MyE28.com

davintosh wrote:

Mike W. wrote:Still struggling with the E39 and it's damned plastic "pipes" in the heater/cooling system. I've got them in but the intake manifold, which isn't nearly so easy as a good old M30, is fighting me again. Fought me on the way off and going back on too.

I'm longing for a nice easy job like an E28 heater core. Yes, it's that much fun.

I've got that job to look forward to on my daughter's 318ti. You're not helping. The M42 has ~170k on it, and no record of when the cooling system was gone through, but there's nothing leaking for now... Crossing fingers that it stays that way until spring. I just can't get past the idea of using plastic pipes in the cooling system.

There might be a little more room with a 4 in there, or it might be tighter with a narrower chassis. Some of the E39 things that are supposed to be bad aren't really that bad, especially the second or third time, but this is just a bear of a job. The intake manifold is just madness. The rest of it is just a PITA.

I've considered a serious bloodletting and ending up in ER, but it would just be here for me when I got home.

I'm crazy.

wkohler wrote:I'm crazy.

Aren't we all? Pics or explanation, you know the rules

wkohler wrote:I'm crazy.

You gonna put that in your sig too?

wkohler wrote:I'm crazy.

Certifiable. Masochistic.
... and I TOTALLY APPROVE.

Drove the E430 back to Houston yesterday. Big difference between the 400E and this version of the E class. This car rolls like a freight train. It covered 291 miles using 11.78 gallons @ 62 mph avg all the while enjoying jazz & 72 degrees of interior temperature perfection with rain sensing wipers on as needed.

Road trip home to Florida friday, be sedate, be sedate,
be sedate. (set the cruise @ 74 and grin within)

Need to find Rhonda a SUV, garage the 400E for a spare and take this as my DD. Change is good!

200k miles on the touring.

Fewer miles on the motor, though.

the toyota truck wouldn't start this morning....

weird!

cover was off the positive terminal...weird...

charged the battery...still nothing at the starter..

weird! at this moment, I'm worried since I borrowed the car.

So naturally I check the fuse box...fuel injection fuse is blown...and the 80amp alternator fuse is blown...it's a fuseable link fuse and you have to split the fuse box to get to it.

The fuse is bolted in...awesome right?

So I finally find a fuseable link...but it doesn't fit--I have to grind the edges down (toyota didn't have the part in stock within 35 miles...) After some crafty work, and swapping a hand warmer between hands....the part is installed and she cranks right up.

I am pretty excited, and it was the toughest fuse swap I've ever done.

cleaned battery contacts too, not a good day for it to crap out on me--but now it's like it never happened and it was a 3 dollar fix.

Looked at it... it's been a little over a month since I've seen it.

Got estimate on tailgate damage to the wife's Mazda wagon, which now bears the distinct imprint of the externally mounted spare tire on the back of her mother's CR-V. Yep, mom-in-law backed right into it in their driveway over the holidays.

$2,100 mistake...at least the inlaws are covering it.

Nothing my other was a total loss... Gotta put the five on the road

Found a perrfect set of E30 sport seats for my E12 and gathered a few knick-knacks for the bretheren right here.
Found a weird cap on a 635csi washer tank that I think I will sleep with tonight, it's that cool.

Today I pulled together all available cash short of selling the children and went and looked at this 24' trailer....

24'. Awning, shelves, finished interior. AC, external lights. Has spare tire. 7000lb axles. Torsions. Tires are worn. 2000. Haulmark Elite 2. $5k.
http://savannah.craigslist.org/cto/3478410859.html

The cabinets on the left wall don't quite leave enough room for the e30 tho, and all the outside galvanized steel fittings were rusting. It all looked kind of sad and poorly cared for. I didn't buy it.

Traded my stock taillights for some all red ones.

My manual sport seats showed up today, now to install them.

cddallara wrote:

RangerGress wrote:Today I pulled together all available cash short of selling the children and went and looked at this 24' trailer....

