Vass

On 2/19/2023 at 9:33 PM, Eagle said:

Damn. Wasnt it 30 degrees down there today or something?

Yeah was a bit toasty that. Had to dry the seat out when I got home...

Those seats look comfy as. Wouldn't mind a pair in the lounge in front of the telly

Starting to think ol' Barbara has it out for me. That and a dose of me being a bit of a numpty. Had a few weird adventures lately.

Both the alternator ducts were missing when I got the car so I found an upper one on one of my parts cars, ordered a new lower one and fitted them on once I got the car up and running. Fast forward about a week and found the lower one rattling around on the undertray. The fittings on it are a bit flimsy so it must have vibrated itself loose, jammed itself against the belt and chewed through it. Luckily doesn't look to have done any damage to the belts or pulleys.

Last Friday was going about my business, filled the tank on my way to Supercheap to pick up some oil. Pull up to the parking lot and felt a strong whiff of petrol. Looked down to find a massive puddle of fuel spewing out from the bottom of the car. Either I didn't seat the seal properly / didn't tighten the fuel pump lock ring enough or just because I overfilled the tank but the fuel was overflowing through the seal on the pump side. Quickly got the staff to help, grabbed the spill kit to clean it up as it looked a fire hazard.

Video 1

Video 2

Undid the fuel pump to find the tank up to the brim and overflowing. Luckily I was already at the store so bought a siphon and a fuel cannister and pumped a few litres out. Seated the seal properly this time and tightened down the lock ring as far as it wanted to go. Looks fine now but will take a wee while to air out the smell of fuel from the cabin.

Still have a persistent rattle from the engine for the first second or two on a cold start. At that point I'd done 500km on the special 15W-40 running in oil so figured it must be time to switch to the usual Castrol Edge 5W-30. Way less metallic sludge stuck to the magnetic drain plug than after the first 100km, the oil looked nice and clear still but the fresh 5W-30 didn't fix the ticking either. Not quite sure what it might be still or whether to be too worried about it. Probably worth getting a set of new lifters at some point as the old ones did look a bit tired.

After the oil change, took the car out for its first proper drive today, a small club run to Arthur's Pass. Very nice drive with some nice hilly and twisty bits. Just 8 cars in total with an E46 M3 vert, F30 335i and an X5 outside the picture.

Mine was the only "project car" in the group and of course decided to be the problem child. Just before Sheffield heard a slight thump and the HVAC screen went blank. The fella behind me told me it also blew a black puff of smoke out the exhaust around the same time. Made it to the parking lot to discover the AC compressor had spat the dummy and spewed out some sort of sticky gunk all over.

Out of everything under the hood, the AC was the only thing I hadn't touched so naturally it got jealous and started acting up. The compressor was due a replacement to be fair but didn't want to touch it until the engine was all sorted. Will have to expedite it a bit. Luckily had my toolbox with me (as is a must at this stage) so just took the AC belt off and carried on.

Apart from that, no major dramas. The car ran really well, temperatures kept steady, pulls nice and solid, especially with the auto diff, although taking off from a stand still is still an absolute pain so will switch it out for the manual diff shortly. The alignment is all over the place but holds the road steady enough. Will leave it until I get onto the rear subframe and suspension work. Still keeping it under 4k RPM for a few thousand km's so didn't go too crazy, although did try to keep pace with the E92 M3 to enjoy those V8 noises.

The drive back was a bit of a pain with no AC as the outside temperatures hit 30 degrees. Might look into getting some of those wind deflector things that fit onto the tops of the door frames as the turbulence was unbearable with the windows open. Was absolutely drenched by the time I got home. Getting back into town I nearly got T-boned by an SUV that obliviously started pulling out from a side road right into the side of me which didn't help with the sweating. Luckily managed to swerve out of the way just in time. NZ driving culture man...

But yeah, a few gremlins still but not totally unexpected. Will just keep chipping away.

8 hours ago, euroriffic said:

Car was running the day we pulled it out, so no issues on that side, and have rechecked all the plugs and bits are connected so maybe an ews issue??

Don't think it'd crank at all if it was the EWS, the starter needs a signal from the EWS to power up, don't think it does anything else. Must be something simple like a loose connection/dodgy fuse or such. 

