 8,383 Car: 87 XJ6, 95 XJR, 90 WD21, 86 CB700SC, 98 PC800 Rep Power: 192	Were you using a grinding wheel or a specific cutoff wheel? I recently had to chop up a similar shock and I went through it in about 3 minutes. __________________ Enough is enough. We are not here to subsidize your clueless business plans or reward your failures. 1986 Honda Nighthawk 700S (project, light restoration in progress) 1987 Jaguar XJ6 Series III Vanden Plas (modified) 1990 Nissan (WD21) Pathfinder SE 4x4 (little red offroad commuter box) 1995 Jaguar (X300) XJR 1998 Honda Pacific Coast PC800 (two-wheeled pickup truck/utility bike)

May 8th, 2009, 3:20 AM	#48
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	I had to use a damn hack saw. My grinder didn't have a wheel, and even if it did, I didn't have the room to operate one with the spring compressor attached. The entire time I was dreaming of a damn grinder. __________________

May 25th, 2009, 7:37 PM	#50
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	Alright, roughly 4 or so days of screwing with the paint and I have this to show for it ... on the trunk 1/2qt of rustoleum and equal parts mineral spirts + one 4" foam roller, lots of sand paper from 120grit up to 2000 grit. Oh and this was done UNDER a tree or 2 with the windows blowing. Due to the massive damage to the original paint, and my attempt to be lazy, I put more work in than I needed. I ended up putting on 2 coats before doing a thorough job getting the cracked paint off and I ended up sanding 99% of it off, then getting the bad paint off... 2 days of work down the drain. Needless to say when I started on the hood, first thing I did was spend several hours just getting the damaged paint off before even thinking of applying paint. What I've learned so far? As thin as I had the paint, I don't think it was thin enough, or at least applied thin enough. The reason you do it thin is to keep the orange peel down to a minimum and in doing so you reduce the massive amounts of sanding I've had to do between coats. I'm working on the hood next, then once I get that figured out, I'll do the roof, then re-do the deck lid as it could definitely be a lot better. __________________

May 25th, 2009, 10:45 PM	#51
Der Stig Joined: Dec 19th, 2008 Location: College Station/The Woodlands, Texas Age: 20 Posts: 703 Car: 2004 BMW 330i Rep Power: 15	Looks much better than when you got it, good luck on the rest of the car! __________________ Vehicles: 2004 E46 BMW 330i 6-speed Looking for W116, W123, W126, R107...cheapo project

June 2nd, 2009, 8:22 PM	#52
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	So some progress updates on my paint. I've been working on the hood when I cant (which has been at least a little bit each day). I've got I think 10 coats of paint on it now, sanding between each 2 coats. Something I couldn't show before on the trunk that is now showing up as I tried to finish the hood, and consequently stopped The hood: that is with a little bit of sanding, in that area the paint is perfectly smooth, yet I'm getting these lines showing through, driving me nuts! I know black is the hardest to do, but holy crap man! Here is a shot of the stuff on the trunk after it's been rubbed out, polished and had a week and a half to try and get dirty: (if you cant see it, look just near the center where the shadow of the tree almost ends. __________________

October 4th, 2009, 10:29 PM	#53
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	Alright, believe it or not, I have updates! Fixed the odometer a while back (didn't think it was worth posting pics) Put on a new shifter knob and boot... really amazing how that can make a car feel SOOO much better. Installed an ipod connector, complete with charger, on the already installed old pioneer CD player. Lost a hub cap. And over the weekend I installed 2 cloth sport seats, the factory vinyl "comfort" seats will draw sweat out of a pig in sub 40 degree (f) weather. I also installed a Volvo 940 lip. First the sport seats: No one has confirmed it, but supposedly these are actually Recaro seats, others claim they are copies. They are built and feel like some factory (unbranded) Recaro's I've seen in other cars. Only problem is the hole in the cloth on the drivers side bolster. Volvo Lip. I picked the volvo lip up from the Junkyard for $25. Funny story, went to go find anything I could use for my e30, found a boatload in the yard and ended up pulling more stuff off of the 2 Volvo's in the yard than I did any of the e30's. edit: shot of it before the lip __________________ Last edited by thedguy; October 4th, 2009 at 10:33 PM.

October 5th, 2009, 5:54 AM	#54
Der Stig Joined: Dec 19th, 2008 Location: College Station/The Woodlands, Texas Age: 20 Posts: 703 Car: 2004 BMW 330i Rep Power: 15	You should lose all the other hub caps and be proud of your steelies! Or get those Panasports! __________________ Vehicles: 2004 E46 BMW 330i 6-speed Looking for W116, W123, W126, R107...cheapo project

October 7th, 2009, 8:05 AM	#56
ChelsDS Not A Dude Joined: Dec 21st, 2008 Location: SoCal, California Age: 24 Posts: 1,699 Rep Power: 112	Now I know what car you drive so I can run you off the road Where in the heck do you live in Southern California? That looks like no where I know of.

October 10th, 2009, 3:05 AM	#58
edkwon Joined: Nov 21st, 2006 Location: Chibi J-Town Posts: 2,989 Car: Korean family car Rep Power: 39	Nice car and no worries, old 3 series have no LA stigma, to be an LA douchemobile it has to be the latest and greatest model as everyone trades up to the new ones as soon their leases expire on the old cars.

October 10th, 2009, 3:44 AM	#59
thedguy ^ will bore you to death Joined: Jun 18th, 2004 Location: Under the Counter at McD's Posts: 7,436 Car: 1990 Mazda MX-5 & 91 318i. Rep Power: 148	You mean they wait for the lease to expire? I LOVE the car with the "new" seats. It feels like it's a whole new car now. I can finally enjoy my drives when it's 74 out with the windows down and not be uncomfortable! Also, as ugly as it may look, looking at it in the parking lot after landing and seeing the front lip I fell in love with it. Makes me want to dump so much more into this thing now! __________________ Last edited by thedguy; October 10th, 2009 at 3:50 AM.

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October 10th, 2009, 3:59 AM	#60
argatoga Can't Start His Wank Joined: Oct 4th, 2005 Location: Washington State, USA Age: 26 Posts: 4,818 Car: '78 MG Midget, '78 Honda CB400t Rep Power: 170	I bet the Miata is jealous. __________________ "If you think about it breast implants aren't much different than braces. Their main purpose is to improve one's appearance, at least that's how it was in my case." - KaJun "Anyway, I'm off to eat my dick" - Austere

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