Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[karter16]

Update #18

Just a quick update. We got the car back on the ground last Saturday, and on Sunday we fired it up and did a systems check. The car started first turn of the key and was running fine. Power steering needed the air flushed out of the lines which we did, but apart from that everything was looking good. Got a couple of codes on the first run to do with throttle body position sensors, etc. but haven't had a return of anything like that.

We did a short test drive (after warming the engine up) and everything seemed good. Car feels good, we got the alignment good enough to mean we can drive the car (slowly) to the shop for its suspension alignment, and everything seems to be working fine. Checked the car for codes after the first run and all seems fine.

We're getting a couple of dash lights appearing under braking and reading the codes it appears that it's probably to do with the fact that the wheel alignment is off and the steering wheel/rack isn't currently centred when travelling in a straight line, so expecting that steering/acceleration sensors are getting conflicting readings - expecting this to stop being an issue after the wheel alignment. If it's still an issue we'll investigate further.


Car's off for it's alignment on Monday - in the mean time here's a pic of it parked outside :-)

[karter16]

Update #17

We're back on the ground!!!

Been a big day today - and we ended with the car back on the ground arrot:

This morning we started out by swapping the brake discs on the front, as Rajvosa quite correctly pointed out that they were back to front :facepalm:



Also while I remember, Dad made up a custom bodge-tool to do the steering tie-rods.

The interior size of the box-section is exactly the right size to do up the tie-rods, and so with an old socket welded on the other end we were good to go!





Then we were on to the drive shaft. We'd prepped it last week but were missing the gasket between the driveshaft and the rear diff. With that procured during the week from Continental BMW, we were good to put the driveshaft back in the car.

Greased and ready to go:


The offending gasket in place:


With some fiddling around, we soon had the driveshaft in place:





CSB in place:


We torqued up the driveshaft, and reattached the heat shield over the drive shaft, then it was on to reassembling the exhaust.

The exhaust system is a bit shiny-er than when it was last photographed, here's a couple of photos before we put it together:











There was a fair bit of fiddling to get the exhaust system all back in the right place and located correctly, but we got there, and it's looking good!










While we were there we also replaced these trim pieces as one of them was badly damaged, and replacements were cheap:




Then it was on with the plastic under-tray components and the rear brace (which I didn't get photos of) and then the (clean) wheels were back on...





A couple of hours later (really didn't want to drop it after all the work we've done on it) and it was back on the ground!!!



We hooked up the battery, did a final check of everything and fired it up. Given we'd run the starter last week, the fuel lines had charged, etc. and the engine started on the first key-turn. All sounding good (no clanking noises - win) and no dash lights. We let the engine run for a few minutes and switched it off. We were going to give it a short test drive, but night had fallen and we decided that it would be best to do a first test run in daylight - so we have that to look forward to tomorrow.

It's been 5 months and 3 days since the car went up on the jacks. With the discovery of the RACP issues, plus the decision to do the rod bearings at the same time, it's turned out to be a larger project than anticipated, but it's been enormous fun, and it's very satisfying to have the car back on the ground, and running :thumbsup2:

It's been a huge exercise, and I'm very much indebted to my Dad for the massive amount of time and effort that he's put into this project. It's great to know that the car's in good shape now and that the major maintenance items are all taken care of.

Tomorrow we'll move the car out of the garage, give it a bit of a wash and take it for a short test drive. Then next week it'll be off to BMW for a full wheel alignment, a WOF and the driver's airbag recall.

I'll also be spending some time helping Dad clean the garage so he and mum can finally park their cars indoors again!!!

:hattip:

[karter16]

Update #16

We're closing in on the finish! Next weekend we'll hopefully be putting the car back on the ground :-)

Today wasn't entirely without trouble however, but I'll get to that soon enough.

Dad did a heap of stuff during the week :hattip::

• Rear brake discs, calipers and pads on.
• Emergency brake reinstalled.
• The rest of the engine bay stuff back together.
• Front under-tray cleaned up.
• Finished cleaning up the exhaust.

Today we started off with reassembling the drive shaft. We started by attaching the new CSB, and then bolted the two halves of the drive shaft together.





Then we bolted the flex disc (guibo) in place.



(Note that the arrows on the flex disc need to point to the mounting on the drive shaft)


All torqued up



We then discovered that we had missed ordering a new gasket to go between the driveshaft and the input flange on the diff. Unfortunately the local dealer didn't have any in stock, so one is on order from BMW NZ and I'll pick it up on Monday.


I took the opportunity at this point to take a few more photos underneath the car before we put the reinforcement plate back on...

Steering guibo and new engine mount:


Steering rack and boots (with temporary "clamps" until the wheel alignment is done):




Front control arm:


Front left hub assembly:


Front left strut:


Fuel filter:


Rear brakes:



Next up was reinstalling the front reinforcement plate.
Here it is, ready to go on (a bit shiny-er than when we took it off):



And here it is installed and torqued up:






We then moved on to bleeding the brakes. Takes a little while, but all went smoothly, and now they're all ready to go. We also adjusted the emergency brake.