24'. Awning, shelves, finished interior. AC, external lights. Has spare tire. 7000lb axles. Torsions. Tires are worn. 2000. Haulmark Elite 2. $5k.
http://savannah.craigslist.org/cto/3478410859.html

The cabinets on the left wall don't quite leave enough room for the e30 tho, and all the outside galvanized steel fittings were rusting. It all looked kind of sad and poorly cared for. I didn't buy it.

I thought you just got a trailer?

Guy on Pirate4x4.com just picked up a tractor trailer for $12,500 for a toyhauler.

Must be nice...

I need to sell my 24' enclosed. It turns out that it's a cheap POS. It looks nice, but it's not going to hold up to carrying it's rated weight all over the region each month. The running gear was cobbled together out of junk. I only have $3k in it. I can probably sell it for more than that because the painting, workbench and wiring I did will make it show well.

Sometimes being a cheapskate works out well.

Sometimes not.

I should have bought a better trailer from the get-go. I sure would like to avoid buying new tho.

the left front caliper FELL OFF my avalanche while my fiancee was driving on i-95 through jacksonville yesterday. really great considering the brakes/shocks/wheels/tires were just installed two weeks ago by my brother in law.

luckily she got off the interstate safely and AAA towed to a honest shop.

Overnight stay in hotel and $250ish later and the truck has ANOTHER new caliper. He said the bolts just fell out. So he checked the rest of the work done and all is well minus the new wheel being scratched inside when the caliper came off.


Really though? My BIL didn't tighten the bolts down. kinda still not happy on this one and no offer from him to pay for the repairs or hotel room yet. (he was paid WELL to do the work also)

Pulled head on the ti.

Rule NUMBER ONE with cooling systems: DO NOT USE STOP-LEAK!!! Fix any problem correctly in the first place.

The passages around cylinders 2 & 3 were almost completely blocked. The gasket was intact but you could see where coolant was getting by over and under it. Head raised an estimated 0.120 in the middle.

This car is turning out to be a great learning experience.

Put air in the tires on my 85 full sizes Chevy van. I know, exciting.
-Aaron

djazz wrote:Pulled head on the ti.

Rule NUMBER ONE with cooling systems: DO NOT USE STOP-LEAK!!! Fix any problem correctly in the first place.

The passages around cylinders 2 & 3 were almost completely blocked. The gasket was intact but you could see where coolant was getting by over and under it. Head raised an estimated 0.120 in the middle.

This car is turning out to be a great learning experience.

.120??? That's an eighth of an inch. You mean .012?

On stop leak I'd say it has it's place. I limped the E28 heater core for 100K adding a little at a time. Granted the new one heated better than the old one, but new versus 275K must make a difference too.

RangerGress wrote:

cddallara wrote:

RangerGress wrote:Today I pulled together all available cash short of selling the children and went and looked at this 24' trailer....

24'. Awning, shelves, finished interior. AC, external lights. Has spare tire. 7000lb axles. Torsions. Tires are worn. 2000. Haulmark Elite 2. $5k.
http://savannah.craigslist.org/cto/3478410859.html

The cabinets on the left wall don't quite leave enough room for the e30 tho, and all the outside galvanized steel fittings were rusting. It all looked kind of sad and poorly cared for. I didn't buy it.

I thought you just got a trailer?

Guy on Pirate4x4.com just picked up a tractor trailer for $12,500 for a toyhauler.

Must be nice...

I need to sell my 24' enclosed. It turns out that it's a cheap POS. It looks nice, but it's not going to hold up to carrying it's rated weight all over the region each month. The running gear was cobbled together out of junk. I only have $3k in it. I can probably sell it for more than that because the painting, workbench and wiring I did will make it show well.

Sometimes being a cheapskate works out well.

Sometimes not.

I should have bought a better trailer from the get-go. I sure would like to avoid buying new tho.

I edited my post, dang you're quick

I didn't mean it too, but it came out sounding a little snotty.

That's too bad about the last "new" trailer, glwsearch!

Mike W. wrote:

djazz wrote:Pulled head on the ti.

Rule NUMBER ONE with cooling systems: DO NOT USE STOP-LEAK!!! Fix any problem correctly in the first place.

The passages around cylinders 2 & 3 were almost completely blocked. The gasket was intact but you could see where coolant was getting by over and under it. Head raised an estimated 0.120 in the middle.

