KwS

Ugh, What a terrible place to hide a starter motor. I had to do it though, mine was getting worse and worse. Yet another issue I wasn't made aware of when I obtained the car, was that it has an intermittent starting issue, where the starter motor will whirr into life, but not engage the flywheel. This only seems to happen when the engine is hot, and usually it takes a couple of tries and then the solenoid will throw the bendix correctly, and start the engine. BMW loves to hide critical items, in terrible places. The starter is a good example of this. As something that shouldn't need to be replaced often, of course it's going to be hard to get at, and the bolts super tight/seized. Here it is, hiding at the back of the engine, under where the intake would be "Oh, that's not so bad" I hear you say. Well, here are the two retaining bolts. Oh come on. Why do they have to face the back of the car?! What isn't that obvious, is that they are up against the fire wall, so you would need a very specifically angled spanner, of a certain length, to get to them. A straight spanner does not work (I tried. Even purchased a lovely new set of E-Torx spanners for the job. Sigh). This is what is needed A 1/2" ratchet, six extensions, an adaptor, a wobbly, and an E10 E-Torx socket. Don't try to use a 10mm 12 sided socket on them, or you will be in a world of pain when you strip them. The main thing that was useful here, is that most of the extensions I used were of the wobbly ended variety, which means they can operate at a slight angle instead of being dead straight. Without this, it would've been much harder. First step is to disconnect the battery, lest you short the starter motor terminals and either run yourself over, or burn the car to the ground. Now you need to slide under the car, and undo the bolts holding the transmission mount brace on. I didn't need to support the transmission, the engine stopped it dropping too far, but you will need a small jack to lower it slowly and raise it back up again once done. Also keep in mind that the fan on the front of the engine might get mighty friendly with the radiator; mine was already removed, but keep an eye on that, or remove it. With the engine and trans tilted back, and the help of your lovely assistant in the engine bay (using handy dandy step ladder), guide massive undoing rod of power up from under the car, onto the bolts and then using your muscles in the limited space, crank that ratchet and crack them bolts. Be damn sure to have your helper make sure the socket doesn't slip off the bolts though! My bolts were well seized, and took all my muscles and then some to crack them. Before removing the bolts, it'd be a good idea to undo the wiring on the solenoid, as this can be tight. Once they are cracked you can undo them 1/16th of a turn at a time with your fingertips until they finally come out. You will probably swear a lot at this part. The starter should be free to come out once they have been removed. There is a dowel at the top that the motor sits on, apparently this can seize, but mine was OK. Employ some percussive persuasion if it doesn't want to play ball. Once mine was out, I stripped it down to see the dirt packed, rusty mess that it was, and straight into the bin it went. Now, replacements are damn expensive. A genuine, remanufactured one is about $200NZD plus shipping from your preferred overseas supplier (and they aint light), a brand new one, is about $1100NZD plus shipping. It's also M3 and Z3M specific. Being the tight arse I am (or more like, being sick of pouring money into this car), I went with a different alternative. A seller on Trademe, RareElectrical, out of the US of A, sells a lot of starter motors and associated bits. One of their starters that was listed, matches the part number for my starter, and states it will suit an M3 3.0. Its only $157 including shipping. Cheaper than a second-hand one even. I know it's not genuine, it's a knockoff, but the seller has good feedback, so it can't be all bad. I took a punt and ordered one. It arrived quick smart, and it looks the part A quick side by side with the old one shows the solenoid is clocked slightly differently on the new one. This is one thing I had been made aware of, is that a BMW M52 starter (from a 328i for example) will fit and work, but the inlet plenum will contact the solenoid. Well, guess that's that, this is an M52 starter. No matter, I can make it work. Installation is the reverse, except I did the bolts up from the top with a 10mm ratchet. I said a prayer to the car gods, and I managed to not damage the bolts. I would highly recommend copper grease on the bolts, and dowel, before installation, just in case you need to remove it in future. And the wiring goes on OK. You can see how far upwards the new solenoid is when compared to the photos of the old one above. I insulated the main terminal with insulation tape, just as a precaution, but ideally what I have seen done is to ziptie a small flap of rubber over the top of the solenoid. The plenum does come very close to the solenoid, so I used some washers under the mounts on the plenum, to space it up slightly. It gives me about 3-4mm space now, using two washers on each mount. This is enough to easily clear the terminals and not pinch the wires. Before I put everything back together, I reconnected the battery. No sparks, no smoke and no flames. It's a win so far. Turn the key, the starter turns and the engine starts up. Obviously without the intake on I shut it off quickly, but now I know the new starter worked, so back on went the intake. With it all reassembled, still no sparks, smoke or flames. The new starter sounds very good, it spins so much smoother and quicker than the old one, and with repeated testing, hot or cold, it starts every time the ignition barrel lets it. Great success, now I just need to fix the ignition barrel.

