E30 and tie rods

I wanted to let you know I looked under a Auto e30 today. There was a brace in the way but I was able to see a Guilbo.. or a rubber donut. It was a 325 I not an e.. but i dont think it should matter.

So there should be one. Now does it have 8 vs 6 bolts I dont know I couldnt see that well.

Id order a guilbo for a Auto and see what you get. I have replaced them on 2002s, e30s and Bavarias and they all are 6 bolts. But again all Manual transmissions. Sorry I dont think any thing other than the 7 series should have a Auto. Even my e34 525 is a stick..

I would also suggest you start hitting the U pull lots and get a 5 speed. the drive shaft and the pedal assembly.. Because if you are any thing like me. You will be hooked on the Lemons race and do more than one a year.. and IF that Auto makes it through one race in my opinion change it out.

There is nothing worse than driving 5 to 9 hours to get to a race after spending 8 weekends on prepping the car. Only to have it fail on the 1st day of the race due to the trans. I dont want to Jinx you. But for about $200 you can swap out the trans. After the 1st race you car will be assigned a residual value. I am guessing about $250 ish.. or less if the trans is gone. So you will have the budget to swap it out for the next race.

We are planning on a little cooler for the tranny - either rig up the washer motor or install a tiny radiator. For our first race, we are going with the Auto- tranny. There are sooooo many driveable cars available for <$500 in my area, we will probably just buy another - as who knows what other crazy thing has been done to this BMW 325E car.

The 1986 325E guibo (flex disk) for a AUTOMATIC, on the bavarian auto site and rockauto has 6 holes. Our driveshaft and tranny have 4 holes. So, I am scrambling to find a flex plate with 8 holes. If there is no success in locating such a flex plate, maybe place a 1/2 thick round metal plate with 4 holes drilled. This will compress the drive shaft and place the knuckle closer to the CSB so there is less wobble in the shaft. What do you think?

Before I would do a metal one I would take an old tire and maybe double or tripple it up and make a guilbo.

It needs to be able to flex..

Also maybe search the e30 forums about drivshafts with 4 bolts..

I found that older 320i and 2002 model BMWs have 4 bolt pattern connections. So, the question is, why was this on my 1986 325e? Someone would need to change the tranny interface plate and the whole drive shaft and then decide they did not want the flex joint. Huh?

I ordered the 8 bolt hole flex joint that is used for a 320i. We shall see if it fits. If not, I am thinking place something thick between the tranny and the drive shaft to compress the drive shaft a bit more.

Well, the 8 bolt hole BMW flex joint did not fit the drive shaft/tranny plate. Yuck. So, I have a real backyard special. Unknown tranny plate and unknown drive shaft.

I was able to convince a metal shop friend of mine to whip up a 5/8 thick steel circular plate with 8 holes. That will compress the drive shaft and force the middle knuckle closer to the CSB. I hope this does the trick to eliminate the low acceleration thumping in the middle of the car.

Now I am thinking the Plymouth horizon was a better pick for the 24 hours of lemons.

Well I hope you do better than Us..

We had a great 1st day.. were in 3rd place 7 hours into the race then the car died. Im having it looked at tomorrow because we swapped out every main electrical component. even a fuel pump and nothing, Did a compression check and a timing mark check.. So we gave up.

Im getting a 2nd car ready for the Sept race. a 1975 2002. going to go with carbs and a distributor.. Simple..

After you do the race I would say email Jay and ask for a value.. Then use that $$ to get the car swapped over to a manaul. ITs about $100 for the trans adn drive shaft from a U pull.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

B

Would an FC RX-7 oil cooler work as an autotragic cooler? They're pretty efficient and should be small enough to mount anywhere.

Well....the metal shop guy looked over the drive shaft and said the universal joint near the CSB had play in it that it should not and the joint looked to have about 2 hours of race time left in it. So.....

I went to the junk yard. I actually found a 1986 automatic 325e! And lo and behold, there is no flex disk and the drive shaft at the tranny end has 4 bolts - just like mine. Funny because the Bavarian guys swore it should have 3 bolts and a flex disk. They were wrong. 86 325E autos have no flex disk. This junk yard drive shaft was pristine. I mean, it still has the red stickers on it for alignment of the two halves. I removed the shaft and lifted a couple other items I could use. I made a mistake and separated the two halves of the drive shaft to make it easier to carry and the junk guys charged me $40 instead of what they guessed would be $20. But the CSB is pristine on the shaft so I will remove my new one to pull back some of the expense.