After lunch we got stuck into cleaning the wheels up. As was to be expected there was a lot of brake dust and tar to clean up. There was also a lot of sticky from balancing weights to clean up (always fun :raspberry.

Several rounds of wheel cleaner got most of the brake dust off. Then we used desolv-it to soften the sticky from the weights so that we could clean it off, then kerosene to take the tar spots off. The wheels cleaned up pretty well, the gunmetal grey colour looks great when it's cleaned up.

What's not great is that at some point in the car's past the rear tyres appear to have been changed by someone who didn't know how to change tyres on mag wheels properly. Teeth marks gouged into the wheel, and a giant scrape where it appears the teeth let go and scraped the inner circumference of the wheel :shifty:

That and the fact that someone has touched up the outer rim of the visible face of the wheel with silver paint, and didn't mask properly, so there's sliver paint on the gunmetal parts of the wheel have left me less than impressed with said person's work and attention to detail :facepalm:

Fortunately the wheels are in pretty okay condition overall, at some point I'll have them properly reconditioned, but cosmetic stuff is still of secondary importance at this point.

Here's a couple of shots of the wheels in the middle of the cleaning process.



You can see the gouge marks in this photo... :shifty:



While I carried on with the wheels Dad cleaned up the boot and reinstalled the carpet, etc.

It looks like someone had spilled something on the left hand side of the boot as evidenced in this photo:



So Dad cleaned that up, as well as thoroughly cleaning the battery compartment, brackets, etc.

Posed photo of Dad cleaning:


And here's everything back in place (unfortunately I didn't get any photos of the compartments all cleaned up - I was busy cleaning wheels still!!!):





By the time it got too dark to see, I'd got the two rear wheels pretty much done, but I still need to do the kerosene step on the two fronts, which I'll do next weekend.

Next weekend should be the last day of assembly on the car, we're hoping to get the drive shaft, heat shielding, exhaust, brace & faring all back in, and a rudimentary wheel alignment done with the car on blocks, before we lower it to the ground, torque up a last couple of things and fire it up!

Getting pretty close to the end now!

I'll finish with a pic of the engine bay - everything back together!

[karter16]

Update # 15

Had a great day today - we made heaps of progress! :thumbsup2:

During the week Dad had refilled the power steering system, and done the tie rod ends, so we were ready to install the front hubs and the rebuilt struts.

Hub sitting on the control arm, until we realised that the strut has to sit in the hub first :facepalm:


The (repainted) hubs and struts went in no problem at all and were soon looking like this:



Then it was in with the front sway bar (also repainted) with new end links and rubber and polished brackets:





Brakes were obviously the next logical step, so we installed the new seals into the freshly painted calipers:


And then installed the rotors, carriers and calipers:




At this point we also did a bunch of minor tasks:

• Reattach the front xenon level sensor
• Front wheel speed sensors
• Brake wear sensor
• Brake lines
• Rear hub collar nuts. (Which necessitated a dad-manufactured torque wrench extension to hit 250nm!)

The whole process went really smoothly and without any real drama.

Last project for the day was to put some fuel into the fuel tank, check that there were no leaks, and then hook up the battery and run the fuel pump, etc. to confirm there weren't any leaks anyway (fortunately there aren't).

We then turned the engine over with the starter motor (and no ignition) to get some oil distributed around the place. We initially tried the procedure listed here (http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=300689) but pulling the relay resulted in a car that was in no way keen on engaging the starter motor. We reinstalled the relay, and everything worked as expected.

So that marks a couple of significant milestones:
- Front end reassembly is largely completed. Only minor stuff to go now (reinforcement plate, faring, air intake to go back in, and mechanical fan, etc.).
- Engine turn over and test of fuel system, etc.

Key things to do next will be:
- Reinstall the front reinforcement plate.
- Rear brakes back on.
- Bleed brakes.
- Engine back stuff back in.
- Drive shaft in.
- Heat shielding in.
- Exhaust back in.
- Brace & faring back in.
- Anything else we've forgotten.
- Car off of stands.

The list is short enough now to write down!

Till next time. :hattip:

[karter16]

Update #14
Time for a big update! Lots has happened since my last update... Hopefully I don't forget anything as I write this.

The weekend after my last update ended we disassembled the front end. Pretty easy and straightforward process, and unfortunately I didn't get any photos of it.

We then moved straight on to the rod bearings. Removed the oil pan, associated hardware, etc.








Oil pump removed:


We then moved on to doing the rod bearings... To begin with it was actually an absolute mission. It just isn't possible for a single person to manage 105 degrees of angle torque when lying under the car (in our experience anyway). We burned through a couple of spare bolts practicing, and trying different approaches, but we just couldn't make it work. 70 degrees would have been fine, so I can understand how this would have worked for the older E46's, but we just couldn't reliably pull 105 degrees in a single stroke.

After some trial and error, and a fair amount of frustration on my part we came up with an approach that worked.

It takes 3 people, but it's a reliable approach. Basically the tool is as follows:
Bit -> Angle gauge -> 12 in extension -> long breaker bar -> breaker bar extension (pipe).

Person #1: Holds the bit, gauge, extension assembly in the right place, cradling the angle between the extension and the breaker bar against their shoulder. They're responsible for maintaining the tool on axis as person #3 rotates the assembly.

