Hey guys, I recently picked up a REALLY cheap 2001 330i with an automatic that was blown. I have a bunch of e36 m3 stuff and they used the same transmission in the manual 330's and the e36 m3, so I figured what the heck? I'll buy the car and throw my old flywheel, clutch, and transmission into it.

So after grabbing some pedals from a junkyard and a manual driveshaft and spending the weekend swearing up a storm, I now have a fully functional car with a manual.

BUT- when coasting in gear there's a pretty nasty noise from the driveshaft. When I was putting it together I used an m3 guibo. Why? Because I've collected like 6 of the things over the years somehow. And the one that was on the auto was pretty bad and the one that came with the manual driveshaft was kinda iffy. So I just used what I had to save some bucks.

The only thing is- the m3 one is thicker. Which means that the CV joint at the rear of the driveshaft is pushed in slightly from where it would really want to be. And it sounds like the noise is coming from the CV joint on the driveshaft. It turned easily with the car up in the air, though.

Also, the car I got the driveshaft from had been in a front collision and it pushed the driveshaft all the way back and caused the CV joint metal cover to balloon out a bit. So I'm thinking the CV joint might have taken some damage. I'm going to pull the shaft out next weekend and inspect/replace the CV joint.

Should I get another 330 guibo to have when I take the shaft out? Or have people actually used the M3 ones with no problems before? And this is only 330's I'm talking about here. In the 328 it has the U joint driveshaft with the splines in the middle so the length is adjustable, so it'd definitely work in a 328.

Thanks to anyone who can offer some insight....