Bringing a '98 Cosmos Schwarz M3/4/5 back to life

[Musicisair]

That URO lower radiator hose I installed back in May popped off, resulting in a huge mess of sticky coolant all over the engine and car. Yay. I had to do another complete coolant flush this weekend and installed a new OE lower radiator hose and new hose clamps.

I also finally installed my door handle gaskets, front bumper "BMW" insignia moulding, and brand new OE fog lights! I'm going to polish up the headlights soon to match (I'd love to get some euro glass ones eventually).
IMG_20170916_185838.jpg

I've had a solid oil light on only at idle when it's hot out for a while now. I installed a new oil pressure switch but the light remained. I did another oil change as well, switching from BMW 5W30 to Mobile 1 15w50, which didn't help at all. I've also tried running about 1/2 a quart high on oil, but still get the light. I've tested the oil pressure and it was a tad low; it's kind of difficult/dangerous/annoying to test since when idling in my garage or driveway it'll take a good 30-40 minutes to get hot enough to trigger the light. I am still running with an exhaust cam that appears to be one tooth off, which very well could be the problem. Once I fix that, if I still have the problem, I'll drop the oil pan (I need to replace the gasket anyway) and maybe install a new oil pump and upper+lower rod bearings, too.

I updated my maintenance spreadsheet to show what goes into maintaining (and restoring) a late 90s M3, including total cost of ownership: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Total restoration and maintenance costs to date: $6,151.16
Current Mileage: 122,927
Days: 451

[Musicisair]

Polished my headlights!

I used 3M's Drill-Activiated Sanding Headlight Restoration kit (paid $16.45).

It took about an hour and half, including prep and clean up. The results came out great! I might get some Lamin-x for them to keep the looking like new (though I really want to get ZKW glass headlights eventually).

Before:
Attachment 611033

After:
Attachment 611034

And a bonus glamour shot:
Attachment 611035


I updated my maintenance spreadsheet to show what goes into maintaining (and restoring) a late 90s M3, including total cost of ownership: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Total restoration and maintenance costs to date: $6,167.61
Current Mileage: 123,010
Days: 455

[MauiM3Mania]

Headlamps look much better as do the new fog lamps.

[blckstrm]

I just posted this in another thread about low oil pressure. Sadly, it's not terribly uncommon in high-mileage E36s:

I have a friend with a 325 race car (177k miles) and my M3 has 221k, and both exhibit this flicker to some degree when hot (his car worse than mine).

He is an auto industry consultant, and has access to an old "retired" race engineer to help him track down problems and make the "right" modifications to his car (the consulting business uses the engineer, so he get's free access when they're working on actual work).

Mine only recently started doing this when it's above about 105 ambient (in Texas), but his car had been doing it in cooler temps for a long time (and constantly) once the car is warm. Any uptick in revs and it goes away. We haven't looked at the squirters, but he did the same thing djsk8r1218 did and more (E46 M3 sump, pickups, etc; rod bearings, oil pan, thicker oil, etc).

After chasing this for a while at one point he mentioned it to the race engineer, and he told him not to worry about it. He had installed a manual gauge, and it showed something like 4 PSI (where the light's threshold is just higher than that, somewhere like 5-7 PSI).

The engineer's explanation in a nutshell was that while low oil pressure isn't the greatest thing ever, at idle there is no load on the engine, so the low pressure isn't a big issue. While I don't recall reading what pbonsalb mentions about the light flickering in the manual (I read it a LONG time ago), this old race engineer seems to agree with BMW that it's not a big deal.

I will also second the Blackstone recommendation. Do an oil analysis with every oil change and you'll know where you stand. While this situation with my car bothers me, at 220k miles it's to be expected, seems to have been foreseen by the OEM, and my Blackstone reports confirm that I'm not seeing any rod or main bearing wear. So while it bothers me, it's not worth a full teardown at this point, and not even worth a lightweight version with a rod bearing refresh.

[Musicisair]

I just posted this in another thread about low oil pressure. Sadly, it's not terribly uncommon in high-mileage E36s:

Does yours bog down (the RPMs drop below 500) for a moment at idle when the AC compressor or alternator come on? Mine does. Mine also stays solid after a few minutes of flickering.

