The Long Awaited: The Myth, The Legend, The Douchebaggery

[V1GiLaNtE]

Cuz they're rust brown right now, that's the only reason I want to mess with them, I'm just tired of them peeking out from behind my nice wheels to remind me how old and shitty my car actually is.

After looking at more photos and soliciting opinions from the peanut gallery I've decided to do the silver and just go for a new OEM look.

MAKE THEM PURPLE.

JMU! JMU! JMU! JMU!

A little ricer, but honestly I kinda like it. It looked cool when you did the painters tape.. too soon?

[.RJ]

purpa drank

[Deceus]

So fast so furious

Speaking of, I'm tired of looking at rust, so I want to paint my brake calipers. I had been thinking a nice medium-dark non-metallic gray color would look really nice, but your color options tend to be extremely limited with the high heat caliper paints.

As long as you're not tracking the car hard, I've heard you can get away with using the 500 degree engine paint that comes in a lot more colors. That's what I did with the Dart. I haven't put it to the test yet but plenty of people have done it.

[SlimKlim]

too soon?

It's always too soon.

While I'm all for school spirit I think purple calipers would get old pretty fast. I'd also prefer to use the highest temp rating I can find just so I don't have to worry about baking the paint off if I decide to do an HPDE. Silver it is.

[SlimKlim]

Woke up in a cold sweat two mornings this week realizing I had forgotten to order a pilot bearing and rear main seal respectively, but thanks to express shipping they'll have both today. I swung by the shop over lunch today to inventory all the parts I've sent them, drop off some good ole Rotella 15W-40, and just pay the car a visit. I haven't spent this much time away from it in 8 years. hock:



It's going under the knife Tuesday/Wednesday, then that following weekend I'll be installing the electric fan (hopefully, it's backordered but should ship next week), new brake lines, painting calipers, installing the new clutch pedal & bushings, gauge kit and a couple other odds & ends if any NOVA folks feel like swinging by to hang out.

[Senor_Taylor]

if any NOVA folks feel like swinging by to hang out.

Give me a month


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[SlimKlim]

After a very real shop bill, she's home.



The clutch feels amazing. The uptake is much lighter and the friction point is a lot higher than the old one which I wasn't expecting, but is fine. The lighter flywheel really perks the motor up and downshifts are lot snappier, and they weren't that bad to begin with. It does feel a bit more delicate starting from a stop, but I don't feel like I'm going to stall it or anything. There is some knarly flywheel chatter noise if you give it a good amount of throttle under 2k rpms, so I guess maybe don't do that? Or just learn to love it. :dunno: I knew it was going to have a bit of chatter with a single mass no matter what so it's not a big deal.

I had them replace the front & rear shifter carrier bushings while they're in there, and combined with new fluid it's tighter than yo girl and smoother than the dude who stole her from you. I felt like licking my fingers after a gear change they're so damn crispy, I forgot what it was actually supposed to feel like.

The new starter kicks the car over crazy fast, it's always been a bit lazier to start than other E36s. It didn't resolve my weird hot start noise, but it does it much more enthusiastically now.

They replaced the radiator hoses and the o-ring on the radiator drain which resolved my coolant leak. But they think either the valve cover gasket or the oil pan gasket is leaking, both of which I've done somewhat recently but totally wouldn't be surprised if I fucked it up somehow. It's only leaving about a quarter sized spot after driving it so I'll just keep an eye on it and maybe do the valve cover if I get bored.

They also gave it an alignment which uncovered a handful of weird issues, somehow a lolipop bushing was pressed in wrong totally fucking up the caster, they had to pull it out and put it back in at the right angle. One rear camber bolt is frozen and the other side seems like an arm might be slightly bent, so It's at something like -2.1 and -2.7 right now. I'll probably be on the lookout for a set of adjustable arms as an easy fix, since everything is tight otherwise. Fixing the caster issue completely resolved the wandering and the car drives nearly perfect, at least in cruising back to Ashburn in afternoon rush hour traffic. Deren did a more spirited test drive after the alignment and said it feels "like a BMW" again. So that's good.

When I hopped in it to leave I turned the wheel and felt a clunk so Deren threw it back on the lift to poke around, and it seems like that steering rack I got off Jim Khoury's car is a bit iffy. It only does it when sitting still and slowing turning the wheel, and drives fine otherwise, so I'll just keep it in mind as something I'll have to deal with properly at some point.

He installed the water temp sender and oil distribution block for the gauges for me and even ran oil wires up to the fuse box to save me the trouble of digging under the manifold. The oil sender does cause the light to flash when the idle dips a bit, but I also noticed he gave me back about a quart in one the gallon jugs of Rotella I gave them, so it might also just be that the sender is really accurate, these things like to be slightly overfilled.