Progress on the BMW is slow. Unfortunately I fix one thing, and in the process find something else that is broken and needs more parts ordered. The idle was still rough and it bothered me. It's not like I don't enjoy the sound of a nice lumpy cam, but the car shouldn't idle like that, so something was wrong. I ran through the diagnostics in the BMW diagnostic software, DIS, and the only thing that came back as "unusual" was the idle valve reading (0 kg/h) According to this, the idle valve is shut, and not passing any air, yet it is still idling. It should be between 8 and 18 kg/h, not zero. As it states, if the reading is below 10, check for unmetered air. Unmetered air is any air that enters the intake after the airflow meter, so it's not measured by the airflow meter. This is usually caused by loose hose clamps, cracks in hoses/pipes, or a failure in the Crank Case Ventilation system (CCV). I had previously cleaned and checked the idle valve, so I knew that moved freely, and I could get the idle valve reading to change by opening and closing the throttle, so obviously the valve operates, it's just not "needed" at idle. The obvious points in the intake to look at are the intake piping and elbow between the airflow meter and the plenum. The elbow especially is prone to cracking, but after a thorough check my intake piping and elbow were fine. So the next thing was to remove the whole intake again, replace all the CCV parts/hoses, vacuum lines and O-Rings and see if that fixes it. I noticed last time I had the intake off that the CCV was looking rather ugly, with a coating of old oil on it. I did check and tighten the hoses, but that obviously didn't make a difference. You can see it tucked behind the idle valve It's a bit grotty. Ignore the buggered knock sensor in the background. It's not throwing a code, but is on the list of things to replace once I sort the idle issue. I pulled the idle valve and CCV out I had ordered a bunch of parts for this job, so set about replacing the ICV piping and CCV. On the bench the CCV was looking pretty average All the hoses had gone very soft, but none of them had cracks or holes in them. This big top hose in particular felt like it was made of jelly in one bend Here is the new CCV oil separator with the new hoses. I replaced all of them, including the hose to the sump (not in the photo) Both hoses on the idle valve had also softened a bit, but were in useable shape. Unfortunately I missed ordering the hose on the left in the photo, so had to reuse the one on there, but it was in good condition anyway. One of the hoses has this weird metal plug in it. Not sure what it's normally for, maybe something emissions related? When I fit the replacement hose, I put a small clamp on that plug too, just to be sure it wasn't leaking Everything under here was original, as shown by the date stamps The other thing I needed to replace, to see if it helps the idle, are the o-rings on the inlet trumpets. The old ones were flat, and as hard as plastic I found it very hard to find information on these o-rings, so had to order from BMW instead of using generic ones of the correct size. So, here are the sizes for future reference. 52mm OD 2mm thick The profile difference new to old is quite different. The old ones were so hard one snapped like plastic when I removed it Much better. I slathered them in rubber grease to help installation. No photo of it, but the Fuel Pressure Regulator vacuum hose got replaced too. That is in one heck of a nasty place to get to! It wasn't cracked, but was hard and would've failed eventually. Since the intake was all apart, one thing I wanted to try was to smoke test the throttles/vacuum manifold and see if there were any leaks post throttle. Since the previous owner had these off the head, I had my suspicions that maybe there was a leak there. There was certainly some precedence for them doing it wrong... I read on another forum about smoke testing using a small container (jar in this case), some incense, and hose. Light the incense (I used cones as they are smaller and fit better in the jar), blow it out so it smokes, pop it in the jar, wait for it to fill the jar with smoke and then with one hose leading to the intake, blow into the other hose. This blows the smoke into the intake, and if it finds a way out, it'll be obvious where it's leaking from I ran it into the brake booster hose. This connects to the vacuum manifold which then connects post throttles I can confirm there are no leaks post throttles now, which is good. I haven't tested with the plenum and intake piping in place yet, but I'll do that next time I have the MAF (airflow meter) out. If it's all sealed, there should be zero smoke escaping. With the intake off I took this chance to replace the starter motor, since it hides under the intake, and was intermittently not starting the car. I will have another post on that job though. It was not fun. After replacing the starter motor I refitted the CCV assembly, ICV, and then the intake assembly with the new o-rings. It was looking like an engine again, finally. One last thing to replace was the fan clutch. The one on the car was locking when cold, causing the engine to run cooler than desired, and making a hell of a racket. I finally gave in and purchased a proper 32mm fan clutch spanner off Trademe. This made the job too easy, and I now wonder why I never got one earlier. The old clutch had a date stamp in 2011, so obviously it had been replaced, but didn't last long. It seemed to be a decent OEM brand; Horton, which is apparently a Sachs original unit. My replacement I picked carefully. There are a lot of knock off clutches around which don't operate correctly, so after much research I went with the tried and true Hella/BEHR unit. This is widely regarded as one of the best ones to buy. It also has the proper bimetallic strip on the front, unlike the knock offs which usually have a spiral. It wasn't cheap, so it better be good! So after all that work, what are the results? Good news, the fan clutch works perfectly. Bad news, the idle is still lumpy. Strangely, the car runs and drives like a bat outta hell, and pulls very hard, but it just wont idle smoothly. I need to run the DIS test again to see if the idle valve is working properly or not now, and I also need to smoke test the whole intake. At this point though I have decided that I'm just going to drive and enjoy the car, without worrying too much about the idle. I want to check the valve clearances in the future, as I doubt they have been done, but I'll leave that for future Me to sort out.