Tomorrow morning I hope to have a non-thumping drive shaft - fingers crossed.

For tranny cooling I will stick to the washer pump and water.

We rejected many cars in our search and settled on the 325e. There seems to be MANY cars that run in my area that are listed for $500 or less. We are all regretting passing up on a single owner Horizon that only needed a water pump. The Horizon is one simple car....maybe 10 wires in the engine bay.

Our race is hopefully the Conn. race in July. We are not doing any safety expense on the car until we are accepted to be in the race - anyone been rejected?

scrowner wrote: I made a mistake and separated the two halves of the drive shaft to make it easier to carry

Please tell me you marked the splines before splitting it... they are balanced together and will shake the car to death if you don't put them back the same way.

Or you can take it to a drivshaft place and they can fiure out how its balacend and get the 2 parts aligned again.

Good find on the part. I learned something today.. RE the e cars vs I car and autos. Or maybe it was the year?

Our e30 kicked ass the 1st 8 hours we were up to 3rd place. Then it died. and we spent 4 hours trying everything, Fuel pumps- Airflow meters- coils- cap-wires-rotor. Crank sensors.. NOPE.. so we were out . We just watched the 2nd day. But it was fun while it lasted,

B

Walter: the drive shaft was soooo pristine that it still had the red arrow stickers on each side of the shaft for alignment. So, no worries, I got i back together correctly.

Bam: E30s are notorious for odd electrical failures. As a matter of fact, I found 8 BMWs at the junk yard and 5 of them had no body damage. hehe....catastrophic electrical failure that was non-diagnosable.

Yeah...we are crossing our fingers that the car lasts the race as we have too much time and effort in this E30.

Bam: How did you have all those spares for your E30? I thought spares added to your $500?

From what I understand, Spares are added to the cost if used. So if I needed a $25 junkyard Airflow meter I would use it and take the penalty laps. But iwe would still be in the race. Last time I brought a whole spare car. But then realized if I needed the part i would wast time taking the car apart. So this time i took parts. A spare Diff, Transmission, rear axel, Front struts. Etc.. Too bad none of these parts helped, Ill be getting the wiring worked out this week. Getting a new engine harness made. So better luck next time, were signed up for Sept.

BAM: So, what do you suggest we do with our E30 wiring? Is there a list of unessential wiring we should definitely remove? Should we pop out the harness, inspect, clean and place back in? Where was your E30 electrical failure?

Wow, that is some serious parts to have as a spare - Diff, tranny, rear axle...etc. We have not even considered any extra parts - just get the car working well. Is there so much bumping that it is a given something will go on the car?

Honestly I have no Idea on Wiring I am having it done by a shop. They are exchanging me advertising on the car for the job itself. They started working on it this weekend. It was a combo of the main fuel pump relay and some wires they are hunting down. We did eliminate the ingition all together and do a switch and push button start. Wired the starter direct with new wires . I have seen 2 teams break the keys during the race and were hosed for hours.

I would say the 10 point cage saved the back of our car in both races. We were hit hard enough to bend the bumper and tweak the floor of the truck. But since the rear part of the cage ends right by the back tail lights I honestly feel the cage gave kept the back of the car in tact. RE giving it extra rigidity etc. Since the bumpers are Aluminum we also ran a flat piece of steel across the inside of the bumper and drilled holes through the steel and the bumper. Then added about 6 bolts to hold the sadwitched metal together. We also cut the ends off the bumpers so they wouldnt get hooked and pull off. I would say the most common part that gets damaged is the fron tie rods - struts. RE if some one hits your front wheels these parts bend. Like i said earlier the e30s can stop well. youll find you can really late brake in the corners, passing cars as they are slowind down then brake and make the corner. However if you get a big ass Chevy behnd you, they get fixated on your car and cant stop as fast as a e30 . Thus rear-ending your car. This may be different if your running a smaller oval type track vs a road course. I have only done the CMP events, so that is my experience.

Well keep us posted. put up some photos... @ good luck.

Sweet info, Bam! We are truely beginners in this lemons thing. Some things for us to consider.....

