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Thread: SpecE30 #6 is dead. Long live #6.

  1. #1
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    SpecE30 #6 is dead. Long live #6.

    The death of #6 thread. Slipped in coolant at Road Atlanta and went into the wall at the S curves. http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1753248

    A week after the crash I found someone 2hrs away selling a prepped E30 that had done a couple NASA GTS races a couple yrs ago and then sat unloved under a tarp ever since. I didn't expect to find a car so fast, but I couldn't pass up the deal. The level of prep was such that it is essentially a roller with a cage that needs everything replaced except for a few suspension components that are already right.

    Between the parts I can pull off of Old #6 and my inventory of spares I don't expect to have to buy very much. So it's just my labor. And that's all good. In the absence of interesting projects one just wastes their life watching tv and downloading porn.

    Am putting in 3hrs/night starting once the kids go to bed. This was the 2nd night of using a rotary wire brush to clean surface rust off the cage. The rust wasn't deep, it just looked really bad. This gave me an opportunity to closely inspect all welds.

    The good.
    -NASCAR bars on both sides.
    -The welds and feet are nicely done. They aren't "art", but everything is stout.
    -There's a lot of bars behind the driver for extra stiffness.

    The bad.
    -The bars could be closer to A pillars. It's not as bad as the pic makes it look, but still....it could be better.
    -Some holes were put in the roof to provide access to the top of cage joints. That'll be some sheetmetal repair.

    There's likely one more night of cleaning up the cage. Then I'm going to cut off the plate that holds the kill switch on and reweld it. It looks like it was welded with flux instead of inert gas and it looks too bad to be tolerated.

    Then I'm going to weld on some kind of dead pedal, and also weld on something that will raise the shoulder harness straps about 2" higher then the bar behind the driver.

    I removed the dash last night and cut off a lot of excess wire. At least I hope it was excess. The dash off also give me access to the steering column support and I'll have to figure out how to lower it. Anyone that's done that knows that getting the bolts out of the steering column mounts is a bastard.

    The old car had a knee bar right there which gave me something to anchor the steering to, but this car doesn't have a bar there so I'll have to do something different.
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    Last edited by Ranger1; 12-14-2011 at 09:12 AM.

  2. #2
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    subscribed.

    Any deadline?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by G60MM View Post
    subscribed.

    Any deadline?
    Negative. I figure best case I'll be racing again in early Summer. If I wasn't so picky about everything it could be ready in a couple days. But it's my race car. It represents "me". It's not going on to the track until it is something to be proud of. And that's going to take a little time.

  4. #4
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    The pic shows the work on the roof. The holes that the cage builder made already had steel plugs in them, but they were barely tacked in. I welded them in more solidly, and managed a damned poor job of it. By the time I figured out that I needed to turn the power down on the welder I'd made lots of holes in sheetmetal.

    There's a lot of holes in the roof made by bolts that had fastened the sunroof in place, and there's other spots where I removed paint down to bare metal because little rust pimples were breaking thru. I'll get this all bondo'd up and pretty.

    I'm going to try to skin the sunroof and then fasten it to tabs welded on to the cage. If that goes poorly I'll just take the piece of sheetmetal from the roof of Old #6 and put it on the new car.
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  5. #5
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    Clean more of the paint off, the weld is getting contaminated.
    Regards, Nate.
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    I just wanna say that there was a suprising amounts of idiots commenting on your other thread OP......All I saw was someone dealing with the situation best they could and extremely lucky to basically walk away

    For that, I am happy for you and wish you lots more fun times on track and good luck perpetuating the #6

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by das borgen View Post
    I just wanna say that there was a suprising amounts of idiots commenting on your other thread OP......All I saw was someone dealing with the situation best they could and extremely lucky to basically walk away

    For that, I am happy for you and wish you lots more fun times on track and good luck perpetuating the #6
    ^^ This.

    BTW - want to know - will the new one be #6, #62 or #9?

