M3AN

^ Cheers buddy. Now I just need to work through that 'track ready' list and address a couple more things (that's a list that never ends) and we can hit Hampton Downs - I won't be keep up with you but it'll be fun anyway. I thought to myself after you left that we missed a good opportunity on a sunny day to get a pic of 1 Sweet and 1 Mean Estoril M3 together!

^ cheers and agreed, peace of mind.

PSA: Expansion Tank Return Line An interesting one this - part number 17112227483 and less than $30 from BMW NZ - although I have no idea of the failure parameters and I've never heard of one failing I'd recommend replacing yours anyway. Mine basically perished in my hands when I removed it. Difficult picture but here are 4 of the 5 or more bits it fell into. I don't think you can test this pipe without breaking it and yours may be fine but for $30 I'd consider a preventative replacement because if that line blows you're out of action. Bonus Update: No coolant leaks so far!

More Cooling System I (practically) finished the job today, all the covers need to go back on but I needed the car to cool down after filling and testing. Today it took much, much longer than I expected - around 6 hours all up and that's on top of the time I described in my recent post! The journey I went through, appended to the last list is: 12. remove radiator (and clean dead animals from front) 13. attempt to remove hose clamp from back of water pump (fail) 14. remove 5 water pump bolts 15. crank engine by hand for clearance for 6th water pump bolt 16. loosen water pump with rubber mallet 17. spend 60 mins accessing and loosening hose clamp (as per #13) 18. remove water pump 19. spend 60 mins cleaning half of the old gasket off -- break for beer. 20. spend another hour cleaning the other half <angry> 21. install new pump and gasket (curse for not noting exactly how the hose mated) 22. spend 20 mins second-guessing where the hose should mate 23. torque water pump bolts 24. install and torque thermostat and housing 25. realise I've failed to install the engine bracket 26. undo thermostat housing bolts, place engine bracket, reinstall housing bolts 27. install TPS and bracket 28. install belts 29. install radiator and hoses 30. install new return line to expansion tank 31. fill with coolant That took a lot longer than I expected and was much more intricate than I expected. To be honest it was a real PITA! And just to make me feel even better the water pump that came out seems to be in perfect condition (it's original based on the stamped production date and it has a metal impeller - manufactured week 23 1996). + 1. The hose clamp I needed to remove at the back of the pump was obviously done up at the factory with the engine out of the car, it was almost entirely inaccessible and I had to turn the head about 1 degree each time, it took me a seriously ridiculous amount of time to get this out. 2. The lowermost bolt on the water pump (S50B32 only) is accessible through a slot in the harmonic balancer, crank the engine manually to align access slot. 3. After spending 60 mins scraping 50% of the old gasket off I pulled out the Dremel with a couple of abrasive buffs and spent another 60 mins cleaning it all up and making it smooth. Least satisfying two hours of my life. 4. Self bleeding coolant systems rock! + Given that the thermostat and water pump I replaced look perfect I'm not sure this job was worth the anguish I went through but it's done now and, aside from leak paranoia, should be something less I need to worry about. We shall see...

^ but it tastes so yummy!

Mallet worked.

Yes, trying to avoid drinking too much coolant! Pump came off okay but the old gasket is making life difficult, I've spent an hour on that so far and it's only half off!

You could be right and I'm diabetic so I better not drink it! Also means my garage will probably be filled with bugs tomorrow morning... :-/

I've updated the post above from earlier in the day for folks interested in my cooling system. Cheers, you're right. Now with TIS also loaded up on the laptop I made a little trolley for the garage for it out of a beat up old TV cabinet on its side with some nice castors. Now I just clip the laptop into the docking station and I'm away! All the info I need right beside me.

Cooling System Maintenance Today I finally started my cooling system 'overhaul' after collecting a number of parts including thermostat, water pump, expansion tank return line, o-rings, gaskets, lots of coolant and distilled water. My radiator hoses look like new so I'm keeping those. I've never done this before and there are no DIY's out there for the S50B32 and even the BMW TIS articles are pretty useless. It's not complex but some things aren't immediately obvious the first time around. I'm about 2 hours in (the rest is for tomorrow) and have achieved: 1. Jacked front of car onto stands 2. Removed front and rear underbody covers 3. Removed radiator cover 4. Released expansion tank cap 5. Drained radiator 6. Located block drain plug and drained block (what a mess!) 7. Removed radiator hoses 8. Removed TPS and bracket 9. Removed thermostat and housing 10. Removed hard return line to expansion tank 11. Removed belts and water pump pulley So I haven't even removed the water pump which seems a silly place to stop but it was just too dark out to continue (and I wanted a beer). I plan to finish up tomorrow. Some notes: 1. Draining the block in the prescribed manner (Bentley, TIS, web forums etc) makes a total f^%@ing mess! The prescription is - release expansion tank cap -> drain radiator -> drain block. I'll do it differently next time - remove drain plug from block and arrange funnel and bucket (very little coolant should come out because the system is still pressurised) -> release expansion tank cap (block will start to drain rapidly) -> drain radiator. - Anything wrong with that idea? 2. Clearance on two of the thermostat housing bolt heads is marginal for any socket, impossible for many - test fit your sockets before you start this job. 3. A ratcheting spanner will make removing the block drain plug immeasurably easier. 4. My return line - the hard one that runs up the passenger side of the car to the expansion tank - practically fell apart at the ends as I removed it. I'll investigate this a little more tomorrow to determine how fragile the rest of it is and report back. 5. Coolant tastes quite sweet which surprised me as I thought all man made poisons were required to taste real bad.

