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I've been meaning to make a thread about my cars and the poo poo I have to do to them to keep them at least somewhat roadworthy for some time now. Because I'm easily distracted and never seem to have a ton of time to work on things, expect glacial / sporadic progress. All my work happens in the driveway (I really need to move to a place with an actual garage) so nothing happens when it rains or after dark, unless it's something that needs to be done RIGHT NOW. This thread will hopefully help to keep me on track with poo poo that needs to get done, and will probably be used as a scratch pad / checklist for things I have lined up. Anyways, onto the cars! 1994 BMW 840Ci   Got this one in 2006 with about 82k miles on it, currently sitting at about 132k. This is my DD in spring / summer / fall, but I don't do winters in it anymore. 2003 Cadillac Escalade  It was getting old not being able to carry people / things, so I picked this up a couple summers ago with about 175k on it. Currently at 188k or so. Was quite a pile when I got it, the previous owner had just run it into the ground and not fixed things as they broke down. Needed quite a bit of work to get into OK shape, but still has a little ways to go. This is my winter / backup car. 1989 Honda Prelude  I don't remember exactly when I got this car, I want to say about 2005. This won't appear in the thread much, as I'm probably going to put it up for sale shortly. Too many cars, and I've got to thin the herd. This poor little guy never gets driven anymore. It's fun to throw around and runs great, but the body is kind of a mess (LOL 80s Honda in salt) and the tires are garbage. 1994 and 1992 Subaru SVXeses   These are projects that I work on when the other cars don't need anything. In case the moss growing on them wasn't an indication, I haven't really done much with these in a while. The engine to the '94 is on a stand in the garage, and the heads are on a shelf, still in plastic from the machine shop. The headlights from both cars are in the house. The '92 runs fine (or did at least) but the brakes are rotted out. I've been meaning to get back into these at some point.
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Apr 28, 2014 03:38
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My project these past couple of weekends was a much-needed headlight refurbishment on the BMW. Despite their reputation, these cars are actually pretty solidly built, without too many notorious trouble areas. One of the big ones though, is the headlights. There are a lot of things that go wrong with these, namely adjusters and wiring. There are also baby shock absorbers that mount on each light to keep them from juddering over bumps. While not critical, these are going to be dead as well. Protip: When looking to buy an 8 series, take a look at the headlight wiring. It's guaranteed to be trashed, and most owners are blissfully unaware of it. You can probably knock a few  off of the price by pointing it out. Oddly enough, it's the only disintegrating wiring harness on the entire car - the rest looks perfect.  Here's what mine looked like:   The funny thing is, they worked perfectly. I'm amazed they worked at all.In addition to that, the adjusters are made of soft cheese, and break regularly - and are NLA from BMW. Mine were no exception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygP_hn3Z_Nc One was completely broken, and the others basically crumbled when I touched them. The nice thing about this job is you can take the buckets out and bring them inside to work on them. First task is to remove the buckets. Each bucket is secured with two bolts on top and two nuts attached to the support arms underneath. Remove the cover (secured with 1 screw) to access the top bolts:   uhh, what's that? Definitely some non-German parts in there. More on this later.Now for the bottom nuts. The annoying thing about these is that they are on a little pivot in a ball and socket joint. The whole assembly will turn unless held in place. To do that, you need a 15mm thin wrench. I read up on this job beforehand, and picked up a bicycle wrench specifically for this purpose.  Buckets out:   Onto the lights themselves:  Someone had obviously been in here before. The adjuster knobs are supposed to be nuts press fit onto the shafts. My car had round knobs held in place with set screws. There was also some kind of ghetto hardware store poo poo wedged in there to keep the lenses from moving, with a piece of foam shoved in for good measure.  Anyway. I mentioned earlier that the adjuster kits are NLA from BMW. Fortunately, there's a guy on Bimmerforums who's put together a kit to completely refurbish the lights, and take care of all of these problems. The kit:  Surgery time. Housing separated from bucket:  New adjusters going on:   The poo poo that came out: (not pictured - the little shock absorbers, trashed wiring)  Job done, new wiring installed, and the lights are going back in the car, when...   God dammit. Bad weld on the part, as soon as a little force was put on it, the ear snapped off. So, I put everything away, and fired off an email to the guy I got the kit from. A week later, new part in hand, I got back to work reinstalling everything. Almost done, just one more bolt to tighten...  FUUUUUUUUUUU20 year old BMW plastic that has spent it's life in the engine compartment cracks if you look at it funny? Who would have guessed!  thereifixedit.jpg  I found a section of thick metal tubing in my junk box, I think from the inside of a bushing or something that happened to have an ID almost exactly what that broken mounting ear was. That shouldn't go anywhere. I don't what to know what a new headlight bucket would have cost.Everything is now done, lights have been tested and working. The only thing left to do is adjust them so they line up properly with the hood, and then aim the beams themselves.