Anyway, now it's time for the fun stuff. Here's the to-do list for this weekend:

-new brake lines & fluid
-install electric fan & override switch
-install gauge panel
-install under panel
-install fahre extinguisher
-install my freshly dyed parcel shelf
-install rear wheel spacers
-paint calipers
-swap out my city light switch, and if I have time try to sort out the mysterious wiring I did 4 years ago for the heated seats, and get the illuminated shift knob working again.

A little later on this summer I might also finally throw an ICV or something at it and try to finally resolve its weird idle hunt. I should probably swap out the diff fluid since I've got some sitting around, and I'll do some rear camber arms at some point.

I've also been thinking about finally getting it tinted since we don't have a parking garage at my new office, and this thing gets almost comically hot in the summer. The A/C even blows cold but it just can't push enough air to really make a difference once its been sitting outside all day. The lack of insulation on the trans tunnel doesn't help either.

[JPolen01]

Plus one for the tint. My car gets so hot being black with black interior. I grabbed a sun shade off amazon for like $30 and it was the best purchase I have ever made. My car sits outside all day at work and the shade keeps its at least 20 degrees cooler than when I didn't have it.

[D_Eclipse9916]

I've got a spare steering rack that I bought off dave and stock rear arms that will give you enough camber. Let me know who you get the tint done by as I think the one on mine needs redone.


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[SlimKlim]

I may have to take you up on both of those, what car is the rack out of? Not much point in replacing one from a crashed race car with another one from a crashed car, especially given that mine seems to be working well aside from that one noise. :dunno:

I got the fan installed which is a bit of a PITA without uninstalling the radiator, and took up a good part of the day figuring out how to wire in the relay kit. The instructions that come with it are total crap, and the various DIYs out there had contradicting information, so DJ had to save the day over facebook messenger to help me wire the temp switch correctly.

Apparently I don't own a 24mm crescent wrench so I need to make a HF trip before I can swap in the lower temp switch that came with the kit, but I'm also tempted to wait until I test drive it and see what temp the fan is actually switching on, I wouldn't be surprised if one of its many previous owners already did the lower temp switch so maybe I can save myself the trouble.

I assembled the gauge panel and test fit it in the car, but I still need to do the wiring for it. I'll do that in the morning and wire in the fan override switch, then knock out the other stuff.

Also:

[D_Eclipse9916]

Out of the crashed blue m3. Understand your hesitation. Lemme know if you want to come by and grab the stock arms. $20 sound fair?


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[SlimKlim]

Yeah definitely save those arms for me! Maybe I can swing by next weekend and grab them.

[SlimKlim]

I spent the entire day wiring up the gauge panel and fan override switch. It took some trial and error to drill a 1/2" hole in the blank switch panels without destroying them, but I managed to get them mostly centered.



Then I had to build the wiring harness for it, a ground wire with 6 terminals, then 2 power wires with 3 terminals each for the illumination and switched power. Then an input wire for the water temp and fan switch to run through the firewall with the oil temp & pressure wires Deren already part of the way for me. I also rewired my illuminated shift knob that I had yet to make actual terminals for instead of just twist & tape.



Somehow I ended up not having the correct connector for the water temperature sender. It's supposed to have a "1/4" female stalk-on connector" to snap onto the sender which has a pin sticking out of it that looks like a nail head. I ended up having to use a pair of plyers and snug up a 1/4" female blade terminal until it slid on with a snug fit. I have no idea how that wire is expected to survive the heat of the headers, I did my best to route it away from them but I might end up going back in there with the correct connector and some wire insulation.

I did a test start and it seems like I managed to get everything wired correctly. The gauge & knob switch on with the headlights, and the fan switch works. The oil pressure gauge climbs, but I'll have to wait until I get the car back on the ground for an actual test drive to make sure the other two are working.

[BLINGMW]

INPJT TIME

[*insertusernamehere*]

This is all just in preparation for the turbo kit you're gonna unveil next week, right?

[ScottyB]

bet it felt awesome to get 'er back! those gauges looks baller...nice job centering them up, they look perfect to me.

[davej]

That cluster is really coming together, love the look!
I didn't have a 24mm wrench either but found these for like the price the single wrench was at my local hardware store.
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I also got the smaller set, and having the flex head has saved my butt more than once in tight spots.

Did you flock your center console, or were they suede covered from bmw?

[SlimKlim]

I just got a little carried away with the suede a few years ago.

And yeah I really should get a set of flex head wrenches, they're pretty pimp.

[Jake]

Do you want an OBC that doesn't have dead pixels?

Because I have one. Would rather see it in your car versus trying to sell it on some miserable Facebook group for $20.

[SlimKlim]

Sure, they're the same from OBD-I to OBD-II right?

As an aside I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to remove those panels now that I can't hook my finger behind the OBC through the little hole in the top of the sunglasses holder.

EDIT:

This is all just in preparation for the turbo kit you're gonna unveil next week, right?

Y'all are so hard to please.