My '78 daily driver

This car gets driven 60 miles each work day, mostly freeway at 70mph and another 50 or so each weekend. It's been my daily driver since my '82 was crashed 2 years ago. I bought it for my youngest daughter to drive when she got her license. If she made it 6 months without crashing it I would put her in something newer. She made it fine so now she drives my 2000 Blazer.

I bought it on ebay from a dealer about 60 miles away. I checked it out in person before I bid on it. It was pretty clean with about 120,000 miles on it. The body is VERY solid with no rust, the front subframes aren't even crushed like most cars that have been jacked up there. I overpaid a little but I was pretty sure it would be a good little car to put my daughter in. As of June 2008 it has 167,000 miles.

When I bought it the shocks/struts were completely shot and it needed new rubber doughnuts to hold the muffler in place, an easy days work to get it up to speed. That's all it needed for the first few years.

It originally had steel wheels with chrome trim rings, I liked the look but the trim rings rattled on rough roads. I moved a set of e30 bottle caps with 205/60/14 Falkens to it from my '82. I later added a rear sway bar from the local pic-a-part. That's the best $25 you can spend on one of these cars.

I use it to haul my dog around because my wife and daughter don't like dog hair on their clothes so he rarely rides in the other cars. The down side is the passenger seat cover blew out completely. I guess it was just brittle vinyl and his weight on the small (relatively) area of his paws was too much stress.

After 4 years of constant use the exhaust began to rattle, the transmission was getting balky in first and second so it was time for some major work. I removed the old exhaust system, the tubing was fine but the heat shield surrounding the tubing where it goes between the gas tanks and over the rear subframe was broken in half and knocked loose at both ends-no wonder it was rattling so bad! Once the pipes were out of the way I changed the trans gear oil to Redline MTL.

I've had one of OLDMAN's (Bimmer Forums member) e21 exhaust for quite a while just hanging around in my garage to install on my '82 as part of the resurrection. I decided to install it on my '78. You can order one here: E21 exhaust '80-'83 . The extra torque is always welcome but I also expect a few more MPG and with the way gas prices are climbing that will be VERY welcome. Torque IS noticably better in the mid range, the car pulls better from 2500rpm than with the stock exhaust.

The short piece in the picture is a "test pipe" to replace the optional high flow catalytic converter he can supply with the kit. With the Cat installed it is completely legal, even in CA (on '80-'83 cars).

As you can see the OEM exhaust system is pretty wimpy, OLDMAN's exhaust is very nice 2.25" dia. mandrel bent tubing. The down pipes included are stainless steel and will outlast the car. These systems are fabricated by a well known company that specializes in muscle car exhaust. I have used their stuff before and it's very high quality, this system is just as good as what they sell for the classics. The muffler is a Dynomax Super Turbo #17741. I had used one of these on my '82 for a while but I thought it was pretty loud. When I fired the '78 up after the installation was complete I was surprised it was not much louder than stock with a nice deep tone.

These systems are designed to replace everything between the cast iron exhaust manifold to the rear bumper on '80 and newer m10 powered e21's. This caused some problems for installation on my '78. The bracket to the trans hanger is 3" or so too far aft for a 4 speed car and my '78 doesn't have the hanger just fwd of the rear axle. Not having these hangers made correct alignment of the pipes between the fuel tanks and under the axle MUCH more difficult to achieve. After several tries I got the alignment correct and tightened down all the clamps. BTW, all the clamps are included as is a new manifold to down pipe gasket.

The major hang up was the down pipes that come with the system don't fit up to the early exhaust manifold. I was going to change out the exhaust manifold to the late design but I have to pass smog soon so I had to adapt my original down pipe to the system. I cut the down pipe in the middle of where the two pipes merge, this left it with an oval cross section. I took a 5" piece of 2.25" tubing and bent one end into an oval that was a near perfect match to the down pipes and welded it on. The rest of the system slipped into place easily.

