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Thread: 1978 323i driver/project

  1. #51
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sacramento, California
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    4,704
    My Cars
    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by cgifool View Post
    Yeah, I found new BMW nuts on Amazon and have a bag of them waiting for my loving ministrations.

    Best price I found was 4 for $6.24 with free shipping.

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AG928QO

    I bought the previous (wrong) ones for just this job, but did not realize that being taller would be such a problem!
    Same Folks I got my Differential gasket from, best price.

    As to 07129964672 Guibo Bolts M10 x 61mm Grade 10.9 and $6-10 ea,,,I got 10- M10 x 60mm Grade 10.9 Zinc Coated for $12/free shipping, now $13/free shipping, furnace black 25 pk for $16.00 is available as well, Grade 10.9 ,proof load 85,000 psi.

    Randy
    Last edited by 320iAman; 01-26-2018 at 04:49 PM.

  2. #52
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    1,585
    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Tonight I reinstalled my rear mufflers with new heavy-duty rubber donuts (and a new rubber figure-8 one for the hanger by the left axle). The stock donuts I bought just 14 months ago are already pretty cracked.

    I've hung this exhaust up several times and only now do I finally feel I've figured out the proper way to do it. I guess I'll find out for sure whenever I get back on the road again. Hoping for Sunday.

  3. #53
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    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Tonight I finished tightening up the exhaust and its brackets. Nice and solid, no thumping against anything anymore!

    I had previously made the mistake of installing the center resonator just a little bit twisted, hardly visually noticeable, which makes the left rear muffler impossible to get aligned with at the rear connection without hitting the axle, as well as too close to the trailing arm bolt.

    Only thing left keeping the car off the road is refilling the trans, and I don't have a pump! Last time I did this I got away with a squeeze bottle and a hose, but I don't even have that anymore. Guess its time I bought the right tool

    Interesting thing - I took another look at the tranny oil I had previously drained and collected in a clean transparent plastic container several weeks ago. At the time it was completely opaque and had a silvery sheen to it.

    But now the oil has gone back to a transparent deep red, and the very strong hard drive magnet I stuck on the outside, now has a big clump of goo stuck to it on the inside!

    IMG_4598.jpg

  4. #54
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1,585
    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Took a nice 3 hour round trip to Bryan, TX this morning to pick up some parts from Layne and do a little bench racing.

    I was kind of thinking about chainsawing off the roof and installing some sweet red hood scoops.

    IMG_4703.jpg

  5. #55
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    mostly reinstalled my a/c console and face plate, loosely. can't really tighten down anything until all the wires are tucked away and routed properly. i bet it will make squeaky noises when I go for a drive


    tricky process that only seems to work in one specific sequence. unfortunately some of the screws went missing or were wrong to start with, and some stripped screw holes made it even more fun.

  6. #56
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    inching forward!

    tonight I figured out how to reinstall the plastic lower dash panel that fits between the a/c console and the glovebox, installed four additional missing screws in the a/c console. it was especially painful due to missing hardware lost by me or PO's, and one of the hard lines on the (replacement aftermarket) evaporator stuck out a half inch further than the original.

    I was able to tighten up two existing bends in the pipe a little and pull it in a bit (enough to get the cover mounted, but unfortunately still at a slight angle from perfect).. A quick-nut and a panhead screw from my hardware drawer worked to secure the rear of the cover, and a small handful of oval head screws and dished washers (scrounged from the same drawer) sufficed to replace most of the missing console screws.

    The a/c panel is still unsecured except by friction, I'm missing whatever screws and quick-nuts there should have been - my new panel didnt come with them, and my old one was all broken from people trying to use screws to make threads in the plastic holes, so it didnt have anything either.

    I swapped out my ashtray with a junkyard one that didnt have a broken metal thingie. It was more weathered looking than my original, but some gummipflege brought back the black pretty well.

    I still need to find some new knobs for the a/c fan and temp, the old ones are pretty stripped and just barely grip enough to function.

    Replaced my heater fan knob and the flat plastic disc that goes behind it (the one with a little clear line so you can see the fan speed position at night with the dash lights on). The old ones were stripped out beyond repair. The new ones are perfect!

    However nicely they work now, I will still slap the hand of anyone else trying to mess with them, just as if they dared reach for the hazard flasher button or anything in the brittle old climate panel!!

  7. #57
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Tonight I reinstalled my glovebox and adjusted it so the plastic hanger straps are even. I noticed the nut on the glovebox lock was loose, so I "got 'er done" too.

