PRO3 build on a college budget

[seatown88]

I am really excited about this build, first off because I think that PRO3 is such a great group/class to run with, and because this will be my first race build. I am on a budget for this build, being a full time college student, however I have spent many hours planning and making spreadsheets to create a budget that is manageable for me, considering all goes according to plan (haha like that ever happens but it's worth a try!) My girlfriend (TIATO's cousin) gives me a hard time about how much time I spent working on these spreadsheets, but she has been supportive of my racing and deep down I think she's excited about this build. She is in charge of helping come up with the paint scheme for the car.

After all the planning I have done, last Tuesday I finally made the leap and bought the project car. It is a 1989 325is that recently had some body work done to it. The car was involved in a collision in which the front end was damaged, but the damage has been fixed. Originally I was just buying the car as a roller, but we negotiated an engine and transmission to go with it.

The engine and transmission will both be need a rebuild but I paid 1/3 what I had budgeted for. I am a little concerned about them however. The engine came from a car that sustained a large front impact and the transmission kept popping out of third gear the OP told me. A tear down will tell if they are usable or not.

I haven't had much time with the car, had to head back up to school right after unhitching the trailer and haven't touched it since, but I plan on going down and bringing up the engine and transmission to work on up at school. Eventually the car will come up, once I finish a couple of small projects on my current race car.

Here are a couple quick pictures the night I got the car. I'll get better pictures next time I am home.

[1999M3Coupe]

Cool man, looks like you found a pretty solid foundation and are off to a good start! I know what you mean about the college budget -- sucks. I look forward to seeing updates/progress on this but in the meantime, good luck!

[jfrankE21]

I can relate to your budget and time constraints. I wish I would have built a SpecE30 (east coast), but I built an E36 my senior year instead. My lady friend was never too thrilled about it, and made it quite clear how much she "hated that car". Best of luck to you! Do it right the first time around even if it will cost you a little money up front. PS- Don't keep track of how much money/time you have in it... the spreadsheets stop now.

[jayhudson]

Interesting east coast/west coast connection. My wife and I had dinner with Mario and his wife when we were in NJ on vacation in '08. Great peeps!

Good luck with the build. PRO3 looks like a great group to run with. I got a chance to watch a race at PIR a few years ago.

Jay

[seatown88]

Jay- small world. Mario and Leann are definitely great people. Some how at family functions Mario and I sneak off and watch race videos and have car talk. It's great.

jfrank- thanks for the advice. I will be using the spreadsheets now just to stay organized during the build. I have it broken down into different stages. I'm not too concerned with how much it costs me to build, however I don't want the build to take me away from some track time.

[seatown88]

I got the chance to spend a couple hours working on the car today. Started with just checking on what I have and writing part numbers down. It's obvious the car took a hit around the rear passenger side. I found some glass shards in the back from where the quarter panel glass shattered. Some glass shards found my hand so first thing tomorrow the interior is being vacuumed. I started to strip the interior, removing the door panels, seat belts, rear shelf, ect.

I also brought the transmission home so I will start cleaning that tonight. Plan is to start the tear down/inspection this week while at school. Hopefully just a synchro ring is causing the issue with it instead of a gear. We will see.

Here are some more pics...

top view


repaired passenger side.


front end, luckily I have all the grills, but it will take a bit of work to make pretty.




engine with some damage from front end collision. hopefully just a broken water pump. we are planning on partial disassembly of the front accessories to check for more damage.







trunk full of goodies


finally, its already paying for itself...


Spent more time today stripping the interior out. I have most of the carpet out, still a small section under the dash to remove. The headliner is halfway out as well. It'll be nice to mot have the mouse pee smell in the car any more. Luckily none of the critters were in the car. Next weekend I hope to finish pulling the headliner, the carpet, and start to remove the sound deading.

More pics of the interior with more of the carpet out...




My dad spent some time pulling the water pump off. Fan clutch took a significant force and the water pump is junk, too. Water pump was going to be replaced anyway with the timing belt. The water pump pulley was pushed into contact with the crank trigger. I tried to take a photo of the damage, but the poor lighting and flash made it difficult to see.

[TIATO]

Some how at family functions Mario and I sneak off and watch race videos and have car talk. It's great.

Its only natural. Look forward to seeing Kaila's paint concept.

Bill, small world indeed.


How ya doing Jay?

[ovlov28]

Sweet! I can't wait to see another pro3 build! Send me a PM and I can shoot you my work E-mail addy, I can help you out with parts selection and some advise and set up

[seatown88]

Sweet! I can't wait to see another pro3 build! Send me a PM and I can shoot you my work E-mail addy, I can help you out with parts selection and some advise and set up

thanks, pmed you.