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Apr 28, 2014 05:21
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Yes! Been waiting for this 8 series for a long long time. Also, I never did follow up, how's your trucks ac?
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Apr 28, 2014 05:29
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BrokenKnucklez posted:Yes! Been waiting for this 8 series for a long long time. There's still a leak somewhere I stopped chasing it in the fall sometime, with the intent to find it in the spring (so, now basically). At least now I can rule out the evap core, well the front one at least. I'm holding off though, because I'm having issues with the right front shock connector, which I'm reading can be caused by one of the A/C hardlines interfering with it. There's an updated part available from GM, which I managed to find cheap on Ebay. I'm going to have that replaced by a shop though, because the existing line needs to be cut and the new one crimped to it with a tool that I don't have. Hopefully that will fix it, but if not, I'm going to have to look around for the leak.
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Apr 28, 2014 06:37
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Are you holding the bushing there permanently with the hoseclamp, or was that just while you glued it with something? Either way it's probably more durable than the brittle old plastic. 
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Apr 28, 2014 18:05
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FWIW, if you don't want to deal with the rear AC right away, you can take lines off a Silverado/GMC and it will bolt right into place and plug up your rear lines.
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Apr 28, 2014 19:49
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IOwnCalculus posted:Are you holding the bushing there permanently with the hoseclamp, or was that just while you glued it with something? That hose clamp is now a permanent part of the headlight. It doesn't interfere with anything, and is on there very solidly - that bucket won't be going anywhere unless that clamp snaps somehow. In the unlikely event the clamp does fail, the headlight will just be wobbly. It won't come off unless the two top pivots and the remaining one on the bottom break off as well, and I would notice it long before that happened. I briefly thought about gluing it, but then realized that I wouldn't have a clue what type of magic glue to trust to bond metal to plastic while at the same time sitting exposed to the elements and living in an engine compartment. That's a full stainless steel clamp, so it won't rot out and crumble after a few years. As for the AC, I do want the rear working. My thoughts are just to go through the whole system, and pull the rear evap if I have to. Maybe I'll have the shop use their fancy machine to find the leak for me when they do that line. Would save me a lot of trouble.
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Apr 28, 2014 22:42
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Not mentioned in the OP: black '88 Trans Am GTA. 
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Apr 29, 2014 07:08
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How do those adjusters work exactly? Do the white pieces have a cam profile and push the individual light housing or is there magic in the brass bits?
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Apr 29, 2014 21:00
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Aerokroil  I've always lusted for an 8-series but I've never hated myself enough to actually buy one. I shall now live vicariously through this thread. 