    I must have put the metal wire guide clips with all the other missing console screws, so the rechargeable light wire will have to stay bunched up in the glovebox for the time being.

    The slight incorrect angle of the underdash panel covering the evaporator lines is barely noticeable and doesnt interfere with the glovebox at all. not even visible unless it's open either. no problem.

    The interior sure looks better with all this stuff in than out with wires dangling like for the past 10 months!!
    bec
    I attempted to finish by installing the replacement glovebox light button I had ready for this moment, but alas, I must have reconnected the wires backwards and blown the fuse because the dome light quit working after I reconnected the battery

    Guess that means I should quit for the night
    Last edited by cgifool; 02-23-2018 at 12:16 AM.

  8. #58
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    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Took my first drive after reinstalling the a/c console and glovebox, pretty dramatically reduced the noise from the transmission. Nice!

  9. #59
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Tonight I jacked up the back of the car and took off the left rear trailing arm in order to replace the trailing arm bushings. The alignment was clearly shaky (car pulling when I stepped on the brakes, clicking sounds from the rear when turning one direction but not the other).

    The right trailing arm actually looks new, still has a part number sticker on it, so it (and its bushings) must not have too many miles on them.

    As per several posts elsewhere on the site, wasn't too awful, took me about 2 hours total to remove the wheel, disconnect the sway bar link, disconnect inner brake line, unbolt caliper, remove rotor, unbolt outer CV joint from hub, remove e-brake shoes and hardware, disconnect emergency brake cable, disconnect lower shock bolt, and finally pull the whole arm off. A rubber vacuum cap was the right size to jam into the inner rubber brake line end to keep it from dripping.

    Fortunately, although the hardware all looked pretty crusty, it all came loose without too much struggle with the help of liberal quantities of PB Blaster. The 25" breaker bar got the trailing arm nuts loose, and the bolts are still even mostly shiny-yellow. The bushings are pretty shredded looking so I know this is going to be a good thing.
    IMG_5065.jpg

    IMG_5063.jpg


    IMG_5064.jpg
    Last edited by cgifool; 03-02-2018 at 12:58 AM.

  10. #60
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Sacramento, CA
    Posts
    1,077
    My Cars
    1979 E21 320i
    Whooooa baby. You know, those trailing arms look an awful lot like the e32 ones I have sitting around...Which are interchangable with e28s and e34s. Is your differential still a small case or is it a medium case?
    -John

  11. #61
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Small case I assume, stocker.

    What are ya thinking? Another route to 5-lug rear wheels?

    Lemme know if you want me to post any measurements or anything.

  12. #62
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Friday eve I cleaned up the trailing arm and hub pretty well.

    Checked the wheel bearings and they actually seem to feel just right so I’m not going to replace yet.

    Discovered I had already purchased all four rear brake lines, so I replaced the left two.

    Finally I used my homemade (as described elsewhere) trailer arm bushing puller to easily remove the old ones.


    7F8D6742-5812-41BE-9602-EF99621A0C5F.jpg

    FE9BF7F9-6046-43B7-80E2-1949933DE51B.jpg
    Last edited by cgifool; 03-04-2018 at 03:43 PM.

  13. #63
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    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Using the same tool, I installed the new bushings in the trailing arm, and replaced the remaining left rear brake line.

    I also tried for a while to remove the left parking brake cable, but the metal ferrule part is stuck in the body tube

    I seem to remember dealing with this same issue on my old 2002 with an air chisel, but I don't have one of those anymore.

    PB blaster and twisting with vice grips didnt work relatively immediately, Ima try mixing up some special sauce (50/50 ATF + acetone) and a few hundred little wiggles with the vice grips as I found recommended elsewhere.

    Heat gun also recommended.

  14. #64
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Tonight I replaced the left subframe bushing with a new poly one from Eurometric. Fit is perfect, very good quality piece!

    Took me 90 minutes or so working slow, cleaning up the old stuff, reinstalled with a new locknut on the one big bolt, reused the old other special-looking nuts and bolts.

    Not sure if the old mount was cracked quite all the way through but it was darn close.


    IMG_5185.jpg
    IMG_5186.jpg

  15. #65
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    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i

    parking brake cable

    Success!

    I was able to get my left parking brake cable removed without too much butchery in the end.

    I started as planned with liberal pb blaster (couldnt find the atf or acetone and clamping a 5" vice grip on the seized ferrule, and wiggling it back and forth, fifty times or so. After all this, it seemed like not much was happening.

