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Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
M3 s50b30 with a severe dose of "mechanic abuse"
- Thread starter Peter@AEW
- Start date
Gizmo
Banned
I'm in the last stages of completing the job. Pulled the clutch and flywheel to inspect the rear main seal, it's fine but the flywheel locating dowel was missing. I'm taking lots of pics but my telkom line took a direct lightning hit the other night so it's out of action. Will upload the pics when it's fixed.
Rodney///Marsh
New member
Gizmo said:
cool.. we waiting patiently
Gizmo
Banned
Yay, my telkom line is fixed, its good to have a close friend working at afrihost.:ty:
So the guys with a keen eye would have noticed that the backboard with the roller blind I bought was for a sedan, it doesn't fit. I ended up having to find another clean 2door rear parcel shelf, unfortunately it didn't have the roller sunblind so I transferred it from the 4door one. I used the dremel to cut out the correct size slot to fit the blind.
Old board out.
PO had taken an angle grinder to the rear deck to mount 2 subs, eish!
Transferring the sun blind to the 2door parcel shelf.
Board ready for install, sorry I forgot to get a pic of it installed.
Onto the suspension side of things, new shocks need new bump stops and dust caps.
Rear shocks and springs installed.
Unfortunately the new front shock shafts are way thicker than the OEM ones, so I modified the oem bump stops to work.
Onto the gearbox, I'm kind of bummed to find out after all the work I put into it that it's 1st gear bearings are toast, had I known this to begin with I would have dropped in a good condition replacement ZF box. The bearings have been making a noise since Zayd bought the car, pertinent info that I should have been made aware of, I only discovered it in the test drive after the work was completed.
Box ready for cleaning.
Lots of prepsol, elbow grease and a toothbrush!
Close up of mangled tube.
Sourced a replacement tube, quite difficult to source I must say, no scrapyard was willing to sell one without selling me an entire gearbox.
Side by side.
New input shaft seal to be installed.
Changed out.
Unfortunately I had inserted the seal too far in, only to find out my mistake after the car was all put back together and started the car, ATF started leaking out the bell housing. I had to re-do the job and buy another brand new seal, lesson learned the hard way.
Replacement tube in place, along with the pivot pin.
Selector shaft seal to be replaced.
New seal and selector pin installed.
New reverse switch.
5th gear detent being repaired.
Old shifter bits.
And some new bits, shift lever is from a 545i iirc.
Pulled the clutch and flywheel for inspection.
Crank/flywheel dowel was missing, so are 2 sump bolts, their holes had been filled with silicon.
New gearbox dowel installed, also found a flywheel dowel on an old crank I had lying here.
New guibo installed.
With the gearbox back in place I could check to see how much clearance we still have with the 545i shift lever. Plenty.
My seal install error caused the box to bleed...:blueCry:
Wrong! But now fixed with an entire new seal.
Onto the motor mounts, the old driver's side didn't have any nuts, only gravity was holding it in place. Passenger side the top nut was 5knuckleswhitetight and the bottom one had already worked its way loose.
New and old.
The wrong nuts had been used which backed off, I replaced them with the correct type nuts.
New mounts in place with the correct nuts.
Im curious as to what happened to the original ground cable, PO had used a cheap car audio 8 gauge cable as an engine ground, this I did not like.
With an offcut from a E36 main battery cable (0 gauge) I made up a new ground cable. You can see the size difference.
Covered it with black heat shrink for that OEM look.
As you guys saw from my first pictures the exhaust back box had hose clamps holding it up, lol. I got a universal rubber for the right side and used a E46 M3 exhaust hanger for the left side.
Another issue was the wiper arm was bent and kept catching on the bonnet every time you opened it.
Removed it and brought it back into shape.
Re-installed it and replaced the wrong nut with the correct nut.
New pork chops installed. Brake ducts to come soon.
I seem to be missing a couple pics of the new front suspension so I will retake them when the car comes back in the new year. Zayd wanted the car for the holidays so its back with him for now. The 2 issues we will deal with in the new year is the leaking sump gasket and also the clutch is still taking way too low, there are several different things that could cause it so its going to be a process of elimination to find the problem, Im leaning towards the possibility of the incorrect flywheel being used, the LUK part numbers had mysteriously been removed from the flywheel so I couldn't tell exactly what flywheel it was.
So the guys with a keen eye would have noticed that the backboard with the roller blind I bought was for a sedan, it doesn't fit. I ended up having to find another clean 2door rear parcel shelf, unfortunately it didn't have the roller sunblind so I transferred it from the 4door one. I used the dremel to cut out the correct size slot to fit the blind.
Old board out.
PO had taken an angle grinder to the rear deck to mount 2 subs, eish!
Transferring the sun blind to the 2door parcel shelf.
Board ready for install, sorry I forgot to get a pic of it installed.
Onto the suspension side of things, new shocks need new bump stops and dust caps.
Rear shocks and springs installed.
Unfortunately the new front shock shafts are way thicker than the OEM ones, so I modified the oem bump stops to work.
Onto the gearbox, I'm kind of bummed to find out after all the work I put into it that it's 1st gear bearings are toast, had I known this to begin with I would have dropped in a good condition replacement ZF box. The bearings have been making a noise since Zayd bought the car, pertinent info that I should have been made aware of, I only discovered it in the test drive after the work was completed.
