BMW 130i - Birds B1 Dynamics etc etc etc

[Jacko 2158]

Day number whatever :

Waterpump and thermostat done, easy, lots of scare mongering online about these, but its simple. Took roughly 3 hours while learning how to do it, finding the torque for the bolts took awhile though! (10Nm + 90 degrees)

Banged the front swaybar in, suspension done!

Pulled apart driveshaft, new boots and bearings and shimthingees, easy.

Now.. Time to put on the bigboy pants and deal with the clutch and box.

[Jacko 2158]

Captains Log : Stardate 8999.4

Gearbox removal. No one died. This is a big job (particularly on Jack stands). Installed the #savemejebus jack and stands incase i had to get rough and it went pearshaped and tried to kill me.

1 - You cannot access the upper bolts from top of engine. N54 you can, n52 and its intake runners - forget about it. I have some funky snap on ratchets and tools, and none of them will fit.

2 - Its an E14, the starter bolt, E14. Dont believe the internet and spend an hour and a half trying to get an E12 to fit. Youre welcome.

3 - Lower the gearbox, push up on the front of the crank and jam wood in there to hold the engine up and box down. I had roughly 2.5" between gearbox mounts and chassis to access the upper bolts. It doesnt require much force, i did it by hand, but it needs to be held up at the front ( and it also stops the engine dropping onto the sump when the weight of box is removed )

4 - Long ass extensions and universal joints. The two top bolts are accessed from the back if gear box up to the back of head. Its a mare. They like to sit up there once undone, and not come out of holes, had to make a long ass hook device to pull the bolts out.

5 - The ali bolts come out pretty easily, 3/8th drive no wucking furries. The steel bolts require a big ass breaker bar as the 30 foot extensions like to wind themselves up. You will smash your fingers.

6 - Bit of a wriggle and jiggle and the box came out, lowering the jack and pulling it out in one smooth motion went really... Smooth.

Shifter assembly comes out easily, my car had what I thought was a pretty decent shift feel, but the bushes are totally shagged....

 

Bunch of pics, most are to remind me how it goes back together! (and apparently in no order...) 

 

This PDF here was very useful http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19266401&postcount=1

[B.M.W Ltd 950]

Chris... I am very concerned regarding your safety after looking at your pictures. The set up you have/using in your carport is so unsafe. When you start refitting the gearbox, if you jack up via the front crank pulley you will start lifting the car before you get to the position you need to get the gearbox in with out damaging the clutch center plate. An employee, a very considerable time ago did this on a 2 year old 325i which cost me sh*t loads but luckily no one was hurt. Without the right gear in the right environment I'm concerned you will hurt yourself. Please listen... I'm not trying to piss on all the great work you are doing and have done. I commend you on this

[Jacko 2158]

48 minutes ago, B.M.W Ltd said:

Chris... I am very concerned regarding your safety after looking at your pictures. The set up you have/using in your carport is so unsafe. When you start refitting the gearbox, if you jack up via the front crank pulley you will start lifting the car before you get to the position you need to get the gearbox in with out damaging the clutch center plate. An employee, a very considerable time ago did this on a 2 year old 325i which cost me sh*t loads but luckily no one was hurt. Without the right gear in the right environment I'm concerned you will hurt yourself. Please listen... I'm not trying to piss on all the great work you are doing and have done. I commend you on this

Cheers Glenn, appreciate the concern! No need to jack up the front of the engine, there is a block of wood in between the front of the sump and the sway bar holding it at the perfect angle of the dangle to install box. Should be as simple (in theory) as getting the input shaft on the right angle and lined up, then a little jiggle in. Its tight, but came out without interfering with the tunnel etc. Im going slow  The little jack in the pictures (with the wood blocks) on the forward jacking point is taking no load, its the "jesus" jack, same with the two stands under the front subframe. So there are four 3 ton jackstands (with the adapters for the jack points), the little 1.5 ton jack and the two 2 ton jack stands as the "fallback".

