Speaking of R12 > R134 conversions, that's something I still need to do to my E30. The A/C has been dead on my car since I bought it, and it's time to bring it back. I seem to recall reading something years ago about something not being entirely straightforward with this process. Is that right, or is my memory making something up? Is there some basic recipe for this conversion?
Forum: Technical Forum

Quotedanieli tried it at absolute zero and it still worked, so you guess correctly, there is no lower limit. Smarta**. OK, let's say "no lower limit of naturally occurring terrestrial temperatures on Earth."
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Every time I see pictures of your car's hood I am more in awe. Like the bumper sticker says, that is just toadly ossum!
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Cab, #2 is a fantastic shot. You should be proud of that! I think black and white works well for that one, too. Next time, you can enhance the sense of height and how far you daughter is reaching by framing it so that she is more toward the top of the frame, with more space beneath her feet. Honestly, #1 doesn't do much for me. The subject seems to be your neighbor's mailbox. I
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QuoteBob P 325is 88Generally, AC don't run in temperatures lower than 4 C. At lower than that the expansion valve might freeze up, but worse, not all of the refrigerant is vaporized at the expansion valve and liquid 'hits' the compressor, which might cause damage. If that is in fact true of the E30, then it is an idiosyncrasy of our cars and not generally true. As wodcutr says, ma
Forum: Technical Forum

QuoteEarendil(PS, why is this message marked as spam and in need of moderator approval?!) I have no idea. That has happened with 3 or 4 messages since the forum was restarted, but I'll be damned if I can see anything in the messages that causes it. It seems to be completely random. I hate that -- it makes troubleshooting it a nightmare.
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I think you'll like the ABS. My BMW has about the smoothest, least intrusive ABS I've ever driven.
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QuotewodcutrYou could also have the bro go to the junk palace again and retrieve another for a lot less than a new one too. That would be the first place I would go. Yup. Used, used, used! It's just a big hunk of plastic. No need to pay $255 when there are probably hundreds of them hanging off of dead cars in junkyards. If you can't find one locally, here are a few online places whe
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The difference between 2.0 and 2.3 bars is 29 vs. 33 psi. That may be enough to make a small difference, but not the WOW! dramatic difference that he's describing. Also, no one can see that small a difference in tire pressures just by looking at the tire, certainly not while driving behind the car. You can't see an underinflated tire until it gets a lot lower than 2.0 bar/29 psi. I thin
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In North America the center brake light was required beginning in 1986. Since Daniel's car is a 1988, it's probably a factory unit. I don't know why he can't see the bulb in the trunk, though. Apparently they changed something between 1988 and 1991, or maybe a previous owner installed some sort of covering on the top of the trunk that hides the bulb access.
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One of the artists is right: That is awesome!
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QuotealanrwNah, if it is anything like my 84, you just remove the speakers, the back seat (no biggie) and then the fiberboard base should pop out. The carpet is glued to the fiberboard. I think the speaker screws are what keep the fiberboard in place, I don't think they use pop buttons like the door panels, but you can tell by looking from the trunk. OK, but once you've done all that, y
Forum: Technical Forum