    So I decided to get serious: I cut off the end of the cable (at the wheel end) and pulled it out from the cabin side.

    This was to avoid having broken pieces of plastic cable liner from getting jammed up inside the tube if I had tried to pull the cables out from the wheel end. (thank god for forums eh?). This worked perfectly.

    Then, I used my Dremel tool's cutoff wheel to cut the rubber cable housing about a half inch from the ferrule (without starting a fire). A pair of wire cutters will mangle this, don't even bother trying those.

    I intended to drill in from the end to make the metal thinner enough that it would eventually free itself or fall apart.

    But, I gave the vice grips a few more wiggles at this point and could see the pb blaster working in and out of the joint every time, so I simply kept up the wiggling, and sure enough it slowly slowly wiggled more and more until I finally was able to pull it free.

    Before reinstalling the new one I cleaned out the end of the tube really well with a finger-shaped wire brush, and put some anti-seize on the end of the new one.

    Pulling the cabin-end of the cable up without detaching the parking brake handle was a pain at first, until I hit upon bending the end of a coat hanger into a small hook, and using that to fish the end up such that I could reconnect it at the brake handle.

    IMG_5197.jpg

    IMG_5198.jpg

  16. #66
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Tonight I got the trailing arm remounted, sway bar and shock reconnected, parking brake shoes back in, all great

    but it turns out one of the Vaico parking brake cables I bought seems to have been manufactured wrong! argh!

    the wheel-end of the cable has a metal thing with a kink in the tube and some mounting ears that are offset a little top-to-bottom. turns out one cable had these ears backwards, so the kink in the cable was bent upwards towards the axle instead of downwards away from it.. argh! after some cursing I ended up cutting the ears a bit, so that I could mount the cable oriented properly after all, with only the barest visible sign of the hack.

    but THEN once again, while trying to push the little round nubbin through the end of the cable, it also turns out to be wrong, the hole is too small! I'll have to drill it out a bit larger in order to get it to fit

    Also, I readjusted one of the mufflers so that both tailpipes exit at the same height. at this point the exhaust finally seems to be adjusted right so nothing's hitting anywhere when you shove it with a hand. woo hoo

  17. #67
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Back on the road again!

    Over the past few days I got that bogus handbrake cable finalized (hole was not too small, just had a burr on it), reinstalled the parking brake guts, reattached the half-shaft, flushed the whole brake system (love my power bleeder!!), adjusted the handbrake cable, and got the wheel back on.

    Test driving it, I still seem to have a slight rightward brake pull, but greatly reduced from before.

    Now i'm hearing a slight scraping sound that comes and goes, right exactly at the point where I go from coasting to slightly on the gas. It fades out when i'm either accelerating harder or slowing down harder.

    Since this is very similar in behavior to the previous scraping sounds from loose flex disc bolts, I'll be checking the clearance there first. Must be pretty minimal even in good times.
    Last edited by cgifool; 03-21-2018 at 11:30 AM.

  18. #68
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sacramento, California
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    4,704
    My Cars
    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    Ireland just posted a rebuild kit for small differential 168 mm for $168 plus shipping, good deal. + $15 for large Pinion bearing. $183 plus Shipping.

    Product Description

    Replacement

    This is a rebuild kit for your 2002 or E21 differential that replaces all the common wear items. Some E21 differentials came with a larger pinion bearing (Late Model '80-'83 w/ 6-bolt side covers), make sure you know which bearing your diff has.

    Kit includes:
    X1 Front pinion bearing
    #33 12 1 204 305
    X1 Rear pinion bearing
    #33 12 1 204 306 (Small) or #33 12 1 206 739 (Large)
    X2 Side bearings
    #33 13 1 205 117
    X1 Input seal
    #33 12 7 621 206
    X2 Side seals
    #33 12 1 205 302
    X2 O-rings
    #33 11 3 604 119
    X1 Crush sleeve
    #33 12 1 200 259
    X1 Lock plate
    #23 21 1 490 120
    X1 Cover gasket
    #33 11 3 604 117
    X8 or X12 Side cover 10.9 bolts w/ washers



    _MG_6290_1000x1067.jpg

    http://www.iemotorsport.com/bmw/item/scdrk.html

    Randy
    Last edited by 320iAman; 03-21-2018 at 11:32 AM.

  19. #69
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    COOL! thanks!

