Duncan Millar bmw, e30, engine stand, Interviews, m20, m42, motorsports, power steering, racing, rally, stage rally, steering rack, Uncategorized, z3 steering rack

E30 Projects in the Time of Corona: Part 1

COVID-19 has fundamentally changed everyone’s way of life. For those of us that love our E30s, it’s made life practically unbearable. The worst thing to happen to anyone, EVER, has happened to us collectively as enthusiasts of this particular car and its variants. Without warning, we pounced on the inboxes of some of our favorite Instagram accounts to see what they were up to while they are self-isolating. We haven’t had much opportunity to work on ours, but these folks have, and if you’re one who enjoys being forced to live vicariously in this digital age, oh boy, do we have something for you. Enjoy!

@CooperAutoworks – Soon-to-be M54-powered Rally Racers

Photos courtesy of @cooperautoworks

Calvin and Kelsey of “Cooper Autoworks BMW” fame, were already facemask-deep in preparation for the upcoming rally season by the time most people had started isolating. On top of swapping out their M50 for a tuned-up M54, they’re also documenting the Frankenstein-monstering of their shop-yard E46 in their new Project Schmutzwagen YouTube series. Kelsey is also the focus of a recent RYE30 Racing article on women in motorsports and you can check that out here!

#Stayhome Score:
Flatten-the-Crest/10

@grant_baumg – West Tennessee Drift King

Photos courtesy of @grant_baumg

Grant took his grocery-getter from grandma-uses-it-to-get-to-singles-night-at-the-bingo-hall to grandma-uses-it-to-lure-young-men-into-her-BDSM-dungeon by tossing a “fat turbo”, BC coilovers, and a rollcage at it. Now he rather impressively rips skids while representing Retro Race Co. at drift events like Slammedenuff’s Stoopicold. Right now, he’s cleaning out the engine bay and dropping in the only thing that’s more American than bald eagles; the LS. Check out his team’s Instagram below, or if you’re worthy, beg Grant to let you follow his private Instagram here.

#Stayhome Score:
No-replacement-for-displacement/10

View this post on Instagram

Opinions??

A post shared by Our Cars (@_turbo.everything) on

@off_joee – Almost Literally From the Ground Up

Photos courtesy of @off_joee

We’d be doing Joe a disservice if we tried to sum up his build better than he already has:

“…I’ve always worked on cars since I was young, I spent most of my life with my grandad, so we would work on cars and other stuff through the summers. The first time I saw an e30 was when I was watching and listening to Tyler, The Creator. So I said to myself one day I’ll have one of those and me and my grandad will fix it up. In the last few years my grandad has developed dementia and now lives in a home. So I’m fixing mine up because I know he’d be proud of it and we would have done it together 🙂“

Check out his Instagram below and follow the very detail oriented restoration of this Brits M40-powered E30!

#Stayhome Score:
You’re-honestly-going-to-make-me-cry/10

View this post on Instagram

🤖

A post shared by Joe Bradley (@off_joee) on

@robsgarageisfull – Full of Cool Stuff, That Is

Photos courtesy of @robsgarageisfull

Rob is in the final stretches of the most pain-in-the-ass repair you can do on an E30; the sunroof. But he won’t be friends with boredom for long because an old outboard motor and a classic GSXR are next on the to-do list. Rob comes across our Instagram feed often, but not so much that he doesn’t get lost in the scroll, so we’d advise you give his profile a good read because it’s not just his garage that’s got cool stuff. You can check out his bikes, him and his wife’s adventures in nature, and if you were told that no man is perfect, he’s also an artist!

#Stayhome Score:
We-wish-our-garage-was-full-of-cool-shit/10

@robotronan – They’re basically us, if the three of us got married to each other like in Netflix’s Tiger King.

Photos courtesy of @Robotronan

The Robotronan crew members are our spirit animals. Josh and Amanda race their M42-driven E30 in Texan autocrosses (yee-haw) and do very well (2019 was an award winning season for both of them), as you’d expect from a team driving a car that’s set up almost exactly the same way our is! There will be more on that later when we dig into their story for a future article. In celebration of the virus, Josh refreshed the power steering system with Chase Bays equipment. Josh was also going to pick up an engine with the intent of rebuilding it, but was coughed on by the universe, and has resorted to, eerily, another RYE30 Racing-similar activity; fussing about with Alfa Romeos.