I hope it's easy, BMW procedure (which I won't follow) requires removal of harmonic balancer for access!

Yep, anything's a bonus, will keep that in mind, thanks Kyu. Yeah, I think I'll start with the radiator and assess from there.

M3 housing is already aluminium, the rest will be upgraded including a new thermostat. End links were about US$25 each from FCP Euro, obviously shipping on top of that. You can get them in NZ for not much more, I added them to a pre-existing order. This will be my first (my mate's lasted 240k kms) and yes the replacement has a metal impeller. I have no idea what's in there, it's not given me a problem, this is preventative maintenance. I'm debating whether to remove the front bumper and radiator support to make the job real easy and allow me to really clean up in there or whether that's more of an effort than the job itself? Accessing the 3rd water pump bolt on the S50 is slightly difficult but on the other hand my radiator support may be spot-welded on.

Glad it's appreciated. Water pump replacement and cooling flush next.

As posted in the 'What did you do...' thread I finally got all of the BMW diagnostics and coding software set up on my computer. It's archaic software that's both configuration sensitive and very temperamental and took countless hours to get right. But I'm there now and am impressed by the amount of information and control it gives you. Just to check the DIS software out I bled the ABS system and ran a VANOS test (passed thank goodness!) which is all quite impressive, activated a few switches and relays, cool. Cleared all of the historical and shadow codes, took her for a drive and checked codes - zilch! - can hook this up to any E36 with a 20 pin round connector in the engine bay for those interested in a free scan.

Front sway bar end links arrived from FCP Euro today so I put the sway bar back in with those... the ones that came out were dire. Back to non-bus handling!

I learned a few things today: the noise I describe above was definitely coming from the front swaybar end links; and, the car handles like a bus without a front swaybar. Took the front swaybar and end links out as it seemed the easiest way to be definitive about the clunking even though the balljoints appeared in pretty bad shape. It was pretty clear when I dropped the links how shot they were so it no surprise that the noise was gone when I took it for a test drive. It surprised me more that both sides failed at the same time. I do not recommend removing your front swaybar as a handling upgrade... It's woeful around corners and tramlines like crazy. New links should be here next week I hope. Also confirmed with the machine shop that they can cut ventilation groves in my new steering tie rods when they arrive which will be great because I'll have no fitment concerns then.

I'm heading in that direction... new shocks, springs, sway bar and bushings, links and tie rods/ball joints on the way. Mine is also only apparent at low speed but has developed rapidly. On Friday it started to happen occasionally and I (think I) isolated it to the right front, but now already with very little mileage it's spread to the left front as well. On this basis alone I can only assume (read: hope) it's sway bar (and not subframe) related. I'll jack it up tomorrow and check the links... new ones inbound so I might just remove the front bar all together until they arrive. I'll have a sketchy front end but will know if the clunk is gone.

Oh for crying out loud. Now I have some serious clunking coming from the front end. It's both sides now having rapidly developed from nothing over <50km's. I suspect I've blown out my sway bar end links... I'm not sure it will ever end. Will have to lift the front end up (again) tomorrow to take a look. Now wishing I had a quick lift like Mark (SweetM3)... Ordered two new end links (and new tie rod assemblies and boots to fix the rack venting concern). By the time that's all landed, installed and aligned that'll be another $500. Soon this car will be 100% new again, and worth nothing like that much!

For future reference the required bolts (S50B32 VANOS) are a little different to those listed previously. What is required, all in high tensile 12.9, Zinc plated steel is: 6 x M5 x 16mm (intake piston cover) 3 x M6 x 20mm (exhaust piston cover) 8 x M5 x 20mm (4 each for the intake and exhaust solenoid covers) You also need washers for each of the above and the washers can not have an OD > 1mm more than the bolt head diameter (i.e. they must be small Outside Diameter washers). The washers do not need to be hardened which makes it easier to find suitable ones. The 9 perimeter bolts are custom sizes but do not need replacing, they are not included in the list above and I haven't measured them.

I'm delighted to report I've traced my oil leak back to the VANOS, it's probably quite a straightforward fix (famous last words?). I thought it was my valve cover gasket and replaced that (and stripped head threads), still leaked but gasket looked like it might be seated incorrectly, removed valve cover again, realigned gasket, clamped down (no stripped threads this time), still leaked . So today I got brutal with the rags, brake cleaner and degreaser and cleaned the area at the front of the engine up like it was factory new. Sure enough it seems the leak is higher than the gasket and coming from the back of the VANOS unit. This is good news because only 3 o-rings seal that area, the ones that are being used sat on the shelf for a while and I need to replace them when I swap my VANOS unit back in anyway. The leak is small, unlikely to get worse, in a 'safe' place and will be fixed shortly. Knowing this gives me confidence to drive it like I stole it and I haven't had that feeling for some time now. Sweet. Edit: something I did learn/confirm through this exercise is that 7nm is sufficient torque to lock down the valve cover. 8nm as documented in various web procedures and the BMW TIS stripped threads for me and is not recommended (by me).

I couldn't go back now that's for sure. I never thought the original was "terrible" but I never thought it was "great" either, the lack of feel on centre is something you get used to (I've had the car for >12 years) but the new rack eliminates that altogether. I've already "forgotten" how heavy this is compared to stock and am rapidly falling in love with it. Complete head-over-heels love is inhibited by my boot venting problem but I'm comfortable I can solve that and the only thing delaying that is a reluctance to spend more money on parts... I just need to seperate peices I already have, cutting tools come out tomorrow.

Agreed and replied here to keep it all together.

^ Why not, lovely day out!

^ PM sent.