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

[SlimKlim]

Why do I want one of these?

Listen to Kaan.

But in all seriousness, a clean, well-bought E36 M3 meant for a toy shouldn't be very hard to stay on top of. Mine was neither clean or well bought when I picked it up 3.5 years ago, and I've put another 40k hard miles on it since then. Whenever someone asks me about buying one I tell them to have $10k to spend on the car. You can buy one for $4500 and sink $5500 into making it decent, or you can buy one for $9k, fix a bushing or two and throw on the tires and brakes you like and you're done.

It ain't no Honda though.

[V1GiLaNtE]

Props to you sir. I would be deathly afraid of digging that deep into the wiring harness. Especially removing that confounded alarm. My last XJ had some aftermarket alarm/remote start device wired into it. Jesus god in heaven was that the worst hack job I had seen. Not to mention when I went to fix the window switches, once connecting the battery terminal back up thing went bat shit in the garage.. I swear the whole neighborhood though I was stealing this jeep. I yanked the fuse for the circuit and thankfully I could still utilize the car. I had one crazy idea of cutting it out and wiring the OEM harness back up. That dream quickly vanished.

Once again, Kudos. :thumbup:

[Jake]

Fortunately, when most aftermarket alarm/keyless systems are installed in this vintage of BMW, they just tap into the "pre-wired" harness that BMW installed. So, removing it basically involves yanking the wiring out, and re-soldering the wires they snipped to the BMW connector.

I can't imagine how an aftermarket system wired up to a Jeep that never had one would look :eep:

[SlimKlim]

Yeah it really wasn't too bad, it basically turned into an exercise of follow the wires and see where they end. There was one loom that ran into the parking lights behind the headlight switch and interrupted the starter circuit, one that went though the firewall for power, ground and the siren, and the main fustercluck behind the factory alarm plug. It would definitely be a lot more difficult if the wires weren't centralized behind that plug, but it still took me the better part of the day.

This weekend I think I gotta pull the radio out and resolder those wires and maybe zip tie some stuff together behind the steering wheel so it doesn't clatter when i turn. I also need to "fix" my SRS light bulb to pass inspection next month, and I'm trying to decide how close my exhaust is to catastrophic failure and whether I should go ahead and replace the midpipe...

[SlimKlim]

Six months. Six. Fucking. Months. I've been chasing this phantom SRS light. Pull the codes, says Occ sensor. Swap occ sensor, codes say seat belt switches, patch switches, SRS module shits out, replace SRS module, says its the crash sensor. Clear and re-read, says its the driver's airbag. Pull the wheel apart, put it back together, light goes off for a while.... then comes back on.

So the car hasn't had a legal inspection since March, and I would like it to have a legal inspection, because garage ornaments are no fun. On Sunday I figured I'd pull the wheel apart one last time, triple check my wiring and make sure I didn't dick anything up on the install, and test the continuity of the slip ring. The wiring is right, and the wires themselves look worn but ok.

Last night I went home to test the continuity of the slip ring, and like some kind of divine fucking Bavarian intervention, I noticed one of the airbag wires was at a funny angle at the connector. Gave it a little tug and...





There's the fuckin' mystery. I don't know how I missed it up till now. I tried to pry the connector apart but it won't do it without disintegrating, so I'm ordering a new ring. Should be passing inspection without a care in the world sometime next week.

[V1GiLaNtE]

That GIF is perfect.. Just between hearing your cursing and swearing last Friday night about the codes and then that little wire just "tink" snapping off.. Well done sir.. Well Done. Get that bisch back on da road. :thumbup:

[SlimKlim]

Thank you sir. Hopefully that's the last bite of this particular E36 shit sammich.

My buddy Laurens is coming over on Sunday so I can install his Euro 3-spoke for him, and in exchange harvest the slip ring off of his US spec '99 wheel for my car. Then it'll be good to pass inspection, FINALLY.

[V1GiLaNtE]

WINNING. What exactly does the slip ring function as/for?

[SlimKlim]

Its just a plastic collar that goes on the back of the steering wheel with an electrical ribbon inside of it and plugs on either side, the ribbon has lots of slack so it can turn 2-3 times before it gets snug. Its how your airbag / horn / steering wheel controls can be wired and still allow the steering wheel to turn.