Person #2: Their sole job is to locate the gauge and call out progress to Person #3.

Person #3: Rotates the tool through 105 degrees.

Person #1 & #2 are underneath the car. Person #3 is near the front left wheel well.

It's important before each pull that you check that you have 105 degrees of motion available to you. We found that if we got it wrong we would collide with the front left jack stand.

This approach made the tightening procedure fairly straightforward and reproducible.

We did run into one further issue. We noticed that the bearings coming off the car had 437/438 stamped into them, and the new ones going on had 439/440 stamped into them. We were immediately concerned that we had different part numbers. A lot of investigation research and measurement later and we concluded that we had the same part, although we can't explain why the number stamped on the bearings is different... Part numbers ending 437/438 don't appear to have ever been BMW bearing parts, so we're a bit uncertain.

The real kicker though was that in the process of investigating all of this and measuring bearings, etc. we managed to damage one of the new bearing shells. This meant that we were only able to get 5 of the 6 bearings done while a replacement bearing winged it's way to Auckland... It was a bit annoying to not be able to get it done in a day, but ultimately worthwhile getting a pristine replacement.








I was away over Easter volunteering at a large Easter Camp event for high school kids (6500 kids), and then was also away the weekend after Easter with friends. By the time the next weekend came around the replacement bearing shell had arrived, and 20 minutes later we had it in place.

Before I move on here's photos of the bearings.

Yes, I know, there's only 5 in the photo. I'm a fail photographer, will replace this pic as soon as I get a new one with all 6 :facepalm:


Cyl 1 (Cap side)


Cyl 1 (Rod side)


Cyl 2 (Cap side)


Cyl 2 (Rod side)


Cyl 3 (Cap side)


Cyl 3 (Rod side)


Cyl 4 (Cap side)


Cyl 4 (Rod side)


Cyl 5 (Cap side)


Cyl 5 (Rod side)


Cyl 6 (Cap side)


Cyl 6 (Rod side)


For a car with 85,000 miles on them these seem pretty bad. I'm very, very glad that I didn't wait any longer to do them, and I consider myself pretty lucky that the journals are fine and nothing's damaged. Given I don't know the full service history of the car, I can't be sure how it's been looked after, especially in terms of oil changes. But at least going forward I know where things are at.


With the rod bearings done we then reinstalled the oil pump, etc. and refitted the oil pan (after a good clean). This took a surprisingly long time to torque everything up, but by the end of the day we had the subframe back on and the steering rack reinstalled.

During the week Dad reassembled the front struts ready for reinstallation. All looking good!



Also here's a pic of the front hubs painted up.




The next weekend we kicked into further reassembly. We started the day with fitting the new oil filter and refilling the motor.









And reassembly of the front end:









We then kicked into draining the transmission oil. We'd been holding off on doing this for ages as I'd been having real trouble sourcing MTF-LT-2 fluid. I finally managed to track so down so we were good to go.





Some family stuff meant that we didn't get anything more done that day, nor the following weekend...

This afternoon though Dad refilled the transmission.

Custom oil filler ready to go!




In it goes...


And here's the comparison of the old "lifetime" oil and the new.



This weekend we'll get stuck into finishing the reassembly on the front end. Turn the engine over to get some oil around the place and hopefully do a compression/leakdown test as well. Then it'll be on to reinstallation of the driveshaft, exhaust etc.

The end is in sight!

[karter16]

Update #13

So this weekend marked a corner in that we were putting things back onto the car, instead of taking them off :thumbsup2:

We started by reinstalling the fuel tank - no issues this time, 20 minutes and it was in :lolhit:





With the fuel tank hooked up and strapped in place, we turned our attention to the subframe. Originally our intention had been to assemble the rear axle out of the car, and then lift it into place.

We evaluated that option, and decided it wasn't for us. The amount of weight involved, and our lack of a transmission jack, resulted in us deciding to assemble on the car.


One of the challenges with rebuilding the rear axle is getting everything positioned and torqued appropriately.

With the bushes, etc. it's important that they are torqued in their normal (e.g. their position when the car's on the ground), as the control arm and trailing arm bushes are pinched in position when torqued, and you don't want to torque them in an incorrect position and have them pre-loaded when the car's sitting on the ground.

To this end, we did a lot of measuring to ensure that everything was set in the right locations when the bushes were torqued up.

Subframe back in the car:



Next up was the diff. We filled the diff with the SAF-XJ diff oil, and lifted it into place with the assistance of a dolly and a jack.

Diff on the dolly (prior to being set on the jack):



Here's a couple of pictures of it magically back in place:





Next up after the diff was reinstalling the hand brake cables, then it was on to the trailing arms...

We were initially going to mount the output shafts to the diff, and then put the trailing arms on. Then we realised mating the output shaft spline to the hub means some wrestling. To that end we pressed the output shaft into the hub, and installed the trailing arm and output shaft in one go.

Again there was much measuring and positioning to ensure that everything was installed and torqued up in the "normal" position.