I received the first part I ordered.. shop manual. I was a little skeptical of getting another Bentley manual, my Audi manual was really expensive and mostly useless, but they really made a great one for the E30.

As far as the car, I started disassembling the transmission, hopefully I will have some time in the shop at school tomorrow to finish. I think, unfortunately, that either the engagement teeth on the synchro or the speed gear are worn. In 3rd gear I can spin the input shaft and hold the output shaft and slip the gear(there is a nasty click). Sometimes it decides it wants to lock up though, especially when I go to show my dad what's going on haha. Luckily a classmate has a parts transmission that he said he will let go for a low price.

[seatown88]

I'm a little puzzled by the transmission. Initial inspection shows no obvious signs of what was going on. I'm a little bummed out that the selector shaft detent being rounded off, too and I don't have the proper tools to remove it here at school. I'm starting to wonder if the gear was not being fully engaged causing it to pop out. Anyways the tear down continues, I need to press out the mainshaft and layshaft out and then finish the inspection. Should also have a parts transmission this weekend which will be nice to have.

picture time......

[citterly]

I took a manual trans class at the local CC, took one of those apart as a class project. What symptoms does it have? What's not working?

[seatown88]

I took a manual trans class at the local CC, took one of those apart as a class project. What symptoms does it have? What's not working?

The guy I bought it from said it was popping out of 3rd. When I first inspected it, I engaged 3rd gear and rotated the input shaft while holding the output shaft. The gear would slip and you could hear a clicking. Looking through the fill hole I could see the shift sleeve and engagement teeth on the gear slip. Sometimes it would lock up just right though.

I'm starting to think it was a linkage issue rather than a synchro, but I'm still going to check the wear gaps to rule that out.

[seatown88]

Just bought a parts transmission from one of my friends on my FSAE team. He threw in a spare taillight housing. It was pretty fun seeing all the crazy looks I got while walking around campus with a taillight housing sticking out of my backpack. As far as the transmission goes, he was using it in his car until it got stuck in 2nd gear. Possibly a bent shift fork or a shift rail issue. I'll be interested to see what happened and what parts are usable, but it already has a couple parts that I needed( reverse sensor and shift rod stub) so it already has paid off to buy this transmission.

I am starting to think about the roll cage(sooner than I thought). I will be going around in the next couple weeks and checking out what some of the shops around here have to offer and examples of their work.

some pictures....

"new transmission"




It was interesting to see slight differences between the two units, same part number but...


different output flanges.


two piece vs. one piece input shaft seals.

the drain plugs are also different, one 17mm hex and the other 17mm allen. Just interesting to note.


bin full of 1st transmission's parts

and my girlfriend said her car would never be outside. I don't know how, but I have finally taken over the whole garage.

[seatown88]

I spent a couple hours today removing the sound deadening. I tried a couple ways and found a heat gun and putty knife worked pretty well. I still have more to remove, especially in some intricate area where I don't want to melt any wires, or accidentally slice any with the putty knife. So since I was starting to get impatient and antsy I decided to call it a day with how far I got and save the rest for when I was fresh. I also decided to save the chemicals for another day. Next weekend I will finish the removal from the interior cabin, and then with probably a wire brush and some chemicals remove the residue. I would say that the sound deadening is 70% removed from the interior cabin.
















I also have some engine/transmission parts that will hopefully be arriving next week. I plan to finish rebuilding the transmission before moving to focus on the engine.

Spring break is coming up for me and I hope to go look around at some local shops to check out their cage designs and maybe settle on a builder. I have an idea of who I want to build it, but it never hurts to do more research before making a final decisions.

[VaTechE36]

My lady friend was never too thrilled about it, and made it quite clear how much she "hated that car".

Haha, you and me both...I'm sure she hated my car too, but whatever, I wouldn't have done that semester any other way!

[TIATO]

I. Next weekend I will finish the removal from the interior cabin, and then with probably a wire brush and some chemicals remove the residue. I would say that the sound deadening is 70% removed from the interior cabin.

Dont use a wire brush. Soak the residue with Naptha or brake cleaner, let sit and then wipe off with paper or shop towels.

Wear a respirator.

[seatown88]

Dont use a wire brush. Soak the residue with Naptha or brake cleaner, let sit and then wipe off with paper or shop towels.

Wear a respirator.

