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I would do something like this, but with a proper strap like you got, just weld on a reinforcement plate to the inside of the wheel well with perimeter welds, and plug welds. It's a good spot where it won't get caught on any suspension bits or moving parts. And maybe a bungy cord pulling it away from everything during full compression, just to be safe.Originally Posted by 95maxrider
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The thought occurred to me that at full droop my H&R Sport springs could fall right out, but I never thought of installing limiters like this. I'll definitely be watching what you do!
Member
Good god, I never want to do this again.
So after my Rogue Engineering rear spring height adjuster failed at the car's first race and the car bottomed out hard, I noticed what appeared to be a little crack in my driver side rear shock tower.
I dropped the car off at Brian's house, since I knew the tower would require some welding. Brian got to work cleaning up the area a bit, but quickly came across a lot of problems.
This is bad. If this is what a cursory inspection reveals, what are we gonna find when we really tear into this thing? I came to the realization that Brian couldn't just weld up the cracks, there were too many of them. And what about the passenger side? What's lurking over on that side? The only proper solution is to get new towers for both sides, and preferably make them bulletproof in the process. Thankfully, the car was in good hands with Brian, so I was optimistic. In anticipation of drilling out the 28+ spot welds, I got a few different spot weld drill bit cutting kits. Specifically, one fancy $30 kit, and a bunch of $5 HF versions.
New towers are new:
After lying inside the trunk curled up into unimaginable positions and getting blasted by seam sealant, paint, etc. for hours, I eventually got things clean enough to see what was really going on.
The PS tower was looking pretty good, with only two tiny cracks, but the DS was really rough. Any far more hours of being contorted in the trunk, I got most of the spot welds out. Even with the extra special lube/lard with the drill bits, they were very tough. I think each fancy bit only did like 5 welds each!
The HF ones did slightly less, but I went though about 6 of them. Eventually I just went to regular drill bits, and finished up the holes that way.
While I was doing that, Brian was busy modifying my rear shock mounts. Since he was going to be welding a new piece of metal on top of the towers, the bolts needed to be longer, so he got the old ones out and put in some longer ones.
I think this is an interesting comparison between TurboJosh's 8" generic brand 300-350 lb spring on the left and my 7" Hypercoil 350 lb on the right. The spacing on the coils makes me feel better about paying the premium that I did, because coil bind sucks.
Here are the plates Brian made to weld on top of the tower:
Like so
So I cleaned up the towers and Brian got to welding!
To make sure the new tower goes exactly where the old one was, Brian made a cool little bracket thing to mark its place. Then, he got to cutting, and eventually, it looked like this:
There was so much rust damage, and the remaining metal was so thin, something had to be done before we could weld in the new tower. So Brian got some sheet metal, cut it up, and made some reinforcement patches!
After many, many hours, Brian emerged from this seam welded beauty. It's not pretty, but it's not supposed to be. But this shit is strong! Compared to a non-reinforeced tower with the original 14 spot welds, this is awesome!
Thankfully, the PS was in much better shape, and no new panels had to be welded in. To top it all off, I picked up some roll cage tubing from Chris and Brian welded that sucker it. Due to some bends it came with, it ended up fitting perfectly aiming towards the back seats, and doesn't take up too much room.
So while I was poking around the engine bay, I stumbled across this:
Oh, that's bad. Like, real bad. Well, at least I only got like 5 runs total in the car in the dust so far. But I need something better before the next event, which at this point is quickly approaching. So I looked around for the biggest K&N filter I could find, and was promptly a little surprised by its size.
I also really needed some extra protection, since even after I installed a bunch of underbody plastic to keep water out of the engine bay, this happened within 5 runs:
Yeah, that's bad too. So I said fuck it and splurged on the waterproof pre-filter bag. After some cutting to the headlight plastic and a tab on the MAF....
I got that sucker in there!
And while we were in there, we threw on the new all-steel Bilstein rear spring adjusters. Goodbye Rogue! You have a great idea, just make it stronger!
I then admired my old DS shock tower
And breathed a huge sigh of relief that this awful project was over. I think those rear shock towers are damn near indestructible now, but it didn't come cheap, even with Brian giving me an incredible deal. Now I just need to find the NEXT thing that's gonna break....
Ambitious But Rubbish
Nicely done!
