QuoteFerdinand I chased an intermittent brake warning light long enough that I eventually gave up and simply removed that light bulb from the cluster. I have my wheels on and off frequently enough, checking the brakes each time, that I really don't need that warning light to tell me whether the brake linings are wearing too thin. Yeah, I did something similar. For years I tried to keep tho
Forum: Technical Forum

Yikes! That kind of thing is exactly why I do almost all my own work, even on our new Mazda. At least if I leave bolts out I know who to blame. :-)
Forum: Technical Forum

Yes, it's still there! https://archive.org/ Put in and browse away. A few years ago I downloaded all the articles there, intending to put them all back into this web site, but that's a project that never happened.
Forum: Car Talk

Interesting. But that car is essentially new (I don't know how you keep a car 29 years and only put 4100 miles on it, or why anyone would want to). Also, just because someone is asking $25K for it doesn't mean anyone will actually pay that. That's E30 M3 territory! IME sellers frequently overestimate the value of the cars they're trying to sell, especially one like this that h
Forum: Car Talk

Do you have picture? Or maybe can you point it out on a diagram from RealOEM? http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/partgrp?id=1413-USA-01-1989-E30-BMW-325i&mg=64
Forum: Technical Forum

Let me just say that as I work my way through my lengthy list of little fixes and fixing previous owners' questionable work, it's really nice having an entire car's worth of spare parts sitting the driveway. There isn't a single missing screw on the car now.
Forum: Community Forum

It's been too long since I've checked in here, so here's a bit of news. What do you do when it's time to replace a 25-year-old car, and it's the best car you've ever had? Simple: get another one: It's a sickness. There are certainly more practical choices for a new car, but none that give me the same grins while sliding across a frozen lake or running
Forum: Community Forum

Wow, that is something I've never seen before. It's pretty cool, but I suspect that poor car is seriously beat up. Plowing snow is pretty rough on a vehicle. Around here there are hundreds of people with snowplows on their vehicles, and every single one of them is a 4WD truck, mostly V8 Fords and Chevy/GMC. Even they get pretty tired after a few years of serious plowing. It's go
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteFerdinand The TV coverage of the 2014 Tall Pines Rally is now available online. They've done an outstanding job of covering the entire season. Lots of good stories in this event. Outstanding! Thanks, Ferdinand!
Forum: Community Forum

Yikes! Looks like you guys handled that stage well, though.
Forum: Community Forum

Congratulations! I'm enjoying watching your videos on the other site. It looks like so much fun.
Forum: Community Forum

Very cool! Go get 'em, Ferdinand! I need to see if I can find an online source for CRC TV to keep up with stuff like this. I follow the WRC all year, but I like the more local feel of smaller national series. The closest I will ever get to this in this lifetime is running John Buffum's Winter Challenge Rally here in Vermont. It's just a TSD rally with normal cars, but since
Forum: Community Forum

I wonder what kind of diffs all those cars had. It looked like they were all open diffs. With a center and rear LSD and open front diff, my 24-year old iX would have passed that test.
Forum: Car Talk

Today I was getting into my E30 outside the hardware store, when a teenager in a Subaru cruised by in the parking lot, gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up, and said, "Sir, I love your BMW!" Given the overall ordinariness of my E30 (it's far from a show queen), this would be remarkable enough, but this is the third time this has happened in the past few years. This never happens wit
Forum: Car Talk

