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The Otters E30 Touring


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#1 The Otter

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 01:29 AM

Hello everybody, been a while since I've been on TMF and I thought I'd share my next project with you all. Apologies for lack of action with the Mini, that's staying on the back-burner for now until I get a decent enough job to have the disposable income to run the Mini as a fun second car to lavish it with the attention it really deserves.  ;D

 

So then, this here is my new light "project" for the summer, a 1989 BMW 325i Touring; apologies in advance, I do appear to have waffled on a bit, so please skip past my essay if you just want to see pics.  :P

 

I bought this off of a chap called "spiny" on Retro Rides, after he lost motivation with fixing the car up after a "little" problem occurred sometime last summer. From what I've gathered, the cam belt was due to be replaced, but for one reason or another it always ended up being a "next week" job. I'm sure you can see where this is going... In the end, the belt didn't go completely but rather sheared in half down it's length, with the front half flinging off around the pulleys and the half that was left jumping a few teeth. Unfortunately it was enough to mash a few valves, and so for the past year and a bit spiny has been spending the odd weekend here and there dismantling the top half of the engine and repairing what was necessary. Now, after recently getting it all back together he was greeted with the lovely sight of coolant gushing from somewhere up front down the side of the block, an ever rising temperature gauge, and obviously an ever decreasing coolant reservoir. Which is where I step in.

 

Spiny advertised the car on the Area 52 Facebook page back in November '13, briefly explaining the situation and saying that he now wants to shift the car to someone else as he's had enough of it. After a few questions as to the spec. of the car and so on, I was happy enough to take a drive down to his place and have a poke round the beast. He was selling it cheap, and even with the risk of a potential cracked head or maybe even the need for a new engine (very unlikely, but you never know!), I just couldn't say no.

 

This wasn't as easy as just bringing it home though, as I'd first have to convince my Dad to let me keep another car at his house! There's sensible space for 4 cars (2 in the garage and 2 on the drive): he keeps his car in the garage along with the Mini, and seeing as I also had the BX as my current daily it took a bit of persuading that I really needed 3 cars at the age of 20 when I have no job and no source of income apart from the government (Student grant  :highfive:). However, I knew I'd won when he made the comment, "I've always fancied a Beemer on the drive". I'm sure he wasn't envisaging a rusty, 24 year old car that's a bit broken, but it's still a BMW! So, back at the end of November I paid for it and got the car transported to it's new residence at my Dads house.

 

It's going to need a lot of niggly things fixing, but the main issue is of course the coolant leak, which could get pretty involved. It's a project though, and one I'm happy to spend time and a fair chunk of money on to make it right - these are appreciating classics in my opinion! Not much has happened with this so far, and nothing will happen until the Easter holidays and then summer holidays, as I'm currently in my third year of a four year uni course and won't be able to work on it whilst I'm away from home.

 

Anyway, enough of the back story, and on to the car. It's fairly basic, spec. wise, as these cars go, but it has had a few options ticked. It's got the standard cloth interior, front electric windows (keep-fit rears), a 13 button on-board-computer (quite desirable, and unfortunately for me, quite broken as the LCD display has melted inside), an M sport steering wheel, and a few other things I've forgotten. It doesn't have a sun roof, which will make the job of re-upholstering the headlining much easier! Most importantly though, it's got the 2.5 straight 6 engine (M20B25) and a manual 'box - the only drivetrain I'd consider in one of these!

It's going to need a fair bit of attention cosmetically, there are a few bubbles of rust and plenty of odd blemishes in the paint, along with a couple of smallish dents. The bonnet has also had a nice bit of artwork applied to it by the previous owner, which unfortunately isn't to my tastes, so that'll be going! Overall though, it's a solid base and should be a bit of fun for me in the summer whilst on my last long uni summer holiday!

 

I only managed to take a couple of phone pics on the weekend I got it home (early December), I was too excited playing with my new toy to be taking pictures of it  :D

 

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If all goes well and I can get it fixed up properly, I'll use it as my daily from August. It'll cripple me in fuel costs, but I'll be doing less mileage next year and I reckon it'll be fun enough to be able to put up with 20-25mpg! As far as mods go, I've got a few things in mind and I've already bought a few bits for it, which I'll talk about in subsequent updates (I'll gradually be catching up with the past few months worth of updates).