Hmm...

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/3987284341?utm_source=tmm-savedsearch&utm_medium=email&bof=92CaS1YU

"40k 6 months ago sounds very unrealistic..." 

Epic copium. Of course you didn't pay that. You got had. Do your research. 

Now with a fresh WoF. Flew through, only comments being the tread on the front tires getting close to borderline and probably needing an alignment, both issues soon to be addressed. The guys were impressed with the amount of work done and how clean everything was. Always nice to hear.

13 minutes ago, Harper said:

I would bet on the opposite. Clusters fail, the displays get dead pixels, the stalks on them are delicate and break, the needles fade and start to look like trash etc. SMG clusters are usually cheaper and more available, probably just had one swapped in.

The vin decoders are usually accurate for E46 M3 unlike the non-m with regards to what trans because SMG doesn't show up as manual or automatic, it shows up as option "S793 Sequential Gearbox M Drivelogic" and they don't usually get specific options wrong. 

This is almost certainly a factory manual unless the vins wrong. 

Fair enough. Haven't really heard of clusters failing being a common occurrence on E46's. Still, swapping a cluster over is quite an involved mission to get right, having to code several modules for the correct VIN and mileage and such. Next to that, undoing the 4 screws and swapping over the small backing panel from the supposedly bricked manual cluster to make it look legit is piss easy. If that is indeed what happened, pretty lazy to go through all the effort and not put a small finishing touch on it.

Quite a few bangers out in force at Skope. Here's a couple more. 

Had a big scare on Friday morning. Was going about my business, got to a couple of km's from home and the car just died at an intersection. It would then start up, idle for just a second and die again.

Video

Got a mate to tow me home, fearing the worst. First time the tow hook's come out in my 4 years of BMW ownership. Feel like I've done pretty well.

Only code I pulled was 44 Activation, Solenoid Valve, Tank Ventilation, which I didn't feel would be enough to stall the engine altogether but went ahead and switched out the EVAP valve, as well as the fuel pump, both of which had come from the 330i donor car, dated 2001. I put back the EVAP valve and fuel pump original to the car, dated 2003 and looks like the issue's gone away. So far so good anyway.
Have now put roughly 200km on the the clock since the engine rebuild, looks like most of the niggly issues have been ironed out, bar one. When slowly coasting up to an intersection in 1st gear and not adding any throttle, when I press down the clutch, there's a weird rattle/thump coming somewhere from the drivetrain, seemingly from the rear.

Video

Only seems to happen when depressing clutch in 1st gear with no throttle input. Doesn't seem to happen at higher revs when accelerating to switch into second so a bit of a weird one. I suspect it could be the diff or the driveshaft. Not particularly enjoying the 3.38 ratio altogether, 1st gear seems very short for regular driving so could be a contributing factor. Was going to tidy up the factory manual 5-speed 2.93 diff and drop it in along with the refurbished subframe after I've gotten reinforcement plates welded in but might do it on its own before doing the whole refurb to eliminate the diff as the culprit.

With the car up and running otherwise, I ticked off a few secondary little missions. Chucked on the front Whiteline strut brace I'd ordered a while ago. Quite well priced and contrary to the product photos, the bar itself is black so fits in pretty well with the rest of the engine bay. Really like the minimal design and lack of any sort of logos or writing, keeps it nice and clean.

Also went ahead and switched out the cluster strip / automatic screen block out plate I'd received from some fellas over on the e46fanatics forum. Didn't notice it previously but looks like the US-version has BRAKE and ABS written out in words instead of using symbols. Funny little detail but not too bothered about it.

The cluster will have to come out again at some point. Seems like when I was switching out the main big backing plate I slightly misaligned the tachometer needle. Was getting a bit concerned as the idle revs looked to be sitting at just 500 RPM. Hooked up the scanner and they're actually at a healthy 700 RPM so will need to bump the needle up a bit.

Just clearing out the garage of all the accumulated spare parts / clutter and will jump onto refurbing the rear subframe and brake calipers.

