M3AN

1. did you have excessive oil temps before? If not, adding an oil cooler will do nothing except increase the amount of oil you need to fill it up with. 2. No, the hydraulic tensioners can last for 100's of thousands of km's, the mechanical ones die quickly however.

Long time no update... some info in the 'Today' thread but... Failed a warrant (expected) because of RHS rear wheel bearing and cracked front fog light. Also got an advisory for leaking front shocks (hey, they were free!). Purchased and installed black blanking plates for the fogs, no more crack. Purchased 2 front and 2 rear OE M3 Sachs shocks. Purchased two OEM (Meyle HD) rear wheel bearings and put them in the freezer. First I had to free the axle stubs from the hubs and remove the rotors... not a recommended method because your rotors could explode (see YouTube), but the only way I had... and it nailed both. Keep the lug bolts in loosely so steel doesn't fly everywhere. Then I had all sorts of drama getting the rear hubs off until I purchased a slide hammer hub puller... then the job took 2 mins for both sides. $119, almost certainly won't last a lifetime but that doesn't concern me in the slightest. Then I couldn't remove the half shafts from the diff so took the RHS arm off. As it turns out you don't need to remove the whole arm, if you undo the upper and lower control arms you can pivot the spindle and free the axle without removing the whole arm. If you mark the position of the camber bolt then this method is WAY easier than either removing the arm or removing the axle. In fact I can't understand why you'd ever bother removing the axle now that I know this method (edit: perhaps if your RTAB is really stiff). Anyway, new bearings in! Now to reassemble the rear end and then onto the front shocks. And a special thanks to @zero for popping around to give me a hand and keep me company!

Pow... Arm out... Removing bearing... Reckon I can reuse this... Ahh... And an extra thanks to Nathan (@zero) for coming around and doing the other side for me whilst I put this one back in!

He Trumped it!

Just tried to PM you - "Zero can't receive messages". So...

I'm not sure to be honest, I didn't pursue that line of questioning when I took my bumper in for painting. ? There is a proper headhunters HQ 400 metres down the road though. Ouch! That's the best way to do it but quite a bit more expensive. The won't/can't guarantee a match unless they have the whole car. Doors are a big slab of the car, surrounded by painted areas so if it didn't match it would be very noticeable. You could take the risk and if they didn't match then you could take the whole car in and get the quarter panels blended in but then you're probably over the original cost of taking the whole thing in. Best to ask for prices for both options and go from there. I took my bumper in and just gave them the paint code from the web. I'm lucky my paint is still pretty good, car has been garaged most of its life. But bumpers are much easier to do because of the angle you look at them and they're not typically surrounded by big patches of other painted areas. Side panels are always easier to see colour deviation in. I was delighted with my bumper though (I expected it to be a bit off and it wasn't).

I must say this looked pretty good at coffee last weekend, props.

I use Wagstaff European on Marua Road for my rear bumper, gave them the bumper and the paint code and it's a perfect match to the rest of the car. Make sure they have the bandwidth needed in the timeframe required before you commit or you could be at the end of a very long queue. And for this reason I wouldn't recommend them for a job that needed big prep without a serious discussion with them first about dates. GT Refinishers on Walls Road also do good work but they might be lacking a bit on consistency if some of the stories I've heard are true. They're still recommended though so perhaps it's just a matter of a few bad days - worthy of a chat nevertheless. Rear bumper cost me $250 at Wagstaff based on me letting them just fit it in between jobs over a couple of weeks (in the end it took about a week). I removed the bumper and trim, washed it and took it in still fully painted. Are the doors bare, primed or painted?

Thank you for the offer. I have the socket, it's just that this car has spent a previous life in a swamp, they're not coming off without destroying the boots for more purchase, leverage or heat. Getting a few out without destroying anything might be fine but there's no way all 12 will come out. It's not helping that both axles spin freely now... lol. I've accepted this will take a few weekends now and, as long as I can get them off without trouble, am happy to remove the rear arms - shocks, springs and swaybar are all already out (I was replacing the shocks anyway).

The first one is horrific. In the second one, this seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable permanent position for them.

Accepted that the half shafts aren't coming off the diff so the rear arms need to come out to replace the wheel bearings. Big picture it's not so bad, it will require an alignment so it forces me down the path of doing the front end at the same time and I need a WoF anyway. I thought the bearings might take 2 days max, lol. But I am learning a lot about brute force.

I've gotta ask, who needs two Estoril Blue e36 doors?

Left front door, steel (41518230467) = 16.980 kg Left front door, aluminium (41518188861) = 9.400 kg So it's 7.5 kg per door, that's meaningful weight, especially so far out from the longitudinal centre of gravity.

The alu shells are ~7kg less each IIRC. Was a total steal, they can't have known how valuable they actually were.

Yes, you're right, you wouldn't get half of that for $1400 if you went to a pro. They're awesome, GLWS.

Downloading Waze now, let's see if it can get to and from work quicker than Google Maps.

I'm laughing at the first bit. Agreed, sharp price for the right buyer.

Wicked, can you feel the V-TEC kick in now?

My complaint was actually with Invision forum software, it needs a secure BBCode/HTML editor. Reddit has always been a nightmare to navigate once you're outside the main topic.

I want to work for the Institute of Explosive and Combustion Engines.

Very Hommage, I like it.

Cheers, that's quite cool. I wonder if it fits the S50?

Pointers to such a tool? (not that I've spent any time searching) I'm thinking of doing all of my cam cover bolts in the aluminium. With a suitable guide for a hand drill it's an easy enough job at home. I've already done 2 of the 14 (?) out of necessity.

No idea why the first post is screwed up (for me at least) but everybody needs to check out this reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/PraiseTheCameraMan/ Boy this forum software sucks balls.

Agreed. It's the shitty climate and lack of indoor parking that destroys UK cars, not the salt on the roads. But any car that's lived a life in the UK needs to be thoroughly checked for rust, it's simple risk mitigation.