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+--- Thread: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is (/showthread.php?tid=10423)
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - SlimKlim - 04-02-2014
The window clips probably just need to be cleaned and greased, or possibly replaced, either way not a huge deal. Are you talking about the lock inside the car or on the factory keyless fob? If its the fob its probably just broken or has a dead battery, if its the switch inside the car you'll probably have to do some wiring diagnostics to figure out what isn't talking to what. A multimeter is pretty cheap and worth its weight in gold when it comes to running that sort of thing down. Sounds like the sunroof just needs some new parts, and I dont have any ideas for the door handles, I've never run into that issue.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - D_Eclipse9916 - 04-02-2014
I have multiple Obd1 brains and siren for the stock alarm system....
Or.... I have a remote start system on my truck I want to upgrade to my viper remote start. I am wayyyy too lazy/busy to put it in soon. Pay Jeff install cost of mine and you can have the other remote start
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - Jake - 04-02-2014
The window clips are $4 each (2 per door) and easy to replace. I'd start there.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - D_Eclipse9916 - 05-08-2014
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And...
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Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - *insertusernamehere* - 05-08-2014
Tbh, you'd have to explain what the upgrades are in this for me cause idk. Whats the difference with my current exhaust and a sport exhaust? Does it really sound different? And does the M3 midpipe and headers just have better flow?
And also my car is OBD2 so would that still work?
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - D_Eclipse9916 - 05-09-2014
MOAR power MOAR SOUND.
You are OBD2 so the mid-pipe is a waste, and I think you already have the good headers. The only thing would be the sport exhaust. And I have no clue about what the hell it is hahahha
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - *insertusernamehere* - 03-10-2015
I'm in the process of changing my clutch and so I've got the exhaust and driveshaft down. Trans next. I'll elaborate when it's all done and put back together. Oh, I also just found a few little pointers here and there by multiple sources saying you don't even really need to remove all this. You can just pull the flex disc straight from the trans and that would set it free haha...well look at that...
6 FUCKING HOURS AFTER I FINALLY GOT ALL THAT SHIT DOWN IS WHEN I DISCOVER THIS
![[Image: tumblr_m8fdmxwvAF1r0i4hl.gif]](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8fdmxwvAF1r0i4hl.gif)
![[Image: tumblr_makj3okCdG1r3huu1.gif]](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_makj3okCdG1r3huu1.gif)
Gladly accepting any tips for the rest of the work I have left
i swear i'm not actually that pissed but fucking titty fucking christ yesterday was hell and the trans still isn't down. This is the biggest project i've ever taken on so just let me vent, i gotta let it out
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - Jake - 03-10-2015
Hey, it's a big job and good on ya for going the DIY route. Not sure quite what you're getting at with "don't need to pull all of this" - the exhaust and driveshaft definitely have to come down.
Some tips once you have the transmission un-bolted from the engine... Use a floor jack and block of wood to support the trans as you pull it off of the motor. I hope you've got the car up as high as your jack/stands will allow, the more room the better. Call a friend over to help with removal and reinstall. Be careful with the reinstall and lining up the splines... do not force it, if it's getting hung up on something it's best to pull it back off and triple-check before sliding back on.
Good luck! And let us know how things are going.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - D_Eclipse9916 - 03-10-2015
3/8 extension wobbles are your friend. All that has to come down. Unbolt the trans, unbolt the trans mounts in that order, helps to free the trans up. Don't forget the electrical connector on the passenger side of the trans and hope you ordered a new pivot pin. Don't bother disconnecting the hydraulics for the slave either. Just undo the 13mm nuts (x2) on either side of the slave and pull it down and out of the way. That way you don't need to bleed the slave again.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - *insertusernamehere* - 03-28-2015
Alrighty time to update this I guess. My cars clutch went back in October and I really haven't had time to get in and fix it except for spring break and i'm glad i saved this time to do it. So it sat all winter, quite possibly the worst time haha no one wants to wait for the bus in 15 degrees haha.
To start, THANK YOU DAVE YOU ARE AMAZING. My car was in his garage for two weeks and I used like every tool he had available which were all amazing. Also, not to mention the mess I made in the garage for the time haha. We cleaned up afterwards. I need to get myself one of those Kobalt tool boxes. Also thanks to two of my friends and Joaquin and Chip who were the next biggest help to get this moving along, Joey was some bomb moral support and R&D when I was just not feeling it and my roommate Brice for lending me a bunch of his tools as well. And thanks for the torque wrench as well, Taylor!