    [Ethan "if it weren't for that cone" Connor|323is #89DSP]

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by nondescript View Post
    ^^ This.

    BTW - want to know - will the new one be #6, #62 or #9?
    Thanks guys.

    The new car will also be Ranger 6. It's a military thing.

    Finished wirebrushing cage and cage feet. This took a long time. Cleaned the heck out of the cage and cage feet and than painted whole thing with OSPHO rust convertor. Tomorrow cage painting starts.

    Finished steering column adapters and installed. Drop is 1.5"


    Removed more paint around the holes in the roof, put some more welds on to the plugs in the roof, and slapped some bondo on. There were also some rust pimples that got attention.


    Tried hard to get battery to cooperate with a compression test. Decided battery was toast and swapped in battery from old #6.

    Did compression test. Engine seems good. 140, 140, 138, 139, 136, 136. Nice surprise.
    Last edited by RangerGress; 04-10-2012 at 03:05 PM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

  9. #9
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    just an FYI... if u go to the admin section on here, you can request to have your name switched from Ranger1 to Ranger6 if its still available

    would be a GREAT change. I completely understand the admin thing, as I'm active duty Navy, and have done 3 deployments overseas, 1 in Baghdad, Iraq
    "Torque is like cowbell... you can never have too much." - Michael Cervi


  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by 99MPower View Post
    just an FYI... if u go to the admin section on here, you can request to have your name switched from Ranger1 to Ranger6 if its still available
    I sent a PM to Kevlar for a username change to RangerGress. I chose that over Ranger6 because the "6" incorrectly implies I'm in charge of something, which I'm not. Ask my wife, she'll tell you.

    The work on the cage continues. I did a lot of cleaning off of the OSPHO residue with a green pad, and applied a bit more of the stuff to places it looked like I might have missed. The OSPHO treatment takes 24hrs to do it's magic and dry out so a couple iterations of "touch-up" is now in it's 4th day. The paint on the cage is going to look crappy unless I do a lot of work smoothing the cage bar surfaces post this OSPHO stuff. Finishing the cage is going to have to wait tho. We're off to the In-laws in CT tomorrow morning tho so new #6 is going to be on hold for a week. Which is no way to run an obsession.

    I noted last night that the rear sway is OEM. That means that the pickup points are unreinforced and the rear sway will have to be swapped over from Old #6. The pickup points may become a moot point if I swap the subframe from Old to New #6 because the trailing arms will come with. A charm of that swap is that my newish rear wheel bearings and rear wheel studs will come along with the subframe.

    I finally decided on a new paint scheme. I changed my mind on this so many times that I'd do any schoolgirl proud. It won't be a desert vehicle neutral color theme after all. I decided that the neutral color idea would look visually "blah" and that race cars should be eye-catchers.

    If I had to guess I'd say that I'm going to be back on the track with a primo SpecE30 for about $1500. I'm going to be able to sell enough stuff to make up for the purchase price of New #6. I have to buy a new harness. I choose to buy a paint job, multi-pass radiator, replace perfectly serviceable OEM engine mounts with something harder, and all new die-cut decals.

    A really cherry SpecE30 for $1500. Hard to complain about that.
    Last edited by RangerGress; 12-20-2011 at 12:30 PM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

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    Quote Originally Posted by RangerGress View Post
    A really cherry SpecE30 for $1500. Hard to complain about that.
    $1500 PLUS $10,000 in labor, sweat and blood.

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    Awesome deal! From inside the car, the hit didn't look as bad as the final shots, these car's are tanks, makes me feel better about running Pro-3 next year.

    Subscribed to thread, can't wait to see your progress..

    Also, dropping the steering is Spec legal?

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    Quote Originally Posted by djjerme View Post
    Subscribed to thread, can't wait to see your progress..

    Also, dropping the steering is Spec legal?
    I was curious about the rational behind dropping the wheel? All I could think of was dash bar, or really short person, and RangerGress does not appear to be height challanged.