Box ready for cleaning.
Lots of prepsol, elbow grease and a toothbrush!
Close up of mangled tube.
Sourced a replacement tube, quite difficult to source I must say, no scrapyard was willing to sell one without selling me an entire gearbox.
Side by side.
New input shaft seal to be installed.
Changed out.
Unfortunately I had inserted the seal too far in, only to find out my mistake after the car was all put back together and started the car, ATF started leaking out the bell housing. I had to re-do the job and buy another brand new seal, lesson learned the hard way.
Replacement tube in place, along with the pivot pin.
Selector shaft seal to be replaced.
New seal and selector pin installed.
New reverse switch.
5th gear detent being repaired.
Old shifter bits.
And some new bits, shift lever is from a 545i iirc.
Pulled the clutch and flywheel for inspection.
Crank/flywheel dowel was missing, so are 2 sump bolts, their holes had been filled with silicon.
New gearbox dowel installed, also found a flywheel dowel on an old crank I had lying here.
New guibo installed.
With the gearbox back in place I could check to see how much clearance we still have with the 545i shift lever. Plenty.
My seal install error caused the box to bleed...:blueCry:
Wrong! But now fixed with an entire new seal.
Onto the motor mounts, the old driver's side didn't have any nuts, only gravity was holding it in place. Passenger side the top nut was 5knuckleswhitetight and the bottom one had already worked its way loose.
New and old.
The wrong nuts had been used which backed off, I replaced them with the correct type nuts.
New mounts in place with the correct nuts.
Im curious as to what happened to the original ground cable, PO had used a cheap car audio 8 gauge cable as an engine ground, this I did not like.
With an offcut from a E36 main battery cable (0 gauge) I made up a new ground cable. You can see the size difference.
Covered it with black heat shrink for that OEM look.
As you guys saw from my first pictures the exhaust back box had hose clamps holding it up, lol. I got a universal rubber for the right side and used a E46 M3 exhaust hanger for the left side.
Another issue was the wiper arm was bent and kept catching on the bonnet every time you opened it.
Removed it and brought it back into shape.
Re-installed it and replaced the wrong nut with the correct nut.
New pork chops installed. Brake ducts to come soon.
I seem to be missing a couple pics of the new front suspension so I will retake them when the car comes back in the new year. Zayd wanted the car for the holidays so its back with him for now. The 2 issues we will deal with in the new year is the leaking sump gasket and also the clutch is still taking way too low, there are several different things that could cause it so its going to be a process of elimination to find the problem, Im leaning towards the possibility of the incorrect flywheel being used, the LUK part numbers had mysteriously been removed from the flywheel so I couldn't tell exactly what flywheel it was.
I drove the car yesterday to test the total work done on it and the following still needs attention.
Insulation on vanos harness is fraying so will need to get special insulation tape.
Power steering pump banjo bolt leaking (although tight) which points to a damaged face on the pump so it will need to be removed and refaced.
Sump is leaking and rear main oil seal housing has stripped threads.
We will remove it and replace gasket and at the same time might do an s50b32 oil pump conversion......will keep you updated.
Clutch takes very low and I was forced to switch the car off to engage gear and start. Once first has been selected the box will shift however pedal takes very low.
As Warren has said it could be a flywheel issue,or a slightly out of alignment clutch fork or it has been bewitched......we shall see.
Re route the loud pedal cable as it has come loose from its new position.
My impressions other than those stated above is that a lot of the rattles and noises have disappeared, with the suspension upgrades working well and the engine delivering smoothly.
More pics on the 8th of Jan 2015
As an aside for those considering buying a "fixer upper" do not, unless you have oodles of cash to throw at it.
Insulation on vanos harness is fraying so will need to get special insulation tape.
Power steering pump banjo bolt leaking (although tight) which points to a damaged face on the pump so it will need to be removed and refaced.
Sump is leaking and rear main oil seal housing has stripped threads.
We will remove it and replace gasket and at the same time might do an s50b32 oil pump conversion......will keep you updated.
Clutch takes very low and I was forced to switch the car off to engage gear and start. Once first has been selected the box will shift however pedal takes very low.
As Warren has said it could be a flywheel issue,or a slightly out of alignment clutch fork or it has been bewitched......we shall see.
Re route the loud pedal cable as it has come loose from its new position.
My impressions other than those stated above is that a lot of the rattles and noises have disappeared, with the suspension upgrades working well and the engine delivering smoothly.
More pics on the 8th of Jan 2015
As an aside for those considering buying a "fixer upper" do not, unless you have oodles of cash to throw at it.
Why is the swaybar running to the control arm and not the damper in the front?
all M3 would have them running to the damper because this gives a mechanical advantage to the swaybar making it stiffer
really have to commend Zayd on his commitment to this car and for saving it :rollsmile:
all M3 would have them running to the damper because this gives a mechanical advantage to the swaybar making it stiffer
really have to commend Zayd on his commitment to this car and for saving it :rollsmile:
are they twin tube or mono? if twin a clamp on bracket could be made to relocate the end link... but damper forces are probably wrong for this setup so not worth the effort...
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