This is the biggest thing I've ever done and considering I was going to be doing a large chunk of this on the solo, I was a bit daunted. Even then I really wasn't prepared for what was to come. I think what I am about to write is more about the obstacles I encountered along the way, rather than a detailed how to process. Everything I did in terms of the process can be seen here and the second thing I followed which is also way more realistic can be seen here. I followed those exactly. I tried to scrounge up as many pics as I can so its not a big block of text. It ended up being kind of long. Scroll to end for tl;dr
Step 1, remove the exhaust:
To get this down I pulled the exhaust from the headers and then took it all down as one piece. I didn't want to have to deal with two pieces of exhaust all around the garage. The mid section bolts came down easily, as did the heat shield. I was missing a hanger near the cats but it was fine, less work for me. I pulled the muffler hangars first which posed as my first obstacle. Rust doesn't begin to describe the bolts. They were just red dusty pieces of metal. It was putting up a fight, a fight I was not going to have so I ran for the jack handle and torque'd that bitch right off. Literally.
![[Image: z6u6Oah.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/z6u6Oah.jpg)
Alright, no prob, we can buy those back. Pull the next hangar in one peace and the muffler falls and slaps me straight in the face :lol:
OFF TO THE HEADERS.... oh dammit, i broke another one...
![[Image: 1YFFbWg.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/1YFFbWg.jpg)
I don't know why this happened. All the wet stuff you see is PB Blaster and I heated the bolts up really hot so it would hopefully spin right off but I guess the bolts had other things in mind. I still haven't found a way to get that broken stud out to get the exhaust back on.
The header bolts also began to strip and round. 3 of them. 3. Its okay though, I ran to harbor freight and bought the best damn tools that exist on the planet. Extractor bolts! Those grabbed right on and took off any and all rounded bolts in this entire process 10/10 recommend if you don't have any.
![[Image: 6KQZbZn.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/6KQZbZn.jpg)
It's out!
![[Image: Bhd1x3Q.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/Bhd1x3Q.jpg)
At this point i'm feelin pretty damn good, you know? I can conquer anything this car throws at me, heh..heheh..heh..
Step 2, Remove driveshaft:
My buddy Jonny helped me remove alot of the heat shields and cross members and random stuff in the way here...and then he had to leave haha. This was just a pain. A total pain. In theory this is really simple and I guess it is but...
- Climb out from under car
- Release the parking brake.
- Crawl under car
- Spin the driveshaft to line up the bolt closest to you.
- Climb out from under car.
- Tighten the parking brake.
- Crawl under car
- Pull bolts.
- Repeat three times.
...thats just not fun. I left the driveshaft connected in the rear by the diff and I didn't need to replace my Center Support Bearing so the driveshaft just sat somewhere out the way half connected. The DIY's wanted me to remove it but fuck that noise.
PROGRESSS!!
Step 3, Remove transmission:
So this is where shit starts to get real. I had thought it was real before, but nah. I wasn't ready lol. The trans uses torx bolts so you use torx sockets to pull them. Its 3 E10's along the bottom, 2 E14's on the side, 2 E14's on the top, and 2 E12's on the top and one little guy. Thats what I named him (he kept getting lost). We also need to remove the slave cylinder and the reverse light switch. So all 3 E10's, 2 side E14's, slave cyl and reverse switch are out. Cool. Now to get to the top bolts. Well these could be really easy if BMW had installed a better fucking heatshield/sound deadening material.
This pic is from the DIY i linked.
![[Image: DSC_0151b.jpg]](http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p87/kyozlk/Clutch/DSC_0151b.jpg)
You can see its falling down and not staying up against the trans tunnel anymore, my car was also doing this. However, the seams and stitching on mine were not in tact.
![[Image: waOElGm.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/waOElGm.jpg)
![[Image: pPDmR9t.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/pPDmR9t.jpg)
It was dumping clumps and clumps of old fiber glass right down onto my head, into my sweatshirt, in eyes, in my nose. It was miserable. My eyes felt like sandpaper and that's with safety glasses on. It got so bad at one point that it was just floating out of the heat shield, like fucking voodoo or some shit. I was so pissed. So the problem was i needed to get the bolts on the top of the trans but with that thing in the way, it just wasn't going to happen. But it needed to. After many failed attempts by myself, Joaquin and Erick came over and they held it back as well as they could while I tried to get the bolts from the rear of the trans. I used like 5 extensions haha, it was awesome. Erick and i were also able to get the starter bolts out after many many struggle.