 

The first major thing I've got to do is find where all this coolant is gushing from...


Edited by The Otter, 30 March 2014 - 11:51 AM.


#2 Minimoke8394

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 07:19 AM

Very nearly bought one of these earlier in the week, but a saloon. Very cool cars. Would have turned it into a weekend drifter with my mates but the bloke who told me about it decided to keep it for himself. Good luck with the project mate, I can see potential there. And like you said, it's got the best lump. 



#3 Grimshaw17

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 09:14 AM

Will be following this one, been looking at them myself



#4 Black.Ghost

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 10:41 AM

That looks beautiful. I will be following this one. I do like the old BMWs. 



#5 JackF

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 09:48 PM

Now that is quite a yummy motor.



#6 Alex_B

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 10:28 PM

Nice choice! I currently own a 320i E30 (soon to be for sale if anyone is interested  ;D

I wanted something a little more modern for my 200 miles a week over winter but now the suns out the minis getting more use - who'd a thought it!? 

But these are lovely cars, mines done 120k miles, and its a little bit worn (drivers seat as is the same with all of these) but the engine, drivetrain and all of that still feels brilliant, BMW do know how to make a good car! and good luck with economy, I get about 30mpg on motorway cruising, and as low as 15mpg around town with a heavy foot! I honestly thought I had a fuel leak once when I was driving a little spiritedly  >_<



#7 The Otter

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 11:00 PM

Thanks for the interest chaps, I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to this in the summer.  :D

 

This car is on 106,000 miles, but I fear it's spent a fair bit of its life standing around not doing much, going from what the previous owner told me about its past history (and that it's been off the road for the last 18 months!). I'll be certain to thoroughly go through the brakes and suspension before it hits the road, and I'll try my best to sort out any mechanical issues but there might be a few hidden things that don't get revealed until it's been driven for a longer distance. I don't mind taking it for a cheeky spin up and down my road, but I won't take it any further than that.  :angel:

 

Hopefully the economy won't be too much of an issue, as I know I'll be doing less miles next year and I'm a pretty economical driver just normally driving around (obviously that'll go out the window when I want to go for a hoon  ;D).

 

I've got an introduction/"walk through of the car" update to add shortly...



#8 The Otter

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Posted 26 March 2014 - 11:35 PM

So then, more pictures and details from the first weekend I had free after buying the car.

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Overall it's in pretty good shape, there's a bit of rust, a dent on the front wing, and a scrape on the passenger rear arch. The tailgate is in pretty good shape - these are seemingly a major weak point on Tourings. There is meant to be another bit of weather stripping running along the bottom of the window I believe, so if I get any funny water leaks I'll need to try and get a replacement.

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It's not perfect though, it's breaking out in to crows feet/bubbles in 3 or 4 places along the bottom edge of the window aperture, and there's this bubbly bit further down.

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I'm not sure if this is still the original dealer sticker, but I'd like to think it is (the keys have a Vines keyring on them), if so it looks in good shape for being 24 years old! The one on the BX was just a rectangle of white after 20 years.

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The front sections of the black plastic sill extensions are not fitted. One of them is missing, so I'll need to either find a replacement front section or maybe ditch the whole lot. After doing a bit of research, I think that the reason they're not fitted is because the car has had replacement wings fitted (see the paint peeling off to reveal red underneath) and the new wings haven't had the holes drilled/attachment points fitted to secure the sill covers on.

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The driver's door has this bit of rust at the bottom. Strangely enough it looks fine on the inside, it's purely the outer skin that's gone from the outside...

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I know this because I bought the car with the door card removed (I believe due to the PO fixing some sort of central locking/sticky lock issues) so I could take a look inside.

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That door card was living in the boot (along with an extra spare wheel that I have yet to find a home in the garage for). Unfortunately the little black plastic bit that screws on top of the push/pull lock mechanism at the top rear edge of the door is missing, so I'll need to find a replacement one of those. Shouldn't be too hard!