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Apr 29, 2014 21:37
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Bucephalus posted:Not mentioned in the OP: black '88 Trans Am GTA. Heh, I thought someone might bring this up  It's currently 700 miles away, and I have no decent pics of it  Have some incredibly old pictures:  I've had this one since my 2nd year of college (1999). The plan was to drive it as-is, until I could save enough money for a decently built motor and move to a place where I could install it. However, the motor had other plans, and blew a HG way before I could do anything with it myself. This happened at a time when I lived in a place with a single parking space on the street and performing an engine swap was out of the question. So, I tried driving it 700 miles to Michigan  (as you might have guessed, I didn't make it), had it towed the remainder of the way, and it's been there since, in a shop where they do incredible work, albeit incredibly slowly. It's nearly completed now though, and has a 383 stroker SBC with a Super Ram, weld in subframe connectors (necessary for all 3rd gen F cars, the chassis is like overcooked spaghetti without them), a completely built up / reinforced 700R4, Ford 8" Posi rear, and Bilstein / Eibachs all the way around. While it's out there, I'm having some body work done as well. Plans in the works for this once I get it back involve a desperately needed brake upgrade (all OEM third gen brakes except the 1LE package are absolute dogshit, just hilariously bad), remove (and replace?) gross purpling tint that was on there when I got it, plus some freshening up here and there. I was originally going to put Z06 wheels on, but I've been thinking that I like the take-all-day-to-clean 80s as gently caress gold snowflake wheels too much to replace, even though they kind of limit my brake options, need to be refinished, and need to be widened to get appropriate tires on them. The car doesn't look quite right with different wheels on it, IMO. The wheel stuff will happen at some point, unless I can find something I like better that still preserves the look. The plan was to get it back out here in a month or two. However that may be put on hold, as all of a sudden there's a possibility of me moving several states away in the near future. Waiting to see what happens there before I flatbed it out. It will show up in this thread eventually, although I don't know exactly when. Anyways. For 2/3 of the adjusters (the ones that control the up / down direction), those white pieces you see fit into tracks in the headlight bucket. You can kind of see it in one of the pics I posted above. The copper caps for each adjuster have a nylon bit inside to hold the end of the bolt (held in with the wire you see), and are anchored to the mounts - one on the bucket, the other on the light housing. These have a limited degree of swivel built in to allow the housing to pivot. The hex adjusters are attached to thread stock that threads into the plastic pieces. As they are turned, the housing tilts either up or down as the overall length of the adjuster changes. The third one (controlling left / right direction), instead of mounting to the bucket, actually threads into it, and is turned with a Philips screwdriver. This one being broken at the mount is what was allowing the light to move around in the video I posted. The light housing is anchored on one side by the up / down adjusters, and its position changes relative to the bucket as the third adjuster is threaded in / out. The whole setup is very German. Aerokroil is pretty much the best stuff you can buy in a can. Too bad it's so loving hard to get ahold of. I had to special order that online because no store I know of stocks it 
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Apr 30, 2014 00:35
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Black88GTA posted:Aerokroil is pretty much the best stuff you can buy in a can. Too bad it's so loving hard to get ahold of. I had to special order that online because no store I know of stocks it I feel you on this. My dad used to get it from work, but he's retired now. Amazon's got it, though. That T/A is going to be a loving riot with a 383. Those meshes are sweet as poo poo, but aren't they 16"s? Fourth gen brakes should fit behind there (12" front and rear), but that's about it. Gotta be hard being so far away.
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Apr 30, 2014 01:31
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:I feel you on this. My dad used to get it from work, but he's retired now. Amazon's got it, though. Thirding the aero-kroil. I actually got some in the AI:SS and I have to say, this blows away everything else I've ever used. This stuff works goddamn miracles. Also black88gta what's up dude, haven't seen you in person since the last NEAI. Glad to see the 8 is still on the road. Come hang out with us on IRC again.
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Apr 30, 2014 16:39
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ACEofsnett posted:Thirding the aero-kroil. I actually got some in the AI:SS and I have to say, this blows away everything else I've ever used. This stuff works goddamn miracles. You're welcome 
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Apr 30, 2014 18:40
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I'm seriously jealous if that 840 is a manual.. nice collection of cars you got going. What are your plans with the two Subarus? Make one good one?