E36 shock towers were the bane of my existence when I bought my M3/4/5. It was a Jersey car for a few years too many. The driver's rear had to be replaced like yours, the passenger rear was already fixed before I bought the car, and I had to have the driver's front welded back together a bit as well.
Thankfully, it's all been fine since.
2011 F-150 FX4 | 1997 BMW M3 #404 GTS2 | 2006 BMW M3 Convertible
Out Motorsports
Member
Thanks! I can only hope that I'm as lucky as you. If this car's history is anything to go off of though, I probably won't be. I've got another car that needs some lovin' but I can't get anything done with this M3 breaking things left and right!
Member
I got some pics of the car in motion in the few moments between breakdowns from the one pathetic race it attended, so here they are!
I think this was when the cooling system exploded:
Anyways, back to more recent times. So when the car was over at Brian's to have the rear towers done, he also fixed a couple other things for me. First off, he got the electric fan to work by fixing a bad ground. Then he completed the welds around the front strut towers that Eric missed when he did the initial install, probably about 10-20%.
Then he got the rear half of the fuel line skid plate installed.
Sweet!!!
Then I had to do something which I had been avoiding for about six months, which was get some paint on under side of the front strut towers, due to all the welding above burning the paint off. I figured I might as well put on some extra elsewhere, like the top of the front strut tower, the rear trailing arm pocket area, RSTB, and another small area. So I dropped all the suspension and got busy with a wire wheel....
This little damaged area is in the rear passenger side wheel well. I'm guessing it's related to the bent frame!
I could see a little surface rust around the trailing arm pockets:
Then I was a good boy and followed all the POR15 instructions, which was a huge pain in the ass. Phrasing?
Prepped and ready to go!
After getting a few coats between the two pieces of the front strut towers, I figured I should probably fill the gap with some seam sealer to keep debris from getting trapped in there and holding moisture.
When it was all said and done, I think most areas got four coats of POR15. Then, I hit all areas under the car with two coats of rubberized undercoating:
Close up of the former gap
Rubberized undercoating
When I went to reinstall everything, the front coilovers just did not want to go back in the car. I also noticed that one of the JVAB welds was kind of interfering with one of the bolts/nuts, so I ground it down:
I then reattached my "diffuser" that got ripped off on one of my practice runs. Seems it was held in place with two clips, and one broke. So I drilled a hole, and now it's held in place in four locations, with two zip ties in most holes.
I also tore the cooling system apart to fix a slow leak coming from the overflow tank, which I'm pretty sure the PO fixed. I put a new hose clamp on, snugged it up real good, and put it back together.
While I had things apart, I snapped a pic of the area under my valve cover. This whole area used to be caked with oily crap. Looks like my VC job is holding up!
When it was all said and done, this is what it looked like. Pretty much the same.
What will break next? I'm taking bets now. Find out on the next installment of "Nick is getting sick of this shit."
Last edited by 95maxrider; 10-28-2016 at 09:32 PM.
Member
So you remember that slow coolant leak I fixed in my last post? Yeah, turns out I didn't fix it, and I needed to take the whole damn thing apart again before rally-x #7. I hate draining coolant!!!
I wasn't sure where the leak was coming from, except that the top of the overflow tank was soaked, so it had to be in that area. The cap seemed to seal fine, as did the bleeder screw. What else could it be? Ahh yes, the small hose on the top of the tank! Turns out that the hose clamp was a tad loose, probably because I had tightened it up with a screwdriver instead of a ratcheting socket that day when I hastily reassembled it at the race venue. While I had it all apart, I figured I would clean up a few things that were bugging me. First up was relocating the electric fan on the radiator. The whole setup had been used in an E30 before I bought it, and the hose that runs along the bottom of the shroud/radiator didn't seem to be in quite the right location with the fan offset from center. Time to center it!
Before:
After:
I had to trim down the mounting zip tie things since they were too big and didn't sit flush up against the fan:
And just like when I rebuilt the system initially, there is this goo all over the place. WTF is this stuff??
With the fan now mounted in the center, the shroud no longer had room to slide between it and the motor, so I trimmed the shroud:
I added a zip tie to make sure the lower hose didn't move around too much:
And I added some spare hose around the center of the bottom hose since it looked like it might rub against the bottom of the fan housing:
And with that, I finally had a reliable cooling system that held pressure. Hooray!