😍

33 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Add awful photos to the list

What's wrong with the photos? Looks quite well presented to me

1 minute ago, Harper said:

The usual vin decoders suggest it is a factory manual. Just looks like the cluster has been swapped out for an SMG one at some point. 

Fair enough. I might be wrong, but my money would still be on the gearbox being swapped rather than just the cluster for some weird reason. The cluster is usually a dead giveaway of a manual swap that's almost always overlooked.

VIN decoders are notoriously unreliable when it comes to transmission type. Some would no doubt also classify an SMG as being manual. Which it technically is. But really isn't.

Looks a great car and I'm sure you've done a great job on the interior, but I don't really understand the justification of a higher asking price because "the restoration of another car went over budget". Like I get you wanting to recoup some losses but those are two completely unrelated things.

Top marks on the well crafted listing, you've definitely put in way more effort than the previous mob and what you've done has definitely added value but not $20k's worth. Good luck with the sale regardless.

Also, and I don't know if it's news to you or not, but it's not a factory manual.

We need National to come in and privatise the roads. That'll fix it. And give the top 1% some tax breaks whilst they're at it. 

Recently discovered Just Rolled In. Incredible levels of stupidity makes for highly entertaining watching. Also, the amount of cars with bullet holes is utterly terrifying. 'Murica!

Also, far from an unknown creator, Adam LZ and his accompanying channels, Drift HQ and PSI, have been a good watch, especially of late. He found his first ever car from 10 years ago, an auto 325i abandoned in a swamp, bought it back, cleaned it up and swapped in a turbocharged S54. Good bit of fabricating there. 

2 hours ago, NZ00Z3 said:

The late model E46 (M54 with MS43 DME) has a 6 pin MAF connector.  It includes the MAF and Inlet air temp sensor.

Check the wires colour coding and work back to the DME to see what the extra wires are for.  Here is the DME pinout:  http://www.fekzen.se/StandAlone/

I think you mean MS45. Might be mistaken but from what I've gathered, only the US models ever got those.

Here's the 6-pin MAF. I ordered one by mistake but luckily caught it before the order was shipped, mine was the old 4-pin style. Mine's an M54B30 though so might be different for the M52.

Is this what the connector looks like? Surprised to hear the M52 having those tbh.

12 hours ago, Eagle said:

Sounds like drivetrain slop made worse by the diff ratio. Once you do the subframe, rear bushings and swap the diff it should be much improved.. I assume you preloaded the center support bearing?

Yeah, to the best of my knowledge. The guidelines I've read haven't been the most detailed so not sure if I interpreted it correctly but here's what I did:

How it sits undisturbed

How I tightened it down

I think the guidance was to push it forward 5/6mm, I probably got about 4mm but the washers already started hanging off the plate so didn't want to press it any further. Hope I got it roughly right.

12 hours ago, Eagle said:

I reckon you can tick that one off having done 100km and gotten it nice and hot.

I don't mean the gallery plug specifically. It's still a BMW, on a long enough timeline it'll revert to doing BMW things 😄

After a whole bunch of swear words and a couple of bruised & bloody knuckles, got the starter seated properly. Dropping the exhaust and driveshaft has almost become second nature at this point. Undid the trans mounts, tilted it backwards, undid all the bolts enough to get about a 5mm separation between engine and gearbox and in the starter went, smooth as butter. Getting pretty good at this now. Started 8am and had her back down on her wheels around 4pm so for once a job actually took me way less time than I thought it would. Goes quicker when you've got little furry helpers.

On the downside, it looks like the seals on the rear driveshaft joint are on their way out so another issue to address somewhere down the line.

The starter is back to singing its usual song, startup is smooth, lifter tick is gone and all seems to be ticking along pretty smoothly. Knock on wood. Went for a quick 40km run after dinner to keep putting some longer k's on. Such a great cruiser machine this, missed it so much. The power difference from the extra displacement as well as new bearings and rebuilt components is definitely noticeable, the power delivery is way smoother and more effortless, and as much as the 3.38 diff is a nuisance in 1st & 2nd, it makes up for it by livening up 3rd & 4th. Have a local club run to Arthur's Pass coming up in a few weeks' time, can't bloody wait.

Will book in a WoF tomorrow and slowly start digging into rebuilding the brakes and rear subframe.

