MyE28.com

Davintosh beat me to it " Speaking of my X5," I got it in trade for my 1982 Rabbit Pickup. An '82 bunny Pickup is appreciating and a pretty neat car. X5 beater, not so much. I very much agree with my big brother's observation. Was ,as he commuted to work in a RWD only pickup, the conditions on I-89 were indicated by the amount of wheels up AWDs in the median .
A posi diff and decent tires. 4 cement blocks fit perfectly between the wheel of the E.28. Plenty of room left for a good shovel . Bring on the snow.

Cleaned it up a bit and took it to C&C on Sat.



Installing new brakes all around and a sway bar mount bracket, as the left front one is torn, tonight.

Got the interior all nice and cleaned up. Seats are now red instead of a faded, grey-ish gross over grime.

Dumb little car is actually pretty fun.

slammin_e28 wrote: Dumb little car is actually pretty fun.

Yes.

Redid the cooling hoses on the 850 work truck, leaky vent and evap hoses on the fuel tank up next.

Blurry pic.....but I fixed the sway bar mount bracket:

Came out piece by piece.



....and done.



Little thing handles awesome now.

Also did pads and rotors, front and rear. Was a nice little 2.5 hours worth of work last night.

Picked up some coilovers for it...figured stiffer suspension would take some stress off the bar....and the shocks are pretty worn, lol.

slammin_e28 wrote:Blurry pic.....but I fixed the sway bar mount bracket:

Came out piece by piece.

Little thing handles awesome now.

Also did pads and rotors, front and rear. Was a nice little 2.5 hours worth of work last night.

Picked up some coilovers for it...figured stiffer suspension would take some stress off the bar....and the shocks are pretty worn, lol.

Hey; I did that on my daughter's 318ti a couple years back (probably mentioned it a few pages back in this thread.) They put up a pretty good fight and came out in tiny pieces. I did the removal and had someone who know what he was doing do the welding, so it took a bit longer than yours.

And yeah, those compacts are fun to toss around!

Yah, thats how the Rat's bad parts mostly come apart. I keep the most horrific in a well in right side of the dash. Latest new part is a 12$ center support bearing. Chinese, but with a Spicer bearing molded in.We shall see . I had the old one out when I did the clutch in '12. I'm not expecting too much grief. The Rat shares several of the E 28 stuff. It has a 4.0 Cologne V6 that would give a 535i a run in a straight line. The 4.0 push rod 6 is banked at 60. If I have the story right 60' is equivalent to an in line. The efi is Bosch and uses a MAF. I grok it . Even better, the engine runs great. Or at least, it has so far.

I replaced the worn control arms, tie rods and sway links in the front of the 130i with Lemforder. Wasn't a bad job, had it done in an hour and a bit on the garage floor. Next up is the rear end, and then thrash time.

Figured out how to get the X3 home (with family aboard) with only third and fifth gears available after something failed in the shifter linkage assembly (I suspect a plastic bushing or connector just fell apart).

Actually I shouldn't complain as this is the only thing, aside from preventive maintenance (cooling system rebuild, etc.), we've had to do to the vehicle since buying it ~3 years ago with 100K on the clock. And the six speed gear box is the nicest I personally have ever used. Second vehicle this failure has happened to, though.

Finally got the Rat's rear shaft back in with a new CSB The 2 joints , I had to mess with were in fine shape. It was just a matter of 10 bolts The new bearing and carrier took a beating during install, but the final result is a big improvement. I chirped 2nd gear and it no longer beats on the floor.

a wrote:...and it no longer beats on the floor.

And here I thought it was only BMWs that did that. Speaking of, my E36 needs attention on that score and soon. At 210K the ultimate commute machine is starting to need a little attention.

Pulled the Galaxie ('59) out of storage and cleaned it up to drive to an 80's Prom Party. Yeah - big nerds. And yeah, it's a 50's car driving to an 80's party, but it's the car Jen drove through high school, so it fit her mood.

Anyhow, the inspection is expired and one turn signal bulb is bad, and the damn power steering belt is squealing like a pig. I replaced the bulb so it will pass inspection. Belt looked like hell so I got a new one, but it still squealed. Look in the PS reservoir and the fluid is a little low, really dirty, and quite frothy. Aidan and I swapped 2 quarts in, one half-quart at a time and the pump stopped fighting the belt.

Once again, the primary noise from the car comes from the Smithy's. Sweet.

Picked up this Beetle Turbo DSG to accompany my Golf SportWagen as a daily for the girlfriend. Traded up from a Dodge Dart GT. Saved money on the loan. Made us both happy. She's a 'Bug nut, and next we will get an aircooled.

I got some Depos for the 318ti. Muhgawd it's nice to be able to see at night.





....and I've found my next car.

That's all for now.

slammin_e28 wrote:I got some Depos for the 318ti. Muhgawd it's nice to be able to see at night.