Now I could turn my attention to more frivolous projects, such as installing the non-M side mirrors. I couldn't stand the tiny M side mirrors when I bought the car, and I haven't gotten used to them since, so it was time for something that actually functioned as a mirror. These used ones I got had a few problems though. One was that one of the caps had come off and all the tabs were broken, so I couldn't just clip it back on. So I mixed up some JB Weld, spread it around the lip of the cap, and waited. A few days later, it appeared to be nice and strong, so it was time to install it. Then I realized a bunch of metal had been embedded in the glass and made the mirror look like shit, so I used my awesome Iron-X spray to "dissolve" the metal particles:
After a couple applications the mirror was much smoother, but I sensed it was never going to be perfect, so I cleaned it up and threw them on the car. Great success, I can now see what is next to my car!
I then played with the zoom on my camera to see what my very neglected other car is up to. Not very much it seems....
I need to find a few days so I can do the oil pans, rear main seal, and transmission stuff, because this car is leaking like a sieve.
I've been pretty fed up with the blown out HK speakers in this car, and can't afford the BavSound upgrade yet, so I've been on a mission to find reasonably priced HK replacements. First up is the PS 5" kick speaker.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the surround is dead....
With the new one installed, it's sounding much better, but the PS tweeter is blown too, so I'm now on the hunt for a good one of those.
Race results coming soon!
Member
Time for more overdue updates!
The car survived two rally-x events so far, but for now I'm just going to summarize some of the work I've done. First up are the rear shock mounts. At a race a month ago I heard a lot of clicking noises from what sounded like the rear shock mounts as soon as I started driving in the dirt. I don't think I ever really heard the noise when driving on pavement. It didn't get any worse throughout the day, but I figured I should probably take a look at it.
It turns out I was using unnecessary parts and also not putting enough preload on the bushings. This is how I had it mounted, with reinforcement plates on the top of the towers:
But also on the bottom (under the mount):
Oh, and while I was working on all that, I noticed some oil around the top of my rear DS shock, the one that got abused when the rear spring perch gave out and the car dropped to the ground while I was racing. Looks like I should probably get this rebuilt....great!
Regarding the preload, here's the problem:
The shaft was too thick for the upper washers, so they couldn't exert force on the bushings:
I found some big washers that would fit over the bottom part of the shaft, but it wasn't quite enough, so I drilled out the hole in two more washers, which got me the preload I was looking for. I had a spare set of bushings lying around, so I installed those as well since the ones that were in there were looking a little chewed up from moving around so much.
Installed again, but this time in the manner Rogue recommends:
shock_asm1.gif
shock_asm2.gif
And with that, my clicking noises have vanished. Hooray!
Last edited by 95maxrider; 12-12-2016 at 01:38 PM.
Back in the game!
I think that you posted 2x.
Member
That was weird. Fixed!
Back in the game!
I finally added some more seat pics. I was way behind on updates.
Member
Rally-x #7 recap!
I'm about a month behind schedule as usual, but better late than never! So I had finally gotten the cooling system buttoned up, so it was time to try and make it through an entire event without breaking something. Quite the tall order! Thankfully our 7th event was at the Rally Farm in Catlett, VA, which is only about an hour south of me, and the dirt is more forgiving than the gravel at Frostburg. Let's see what it'll do!
Pretty much as soon as I started driving around in the dirt, I heard some clicking noises coming from the rear of the car. After convincing someone to hop in the area that used to have my back seat while I drove around, we guessed the noise was coming from both rear shock mounts. The noise was there all day, but never got worse, so I just prayed it would be okay until I got it home and inspected it. Aside from that, the car felt great! I don't think I will ever need more power than I already have, and the car behaved very well. Maybe it was just the dirt surface, and my lack of experience in it, but I felt like the car was understeering a bit. I also couldn't really use all of my horsepower in the dirt, but such is life. Unfortunately, my driving skills just don't seem to be what they used to be, and I ended up mid pack for the day. I hope I just need more seat time, because the car is incredibly capable, I just can't drive it the way it needs to be driven (sideways). Still, it made it through an whole event without breaking something, so that's at least something to be happy about!