11 hours ago, Eagle said:

By lurching and you saying its bucking forward and back when accelerating in lower gears?

Yeah, basically. Don't know how to describe it better. Not every time though, got the hang of it after a while and just applied throttle more gently, basically being a grandpa off the line. Only happened when taking off or when coasting in 2nd and start applying throttle from zero. Might just be a matter of getting used to it and the short diff.

More concerningly though, figured out what the deal with the starter is - it didn't seat properly. Realised what I'd done wrong. When installing the transmission, the first thing I did was tighten up the 4 big bolts, lifted the rear of the transmission in place and bolted up the mount. Only then did I go to seat the starter in place and although the bolts (somehow) torqued up to spec, on closer look, it clearly sits at an angle, the pin at the top of the bell housing not going into the hole and pressing against the casing so the starter sat with the top tilted outward. Surprised it started up at all and luckily doesn't look to have done any real damage. 

What must have happened is the backing plate got tightened down just a millimeter or two out of whack. Played around with if for a good 2 hours yesterday and just cannot get it to seat even - either the bottom's in and the top pin rests against the rim or the pin is somewhat aligned and the bottom edge sticks out.

Such a tight and awkward space as well, can't really see much of what you're doing and just going by feel. I guess all I can do is drop the exhaust, driveshaft again, tilting the engine back to get to the damn top bolts, crack all the bolts slightly loose and try align the backing plate properly. Can almost do it with my eyes closed at this point... Super annoying but happy to have caught it before it grenaded itself.

In more positive news, how good is this? Not a single drop of fluids on the bottom covers. Taking bets on how long it remains like this 😄

Oil change done. A good amount of magnetic sludge in there, as to be expected but nothing too concerning otherwise.

Another wrenchfest incoming. 

Kicked off the reassembly straight after work yesterday and couldn't stop myself until it was all put together... at 4am. Despite mustering up just the 3 hours, didn't manage to stay asleep past my usual 7am so got up and went for a drive. Did the steering angle sensor calibration with BMW Scanner which cleared the trifecta lights from the dash. Only annoying light that remained was the fuel level warning...

Did some varied driving, slow bits around the neighbourhood at first followed by a scenic ride through Sumner - Governor's Bay - Dyers Pass. Did a bunch of gentle rolling pulls from 2k to 4k RPM and coast down to 2k, then hit some hilly-twisty bits, frequently stopping to check for leaks and temps. Clocked up just over 100km.

The car starts up fine but the starter seems to make a different sound than what I can remember, bit of a higher pitched whirring noise with a slight rattle. The last startup I did when checking for leaks I forgot that I hadn't put the flywheel on the night before so it spun over freely without and load for about a second. Don't know if that would have done anything but hope it didn't stuff it. The starter itself was from I believe 2012 so was replaced at some point, I took it apart, checked that the brushes were still good and lubed it up so does function as it should. Not sure what the issue might be but will monitor it. When removing the gearbox, it got caught on the sound deadening fabric and ripped it a bit so it could just be the extra noise coming through.

The engine feels super solid, got more used to the gearbox as the drive went on. Power feels good and effortless, idle is smooth but had a couple of patches of grumbling when sitting still at lights. The gearbox still feels lurchy / jittery at times in 1st & 2nd. Even when not changing gear but, for example, going over railway lines all the way in second, it starts lurching when getting back on the power. Hopefully it goes away as the clutch beds in properly. The 3.38 diff probably doesn't help either, first gear is virtually useless, definitely not sticking with it long-term.

Otherwise, absolutely buzzing to have gotten to this point. Small gremlins aside, the car is an absolute joy to drive, tracks nice and straight, the ride is smooth, and it'll only get better from here as I kick on with refurbing the rear subframe, suspension, brakes, wheel bearings etc.

Thanks to everyone that's chimed in with advice and encouragement along the way. Special shout out to @Eagle who's been a massive help throughout. Absolute legend mate.

Probably overkill this soon but will do a quick oil change and do another 500km with the running in oil. Will take the bottom covers back off and give everything a once-over whilst I'm at it but nothing seems to be leaking past them so far anyway. Happy days.