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The roof lining needs re-doing - these are almost always gone on an E30 Touring nowadays. The glue/foam holding the fabric to the headlining board breaks down and the fabric ends up hanging down like a ships sail. The PO got as far as ripping out the old saggy fabric - I guess it's up to me to do the rest! I'll be taking the whole lot out and gluing some new foam/fabric on.

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As you might have noticed from the inside pics, the car is a non-sunroof model, which will make the headlining removal/refurb a bit more simple!

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The car currently has the basic cloth "comfort" seats, with obligatory tearing in the drivers seat. I have, however, now sourced a complete grey leather sports interior (for a bargainous price I may add). I'll add some pics of the new interior in a few weeks when I get back home as I completely forgot to take any pics at the time!

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Hasn't done too many miles for it's age. Lowest mileage car I've owned in fact, despite it being the oldest. It's also the most technologically advanced, by far.  :teehee: 

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I know there's meant to be a bit of cowling beneath the steering wheel here, but that's also missing in action. There are a couple of wires with bulbs on them hanging down from underneath too, no idea what they're for!

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No radio or speakers, but I have the head unit that was in the BX and I'll get some cheapish speakers off the interwebz to fill the holes in the BMW. I've also got the active subwoofer out of the BX too, so I'll find a home for it somewhere when the time comes. The desirable 13 button OBC has unfortunately melted its display - I would try and get another one, but they're quite expensive (£70-£80) and then who's to say that the replacement won't do the same thing in another couple of months? Nobody seems to think it's worth replacing the screens themselves (that's the only bit that goes to create the little lava lamp) but I'd be much happier doing that if at all possible. The heater blower doesn't work, and as such I have no idea whether the heater gets warm or not. The glovebox lid is hanging on one hinge/strap, so I'll need to bodge/fix that before the stress overcomes the one strap that's still attached.

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Going to the front of the car - firstly, the headlights are odd. This is bugging the hell out of me even whilst the car's sitting on the drive doing nothing, so I've already sourced a cheap replacement driver's side headlight set (with a broken adjuster of some sort, hence the cheapness) so that'll get fixed up and fitted. It's got clear front indicator lenses, which normally I don't like. However I think they quite suit white/silver/black cars so they might stay. However the side repeaters are still orange, so that means I'll need to find some clear side repeaters to match those. The original orange front lenses came with the car though, so I'll probably just re-fit those to get the indicators matching again.

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The bonnet... not sure what to do with this. It would be a lot of effort to get rid of what's on there now, and I might do that to find that the paint is ruined underneath and that's the whole reason a bit of fun was had with painting in the first place. To be fair, there is lacquer peel on the edges so this probably is the case. There's also a nice dent in the middle somewhere, so what I'm going to try and do is keep an eye out for a E30 being broken somewhere that's the same colour as mine (Lachs Silver) and just replace the bonnet altogether. Whilst I'm at it I'll try and get a pair of wings and maybe the drivers door, as they've all been rattle canned to some extent, the drivers wing is dented and bent like a banana, and the drivers door is rusty (as shown above). That'll probably be expensive though (because BMW) so I don't know...

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Now we come to the engine, the big silky smooth 2.5 straight 6. It may not be that powerful compared to what some of you are used to, but it's all about perspective. The Mini had 56hp (that was with a lot of money spent to get it there from about 40hp), the BX has about 70hp. The BMW has 170hp. So you can imagine the grin on my face when I took it for a little spin up and down my road, err, private test track. It makes one hell of an awesome noise too! Boy can I not wait to get this thing on the open road and have some fun. 

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There is, of course, the issue with the coolant leak. I won't be working on it until I get back home at Easter, but it could just about hold it's drink long enough for a little test drive. Leaves a bit of an evidence trail though...

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Oh yes, after the little drive I can also say that the brakes are spongier than a spongy thing soaked in sponge sauce and 90% of the clutch pedal travel is not needed (i.e. it has an extremely high biting point!). I'll see what it's like once I've had a chance to play with it a bit more, but it may need a new clutch before it goes on the road...

