Nice work. Another entry in the E30 Bible according to Ranger. With all your mistakes and solutions everything will eventually be discovered to prevent others from making the same mistake in the future. I always enjoy your posts and solutions.
Ranger's Dec09 motor rebuild thread (lol)
Ranger
#343
Here is the piece that caused the no-start. The crack in the plastic allowed the “ear” to shift outboard by ~1mm. As a result the rotor required gentle pressure to go into place. Later the rotor would shift away from the cam gear by a little. Not enough to really see, only enough to rotate a little off kilter. The only good way to spot it was to note the wear pattern on the rotor.
It struck the cap’s brass buttons well enough to provide spark, but somehow not well enough to run the engine. I’m not sure how this could have made the spark weak or off-time, but it did something. 
Ranger
#344
Chuck figured out the cause of my engine failure last month. The engine lasted 1hr + 4 hot laps because of ring failure. In all cylinders. The prevailing theory is that the rings were damaged by the December overheat. When I R/R the pistons in Jan I did notice some scuffing on the pistons, but I was looking for broken rings, I wasn’t looking for scuffed pistons. Besides, I didn’t really understand that some scuff marks on a piston were bad. I mean if I were a piston, I’d be a little scuffed up too.
But those scuff marks meant my rings had lost there springiness.
As mistake go, I can live with this one I guess. It’s not like I failed to tighten a bolt or something. I just didn’t understand that replacing the rings should be an automatic reaction to an overheat.
The block and pistons are toast. BW no longer has .5mm over pistons for a good price. Bummer.
Gasman
#345
Scott, the stuff you are having to learn at the school of hard knocks is painful for me to watch.
Ranger
#352
The pistons don’t worry me, as bad as they look. The damage there is understood. It’s the bearing wear that worries me. Worn crank bearings yet rod bearings ok. All with ~25hrs. I thought sure that rod bearings usually go first. And I’ve 2 oil pressure sensors, 2 oil pressure switches, hours of Traqmate data and an Accusump that says those bearings should be fine. Yet they are thrashed. That spooks me.
Mr. Poore, I’ll be calling you Monday.
Steve_D
#353
cwbaader wrote:
This popped up on bf.c. I don’t condone the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works, but … 
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1436560
PS - I don’t believe this set includes the technical specs (bolt torques, measurements, clearances, etc.) but if you want/need that, I know a guy…
Ranger
#354
Bottom line up front. I have $8k cash in my pocket.
Details.
I tried to keep track of Molitor for the past 18months. There’s a network of guys Molitor cheated, lied to and stole from, and we’ve kept each other informed. I tracked him to a couple places but I couldn’t personally confirm that he was there, and then put all the pieces together for a seizure before he would move on. Just the fact alone that he had a history of very irregular hours at his shop(s) was one example of a hurdle to overcome. The fact that these shops were 5-6hrs away from home didn’t help either. Driving 12hrs roundtrip in attempt to confirm a Molitor rumor got old really fast.
But today we did it. I thought that this would be a great victory and I’d be high fiving everyone I know. But it really didn’t turn out that way. I put a lot of time and money into tracking him, I worked hard to coordinate every detail of the seizure, I had redundancy and backup plans for virtually every moving part, I had a lawyer standing right there at my shoulder, and 2 moving vans/crews from two different companies sitting in the parking lot.
Making it thru the various county bureacracies, as he moved county to county, was daunting. But once things finally got pulled together and everyone agreed that they had the right paperwork and could execute, the Cobb County Sheriff’s office really shone.
In his parking lot today Alex made a plea to set up some kind of payment deal. All bullshit aside, it was a heartwrencher. But he’d lied to me too many times. I’ve spent my whole adult life in the military. Lying, even little white lies, is just goddamned foreign to the culture that I tried be a role model for. I haven’t lied to someone about anything since high school. I can’t forgive someone lying to me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give someone a second chance to do the same again.
So the payment plan was a nogo.
18months ago I was so angry about this that I couldn’t hardly see straight. But that was a long time ago. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was mostly just tired.
We negotiated a cash deal to settle the $10k suit and his father brought the money. I felt bad for his father. He’s only a couple yrs older then I, and I’m sure he’s had a decade of disappointments from his son. Of course his father saw me as the crook here, but it’s reflexive to defend your kid and the father didn’t have any of the history of this sorry misadventure. Mostly I thought about how painful it would be if one of my boys turned out to be a bad seed.
So it’s a victory for the good guys, but no high five’s.
FARTBREF
#355
Congrats!, will give you a high five next time I see you. As I have said before, I will never know if Molitor ever sent the correct parts I paid for. After helping the guy at the track the way he treated me he deserves whatever bad shit happens.
Did anyone else in the network get justice?
Al
Ranger
#356
FARTBREF wrote:
[quote]
Did anyone else in the network get justice?
Al[/quote]
Negative. It’s a big step between complaining and sueing. It’s easy to complain. One guy filed criminal charges tho. That case hasn’t come to trial yet.
csrow
#358
Tenacious. From now on, I’m gonna have to call you “Pitbull”.
Most people would have given up long ago. It’s good to hear about the closure.
P.S. - I’ve been watch the program called “Surviving the Cut” and watched the Ranger School episode.
kishg
#359
wtg scott! only you would have held out this long. i hope with the closure of this unpleasant episode, your engine problems are a thing of the past as well!
scottmc
#360
csrow wrote:
[quote]Tenacious. From now on, I’m gonna have to call you “Pitbull”.
Most people would have given up long ago. It’s good to hear about the closure.
P.S. - I’ve been watch the program called “Surviving the Cut” and watched the Ranger School episode.[/quote]
Ranger doesn’t even understand what “giving up” means… you may have to explain it to him in great detail
You’ll need data, charts, graphs and some 8x10 gloss black and white photos :lol: