What's going on in my shop currently...

[George Hill]

Since the last update I had the #44 and #88 M3 endurance race cars in the shop for some minor maintenance before a trackday at CoTA. Nothing to crazy just normal stuff that happens when cars get beat on repeatedly. Then I went out to the event and hung out with my friends from Soul Speed Performance who were offering support for these and a few other cars that night. It was pretty cool to see these two cars that I had a hand in building mixing it up with McLarens, Lamborghinis and Porsches (to name a few) at CoTA during their night event.




























My buddy Joe, is climbing the highest point of every state and Colorado was on his list. I sent him off with my wife's wagon and he picked up this great Natural Brown interior from Lawlence in Denver during his trip. I don't think it fits with Steel Gray so I'm not sure what will happen with it, but hopefully I'll find a slicktop in blue or white to swap this into.




The next big project is a E39 525iTa getting a M54B30/5MT conversion. The owner bought a complete sedan donor car and was extremely lucky to find one that was a stick shift as well. Overseas you could get a 530iT so we are basically using that formula to build this one with plan being to swap everything 3L/5MT over but reuse the automatic 3.46 rear gear (manual is 2.93). From there we will install the 530 front calipers and replace all the brake pads and rotors as well as all (6) rubber brake lines for stainless steel parts.






I applaud you guys who do engine swaps in the driveway without a lift, I've done them that way in the past, but what a miserable experience that is. I'm spoiled now and don't even use a engine crane.






During the conversion we focused on the driveline first. We replaced any wear item and nearly every gasket, only some of the extensive parts list made the pictures.








Everything was very grungy so there is almost as much time in cleaning as there is in the mechanical work.
















And started on the pedal conversion.






I also have been acquiring parts for my track wagon project. It is planned to be a M54B30/ZF5spd based setup. I have a 323iT as a donor, but want the larger suspension and brake components from the 330 cars and a spare M54B30 is always welcomed. I ended up finding a donor sedan in Houston on Facebook Marketplace. It came with an extra set of M-Sport wheels, it has a black sport interior, a complete drivetrain (auto trans), HARD motorsports over fenders, M3 replica front bumper, MTech2 replica side skirts, Megan Racing coilovers and some other misc items. I already sold the coilovers and factoring in how much the over fenders would cost me, the car is almost free at this point, SCORE!

[George Hill]

Some of you may know but I also have a S54 E46 touring. I put it together late last summer and towards winter I pulled the coil overs off of it for my IR ZHP project. During that time I stole some more parts off of it in anticipation of completing the suspension swap. As the saying goes the cobblers children are always shoeless. Well that is certainly the case here too as she is still taken apart awaiting time and parts to put back together, but I am making headway. I've got the donor suspension completely torn down to nothing. The next step is powder coating everything and reassembly replacing literally everything that moves or twists.

[George Hill]

My wife's wagon is getting close to 1/4 million miles and was due for some new control arm bushings. I have no problem trying out various manufacturers of aftermarket parts to gain data. The Vaico brand has a very low return rate with my supplier (even less than Lemforders). I ended up buying Lems and Vaicos to compare. The Lems ended up being BMW bushings with the roundels ground off, even have the BMW pn# cast into them.








I did a bad job documenting Charles car, but it got a ton of maintenance done this go around. He's my original customer and I've been the only one to really work on this car for the last 14yrs. When we started it was a stock E39 M5 and over the years we have installed most of the Dinan catalog and a full SuperSprint Exhaust (incl headers). It is really a very nicely sorted OEM+ setup, this is car specifically is seriously one of my favorite BMWs.

For this go around it got most of its fluids changed, the ABS module replaced, console trim replaced, air filters serviced, and a new battery. Then in anticipation of an upcoming HPDE event we replaced the brake pads and rear rotors, tires installed TMS monoballs into the thrust rods. Lastly we replaced the headlight adjustment rods, these are a huge pain and I prefer not to split the housings (they are glued together) so I replace these through the bulb openings. Very tedious and long repair, but totally worth the peace of mind knowing the housings aren't going to leak water.










My IR ZHP thread is lacking in updates, but I did a bit of work on it too. Chasing an airbag fault for the RF door bag. The fault was for to LOW resistance in the circuit. The car monitors the resistance in the circuit and if it is to LOW or to HIGH it sets a fault. The airbags have a mechanism built into them to "short" the internal wiring when it is being worked on, to keep the bag from blowing off if they somehow get voltage applied to them. Well the mechanism is opened and closed by a pair of plastic fingers integrated into the harness connector housing. Sometimes these fingers break allowing the wiring to be shorted together even when assembled. I've seen this numerous times, but the first time it happened it was a head scratcher and if you aren't very familiar with the system, it is easy to miss.



