View Full Version : So You Think You Have Car Problems


blitzed310
08-21-2004, 04:06 PM
So it all started June 10 with the fender bender...

I got my car towed to the shop and the tow truck driver decides he’s ganna smash my new muffler up into my custom rear apron, no worriers it will be fixed since it is going to the shop.

Get my car back from the shop: overspray on whole car, nice polished valve cover looks like they threw up on it, engine bay looks like a 4 year old went loco with a box of Crayola's. And the worst my Alpina spoiler doesn’t fit the same, not their fault just the parts BMW is making for our cars have changed over the years as far as fitment. It’s not bad but it still bugs the hell out of me and anyone can notice.

Now for the worst, the second day I get my car back the starter froze, no biggie called my dad over with the tools and we went to town, fixed it starts.
But she sounds like she’s on 2 cyl and struggling for fuel. A total of 9 hours later and 2 days we had given up, we checked everything and I mean everything, went as far as to take the injectors out and clean them. Can you imagine staring at an engine bay for 9 hours and doing everything you know possible to fix it and then just when you think you have it figured out she still won’t run right. Damn talk about my dad being a grouch :mad thank god for Budweiser!
So he gives up and so do I, mostly do to my pops bad back and we take it to Rudy at Bavaria Auto Center who loves this car as much as I do. He tells us it’s a vacuum leak and he will fix it :devillook (little does he know).
So this was on Wednesday and he calls me about 30 minutes ago on Saturday with the wonderful news; fuel distributor, its toast :help
Good thing is that he charges $75 an hour to work on Bavarian muscle and he has about 6 hours into my car on his own time. Another good thing is that a new FD costs about $700-800 and that’s the exact part I need. So he says hey we've been friends for a while now and I just so happen to have a 79 FD sitting at home rebuilt from the factory that he will give me for $XXX. He was going to use this on his tii that he was working on but he threw in an S14 with an evo crank instead (see bimmer magazine for details). So now the recovery begins, #2 and #3 combustion chambers were nice and white indicating that it was rich on #1 and #4 but lean on the other two, so he said I should notice a significant difference with the new FD, since it was bad for some time now.
So I just got back from a 4 day trip to Vegas (Hard Rock Hotel is the best ever :buttrock ) and you know what they say "This city wasn’t built on winners", so yeah that would be me. And I just paid for the ridiculous fees my school is now charging AND I'm back to part time since school is here, basically I'm a broke ass kid :rolleyes

But its OK it'll get fixed soon and this will be all over, so before you guys go and think that you have problems check my other post about a few months back when I had 3 exciting run ins with the tire gods. I though bad luck ran in 3's I guess in my car it has triplets and I get stuck with the bill.

I feel like such a wuss since I'm not putting in the FD myself and having someone for the first time install something on my car rather then just having them tune it up, but Rudy told me to let him do it so he can tune it properly afterwards and get the pressures and A/F ratio in order, which makes sense to me since he is doing this as a side project and wont charge me for hours.

As usual just needed to inform those who have noting better to do then listen to me wine over problems (I'm sure you all have your own to worry about) and vent a little.
I'll keep you up to date on the progress

BetaTested
08-21-2004, 04:50 PM
At least you still have your engine :)

Good to hear that it'll all be back together again soon. Wish I could say the same about my car. I'm just sitting around kicking around ideas as to what to do with it. I'm probably going to just toss a stock m10 back in there and got nutty turbo on it down the road. But cash is short on my end too, so it'll be a few months.

Echo
08-21-2004, 06:29 PM
Twas a good vent CJ... everyone needs to do it every once and a while... And from the sounds of it, its gonna be back on the road and even better than before in no time at all! So at least thats good news!

Cheers,
Jonas

TheNeek
08-21-2004, 11:28 PM
poo poo. I hate getting the shaft on multiple occasions (actually, can't think of anyone that does). Aside from that, the mega BRIGHT side is that you still own her. Can you imagine if it wasn't a 'fender bender'. The thought is like finger nails on a chalk board.

Oh yeah, and my 4 month old hazard switch broke yesterday, came out from work to find my hazard lights on. Ain't that some shit?

jbob
08-22-2004, 06:49 AM
dam cj, that's some bad luck, hopefully, in the end, everything will work out for the best.

hey nic, i have two extra hazard switches that work, if you wanna trade me ur old one.....altho the fix for 'em is really easy, it only takes a couple minutes.
lol, yeah, the last 'new' switch i bought was only a month old before it decided to stay stuck-on....altho, AFAIK, most places who sell our e21 hazard switches actually sell reman'd switches, not brand-new ones.

Yonkers320is
08-22-2004, 10:24 PM
CJ, I have a good fuel distributor from a 77-79 320. If you want it i'll give it to you. I can't use it on mine