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    Quote Originally Posted by 284Shooter View Post
    I was curious about the rational behind dropping the wheel? All I could think of was dash bar, or really short person, and RangerGress does not appear to be height challanged.
    I am 6",the sit in my E30 is installed almost on the floor.I had to drop the wheel 1.5"-2" so it doesnt obscure my line of view and gauge view.Now the highest point of the wheel is on one line with the highest point of the dash when I look further.

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    That makes sense. A buddy has an E36 and his racetech is so low at 6'1" I look through the steering wheel. I didn't drive the car, but dropping the wheel a couple inches, or raising the seat an inch or two would be neccessay for me to feel comfortable in the car. I could see over the dash, so dropping the wheel would make more sense.

    Thanks. This is an interesting aspect to building a car I hadn't though of.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by 284Shooter View Post
    That makes sense. A buddy has an E36 and his racetech is so low at 6'1" I look through the steering wheel. I didn't drive the car, but dropping the wheel a couple inches, or raising the seat an inch or two would be neccessay for me to feel comfortable in the car. I could see over the dash, so dropping the wheel would make more sense.

    Thanks. This is an interesting aspect to building a car I hadn't though of.
    Yes, you guys are right. You want your butt as low as convenient in the car for obvious weight distro reasons, and it also adds to the clearance between your helmet and the various bars and sheetmetal that are above your helmet.

    I'm in CT at the in-laws for a week for the Holidays so no work on the car. The night before we drove N I worked until 2AM on the cage. I decided that I didn't like how the OSPHO stuff left a roughened surface on the cage bars as it treated the surface rust. It would have been a lousy surface for painting a bright glossy color. So I spent 5hrs wire brushing all the stuff off. Another effort like that and the cage should be clean and smooth. Then I'll paint the cage.
    Last edited by RangerGress; 04-10-2012 at 03:10 PM.

  17. #17
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    Was up until 0200 last night painting the cage. The abrasion resistant paint is pretty thick and it says not to thin it. As a result the brush strokes are very visible and it looks crappy. It's not helping viscosity that I'm at the low end of the temp range (50deg) that the paint recommends. I think I'm going to apply a 2nd coat of paint and then do some sanding to remove the worst of the brush marks.

    It makes me think fondly of spraying instead of brushing. I had thought that masking everything in side of the car to paint the cage would be too much work. But it's now looking like a bargain. The instructions tho, say that in order to spray this abrasion resistant stuff I should use a "2000psi airless sprayer", and that I don't have. Could one of these airless sprayers be used to paint the outside of the car too? Maybe it would be worth getting one.

    Harness shoulder fastening points. IMO the angle of the shoulder straps as they go behind you is really important. I think that the rules say that the straps can decline down 20deg, but I really like them to be either perfectly horiz or perheps incline up just slightly. I found that when the shoulders straps decline down a bit it scrunches you down in the seat which was annoying for several reasons. Also if you were sitting nicely upright when you pulled the shoulder straps tight, when you inevitably got scrunched down a bit the straps have a shorter path so they ended up looser. To get the shoulder strap angle to horiz, 3yrs ago I welded on a piece of cage bar on Old #6 that lifted the relative anchor point of the straps by >2".

    On New #6 the cage bar behind the seat is ~1" lower than Old #6 so the problem is even more pronounced.

    Last night I cut that anchor point lifter out of Old #6. Hopefully I can just weld it on to New #6's cage and it will provide enough lift.

  18. #18
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    Your MM block make out ok?

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    Quote Originally Posted by samiam3356 View Post
    Your MM block make out ok?
    Unknown. When New #6 heads out to the paint shop I'll be looking for useful things to do on Old #6. I'll pull the harmonic balancer out off of Old #6, put a gauge on the end of the crank and run it thru some turns. The gauge should give me a good clue as to whether or not the crank survived.

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    Hope so brother. I know you put the work in on that one.