Thanks for the tip Mario, I will definitely be wearing a respirator for this work as there is not great ventilation where the car is right now.

[seatown88]

well almost all of the sound deadening is out of the car. Yesterday I got a little bored of removing the residue left over in the interior cabin so I started removing the trunk interior. Once removed I found the mother load of sound deadening, two full layers of it surrounding the spare tire well. I decided to do something else to finish out the day instead of spend more time on sound deadening. I removed the a/c system from the interior. I first check to see if there was any pressure in the system by checking all of the schrader valves, luckily there was no pressure in the system. My plan is to reuse the auxillary fan for the a/c system as the main fan. I just have to fab up some brackets to attach it to the radiator (which I still have to order). The a/c system came out without any problems.

Today with my dad's help we tackled the trunk, man what a pain. We will definitely have sore back tomorrow because of the awkward position to get in there. There was a nice section in which the paper backing was not removed so the tar had not adhered to the body. That was really nice but everything else was a pain! I am glad that most of it is now removed from the car. There are a couple small sections that remain.

I used some paint thinner and brake clean to remove the residue and it worked really well...

Before



After



I still have to remove the residue from the trunk but it's not too bad

Before


After


The parts I ordered arrived, which for some reason inspired me to order more parts. Clutch kit and flywheel are on there way as well as a seat and mounts and a couple misc parts.

Tomorrow we are going to check out the cage builder, they have a couple PRO 3 cars there so we can see what they have done with them and discuss what more needs to be done before the car is ready for them to start building the cage.

[Bmil951]

Great thread. Very educational to those of us without much experience tearing down e30's.

[seatown88]

Little update...

Still stripping out the interior. I removed the sunroof motor to prep for the cage builder to remove the whole sunroof assembly. The cage builder will also weld in the panel. I also removed the door class and motors to prepare for the doors to be hacked up. Started digging into the dash. I will probably leave most of the dash intact for the shop to remove and reinstall.

The flywheel and clutch kit arrived, everything looks great. A couple of parts should be waiting for me when I get back up to school. I found out that my seat and bracket that I ordered the other day will be backordered for a couple weeks. Not too excited about that, luckily I not in a real hurry for it. It just would have been nice to have.

[OLD MAN]

Great start - looking forward to watching this come together.

OT - how is the E21 doing?

[seatown88]

Great start - looking forward to watching this come together.

OT - how is the E21 doing?

The E21 is great, such a nice reliable car. I haven't needed to do much to it. I rebuilt the transmission for fun/school credit which was nice because it prepared me for the transmissions I have to work with for this build. I just need to fix a little exhaust issue, do an oil change, and it will be ready for the season that is less than a month away!

I will be putting it up for sale at the end of the season however to help fund the rest of the build and because I have too many cars and not enough space.

[bigdreams14]

Hey man awesome write up!! I'm actually in the exact stage of my build that you are!! I bought my car about a week ago and have been stripping the interior all week. That stick-on insulation is horrible to remove. Any recommendations for the trunk? I haven't tackled that yet.

[seatown88]

Hey man awesome write up!! I'm actually in the exact stage of my build that you are!! I bought my car about a week ago and have been stripping the interior all week. That stick-on insulation is horrible to remove. Any recommendations for the trunk? I haven't tackled that yet.

awesome! Yeah the sound deadening was a pain but I am glad to say I have all of it removed now!

I was not happy when I saw how much of it was in the trunk. What I found worked best was a lot of heat from the heat gun over large sections, and instead of using a putty knife like I had been using I found that a gasket scraper worked best. I removed both layers at once to cut down the time, as well as having a helper to hold the heat gun as you scrape.

I was lucky enough to find that 1/4 of the sound deadening in the trunk still had the backing paper on it! That made it nice and easy to remove.

[seatown88]

I finally got some shelves/workbench for the garage at school, I already filled it up and wish the table top was larger but it'll get the job done.

I also got the engine up at school so I can get to work on that. A friend and I started to disassemble it, but haven't gotten very far at all. Lately I have been really busy with school and working on my school's FSAE car.

I also got some scrap carbon fiber from the my school's shop that I'm going to use in the interior to hide some wires and make some gauge panels. I will probably need to lay some more up to finish up the job.
Once photobucket starts working again I'll post of some pictures.


New shelves/workbench already all the space filled up but it is way better than sitting on the ground working on parts.


Pretty much how far I have gotten on the tear down, removed the oil pan and popped one of the main caps off to check the bearing wear, looked really good for a motor with 160,000 miles on it.



Carbon panels that I will used for various panels in the interior.