1. Replace the key start with something simple.
2. Reinforce the bumpers and cut them short to prevent hooking.
3. Extra front end stearing rods - we have those as we replaced our old ones and kept them just in case.

Huh? Some business is interested in advertising on lemon cars? That is serious. We are trying to really have a true $500 car at the race. We are still over now by about $135 but we have not sold any items.

Question: What wheels are you using? How many extras? We are considering two extra wheels with new tires and we are simply using the 14" aluminum's that were standard for the 325E in 1986. We went to the junk yard and they wanted $40 each for the 14" wheels off the 86 BMW they had. So we passed on them.

You should be able to find the bottle caps at the U pull places for $25. with tires.

Also some VW and Honda wheels will fit with Spacers. the 4 x 100 is a pretty common pattern. the offest for BMW is what gets you. If you use spacers youll need longer lug nuts. Raid some from a Mercedes at the junkyard. they are about 1 inch longer and work well with spacers. I think on this Forum there is a good post on wheels and offsets. for BMWs,

you will go thru a set of front tires on the 1st day. if you cant get at least 3 deg of camber you will mainly wear the outside edges of the front tires. Again depends on the track. CMP was mainly right hand turns to the drivers front was worn the worst.. If you can get to a tire shop after the 1st day and have the tires flipped on the rims so the inide edge is now on the oustide that will give you more time on the tires. On the 1st race , We went through about 1 and 1/2 sets of tires. Totally wore out a set of 14s Azenas. and the 15s were about 1/2 way worn.

Re advertising. Well our car was shown on the Motortrend show on TV and in the local NC news. Plus all the youtube coverage., Since the wiring is all Labor the shop can donate that. VS parts cost $$. So I think we are staying leagal on the car repairs.

For wiring - you only need 4 wires in the round engine harness on the firewall to make it run if you left the engine side and aux relay panel in place. If you want gauges you need a few more. Those wires on a 88+ car:

The 2 thick green wires (one has a yellow stripe) to +12 on a switch. These are DME power and O2 heater feed. Fuses would be in order but... lemons optional.

The thick violet/red wire goes to the fuel pump.

The black/yellow is the momentary for the starter motor.

In general, the colors might be slightly different depending on model year but the 4 thickest wires in that connector are the ones you need - and the one that makes the relay click is ignition, the one that becomes hot after the relay clicks is fuel, the one that makes the starter jump when hot is momentary and the one that doesn't seem to do anything is 02 heater. That last one is really optional but it helps keep the car from running like crap on cold mornings.

Bam: The U pull yard wants $40 for the bottle caps with out the tire! Ok, so 6 tires is what I was planning - just need a couple more wheels and I am in business. 3 deg camber we will target, Stafford is a small oval.

Walter: Thanks for the wiring info, I will test an verify each with the assumption that your function list should be covered and the colors may be wrong. I am really leary of the fact that most BMWs fail due to undiagnosable electrical problems. We will try to simplify our situation to reduce the failure points.

watch craigslist or find your local BMW CCA chapter. Contact them to see if there are any e30 gurus in the club. I am sure they will have spare rims. At one point i had 6 sets here. I was selling 4 for $100 with ok tires.

We have been running 15 inch rims because you have a bettter tire chocie with 15s. Like I said find some honda rims and 1/4 inch spacers and Mercedes lug nuts . Then your set.

Is your local junk yard a U pull place.? if not find a U pull. They ae much cheaper.

A side note: Rplace all brake pads.. OR bring a spare set. The other FL team ran a mid 80s Z car and did the whole race on One set of tires. But they moved front to back for the 2nd day. And the tread wear was 380.. vs we ran 200s. softer tires.

Bam: Our junk yard is a U pull, U find it, U tackle it to remove it, U bring it up and pay for it. This yard has no inventory - no idea what they have.

DC area I have been watching craigslist for wheels for a few months and have not caught any yet.

We are replacing all rotors and brake pads.

So I will push for a little better tread wear than 200 on the tires. Thanks, nice info.

A search for 4x100

We ran 2 different sets. A pair of one kind on the front and a different pair on the back. Worked fine. http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/pts/1126240448.html http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/pts/1130531106.html

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/pts/1125203384.html http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/pts/1126506709.html

http://baltimore.craigslist.org/pts/1118777402.html http://baltimore.craigslist.org/pts/1133022589.html