Touring International

[Earl]

I had no clue you had that many cars! I wish you had a set of clean oxford green bumpers and were close to me=(

[DinanDave]

I had no clue you had that many cars! I wish you had a set of clean oxford green bumpers and were close to me=(

I can ship and I have a set of rust free Calypso red ones if your interested.

[Earl]

My front bumper is cracked and my rear has terrible clear so I want a nice Oxford one to swap on. I do need door seals and such though.....text me 2626858081. Also, anyonr else on here who wants to get a hold of me, there you go. Lol

[Earl]

My friend John and I got a nice chunk of work done this weekend. I had planned to just peel the carpet back from the firewall (so it doesn't catch fire again during welding), run my front air lines through the interior, and then start on my false floor.

John decided we would pull the whole carpet since it needs to be replaced and it would be in our way four routing the air lines anyways. I shockingly did not take many pictures of the interior removal but it was pretty straight forward.

We removed the seats, drivers side knee panel, and then the center console. After that it was just a matter of making a few cuts in the carpet to free it from the center of the dash frame.





In the process, I broke my gas pedal. There is a clip to release it and then you should be able to wiggle it back and forth until it pops out. Upon wiggling it back and forth, the plastic fatigued and the pedal broke from its base...oh well. lol



I also got a good look on how bad that fire was behind the carpet a few weekends ago.



A bit worse than I thought but good thing it went out easily.

After that I helped John route the air lines in a factory way. We followed the wiring harness tracks in the floor and came out into the wheel well in a nice spot. (excuse the surface rust from the wheel wells sitting raw for months)

Passenger side






Drivers side






The passenger side floor was in perfect shape. The drivers side has a few small surface rust spots from all of the winters the car has seen. I will be using a course wire brush and spraying rust reformer in all of the spots. Nothing is bubbling or looks to be serious at all which is great=)

[Earl]

Saturday was a decently productive day.

The day started off with my buddy Kyle (different one than the one welding my bay) coming out and checking the timing on my engine. We picked it up off of the engine stand by the engine mounts and set it on the bench with an engine hoist. We quick tossed the flywheel on and found a socket about the same diameter as the timing slot in the flywheel. Low and behold it lined up perfectly with the hole in the block. He turned it over a few times and I had a huge grin on my face knowing that I somehow managed to get it timed right.

After that, he left and I decided to start removing my dash. In order to do this I had to remove all of the components that are attached.

I started with the defrost vents


You can see the three bolts holding the top of the dash to the frame (only one other bolt on each end holds the dash onto the frame)



After that I removed the HVAC panel (note the two screws)


I also removed the radio at that time but didn't take any pictures. The black plug on the back was kicking my ass. I slid the locking cage up but it was still stuck in there really well. I sat and wiggled it furiously in spurts for around 45 minutes and it finally came out.

After that I removed the gauge cluster


Then the wiper and turn signal stalks needed to come off


And then the dash came out (I put the stalks and column cover back on to keep them out of the way and from getting broken)



The dash was a lot easier to remove than I thought it would be.

Once that was out I went back to the motor. I torqued down the bolts on the lower timing cover to get it seated for good. Some of the paint ended up flaking around the bolts from the torque but I will go back with a foam brush and some matte black paint later and do touchup.

I then removed the upper timing cover bolts to install the cover....or so I thought


I went to dry fit the profile gasket and ran into a problem. The profile gasket between the head and rear timing case sits out a little too far, causing the ends of the timing cover profile gasket to not seat correctly.


I tried pushing it back to where it should be but it wouldn't stay. I tried force fitting the ends of the timing cover gasket into the available space but could only get one side in to where I felt comfortable.



I am not quite sure what to do to make sure it won't leak and to get it to seat well.

During that time I also repaired a mount on my front bumper that I had snapped off a while back. I also helped my friend Kevin lower my friend Johns Passat to its normal non-winter height.

