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

[xvxax]

The head swap is not hard. I am pretty sure that someone from the Fair Lakes crew has the tools too. Or you can get them on ebay or similar now for less than $100 and re-sell them, or I am sure you can rent them on the forums. It can be done in one long day or 2 medium-long days no problem.

I'd say either pull your head and have it decked and tanked, buy a head from VAC with a core swap, or buy an ebay or junkyard head and prep it and sell yours. I think the hardest part is removing the exhaust manifold, and you've done that recently so those bolts should be fine. The rest is just time consuming.

The problem with an s52 or Scricks is I think they aren't really worth much power wise. I have driven an s52 and it felt like my car with the Schricks. I dyno'd back to back with an s52 car with m50 manifold and we made within 2whp of each other. You can't even buy a Schrick tune for less than $500 now.

The car is 180,000 miles old. It sounds like you just like to tinker. Save the money and use it for a beater then make big power later if you want.

One suggestion while you're in there is if you are keeping your head, swap to the upgraded retainers and keepers from the 96+ cars. You'd be silly not to do that.

[D_Eclipse9916]

OEM headgasket + oem head studs + OEM rod bolts + OEM rod bearings.

My headgasket went this past race, 160k miles and the last 14k have been track only. If stock shit can last that long even during racing, why do you need anything more? I have gone down the road with "built" motors, hence why I am in a class with stock ones.

Only one simple, cheap option = OEM refresh.

My head, like yours, is I think not trashed. Buy an OEM refresh head from VAC for $899, sell your complete head without cams/cam trays for $300, and you are only out of pocket 599 + tax. I will be headed up to the junkyard to pick up some core heads, if you would like to pull out a core head for $100 instead of the $599 that VAC wants.

I will then be headed to VAC in the next 2 months to pick up that head, if you want to order one as well and I can pick it up.

I have the tools on order from ebay, so you can borrow them.

[ViPER1313]

Throw a bottle of blue devil through the system and drive it for another 100k miles.... just follow the directions before doing it. I just picked up a winter beater with a blown HG - fixed it right up :thumbup:

[SlimKlim]

All very good points. I think I probably will just go for an "OEM" refresh for this project, and if I ever do decide to go for forced induction, I can take it back down for a thicker HG and studs.

DJ, it looks like the VAC head is $899 + $750 if you don't supply a core, pretty steep. I've seen some other places that will do a refurb for $600 + core. Hell, there is a guy selling a refreshed S50 head on bimmerforums right now for $600 still in the packaging. Definitely let me know when you're going to go up to a junkyard looking for a core though, and I'll come drink beer and help you do the job on the white car so I can get some practice in.

The general consensus is that its not a big deal to keep driving for a while, as long as I keep an eye on everything. Purchasing a daily driver and doing something "more" with the M3 has always been in the plan, so I just want to take the time to explore each option and decide what I want to do.

I could do the job in a weekend, but if I'm going in that far I have some other stuff I'd like to take care of while I'm in there. Get some deep cleaning done, replace the blown out steering u-joint, figure out why my PS rack likes to whine at random intervals etc. It might also be smart to go all the way down into the case and replace the timing chain guide (I've heard of several people trying to delicately put the head back on only to hear a tiny crack and have to place a whole new parts order.) and also check/fix the oil pump nut while I'm down there. I also have that bad exhaust connection from the headers to the mid-pipe that I'd be stupid to not fix once and for all while I have the whole damn thing torn apart. I also have a guibo and CSB already in my parts collection that need to go into the car, and my subframe/diff bushings have seen better days, as have the motor and trans mounts.

So my inclination as of this morning is to continue saving up for a daily driver to buy after the holidays, according to the original plan. (Those 04-07 Acura TLs are looking like mighty good, reliable, sub-$10k purchases right now) and then start the project, when I can take my time and put the car back together the way I want and taking care of all of her little outstanding issues in one big project, instead of throwing it all together in a weekend.

Then when I have her in eat-off-the-engine condition, I can drive my daily to work and just clean the dust off the valve cover every once in a while. :-p

(JK, I promise not to go full Goodspeed.)

[SlimKlim]

Ok.

So I'm heading back from my parent's house in Bedford last night after visiting for Thanksgiving, and when I pull off the highway in Harrisonburg for gas, I catch wind of the most awful, acrid burning smell ever. When I pull into the gas station, plumes of smoke are pouring out from under my hood. I very briefly thought my car was on fire, but it just turned out that everything on the bottom of the car was completely soaked in oil. Everything.

I bought 3 quarts of oil to add to the one I had in the trunk and poured 1.5 in. I pulled the nose up over a curb and got under it while it idled but I couldn't tell where it was coming from, so I got back on the highway and started hauling ass for home. I added another half quart in Strausburg and finally made it home safe and sound. I added another half quart this morning and took it to get coffee so I could get it up to temperature.

I got it up on stands and hosed down the entire bottom of the car with Brakekleen to try and pinpoint the leak. I eventually traced it up the front of the crankcase to the back of the oil filter housing. I cleaned out that whole area and let the car run while I watched it. Lo and behold:



I found this thread: http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/sho...?t=1109419

Apparently its a fairly common issue, and a completely bullshit one, because both of the plugs on the housing serve absolutely no purpose, other than to dump out all your oil on the highway. Even more fun, the factory parts diagrams don't show those caps, o-rings or snap rings as even being there. I called BMW of Fairfax and explained what happened, and that the only part number I had was supposedly only for the 4 cylinders. Luckily it sounded like he's heard that story before and was able to find the right o-rings, so I borrowed Lauren's sister's car to go pick them up. $9 for 3 gaskets, can't really complain about that.

To pull the filter housing you need to remove the alternator ducting, fan shroud, fan, air intake, MAF, serpentine belt, alternator and power steering pump. This isn't my first rodeo, so I can pull all but the last two in about 10 minutes. The alternator is held on by two long bolts, and the powersteering pump runs two bolts through the filter housing. Once everything its out of the way, 6 13mm bolts hold the housing on.



Once the housing was out I pulled the plugs out and replaced the o-rings, then the housing gasket, and did everything in reverse. When I got into the car to test drive it, it told me this:



Real mature car, real mature.

I drove it for about 15 minutes and then checked the oil level, and it didn't move a bit. I'll take it back out tomorrow (and clean up the oil tanker spill on the garage floor) for a longer test drive, but I'm pretty sure that was the source of the leak. Well, at least the main one. Overall it cost me $9 for the parts, $22 in emergency oil and coffee, and 3/4 of my Saturday. Definitely could've been much worse.

As your reward for reading this far, here's a very long faced boxer peering into your soul.



(if you go back a page or two to the MM car show post, you'll see he's grown just a little bit)

[SlimKlim]

My SRS system has been completely on the fritz for the past 6 weeks or so, but I've been too preoccupied with seeping headgaskets and oil geisers to deal with it.

I have swapped the steering wheel and airbag, and swapped out the seats, seat belt switches, and passenger occupancy sensor, and none of those things caused any issue with the SRS light at the time of installation. Except one day on my way to work the light popped on for no reason whatsoever.

I had my shop pull the codes, and it said both seat belt switches were bad. I found a fix online to wire a resistor in place of the switch and trick the sensor into thinking they are always buckled, so I bought a $40 SRS reader and attempted that. It worked, for about 5 minutes, then the light would come back on. Go to pull the code again, and there's no code. I can clear it but it comes back after 5 minutes of driving.

I broke out the multimeter and started testing. With the car off, the seat belt circuits have ~93ohms of resistance, they are supposed to have 100 when closed. If I turn the car on, the resistance values go CRAZY. Shorting out to 0, spiking to 250ohms, and everything inbetween. The ground on the module is fine, so I couldn't think of anything other than a toasted module. Its under the seat sort of over the diff, so I wonder if it just got toasted over time.

I bought a "tested good" module from another 1995 for $50, and forked over $150 at the shop to have it recoded to the car.


There's still a light.

The shop said it was the Driver's Airbag Firing Circuit reading too much resistance. Tonight, tomorrow, probably this weekend, I'm going to rewire the seat belt switches properly, even though they shouldn't be related, then clear the codes again. If that doesn't do it, hopefully I can pick apart the wiring behind the wheel and find the issue, or maybe one of the crash sensors has failed in the front or something.

Gotta love old cars.

[Ken]

lol. Here i am freaking out because i have to bring mine into the shop.Thanks for the reality check

[HAULN-SS]

Im just going to leave this here...sounds like a ton of work for an irritating problem...

[SlimKlim]

Anytime.

I think I'm over the hump, the module was bad, so it wasn't a waste of money, finding the last issue and getting the light off *should* be relatively easy. I might do it tonight if I have the energy.

EDIT: Hah. Dude, between this, the HG seep, that knarly oil leak, and the rattling exhaust connection, I've contemplated so many different forms of insurance fraud.

I'll all get fixed though, eventually.

[V1GiLaNtE]

^ Don't hesitate to ask for a helping hand.. I find myself out in the garage all the time working on something.. New scenery is noice.

[SlimKlim]

Will do. :thumbup:

[SlimKlim]

Update for the sake of record keeping.

So one of my resolutions since moving into the townhouse and finally having access to a hose again for the first time in years, was to not go through automatic car washes anymore. I even bolted splitters onto the lip that would get ripped off on the tracks should I attempt it. After a few weeks of having more rock salt on the roads than actual snow, and the entire lower half of my car being an off white color, that resolution was gone in the wind. On my way to work on Tuesday I found a wash that just had a flat floor and went through it.

Not to be trifled with, the Gods of Bayerische served my punishment firmly and swiftly. One of my drain plugs must be blocked because the passenger's floorboard got absolutely soaked, and the alarm module became possessed by a poltergeist for the last moments of its miserable existence.

