05 E46 M3 Restoration / Build Thread

[attbimmer]

I heard Last Friday that my crank is ready. Will pick it up tomorrow morning. Given I'll most likely be getting new pistons, I separated.the old pistons and rods. I also checked the rod that had the failed bearing in it. The bearings didn't spin and the rod big end surface felt smooth, but it was definitely shinier then the others. Inserting a bore guage all 5 rods are within 0.01mm of each other, but the one with the failed bearing measures 0.07mm larger. This is just with the rod bolts snug with a wrench, but not torqued. Will repeat with them properly torqued, but so far doesn't look great just comparing against each other.

Since I'm getting closer to being able to start actually assembling things again I went ahead and ordered most of the parts I'll need to start building the engine as well as the remaining parts I needed for the SMG to manual conversion.

[AmandaB]

Any idea what caused that journal to be scratched up in the first place?

[attbimmer]

Any idea what caused that journal to be scratched up in the first place?

Badly worn rod bearing. Since the rod bearings were not original though I am suspecting that they had failed recently and the previous owner had a quicky bearing change done and didn't properly clean up the crank and rod which led to it just failing again.

I torqued and measured the bore on the rods again (was out of the arp grease to properly torque before). The top to bottom bore actually measures the same now between rods, but the lateral is still off by 0.02-0.03mm. I'm just going to put in a new set of rods as well.

Machine shop is still working on my block/head. I should know more on what they need early next week.

[attbimmer]

I had some time the last 2 days to get a few things done.

I took apart, cleaned and rebuild the vanos. Used most parts from Beisan. Very straightforward and there are tons of good docs and videos on it. Only things I ran into were having to lightly sand one of the washers in order to get the right level of tension on the thrust helical gears. Was about 10 seconds on each side with 320 grit paper and then it left perfect with no binding or axial play. Also when putting the pins back into the oil pump disc, at first 2 of them left very tight and seemed to just wedge all the way in and get stuck even with the springs pressing them out. Hard to say exactly why, but all I did was work them in and out gently a few times and then they slid in and out easily with no noticable friction.

I did the same for the oil pump. Took it apart cleaned it and put it back together. The internals looked very good. No noticable wear. I was looking for a replacement oring for the pressure regulator, but didn't see a part number for it. I put it back together as is for now and will take it back out to replace it later.

I also finished cleaning up most of the remaining internal parts so that they will be ready when I get the block and head back.

[bavarian3]

CLEAN! I need one of these ultrasonic cleaners

[RockyMtnM3]

Awesome! Loving the process of your build. Something about it being a Dinan car gives it a unique flavor too.

[E46fanatics…]

Nice; what’s the size of your ultrasonic cleaner?

[Slideways]

I like the zip ties to keep track of the order of the followers while they are in the ultrasonic machine. I'm guessing there is a way to know number 1 from 12

It looks like your engine got a brand new VANOS unit when it was serviced at the dealership.

[attbimmer]

Nice; what’s the size of your ultrasonic cleaner?

It has a 15L tank. Decent size to fit lots of different parts. Wish I had gotten one earlier.

[attbimmer]

I'm guessing there is a way to know number 1 from 12

They are in order from cylinder 1 to 6.