Broken:


Fixed:

[George Hill]

I Had Gary's 328i E36 in recently for some routine maintenance. I think you will be hard pressed to find a car more meticulously maintained and wwell cared for. This car is his daily driver for the past 16yrs and has 273k miles. The wheels have been refinished, but otherwise the exterior and interior are all original!










We changed every fluid and filter in the car including the transmission. With 273k we are not sure if that was a good idea, but decided that since he's not planning to sell the car the transmission probably won't make his ownership without it. We rolled the dice and went for the service, only time will tell I guess.




Removed the aftermarket alarm and installed a factory alarm sourced from BRaymond141 on M3Forums.




Replaced the seat gears provided by OdometerGears.




Front brake lines were starting to show signs of dry rotting, they were replaced with Goodrich lines.




Repaced the trailing arm bushings, these were installed by another shop only 53k miles ago. Not only was the rubber starting to tear, the housing was heavily damaged... installation error? We installed M3 OE bushings this time around hopefully we get double the life.






During the test drive I got stuck in traffic and the temp started to creep, traced that down to a seized Aux fan. And while replacing the aux fan found the condenser starting to leak at its end connections.




Lastly, we finished it off with an alignment by Soul Speed Performance a local road race oriented hot rod shop I partner with on items such as these.

[George Hill]

Quick update, SteveM3 dropped off his S54T for rod bearing replacement. His bearings were in decent shape but the way he is gonna drive this thing I'm glad we got them done. :woot:

[George Hill]

Had a very nice Competition package Carbon Black on Cinammon E46 M3 in with SMG problems. The owner really did not want to convert the car and was hoping we could find a reasonable solution to keep the SMG. Found out the Hydraulic unit had an internal leak causing it to lose the stored pressure and subsequently ran the pump all the time setting the faults. We sourced a good condition used unit and got him fixed up.






Also working on installing an oil cooler on a supercharged E39 540/6MT. We used a kit from a reputable performance specialist but were very unsatisfied with how it turned out. Ended up removing that kit and designed a replacement that looks and function more like an OE part. BMW makes an oil cooler kit that is installed on hot climate cars in the Persian Gulf and it integrates the oil cooler thermostat into the oil filter housing. We used that component and then added to it with the custom lines and cooler. Packaging is quite tight and the only way to make this work was to run a banjo fitting off the oil filter housing, but there isn't anything that will bolt up off the shelf. I had to take a M26x1.5 to -12AN fitting cut it in half then drill and tap the internal hole to allow the banjo bolt to thread into it, making a "reducer bushing." That got us the space needed, but it is still very tight. A few random pics from the install.

[George Hill]

I was a BMW dealer technician for 14yrs and about a year ago I left to open my own shop specializing in BMWs. In the last year I've had a bunch of fun projects roll through the doors and in that time I have made lots of new friends on forums like these. I've had a few people ask to keep them updated on various projects I have going in my shop and If it's ok with the admins I thought it might be easier to chronicle everything in one thread. I'd keep my current project threads going but just update this thread on new cars and projects that some might find interesting.

If so, here goes.

I've converted some friends from the idea that to have fun with a car it needs to be a muscle car and big horsepower. These guys are now BMW fanatics as well, between the three of us we have (8) Wagons, (3) ZHPs, (2) E46 M3s and a 330ci. One of them has a S54 powered wagon we built last year and with my S54 wagon the third guy was feeling left out.

He had been looking for a slicktop wagon, but ended up finding a slicktop ZHP. So Monday he and I flew out to Long Beach and picked it up. The car is a '05 Alpine on Alcantara with a slicktop and is stick shift. We landed in LB made the deal in the air port packing lot and hit the road. First gas stop.




We ended up driving straight through the night to get back home. The little car did great. 25+mpg running a bit on the high side of the speed limit. Needless to say I am jealous of his find. Future plans are to marry it with the best of this:



He is a deal hunter like I am and the plan was to buy anything and everything we could fit into the car on the way home (and/or possibly another car if we found one decent enough). The ZHP was supposed to have fold down rear seats so we were going to drive to Denver and pick-up a NB wagon interior since it was "on the way" lol. The ZHP ended up not having fold down seats and we just didn't think it would fit as is. BUT we did locate this lot of S54 items. The seller had it listed for weeks on craigslist in LA and no one snagged it. These are all S54 parts, highlights are new rod bearings and ring set, oil pan, valve cover, 6spd trans minus bell housing (might be junk then) a SS braided Vanos oil hose and a BRAND NEW Rogue Engineering M3 shifter setup ($425 on RE website!) all of this for.... $40. YES!

[George Hill]

I post semi regular updates about the random projects and repairs that go on in my shop in a couple other E46 forums. Originally my shop was opened to do general BMW repairs, but has moved (due to demand) to more of an E46 focus. And then lately I've been doing a bunch of S54 focused jobs that some of y'all might find interest in. These posts span back about a year or so and I'll post them and bring the thread up to the current time. As always, questions, comments, concerns are welcomed, hope you enjoy.