This is by far the best exhaust system available for a 4 cyl e21. It can easily support engines to around 200hp or even a little more. The quality is high and the fit is perfect. If you need a new exhaust for your '80-'82 m10 powered e21 I HIGHLY recommend this kit. I loaned him an early down pipe, hopefully he will make these available for the early cars too or maybe a set without down pipes for those of us with tubular headers, we can only hope.

What's the future hold for this car? Who knows, I would like some more power but living in CA means normal hotrodding is out so maybe an easy m42 engine swap or a more difficult m50 (OBD1 non-vanos) swap. If I leave CA with this car I would like to slip a Chevy LSx aluminum v8 into it-400+hp would be a ball in an e21!!

Valve adjustment:

For those that don't know how to adjust the valves on an m10, here's a quick how-to. This is MY method and it works well for me.

1. First remove the valve cover using a 10mm socket. You will likely also have to remove other things from the valve cover like the additional air valve. When the valve cover is removed you can start adjusting the valves.

2. The rocker arm "foot" that rides on the cam MUST be on the cam base circle-that's the segment of the lobe that is round-the opposite end from the cam lobe peak. To rotate the engine so the cam is in the correct position just grab the engine cooling fan and give it a push or pull-which ever direction will get you on the base circle easiest. If the cam doesn't move you must put pressure on the water pump belt with your other hand. If you can't do it like this you need to hit the gym for a few months and try again. It really doesn't take much strength to turn over an engine like this. As a last resort you can remove the spark plugs to make it easier to rotate. Once you get the #1 cylinder rockers on the cam base circle you can begin the actual adjustment. Here's a pic of a rocker on the cam base circle:

3. First try to move the rockers back and forth to see how tight they are when you start. Now loosen the rocker eccentric nut so the eccentric moves freely.

4. Insert a .007" feeler gage between the eccentric and the valve stem.

5. Use a long thin punch to rotate the eccentric until it makes contact with the feeler gage. Push firmly (not really hard) on the punch with the tip in the eccentric hole.

6. Be sure the feeler gage is still centered on the valve stem. Tighten the nut with a 10mm combination wrench.



7. Once the nut is tight remove the feeler gage, it should be a little difficult to pull out.

8. Rotate the engine until the #2 cylinder rockers are on the cam base circle and repeat the process through each cylinder.

This will give you about .006 to .0065 valve clearance which works well without being too noisy. If you adjust your valves and they still make a lot of noise you probably need new adjusting eccentrics. BavAuto can supply them for only a few $$. Order new nuts and bolts too, it's cheap insurance.

Early model cars are a little more difficult to do because the intake manifold plenum is right up near the valve cover making the intake valves a little more difficult to adjust.

April 2009: Hard Decisions:

I came very close to getting rid of this car last week. It's condition has been spiraling down like a ME109 in a dog fight with a P51 Mustang.. I drive the hell out of it and spend very little time and money keeping it up. Oil and filter changes and necessary repairs is about all it sees. Here's where it's at-

1. I've been nursing a leaking head gasket or cracked head for over a year. Coolant disappears but not on the ground or into the oil-it's leaking into the combustion chamber of the #3 cylinder. I know this because I have to add coolant every week or so and the #3 spark plug grows a nasty gray crust on it. The valve seals are also shot so the head needs freshening anyway.

2. About a month ago the 4 speed started growling in all but 4th gear. This indicates some bearings are about shot. If I do a trans change I'll install a new clutch at the same time which adds to the cost.

3. Last week the thermostat started sticking intermittently causing the temp to rise rapidly. To combat this I turn on the heater (just another small radiator) to help keep the engine alive. This isn't much fun when it's well into the 90's on the highway.

4. About 10 days ago the passenger side front strut insert blew out, the drivers side is about to go.

5. It's due for new rear tires.

6. The front seat mounts are cracking. With the seat all the way back (I'm 6'3") there is a lot of leverage on the front mounts. Just today the mounts let go.