Just because BMW supplies it doesn't mean its the be all end all of "right". Just means it's the fluid that they buy in bulk that covers spec.

So as long as its 5W30 or 40, meets LL01 or LL04.... its a win?

From the 07 335i manual

Anyway. I don't need one right now, but so i know for future, does anyone have a valve shim tool for S50B30/32?

A quick update, finally put some hard KM on the Dragon Sports, and I like them. Took the M328i for a hard drive this evening, and no matter how hard i threw it into the corners i couldnt get so much as a chirp from the tires. Lots of grip, and no louder than the Yokos and Maxxis on the daily. Not sure about wet grip yet though.

CCV and hoses, ICV hoses, intake O-Rings, FPR vacuum hose, all replaced. No leaks, still idles lumpy. The last thing i can think of, is could it be valve clearances? There is a tick from the engine, and i doubt they have been done. The head was off a couple of years ago and unlikely they did them then.

It took 2 days for something i purchased recently to clear customs, despite the seller (Dick Smith) taking GST already. if everything that comes into NZ takes that long, instead of flying through customs like it currently does if under $400, it'll be mayhem.

I have on old three spoke from my car with no leather on it. Free if you can get someone to pick it up?

This has been flogged to death on here. Just buy online.

Selling something you don't have is against the terms...

What coolant do you use? Looks more brown in there than expected but can't say I have opened a radiator up in a while.

Can it even be registered here? Get it in under SIV is guess?

Mine came with the car, so not sure sorry.

I have one of these that i used on my E91. MHD and XHP worked fine, but I could never get any other OBD2 software, INPA, Carly etc to see the DME. Didnt work out why. https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/car-parts-accessories/bmw/accessories/listing-1952493547.htm?rsqid=0ed7ac2b91424e5bb7bb13a738837e85

I still want it ?

Easy to say now. Should've bid.

That Maserati is my sorta weird arse project, but with no way to get it on the road its as good as scrap.

I guess he means if it were stuck open now, fixing it would result in reaching temp quicker this better economy? Otherwise, no.

The doors though, guys. The doors!

15-16k

I really hope it'll be worth it in the end

Don't worry guys, this is the last post today; Just playing catch up. I had my suspicions that the aux fan wasn't working, and I wanted make sure before it caused issues. The temp gauge has been pretty stable, but in all the time I have driven the car I haven't heard the aux fan running, which seemed odd. The aux fan sits in front of the radiator, and is an electric supplement to the main viscous engine fan. You can just make it out behind the grilles in this photo. Its big. The aux fan is two-speed, with it turning on low speed at a certain temperature and if the temp still doesn't come down it will crank up to high speed. At high speed its moving a ton of air, but is very loud. On the E36 the easiest way to test the fan (other than INPA, which didn't turn it on) is to jump the connector for the temp sensor on the driver's side of the radiator. Disconnect it from the sensor, turn the ignition to ON, and using something metal, bridge two of the terminals. The ground is the bottom pin of the three (looking at the connector head on, with the notch at the top, ground is on the bottom), and the other two pins are the speeds. One should activate low speed when shorted to ground, and the other high speed when shorted to ground. Low speed High speed Now, if your car, like mine, does nothing when you bridge these, the first port of call should be fuses. There will be two fuses for the fan. Check the lid of the fuse box to identify which ones they are, and see if they are blown. One of mine was, it was the smaller of the two, so I popped in a replacement and tested again. This time I had both high and low speeds. Success. If you still don't have anything from the fan, turn the ignition off and check the plug for the fan (in the bottom of the fan on my car), and check to see if the fan even physically spins by hand (make sure ignition is OFF first!). You'll need to do more troubleshooting of our own if you still don't have any luck, as there are relays that can be tested too. I haven't been able to test the temp sensor turns it on automatically yet as I haven't been able to get the coolant hot enough (my viscous fan is over cooling at the moment; replacement soon), but I'll keep an ear out for it.