My manual does mention the flickering at idle, btw.

[blckstrm]

Does yours bog down (the RPMs drop below 500) for a moment at idle when the AC compressor or alternator come on? Mine does. Mine also stays solid after a few minutes of flickering.

My manual does mention the flickering at idle, btw.

Yes, that's exactly what it does. I've wondered if cleaning out the idle control valve would stop the drop and let it idle just a bit higher - enough to stop the light. But I'm not concerned enough to dig into it right now. At some point something will either force the issue or I'll have the intake off for something else and I'll do it then.

[Musicisair]

It's been cool enough in Florida so that the oil light doesn't come on anymore, which is nice, but temporary. So I still need to try to find a solution. I've already cleaned out the ICV, but maybe I should just replace it. :-/

I installed new UUC clutch arm bushings, replacing the circlips, clutch arm, spring, pedal pad, clutch stop and clutch stop pad, etc. Clutch feels soooooo much better now! I noticed while I was under there that the brake return springs bushings were shot, so I replaced one and have another ordered and ready to go. Also, ECS Tuning's clutch replacement kit includes two styles of springs, a return spring and a compression spring. You can use either or, but since my car already had the compression spring I stuck with that and went ahead and replaced the brake pedal return spring with the extra spring from the ecs kit.

My front sway bar end links were shot, so I replaced those and and front sway bar bushings, which is a pretty easy job. Getting the new bushing to fit is a little annoying, but a little muscle and a lot of leverage helps here. The "dink" sound when going over small bumps is gone now, but other than that I don't think I notice any difference in handling.

My ABS and ACS lights would intermittently light up together and stay on, so I replaced my brake booster sensor on a hunch, and it fixed the issue.

I also fixed an issue where my right turn signal would not blink sometimes by replacing the Hazard Warning Relay. I typically stick with OE components, even over OEM, but for this one I bought OEM instead since it was a shot in the dark as to weather or not this would fix the issue (OE: $81.08, OEM: $26.69). It did fix it, btw. :-)


The car has developed a terrible sound as of late that occurs mostly on engine braking at around 2.5-3.5k rpms. The sound has been there for a while but has been hard to diagnose and pinpoint because the car has to be moving for the sound to occur. It sounds like a wobbly bearing vibrating. I'm thinking it might be the clutch throw-out bearing. I thought I had fixed it once before, after changing all the pulleys and rollers, but clearly that didn't work. I'll probably post about it, with video, in a separate thread soon to get some thoughts on what it could be.


I updated my maintenance spreadsheet to show what goes into maintaining (and restoring) a late 90s M3, including total cost of ownership: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Total restoration and maintenance costs to date: $6,658.36
Current Mileage: 123,889
Days: 496

[DocWyte]

Interesting on popping out the center slat on that vent. I assume it's pop out the good one and then just pop it into the old vent? Any tricks there to share? I need to do that, I've had a good, used vent sitting on my work bench for awhile, I wasn't looking forward to completely removing the broken vent and replacing it.

If all it takes is popping in a "new" center slat tho....

[Musicisair]

Interesting on popping out the center slat on that vent. I assume it's pop out the good one and then just pop it into the old vent? Any tricks there to share? I need to do that, I've had a good, used vent sitting on my work bench for awhile, I wasn't looking forward to completely removing the broken vent and replacing it.

If all it takes is popping in a "new" center slat tho....

One of the holes where the center slat inserts into was cracked on my car already, inserting the new one just made it worse (but still better than before since now I have a working center slat!). It was easy to pop the slat out of the other unit without damaging the vent or slat (that unit was brand new though; a 20 year old vent may not do so well).

Compared to doing things like rebuilding VANOS or a clutch pedal bearing install, replacing the whole center vent unit is way easier (getting it to line up during the install so it fits is the hardest part). :-)

[DocWyte]

Managed to coax it outta there without damaging it. Just gotta get my car back from the shop and I'll pop it into the installed vent.