Before I was even out of the wash the door locks started going ape shit, locking and unlocking a half dozen times, resting for a second and doing it again. I drove it up the block and (very stupidly) turned it off while I grabbed some coffee. When I came back ignition cycled fine and all the lights came on but it wouldn't engage the starter. I hopped out and disconnected the battery and got the car to start on the 3rd try. The indicator light for the alarm module was on solid red and the door locks were still going wonky. I said a small, pleading prayer to the Gods of the Clutch that I not stall my car on the rest of the drive, and soldiered on.

Halfway there the door locks settled down and the alarm light went off completely as the module slipped down into the sweet, syrupy black release of death. I hoped that if it died completely it would at least be courteous enough to leave the rest of the car operable. I let it sit for a minute when I got to work and restarted it, and it fired right up. I breathed a skeptical sigh of release, wondering if it could really be that easy.

It wasn't. I went out to check it over lunch, and it was dead as a doornail, and this time no battery resetting trickery was going to help it. I grabbed the tools out of the trunk and ripped out the glove box and pulled out the module along with its fustercluck of wiring. I tried just disconnecting all the wires running into the box, but there were two large leads soldered directly into the board. Jake was able to find the wiring diagram for the cursed thing, and theorized that if we snipped those wires and connected them together, it would reconnect the starter circuit and let the car start. Off we headed with a pair of scissors to test the theory, and by the mercy of Bavaria it fired right up. I almost cried it was so good to hear her voice again.

The offending module is now stuck to the wall of my cubicle as a trophy:




That was Step 1.

I drove it for the rest of the week sans glovebox, with a tub of damprid on the floor to try and suck some of the moisture out of the carpets. On Sunday I dragged my lazy ass out to the garage to remove all the hack job wiring associated with stupid goddamn alarm, and repair the factory harness so I could use an OEM control module. Long story short, there was a wire run to just about every part of the dash and through the firewall, so I ended up removing the entire lower dash to redo it correctly. So I ended up spending the entire day dealing with this mess:



This is why we don't install aftermarket alarm systems. All that shit in the passenger's seat was added in when the Clifford was installed, and while I'm sure it was done in a "professional" shop, some of it looked like it had been done by a 12 year old. Something was shorting out and causing both windows to roll down when only one was opened (the car has that "auto seal" or whatever feature that nudges the window down a bit out of the seal so the door can open), and the alarm would randomly chirp when shutting the car off for no reason whatsoever.

Anyway. I kept the starter interrupt wiring in there and pre-ran it for a potential hidden kill switch if I find myself so inclined later on down the road, and repaired the factory harness. All I need now is a couple of OEM Fobs to code to it and I won't have to stick the key in the door, which is all i really care about. I wouldn't even care about that necessarily, but my door locks are a little sticky and my key looks like it did two tours in 'Nam, so I feel like I'm hitting a rock with a glass hammer every time I try to lock it now.


...I just hope that one extra wire I couldn't find a home for wasn't important...

[xvxax]

Was it green/violet with yellow dots? I just replaced some interior stuff and ran into that issue and panicked when I couldn't find any information on that wire. So I went to Crazy Rays and confirmed it had no home.

If so, it's the hood switch and it has no home. If not, just Google the wire color.

[SlimKlim]

Was it green/violet with yellow dots? I just replaced some interior stuff and ran into that issue and panicked when I couldn't find any information on that wire. So I went to Crazy Rays and confirmed it had no home.

If so, it's the hood switch and it has no home. If not, just Google the wire color.

YES!!!

Thanks for clearing that up for me, I was confused as a mofo yesterday when I had 8 wires to solder into 7. Glad to know I've got everything wired up properly, now I just need to run down at least one 2-button OEM key fob, which is apparently hard to find.

[premiershine9]

If carpet still smells or comes off as dingy message me and I can point you in the right direction Joey!

[SlimKlim]

Thanks Dan,

It actually seems ok. One of the project I'm going to tackle after I buy a daily driver is to rip out the entire interior, steam the carpets, re-wrap all my suede stuff and actually UV coat it this time, and then refit everything replacing all the missing clips and hardware instead of just sticking it in with 2 out of 8 screws and hope. I have most of the pieces of a perfect interior now, I just need to fill in all the little bits and take the time to do it right.

Let me know next time you're planning to come up though, I'd like to have you work some magic on Lauren's E39.

[Beej]

As much as I dig the e46 seats in there, that is horrifying. As terrible as OEM alarms are, it's either that or insurance or both for me.

If you really got it out, like for ruhl, then well done! Would love to trade drives one day - I've never been behind the wheel of a moving e36.

[SlimKlim]

Hell yeah BJ, anytime you want.

[.RJ]

Why do I want one of these?

[Kaan]

Why do I want one of these?

because you are a glutton for punishment