I think what happened to this one was I was all horned up over my sexy new steering wheel and I just threw it in there without completely comprehending what parts needed to be changed, so I left the '95 horn contact pin mounted in the column. Backed the car out of the garage and heard a hell of a snap, and then removed the small pieces of my former horn contact pin. It must've half ripped out the wires and the issue didn't start until a few months later as they wiggled loose.

[SlimKlim]

I'M BACK BABY!!

(Side note: Just noticed all the broken image links, I got rid of my paid SmugMug account since now you can do just as much with an imgur account that costs 1/3rd as much, forgot it was going to break all of my forum links. )

Now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of unemployment, I feel comfortable enough to start some of the projects on the car to get her back on the road. In April I got failed on inspection for a bad exhaust connection coming out of the header, and it also needs a set of tires, giubo/csb, and new steering column bushings to be nice to drive.

It also needs an interior refreshing, a new headgasket, and decent number of oil leaks sorted out, but I', going to save those things for this winter so I can get a few months of driving out of it before the weather goes cold.

I'm also toying with the idea of throwing on some reversed 96+ top hats, and I probably ought to do some fluid changes and get a new air filter while she's up in the air.





Got her up in the air and ready to work on last weekend, and spent some time cleaning the garage, organizing tools and setting up a nice work space for the project.

Removing the lower portion of the steering column was surprisingly easy, I just followed this DIY. http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/sho...n-Steering

You basically remove the two bolts from the universal joint where the rack connects to the column, then the top bolt where the lower joint connects to the upper part of the column at the firewall. After that, you remove the two 15mm bolts that hold the steering rack in place, and slide it forward and off of the column.

Wiggling the rack out of its bracket was the hardest part so far, and it looks like getting it back in there while also getting the joint connected will be the biggest pain when I finish it up.

I think its safe to say this needed to be replaced:



Not so sure about the lower joint, but I already had the part so I figured I might as well.



I already have the new lower joint in place, so I just need to put the universal on and slide the rack back into place to finish this part of the project up, HOWEVER:

When I was moving the rack, this little guy fell out and pocked me on the forehead:





Does anyone know what this is? It looks like it might be a switch for a ratchet that fought its last fight while working on the car, but I want to be sure its not something off of the car before I bolt her back together.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish this up, then drop out the midpipe, measure the ends of the headers to see what size flanges I need to order, and pull the driveshaft.

[Beej]

I'm looking forward to hear if the "steering column guibo thingie" makes a difference. I'm considering doing mine as a while-you're-in-there thing next time the front end is in the air.

Congrats on the job offer, btw! :thumbup:

[SlimKlim]

Thanks!

I wasn't convinced I needed to replace it, but once I took it out it was obvious the rubber is shot, its super soft compared to the new part. Hopefully that does the trick, the rest of the front end is relatively new so I don't know what else could be causing the slop.

[D_Eclipse9916]

That's definitely a ratchet part. Nice progress!

[SlimKlim]

Got the rack back in this morning, trickiest part was realigning the steering column to the rack, but I used a block of wood across the wheel and a tape measure to get it straight. The wheel does feel a bit tighter, but I won't really be able to tell until I get the car on the ground.

Then I dropped the mid-pipe and heat shield, called it a day and went to drink beer at Tim's Rivershore in Dumfries for a few hours. Tomorrow I'll pull the drive shaft out, but I need to order a few odd parts before I can put it all back together.

I also need to pick up a new midpipe from a junkyard, an O2 sensor (mine is so seized in that attempts to remove it just round off the nut), and some flanges for the new midpipe. THEN I need to sucker someone with a welder into coming over and helping me install the flanges. **COUGH** Kaan. **COUGH** I pay in beer, lots of beer.

[SlimKlim]

Yesterday I got the front half of the driveshaft down, and then when I went to separate the front half from the rear, I realized that my driveshaft didn't look anything like the one in the picture on the DIY. Today I'll have to take apart the CV joint that goes into the diff and see if I can figure out how to separate it outside of the car, and it sounds like I may need to go buy/rent a gear puller to get the center support bearing off of the rear section.

Then I'll pretty much be in waiting-for-parts mode. I need to order a few odd pieces for the CSB, new hardware for the flex disc, trans mounts,exhaust flanges and gaskets to finish this area up.

I'm going to PA later this week to buy an OBD-II midpipe from a friend, and then Bralley has a guy who will make the welding modifications for me for cheap. We need to cut it down to fit the long tubes, weld the flanges onto the headers and pipe, cap off the post-cat O2 sensors, and weld in a bung on the inboard pipe before the cat for the OBD-I sensor.

[SlimKlim]

I've been trying to figure out the difference between the midpipes, the OBD-I has two different diameter pipes, one is 2" and one is 1.75", and the headers are sized to match. The headers should fit 95-99 cars, but looking at pictures of the OBD-II headers, the appear to be the same diameter, so I'm not sure how that will work out when I go to put flanges on them. I took another look at the headers and the outside one narrows down a few inches before it ends, so if the OBD-II midpipe turns out to have equal diameter pipes, I guess I can just hack off where it gets narrow and install the flange a bit further up on that side.

I also figured out the crap with my driveshaft, there are two completely different styles that seemed to be installed in the cars at random, I thought it was another '95 MY difference but other people with 96-99s had this style too. The Bentley, Haynes and Pelican tech articles don't even acknowledge the existence of this style. Most of the cars seem to use a large retainer nut that you clamp onto with a plumbers wrench and unscrew the front of the driveshaft. Mine had a nut hidden in the u-joint behind the CSB that needs to be loosened with an 18mm box wrench.



Victory!



...yeah, I think it was time to replace this...



Now I just need to get a gear puller to remove the old CSB and wait until I can order parts to start putting her back together.

[SlimKlim]

Huzzah!



I went to Autozone this morning to use a gear puller and try to get the old bearing off, instead of moving the bearing I just bent the puller...

I went to my shop this afternoon and tried it with a bigger gear puller, still wouldn't budge. They didn't have the right attachment for the hydraulic press so we resorted to good ole fashioned fire. A few seconds under the torch and a couple twists with a gear puller popped that fucker right off. They went ahead and drifted the new one on for me because they're awesome, and here she sits. I just need to place a Pelican parts order to get the new hardware to put it all back in.

I also took the opportunity to clean her nasty, oil soaked, 180k mile underbelly, it was never pretty under there, but my thanksgiving-oil-filter-housing-hemorrhage-debacle last year only made it worse. I used an entire can of Gunk Heavy Duty Gel, which as far as I can tell is a mixture of kerosene and lighter fluid with something to make it sludgey. I'm bad about raw dogging stuff like this, but after 10 seconds I walked over to home depot and bought a bunch of disposable gloves and a pair of safety goggles.

The pictures don't really do it justice, I was amazed at how well that stuff works. Spray it on, scrub the tough areas and let it soak for about 10 minutes, and blast it clean with the hose.

Before:



After:





I forgot the lollipop bushings were purple...

Now I'm pretty much in a holding pattern until I collect the necessary parts, and I'm waiting to click the order buttons until I have 101% confirmation of my new employment. With my luck I'd spend $1500 and immediately get a call like "Hey, so, yeah, that position, well it turns out it wasn't actually open... soooooo yeahhhh"

Assuming I hear back in the next day or two, I'm going to pick up a new midpipe later this week, I've already ordered a new speaker amp, an O2 sensor bung and a couple O2 caps for the new pipe. I need to measure the diameter of an OBD-II midpipe to confirm what size flanges to order, and I've got a set of tires and all the hardware I need from Pelican Parts queued up and ready to go.

Can't wait to have this thing back on the road. I've barely driven it since March, and being able to hoon on it again as a reward to myself for getting through this period of unemployment will be the most gratifying thing ever. :thumbup:

[premiershine9]

That'll be a nice celebratory hooning

[Jake]

Can't wait to see this back on the road. It's been far too long

[D_Eclipse9916]

Can't wait to see this back on the road. It's been far too long

Seriously, how many E36 M3s are we going to have rolling around this winter... Unfortunately my roommate has it stuck in his head he is buying one too.