![[Image: peGD1pY.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/peGD1pY.jpg)
I also ended up with a pretty bad rash on both arms for about 2 days after this whole fiber glass crap and cuts all over. It sucked. My friend also had the same thing happen. A whole array of mishaps happened in trying to get the trans down...I won't bother to list them. I can sum it all up in one word, inexperience. Oh well now I know for next time! ...wait wha?
Eventually we got the damn thing down! It's funny thinking back to my emotions when it happened. The trans slipped back and we started cheering, which went straight into a horrific pause as we realized we needed jacks now to hold the trans cause that bitch was heavy af, and then the balancing game to pull it off and have it land on both jacks without rolling over on us haha.
![[Image: 5CTGTHK.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/5CTGTHK.jpg)
Step 4, Remove clutch and flywheel:
The clutch was going fine until one of the bolts started rounding. I tried hammering the next best size, nope round. Torx bit, nope, rounding. Extractor bolts weren't gonna save me here, so I got the drill bits to dry and drill out with the reverse kit.
Hm, yeah I kinda messed that up
![[Image: F3ojCoK.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/F3ojCoK.jpg)
After too many hours of trying to jimmy up something I ran to the store and bought a bigger torx bit a little oversized and beat the shit out of it with a hammer til it fit in the head. And beat it in some more. And more. Went for a turn a viola! It came right out. About this time Joaquins dad came by to see whats up. Before I knew it he was under the car with me trying to pull flyhweel bolts haha. That man was a boss, to say the least. I didn't buy the fancy tool to hold the flywheel from spinning (shoulda just done it) so we had to hold the flywheel with one ratchet torqueing the opposite direction while we pulled the other til they all came out. I hopped out from under and Joaco's dad began to beat the shit out of the old pilot bearing til it broke into a million pieces cause I also "forgot" to buy the fancy tool for that too. While he was working on that, I grabbed some sandpaper and WD-40 and cleaned up the flywheel. It had alot of burn marks I didn't wanna leave on. Around this point I also ripped out all of the heatshield. All of it and threw it away. Rolling around in that shit was so uncomfortable. I swear I increased my chances of cancer by 15x and thats not even a joke. Cleaned up the fiber glass and we were good to go again :thumbup:
![[Image: 02CjWYp.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/02CjWYp.jpg)
Reinstallation of this flywheel was a bitch. 77ft-lbs with only two hands on a spinning disc don't come easy. Joaquin tried to help me the night before but the gears were digging into his hand too hard. So the next day I bought a piece of metal, drilled two holes into it, lined it up with two studs on the flywheel and held the front half with that. Then i threw on two pairs of gloves to protect my hands from the starter teeth. Held both the metal bar and teeth so no spin, and got to work. It probably took me 1.5 hours just to do the 8 bolts on the flywheel. I went up on the torque wrench in increments of five to reward myself. After i hit 70ft-lbs, the gears started getting through the gloves and into my hand. Ouch. I felt like i had arthritis all of the following day. BUT I MADE ALL 77FT-LBS ON ALL 8 BOLTS. HOORAH!
Idk why the quality on this is so bad, i took it through the FB chat app so maybe why.
![[Image: DFSNjXu.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/DFSNjXu.jpg)
Alright cool, so this should be easy to get the clutch on right? Well yeah, relatively it was. It just perplexed me as to why the kit I bought gave me a toyota clutch alignment tool when this isn't a toyota and the clutch alignment tool does not fit. Ugh. So I hammer it into the clutch disc, slap it on the flywheel, throw on the pressure plate and its on. I had to use a vice grip to pull out the alignment tool but whatever it came out. I can't imagine how hard it must be for them to find a bmw alignment tool.
Here it is!
![[Image: L897964.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/L897964.jpg)
So now lemme tell y'all where I just went full retard. Idk what happened but I completely installed the clutch fork, pivot pin and TOB wrong. And then I go to put the trans back on the car.
Up we go! (i'm back to solo here again btw)
![[Image: wdZoHKr.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/wdZoHKr.jpg)
Keep going, keep going! You're getting close!
![[Image: lDTCNmH.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/lDTCNmH.jpg)
To keep it short, cause this is getting long and I want to sleep, the trans fell on the same shoulder twice, I ended up becoming the jack for the trans numerous times, I just lost all energy at one point and couldn't lift or push so I just laid there with a trans down my body nbd haha. Felt like i got hit by a train the next morning. I couldn't find the angle to slip it up into the tunnel without it getting stuck on the clutch or the top of the trans tunnel. So, at 2am, I went to go get Chip and eventually we got it in. Greatest. Feeling. Ever. Loved it!