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Apr 30, 2014 20:03
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:That T/A is going to be a loving riot with a 383. Those meshes are sweet as poo poo, but aren't they 16"s? Fourth gen brakes should fit behind there (12" front and rear), but that's about it. Gotta be hard being so far away. Yeah, the guy who built the motor has taken it on a couple test runs, and says it runs like a scalded dog. And this is coming from a guy who builds full-blown race motors for Vipers. STOP TEASING ME YOU FUCKER!  Don't get me wrong, I don't expect it to be anywhere comparable to any kind of Viper, but it should allegedly be putting down 450 HP or so at the wheels.As far as brakes go, I've got a couple options if I want to keep the mesh wheels. Right now, it seems the best bolt-on option (without spending $$$$ for custom Wilwood / Brembo poo poo) is C4 HD brakes. Apparently those will completely fill the space behind the wheels (with scary small amounts of clearance), but do fit. I can't remember if I'd need spacers or not. Re: 4th gen brakes - I wanna say they don't clear the wheels, but it's been so long since I looked at it that I don't remember now. The lovely part about trying to find off-the-shelf upgrades is that pretty much every car manufacturer from the mid '90s on seemed to be in some sort of rim size arms race, so nothing later will clear the 16's. ACEofsnett posted:Thirding the aero-kroil. I actually got some in the AI:SS and I have to say, this blows away everything else I've ever used. This stuff works goddamn miracles. I have a can of PB somewhere that I haven't touched since I got this. I like the smell too, but maybe I'm just a weirdo. I'm pretty stingy with that can of it, because it's such a pain in the rear end to get. It's been a while but I think I did end up getting that straight from Kano labs. It also came with a small can of something called SiliKroil that's basically the same stuff but with silicone in it.  Of course I misplaced it Yeah, I wanna see everyone again too. We've definitely gotta do NEAI again soon (what are we on now? 4? 5?), it's getting to be about that season. I can unfortunately not host, as I'm a bit too far away from most of the NEAI Krew. No big loss though, because it would completely suck here and the bored local cops (and fire department?) would show up 3.2 seconds after the fun started and ruin it anyways. However, I can scare up more fun chemicals and bring them to the next meet! Squeeze posted:I'm seriously jealous if that 840 is a manual.. nice collection of cars you got going. What are your plans with the two Subarus? Make one good one? Sadly, all 840s sold in North America were autos, although some have been converted using 540 parts (and beyond). Mine still has the auto for now although I do have some dirty ideas for it involving a wrecked manual M5.  I can't call them plans yet, because circumstances would have to change before even thinking about taking on that kind of project. No way it'll happen while I'm living at this house.The Subaru was my idea of an interesting, capable winter car. It went through absolutely loving everything with snow tires on it. Until the head gasket went, and I dismantled it. The '92 with the bad brakes I found being sold for $1k not too far away from me - with an $8,000 transmission in it that I wanted. The idea was to fix the motor in the '94 and swap the transmission over, put the '94s transmission into the '92, fix the '92s brakes, and sell it. I got as far as taking the motor out and having the heads gone through. The poor '92 has kind of just sat there, as I hadn't gotten to the transmission stuff. If I do end up moving soon, they'll probably be sold cheap Not helping though, is that many parts for the SVX are HOLY poo poo levels of expensive. Like, $500+ dollars for rubber window seals expensive.
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May 1, 2014 01:24
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The brakes and wheel size go hand in hand. Wheel sizes started climbing because manufacturers needed to fit bigger brakes under them. There are two types of fourthgen brakes, by the way. The 98+ cars have bigger brakes than the 93-97 cars, and the rears switched from parking brake calipers on the early cars to a drum-in-rotor parking brake.
