M3AN

^ so holding the throttle down, by any amount and into any key position (1, 2 or 3), seems to do nothing at all. At least not in my tests. The digital rev metre on the climate control also doesn't register anything different.

I'll try it tomorrow and let you know!

Thanks for the offer, I might need to take you up on it if I ever do all of my hoses with the Roose kit. Clearance for a proper tool is my main concern, some of those buggers are pretty difficult to get at!

Yeah, I was surprised at how tight the tail sits! It took a few goes with the pick (I was working blind though). I didn't drain, the hoses easily stayed in place, even with some deliberately applied tension.

Yeah, I sort of stumbled on the pick idea myself due to lack of space and available access to the reservoir clamps. If you have easy access then you may just be able to grab the 'tail' with needle nose pliers and yank it off the latch/hook. That would be faster.

Cheers and no problem. Something will help someone sometime if it's written down. I'm jealous that you have access to a hoist! I'd spend so much more time on my car if I did! Good luck with your power steering, keep us posted.

I posted some of this in the "What did you do..." thread but I'll keep it here for the record books too. Leaking Power Steering This is a very, very common problem for the e36's and it occurs because the hoses degrade internally and eventually loosen at the fittings. Mine turned from an occasional drip into a constant drip so I needed to do something about it. I was fortunate to find my problem was at the bottom of the reservoir and not at the crimped ends of the hoses (although they'll eventually give way as well). To fix this I replaced the Oetiker clamps under the reservoir with worm-drive clamps. The Oetiker clamps are are pain to remove unless you know how and I used a hook pick to lift the "tail" off the "latch" which immediately opens the clamp. Replaced those with screw tight worm-drives and not a mil spilled in the last few days. I'll eventually need to replace the hoses but would be keen to do that only when I need/want to replace the rack. Cold Air Intake Reinstalled I recently removed my carbon airbox to see if that was the cause of my hesitation problems (it wasn't, that was the throttle position sensor) and have since reinstalled it. When I put it back in I included a temp probe inside it and a separate one in the engine bay - I wanted to establish whether it really was a "cold" air intake. It does appear as if it offers sufficient isolation from the surrounding heat to do the job. Perhaps one day I'll do a back-to-back comparison with the stock box and heat shield but for the time being I'm happy. Once I'm up and running at ~50 kph temps in the intake drop rapidly to a little above ambient and at 80 kph+ the intake temp is almost ambient (it's worth noting that I'm using the stock sensor to measure ambient and I have not idea how accurate or precise that is). So at the moment I have no codes, no leaks and it's running like a beast! Still on the hunt for the best brake options but my priority now is getting a baseline dyno (to compare to my last one in 2004!).

Whilst I don't want to count my bridges until they're hatched and am driving around whilst touching wood... I seem to have inadvertently solved my hesitation/miss concerns... I think. It didn't happen all the time but the symptoms were annoying and frustrating. Idle would occasionally bounce around and I had more and more hesitation under mild load. * I got a smoke test and replaced 4 vacuum lines - problem got worse. * I removed and cleaned the ICV - no change. * I swapped my carbon airbox back to stock - no change. Then, last weekend I removed the TPS and tested it - readings were fine. I then reinstalled the TPS and re-tested and got different readings from one set of pins but these matched a known good M3 so great. Since putting the TPS back in I've not had a single idle or throttle problem! The car runs like new... As I say I'm hesitant to claim victory yet but the last week has been promising. If that is the cause then I can only conclude that either the contacts were fouled or the TPS is on the way out (and benefited from a shake). I'll keep an eye on it but at the moment I'm pretty chuffed.

Bellars Motor Works on the shore.

I deliberately went with "soft" poly for the reasons you describe. The ones I have in (SuperPro) certainly transmit some of the rear end undulations but only at a level I find to be reassuring, not annoying. And I'm thankful for this because it can be an expensive mistake!

RTAB's, Tyres & Alignment The results of doing this combo are great. I can't compare them to any recent known good configuration because all of mine were in pretty poor shape. I'm very happy with the results and the whole car seems to have responded very well. The RTAB's took 4 hours to install which is pretty long but matched my worst case scenario so not a problem. Vacuum Leaks Unfortunately not all fixed... three parts (two hoses and a cap) were replaced but during reassembly another breather hose was found to be bad... ex-Germany of course. I had Bellars Motor Works do the work for me because they performed the smoke test and have been pretty good to me recently. I was astonished when they let me drive away without paying and offered to only charge me once for the hours (airbox and plenum disassemble and reassemble) when I bring it back in. I think that's a pretty amazing gesture given it's not their fault the other hose was bad... and the car does run better! "GT" Splitters I was never sold on these but since installing them today they're growing on me quickly. Picked them up in Europe for cheap, they're just ABS reps but I wonder if they might get ripped off anyway!

Will it ever end? RTAB's & Tyres So the 2,000 or so km's I've put on the car since the VANOS job was enough to totally trash my RTAB's and in the process my rear tyres. The right hand side RTAB has completely collapsed and the left one is pretty shot too - half of the crush sleeve is visible on the RHS! I noticed it on the way up to the Bay of Islands last weekend when the rear end of the car literally "fell" sideways at speed around a tight bend, heart in mouth stuff. The inside of both of my rear tyres are ruined (threads are visible - although they were fortunately due for imminent replacement). So these are going in on Monday (bushings $175, installation is a LOT more): And I'm glad I'm not putting them in because they look like a real bitch to install! After choosing poly over rubber I had to decide what brand I wanted that was available locally and these SuperPro ones have some subtle design characteristics that were appealing such as grease channels to keep the grease in. Also there are significant advantages to the one piece design (which comes at the cost of installation ease) and many poly bushes are two piece. As for tyres I lucked into a killer deal on new Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetrical 2's: 255/35/18 - $299 each fitted and balanced 225/40/18 - $239 each fitted and balanced More rubber than I need but at less than half of the recommended retail I couldn't resist... I'm getting these fitted tomorrow but will need to keep the k's right down (i.e. drive home and park it) until Monday when the RTAB's go in and Peter Alder does my alignment. But still... it's another $1800 or so that I didn't expect I'd need to spend right now and I'll soon need 4 new rotors and all new pads... boy-oh-boy...