This car is turning out to be a great learning experience.

.120??? That's an eighth of an inch. You mean .012?

On stop leak I'd say it has it's place. I limped the E28 heater core for 100K adding a little at a time. Granted the new one heated better than the old one, but new versus 275K must make a difference too.

Doh. Dyslexic decimal, I guess. It sure looked that big seeing all the light under the straight edge though.

The PO must have had this POS on a weekly diet of stop leak. The only good thing at this point is that I'm learning something new. Never had to worry about things like this with the M20s and M30s. It's paid for and I'm not getting any of it back, as is.

djazz wrote:Pulled head on the ti.

Rule NUMBER ONE with cooling systems: DO NOT USE STOP-LEAK!!! Fix any problem correctly in the first place.

The passages around cylinders 2 & 3 were almost completely blocked. The gasket was intact but you could see where coolant was getting by over and under it. Head raised an estimated 0.120 in the middle.

This car is turning out to be a great learning experience.

stop leak for anything just will bite you in the ass later...

glad you're having fun.

Previous episodes....

Episode 1, 2 weeks ago. Holy crap my newish trailer tire is worn to the cords.

Episode 2, last week. Hero brings trailer home for various tasks to include change bald tire. "Wow the trailer's alignment is all screwed up", he exclaims, showing the attentive starlet how to check alignment. 1/2" of toe out on the worst wheel, and a full degree too much camber. No wonder a tire was killed in 2 road trips. I'll have the local trailer shop bend the axle straight or replace it.

Episode 3, this week. Our hero learns that the trailer's running gear isn't 7000lb like the VIN says but some kind of POS thing cobbled together out of light duty parts. Cost to replace with reasonable 7000lb running gear so the trailer can at least be marginally capable of taking to events $1600. That's a lot when hero has <$3k in the trailer. That would make for the most expensive possible way to create a marginally capable trailer.

Other option is to upgrade to 10k lb capacity for >$3000. Much of that cost is the new 6 new wheels and tires that would be required (4 + 2 spare).

Both options suck. Lets sell trailer.

Episode 4, yesterday. Hero goes to SC to see a guy selling a 24' trailer with a finished interior, work bench, tons of cabinets and shelves, awning, external lights, viewing stand on roof, integrated ladder....wow! Starlet of course accompanies him because she knows that if you can look good trailer shopping you can look good anywhere. Hero finds that there's so much cabinetry that the car won't fit and it's kind of dilapidated and sad looking.

Episode 5, today. Continuing to comb all resources for available trailers in the region it occurred to our hero that the need for AC was kind of driving the show. The high cost of the option, $900 + installation was making or breaking the various trailer options, used and new. Thinking out of the box he decided to re-open the can of worms of non-standard ways to cool a trailer. He found an old lady across town selling a newish "portable" AC unit and went and fetched it this afternoon. En route boys in the back seat had lots of questions re. how babies get made. They wanted to better understand how awful it must be to "stick your penis in a vagina". Hero assured them that it was much fun and that in 5yrs they'd be laying awake at night trying to figure out how to get a girl to let them do exactly that.

Starlet made small talk with lady while hero tested AC unit. Starlet found old lady's O2 tube tether, that disappeared beyond the garage door 15' away, somewhat inhibiting. Old lady explained that it was her penance for a lifetime's smoking. That turned out to be a good teaching point for boys who were full of science questions re. air, oxygen, just what it is that lungs do, etc.

Hero now has a "portable" AC unit that will happily go into any trailer he buys.

Starlet got written out of the final scripts. Producer didn't perceive the role "believable". Man, what a pisser.
__________________

I enjoyed reading that.

I took my E34 through a car wash today after performing some mathematical calculations showing that my 50% off kupun afforded me a better deal than doing it myself. Apparently, this place did not believe in washing the top of the car, or the sides, or well, most of it, so it looks uhhh, not quite as good as it did while dirty.

I'm trying to decide if I should go back tomorrow and complain.

The last time I took my wagon through the car wash, I got wetter in the drivers seat than the whole car did. It can go through any manner of storms and not leak a drop, but take it through a tunnel, and you better have a towel or five handy!