The time, effort and expense is more than the car is worth so I thought I would just sell it to the state of CA for $650 and send it to the Pic-A-Part after removing some of the choice parts from it.

I started cruising Craigslist for a '67-'72 Chevy 1/2 ton pickup or a '64-'72 El Camino. I chose these vehicles because they are reliable, parts are cheap, they are easy to work on, they don't have to be smoged but most of all they have V8 power and I miss the muscle car days-maybe it's the beginning of a mid-life crisis..

I quickly realized that a pickup that was suitable for a daily driver was more $$ than I have at the moment so I focused on El Camino's. I found 3 serious contenders, a '65, a '67 and a '69. They all looked to be in good condition and all were in the right price range. Here's the hang up-When push came to shove my wife said "NO"!! Later she asked if I was going to hold this against her and my reply was "Hell Yes!!".

So, I moved to plan "B" and looked at normal economy cars for a while then finally came to my senses and shot that down-there is NO WAY I'm driving a Ford Escort for the next couple years, SCREW THAT!!!

So, I'm to plan "C" which is spend the time, effort and $$ to get the '78 back to a reasonable state so it will survive until I get the '82 back together. Then get the VW finished and sell all 3 and buy an El Camino and do the Jeep project. I suppose it's the right thing to do but it's going to be a lot of work.

I started this past Sat. by robbing the 71*C thermostat from the '82 and installing it on the '78. While I was in there I pulled the radiator out and cleaned all the dead bugs, leaves, twigs, etc. from the front and removed the A/C system. On Sunday I pulled the drivers seat and rebuilt the mounts on the body with thicker steel. I really wanted to spend this time on the '82 but it was not to be.

New KYB strut inserts should arrive the middle of this week so I know how I will be spending next Friday.

I'll start looking for an e21 casting head to go through and get ready for the head gasket job and I suppose I'll place an order for back tires from Tire Rack.

The trans has Redline MTL in it now, I may switch to their MT90. That might help the trans last a while longer. I REALLY don't want to do a trans change, it's a pain the the butt and a crappy way to spend a day. Many of you will say "Just put in a 5 speed." Well, I'm trying to keep it going for the least amount of effort and $$.

The choice has been made and now I'll live with it.

UPDATE May 2009:

I finally received the new strut inserts and installed them this weekend, it drives considerabley better.

UPDATE End of May 2009:

I decided I had better do the head gasket job before any serious damage to the engine occurs. I chose Memorial day weekend to do the work. There are good things about that (long weekend to get the work done) and bad things (if you need a BMW specific part you can't get it until Tuesday).

This is NOT a how to do it for head gasket replacement, you should have a manual to cover the job before you start. I WILL throw out some things that may make your shot at this procedure a little easier.

First an overview of where I started:

The engine was consuming coolant water at about 1 qt a week but it was NOT going into the oil on on the ground. I suspected it was leaking into the combustion chamber on one or more cylinders through a head gasket leak or crack in the head. It was NOT showing steam out the exhaust. It still ran OK.

The plan:

I originally was going to pull the head and install the ported head with Elgin 278 cam from my '82 and get the car back operational as quickly as possible. That cam has the drive for a later electronic ignition distributor. I dashed to the local Pic-a-Part and found a decent unit with minimal end play in the shaft. I would use that to trigger the Mallory Hyfire VI also removed from the '82.

What really happened:

When I began removing the intake manifold I realized the emissions parts and plumbing were making it extremely difficult to get at the lower nuts holding the manifold base in place. I made the decision to remove all the emissions equipment and greatly simplify the engine plumbing. This car now has a finite life expectancy of 1.5 years and it will be parted out - no later than November of 2010! It won't pass smog again so it's a done deal.