Before long things were looking like this:





Note that in the above photo, the hub is NOT in the "normal position", it is somewhat lower (or higher, depending on how you look at it) than the normal position - resting where it is cause that's how long the block of wood is :laughhard:


With the trailing arms in, it was time to get the sway bar in, before the springs, etc. start making things really difficult.

Getting the end links on is the hardest part - we ended up using the press to provide a little extra leverage.



Even so - getting the sway bar in was slightly more challenging than intended - but a bit of tactical positioning of the end-links and we were away.

Then it was in with the spring and spring pads. Note the sway bar in, but hanging loose - to allow us to drop the control arms enough to get the spring in:




Then it was in with the shocks. We adjusted the Koni's (half a turn from full soft to start with) and put together the strut assembly.

New bump stop and protective cover:


At the top end it's new shock mounts & associated hardware, plus the reinforcement plates for extra security.

Here's a pic of the shock installed:



And the sway bar reinstalled:



We also did some extra bits and pieces:

• Carbon filter cover back on.
• Rear heat shield back on.
• Level sensor reinstalled.

During the week Dad is going to reinstall the brakes, and I'll get some new lock nuts for the hubs (the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed they're not torqued up yet!).

Then next weekend it will be on to disassembly on the front (we'll do driveshaft, exhaust, etc. at the end). The plan at this point for the front is to do disassembly, cleaning, rod bearing shells, cleaning and painting of parts in parallel, and then reassembly. Hopefully the front will be a bit of a quicker process than the rear has been :laughhard:

For now - I'll end with a few more photos:

[karter16]

Update #12

Couple of weeks since I last updated here!

After epoxying the plates and waiting for them to set they looked like this:









Notice how the epoxy has turned purple now that it's set! Cool visual indicator...

Really pleased with how the epoxy process has gone. We got good beads around the edges of the plates, without too much excessive spill, meaning we got the quantity of epoxy about right.

With the epoxy set, we next cleaned up the plates and excess epoxy with the die grinder, cleaned the surface with acetone, and then undercoated the bare metal surfaces with PA10. Once the PA10 undercoat layers were done, we seam sealed all the edges.

This left things looking like this:









I won't claim to have done the world's most professional job with the seam sealer, the finish isn't perfect, but it is completely functional. :thumbsup2:

With the seam sealer drying, we moved on to pressing the new bushings back into everything. :taser:

First up was the subframe. We used my friend's 6 ton press to press the subframe bushes - given it fit in the press.



We used a turned brass puck to spread the load across the surface of the bushing.





And hey presto!



In short order, the subframe looked like this:



:thumbsup2:

The front diff bushing was a PITA. Used the same process as getting it out. Took ages. Glad I don't have to do it again for a long time. :raspberry:

We did the upper control arms in the press as well - all pretty straightforward, and with the trailing arms we did the bushes and the ball joints using the threaded-rod approach. They all went pretty smoothly - no major issues. Didn't get photos of everything, but here are the trailing arms:





And here's the subframe, with upper and (new) lower control arms reattached:





It's all coming together arrot:


During the week, Dad got some colour-matched top coat for the now reinforced RACP mounts. Here's the end result - very pleased indeed with how it's turned out. It was a process that I wasn't planning on having to go through, but having done it I can say it went much smoother and easier than I was anticipating, and I'm really happy with the end result.










There's a couple of touch ups still to do with the top coat, but really pleased with how it's looking.


Then there was last weekend. Putting the fuel tank back in. It was a comedy of errors and circumstances (I didn't see it as a comedy at the time :facepalm.

Steps to repeat our experience on Saturday.

1. Decide to put fuel tank back in car.
2. Observe that the hose clamps you have on order for the fuel tank haven't arrived.
3. Decide to go to automotive store to get short length of hose to replace the piece you had to cut to get it off, and hose clamps.
4. Get to automotive store and discover entire retail area is closed due to power cut.
5. Drive through terrible traffic (because of the power cut no traffic lights are working) to another automotive store.
6. They didn't have what you wanted anyway.
7. Go to racing supplies store who very kindly give you the piece of hose you need for free.
8. Go to marine store who have hose clamps.
9. Go home.
10. Discover that BMW didn't note on the technical diagram that one hose clamp is smaller than the rest -_-.
11. Go back to Marine store.
12. Go home.
13. Get fuel tank under car and start hooking everything up.
14. Notice that a piece of hot weld has bounced across the garage and landed on fuel return pipe.
15. Note that fuel pipe has hole in it.
16. Decide that today was not the day for fuel tank installation.
17. Give up.

TL;DR: Sometimes it's better to just stay in bed.

On the plus side, that's the biggest problem we've had this entire project. Dad picked up a 6x1 joiner on Monday, and hey presto, fixed.



We'll wrap it in foam before reinstallation so it's not vibrating about.

And here's a couple of pics of the fuel tank before the attempted installation, along with the replacement piece of hose.






During the week Dad also assembled the rear brake callipers:

Parts ready to assemble:


Piston, seal and dust boot installed:


Ready to install guide bushes:


Guide bushes installed:



So definitely getting there. This coming weekend will be fuel tank installation :shifty: and reassembly of the rear end. Meaning that the weekend after we'll be onto disassembly of the front end. arrot:

[karter16]

Update #11

So last weekend we didn't get too much done. Dad and I went to the Bruce Springsteen gig in Auckland on Saturday night arrot: SO GOOD!

We did get a few bits and pieces done before we went...


We swapped out the transmission mounts, and took the opportunity to clean up the support bracket, etc. at the same time.

Here's the bracket and mounts as they came off the car:



And here's a pic of the bracket & mounts back on the car. Bracket was bead-blasted to clean it up, and the mounts are new:




The second thing we got done was fitting the new seals on the diff and reassembling. The diff body has been painted, the rear cover has been bead blasted, and in the input and output flanges have been painted as well:






And today was RACP reinforcement plates day!

First up we did a test fit of all components, and a dry run through of the process.

Then we started with cleaning up the surfaces that the epoxy will be applied to.

We put the finished plates into an acid pickle:



While the acid did its work we got onto cleaning the RACP. The mounting areas had previously had the paint and underbody protection cleaned up as part of the manufacture of the plates, but they still need a final clean up before they're ready for the epoxy.

We cleaned up the surfaces with a sanding disk on the die grinder, and then cleaned the surface with 5 rounds of kitchen roll and acetone (ensuring to clean from the centre out, so as to not drag dirt from the edges onto the clean surface.



You can see in this photo that there is some residue from the paper towels, we used a lint-free cloth to clean off this residue and finalise the surface. Below is a pic of one of the mounts after cleaning with the lint-free cloth.



We then put together a custom adapter to be able to use the 3M 7333 2-part epoxy with a standard caulking gun. The adapter is simply a plate with two pieces of rod welded to it, along with some washers to spread the load, and a second plate to add reinforcing to the arrangement.

Here's a couple of pics showing the design and assembly.





While we were working on cleaning the RACP surfaces and building the caulking gun adapter the acid pickle was doing its work.



With the pickling complete, we neutralised the acid with baking soda, and dried the plates.





Next up was to apply the epoxy. We were pleasantly surprised at how well our gun adapter worked. Here's a photo of it being prepared for use.



The epoxy nozzles are seriously cool, the way they're designed to mix the two parts of the epoxy completely really makes the whole process a lot quicker and easier.

With the surfaces fully cleaned and prepared, the process we followed to epoxy each plate was as follows:

1: Apply epoxy to the plate, and spread using the supplied brush. We applied an even layer (The consistency of the epoxy makes it easy to spread, and makes the appropriate thickness fairly self-explanatory). Note that we didn't brush to the very edge of the mounting hole, as we wanted to ensure that we didn't end up with too much epoxy squeezing into the hole when we clamped the plate in place.



2: Apply epoxy to the RACP surface. Applying the epoxy to the vertical surfaces isn't too bad, it sticks pretty well and can then be spread by the brush. We found with the horizontal surfaces that it was best to follow the nozzle fairly closely with the brush, doing an initial spread of the epoxy as we went, to get it to stick to the surface and not drip. :thumbsup2:





3: Apply an extra bead of epoxy to the plate along large surface areas, etc. and in places where the may be a slightly larger gap (e.g. around curves, etc.).



4: Mate the plate to the RACP, and bolt it up (we partially greased the bolt thread, in case we had a lot of epoxy spillage into the bolt carrier. We were careful to not get the grease anywhere near the bonding surfaces). Note that we manufactured clamping plates out of 5mm sheet steel, to act as large "washers" and spread the clamping force of bolt out over the surface.



5: We then did the same with the rear mount on the same side (as we would add further clamping and bracing in pairs.







6: We then added additional bracing using strategically cut pieces of timber.



7: With the plates well clamped in place, we then removed the bolt for each plate in turn, and ensured that it wasn't going to end up getting epoxied in place from the epoxy that had been squeezed into the bolt carrier. Fortunately we'd judged the spread well, the epoxy and spread to the inner edge of the bolt hole, but hadn't pooled in the bolt carrier. We cleaned up the thread and re-greased the thread and tightened it back up. We also took the opportunity to clean up any epoxy that had leaked out beyond the bead, and we inserted sheet plastic between the 5mm clamping plates and the reinforcement plates, so that we didn't accidentally end up with things epoxied to other things they shouldn't be! :rofl3:






And with that we were done! The plates are all epoxied, and clamped/wedged in place. We've got good beads all the way around on the plates, and not too much excessive spillage.

We found the whole process easier and quicker than we were expecting. The 3M 7333 epoxy is really great to work with. The mixing nozzle is awesome, and the epoxy is easy to spread and work with. The long work time also helps a lot. :thumbsup2:

The clamp time is 8 hours, but we're in no rush, so it will stayed clamped until some time tomorrow. Dad has been loosening and retightening the bolts every couple of hours just as an extra check - would be a shame to have a :facepalm: moment at this point!

The epoxy turns purple when it's cured. When I left my parents place this evening the epoxy was already starting to turn purple arrot:

Tomorrow will be more cleaning on the underbody, as well as clean up, seam sealing and undercoating the plates.

Good day's work!

[karter16]

Update #10

Not a major progress update this weekend. Still waiting on some parts (particularly the 3M 7333 epoxy).

While we're waiting for the epoxy we've been continuing with clean up and painting. I'll do a set of photos of all the parts we've cleaned and painted once they're done, so don't have any photos for now.

Today Dad and I did the seals on the output shafts of the diff, finished preparing the trailing arms for painting and experimented with various brass wire brushes for cleaning up the tricky corners on the exhaust.

The last few parts and the epoxy should arrive this week, so we should be able to get stuck into epoxying the plates next weekend.

In the mean time here's a photo of all the new parts laid out (gotta feel like I'm getting my money's worth!) :taser:



And here's an overhead shot for good measure


As I said, there's still a few parts on the way, so they haven't made the pic. Those items are:

Guide Bushing Repair Kit x4
Caliper rebuild kit front left/right x2
Caliper rebulid kit rear left/right x2
Steering guibo x1
Salmon Relay x1 (cause SMG)
Transmission bearing set x2
Hex Nuts x4
Section 1 to Section 2 Gasket x2
Exhaust Hangers x3

Till next time arrot:

[karter16]

Update #9

So today was pretty much 8 hours scrubbing parts to clean them up :taser:

Dad and James disassembled the drive shaft and cleaned it up ready to be painted. They cleaned up the second of the trailing arms ready for painting, and Dad cleaned up the diff (which is actually looking in such good condition paint-wise that it probably won't need to be repainted).

They then spent some time in the afternoon welding up the frame for a trailer that James is making.

Meanwhile I spent the whole day cleaning the following:

- The black plastic under-tray pieces
- The exhaust heat shielding
- The exhaust support brackets/plates

Wow that's a depressingly small list when it's typed out :lolhit:

The reason it took so long is that the plastic under-tray pieces looked like this:



It appears to be the under-body protective coating stuff (or something like that). with tar and rubbish all caught up in it.

Basically the cleaning process was:

1. Quick scrub with sugar soap to get dirt and grime off.
2. Soak with acetone to make the protective coating go brittle.
3. use a paint scraper to scrape off the thick gunk.
4. use a cotton towel and more acetone to remove the remaining residue.
5. polish up the black plastic with plastic conditioner.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of one of the finished pieces, so I'll get one and add it in here.

My arm is now sore from all of the scrubbing, but it was worth it to clean everything up properly :thumbsup2:

I'm still waiting for some parts to arrive, and I'm also waiting for the epoxy for the RACP reinforcement plates.

On the epoxy. I had ordered 3M 8115 because that's what everyone seems to use. However after I had ordered it, a very knowledgeable person on another forum suggested that I use 3M 7333 instead. 7333 is similar to 8115, however it has the following benefits:

• It is rated a "structural" adhesive by 3M.
• It's impact resistant.
• It is high temperature resistant.

Based on the recommendation and my own research I decided to order 7333 to use, and I'll be returning/selling the 8115. I'm very happy that this option was pointed out to me before I'd done the plates. I had looked through 3M's catalogue before ordering the 8115, but must have missed seeing 7333.

I'll give an update on how the 7333 goes when I do it :thumbsup2:

During the week Dad is going to paint the remaining parts:

• Drive shaft
• trailing arms
• exhaust support plates
• exhaust heat shielding

Hopefully everything has arrived by next weekend and we can epoxy the plates, and I'll finally be able to take a photo of all the new parts laid out :drool:

[karter16]

Update #8

So after a week of backwards and forwards to hospital with my wife, wife is now better and Dad, James and I spent yesterday making more progress.

First up was finishing up the RACP reinforcement plates.

We tack-welded the second rear plate, and then seam welded both of them up.

The two front plates were just simple bends. We measured the fold lines and were able to manually fold the two front plates :thumbsup2: the folds ended up perfect, no gaps at all around the arc of the curve.

With the plates welded / folded up, the next step was to drill the holes for the mounting bolts. Obviously it's important to get these in exactly the right place, so that the hole can be no larger than necessary for the bolt to fit through (i.e. enlarging the hole to allow for imperfect fitment, is then not supporting the mounting bolt as well as it could).

A brief discussion around how best to do this led to Dad's excellent suggestion of using a laser sight to mark the centre of the hole.

We rigged up the laser level like so:


A piece of masking tape across the hole lets us align the laser dot correctly.


We were then able to locate the plate, and mark the plate where the laser dot fell.


With the holes drilled we have a set of 4 completed plates:


Here's how they look sitting on the RACP. (Note: Only showing three, as the two rear ones are essentially a mirror image of each other.)







The last items to manufacture are the two small plates for the diff cradle. They're pretty straightforward, small flat spacers with two holes drilled in them. Here's a token picture of their manufacture to prove that we made them.


That pretty much brings to a close the manufacturing stage of the plates. They will of course get a final clean up prior to being epoxied on, but there's no point in doing that until directly before they're going to be affixed.

I've got the 3M 8115 epoxy on order. Rather than paying for the special applicator gun, we'll just modify a standard caulk gun. Provided the epoxy arrives this week we'll look to attach the reinforcement plates next weekend. :thumbsup2:

After finishing up the plates, we split up, Dad and James took on changing the diff seals, and removing the rear cover so that it can be glass bead blasted to clean up the aluminium fins.

The diff looks to be in pretty good condition.




With new seals and some new oil it should be good to go arrot:

While Dad and James did the diff, I armed myself with some degreaser, and scrubbing brush and a towel and got to work cleaning up the underbody. It's pretty tedious work but the upside is that it cleans up really nicely. I got through the two rear wheel wells with the degreaser, and did one well with kerosene to take the tar spots off. Unfortunately the photo below shows the wheel well that hasn't been kerosene'd (the lighting didn't allow for a decent pic of the other well, so just imagine the below, without the tar spots :lolhit.



I'll do more degreasing and cleaning up after work during the week, and then next weekend we'll hopefully be ready to epoxy the plates and commence reassembly of the rear axle. We're going to build it up and then lift the entire thing into place at the end. This is preferred for a couple reasons. 1: easier to work on, 2: allows us to work in parallel while the epoxy plates are curing.

We'll also be starting on disassembly of the front suspension in the near future, as there will be some lead time on cleaning and painting parts etc. that we want to get a head start on.

Starting to feel like it's all coming together! arrot:

[karter16]

Update #7

Yesterday Dad, a friend of mine James, and I made some more progress - specifically working on RACP reinforcement.

We did some investigation, and decided that we'd first try manufacturing our own reinforcement plates, see how difficult it was/how good the end product was, and then decide whether to put them on, or go for an out of the box solution.

Turns out making our own wasn't as difficult as we were anticipating...

We're manufacturing with 2mm steel plate, with the intention of epoxying the plates. Epoxy is a necessity on the two rear mounts, as they had the structural foam inserted by BMW some years ago. We were unsure as to whether we would weld or epoxy the front plates, but have settled on epoxying those as well, to get full adhesion across the entire surface.

In addition to this, on the front right mount (which had cracks in it) we will do the following:

• Drill and weld the cracks (done)
• Cut through from the top to check that the bolt carrier hasn't detached from the upper layers of the RACP (and fix if it has).
• Structural foam for the front two mounts.

All of those measures in combination should be sufficient to remediate the existing damage, and prevent damage from reoccurring. I don't intend to track the car or do anything else that is likely to cause extreme stress to the RACP. I'll have to monitor it over time, but I expect this work to vastly improve the current situation.

We started by firstly cleaning the underbody protection and paint off the entire surface area of the RACP that we're going to reinforce, and then we used thin cardboard to make a template of each surface we want the plates to cover.

For the rear mounts this resulted in a set of templates that looked like this:



We then transferred the templates onto the sheet steel (this pic show's only one of the elements of the rear plates):



We used the plasma cutter and cut each rough shape out, cutting outside of the markings. (note this is a different part to the above photo!):



We then cleaned up each piece on the bench grinder, using the marked template to show where to clean the edges to.

There was a little bit of back and forth, making minor adjustments so that the pieces all fitted and sat correctly, then we held the pieces in place, and tack welded them in place:



This resulted in something that looks like this:



Next steps on this example are to brace it, weld the joins and clean the piece up. Once that's done, the various holes that need to be drilled will be done, and the piece should be ready for fitting.

The other rear plate is a mirror image of this one, with a couple of extra holes drilled in it for various cable brackets. The two front ones are unique, as one has more scallops in it than the other.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised at how easy this whole process was. Going into it I wasn't sure what our end product would be like and whether the fitment would be exact enough, but it's turned out very well indeed. :thumbsup2:

Next steps are to finish the other brackets and weld and clean them up.

In other news, we've been continuing to clean pieces up for painting. Had one of my orders from Pelican Parts turn up the other day. Another in transit, and the last one is pending a couple of not in stock items before it ships.

Till next time arrot:

[karter16]

Update #6

So in spite of being an IS Project Manager for a living, and even though I should know better, this project is suffering from a moderate case of scope creep.

I've decided to add doing the rod bearings to this project. With the front of the car apart anyway for the suspension refresh it makes sense to do the rod bearings at the same time. The car has done 145,000km, and I was definitely wanting to do the bearings this year anyway, so it makes sense to do them at the same time.

Doing that at the same time means that I'll have taken care of everything in Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this list with the exception of the cooling system and the fuel pump

It's going to be great to have all of the maintenance items up to date and to know that things like rod bearings are taken care of.

Place the final final order of parts today - up to 97 distinct part numbers. All OE with the exception of the koni shocks and some of the bushings (Lemfoerder).

Will do another update in a few days once we've made some more progress

[karter16]

Update #5

Today was bushings removal day!

First up were the subframe bushings. During the week Dad had welded up a removal tool. Basically the same concept as the official tool. One end of the tool straddles the subframe surround, around the bushing. A high-tensile threaded rod goes through the bushing, and a plate on the other end of the bushing covers the end face of the bushing. Tighten up the nuts on each end and the bushing is pulled out.

Here's a pic of the tool (complete with demonstration bushing):


And here it is in action:




We basically followed the TIS procedures for the various bushings. The tools that we made for this job mirror the official tools in the way that they work. As you can see in the second photo, we also heated the subframe bushing cages as per the TIS procedure (600C for up to 2 minutes).