Nah, yolo, do it for the love. Love your work! Keep them oldies alive

For a while now I've been periodically flicking through damaged car auctions on the lookout for cheapish parts cars and potential projects, and once in a while you come across some cars that make you seriously quiver and leave you wondering how something like that even happens. There's been a few impressive ones out there so figured I'd start a bit of a collection of the best (worst?) ones as a bit of fun.

To start off, this little beauty that looks like it did a backflip into a concrete pole, repeatedly. The extent of damage is almost impressive, actually. Not even the worst one I've seen, but do hope no-one was in it when whatever it is that happened, happened.

Well, looks like we're onto a winner. Blue Loctite 243 seems to have done the job.

Thoroughly cleaned the threads and sat it in just a mm in from flush. At the same time did the same on the old engine as a test. Took it out the next morning to check and it looks to have set pretty well.

Compare that to the Permatex 59235 that got completely washed out and didn't set at all.

Anyway, ran the engine for a couple of minutes last night and so far so good. Haven't put it under any real load yet but previously the oil began dripping down within seconds. Removed the flywheel and didn't find any other signs of leaks, everything is bone dry. Happy days.

Video

Started putting everything back together now and hoping to finally go for a longer drive over the weekend.

Jumped on and reset the self-adjusting pressure plate. Looking at the before and afters, it doesn't look to have made much of a difference so it hadn't gone out of whack by much, but good to make sure anyway. Did it by bolting it down onto a piece of ply laid over a pallet instead of using jaw pullers, similar to this video.

Before

During

After

Also made up a couple of tidy plugs for the O2 sensor wiring out of old sensors. These will properly clip into the brackets and keep the wires from rattling around under the beauty covers. Might later remove the redundant wiring altogether.

Will just have the ABS light trifecta to clear away from the cluster after everything is back together. I suspect it's just a matter of going through the steering angle sensor calibration procedure as I did play around with it a bit. Will see how she goes.

Quite surprised to hear a 5-year-old car to already wear its rotors out when there's heaps of 20-year-olds still kicking about on stock ones. Sure enough the newer cars are getting heavier and heavier but damn!

I'd say it's definitely worth getting into the DIY habit if you want long-term BMW-ownership to be even remotely financially viable, and as others have noted, a brake job is just about the easiest first step on that journey.

For starters, I'd get this tool kit, currently on sale and is great value. I've found that it packs all you need and more for 90% of the jobs you're likely to take on. Might not be pro quality stuff but there's lifetime warranty on most bits in there. My set is now 4 years old and the 3/8 in ratchet decided it doesn't want to ratchet anymore the other week, took it in and got it replaced, no questions asked. Throw in a jack and some jack stands and you're pretty much set for a lifetime DIY goodness for less than $400. For your particular car I think you'll also need 6mm & 8mm hex sockets, and probably a torque wrench but just gut'n'tight should work as well.

Then go to RealOEM, put in the last 7 digits of your VIN and look up the part numbers. Put those into FCP Euro, they're pretty reliable for telling you the OE manufacturer of the parts. Then look up the same parts on Spareto (they stock a heap more different manufacturers but I'd stick to the OE brands wherever possible). Compare stock availability, prices between the two and off you go. Purchase date to delivery has mostly been about a week, sometimes 10 days. Also keep in mind that (at least for now) Spareto lists prices with European GST included but takes it off when you go to checkout and put in the shipping address, so assume another 20% off the prices when looking up the parts.

Once you get the parts, just dig into it. I've found Youtube to be invaluable, especially when starting off and you can always ask on here if you run into trouble. Here's a great video on a brake job on the F30 platform which should be very similar if not identical to your F36 so you won't be going into it blindly.

It does seem prohibitive and more complicated than it actually is when first starting off but once you knock out one or two jobs you start to realize that it's hardly rocket science and most jobs are very much doable with very minimal tools and prior experience. The more you do, the easier it gets. Good luck!

Cool cool. I've just cleaned everything up again and reinstalled the plug with a small lake's worth of 243 Loctite. Might let it cure for an extra day and try it out on Friday maybe. If it still leaks then I'll hit you up for that 2701 stuff. Or is it just readily available from Bunnings and such as well?