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May 1, 2014 03:37
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IOwnCalculus posted:The brakes and wheel size go hand in hand. Wheel sizes started climbing because manufacturers needed to fit bigger brakes under them. From what I've seen, the early 4th gens run drums in the rear, but that may be v6 only. The later LS1 cars have thicker rotors as well. I've been doing quite a bit of research on them myself. I have a full setup ready to get bolted on in the (hopefully) near future. More fun: first gen CTS-V front brakes will bolt straight up to an LS1 car with z06 rotors. I may pick some of those up in the future, but they'll probably need 18" wheels to clear.
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May 1, 2014 04:18
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You are correct, the rear drums are a V6 thing. I'm planning on picking up a bracket set to let me run the '93-'97 V8 rear calipers in conjunction with '94-'96 LT1 Caprice rear rotors, in order to switch to rear discs that are 5-on-5 and have a non-poo poo parking brake.
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May 1, 2014 04:30
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Minor updates today. The truck needed an oil change, as the oil life thing had been bitching about it for the last month or so. Since I'm a retard who can't seem to do an oil change without spilling it all over everything, I installed a Fumoto valve at the same time:  Yes, it'll drain slower but it will be so nice to be able to just run a hose straight into the catch pan from the valve, instead of uncorking it and awkwardly holding up the catch container underneath to catch the stream, and moving it as the pressure drops and the trajectory changes. Also, no more wind blowing the last trickles of draining oil all over the place! I still have to deal with potential mess from the filter, but at least that'll be it. The only thing I was worried about was something catching on the valve sticking out and ripping it off, but seeing as it sits higher than the crossmember just in front of it, I don't think that should be a problem. It doesn't see any serious off roading, so I'm not too concerned with it. Also, as I was working on the headlights for the BMW a few weeks ago, I noticed that my fender liners had seen better days, so I decided to replace them. Somehow, ECS Tuning had a pair of 8 series front fender liners in stock  so I grabbed those. Got them installed today.  These are done. You can see where the tire rubbed through it, (I assume) because the mount points were broken and allowed it to occupy areas of the wheel well that it shouldn't have at some point. It's been like that since before I got it. My car has much wider wheels on it than what it came with though, so that may have contributed. I'm going to keep an eye on it and see if it continues to rub.  Old vs. New. Holes where mounting points should be, cracks everywhere...  All installed. It's much less blurry in real life. One bolt was left out, because that's right in the area where the rubbing had occurred. I want to see what happens before I put another bolt there and have it eat through the tire.
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May 7, 2014 04:39
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Black88GTA posted:Fumoto valve Whoa. I learned a thing on the internet today - thanks! (Ordered)
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May 7, 2014 13:03
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So ecs tuning is a legit place? They have so many parts for good prices that I've been eyeing, like a BMW lock cylinder repair kit. I think those oil valves are funny. They offer one for the old rwd volvos, and the lowest part of the car is the oil drain plug. Mine is about half the thickness of stock from scraping it so much, I don't think the valve would survive my driveway.
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May 7, 2014 17:15
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mafoose posted:So ecs tuning is a legit place? They have so many parts for good prices that I've been eyeing, like a BMW lock cylinder repair kit. They don't always have the best prices out there but yeah, I've ordered from them more than a few times for my GTI and they've never failed to deliver quickly. They had a closeout on German market (GDM, YO!) floormats a few years ago and I picked up a set for $40 which is insanely low for OEM mats.
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May 7, 2014 18:59
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mafoose posted:So ecs tuning is a legit place? They have so many parts for good prices that I've been eyeing, like a BMW lock cylinder repair kit. I've ordered from ECS a couple times, and they've been good for me. No complaints. I was just kind of surprised they had those parts in stock. Even the dealers usually have to order 8xx specific stuff from the Fatherland. I'd never put one of the valves on any car with a downward facing drain plug, or anything that was significantly lowered. Seems perfect for a vehicle with tons of ground clearance that doesn't see heavy off-road use though. I'm debating whether or not to put one on the BMW, which I think is at stock ride height.
