Greg111

Hey John, my turn to chime in now, (even though this is a FS thread), as the others have said, way too much money has gone into this and proberly only a little bit more may need to go in to get it back up to speed, it's easy to make a motor reliable if you're willing to take the time to do so. To start with, take the dash out, (very easy to do, did Doug's dash on his M325i in 20min), fix the assosiated wiring under there that goes through the fire wall, get new coils, get connectors, wiring and maybe a new ECU etc etc, the oil leaks can only be a few things, rear main, sump, rocker cover etc. Time consuming i know but don't you have nothing but time now? Cars are expensive any way you look at them, i've spent two months on mine so far and the bills up to two grand but i have a passion for what im doing and the car so i'm not too worried cause i know i'm improving it and i'm gonna enjoy driving it a lot more too. As some have said, you have come this far..... I'm also happy to help if need be.

Very professional Tony, looking great.

No i don't have those but might be worth looking into with those struts the way they are. Ha you would know if yours is playing up.

Ha yeah it's a bit like that, mostly just bits of pinion bearing, don't know what would have caused it to fall apart?

Have started to pull the diff to bits now, got the bearings etc, just sorting the bolts, As you can see there is quite a bit metal at the bottom of the casing. I suspect the pinion bearing as sh*t itself as it feels quite notchy. Sorry about the size of photos.

That red cab is sex!!!

Wow, it gets worse.

Wake up Make toast Look at the toast Throw the toast away Nothing I have found out lately that a 1.5L of water before bed works a treat.

I'm so happy now.

Am i right in saying the E36 M3 is sopposed to run 0w60? Got this from the horses mouth (Jeff Grey).

That's cause it's the only one in HawkesBay.

Coming along nicely!

Didn't you just get your licence back a few weeks ago?

Oh well, fun while it lasted then.

Wil take any serious offers, try me. http://www.trademe.co.nz/a.asp?id=240290029

And that's me sold!

Right, shocks are back from being rebuilt, will fit them tonight. Bearing kit will arrive next week so can rip in to that too. Just have the rear hub bushes to replace, front and rear brake discs to get replaced (will get them slotted), four door cards and parcel tray to retrim and a few other minor bits and pieces to tidy up. All going to plan (and money) it should be ready around xmas time.

Have painted and cleared the front lip and painted the subframe, will clean and paint the suspension arms later on. Should be getting back the front shocks today so will fit them back up tonight, When i took the front strut brace off i noticed too cracks in the strut tower bolt holes, so will need to drill and weld them too, i assume that's from the suspension being a tad too stiff?

The collapsable sleeves aren't really reusable so will see what the go is when i get the pinion off.

You should still be able to spin the driveshaft without too much force? It's spinning the wheels different ways that should be the tough part, my LSD is super strong, can hardly turn the wheels different ways (Kinder like a lock diff), spinning the driveshaft should take no effort though.Got the bearing kit through a mate at SAECO. $235inc

A mate and I are just gonna do it ourselves, we're basically just replacing the carrier and pinion bearings and the LSD bolts. Can't be that hard to do. You broke your one already?

More photos uploaded of the diff, slowly getting them all up

Yep aftermarket speakers and head unit, as i mentioned i've wired it up correctly and works a treat now.

That's what i thought too but then wired it all up correctly and sounds much better now, my E34 was the same, hooked the amp up on that and now has much louder/better sound.Will post up pics today with what i have so far, make the paragraphs make a bit more sense

Right where do I start, the M3s having a bit of a make over/repair getting ready for summer, I’ve already started with the project but have been photo documenting along the way for the viewers. It all started with the diff problem that some of you already know about, it started making a knocking noise on deceleration. So again I thought while the diff is out I may as well fix and make better everything else. (That was needed anyway). Diff removal I knew straight away after looking at the diff that the only way it was going to come out was by removing the subframe keeping the diff attached. So out came the rear suspension/diff/subframe. Diff repair. Took the diff to work and opened it up, oil still looked fine as I had replaced it 1000km earlier, then noticed two bolt head looking lumps sitting at the bottom, cleaned them up and confirmed they were. After a bit more examining had found the LSD clutch pack was missing two bolt heads from the eight that should be there, needless to say have ordered eight new bolts from Jeff Grey. There is a little bit of damage to the crown wheel teeth but nothing a little bit of wet & dry won’t fix. Have also ordered a bearing kit for it too just to be safe. Brakes & Suspension. On removal of the rear suspension I noticed the bottom spring hat was on a height adjustable thread so was quite stoked, although it made sense considering the front shocks are. The rear hubs were also removed to get new top bushes. So that’s the rear sorted, I removed and sent the front shocks for repairing as they were leaking and weren’t really doing their job. Am wanting to replace the front and rear brake discs due to the thickness meaning they’re beyond skimming. Interior. When removing the boot interior I found an external amplifier mounted beside the shock tower, after tracing the wires I found they were all cut and bypassed. While I was not quite sure why this had been done I decided to pull all the stereo wiring out and completely start again. The original speakers had been replaced with Cewan Vega’s so assumed they were up to the job, thanks to a bit of help from Scottie got it all connected back up correctly, found the amp on wire insulated up in the loom so connected the remote amp on wire from the stereo naturally, tried it out, sounded so much better, still can’t understand why someone would bypass the amp? I had pulled the parcel tray and four door cards off to access the speaker wires etc so will get them recovered too. Did a few other little bits around the car, installed a fire extinguisher, got the handbrake boot stitched in motorsport colours to match the steering wheel, fitted a battery isolator, removed and repainted front lip. As the photos mention, huge mess with wires from here to Africa but all tidy now. More photos to come. Will update with any changes. Cheers, Greg.