Heres a shot of the trans struggle at some point. Hard to see, but its held up by my knees (and arms when not taking pictures) and Chip is up at the front of the trans trying to line up the input shaft.
![[Image: gImgYb3.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/gImgYb3.jpg)
So..now.. i went to go attach the slave cylinder and I realize that the clutch fork isn't really lined up where its supposed to be...but i'm not 100% cause the last 2 times I did a slave cylinder was at night and I never actually saw the clutch fork, i had only felt it. So i run with it and line up. It was wrong. I hop in the car and give a small push on the clutch and pop. Just a loud obvious pop from underneath and i felt the clutch pedal jump away from me too. Sure enough the rod in the cylinder had popped out. Cursing. I gave up here and went home at 6am. This was by far the roughest leg, I was planning to drive home this time.
I got a nice week break as we waited for the new slave cylinder to arrive. I guess it was a damn blessing it broke because I would have never realized I installed the TOB, etc incorrectly. So I went back (this past thurs), and tore off the trans and fixed everything inside the bell housing and had the trans back on in 2 hours flat (with some help ofcourse. All we needed was a white supervisor *cough*chip*cough*
Aw yeee buddy getting the hang of it. Also no heat shield made getting to everything so much easier. I could actually see the top of the trans tunnel now. :thumbup: :thumbup: So after that it was pretty much smooth sailing. We may or may not had to go in circles around ourselves when reinstalling everything but thats mostly because of bad organization and not paying attention haha. Next I drained and filled, the trans, engine oil and drained coolant. I was going to do the diff but I was tired, so I passed on it. It was 2am. Everything was on the car except the exhaust haha. So we lowered her down, WHICH OMG WENT BAD.
Ugh, so to get the car high enough I used my roommates 3 ton jack, which i no longer had because he wanted it back. So I'm here with daves 1.5 ton jack which maxes out before it reaches the car. So I throw some blocks of wood on the jack and we get it. It was a nervous process. Sketchy as all hell. I'm telling Joaquin and Chip to just pull the stands out now but they're like "no man, not doing it, this ain't right" (with good intentions and looking out for me) but i'm just pissed with obstacles at this point and have had it and I pretty much yell at them and tell them to pull em out. They do. The car jerks forward suddenly. Oh shit. My heart is racing right now, like fuck i just fucked up real bad. But it holds. Alright cool. I let the jack out ever so slowly and it goes maybe a centimeter and the god damn wood breaks - hoe don't do it...oh my god - the car comes crashing down on the blocks and jack. I am beyond incredulous at this point, I'm thinking I just destroyed my oil pan and everything, but thankfully Chip and Joaquin move quick and they lift the car from the fenders which was enough to just slip everything out. Quick inspection and it seems like everything is okay. Whew.
Alright guys, you still with me? Did you read this far?! Okay we're almost there!!
So i can't start my car open headers in Daves garage cause he has a family or something like that idk. But, Dave was fast asleep and he left the Honda Fit blocking my car in the garage...So we just threw that thang in neutral rolled it as far back as it would go so my car would have room to make it down the hill. Awesome, we make it down on the road so I can start her up now. It took a few cranks but she breathed and rumbled into life. And best of all?! THE CLUTCH WORKED!! It was so smooth and perfect and it engaged so precisely and I can't express how excited I was that it worked. Two weeks of grinding it out, just dealing with all of the obstacles head on, somehow re-motivating myself every morning to get back there and maaayynnee, i fucking did it. I changed my own clutch. Heres a video of it open headers while i was refilling/bleeding the coolant
[youtube]tJFTig3Uv8o[/youtube]
Engine was still a bit cold so nothing loud
So my friends went back up to the garage to clean up while i got this filled up. So while I was doing that it just stopped sucking coolant. And then it started pushing coolant back out the overflow tank. Wait. Uh oh no. Don't do that. So I wait a bit and it still hadn't gone back down. I run inside the car and its at temp, so i give it some big revs which usually sucks it all right in but no. Now all the coolant has stopped coming up through the bleed screw and its piping out hot steam. Oh no. I've seen this before. Alright, lets not overthink this. I turn it off. I let it sit. Check the filler cap and it looks normal, check the dipstick and its normal. Okay. Turn it back on after a while and its starting to take in coolant, awesome! Lets do this! I give it some revs and 40 seconds later and it goes back to the same behavior. Now its spilling coolant out the overflow tank instead of just welling up and more hot white steam out the bleed screw. Oh please no. I turn it off recheck the filler cap, we're good! Check dipstick, OH COME ON...there's a yellow tinge. I wipe it off in my sweater, dip it again and same thing. Shit shit shit. I repeat the same process with the same result again, only thing this time the filler cap has a thin layer of out yellow milkshake with fresh bubbles and specs of oil in it. Just great. That my headgasket. I tighten everything up drive it back to Daves cul-de-sac, park it, and got driven home in the backseat.