It's charcoal grey, certainly not black but it's pretty dark. More so than the light shade in the pics, yes.

Edit:

Whilst I'm optimistic this is the cause of the problem, it does seem likely, I'm not going to count on that until it's actually fixed! Knowing my luck it will just lead to something else...

They probably shouldn't have said yes if that were the case but it's not something to get wound up about, sh*t happens and their loss not mine. Although at $15 plus ~20 mins of labour it's hardly going to be an economic disaster for anyone!

I have a couple, including a macro shot, of it out of the vehicle so that should give you an idea. How I get them from my camera to my Dropbox whilst I'm in the Bay of Islands I'm unsure but will do my best. Worst case it will be Tuesday evening when I'm back home.

Thanks Mark, is that 20% discount for Bimmersport members?

Smoke Test & Oil Change In preparation for the next drive I changed the oil for Castrol TWS 10/60 based on local and foreign recommendations. I'm interested to see if that changes any behavioral elements of the engine/VANOS. The pan was drained dry using both plugs and of course the filter was also replaced. I also had a long anticipated vacuum leak test conducted using a smoke machine and that yielded the result I wanted. Yes, I have a significant vacuum leak! And I'm glad... because this is likely to go a long way to resolving my niggling hesitation problem. Unfortunately the parts I need a 3 weeks ex-Germany. But I'm happy this is now confirmed and it only cost me $15 at Bellars (I did try to use a forum sponsor but after talking to them they never contacted me back as promised). Edit: parts to fix are about $40. I also have an input (pinion) shaft leak from my diff seal and need to replace that. It's small and I have the replacement seal already so no biggie.

Headliner I finally got my headliner recovered and also the rear parcel shelf and a, b and c pillars. I'm happy with the results but my photography skills are not at the standard required to get good photos from within the car or through the glass to present here. I went with an Audi charcoal grey material that has a micro check weave to it and I think it looks quite modern. It's almost an exact match for the front sun blinds... I don't know if they used to be totally black either? Total cost was $550 and that was with me removing the parts and dropping them off at the upholsterers. Re-installation was a bit of a challenge because all of the tolerances have changed a little and this took me 3 hours. I'm not sure if it's all back in 100% (i.e. all clips) but the km's I'm going to do this weekend should shake anything loose so I can check it when I return. I got the b pillars trimmed also and they look great but it does affect the seatbelt retract somewhat. It's not a safety concern as one simply adjusts the seatbelt once seated but it does leave the potential for the belt (or buckle) to get trapped in the door when you get out. I'll take another look at this later but for now I'm happy with the trade-off.

Time for an update or two. VANOS The details are all in this thread here but I'll provide a summary here too. I've completed the full VANOS rebuild and it seems to have been successful after about 800 km's. I hope so because I'm about to put another 700 km's on it this weekend! The main job was (reasonably) straightforward but I had a problem with the chain tensioner (messy threads) that's covered in detail in the above link. When I pulled the VANOS apart seal degradation was apparent, I'm not sure how much life was left in the unit but it's good to know it shouldn't cause any future problems. I've not noticed any performance changes however. I did the rattle kit as well and that at least doubles the complexity of the job. This isn't an essential step but if you want the system to run as quite as possible it's worth doing it whilst you're in there. Mine is running quieter than I've ever heard it. It is a DIY but you need the correct tools, time and a lot of patience.

Nice one.

You're certainly correct for the others and probably also correct for me too Mark! Plus the new bolts are shiny... I just can't remember all of the sizes and only want to swap mine out one-by-one so I need somebody else to buy them and tell me what to get...

Honestly I can't feel any difference in power delivery. I wanted to feel some extra ponies but can't claim to. I'll get it on a dyno once I've sorted the hesitation and compare to Mark's (SweetM3) results in his thread. That will be a good baseline.

500/700 km Update I headed to Taupo last week (SH2, 27, 1) and racked up the final break-in miles. I hit 500 km's heading back north at the Orakei Korako turn off. From there I was heading to Hamilton for a night before cruising up to Auckland (SH1 all the way, yuck!). As advised I kept the revs low (ish) for the first 500 and everything seemed okay. I regularly checked for oil leaks or signs of concern but there were none. After clicking over 500 I made sure I used every opportunity to run it hard and it performed flawlessly*. I've now done over 700 km's since restoring the VANOS, including some very spirited driving and it's all good*. * I still do have a fractionally rough idle and minor hesitation occasionally under mild acceleration but this was a pre-existing condition that I hope is a vacuum leak (to be tested tomorrow). I'm heading up to the Bay of Islands for a dive or two (or more) this weekend (well Thursday through Tuesday ) and am going to replace the oil and filter before that with the Castrol 10/60 that seems to be in vogue. It will be interesting to see if that makes any difference. I am still very happy with how quite the engine runs, all those rattles and ticks are gone very shortly after the engine starts to warm up. Got to be a good sign right?