The only real issue with the job was getting the ignition timing air/fuel mixtures sorted. It took a good morning of trial and error to dial it in. This engine with that cam, electronic ignition and stripped down CIS likes about 12* of initial advance. This is more than I ran with the same head on the '82. I think this is because of the lower compression ratio on this engine.

TIPS:
1. When you re-install the camshaft timing gear, rotate the engine several times with the valve cover off to be sure the piston comes back to TDC as verified by the pointer/pulley mark and the gear mark is still correct. If you just look at the piston at the top you could be off a tooth either way, the piston has some dwell time at TDC as the crank goes over center so it may appear that the crank position is correct it may not be.

2. When you re-install the upper timing cover there will be little bumps of gasket sticking up above the surface where the valve cover gasket goes, trim these flush with a single edge razor or you might get a valve cover gasket leak in that area.



I also add a dab of RTV sealant at the lower corners of the timing cover to ensure a good seal there too.

3. If you are swapping on a different head you MUST use the upper timing cover that goes with that head. If you are having your head surfaced you MUST give the machine shop the upper timing cover to surface with the head.

4. As long as you are taking the engine down this far you might as well have your injectors cleaned. I found that BMW shops just replace them these days but a Volvo shop had the machine and cleaned mine for $35 and it took less than an hour. CIS injectors MUST be cleaned in a Bosch machine intended soley for that purpose, there is no other way to get them cleaned adaquatly. All the spray and solvents are just a waste of time, do it right and get on with life.

5. As you re-assemble the intake, install the #1 and #4 runners to the base then install the plenum to those two runners. Install the throttle body then the #2 and #3 runners. Be sure to hook up the hose to the cold start air valve before installing the #3 runner. I like the late 1 piece intakes much more!! Be sure to order new gaskets for the upper and lower surfaces of the intake runners. If you ask the parts house for just "Intake gaskets" you will get the base to head gaskets and that's it.

6. If you have the time I highly recommend gasket matching the intake and exhaust ports of the head, intake and exhaust manifolds. I installed a late exhaust manifold on this engine and here's what I found when I laid a gasket over the manifold port:

The surface has machinist blue on it and the scribe line indicates the ID of the gasket. This shows a nice little lip for the exhaust gases to run into and cause restriction and loss of flow. 20 minutes later and all 4 look like this:

I start by laying the edge back to the scribe line with a die grinder then blend that into the port about an inch. The idea is to make a smooth transition for the gas flow. There are bumps and humps in the port - some are for bolt clearance, others make no sense but you have to be careful. You can't just jump in and start hogging out material or you will grind through and ruin your manifold. The concept is the same on the intake side. I didn't have to work on the head side of this because it's was done previously.

This is worth several HP and only takes a little time and not much $$.

Other fun stuff I did during the project:

I found there is engine coolant routed through part of the throttle body, I don't like hot water near my intake so I blocked it off at the block and the heater water tube fitting:

The block fitting was removed and replaced with a short 10mm bolt with thread sealer and a copper sealing washer:

When you remove all the emissions parts you will be left with a bunch of open vacuume ports. The smaller ports can be easily plugged with plastic caps made just for that purpose and are available at your local parts store. There are two large ports that you can deal with a couple of ways. You can remove the nipples and tap the holes for 3/8" pipe plugs which is the best thing to do or you can get a couple of 5/8" "bypass caps" which are intended for blocking off heater hose fittings when your heater core fails but work just fine as large vacuume caps.

So, how does it run?? It pulls much stronger and revs MUCH quicker than it did stock. I can't recommend the Elgin 278 cam enough for a street engine.

As a side note I'll have to say it again as I did when I pulled the head off the '82 a couple years ago... You never know what you have until you take it apart unless you built it yourself. When I removed the intake off this engine I found the head was built in '79 a year after the car was built. I didn't think too much about that until I was removing the carbon deposits from the pistons and found these these little nicks:

Some one in the past had over revved the engine and the exhaust valves made contact with the pistons. This likely bent the exhaust valves which explains the newer head casting.

