Black & Tan 332iT

[usdmej]

And to anchor on that contrast, here's a slicktop orient blue wagon with manual, heated, sport natural brown interior at the Oakland junk yard:

curious what the "dibs" etiquette is for something like this at the junkyard? i've only pulled smaller parts but have always wondered what would happen if multiple people were hovering over a desirable spec vehicle

[George Hill]

curious what the "dibs" etiquette is for something like this at the junkyard?

First come, first served.

[usdmej]

First come, first served.

Ah so let's say if you're pulling the front seats from a desirable complete interior, someone is well within their rights to swoop by and snag the rear?

[George Hill]

Ah so let's say if you're pulling the front seats from a desirable complete interior, someone is well within their rights to swoop by and snag the rear?

The car is yours, the etiquette IMO is to ask the person pulling parts what they are getting and if its not something you want then tell them what you want and if you aren't in their way go ahead and pull them with their permission.

[Bry5on]

Finally tackled the oil pan gasket. Fun job!



Also while I was at it, I replaced the AC condenser, as a last ditch effort at helping the car cool better on steep uphills on hot days. If this doesn’t do it, the logical last thing to check would be the head gasket, but there’s no lost coolant over tens of thousands of miles, so I’m a bit stumped.



Also in the interest of getting the cooling system in line. The M3 belly pan has a plastic support bonded to its top side. This bonded piece supports the bottom of the radiator duct to prevent it from blowing air under the oil cooler. Well, the non-m belly pan sits about 3/4” too low to support this, so I blocked it up with foam to achieve the same effect as the M3. Anyone with a swap car should do the same!


And last, swung by a friend’s place and found two very clean LSB CSL replicas there. One in the middle of getting CSL cams and valves. Nice cars.

[0-60motorsports]

CSL Cams and Valves, Only thing missing from my car LOL

[Bry5on]

Now that the weather is cold again, I’m using the heated seats a couple times a day. And once again noticing the aftermarket-ness of the elements that were stitched in when the leather was done.

Two things bother me:
1) The stock seats heat up super quick, these take forever to get to temp
2) They don’t work when the seats are cold! Kinda defeats the purpose.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I purchased e39 heated seat elements a while back and decided I was going to reverse engineer the heated seat elements to make my own. Well, I took all the measurements and ended up deciding to just modify the e39 elements as they were a pretty close size match for what I wanted.

Some specs (measurements are close enough, used my fluke DMM):
AMX elements, 4.6 ohm total impedance. 9.2 ohm seat bottom and 8.1 ohm seat back
e39 elements, 1.2 ohm total impedance. 2 ohm for the bottom and 2 ohm for the back

The factory elements are rather simple, just a stranded plated copper 28-29AWG wire with a very thin, likely teflon, jacket. The seat bottom has a thermocouple that I didn’t bother measuring, but that’s it. The back and bottom heating elements are wired in parallel.

The measurements explain the slow heating story, the 4x impedance means that they heat with 1/4 the power (P=V^2/R in this case). So the math agrees with the butt.

The seat bottom mostly fit without major modification, but the back needed a bit of extra work. What started as a rectangular piece went through a transformation to an element that supports a nice warm hug. Some photos below.

Overall, works like stock now. Happy with this.

[Bry5on]

Well, I picked up myself one of these 3D scanners finally, so today was time to get my first scan and model created. The rear suspension.


Here's a link to the results, this is a scan at factory ride height, suspension compressed. You can peruse around yourself, take measurements, etc: https://s.digital3dcloud.com/space/0...0155&sharePwd=


I wanted the geometry and locations of the diff/axles for the next project, a proper multi-link rear suspension. Current plan, which looks pretty doable, is to build a custom subframe with e39 rear suspension pickup points. Then bolt in a full e39 rear suspension with some e60 wheel bearings/hubs and I should be able to just bolt my wheels back on and go. Piece of cake.

[D-O]

Well, I picked up myself one of these 3D scanners finally, so today was time to get my first scan and model created. The rear suspension.


Here's a link to the results, this is a scan at factory ride height, suspension compressed. You can peruse around yourself, take measurements, etc: https://s.digital3dcloud.com/space/0...0155&sharePwd=


I wanted the geometry and locations of the diff/axles for the next project, a proper multi-link rear suspension. Current plan, which looks pretty doable, is to build a custom subframe with e39 rear suspension pickup points. Then bolt in a full e39 rear suspension with some e60 wheel bearings/hubs and I should be able to just bolt my wheels back on and go. Piece of cake.

You will undoubtedly make it look like a piece of cake.

Really impressive build. Thanks for sharing.