Nice thing now is it never needs a bath.

Hopefully I've got the wife's E39 back on the road, reliably. She called me at the office yesterday saying she wasn't even out of town, a small town, and the temp gauge hit the red. She knows enough to pull over and did. After a couple of minutes on the phone I told her to turn the ignition on and the gauge was in the blue. She drove home the mile or two it is and it barely made it up to the mid point.

Today saw me replacing the lower hose, fan blade and radiator cap. Love that plastic. The cap seals thru 2 o rings. The plastic holding the lower in place had failed recently and today the upper had even failed. Hopefully it was just a little low on fluid. Damn all that plastic.

Nothin' to cars , but I got a 7 hp , 35 yr old Ariens snow blower running. It was a Craigslist freebie less than 20 easy miles away. I've made 2 runners out of a parts pool of 3 or 4 , All the same make and model. Now I need some snow to fine tune them under load. That is the point. To have TWO of them in running order. So you will never need either of them. It is the obverse of Murphy's Law.

2002 Toyota Tacoma V6 4wd

Replaced the front strut assemblies today...the front end has been bouncing up and down for months!

Installed a subwoofer and amp. About 17 years ago I got a kicker 6" sub/enclosure tube on special from Fry's for about $40. It was a floor demo model, and the end of the box that the woofer screwed into had kind of disintegrated (particle board....) so I cut a new piece of particle board, glued and screwed in together, and have been putting that same repaired $40 subwoofer setup in to my pickup trucks....for 17 years! Still sounds great.

Last Fall I got a 2000 Ford diesel truck because the F150's gas engine turned out to be overwhelmed by the 24' enclosed trailer upgrade. Over all the diesel truck has worked out very well, but one thing that's been annoying me is the size of it's fuel tank.

It's supposed to hold 28-30gal depending on you who ask, but because of a poorly designed vent tube you can only get about 25-26 in it unless you are willing to spend 15min getting the last several gallons.

With the old trailer this wouldn't be a big deal because it was small enough to pull in anywhere and get some gas. But with the big trailer I not only need diesel, but I need a place big enough that I can get the rig in and out. Plus, the price of diesel varies significantly so it behooves me to ID the cheapest diesel on the route. Ideally, I'd only stop once for diesel and it'd be the place with the best price.

For my first couple events with the new trailer I brought along 15gal worth of gas cans to bring my diesel capacity up to 40gal, but that's a pretty inelegant solution. So I've been scheming on how to do an aux gas tank on the cheap.

On CL I found someone selling a Ford Expedition gas tank w/ fuel pump and got that for $100. Then I put eye-bolts into the bed of the cab and strapped the fuel tank down. Then I plumbed the fuel pump outlet into the primary tank's filler port, and then created a filler pipe/hose and filler vent for the aux tank. To create the actual filler port I used the gas port from an e30, one of two that were in the attic already modified for a big throated gas "dump jug" for fast fueling during endurance racing. So an e30 gas cap will fit right on. The big throat is significant because a diesel nozzle is large. The truck has a canopy on it. Once the back window of the canopy is opened, the filler port is in your face.

Nothing should leak in the event of a rollover because the tank's vents have checkvalves.

All I have to do now is wire a switch to the fuel pump and another switch that will choose with fuel level sensor is connected to the gauge. Once the primary tank gets low I just switch on the aux pump and the aux tank fills the primary tank. Should the aux tank go down to empty I have to be sure to turn the aux pump off because a pump running dry will overheat it. That's why it's necessary to wire in the aux tank's fuel level sensor.

I'd have taken some pics but it's not much to look at right now. Right now the focus is just getting it to work. Later I'll make it pretty. Or prettier, anyhow.

A new MAF seemed to take care of the check engine light that came on the day after I changed the evap purge solenoid that had been quirky for a couple of years. It's getting into a pattern where it requires a significant amount of work once every 10-11 months. Then it's ok for said 10-11 months. Running costs skyrocketed to $.047 a mile after having dropped to $.043 last month. Or $.134 a mile if you count purchase cost. Not bad for 100K even if it does give me headaches once a year.