#Stayhome Score:
When-the-Alfa-Romeo-is-al-dente-you-know-it’s-fully-cooked/10

Unfortunately, @robotronan was the victim cyber-crime and the newness of his current account seems to be causing some issues with our ability to embed his page, so follow his new Instagram here. Hopefully you’ll get the same kind of ‘autocrushing’ updates you’ll be, again, hopefully, be getting from us in the summer.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to follow us here on the blog, Instagram @rye30racing, and Facebook @rye30racing. If you’ve read this far and you reside in the United States, give us a follow on Instagram and then DM us an address and we’ll send you two free 4″ RYE30Racing stickers! We appreciate your support! See a picture of the stickers below.

We’ll be racing plenty over the summer so we can bring you more high quality content like you read above. Our partnership with Diagonalt is still new and exciting, like that of a new romantic relationship, so check out Diagonalt.com for classic BMW prints and coasters (16% off using code “RYE30” at checkout) and calendars for the new year.

Duncan Millar auto repair, bmw, e30, power steering, power steering delete, steering rack, z3 steering rack

Rolling Blockout – A “Proper” Tutorial on the Deletion of an M42 Power Steering System (Part Two)

Blockages are bad if you have high cholesterol or are the case-du-jour in an episode of House. M.D. Our blockage is good though because it means the RYE30 team, doctors’ Cameron, Thirteen, and Cuddy can move onto the next scene and remove the rest of the power steering system.

After shamelessly promoting our blog to the usual Facebook haunts we received some surprisingly constructive criticism on the installation of the PS block. Some suggested that it will be more trouble than it’s worth because of the reduced ability to respond to poor steering decisions or unforeseen road hazards. Another user suggested removing valving from the steering rack to free up the internals and make it almost as easy to wrestle as when it had power steering. But the weather has taken a turn for the worse (or at least that’s our excuse) and we won’t be effecting re-installations or modifications until the spring when we’d rather be racing than fixin’. So for now, we give you Part Two of the removal of the power steering system.

Step 1: Work Smart, not Dumb

Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

If you’re as forward thinking as us, you still have the splash guard installed. But if you’re as masochistic as us, leave it installed while you try to remove these components. Since ours is basically ziptied into place, it would have been just as simple as removing it from the enslavement of the few 10mm nuts in the wheel wells that you still hopefully have.

Step 2: There’s Seems to be a Disconnect

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Most of your fluid would have drained out when you disconnected the lines from the rack, but there will undoubtedly be some left in the pump when you disconnect the banjo fitting on the bottom (no need to disconnect the one you’ll see on the side of the pump). Give it a good crank with your 22mm and be ready with your drip pan. Once that’s free, you can noodle the reservoir out through the top of the engine bay.

Step 3: No Daddy, not the Belt

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar
  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Next, you’ll de-tension the belt two ways. The likelihood is that your power steering system, like ours, has never been serviced. So even if you do start off by loosening the tensioner, it might need some persuasion before the pump swings loose of the belt. Loosen the nut and bolt that allow the pump to pivot on the upper oil pan to give it a little freedom. Then loosen both the locknut and the tensioner nut on the tensioner bracket since they are all going to be removed anyway. Use a prybar or a hammer to convince the pump to dislodge. Ideally, it won’t crash down onto your face like when you’re watching hentai late at night on your cell phone in your bed, but hold it in place with a free hand anyway. Pull the belt away from the crankshaft pulley and wiggle the pump out.

Step 4: Practice Safe Splashing

  • Photo courtesy of Duncan Millar

Reinstall the splashguard, but only after you notice that if you’d removed the pump first, you might have had a lot more space to install the power steering block and not need to part the rack from the subframe. Wipe up your frustrated tears with the same rag you use to soak up the power steering fluid dripping down from the steering rack and go have a cream soda.