My ride, an E34 recovery project.

[Bin_Jammin]

So, I've recently registered, I figure I'll start off with a few pics of my new toy. It was towed into our shop not running, turns out it had no compression. The culprit? Broken timing chain guides, jumped time and bent valves.

That's not exactly a bad thing mind you. I'm sure the majority of you are thinking: "But wait, bent valves ARE bad!" This would normally be true, but today it means a good thing when I pick up a 1990 E34 3.5 for the cost of replacing the starter in a Toyoya Corolla

Where the bad news begins is the fact that this car was never terribly well maintained. The car has 249,00 miles. It was filthy under the hood. The engine was pretty dead. I considered pulling the head and sending it out, and just driving the car until I could find a new (used) engine, but karma smiled upon me, and I found a 1988 E32 that had been totaled 10 years ago and parked, with only 89,000 miles on it, for only $500!


That got stripped, and by the time I'm done I will have sandblasted and painted the engine and transmission, along with all the pulleys and covers. As it is now, I've got to redo the crank pulley, the paint I put on crackled. The oil pan and valve cover have to come off the bad engine to get blasted and painted, and then it will be engine swap time!

The plan is to have it running sometime in the next week or two. Stereo goes in when I know it's running without problems, with interior suede work around the same time. Turbo happens after that, I've got a t-25 (just for mocking up uppipe and downpipe), not sure the turbo I want to use in the long run, but I imagine knowing me I will want it to be bigger than reasonable running on a megasquirt for efi. The bodywork will happen once I get the turbo in. The clearcoat is toast on the whole car, cracked everywhere, needs to be fully sanded and shot.

SO, without further ado, here's my toy for the summer!

[Bin_Jammin]

got some more pics, and some new ones of the valve cover and intake.

[CMT]

I love it. Can't wait to see it on the road man!

[Baby Bimmer]

Looking good. Hopefully you'll bring it by once its up and running.

[Bin_Jammin]

I'll take you for a ride in it now if you don't mind steering while I push Oh, and it would help if you came to the shop for this little adventure, I don't want to push it all the way down to you. If you can hold out for the engine going in, that would be much more enjoyable for the both of us

[Neel]

Welcome to the site , it was nice meeting you this weekend as well. I do want to appologize for not throwing you a life line after the second hour of carmen talking about his car. He does love it though and i cant fault him for that.

[Bin_Jammin]

Originally Posted by Neel

Welcome to the site , it was nice meeting you this weekend as well. I do want to appologize for not throwing you a life line after the second hour of carmen talking about his car. He does love it though and i cant fault him for that.

No worries, I don't mind talking to people about cars when they actually know what they're talking about. I hate it when people ramble on and either lie or make up whatever it is they're talking about. And his car DOES seem pretty intense!

[Bin_Jammin]

UPDATE**

Well, it's Saturday, and that means the shop is closed for business. Which means the shop is open for play! Of course it's raining like a bastard, and of course I left the window open on my beater car that I used to push the damn thing into the shop, so now in addition to a car that's drying off in the shop, I have 1/2 an ass, or a full buttcheek, that's drying off in the office.

That's the price to pay I imagine, this engine's coming out today, I don't care if I need to use the torches to do it (kidding, the oxy tank is empty after last week's adventure)

[Bin_Jammin]

Engine's out, got some pics... it's hot and humid today so I'm all sweaty and even dirtier. I'll post the pics by the end of the weekend, going to go split the engine and tranny, and pull the oil pan off the engine.

[Nitrious]

with a little love, that will be a sweet ride

[Bin_Jammin]

I've got plenty of love to give Looking at it in the daylight outside today, I think I'm going to pressure wash the engine bay, then paint it semi-matte black. The master had been leaking at some point (and it appears to have been replaced) and the brake fluid ate the paint on the booster and the body, so that will have to be fixed anyway, perfect time to clean everything up!

[Neel]

cool cool

[Bin_Jammin]

For those of you following this, here's an update:

For starters, I borked my laptop, no pics until I get that sorted out, sorry. Progress has been progressing, and I just made the most important new friend in the world. The engine and tranny are pretty much set to go in, just a couple more gaskets and seals to install, and it'll be good to roll. The fun part is that I decided a week ago or so that I would paint the engine compartment.

Not to say that this was a mistake, but looking at a the car with nothing hanging on the front end I can't help but think that maybe I overestimated my turn around time on the project

But

For those that don't know, I work in a garage with a dealership in the front of the building, two separate businesses sharing a large building and land. The dealership buys cars at auction all the time, and they need minor touch up paint all the time. The bumper doctor we use is here almost every other day. Today, he introduced me to "Scuff Stuff" and 3m scouring pads. The stuff was described to me as "liquid sandpaper" and boy, he wasn't kidding. I've got 85% of the engine compartment scuffed and ready to sand and paint, and it took about 2 hours. This is cut down from my original estimate of a week to sand. At this rate, the engine may very well be back in in a week.


Of course, saying that, I'm sure I'll find something else wrong first. That coupled with the fact that my other car needs a head gasket, and I keep getting sent the wrong parts.

And my other car has rotted, leaking brake lines.

And my other other car needs an engine.

And my other other other car is a basket case....



*sigh*... at least the Bimmer's sweet....

[Bin_Jammin]

Ok, I've set up a cardomain page with pics, if anyone's got a problem with me linking to them or anything like that let me know, I'll host pics on photobucket or something and link to them, but it's a lot easier for me to not have to post pics to multiple sites every time I do something on the car.

Plus with the res of the pics, I've already reached my file cap.

So here it is already

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2657002

[Neel]

wow... you are makin some headway... congrats.