July 2009: 4 speed to 5 speed conversion.

As with the head gasket replacement I won't go into this step by step. It's a pretty straight forward job but there are a few tricks I figured out along the way that may help someone in the future.

How I got to this point: As noted above the 4 speed was making ugly sounds and has gotten slightly worse over the past months. I have decided to install a S50 and 5 speed from a '95 M3 into my '82 so that freed up the 5 speed to be installed in the '78. The 5 speed was installed a few years ago as noted on the '82 pages.

The plan: Yank out the 4 speed and install the 5 speed. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, as usual there is more to it than that.

Here's a list of the parts you will need to completed the swap.
1. Good 5 speed transmission
2. Complete driveshaft from a car the same year as the transmission. '80-'82 cars have a different 5 speed than the '83 cars so the driveshafts are different and won't interchange.
3. A 6 bolt e21 guibo (flex disk). You will also need the 6 bolts from the matching driveshaft, the 4 speed has longer guibo bolts that won't work.
4. The shifter mounting plate and rod that matches the trans. If it doesn't have a shifter with it don't worry, the 4 speed shifter will fit right in.
5. The speedometer cable from the trans to the "black box" on the firewall from the 5 speed car.

Here's a few parts you MAY want to have on hand when doing the swap.
1. New clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing-It would REALLY suck to install the 5 speed only to have to remove it in the near future when the old clutch goes bad.
2. A short shift kit, as long as it's apart this is the best time to install one-you won't regret that decision.
3. A new guibo incase yours is like this:



That's the 8 bolt 4 speed guibo but I had one come apart on my '82 so it had a pretty fresh one already to go. The strange thing was it drove fine with no vibration at all.

4. A new trans mount if yours is mushy (mine was but the '82 had a fresh one already)
5. A new rear mount for the shifter plate. The 4 speed one came out totally trashed but again the '82 had a fresh one so I grabbed that.

TIPS:
1. The most difficult part of this swap is breaking loose the bolts holding the rear of the drive shaft to the differential flange. There is not much access and they are TIGHT when installed from the factory. So before you do anything else jack up the back of the car and loosen them. Use the parking brake to keep the differential from turning while breaking them loose.

2. When you remove the clutch slave cylinder from the bellhousing DON'T remove the hydraulic line. Just remove the two 13mm nuts from the studs holding it in place and let it hang out of the way - DO NOT step on the clutch pedal while it's hanging there.

3. You have to remove the exhaust to get at the driveshaft so you might as well just remove it from the manifold back-this will allow easier access to the bellhousing bolts.

4. While your shifter plate is out make sure the forward mounting holes are in good condition. You might want to weld some steel over them for extra strength- broken mounting points on the shifter plate is one of the biggest causes of sloppy shifters. (if your shifter is sloppy DON'T expect a short shift kit to correct that) Fix the shifter plate and any worn bushings in the shifter, rod and trans joint to fix the problem not just the symptom!

This is the shifter plate from my '82 that had been repaired in the past by welding washers over the broken holes, it didn't hold up well.



Here's a shot of the repaired plate next to the 4 speed plate that came out of the car. It's easy to see that there is little metal around the end of the holes and it's easy to crack and break apart. The repaired plate has strips of 1/8" steel welded in place-I doubt it will ever brake again.



5. While the plate is out of the car and off the transmission it's a good time to pull the snap ring and remove the shifter, clean the busings and the pivot ball, goop them up with fresh grease and re-assemble it all. It's easy and your shifter will appreciate the attention. You will be rewarded with smoother shifting and less wear.

That's about it for this swap. It's been a couple years since I have driven a 5 speed car with the UUC short shifter and carbon fibre knob. It just snicks into each gear SOOOO sweetly. I expect a couple more MPG on my commute, that will be nice. I have started a "console delete" and will post a pic or two of that project. It's nice not having the growling trans noise compete with the radio.


Click here to return to the main page: