Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[karter16]

Update #3

So unfortunately it seems that my car hasn't managed to avoid the RACP issues that the E46 seems to be susceptible to..

This is the front right mount...



The rear mounts were foam reinforced by BMW NZ during the corrective action period, and they are indeed entirely free of cracks or damage.

It's only the front right mount which has cracks (probably due to the loading going onto that mount with the rear having been strengthened).

What is vaguely suspicious is that the front right mount has been painted black by someone at some point. I don't know whether they attempted some sort of repair on the cracks, or whether the paint was merely to cover over the evidence, but it does seem a bit odd. :shifty:

It's a bit of a bummer, but not really a major (it was always going to be a bit of a waiting game to see if the RACP held up or not). Just means that now we'll need to drop the fuel tank so that we can perform weld repairs. (given it's only the front right that has cracks, and it doesn't have foam in it, it should be fine to weld-repair).

I'm also currently looking into options for plates to strengthen all 4 mounts further. Given the rear mounts have had the BMW structural foam done, they wouldn't be able to be welded, but having done quite a lot of research in the last couple of days, I'm leaning towards the epoxy method anyway for attaching the plates. Anyway - I still have some more research to do before making a final decision.

What this whole thing has highlight to me though, is just how glad I am that we're doing a full clean up, rather than just a whip the subframe out, do the bushings, and back in. The cracks were entirely imperceptible until the RACP had been significantly cleaned up. If we'd been in a hurry, and not checked properly, we'd have missed this, and then have had to have dealt with it down the road (possibly quite literally :lolhit.

[karter16]

Update #2

Sadly it's been a quiet few days on the car-front. My wife and I have both been sick (how do you even get a head cold in the middle of summer??). So I haven't been able to do any work on the car over the weekend.

That hasn't stopped dad though! He's been busy cleaning parts and prepping them for painting etc. From what I hear he's been polishing the muffler, cleaning underbody panels, suspension arms, etc.

He also cleaned up the rear brake callipers (apparently it took 4 lots of cleaning with various cleaning products to get all the brake dust and gunk off. He then cleaned them up with the wire wheel and has spray painted them with high-temp aluminium-coloured paint. Pics below - they're looking awesome. Will do the fronts the same, although I suspect I'll be on cleaning duty for them




Obviously any important surfaces are masked here.

Over the next few days Dad is going to make up a set of washers, brackets, etc. for pulling all the various bushes. I'll try and get by after work a few days this week to do more cleaning etc.

Also placed the *hopefully* final order of parts tonight. I knew there'd be extra stuff to order, but wasn't expecting it to run to an additional 28 part numbers :roll:

Anyhow - that's it for now. Hopefully the next update will be along soon!

[karter16]

Update #1

Thanks for the encouraging comments guys!

The last couple of afternoons Dad and I have been busy disassembling the rear underside of the car.

Two days ago we removed all the underside trim, exhaust (sections 1, 2 & 3), heat shielding and the driveshaft. I'm really pleased to say that the underside of the car looks to be in really great condition in general. We were expecting to have rust clean-up and to re-paint the underside of the body, but it's really not going to be necessary. We'll give everything a full clean under there and touch up any spots that need it, but its looking good.

All 3 hangers for the muffler are broken - I was anticipating that, so replacements are already on the way.

Here's one of the broken hangers - they've all broken in approximately the same place:


And here's a pic of the muffler out - lots of clean-up and polishing to be done!


We took the driveshaft out in one piece (e.g. we'll undo the universal joint at the CSB now that it's out of the car). The CV joint at the differential end looks and feels good. The guibo at the gearbox end is quite thrashed up (as they seem to be). I have a new guibo waiting to be swapped on, so that will be easy to fix.

One thing I was amazed by is how lightweight the CSB is! Even the way the CSB bracket is attached to the body of the car seems under engineered compared to the rest of the drivetrain. Presumably there isn't too much lash to control, so it doesn't need to be any beefier.

I'll get some more pics today and add them in.


Then yesterday it was onto the rear axle and the rear subframe. We knew that the "quicker" way would be to drop the whole thing as one, but given we didn't know what we didn't know, and because we're not trying to turn this in to a race, we decided it was better/safer to disassemble in manageable parts. Turned out that this was probably a good idea, as we ran into various tool fitment issues in tight spaces, etc.

*again, I'll add photo's in here, but was so busy/tired yesterday that we didn't get many as we were taking everything out.

We started with removing the brake callipers, as the brake lines are routed through the middle of the rear trailing arms. We then unbolted the shocks, lowered the hub assembly and popped out the springs.

With the brake lines, shocks and springs out of the way we then removed the bolts through the bushings of the control arms (at the hub end not the diff end), unbolted the rear trailing arm, the sway bar and the CV joint for the output shaft at the diff end, and lowered the hub assembly to the ground.

Having learned from doing the process on the driver's side (I have a RHD car, so driver's side is the passenger side for the USA) we made sure that we loosened every bolt before commencing disassembly on the passenger side. Our cunning plan to speed up removal on the passenger side came unstuck pretty quickly. The eccentric bolt that connects the lower control arm to the hub had rusted to the inner sleeve of the bushing, and although it was easy to get the nut off, we weren't able to slide (or forcefully encourage) the bolt out of the bushing.

We decided the best approach was to disconnect the lower control arm at the subframe end, something which we couldn't do until we had the diff out, as the bolt for the lower control arm can't be removed from the subframe until the diff is out of the way.

The challenge we had with taking the diff out (without the special tools) is getting access to the two bolts through the bushings on the rear of the diff, as well as the bolt through the front bushing. We were able to access the front bolt with an arrangement of a socket + universal joint + breaker bar. The rear two however necessitated loosening off the subframe bushing bolts and letting it drop by about an inch, so that the diff hung low enough to get to the rear bolts.

To drop the diff we removed the front bolt completely, and let the front of the diff rest on the subframe. Then the two of us held the rear of the diff, removed the bolts and then slid the diff back, and onto blocks of wood on the floor between us. The diff is pretty heavy, but definitely manageable between two people.

The diff is weeping slightly around the input shaft seal, so will probably replace the seals while the diff is out. Then I won't have to worry about it.

With the diff out it was quick work to unbolt the lower control arm at the subframe, and get the hub onto the ground. Unbolting the subframe and dropping it was then easy, as all the weight was gone from it.

We were pretty tired at the end of the afternoon (my neck muscles are going to take a while to recover), but everything is now out at the rear and can be further disassembled and cleaned.

I'm sure we didn't win any speed records with the removal, but that's not the point. We both have a good understanding of it all now, and everything is safely out and undamaged. I think when it comes to reassembly we'll assemble the whole thing on the ground, and lift it back into place as one unit. Now that we know how it all fits, what order to do stuff in, and also importantly will be able to find centre of gravity more easily, it will probably be easier to put it back in as one piece, than it would be to reassemble it in pieces.

Today is a bit of a rest day, so I'm writing up the list of additional parts that we've identified that need to be replaced, and will get them ordered.

I'll take some more pictures and get them added to this post.

[karter16]

Hi all,

I had this journal on the old site, and am now reproducing it here. Probably won't be updating it all at once, but I'll get there. Bear in mind that this journal originally started at the beginning of 2017.



So having owned my M3 for a year last week, and given I'm embarking on some significant work over the next month, I though it was about time I started a build thread.

I got the car in December 2015. I first seriously looked at buying an M3 in 2008, I decided (wisely) to pay off my student loan, etc. first. I then ended up getting married in 2012, and spending some time & money on travel with my wife. In 2015 I was finally ready to start thinking about an M3 again.

For a number of weeks in August and September I had my eye half-seriously on a 2005 Silver Grey SMG model for sale in my home city (living in New Zealand there's not a huge number of E46 M3's on sale (between 5 and 8 at any one time). I still wasn't really sure if I was ready to buy one or not. Then one day it was sold, and I realised then how much I actually wanted it... I thought that was it and prepared myself to wait until the next one that met my requirements came along. Then, a few weeks later the same car was back on the market. It had actually just been traded between dealers. In the mean time the second dealer had done some work on it (to make it more attractive for sale presumably).

• New wing mirror glass on both sides to replace the damaged ones on it.
• All trim parts on the centre console replaced - looked like new.
• New OE brake rotors fitted on the front.

That weekend I went to have a look at it. It was in much better shape that I was expecting. The exterior wasn't perfect, which I was expecting from what others who had looked at it had said. But the interior was in really great condition. More importantly the mechanics of the car seemed to be solid. The car had had the subframe strengthened by BMW NZ, had been serviced at a reputable BMW dealer, and had had things like the RTAB's done a few years previously, which was an indication that the previous owner/s had been taking at least some care of the car.

To make a short story even shorter, I ended up making an offer on the car, and I took it home 3 days before Christmas.




It ticked pretty much all the boxes for me. I was looking for:

• A later manufacturing year (2005/2006).
• SMG (yep I know, but I'm an engineer, SMG is cool, its a differentiator, and I really wanted it).
• Silvergrey or LSB
• Sunroof
• 19in Style 67s

I bought it knowing that quite possibly it would need the VANOS done (which indeed it did), but that didn't really bother me. My intent in buying this car was to work on it, maintain it, and make it better than the day I bought it. I plan on keeping this car for a long time, and its an opportunity to learn and develop my mechanics skills as I go. I'm lucky in that regard in that I have my dad to help me. When he was about my age he owned and restored a Daimler SP250, so I'm not exactly on my own on this.

A couple of months after I bought the car I ordered the parts to do the Beisan VANOS rebuild, did the full rebuild, new exhaust disc (existing hub tabs are 100% good), timing chain tensioner, cam bolts, etc. It was a great first project, we spread the work over two days, took our time, and the end result was perfect. All the rattle was gone, and the engine sounded smooth.

Over the New Zealand winter I didn't get any major work done. did new belts, pulleys and tensioners, and replaced the crank case ventilation separator, but not much else.

Which leads into the present day

The summer project is a full suspension & bushings rebuild, cleaning up the underside of the car, cleaning, painting, etc. The aim is that the underside of the car will be as close to "like new" as is realistically possible. For me that means:

• Replace parts that wear
• Clean everything else up
• Seal and paint where appropriate to protect

In New Zealand we don't salt our roads in winter (mostly cause it doesn't get cold enough) so the car is in pretty reasonable condition (more dirt and grime than rush), but if you're under there you might as well do it right hey!

A couple of weeks ago I ordered Koni yellows to replace the stock shocks, as well as about 60 different part numbers for pretty much anything on the underside of the car that looked like it would wear out.

Today Dad and I spent the afternoon getting the car up to working height on jacks (oh for a lift). Over the next few weeks we'll be dismantling, replacing/restoring and rebuilding. I'll be updating here as we go along. Hopefully in a few weeks time the car will be back on the ground and good to go for another 150,000 km :-)

For now I'll end with a pic of the car up on jacks.