Yup. Within 4 weeks of owning the E30, I had to get it towed home. I was driving on the freeway in California and suddenly lost all power to the wheels. The engine was running fine, the clutch felt normal, there were no strange noises. But when I engaged the clutch and gave it throttle, no power to the wheels. I pulled over and called a tow truck.

When I looked under the car, the problem was obvious (though as an inexperienced mechanic I didn’t know exactly what the part was): that thing isn’t supposed to be hanging down like that.

I got the car into my garage and took a closer look. Oh, that’s the axle, and it disconnected from the differential. I was confused how that could have happened without any damage, so I continued to investigate and found that two of the screws that connect the axle to the diff were missing, three were unwound and not holding the axle in at all, and one was screwed in all the way on the axle side but had been bent and pulled out of the diff. It was probably hanging on for dear life after the other screws came out, and got bent from the torque of the diff.

I removed the old screws, replaced them with some new ones from Turner Motorsports (part #07119919620), added some threadlock, and reinstalled the axle. I’ve had no issues since then. Easy enough, and luckily a straight forward repair considering it was my first “incident”.

Thank you for reading! As always leave me a comment or send a DM if you’d like to know more about the E30 or have any other questions.

Now at 30 years old, I’ve decided I want that secret knowledge too.

My E30 has the M20 2.5L straight-six engine with a manual transmission. It had 118K miles on it when the odometer broke. According to the previous owner, it also has a Schrick 272-deg cam, Mahle pistons, H&R lowering springs and matching shocks, Z3 steering rack, 4.10 40% LSD, and a Dinan chip. It’s got some zip. I found this one on craigslist after searching for the first 4 months of the year on there and Bring A Trailer. I was relieved to find the car I was looking for only an hour away from me. I met the owner, test drove it, and purchased it the next day for $6,000.

It’s not perfect but it is in pretty solid shape considering its age. Here are some photos of the interior and engine bay the day after I got it:

After cleaning up the carpet and door cards with some AMMO products (they worked great), the interior was looking a lot better. Next I ran and picked up a new battery, then got it up on jack stands in my garage and gave it an oil change.

Here’s a cold start:

Thanks for reading my first E30 log. Many more to come.