Since youve got me worried now, Ill also throw the wheels under there! Im not too sure what else I can do? short of dropping $5k on a hoist. 

[B.M.W Ltd 950]

All good Chris...... No it's NOT I'm very concerned you might or could hurt yourself. I would never allow an employee to put themselves in this type of compromising safety situation... I know what I am seeing is NOT SAFE

Edited April 9, 2018 by B.M.W Ltd

[Jacko 2158]

Day 108.

Shifter bushes all changed, turner motorsport rear bush and UUC bushes on the front. The UUC bushes are too long, but cut down with a scalpel easily.

Gearbox seals swapped, pretty straight forwards. Thought the rear nut was 30mm, its bigger, so the rear seal can stay. Its not leaking anyway.

Flywheel off, all cleaned up, and the single mass flywheel and clutch in and torqued up. Easy.

The original throw out bearing feels like its full of gravel, dual mass flywheel is sloppy as, and the clutch plate is well used... 236k, its done pretty well.

CDV removed, the orifice is teeny..Its like BMW intended it to be an option with quick disconnects on each end.

Now have a good old fashioned clutch and flywheel.

New gearbox mounts, and its ready to go back together.

[Jacko 2158]

15 hours ago, B.M.W Ltd said:

All good Chris...... No it's NOT I'm very concerned you might or could hurt yourself. I would never allow an employee to put themselves in this type of compromising safety situation... I know what I am seeing is NOT SAFE

Fixed. if I manage to push it off the stands, it can only drop about 5mm 

Edited April 9, 2018 by Jacko

[B.M.W Ltd 950]

 I hope it all goes good for you Chris

[Jacko 2158]

Day Tuesday. 

Box if beers as bribery and got some mates around to install box.

Cut the heads off two of the old ali bolts to use as guide "studs"

It went in and about 3minutes, all lined up freakishly well. No butchery required, very minor jiggling.

The top bolts were again a total nightmare to get in and torque, took about an hour per bolt, other than that all went smoothly. Pic of the extension setup used, and all the tape to hold the head of bolt in socket and the universals tight enough to guide the bolts in. 

Shifter reinstalled, feels amazeballs.

Clutch bled, its all downhill from here! Looking forward to seeing the difference.

[Jacko 2158]

Jack stands currently under going extreme testing 

[Jacko 2158]

Day D. 

It moves.

Exhaust, heatshields, etc back together. Bled the coolant system and gingerly lowered it back down.

Clutch feels fine, no noticeable extra noise or roughness from the SMF. Ill reserve judgment on the clutch until its broken in and I can stamp on it. 

Gearshift is epically tight, feels like its gated. In the little drive i took it for to leak check i didnt notice any vibes etc being transferred. 

No leaks, or fault codes ( other than the alarm battery nonsense )

Needs a wheel alignment (tomorrow) as its all kinds of crazy at the moment!

[Jacko 2158]

Drives awesome, now that that 40 odd mm of toe in is gone  

It feels firmer than stock, but nowhere near as crashy as standard M suspension, turn in and steering feel is epic! You can feel the diff working even when driving semi normally... 

 

Unfortunately it looks like it wasnt just the input seal on the box that was leaking, ass end of the engine oil sump gasket is weeping  Its not pissing out, just can see new "dampness" now its all clean. I wonder if retorqueing them is a good or bad idea (single use ali bolts) to see if it fixes it. Dropping the subframe to get the sump out looks like a lot of work.  

Edited April 12, 2018 by Jacko

[Jacko 2158]

500km on it now, still being gentle on the clutch, but, some thoughts. Its hard to break up whats doing what, since did so much at once - But

Turn is night and day difference. It feels agile AF. The front end is so much more reactive, and you can feel the extra camber. Body roll is minimal, significantly less than the M sport sway bars. Gokart is a bit cliche, but Gokart. 

The ride is different, hard to say if its softer or firmer. It is MUCH more compliant, but can now feel the road. Its like its deleted the potholes, but left the road behind. No more crashiness, however the assometer now senses the pebbles. 