 

I'll add in here that I did actually have a look at the leak a couple of weeks after this, and I found that coolant was coming from two places: firstly, the good news - (and this was pretty epic to find...) the top radiator hose wasn't on properly. The major gushing leak was due to that hose only being half on, so about 30 secs and I'd fixed 80% of the leakage! WIN! The bad news is, coolant was still coming from somewhere else... after much investigation, I traced the leak to be coming from behind the timing belt cover, pretty much exactly where the water pump is. So that evening I went on Facebook and asked the previous owner what he'd replaced when he put the new timing belt on: "Just the belt and the tensioner" he said. So, it turns out that he hadn't replaced the water pump whilst he was in there, which I'm really hoping is the cause of the leak! I'm hoping that maybe the new belt and tensioner put too much strain on the old pump and caused it to go pop? In any case it needs a new water pump, seeing as I have no idea how old the current one is, which I have since bought off ebay and will be fitting at Easter!

 

Also, the first things I actually bought for the car after getting it were a new set of wheels! Got to get my priorities straight  :thumbsup: They're factory fitted 15 inch BBS rims, which this car actually did have fitted from brand new (I've got a printout of the original options/spec. list), so I'll actually be putting the car closer to factory with these:

 

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The 14 inch bottletops on the car at the moment aren't the prettiest of wheels (in my eyes) but they've got a decent set of mud+snow tyres on them, so they'll be saved for winter when the weather gets a bit colder! I'll be selling the 17 inch Alpinas that also came with the car, as they're not to my tastes - I did originally want to fit them, but I've now read up on forums and such and found that big wheels make the car handle and ride badly (similar to a Mini on 13's I guess!) so I'll be sticking to the smaller diameter rims. So, these BBS rims with a set of Nankangs fitted should be a good base to learn how to drive a rear-wheel drive car in the wet, right?  :w00t:



#9 The Otter

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Posted 27 March 2014 - 01:41 PM

On another free weekend I had in January, I decided to try and deal with some of the rust on the tailgate, sooner rather than later, before it got any worse. I had a look at the couple of scabs I could see and noticed that the rust went behind the plastic number plate mounting panel, so thought I'd pull that off to reveal what laid beneath...

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Quite a few big scabs there, so for now I just wire wheeled the worst of it off and gave the bare metal areas a coat of kurust. I'll neaten it all up and give it a proper coat of paint some time.

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Then I grabbed a razor blade and got rid of the manky old sticker that was flaking off the rear window. I also went over that sprayed on yellow Atari logo with some T-cut - thankfully it was only sprayed on lightly so it was rubbed off within about a minute! Neatened up the back end a bit (ignore the rust!).

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I then moved towards the front of the car and went about putting the door card back on. Thankfully all the popper clips were still in place and not broken, but unfortunately the screws for the door pull/arm rest were missing, along with the trim piece that goes around the door handle and the little black bit that screws over the door lock actuator thingy. Luckily I had some screws that were a perfect match to the ones that were supposed to be there (checked against the passenger side screws), so I got the door pull mounted back on fine. Now I just need to remember to source those other couple bits of trim.

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When I got the car, the passenger's side window switch only worked getting the window down - to get the window back up again you had to swap the switches with the driver's side. They were both hanging out of the centre console, so I took the passenger's switch out, pulled it apart and gave the insides a liberal soaking in contact cleaner, and it now works a treat. So then I popped the window switches back in place, along with the gear shift gaiter that was also previously loose.

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Then I removed another couple of old stickers from the front windscreen.

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So I've slowly been cleaning the car up, even if I still haven't looked at fixing the suspected water pump leak...

 

That's everything caught up with now, so next updates will be at Easter hopefully.  :D



#10 Black.Ghost

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Posted 28 March 2014 - 10:45 AM

Nicely done. It's always good when the little annoying things are fixed quickly, like a switch not working properly. 



#11 sherly

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Posted 28 March 2014 - 02:32 PM

Love this!

