What did you do to your other car(s) today?

[1st 5er]

I finished parting out my e12 build, feels great to move on.

What happened to the chassis?

It's being reincarnated.

OH YEAH!!!

[tig]

I finished parting out my e12 build, feels great to move on.

What happened to the chassis?

It's being reincarnated.

What, as an E21?

[davintosh]

I finished parting out my e12 build, feels great to move on.

What happened to the chassis?

It's being reincarnated.

What, as an E21?

Or a Kia?

[bkbimmer]

As a memory.

[jca]

Had a new Walker muffler and mid pipe installed on my 98 318ti. Seems louder than the old one, but not an unpleasant sound.

[a]

Drove the SE with its new snow tires on. The effen TPMS light is on. I'm gonna check tire pressure tomorrow AM. Talk about 3rd Millennium, First World Problems

[foamy]

pulled the oil pan off the saab and cleaned the sludge out from around the oil pickup tube. ordered the pcv update witch is supposed to fix the sludge issue.

[davintosh]

Drove the F150 out to work so I could crawl under it in something a little more pleasant than -17° South Dakota air to bleed the clutch again. I've figured out that the truck is not a fan of cold weather.

[davintosh]

I had to rescue the #3 son on Monday night; he was driving the e34 home, and it overheated. Flat-towed him home, and the car sat until tonight when I had some time to check things over.

Milkshake.

Crap.

As if I have time to do a head gasket on the thing.

Anybody wanna rescue a nice bronzit/beige e34 535i/A?

[Mike W.]

I had to rescue the #3 son on Monday night; he was driving the e34 home, and it overheated. Flat-towed him home, and the car sat until tonight when I had some time to check things over.

Milkshake.

Crap.

As if I have time to do a head gasket on the thing.

Anybody wanna rescue a nice bronzit/beige e34 535i/A?

Ah yes, all part of being a dad as I'm sure you well know. I remember when my son was driving the Bav for a while, way back when. Ran it low on coolant, no milkshake but goo on the oil filler cap so it was need to do, but not right now. I was actually kind of relieved when it was rear ended while parked a few weeks later and totaled.

[SPF2006]

Man that is too bad. Hopefully the head is salvageable.

I had to rescue the #3 son on Monday night; he was driving the e34 home, and it overheated. Flat-towed him home, and the car sat until tonight when I had some time to check things over.

Milkshake.

Crap.

As if I have time to do a head gasket on the thing.

Anybody wanna rescue a nice bronzit/beige e34 535i/A?

[1st 5er]

I had to rescue the #3 son on Monday night; he was driving the e34 home, and it overheated. Flat-towed him home, and the car sat until tonight when I had some time to check things over.

Milkshake.

Crap.

As if I have time to do a head gasket on the thing.

Anybody wanna rescue a nice bronzit/beige e34 535i/A?

... or a white one?

[SPF2006]

Replaced the windshield upper molding strip on the X3, which had nearly completely disintegrated. Bit of a pain to do. Hope the adhesive holds up when the temperature drops tonight.

Next on list (when the temps rise):
- Front brakes
- Engine mounts
- Re-adhere leaky vapor barriers
- Install tow hitch and wiring harness
- Probably some other broken stuff

[davintosh]

We had a bad car day at our house today.

First, the F150 has been out of action for a few days after stranding me earlier in the week, and I haven't got around to figuring out what its problem is.

So I took the e34 to my early meeting this morning. On the way home, it's humming along nice as you please, then suddenly the tach goes to zero, and I coast to a stop. What the heck?

Crank and crank and crank, and nothing. Called my son for rescue, then after I hung up I tried the starter again and it started. Smooth as ever. Drove a block and it quit again. Couple more tries and it started; cool. Said a prayer and continued on, getting a mile closer to home before it quit again. After several more tries it started, but quit one more time before I got it home.

Once in the driveway I left it running, popped the hood and trunk, and while I'm listening to the fuel pump, the engine quits. No stumble, just like somebody turned the key off. I messed with it the rest of the morning and got nowhere. Crap.

So, since I can't have two vehicles down, and since I'm not getting anywhere with the e34, I decide to tear into the pickup to figure out what the problem is. After checking several things I discover that the distributor rotor isn't turning as it should; instead of a smooth rotation, it's jerking around like its got the hiccups. What the heck? I reached down and find that I can turn the rotor with my hand, and can hear the camshaft turning in the engine. Uh-oh. After some Googling I found this video explaining what the issue is; the teeth on the plastic timing gear(!?!?!?) on the end of the camshaft disintegrated. Just. Great. Time to cut my losses on this one. Bye, truck.

Who the heck comes up with this crap? A plastic gear on something as critical as the camshaft?

Looking back through this thread, it's obvious my "other cars" are far too interesting, and featured far too often here. I obviously need to be a bit more choosy when car shopping.

[jca]

Did some light sanding and clearcoat touch up on my silver 84 325e E30. The paint is shot on the car, but the new clear coat helps the appearance quite a bit.