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    I called up Benjamin Moore re. thinning their paint. The customer service rep stuck to the party line and wouldn't give me guidance on how much thinner to use. All I could get out of him was to use mineral spirits. Not having done this sort of thing before, what is a logical amount of mineral spirits to use as my first thinning experiement given that it's 50deg and I'm using a brush?

    I looked up airless sprayers and they seem to all be wide coverage devices. Maybe if I could get the stuff thin enough I could use a small HVLP gun? Thinner % recommendation for that scheme?

    Quote Originally Posted by samiam3356 View Post
    Hope so brother. I know you put the work in on that one.
    Not a big deal. I've a 2nd MM bottom end that has never been installed, a 3rd bottom end with only a couple weekends on it, and also 2 heads in the attic that are $400 away from being cherry.

    That being said, it was a nice find that New #6 had good compression.
    Last edited by RangerGress; 12-30-2011 at 11:27 AM. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

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    Quote Originally Posted by RangerGress View Post
    .......

    Harness shoulder fastening points. IMO the angle of the shoulder straps as they go behind you is really important. I think that the rules say that the straps can decline down 20deg, but I really like them to be either perfectly horiz or perheps incline up just slightly. I found that when the shoulders straps decline down a bit it scrunches you down in the seat which was annoying for several reasons. Also if you were sitting nicely upright when you pulled the shoulder straps tight, when you inevitably got scrunched down a bit the straps have a shorter path so they ended up looser. To get the shoulder strap angle to horiz, 3yrs ago I welded on a piece of cage bar on Old #6 that lifted the relative anchor point of the straps by >2".

    On New #6 the cage bar behind the seat is ~1" lower than Old #6 so the problem is even more pronounced.

    Last night I cut that anchor point lifter out of Old #6. Hopefully I can just weld it on to New #6's cage and it will provide enough lift.
    I recently read HANS instructions and it says the shoulder straps should go down ~5-10 degrees.

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    Instead of a brush, also consider using a small foam roller.
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    I made my very first attempt to use a spray paint gun today. Although I have an unused 20oz Harbor Freight gun, I thought I'd try their little 4oz gun and see if that would work well for the cage. The too thick paint on the cage looks bad.

    I got the air compressor working, connected a oil/water separator and pressure regulator I bought last Summer, played around with all sorts of air connectors and eventually had air coming out of the gun.

    Then I started experimenting with a sample of the abrasion resistant paint. I was looking for a visc approaching milk, but I chickened out at 35% thinner and went ahead and tried to paint with it. All I did was spray some paint on some cardboard for a while, but it did work. Very cool.

    I pulled off both bumpers and will be putting the proper early model bumpers on after the car gets painted. I found during that effort that although I have the sheetmetal that is below the bumper, I don't have the sheetmetal piece that is behind the bumper. That may require a trip to the PickNPull.

    The TRIPLE PASS radiator came yesterday. It's cheaper than the double pass radiators that I have been using. The arrival of the radiator triggered a hard look at the coolant system. I realized that I needed the coolant pipe that goes across late model engines. The Rev. Al Taylor came to my rescue and one will be in the mail Tuesday. The old coolant pipe is wrapped around the front of Old #6's engine.

    I got under Old #6 today and decided that the rear subframe looks ok. I won't know until I check it's rear alignment tho.

    The thicker glops of paint on the cage still haven't hardened so I put a heater in the car. Those glops need to get hard before I can sand them down and try spraying the cage.

    The oil cooler came off New #6, and the new oil filter went directly on to the block e motor style.

    I did some cutting on the excess sheetmetal on New #6's sunroof. I wanted to leave just enough to anchor the sunroof's mounting tabs. After that effort I couldn't help notice how heavy the sunroof still is. Slapping a piece of sheetmetal on the roof would certainly be a lighter solution. I'm conflicted on which way to go with this.
    Last edited by RangerGress; 04-10-2012 at 03:12 PM.

  25. #25
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    I skinned my sunroof panel and it is not that bad.You can probably save another 1-2 lbs with a thinner metal sheet.

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