 

I'm a recent Beemer convert - I bought an E39 528i Touring back in Jan '13.  Dunno why I fancied that particular model (I'd been after a bigger car for a while) but I had my mind set on buying one.  Took a while to find a good one and I wanted a manual (most of these luxo-barges tend to be auto) which made the search a bit longer.

 

Anyways here's mine:

 

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Interesting to hear about your cooling issues (dunno whether you've got this sorted yet?).  About 6 months into ownership I had an near-overheating issue.  Turns out the achilles heel (on the e39 at least) is the cooling system.  If you intend to run the car for a while it's recommended that you replace all the cooling components (rad/header/rad cap/water pump/fan viscous coupling etc) as things start to fail around 100k.  I chucked £300 at mine (parts only - I did the work myself) for peace of mind.  The radiator was really distorted at the bottom, curved like a banana! 

 

For reference - a good place for OEM spec parts here - http://www.c3bmw.co.uk/  Really really helpful and cracking quality parts at good prices! 

 

Look forward to seeing updates! Keep up the good work!  :-) 


Edited by sherly, 28 March 2014 - 02:34 PM.


#12 The Otter

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Posted 30 March 2014 - 12:19 PM

Sherly, the paintwork and wheels on your E39 look gorgeous, I hope you're keeping it as shiny as possible?  :D

 

No I haven't looked at the issue again yet, I've got a couple of weeks of uni left (where I'm 80 miles away from the car anyway) and I have my dissertation to be finishing off, so no car work until I'm finished! I'm aware that the cooling systems on E30s are pretty fragile, and suffer from the same issues as you've listed when they're getting on in years. Seeing as I've got the whole summer to play around with the car, I'll go through as much as I can on it, including flushing the radiator and checking the viscous fan, all the hoses and so on. I want this to be reliable when I start using it as my daily! If I treat it like the Mini then I should be fine; I never broke down in that car, mostly (I like to think) due to careful  preventative maintenance.

 

I found a couple more pictures that I'd forgotten about, so thought I'd throw them up here. First one is a shot taken by the previous owner, of the car on the back of the beavertail ready to take the trip back to my Dads place back in December. Cost me almost as much to get the car home as it did to buy it!

 

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These two photos are from the night me and Rob (rob963) went to pick up the bargain sports leather interior. The chap put an advert up on the E30zone (like TMF for E30s) and I could tell I'd have to be quick to get them, so I got in touch straight away and within about 18 hours of him putting the ad up, we'd driven from Bristol to Slough and back with a lovely smelling mound of grey German hide in the boot on the return journey. I really do love the smell of proper old leather, it reminds me of being in old Mercedes taxis on holiday  :teehee:

 

First photo is of the surprisingly cavernous boot space of my Dad's Celica with the rear seats folded down (that I'm driving now until the BMW is fixed up). I wasn't sure if we'd get a whole interior in here...

 

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It was a bit of a squeeze, but we got it all in! That's front seats, rear seats, rear side bolsters, and four door cards.

 

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And here's a shot of the driveway back in January when there were 5 cars at my Dads house for a couple of days (my Dad had just bought the GT86 so I could use the Celica for a while). Out of the 5, I owned 4 of them  >_< the BX was sold a couple of days later, so I was back down to three pretty quickly.  :P

 

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Edited by The Otter, 30 March 2014 - 12:23 PM.


#13 sherly

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Posted 01 April 2014 - 05:03 PM

Yeah, paintwork looks OK (it's been resprayed in the past and isn't 100% - couple of minor blemishes).  I'm currently respraying the wheels graphite (I've already satin-blacked the kidney grille surround) in an attempt to de-bling it - not a huge fan of chrome/bright silver on later cars.

 

Failed the MOT last week so she's going up on the ramps tomorrow night for me to replace the front to back brake pipes.....fun fun fun.

 

Good selection of cars you had a one point there! I'm getting a bit like that - got an Alfa GTV I should probably break/get rid of to lessen the fleet a little......