I decided I would grab my bumper and bring it home to work on throughout the week. The bottom edge where the exhaust cutout was shaved really needs to be smoothed out since there was way too much material added. I also decided to shave the tow hook cover since it seemed to stick out to me more now that the exhaust cutout is gone. I was going to shave the crease in the bumper as well but a friend convinced me that it fits well with how the skirts seam up with the body.

Yesterday I decided to get a start on shaving the tow hook cover.



I started by cutting off the tether.


I then removed the metal clip (I would have kept it for reinforcement but it seemed too rusty)



After that I roughed the edges up with 80 grit, mixed some epoxy, and put it in place for good.


It seemed to keep sinking at the edges no matter what I did so I will sand it all out smooth and then add another coat to rid of the low spots.

Here it is cured and you can see how much sanding I need to do to the lower edge to get it straight.



My second set of replacement hubs should be here today. I should hopefully be able to get the hubs reassembled for good. I still need to figure out how to get my last caliper assembled and solve my stripping bleeder screw threads in my other front caliper.

Other than that the e34 has been working awesome for daily duty purposes and I sold the Prelude friday evening=)

[244Brick]

Sweet now buy wheels for the e34

makes me wish i would have bought that 540i when i had the chance

[Earl]

It is very tempting=P It is getting detailed on Saturday and I am finding small things to clean it up. I also need to stop being lazy and shadowline the trim.

[Earl]

My new hubs came from ECS yesterday. Since we had issues with the SKF bearings twice they upgraded me to the FAG bearings at no charge=)



They slid right onto the spindle of the knuckle and they fit perfectly around the inner dust covers. I got my studs installed right away too.



I need to find some Evercoat Polyflex for my rear bumper as a finishing filler. I also need to grab a sanding block. Once I get those I will work on the bumper=)

I leave you with an old booty shot (you can see how the bottom edge of the bumper isn't flat where the exhaust cutout was shaved)

[frink84]

just ordered some FAG bearings from ECS over the SKF simply because of this thread. keep up the good work!

[Earl]

They are so much nicer=) Thank you

[244Brick]

FAG bearings

[Earl]

I fiddled with the bumper a bit last night.

I will hopefully get the feel for it after a little more time. Right now I am in the phase where I feel like I am going to mess it all up and have the body lines all wrong.

Bought this guy


I then started flattening the bottom of the bumper and taking down the epoxy on the tow hook cover




The features that I am afraid to mess up are the edge above the tow hook cover, the recessed line, and the curve of the lower skirt. I am trying to figure out what motion to use the block to keep the upper edge from losing its tight curve. I feel like I am easing the curve but when looking at it from the side it seems I haven't messed it up. There is a lot to do yet but I will stick with it=)

[Earl]

Saturday sucked.

I was supposed to get the e34 detailed at 9 and done within an hour or two. My friend didn't show up until 9:45 and it took him all the way until 2pm to finish=/ It turned out decent for the $40 he charged.







When he washed the bay he did end up causing some issues though. The car idled rough when I left but it went away. After leaving the hsop it misfired bad and only ran on 5 cylinders the whole way home. I found out yesterday that cylinders 1-3 had over an inch of water sitting in them and the coil for cylinder one had the connector cracking off. My friend and I sorted it and it runs good now. I will be changing the plugs too now.

Back to the rest of Saturday. I planned to do a bunch of welding but my patience got the best of me. I was so frustrated with how the day had been going that as soon as I started welding, I just couldn't get anything to work right.

The tin snips that I had grabbed to cut the patches was super dull and left burrs on the patches I tried cutting. I had no tools to take them off so I couldn't patch any holes in my fender, hood, or any other places I planned.

I then moved to my radiator support to fill holes that no longer need to be there. I filled one with minimal trouble. I moved on to a second one and kept blowing through. I was so frustrated that I just packed up and left. I could have just turned the heat down but figured that in that state of mind, I would have done more harm than good being there.

The only plus about Saturday is that I picked these up cheap from a friend and will be trying to make them fit for when I want to run skirts instead of being skirtless.

[DER E30]

Nice. Those floormats were gross!

[Earl]

I wish I took shots of the interior. There was crumbs and nasty stuff all over.