Robs E46M Rosso Corsa Street Build

[robgill]

I am learning a lot from this journal. Thanks.

Coincidentally, I am now installing the rear subframe/suspension assembly after finishing up Vincebar and VinceSkinz install. The TIS says to set the diff in place and attach three (only three?) driveshaft bolts, install all three diff mount bolts hand tight and finally to torque the front bolt followed by the two rears. I have the diff in place and the bolts in loosely, but I have not attached the drive shaft yet.

Will I really need to pull out the three diff bolts before attaching the drive shaft?

Can I just install all six drive shaft bolts rather than only three?

Can the half shafts be attached and torqued to the diff before the diff is torqued?

Lots of questions. Maybe I am over thinking it, but I do not want to take this thing apart again any time soon.

Did you grease the rear CV joint in the drive shaft, and if so, what sort of grease did you use?

Thanks.

Jesse

This was my general process I used on this car as well as my track car. For both I had the entire rear subframe out and disassembled. I did not exactly follow TIS, my primary concern was getting access to bolts to properly torque them. These are the steps I took to reassemble:

1. Installed inner control arms to subframe. I used spherical bearing so I was able to torque those bolts off the car. If you are using OE bushings you'll need to do this on the car with arms in approximate resting position on the car.
2. Installed the diff in the subframe. I did this so I could easily torque the rear diff mounts. Be really careful not to over torgue the OE diff bolts/bushings, they are easy to damage. One tradeoff here is the subframe is a lot heavier and harder to line up with the diff installed. May try installing the diff in the subframe after its installed in the car next time.
3. Installed the subframe (with arms and diff) into car.
4. Installed the drive shaft. I did this so I can put the car in gear to keep the diff from turning when installing the output shafts. I used this lube referenced in realoem and a new seal.
5. Installed the trailing arms with new bearings, hubs, shields already installed. Remember to install the shield BEFORE the hubs. Learned that the hard way...
6. Install the output shafts. I held the trailing arms up with a jack and got them generally in place. Hand tightened the shaft to diff bolts. Then pulled the spines through. I put antisieze on the splines mostly to make it easier to get them out in the future.
7. Torqued the shaft to diff bolts in no particular order, rotating the as needed to get access.
8. Installed the e brakes line and pads. Do yourself a favor and buy this tool. Makes attaching the springs much easier.
9. Install brakes
10. With car on wheels and on the ground, torque the shaft to hub bolts

Good luck!

[D-O]

Rob,

Many thanks, sir. This information is very helpful as I am hoping to get a bunch done this weekend. "While I am there" took this from Vincebar and Skinz to a full rear suspension rebuild, rear bearings, Supersprint headers and exhaust and a short shifter.

Jesse

[robgill]

Rob,

Many thanks, sir. This information is very helpful as I am hoping to get a bunch done this weekend. "While I am there" took this from Vincebar and Skinz to a full rear suspension rebuild, rear bearings, Supersprint headers and exhaust and a short shifter.

Jesse

Fresh bushings/bearings transform these cars. So worth the effort!

[antknee]

Just saw you driving through my town this morning. Looks awesome with the square csl wheels i think? You were going the opposite way

[robgill]

Just saw you driving through my town this morning. Looks awesome with the square csl wheels i think? You were going the opposite way

Yeah, first drive of the year!!! I was heading over to Ivans for a final alignment. Then headed up to Hayfields in North Salem for a cruise 👍.

[antknee]

Yeah, first drive of the year!!! I was heading over to Ivans for a final alignment. Then headed up to Hayfields in North Salem for a cruise 👍.

awesome car looks amazing

[robgill]

Can't leave well enough alone! After a couple late winter and early spring drives I started to rethink the SMG. I really do enjoy it, but more and more I find myself wanting to drive my other 6spd... Also I now have a city car and this car doesn't need to be as practical. So decided to take the plunge and do the manual conversion! Long term I was considering swapping my track car 6spd for a 5spd and then swapping that 6spd into this car. But after a lot of research and some great threads on this forum I decided just to covert the bell housing on this car. Eventually if I do the 5spd swap it doesn't hurt to have a spare transmission in storage. Ultimately decided on the following parts:

• Lang Racing bell housing conversion ('cause Andrew is awesome)
• Rogue Engineering short shifter kit, clutch hose and pedal bushings
• Euro 6spd harness. Decided to swap the full harness for 2 reasons; First it gets rid of all the unused SMG wiring. Second it replaces the O2 wires with longer and cleaner install for post cat section 2 O2 locations. My current harness was spliced and I never liked that. Evan at getbmwparts was able to source this and apparently its the only one available!
• Coby Wheel alcatara shift boot with M stitching (matches my ebrake boot)
• Still debating shift knob... want a lighted not shorty solution.

So last weekend Rosso went up on the quick jacks once more. Step one was just to get the transmission out of the car and that turned into a bit of a nightmare. All of the trans bolts came out pretty easy except for one of the top M12s. It just wouldn't budge no matter how much force I got on it; and eventually it slipped and messed up the bolt head. So I had to drop the front subframe to get the trans low enough to hammer on an 11mm socket and get a straight shot at it with a bigger wrench. It still took a crazy amount of force and it finally broke loose.

What idiot tightened these bolts 🤣. After some research it looks like the bolts have some factory anti-seize on them that is one time use, and protects against the multi metal type reactions that seize these bolts. So yeah, I'll be replacing them this time.


Once I finally got the transmission out and the bell housing shipped to Lang, it was on to the interior. Spent yesterday getting all of the trim out of the way and got the pedals out. Also took a read of the DME to start the coding changes.



Then got the old harness fully removed which was way easier than I expected:

[robgill]

Got some time to kill while waiting for the bell housing from Lang so started to tackle the wiring and some side projects. After getting the clutch pedal installed with the correct clutch sensor (61319122701) I got the sensor wired into the existing harness:

Pin 1 - to Brake Pedal Switch Ground
Pin 2 - x60002 Pin 20 DME or direct to Gear Position Switch (still debating this...)
Pin 3 - to Brake Pedal Switch (12V)
Pin 4 - to Pin 8 in EWS




I'm removing the entire SMG engine harness and replacing with a new euro 5spd harness. MUCH cleaner install and also has the extended euro cat in section 1 O2 wires. All around a cleaner install for my car. New harness on the left.



With the harness out is is easy to trace wires. If I install the GPS sensor the correct plug is already installed. I traced the Grey/Blue wire to x60002 Pin 20, and the Grey wire to this plug into the chassis harness. I just need to run the clutch switch Pin 2 to this plug. That will complete the clutch switch -> GPS - > DME loop that is required for cruise control.



Pin 7 here:



Plus in here where I can add clutch switch wire:



With the pedals out I also removed the "step down" from the gas pedal. Never understood the point of this, just adds a weird notch feel when gas is floored...

[Casa de Mesa]

Hey Rob - great write up, can't wait to watch this conversion unfold!! Loving these updates!

I just mated my transmission to the engine this past weekend. I cleaned up the transmission bolts before installing them (I remember the antiseize material on them, thought it was corrosion). Now I might back them out, put some antiseize on them and lower the torque spec by 20% or so.

Quick question - where did you get the film used to protect the paint? I'm about to start putting my car back together after getting it back from paint (2 weeks out!) and want to do something similar to protect it during that stage.

[robgill]

Hey Rob - great write up, can't wait to watch this conversion unfold!! Loving these updates!

I just mated my transmission to the engine this past weekend. I cleaned up the transmission bolts before installing them (I remember the antiseize material on them, thought it was corrosion). Now I might back them out, put some antiseize on them and lower the torque spec by 20% or so.

Quick question - where did you get the film used to protect the paint? I'm about to start putting my car back together after getting it back from paint (2 weeks out!) and want to do something similar to protect it during that stage.

Thanks! Yeah really its just the top two M12 and starter bolts to worry about. All the rest are easy to get to. For the paint protection I was using Track Armour I had laying around. There are definitely cheaper solutions!

[Casa de Mesa]

Thank you much! Will redo those bolts while access is still easy and will check out the track armor.

[robgill]

Finished up the manual swap last weekend but still chasing a few issues. First I completed the wiring. I decided to install a GPS sensor to keep it as stock as possible. Also redid some of the wiring to eliminate any splicing.

GPS install



Built a harness with all new plugs and everything pinned directly into connectors.


GPS wired into body harness

Underneath I installed the Euro/CSL O2 wiring bracket. The new harness also relocated the exhaust temp sensor to section 1. very clean and organized!

[robgill]

For the interior I had a couple steering wheels to convert. Removed the SMG paddles and switches. The took care of the holes with these clever 3d printed plugs from CSLManual .




For the shifter I wanted an illuminated knob and conveniently enough they wiring was already there. I de-pinned the plugs so I could add universal plugs that matched the knob I bought.


For pedals decided to keep it OEM+ and got a new M Performance set. Still hunting for a matching dead pedal as they are NLA!

[02_lsb]

What a build. Wow. Tally for at/about GDP of a 3rd world country?

[robgill]

I try not to add up totals 😣, more re-occurring monthly subscription 😀.