Quotedaniel Quotewodcutr If you are just wanting to change the bulb that can be done from the trunk. i really don't think it can on my car. Getting back to the subject at head, I finally just checked my '91. It's absurdly easy to change from underneath in the trunk. The bulb holder pops out with a twist. It takes about half a second. What year is your car? Is there something
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Quotejaffar- if i rev the engine a lot (4000+ rpm) and try to make a launch with clutch drop, I get a lot of slipping for 1-2 seconds, then everything is normal That slipping sounds like your clutch is on its way out. Usually you will notice slipping in the higher gears first. (I'm actually in the middle of replacing the clutch on my other car after it started slipping in 5th gear.) Often y
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Quotewodcutr I like, but not 18g like! Yeah, the price is outrageous, but I'll bet someone pays it.
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In my never-ending quest to find old BMWs that I like even better than my current one, I found this: 1974 2002tii Hokey smokes, that's a gorgeous car. Too bad the price is so out of this world, but if I had $18K burning a hole in my pocket... I don't see many tii models around here. A year or so ago there was one in my parking lot at work for a few days. It was beat up, rusty,
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The Bentley manual shows a technique for checking clutch wear by sticking a special tool between the transmission and the slave cylinder and measuring how far the tool sticks out after touching the slave cylinder pushrod. (It's on p. 24.) This was news to me -- I've never heard of such a technique before. Why do you want to check it? Is there some symptom it's exhibiting now? Mo
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QuoteFerdinandIt would be fun even just to come down and watch. Well, you know where I'll be Friday afternoon through Sunday till about 2:00. If you want to watch, and you find you can't stand being away from SLMP for more than a week, come on down! Actually I think there might even be an open entry each day if you wanted to try driving. Our next events there are July 18-19 (which I
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Hey, I know that place! That's Saint Lawrence Motorsports Park! I've been going there with the Sports Car Club of Vermont for years, and in fact I'm heading over there tomorrow morning for a weekend of driving fun. They let us run our cars on the kart track (though a few people bring karts). We just do laps with one car (or sometimes two) at a time, and it's a great introducti
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Wow! Well done! Many congratulations!
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Quotedanielso why does every RWD sports car over the last 10 years have a staggered setup? They don't. MX-5, S2000, 350Z, and probably a bunch of others. Those are just the first three that popped into my head, and none of them uses staggered tire sizes. It's worth noting that all three of those cars have outstanding handling with their non-staggered setups.
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Wow, if that's the worst you guys have to worry about, life must be pretty good.
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QuoteDave_GWhere did you see that? Oh. I see it now when I view that site as a guest. Supposedly you can register for free with a referral from a current member (which I'm happy to for anyone here), but that does seem silly. Maybe they figure that 13,000 members is enough. At any rate, we won't be doing anything like that around here.
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Quotedanielexcept now you have to pay money each year if you want to post, and they are not accepting new members. that sounds pretty silly to me. Huh? Where did you see that? I haven't seen anything to that effect anywhere on the forum. I haven't posted there in a while, but AFAIK I can post just like always, and no one has ever asked me to pay anything.
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That was exactly the thing that jumped out at me right away, too, when I first found the old BEN. When I got my first E30 I began looking around the Internet for a discussion forum because, well, that's just what you do these days. I was surprised to find at least seven or eight active forums, but some of them made me feel like adult wandering into a kids' schoolyard fight. BEN was the
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The springs-vs.-bar debate for controlling body roll is a religious debate that I will try to avoid. Both have their adherents, and both approaches are effective. There are differences, however. A bigger front bar will control body roll, and cause the car to understeer more, but it will not appreciably affect the spring rate as you go over bumps. Stiffer front springs will also control body roll,
Forum: Technical Forum

QuotedanielFrom what I have read, larger sway bars also reduce predictability of when you will lose grip. That has not been my experience. QuoteWhat I still don't understand about sway bars is, if they reduce grip, why do people use them? Almost all cars have sway bars, so you're using them whether you've replaced the stock bars or not. I'll assume your question is asking why
Forum: Technical Forum

The larger the sway (a.k.a anti-roll) bar, the less the body will roll at that end of the car. Essentially what the bar does is cause suspension travel at one side of the car to be mirrored on the other side. So when you go around a corner and compress the outside spring, the the bar tries to compress the inside spring also, and the car corners flatter. The larger the bar, the greater this effect
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QuoteCab TreadwayI also am not terribly interested in shooting cool video. Obviously if there is something I really want to save, I want the ability to film it, but for the most part it just doesn't really appeal to me. OTOH, still shots do appeal to me. I would love to someday be able to compose good photographs and actually understand how and why to use the various settings/lenses/filte
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Thanks for the help, everyone. I got it sorted out. It was in fact wired correctly, i.e. the blue.white wire from the head unit was connected to the white power antenna wire. But after shutting off power to the head unit completely and then reconnecting it, I discovered that it began working correctly, i.e. powering the antenna only when the stereo is on. It turns out that if I have the head unit
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