Stubborn Approach Racing
Remove the FSB. It has no reason to be on the car, just several reasons it should not be on there. How does the car react to a pendulum turn (scandi flick) on approach & entry?
Member
What are your thoughts on the RSB? May I ask how you came to your conclusion? Do you think the same applies for auto-x and track duty? To be honest, I didn't really try a flick, I was more just replying on torque to rotate the thing. Like I said, my driving needs some work.
Stubborn Approach Racing
I grew up on a dirt road in a small desert town where there wasn't much to do except beat on vehicles. The first thing I would do is remove the FSB so that the independent suspension is actually independent of each other, and I could then get the rear to rotate more freely. A properly calculated damper setup should only allow the springs to handle most oscillations. A stabilizer bar can act as increased spring rate, and reduce roll, but that isnt a concern in the gravel, it is a blessing in my experience.
I cannot comment on autox setups, but based on my limited experience setting FTD at both events I had been to years ago, the asphalt those events are run on are flat, smooth, and do not allow for a full suspension cycle (full droop / full bump). They are nothing like rallyx events so I dont think it would be too much of a stretch to assume that their suspension requirements are at polar opposite ends of the spectrum.
As for the flick, that is the key to properly approaching and effectively navigating a corner. Getting the weight to transfer allows for immediate rotation. If you have any dirt roads or open lots you could take the car and practice "manji drifts," or perhaps setup a cone or 3 and work on tight hairpin figure 8s of sorts, you will get a lot more comfortable with vehicles handling dynamics before the next event.
The way I look at it, you still need to practice to the point your muscle memory takes over and does it naturally. The speeds are much lower than stage rally or hpdes, but the rule I have always lived by with regards to those is that if you have to think about it, its already too late.
I will PM you a couple videos of myself flicking corners, and doing manjis (fishtails).
EDIT: About the RSB, if traction is not an issue on exit, the diff doesnt unload or unlock when a wheel is lifted, its probably fine. However, remove it some day and see for yourself the difference it makes. On the really rough courses it may be wise to remove regardless in order to alleviate the additional strains your end links, bushings & mounts will experience.
Last edited by Team Neverlift; 12-13-2016 at 01:08 PM. Reason: RSB Question
Member
Thanks for the detailed explanation! It seems a popular thing for guys who auto-x E36s is to remove the RSB, but that may only apply to guys who run much stiffer springs than I do. Yeah, I would like to buy a set of snow tires and be able to safely drive around in the snow to get practice in low grip situations. Unfortunately, I live in the burbs and there aren't any non-paved roads for me to practice on. I've known that I need practice with flicking, but can't figure out how to actually get the practice. If you could send me any vids, I would appreciate it. I've read plenty and seen plenty of videos, and as you know, the only thing that really counts is practice!
Member
Awesome build thread Sir!
Do you have any videos with car in full action?
Member
Thank you! I do indeed have videos from the events, I'm just lazy and haven't trimmed them down yet. Maybe I'll do that now...Awesome build thread Sir!
Do you have any videos with car in full action?
Member
I would like to see so much you and your M3 in full action. Can't wait
Member
I put a couple videos together, I hope they suffice! I need to step up my driving....
Rally-x #7
https://youtu.be/BgVddY6nV3s
Rally-x #8
https://youtu.be/BR-4Mmu8AfI
Member
Nice vids, looks like good fun!
Member
Long time, no updates!
So I bought this car knowing it consumed oil, but from what the PO told me, it was in line with normal consumption for a car this old. I've only put some 2,000 miles on the car since I bought it, but consumption has been all over the place. Around the last race of the season it appeared to go through a quart in 100 miles! This obviously worried me a great deal, as I'm not in a position to rebuild my motor nor buy a new used motor. The PO said he had installed a new CCV in an attempt to manage the consumption, so I figured if that had already been done, the two possibilities are either bad rings or valve seals.
In doing some research on the CCV, I came across a review on Amazon for the knockoff version which said it failed after three months. The knockoff was $30, OEM was $90. What if the PO had installed a non-OEM part and it had failed, leading to my consumption problems? I attempted to diagnose it by removing the oil cap and checking for abnormal vacuum. The car stumbled a bit, but it didn't feel like it was trying to suck my hand into the motor, so I was left unsure of how to assess the results. I figured that putting a new CCV on the car was relatively cheap, so I bought all brand new OEM parts and waited a few weeks until I had some free time to get in there and replace it all.