Whats my welcome gift to the club, Joey, Jake and DJ?
TL;DR fixed my clutch, learned alot, did more than i thought i ever would, proud of myself, the headgasket miraculously broke. Who is casting a curse on mm?
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - rherold9 - 03-28-2015
Holy crap man. It's like you try to fix one thing with any car and then a whole other shit storm starts. I don't get cars. They just say f u every time you want to work on them haha. When will you be able to fix the headgasket?
Sketchy stuff works sometimes when working on a car. That post just proves it.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - *insertusernamehere* - 03-28-2015
rherold9 Wrote:When will you be able to fix the headgasket?
.
Still working out my plan on that. Only thing I can say for sure is nothing is happening til summer. No time while the semester is in action :/
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - rherold9 - 03-28-2015
*insertusernamehere* Wrote:Damn man. Well at least summer is only like 5 weeks away. Got to love carsrherold9 Wrote:When will you be able to fix the headgasket?
.
Still working out my plan on that. Only thing I can say for sure is nothing is happening til summer. No time while the semester is in action :/
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - Beej - 03-28-2015
Wtf, am I the only BMW on this forum with a functioning head gasket? And Dave's 2002 hopefully? Anyway, any clue what caused it?
Congrats on getting the clutch done! Seeing those pictures take me back, and shit that's a lot of work to be proud of.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - Sully - 03-28-2015
Those header flange studs suck. They are made of am expensive ass metal that is supposedly better at handling the heat but I guess they're also super brittle or something. I broke 3 or 4 of them on my car. Easiest way is to pull the exhaust manifold out. Heat the flange up, then I put the corner over a vice and hammered it out. Replaced with some ss bolts an exhaust shop gave me. Those studs are like $40 a piece.
There's also a trick you can try with a socket and a strong clamp while it's still on the car. Heat it, bigger than the stud socket on the back and clamp on socket and stud and twist. I just ended up with a red hot socket falling on top of me but if it works, at least you don't have to pull the manifold
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - 95SVTCobra - 03-29-2015
Well ladies and gentlemen that was for sure a good time lol. You should have seen us, tired as ever, pushing this BMW away from Dave's house at 2am to fire it up with open headers :lol:. Loooooots of late nights on the car, but was all worth it and had some fun with friends along the way :thumbup:. Hope you can get that head gasket fixed man!
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - *insertusernamehere* - 03-29-2015
Beej Wrote:Wtf, am I the only BMW on this forum with a functioning head gasket? And Dave's 2002 hopefully? Anyway, any clue what caused it?
Congrats on getting the clutch done! Seeing those pictures take me back, and shit that's a lot of work to be proud of.
Nope it hasn't overheated in over a year. And even when it did it still never made it to the red.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - Jake - 03-29-2015
Ah man... I feel so bad that your HG let go right after you finished such a huge project! But, big props for doing the clutch job yourself! Always rewarding to have it work on the first (ish) try!
I'm happy to help out on the head gasket, whenever you get started on it. It's easy, just a lot of steps.
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - davej - 03-30-2015
Still impressed you took this on yourself, it was fun to watch you go through every stage of grief and then some during it.
*insertusernamehere* Wrote:My car was in his garage for two weeksI'll have to double check your storage bill, I'm pretty sure spring break was like a month ago :bootyshake:
Beej Wrote:Wtf, am I the only BMW on this forum with a functioning head gasket? And Dave's 2002 hopefully?
damnit Will, now I can never drive the 02 again
Re: Montreal Blue 1996 BMW 328is - SlimKlim - 03-30-2015
When you texted me about this.
![[Image: VgXCk.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/VgXCk.gif)
Having three of my friends blow HGs while my motor is torn down for a HG repair is just fucking weird. Like, I get it it, BMWs are bullshit cars but it's not like we're talking about Subarus here.