Back end feels very planted, no more squirmyness under hard (in gear) acceleration.

With the clutch still being babied, its hard to say how effective the LSD will be, however in all the wet weather have definitely noticed the lack of the DSC light on the dash flashing at me every 2 minutes.

 

BMW should have talked to Birds when they originally did the suspension setup, probably not the M3 geometry stuff as its a little darty for the average numpty, but the B1 sway bars, springs, and shocks are a thousand times better than the M kit setup as a road car.  

3 thumbs up. 

 

Have been watching my oil leak, its very minor, can wait until the next oil change and Ill do it and probably the engine mounts when Im there. 

[Eagle 1672]

Good using kits like these where all components are designed to work together, sure it saves much time effort and money.

What sort of tyres are you running? Always make a huge difference

 

[Jacko 2158]

Eagle F1 A3s, 19s on 225 front 235 rear. 

[GorGasm 563]

Nice work!

[Herbmiester 931]

Great work, I admire your resolve. I am doing the front struts and springs on my e92 with M3 arms, any tips on fitting it all? I did M3 arms on the rear of my e92 along with stiffer springs and Konis and it is noticeably better in corners.

[Jacko 2158]

2 hours ago, Herbmiester said:

Great work, I admire your resolve. I am doing the front struts and springs on my e92 with M3 arms, any tips on fitting it all? I did M3 arms on the rear of my e92 along with stiffer springs and Konis and it is noticeably better in corners.

Nah they go in pretty easily, rattle gun helps in removing them from the hub. Just be sure to make sure the rubber bush on LCA is at ride height before you torque it up (otherwise the rubber gets loaded up and it effectively changes the spring rate (and kills the bush)) . I just noted where the hub sat in relation to the wheel well when on the deck, then jacked up the hub to that point before tightening.

 

Edited April 17, 2018 by Jacko

[Jacko 2158]

Forgot to order the rear lower control arm spherical bush when I did the rear end, easy job with the right tools - roughly 30m per side. Interestingly these are actually properly stuffed, lots of play, pretty much every other bush I replaced was still serviceable at 236k.

[Jacko 2158]

Got all the bits to do the sump gasket and engine mounts on it... and just realised I was looking at the wrong diagram and have ordered the sump bolts for an auto trans engine.. apparently they differ. Doh ? 

 

Im going to try drop the subframe while disconnecting as little as possible, some people say the whole subframe must come out (ie drop the suspension as well) others seem to have done it and left all the suspension together and have around a foot of clearance with the subframe still attached to suspension and the subframe simply lowered. Has anyone actually done this here and able to comment? 

[Jacko 2158]

Now all I need is some time.. looks to be quite a bit of work removing the car from the sump. Reasonbly cheap parts though, couple of hundred bucks for everything including all new bolts and the engine mounts. Even the engine support was only $80.

 

 

[Jacko 2158]

Day 1 take 2.

Lots of prep and some more cleaning.. Thanks oil leak. All looks good on the suspension.

Bumpers and bonnet off and off to paint shop to be resprayed. No more stone chips, for a week at least.

Turns out e91 fits many things. One wheel off for a kerbing repair, clipped an apex a lil tight!

Will leave oil to drain overnight, then front subframe out tomorrow.

[qube 3570]

probably the most pampered 130i in NZ! 

[Jacko 2158]

1 hour ago, qube said:

probably the most pampered 130i in NZ! 

And probably the first to 300,000 km  

[Jacko 2158]

Day 1.5 - cup of tea time update.

Anti drop engine in face bar installed. Had to tweak the tow fitting, knocked the edge off with a die grinder as it was fouling on the rocker cover.

Pulled the airbox out for access, and to get some light!

Subframe comes out easy. Few little things to disconnect, 4 engine mount bolts (funny lookin things) and 6 subframe bolts. Bit of a wiggle and jiggle and down it comes, along with about a kg of road stones.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Jacko