  20. #70
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Portland, OR
    Posts
    641
    My Cars
    1982 323i 2003 325it
    Quote Originally Posted by cgifool View Post
    COOL! thanks!
    Yea, seriously... I'm gonna be buying on of these!
    Past, Present, and Future

    1974 BMW 2002tii (RIP)
    1995 BMW 325is w/ FULL S50 swap, track prepped (SOLD)
    1988 BMW 325ix Zinno/Black (RIP)
    1988 BMW 325ix Alpine/Black (Sold)
    1988 BMW 535is Alpine/Pacific Blue (Going Away...)
    1982 BMW 323i (Current Project/Paper Weight)
    2003 BMW 325i Sport Touring (Daily Driver)

  21. #71
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    So I crawled under the car and checked my flex-disc bolts, and did find that the bolts whose nuts are on the front could all be turned slightly - as well as one of the bolts facing the other way. There was no sign of any noises just turning by hand, and no sign of recent contact between flex-disc and shift shaft.

    I only could tighten that one for the moment (couldn't find my open-end 16mm.. need to get me a thin 16mm combination wrench for more oomph), but driving to work this morning the mystery noise did seem to be a bit quieter. So I'm thinking it is the sound of the disc moving a little bit under the bolts..

    Also, I finally got around to sanding off the rust around my drivers door keyhole, touched up the paint, replaced the rubber bumpers under the door handle, and reinstalled the handle - no more handle-to-door-metal contact at the corners, yay.

    Lock cylinder still needs to get put back in though, along with a handful of other new rubber bits for the door before I can get the panel back on.

  22. #72
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Walnut Creek, CA
    Posts
    89
    My Cars
    71 02, 79 323i,03 330i, 91 325
    Any pics of the opened Control Unit?
    Just drill the rivets and replace the ignition unit?
    Also, is the part you bought is the Bosch 12141267459 (the only one @ 27 bucks) right? My car should be the same as yours (pre 9/80 per Walloth Nesch, realoem doesn't even show the partno anymore)

  23. #73
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sacramento, California
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    My Cars
    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    Quote Originally Posted by MortyCrock View Post
    Yea, seriously... I'm gonna be buying on of these!
    Its all put together in a kit, that is a plus, I put my rebuild Kit together piece by piece.

    Randy

  24. #74
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
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    Austin, TX
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    1978 323i
    Quote Originally Posted by svn2002s View Post
    Any pics of the opened Control Unit?
    Just drill the rivets and replace the ignition unit?
    Also, is the part you bought is the Bosch 12141267459 (the only one @ 27 bucks) right? My car should be the same as yours (pre 9/80 per Walloth Nesch, realoem doesn't even show the partno anymore)

    Yes that's the right bosch number.

    You just replace the entire unit (big metal box) - mine looks pretty much identical aside from the BMW markings. Just unplug and unscrew the old one, and put the new one in it's place.

    I didn't drill the rivets, but I did happen to find an ebay auction for a repaired one with the cover removed:

    ignitionbox1.jpg
    ignitionbox2.jpg
    ignitionbox3.jpg
    Last edited by cgifool; 03-26-2018 at 03:02 PM.

  25. #75
    Join Date
    Jun 2016
    Location
    Austin, TX
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    My Cars
    1978 323i
    Yesterday I met up with Peter C., a local bmw fiend and know-it-all, to ask if he could help me figure out anything on my top 3 most pressing issues:

    faint scraping metal sounds at part throttle driving, rightward brake pull that doesnt make the wheel jerk, and gassy smell in the car.

    so I took him for a brief drive up and down the highway and demonstrated, we got back and shot the breeze for a while (he showed off his pair of e9s) and looked the car over front to back

    then he pointed out that my LR brake rotor wasnt evenly shiny, and was only being half-contacted by the pad! moreover, the springs are (barely) rubbing on the edge of the rotor, which is making the scraping noise.. and the pads are cocked a bit for some reason and only partly grabbing the rotor- causing the rightward pull I noticed.

    on the gas smell, he pointed the finger at the vapor canister in the right rear area (all the hoses are new...) .. Ive purchased a $25 combustible gas detector to nail the source once and for all.. (I tested it on a lighter, it works. havent tried a fart yet)

    mysterys solved? (I hope)

    unfortunately tonight its raining cats and dogs, so I spent the time hanging some pictures in the shop and cleaning/oiling my driver side lock cylinder since Im finally ready to put it back in. lubed it up with this cable lube I have that goes on like water but gets sticky & slippery later, works real nice now. I have the new rubber pieces ready and waiting to finally get it back in the car (its been months).
    Last edited by cgifool; 03-29-2018 at 01:30 AM.

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