....and I've found my next car.

That's all for now.

I need to get around to doing same on ours, it's pretty dim.

yodman wrote:Picked up this Beetle Turbo DSG to accompany my Golf SportWagen as a daily for the girlfriend. Traded up from a Dodge Dart GT. Saved money on the loan. Made us both happy. She's a 'Bug nut, and next we will get an aircooled.

As someone who was waaaaay into aircooled VWs once upon a time, I'd love to drive one again. I was even thinking about just today. I don't think I'd want to own one, and really wouldn't want to daily one, but I'd love to take a drive in one again to see if it was like I remembered.

slammin_e28 wrote:I got some Depos for the 318ti. Muhgawd it's nice to be able to see at night.





....and I've found my next car.

That's all for now.

Yeah, aren't E36 headlights great? I just threw in some +100 bulbs in mine but I still need to buff the lenses again then clearcoat them. Ever wish you could just remove the individual high and low beams and install brand new H1/H4s in say a standard size, like maybe 5.75. For cheap. What a concept, I wonder if we'll ever see it.

And BTW, your pics don't work for me, all I get is the word image.

Mike W. wrote:
Yeah, aren't E36 headlights great? I just threw in some +100 bulbs in mine but I still need to buff the lenses again then clearcoat them. Ever wish you could just remove the individual high and low beams and install brand new H1/H4s in say a standard size, like maybe 5.75. For cheap. What a concept, I wonder if we'll ever see it.

And BTW, your pics don't work for me, all I get is the word image.

Hopefully that fixed the pics....had them in a private gallery :/

Hooked up the city lights last night.





I liiiike it.

Also got a 5sp ZHP shift knob because the plastic thing in there was horrible.



That's all for now. Tomorrow I pick up the new car.

I've been tracing the circuit on my intellitronix universal digital dash since the speedometer input failed. I think the input conditioning circuit bit the dust. Also found out the hard way that digikey.com is not flat rate shipping, nor is it next day delivery like digikey.ca... I'm going to miss that now that I'm in the US,

Mike W. wrote:Yeah, aren't E36 headlights great?

Have you considered Euro units with glass lenses?

John in VA wrote:

Mike W. wrote:Yeah, aren't E36 headlights great?

Have you considered Euro units with glass lenses?

No, for one thing they're expensive and I'm cheap. Mine are actually fairly easy to buff out, which does make a difference, but even if I had new ones I doubt they would match the budget 5.75 sealed beam H1/H4 replacements from Classic Garage. Plus the plan is to sell it in the not too distant future. Not that everything always goes according to plan, but that's another story.

I located a used M 20 timing belt tensioner. It is going to get re-purposed as a tensioner for the Rat's front E-brake cable.

Not my car, but yesterday one of the wife's friends stopped by for a visit (brought me a bottle of neue wine as a belated b-day gift!) and discovered she had a very flat tire when she was leaving. She's driving a leased Ford something-or-other station wagon-type car; I offered to help fix it, but found that there's no spare tire, just a Continental Tire ContiMobility Kit, which is essentially a little compressor with a bottle of sealant that attaches to it to get a flat temporarily sealed & reinflated.

Unfortunately, the flat was due to her hitting a curb that left a nice 1/2" gash next to the bead; an oncoming car on a narrow street squeezed her over far enough to hit the curb. It's possible to just roll over most curbs around here, but she was lucky(?) and found one of the few that bite when you hit them! The gash was big enough that the sealant couldn't do the job, and air came out as fast as the pump pushed it in, so she had to let the car sit until the lease company could send someone over to fit a spare on the thing. Makes me appreciative of the full-size spares in the BMWs.

Rocked down to Electric Avenue...



And then I took it higher...




And then I took in for its smog test.

Karl Grau wrote: And then I took in for its smog test.

And... and did it pass? Actually the state has revised things once again so on 2000+ cars, they pretty much pass if the check engine light isn't on since all they do is plug into the OBDII port.

Still it pissed me off last time I was in with the old wagon, I'm ready to pay and asking if it passed or not and nobody even knew. I know they may not have a whole lot of emotional investment in me, but maybe fake it a little bit? I mean I was a customer there for a reason. Last time there I guess.

I've been driving the Samurai for most of the week. Have had to drive the wife to work since she buggered her car up good.

She smacked a curb, flattened two tires and bent a wheel. Also bent the tie rod & end. At this point I discovered the wheel bearing is also going.

Ended up replacing 3 tires and two wheels so that she's have matching on each axle and a spare finally.

It's going to need both wheel bearings, both tie rods (&ends) and an alignment now. I wish this was stuff I could do, but it's too big of a job for to be allowed in the apartment complex parking lot. I also need to pick up special tools to remove the inner tie rod from the steering rack if I want to do it. Which I don't really right now as the weather is very crummy here in Everett (stupid typhoon remnants).