This weekend, that day finally came. I don't know if the job was made more difficult because of the M50 manifold, but it was NOT a pleasant job. I finally got the old one out and was rewarded for my patience:
It was indeed NOT an OEM piece. Maybe this was the culprit after all!
I also replaced the drain hose back to the pan. The RealOEM diagram showed it with hose clamps on either end, but there were none on my car. Probably not a big deal, since I don't think that hose sees any vacuum, and there were no oil leaks around the ends, but still, proper is proper.
The old one had definitely seen better days.
Even though mine was i good shape, I got a new plastic tube just in case.
Turns out the one on my car was probably not OEM, as the ends of it rotated, while my new OEM one did not. I wondered if allowing the ends to rotate could cause a vacuum leak....
While I was down there, I had to unhook the hose going to this EVAP thingy. It too was looking tired, so I cut 1" off the end and plugged it back in.
After double checking all my connections, I put it all back together and hoped for the best.
Next up, something actually kinda cool. A new/used steering wheel! I have wanting to replace the admittedly pretty nice 3 spoke wheel that came with the car, but money has been tight, so I didn't want to order one without having sold the stock one first. Well, after weeks of it being up for sale, someone bought it, so it was time to remove it and install the aftermarket wheel!
I used this thread as my guide:
http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...-Wheel-Install
With my airbag system disabled, I was free to ignore the instructions on wiring in resistors. The only thing to do was to wire up the carbon pin so the horn would work. Well, my car had different wiring that the Z3 in the write up, which for once actually made things much easier. The carbon pin was able to just plug right in to the existing connector, no splicing needed!
And with that, my Sparco wheel was installed with a functioning horn, and so far, working turn signal cancelling. I've had this wheel for years now, and I like it so much that I bought the new version, the L505, for my other car. The M3 (dirt car) gets this old one, and boy does it feel great in my hands. I've used a lot of steering wheels and this one remains my favorite. I don't love the alcantara on the top section, but the grips are just so perfect I can ignore that small detail.
More to come!
Member
Well, this can't be good:
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...12-hours/page5
I rebuilt the entire cooling system on this car last year (Stewart WP, OEM thermostat, electric fan, new hoses, etc.) so everything is fresh and survived two rally-x events. It has been going through oil at varying rates, and I've wondered if the rings are bad. I just got done installing a new OEM CCV system, but haven't yet put enough miles on it to know if it helped with the oil consumption. The idle also has been rough for the last few months, but replacing the CCV seemed to help. A few days ago I drove the car for about 30 minutes and then let it sit and idle for about 3-4 minutes. When I got back in the car, the temp gauge was at 3/4, but the warning light had not yet come on. I decided to see what would happen if I got it up to speed, and the temp quickly came down. I turned on the heat at full blast, took it easy on the motor, and babied it the 5 minutes home without it going above half. I opened the hood and saw some coolant around the cap, but I couldn't tell if it was coming from the cap or the hidden hose just below it. The following night, some 22 hours later, I decided to check things out a bit, and when I opened the cap, coolant started gushing out. I think at least 12-16 oz. came out.
From what I've read, retaining pressure in the cooling system many hours after driving it means I probably need a new HG and a decked head, at a minimum. How/where does this system bleed out excess coolant? Is it a totally closed system? With a motor this old and tired, is it worth trying to get it back on the road as cheaply as possible by just pressure testing and decking the head and installing a new head gasket, or would you recommend picking up a used motor with fewer miles? I'm aware of all the risks that come with buying a used motor, as well as the costs (roughly $2,000). I can get the head checked, decked, and reinstalled with a new gasket for about $300, which is a fraction of the cost of anything else. Rebuilt heads are about $1,000. I don't know if pressure testing will reveal any micro cracks around the valves or not.
I don't need to make any more power, but I do need the engine to reliably withstand racing abuse. If this were your car, which route would you take? Oh, did I mention the first race of the season is in two weeks?
Member
I'm not sure you'd like my answer.
Member
Yeah, I think I can guess what it might be...after seeing your thread I don't think I want to follow in your footsteps....I'm not sure you'd like my answer.
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