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May 8, 2014 03:31
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Limited content bump - I haven't had too much time these last few weeks. I had another fun headlight related issue with the BMW a couple weeks back. When you turned them on, only one would pop up. The other would light, but stay hidden. A little reading led me to one of the underhood relays that controls the light motors. I had more pictures, but the camera farted and lost most of them somehow. The only picture I managed to retrive was the (blurry) back of the relay's circuit board, before I touched it:  It seems these relays suffer from solder joints cracking and losing contact, like the main relays in Hondas. Reflowed all of the solder joints that connect the pins, and all was well. Free fixes, best fixes. I also gave it a fresh oil change, and made the decision to put the Fumoto valve on at the same time. I didn't need the adapter for this one like I did on the truck, which is nice because it sits much closer to the pan without it. Ground clearance is enough that I'm not going to worry about it:  Truck stuff: I've started on my brake overhaul project. It's getting new front calipers, pads and rotors from a 2007+ (which uses 13" rotors instead of the 12"s I have now, and are a direct bolt on), new rear pads, rotors, and parking brake shoes, all new stainless braided flex lines, and a full set of stainless hardlines, because gently caress having another one rust out on me. The only brake stuff that's staying is the rear calipers (with new bleed screws), the MC, the prop valve, and the ABS / TC poo poo. This truck is kind of old and has spent its life in the Northeast, so I'm having all sorts of fun with little bolts snapping off in places that I really wish they wouldn't snap off in. The only really crucial one so far was the one holding the parking brake shoe in on the driver's side. GM for some reason decided to put a tiny little bolt made of cheese in a spot where it's guaranteed to seize up. Amazingly, I somehow managed to drill it out without mangling the threads in the knuckle, which I was pretty happy with since I've never really had any success doing that before.  The fun part of that was, you have to bang out a wheel stud in order to be able to get a drill in straight. I had to set the bit so that it was maybe 1/8" in the drill chuck in order to reach the bolt through the hole, but I (barely) managed to get it done. I was happy about that because that way I didn't have to take the axle out.View through the wheel stud hole, after the new bolt went in:  The whole setup, new parking brake shoe in place (passenger side pictured):  Those backing plates were brand new last summer  Closer view of rear end in a top hat clip Next problem - the rotor on the passenger's side would NOT come off. I spent at least 2 hours wailing on it with a hammer, spinning it and trying to tap it off evenly with wrenches stuck in the vents, etc. I was trying to figure out a way to pull it off, and finally settled on constructing a puller using the rotor I took off the other side, a few lug nuts, lots of ratchets / extensions, and something to hold the whole mess together. The idea was to bond the two rotors together using something wrapped around the wrenches stuck in the rotor vents, and then turn the 3 lug nuts that were threaded on the studs in between the rotors in relatively even increments, putting outward pressure on the tethered rotors until either the stuck one popped free or something broke. Version 1.0 consisted of the aforementioned rotor, old drive / AC belts I keep in the truck for emergencies, all the wrenches / extensions I could find, and 3 lug nuts sandwiched in between all of that poo poo to act as the pulling mechanism:    Version 1.0 didn't work, because I couldn't get enough tension on the belts. Version 2.0 was the same deal, but with a cheap ratchet strap instead of the belts:    It actually loving worked   I found the problem once the rotor was off. That rear end in a top hat parking brake shoe retaining screw that snapped off on the other side had actually backed out, allowing the brake shoe to flop around in there and get wedged on the rotor at an angle every time I tried to yank it off. The brake shoe got kind of mangled in the process, but I didn't give a poo poo because a new one was going in anyway.  So, both major issues dealt with for now. Hopefully more progress tomorrow. Black88GTA fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jun 16, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 06:34
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This is beautiful.
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Jun 16, 2014 12:57
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Any updates on your hoopty piles?
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Sep 5, 2014 18:49
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