[tig]

We had a bad car day at our house today.

Just saw this. Sending (+) vibes in your direction.

[gadget73]

Who the heck comes up with this crap? A plastic gear on something as critical as the camshaft?

Ford (and GM) was doing this through the mid 80s at least, and yes it was a terrible idea. It wasn't completely plastic either, its a metal gear with plastic teeth. When the plastic wears away, the chain skips. Before they fail, the chain gets sloppy enough to usually cause some running issues, especially with fuel injection. Some of them are interference engines too, so when the chain jumps or the gear strips, it smashes valves. Some you get lucky with, depends on the piston. If yours is one of the good ones, throwing a chain on it will fix the problem. You have an option of single row or double row chains, I'd go for the double. They're more durable. I swapped the original on my Mark VII at 225k miles and it was actually still fine.


and to be fair, its really not any worse than say a rubber belt on a camshaft, though at least with belts they tell you to replace them on a schedule.


On my almost-BMW, I replaced the hydroboost return line. It was drooling power steering blood down the back of the engine compartment and making a general mess of things. In the process I disturbed the quick connect fitting between the fuel filter and the lift pump so it started sucking air. Short term repair was to remove the fitting and clamp a rubber line in it's place. The permanant fix is probably going to be swapping that connection out for a hose barb, provided one exists in whatever thread that filter head takes. Worst case, I'll replace the O rings and put it back to stock.

[davintosh]

Who the heck comes up with this crap? A plastic gear on something as critical as the camshaft?

Ford (and GM) was doing this through the mid 80s at least, and yes it was a terrible idea. It wasn't completely plastic either, its a metal gear with plastic teeth. When the plastic wears away, the chain skips. Before they fail, the chain gets sloppy enough to usually cause some running issues, especially with fuel injection. Some of them are interference engines too, so when the chain jumps or the gear strips, it smashes valves. Some you get lucky with, depends on the piston. If yours is one of the good ones, throwing a chain on it will fix the problem. You have an option of single row or double row chains, I'd go for the double. They're more durable. I swapped the original on my Mark VII at 225k miles and it was actually still fine.

and to be fair, its really not any worse than say a rubber belt on a camshaft, though at least with belts they tell you to replace them on a schedule.

This was a 4.9L inline six; the cam is in the block next to the crank, and the gear meshes directly with a gear on the crank. As I understand it, the gear is all composite plastic. I've learned that they went that route for noise considerations, and they generally last about 150,000 miles; this one lasted to 215k. There are aftermarket metal gears available, but it's about a 3-day DIY job to replace it; a time investment like that isn't worth it for a $1000 truck. And yes, it had developed some drivability issues that in retrospect are obviously timing related; that thing was losing teeth and timing was going farther & farther out. I can't for the life of me understand why the plastic was in any way preferred over metal, other than cost savings and planned obsolescence.

But I decided to cut my losses on the truck; sold it yesterday to a guy who has a rusted-out version of the same truck. He plans to pull the good motor from his and drop into this one. The Fjord will live on. Screw planned obsolescence.

Now that the sun is shining and the April snow is melting, on to figuring out how to fix that stupid e34.

[gadget73]

They did that on the 300? Wow, did not know that. I always assumed (yeah, yeah) that the gear to gear drive used, well, gears. Someone had a better idea obviously.

[Dale3783]

New carpet and dynamat in my fiancè's '65 Barracuda.

[e28Sean]

It's a miserable rainy day, but it's warm, so I opened up the garage and painstakingly dusted and detailed the interior on the Benz.

[John in VA]

First oil change performed by me on wife's 2013 328i xDrive (F30) since dealer free maintenance plan ended. Dealer changed it a year ago. Drain plug had rounded corners & was gorilla-grunted on! I torqued it & filter cap properly (25 Nm) upon completing oil drain.

[tig]

It's a miserable rainy day, but it's warm, so I opened up the garage and painstakingly dusted and detailed the interior on the Benz.

I approve of this post.

[gadget73]

Fixed the stereo in the Towncar. Fuse holder had partially melted, voltage loss was making the sub drop out.
Cussed at the Mark VII. Brake caliper is hanging up, and the rack with less than 500 miles on it has bad seals. I foolishly bought a performance rack for it because the standard remans are generally worn out and vague in the center. It took several months to get this thing, and when it went in it immediately contaminated the system with metal. The fluid has been changed 4 or 5 times now and its still sparkly. I'll clean and re-seal it myself and either flush or replace the hoses and pump before it goes back in. Don't buy steering racks from AGR.
Continental blew a power steering hose. Napa has them on order for me, $25 each. I'm amazed they have it, its a diesel-specific hose. Less than 4000 cars were made with that option. I wonder if that hose has been on the shelf since 1984.

[gadget73]

replaced the cracked expansion tank and cap on the Conti with NOS Ford-branded BMW parts. Also flipped the washer on the radiator drain to hopefully take care of the very slight leak I had there and replaced the leaky quick connect fitting on the fuel filter with a normal hose barb.