#14 The Otter

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Posted 06 May 2014 - 02:45 PM

I've been busy over the past few weeks! Got some catching up to do, so bear with me whilst I bombard the forum with updates... 

So then, the first thing I did when I got back home from uni was fit the load cover I bought off ebay sometime in the past couple of months.

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Not only was the cover missing from my car, but also two of the brackets that hold it in place (one front and one rear). No idea why only those two were missing! The load cover I bought came with all the brackets, so I just fitted the two I needed and now I have a couple spare. One of the missing brackets uses a little metal clip for a self tapper to grip in to, and I was quite amused to find the clip I needed sitting in the bottom of one of the storage bins. The good one below is off the bracket that was still present.

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Nice easy job to start me off!

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Whilst I was in the boot, I thought I'd give it a good clear out and a tidy up. It was filthy in there, so I spent a while picking out all the screws, nuts, bolts, clips, etc. that were floating around, and then gave it a good vacuum and stripped out some of the panels and carpet. I found that the left hand bin had about half an inch of water in it, which means I have a leak somewhere...

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The carpeted bits of the boot are/were all quite stained and mucky, so I started off the cleaning process by doing the two doors to the storage bins - I reckon they came up very nicely, better than I expected anyway! Guess that's German carpet for you...

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I've also cleaned these two bigger bits now, but this photo kind of shows how dirty they were before.

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Also a nice surprise finding that the spare wheel (which is one of the original 15" BBS's) has a Yokohama tyre fitted, with loads of tread left!

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Gave the right hand side of the car a going over with the pressure washer whilst I was washing the Celica, to get rid of all the mould and to see what it looks like under the dirt! Doesn't scrub up too badly really, and I'm yet to give it a proper wash.

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Next, I started on the slightly bigger job to replace the water pump and hopefully cure the coolant leak from the engine. First thing I had to do was sort the heater blower, so that I could tell whether I was getting hot coolant around the system properly to the heater matrix. The fan didn't work on any setting, so I thought it was best to take it out and give it a good clean up and hope it just needed a bit of freeing up after seizing itself. The fan is accessed through the engine bay, behind a panel on the firewall.

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After getting that panel off, you're faced with the fan sitting under it's covers. I'd already taken the covers off the side closest to the camera in the photo below, but you can see the covers on the far side. Much fiddling around and they unclip at the front and rear.

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Once the covers are off, you have to prise a fiddly little clip open, that clamps the fan down around its mid-section. The fan was very stiff to turn by hand, so I doused it in penetrating oil and rotated it a few times to loosen it up a bit. Once it was easier to turn, I lubricated the shaft with some thin oil, and then went about testing the electrical circuit in the car. I found that the fan now worked fine on maximum (setting 4 on the dial), but not on any other setting, which is a sign that the resistor pack has failed, which is this thing poking out in the photo below.

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The pack was also billowing smoke when I tried to use the fan on 1, 2 or 3, so it was pretty obvious that was the issue! It comes out from the interior of the car, so I swung the glovebox down, took off a couple of panels and could see the back of it under the dash.

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The resistor pack isn't needed to use the fan on maximum, so I took it out and decided to plonk it in a lid of vinegar for a few days whilst I carried on with the water pump change. It might do nothing, but if the thing doesn't work anyway then I've got nothing to lose! Hopefully the vinegar will eat away at the corrosion and maybe free up the electrical connections, seeing as it's just three coils of wire to change the resistance in the circuit.

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Next thing I did after "fixing" the fan was to sort the non-functioning right hand side indicators, just because it popped in to my mind whilst I was thinking about electricity...

The issue with the side repeater was quite easy to find, it was just hanging loose ::)

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The front and rear were just slightly corroded connections, I just took the bulbs out, cleaned them up and put them back in; simples!

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Pretty cool easy twist release panels for the rear lights that have all the bulbs in them for easy maintenance.

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Also swapped out the front indicator lenses whilst I was there, looks better with orange now I think...

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To finish the second day, I pulled the radiator out and gave it a good flushing/backflushing/shake-about, numerous times, to clean it out.