Following this process the bushings came out in a reasonably straightforward manner. A fair amount of force needed (as you can see by the design of the tool).

Here's one of the bushings after removal. Not in terrible condition, but also not as great as the new ones going in.



And here's the subframe, free of the 4 main bushings.



:rockband:

Next up was the front diff bushing. Again, a very similar approach here. Just had to make sure we were accurate with the plate that cups the bushing, so that it was small enough to fit into the channel in the subframe, but large enough to cover the outer casing of the bushing.

Here's the tool mid-production:



Dad driving his MIG welder, with plasma cutter in the background. Note that without this equipment (and a parent, or other acquaintance of your choice, who knows how to drive them), manufacture of said bushing removal tools would be very difficult.

And here's a couple of shots showing how the tool fits up.





Note that after these photos were taken, testing proved that we needed to do double-thickness 10mm bar on the crossmember (like the subframe bushing tool) to provide sufficient bend-resistance. Goes to show just how much force is involved. That cross member is 70mm long, and ended up needing to be 20mm thick to take the forces involved!

I didn't actually take any photos of the diff mount bushing during/after removal, but rest assured that we got it out fairly easily.

We celebrated with lunch (which I didn't photograph, and won't show you, cause this is a car forum, not Instagram).

After lunch (which has already taken up too many words in this journal), we moved on to getting the bushings out of the inner ends of the upper and lower control arms.

We spent a while on this. The issue wasn't a mount for the side of the tool the bushing was being pulled towards, we were able to just use a large socket and some steel bar spacers for that (no need to weld up a tool), the issue was finding/manufacturing something the right size to cup the end of the bushing that was being pulled. We messed around with a few designs that we ended up abandoning, because we were in danger of flaring the ends of the aluminium sleeves on the bushings. We then tried just washers, and pulling only the inner core of the bushing, and letting it pull through the rubber. Again, in spite of a lot of force, we weren't able to make it budge even a little bit. At this point we consulted TIS procedure (and this awesome DIY: http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum/showthread.php?t=464146) and determined that we were on the right track, and just needed to apply more force!!!

We wound it back up again, added a pipe extension to the breaker bar, wrapped the whole arrangement in welding gloves in case of catastrophic failure, and just kept cranking. Eventually it gave way, and, once it moves, it's fairly straightforward from there.

No photos of this bit unfortunately, we were a bit focused on not getting hit by flying bits of metal. But basically you just need more force. You have to get to the point where you cannot believe how much force is involved, and then go a few turns beyond that, and that turns out to be enough to make it move :thumbsup2:

Here's a photo magically showing the bushing removed:



We tried the same approach with the lower control arms (using spacers to keep the two halves of the arm with the correct separation). We succeeded in moving the bushing somewhat, but there was so much force involved, and we had zero confidence in being able to reverse the process to get the new ones in, that we decided to cut our losses and buy new arms, which already have the bushing pressed in. At $50 each it's a pretty good deal, and given these are fairly lightweight parts, it's probably good to put new ones on (at least that's what we told ourselves as it got closer to dinner time).

Having already removed the trailing arm bushings a week and a half ago, that brings bushing removal to a closure for us. It's great to have got them all out. It's been really surprising just how much force is required to get the old ones out. Certainly without the ability to manufacture your own tools to get this job done, it would be either very messy and frustrating, or a costly process to get the bushings out.

Tomorrow will be a slower day. It's terrible weather here at the moment, so I'll limit myself to more clean up of the exhaust section 1 and 2.

Over the next few days Dad is going to clean up more parts for painting, and will paint as well if the weather starts playing ball and provides something less that 100% humidity.

Over and out for now.

[karter16]

Update #4

This week has been one of cleaning up parts for painting, cleaning up underneath the car, doing some prep for repairing the front right RACP mount, etc.

Last weekend while I was sick Dad cleaned up the muffler and gave it a polish...

Before:



After:


After discovering the crack in the front right RACP mount, we dropped the fuel tank on Tuesday (more of a mission that we were expecting - none of the hoses were keen on letting go) in preparation for welding.

While I was at work, Dad sand-blasted one of the control arms to see how it would turn out:



It cleaned up really nicely - so will sand-blast the other one as well and paint it the same aluminium silver colour we did on the brake callipers.

On Thursday after work we removed the upper and lower control arm bushings in the trailing arms using a puller set and a socket. Unfortunately not all of them are going to be as easy to do that way.

On Saturday Dad and I spent the day cleaning up underneath the car, cleaning the front right mount in preparation for crack repair, sanding parts ready for painting, and also removing the main bushing in the trailing arms (we went for the "use a hole saw to cut out the centre of the bushing, and then use a hacksaw blade to very carefully cut the aluminium shell of the bushing. This allowed us to relieve the tension enough to get it out fairly easily with the bushing puller, and a hole saw blade that was conveniently the right size :thumbsup2.

I took the section 1 and 2 of the exhaust home to work on cleaning up in my spare time after work, etc. Below is an in progress pic showing one of the cats in the process of being cleaned up.



Next steps are to work out what subframe reinforcing plates we go with, or whether we fabricate our own. I'm also thinking that it may be worth doing the BMW structural foam in the front mounting points as well.