Quoterkj Yes, I like this guys design. The glow plug seems like a good idea. With all these vacume leaks on todays (and yesterdays) motors this seems like a needed tool in my shop... youtube I finally watched this video and really like this. This kind of thing is fun to build, and I could really use this to track down an elusive vacuum leak in my wife's Mazda. It's been defeating
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteOve Kvam I made a picture album if you want to see: Cool! Can I still be in the group if I admit that I'm most interested in the RX-2? Did it have the original rotary engine? Quote We had an autoX competition as well. I lost out to an E46 325ti, but beat cars like E46 M3, E92 335d, E82 1M and E21 M2 (S14). We ended up third in a quiz rally, and won the price for longest drive to the
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteOve Kvam But the '86 M20 with a cold start valve could be a 320i with L-Jetronic. The OP didn't say where he's from, but if it's North America, it's probably a 325. I don't think I've ever even seen a 320 here. Were they even sold in North America? If so, they're very rare compared to the 325.
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteOve Kvam Anyway, my guess is that the engine is breathing non metered air. That means air bypassing the AFM somewhere. Sounds like a likely reason. If this is the case, then I think the check engine light should be on. On North American E30s, we can do the stomp test (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GlBsrOSefg). An intake leak would give a code 1215. I had this happen on my E30, and I
Forum: Technical Forum

Quotealanrw In my professional world, I fall under the auspices of HIPAA. It is all about securing patient information so we have all had to migrate to Win 7. It has caused unbelievable chaos as much of our digital equipment does not have drivers that are Win 7 compatible Where I work, we also have instruments that require XP computers. We're dealing with the situation by creating a secure
Forum: Community Forum

Nice video! That's so cool to get those aerial views of the cars.
Forum: Community Forum

Thanks, that was cool! I thought I had seen all the iX videos to be seen, but I had missed that one. I love my iX.
Forum: Car Talk

QuoteDave_G QuoteBob P 325is 88 Hi there - its Bob P. back. I haven't been on the forum for a long time (maybe 3 years), but I have been visiting often. Just every time I tried to log in, the forum would reject me by saying that I was a hacker. Wow, sorry about that, Bob! That shouldn't happen. Sounds like the spam-prevention software is being too aggressive. I'll see if I can
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteBob P 325is 88 Hi there - its Bob P. back. I haven't been on the forum for a long time (maybe 3 years), but I have been visiting often. Just every time I tried to log in, the forum would reject me by saying that I was a hacker. Wow, sorry about that, Bob! That shouldn't happen. Sounds like the spam-prevention software is being too aggressive. I'll see if I can correct that
Forum: Community Forum

QuoteJose Pinto Those engines were used on early airplanes, I never knew there were cars equiped with those. The difference is that the radial engine commonly used on propeller-driven airplanes are usually stationary. The cylinders don't move, and the pistons drive a center crankshaft that spins the prop. I've never seen one where the cylinders themselves spin around. Cool!
Forum: Car Talk

QuoteBob in Everett I'd be careful with that heat. Could damage the bearings. Yeah, good point. I was thinking more of the outer portion of the drums rather than near the wheel bearing, but yeah, you don't want to overheat the bearings.
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteMichiel 318iS Can't get the rear discs off... Tried WD40 on them, hammered them until my muffler fell apart. A few ideas: 1. WD40 is useless as a penetrating oil. I don't know what's available in Europe, but here in North America there are far, far better choices, most notably Kroil and PB Blaster. PB Blaster is easier to find, but some people claim that Kroil works bett
Forum: Technical Forum

It's been almost two weeks since my wife and I competed together in the annual Vermont Winter Challenge Rally, and I'm just getting around to writing about it now, but better late than never. Every winter this rally is one of the highlights of my motorsports year. Compared to the rallies that Ferdinand does these days, it's a bit tamer: It's a basic time-speed-distance rally r
Forum: Car Talk

Quoterkj What kind of tires are you using out there, it's hard to imagine anything but studs (of some kind) would work on ice. Down here, on the island we race funny, spindley little boats on the ice, those ones with skates on the bottom! I'm using studded Nokian Hakkapeliitta 5 tires. They're really great on the ice, but a lot of people were having fun with non-studded tires, too.
Forum: Car Talk

Yup, that's exactly what it sounds like to me, too.
Forum: Technical Forum

FWIW, realoem.com doesn't show different part numbers for different years. And when I've had the steering wheel off on my '91, the splines looked pretty fine to me, so my guess would be that they haven't changed. To be sure, you might just look around salvage yards in your area (car-part.com is an invaluable web site for this), and compare what you find with what you've g
Forum: Technical Forum