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There's plenty of corrosion on the fins, with a decent chunk of them falling apart when I touched them. It's not ideal but it still holds water fine, so hopefully it's still got a bit of life left in it...

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Pulled out the engine block drain plug and flushed the block whilst I had the hose out! Fiddly sod to get to, right behind the exhaust manifold.

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Making use of my new "Joey Can", not bad for £1 delivered from the bay!

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Doing this job gave me a chance to use my enormous new jack that I got as a birthday present, nice to be able to use axle stands on the highest setting for a change grin.png

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Also found it cool that I still have BMW branded jubilee clips on the coolant hoses  :mrcool: 

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So that was the first couple of days work, which were pretty successful. Next instalment imminent...



#15 The Otter

The Otter

    The artist formally known as j322overthetop

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Posted 06 May 2014 - 02:53 PM

First thing the next morning I only had 15 mins spare before I was going out for a bit, so thought I'd give the boot another going over and tidy up, and pull out the plastic panel that lined the right hand side bin.

Getting quite tidy in there now (minus my tools lying around of course).

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However, I did manage to drive a screwdriver through the bottom corner of the bin that was covered by the plastic liner... good thing I'm used to rusty cars by now  :rolleyes:
 

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What starts as a small hole usually ends up much worse. This case was no exception!

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Ahh, a familiar sight on my driveway...

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A mate was coming round to do some welding on his Mini in a couple of days time, so I left my newly formed water drain hole for now whilst I carried on with the water pump change.

First thing I wanted to do was get the bonnet off, as I knew it would get bloody annoying having to crane over sideways to pull the front of the engine off. Was pretty straight forward with a hand from my old man, although pulling the washer lines out from the bottles was a bit fiddly.

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There we go, much better access now.

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So I got on with stripping bits off, and found that of the two drive belts, one looked almost new and the other looked pretty ancient. Quite odd seeing as the bad one had to be taken off to get at the good one? squint.png I bought a new belt to replace it which I fitted when it all went back together later.

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The bonnet rested on the roof of the Mini, and made for a nice table to store the engine parts!

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Everything gone, ready to get the pump off.

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Here is where I found the most likely cause for the leak. I'm not sure whether the pump was borked or not - it looked a bit crusty inside but it still seemed to do it's job. See if you can spot the other main problem in the photo below...

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Only two of the three mounting bolts were present, that hold the pump on to the block. The upper bolt (inside that little shrouded bit) was missing completely, which I'm sure wouldn't have been helping to keep coolant inside the engine!  >_<
 

Luckily I had a bolt with the right size thread and pitch sitting in my tool box; problem was that it was 20-30mm to long.

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So, out came the hacksaw and file, and voila, a replacement bolt grin.png

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That was me finished for the day. Next morning I carried on my tradition of first doing something unrelated to the main task, which on this occasion was fitting the oil cooler grille that I'd bought, as the car was missing it's one.

Here's the before:

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and the after:

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Only a small thing, but neatens things up a bit.

Next I got on with scraping/cleaning the block ready for the new water pump.

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I fitted the pump with some silicone sealant between the pump and the gasket, and the block and the gasket, just to be safe. I've read that new pumps often leak on these engines, and I didn't fancy doing this job again for the sake of an extra few minutes now.

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No more engine pictures, but I got it all back together fine and there were no leaks when I fired it up! Bled the system through and it seems to sit around 1/2 way on the temp gauge, which is pretty much spot on. I'm very happy for now though, the engine runs up to temp and stays there, and most importantly the coolant stays inside the engine!  :D
 When I put the bonnet back on, I cleaned up and lubed all the hinge points and runners, so it opens much more freely now. I didn't even realise that the bonnet was meant to spring forward by itself until I cleaned everything up!  :lol: 

After I was done with the water pump change, I thought I'd throw on the spare BBS rim up front to see how it looked, seeing as I'll be fitting a set of these before the car goes on the road. The suspension is a 'tad' high, but the wheel looks good and fills out the wheel wells a lot better than the bottletops.

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So that's up to the end of the fourth day of work; the next day I did the welding on the rear bin.






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