Matt's 1999 M3

[Sully]

Ok, so many weeks ago I promised a write-up from all the parts I bought, and I am finally ready to do said write-up.

Well first thing is first, jacked the car up and put in the garage becasue what I was about to undertake was going to take me a while to do so.

Well here are some or most of the parts layed out ready to go in...

So the first thing to do was drop the exhaust which is easier said than done. I elected to drop it as a single unit as most would which means disconnecting it from the exhasut manifolds. Apparently you need to use a lot more heat than I did as I broke 3 of 6 exhaust studs. So guess what that means...take the manifolds out or attempt what Dj told me which involves heat, a socket, and a c-clamp. Well the method Dj described did not work and I ended up with a scalding hot socket rolling across my face. Got a nice little scar for a couple days and ended up dropping the manifolds anyways. Well if you have ever taken manifolds off a BMW, then you know that the studs usally come with the nuts requiring new replacements. So I ordered all the gaskets I had forgotten plus the new nuts and bolts for the manifold. Also grabbed some exahsut wrap and spray while my manifolds out since I don't plan to take them out again anytime soon. If you go to remove you manifolds on your e36, you must remove the secondary air check tubes as well. Oh and by the way, the replacement bolts for the exhaust studs to collector pipes are $27.87 a piece so I took a trip to my local exhaust shop and got some for free (old body shop employee hook up) but they are not as nice as the BMW counter-part so may experience problems down the road. So I was stuck waiting for these parts so I moved on to the next thing on my list.Pics of exhaust stuff.






So heat shield out (no pics) I went about removing the drive shaft. Now the nuts holding the flex disc on are 18mm. Well guess what the one size wrench that is not my collection. So I had this (the mini open-end, the big is a 19mm for size comparison)

It wasn't until I went to reinstall that I realized I had a drawer full of adjustable wrenches that would do this job just as well.
So the center driveshaft was removed, not that hard and the transmission crossmember and trans mounts also dropped out without much problem.





Now the center support bearing was another story. After bashing on it for awhile with no movement, I sprayed PB blaster at it, well this ruined the bearing that until then looked brand new, but I alread had another new one and figured I'd replace it. So then I heated it up destroying the bearing more but still no movement. So I ran up to the shop I used to work at and grabbed a cut-off wheel and introduced the bearing to my new friend.

Lets just say that I am still here to write this and the bearing is well ^that^
So some time before the bearing, I dropped the shifter assembly out. Now I must say I don't no how people get the bitch clip without the driveshaft out becasue even with it out, it took me 20 minutes to remove that clip and get the shifter to drop out. The write-up I was working off of said to replace the selctor rod seal as well. Once again the car wanted to pick a fight, and I struggled with that for about 30 min and lost a tiny screwdriver to it. Poor little guy never saw it coming. So once that was out, I was still disappointed with nothing working out and went to put the new seal in and bent it all to hell. Well great so I ordered a new one of those while ordering the exhaust stuff. But guess what, I can't do anything else to the shifter or car until that piece came in so I was completely stuck at this point.
Old vs New Selctor rod seal, both bent at this point

Old Shifter


Old shift selector rod vs DSSR

ERK so I can has DSSR


So I got my exhaust wrap on a Wednesday, now I havn't mentioned before this but the project was started on a Saturday I think, so wednesday night I got my exhasut wrap and went to it becasue I needed the car to transport myself to VIR on Firday. Now remember I do not have anything else done becasue I am missing the selector rod seal and everything else for the exhaust. Manifolds took awhile but finished them that same night. Well check the tracking number and the package isn't coming until Friday. I tihnk alright, the big shippers (UPS and Fedex) have two delivery times and all the previous orders from pelican came in the morning delivery around 11am. I figured it would give me plenty of time. I was completley wrong. I waited all day and finally had to throw in the towel and wash the truck so I could spend all my monies on gas in the truck to get down to VIR. The package arrived about an hour after I left so like 6PM but either way, it took my along time Monday after VIR to get everything back together and part of Tuesday so I am somewhat glad I didn't try and rush it.