Yet another issue that was discovered on the car was that there were signs of oil leaking from the bottom of the vanos solenoid cover. This is a clear indicator that the solenoid seals are beyond their useful life. The other issue I noticed was that one of the bolt heads was missing from the cover, so that needed to be addressed. They are common for breaking over time, so I made sure to have some replacements on hand. I ordered a whole vanos rebuild kit, including new M5 seals (as per a very useful guide) but decided as I was limited on time, and the vanos appeared to be working OK now it was plugged in, I didn't want to take the time to rebuild the whole thing yet. It also didn't help that my fan clutch tool hasn't arrived, so I couldn't remove the fan to access the vanos unit. The solenoid seals are the most common point of failure anyway, and with mine leaking, it's a fairly easy thing to replace. First is to remove the solenoid cover. Its held on by 4 screws, with either a hex head (if original bolts) or torx (if replaced). The broken off bolt was still there, just with no head. I used some vice grips to slowly turn it until i could spin it out The cover was missing one half of the gasket, and had evidence of the bottom solenoid moving in the housing (the black circle on the cover is from the solenoid pressing against it). The bottom of the cover was caked in old oil The solenoids popped out easily, and as expected the seals were flat. The gauze filters were still fitted (usually removed when serviced), although most of the gauze was missing, like the last lot I serviced. Using a small screwdriver I broke off all the brown plastic for the filter, and removed it. I also used a scalpel to cut off the old seals. The old seals were hard as plastic, well overdue for replacement As with my last guide I used a 9v battery and brake cleaner to clean out the solenoids. They were surprisingly clean though, with nothing gross coming out of them like the ones I did on my old M3. Both give a nice solid click when powered. The new seals were fitted, and you can clearly see the improved shape of the M5 seals Everything was thoroughly cleaned, and the solenoids refitted to the vanos unit New gaskets were fitted to the cover, along with a thin smear of sealant to keep them in place The cover was then refitted, with one new bolt (I can't fit my Torx driver in the space with the fan fitted). I will fit all new bolts, and join the solder points on the solenoids, when I remove it all to refresh the vanos later. I noticed when I had the valve cover off that the intake cam sensor had a very big air gap. I know from INPA that it appears to read OK, but I wanted to look further into this. It turns out, looking at the sensor, the previous owner had pinched and hulk smashed the O-Ring on the sensor so it was sitting out quite a bit. The screw was finger tight too. Yeah it shouldn't look like this It turns out you can order these seals separately, but I didn't know I needed them so dug through my viton O-Ring kit and found one that fit well. The one in the photo was too big, but I did eventually find one that sealed well The sensor now sits flush with the head. It probably isn't making any difference, but it bothered me as it was. One last test needed to be done before I could go give it a try, and that was to fire up the old beast and run the DIS vanos leak test. This test is used to see if the vanos solenoids can keep the cam at a certain degree over a certain period of time or if the seals leak, resulting the cam angle slipping. There is some allowance for variation, up to about 5 degrees off target over 10 seconds if I recall correctly. I didn't test beforehand, I should have but I forgot, but after the seals my solenoids can hold the cam at about 3-5 degrees off target for as long as you want. That's pretty good in my books, for a vanos unit that has done almost 300,000km and never been rebuilt. I'll be interested to see if there is as much variation after rebuilding the vanos unit. So, after all this work, there was only one thing left to do. Hoon. The car runs and drives very well, with plenty of power. It feels much more like my old one, pushing you into your seat when you put your foot down. There are still some issues, like the misfire at idle, but overall it's significantly better than when I got it. Not to mention, it looks better! Loving the Style 24s and new Pirelli Dragon Sport tires.