Re: E30 M3 overheating (and E30 M3 convertible)

["John Bunda" <bunda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If your car is heating up while stopped in traffic, check your fan clutch,
a common E30 problem.  The warning lights at startup are also common,
almost very E30 M3 I've seen does this  - by itself, nothing to worry 
about - but, if the dimming is really worse than it used to be, it could be
your battery going bad, or a you have a bad connection at one of the battery terminals.
The long wires in E30s with trunk mounted batteries make it very important
to have good solid connections.  Remember, your alternator does not come
online until 2k RPM or so, so you really are running off just the battery at
idle/low revs.   Temp gauge problems can also be due to a bad solder 
connection on the instrument pod board or SI board batteries
going south - see http://www.eskimo.com/~dalus/bmw/bmw_e30.html
for details, but what you describe sounds more like genuine overheating.
When the SI board batteries went in my old 325, the service lights went
wacky, the tach went intermittent, etc. 

Someone else asked about  E30 M3 convertibles, I don't believe any were 
imported, but check out Jeff Krause's Dakar Yellow beast at http://www.driversedge.com

John
'90 ///M3

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