Update May 10th ::::::
First things first was to deal with this (and do a little somethin).
I cut the old ones in half and it made them much easier to take out
I got some bump steer spacers to help correct my steering and they went in with only a little modification.
The middle part had to widened slightly but with my angle grinder that was nbd.
You are also going to want to cut out the bottom ~2 inches of your brake dust shields or you will end up driving to and from work screeching like a banshee from your brakes
Shiny new endlinks, I also replaced my LCA’s but I was slightly rushed so i have no pictures.
Next up was a new clutch. I had some serious slippage and the was no bueno so it was time for the most annoying thing I’ve ever done on my car.
If anybody says you have to remove both sides of the exhaust from the headers they are lying. I was able to do it with one side down as pictured below and those exhaust bolts are a fucking nightmare so there ya go.
The transmission to get off was terrible and it left me with two tranny mounts ripped in half, my scars across my entire back, and cuts in both of my eyes.
The old throwout bearing was toast and the clutch didnt fare well either
Now when you don’t own an actual transmission jack and the past few days of no sleep and reaching under a car have left you with lower than 50% of your normal strength you come up with some pretty interesting ideas to get the tranny up there. I decided to use ratchet straps
This was actual the alpha version of the ratchet strap hoist. The final design which i don’t have a picture of is one strap on the bell housing just kinda not letting it fall and two that are at the gearbox where the drainplug is crisscrossing from the frame holding the transmission center. Then after getting it high enough in the air to put a regular jack stand underneath it i jack up the transmission off the wait of the crisscrossing straps and slid a piece of wood under the transmission and then lowered the transmission on the wood then jacked up the wood so the transmission was level with the flywheel and slid it into place. I was then able to put back in all the bell housing bolts.
Guibo and tranny mounts
Got done with this at about 2 am Monday morning
But the tranny wasn’t done with me and decided that my shifter would be what seemed sideways. Here is 3rd gear.
I honestly had no idea what this could be but after a forum post I realized I had to do the horrendous, god awful, worse than anything I’ve ever done task.
So here’s your shifter
Pretty much you have to turn it around like this
Yeah im a dumbass
Now I was on a long drive and my radiator outlet snapped off leaving me having to do this so I (and my girlfriend) could get home.
Shoutout to her for suggesting tape to hold it on (and for not getting mad that my car decided to take a dump)
Also the zipties were to keep it all from moving so much
The old JB weld a 1inch galvanized steel threaded connector to my outlet so it doesnt fall off trick. It honestly worked pretty well and had no leaks, so for a week long fix this was pretty good.
I also saw this E28 M5 downtown
If you have a broken water outlet like I do then most likely you have bad engine mounts so I ordered these at the same time as the radiator and they arrived a day earlier than the radiator and since I had just cleaned out my garage it was time to put them in at night
Poly bushing ftw, revshift makes the only ones I could find for the M60 and shipping took two days.
Here’s a cat for size
The old ones were definitely the reason for so much movement. Also as a side note if you replace your clutch and it still feels like it slips you probably ripped your engine mounts in half during the transmission pull and the engine is floating around on its own.
The best way to remove the drivers side imo, is to take a universal joint and tape the 17mm to it, then attach a 3in extension to that, and then a 20inch extension to that. Then take a flashlight and shine a light from where the mount is then put the contraption of extensions in under the brake fluid res and down to the light you should be able to fit it perfectly through there. Then go back under the car and slide the 17mm onto the bolt. Took me about 5 minutes to get it off, and you dont have to remove anything to get to it.
New drivers side
New passenger.
After putting these on the car feels better than ever before. The poly mounts arent even annoying.
I gotta big box yes i do, i gotta big box how bout you?
The rad arrived with damage to the outer box but the inner was just fine
The E36 all aluminum CSF radiator has been proven to work great in E34’s, you just “need” some euro parts. The euro piece that holds it from the passenger side can be substituted by zip tying it to the frame as I have and the lower hose can be turned around and the the part the connects to the thermostat you want to cut off about 90mm of hose. The end originally going to your radiator will go on your thermostat outlet and the other side (if you cut it right, honestly just turn the hose around and you will see exactly where to cut it) will fit perfectly on your new shiny all aluminum rad
Yes the spacers between the volvo fan and the radiator are standard sockets (who needs them on a BMW ) but it works as I delivered pizza all day in 95 degree weather in downtown oly with the AC on full blast
All workin and lookin good
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Ratchetstrap ingenuity FTW!
I believe Autozone et al rent trans jacks.
Keep us updated on how that radiator fares. Is it made in China like Mishimoto? What's the warranty? You experienced one reason to switch to a metal radiator - they rarely fail catastrophically like a plastic one does. As for the Euro bracket (PN ends in 332)... ~$15 shipped on Ebay last I checked.
Last edited by moroza; 05-11-2019 at 03:56 AM.
I will, it has a lifetime warranty and the main reason i went with csf was because I have a friend who’s has the exact same rad in his car and its lasted the past few years with no problems. Im not sure where it’s made but i do know the welders are trained in japan (you can take whatever you want from that haha)
I wouldve also rented the trans jack from auto zone but i guess i wanted to do it the hard way, and ive ordered that already off of ebay, this is just a for now situation as its coming from out of the country. I used your write up for the rad btw.
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You have a nice E34, really have done some nice mods to it.
Nice work! I'm glad you're documenting everything with lots of pictures. I like your solution for getting the transmission in When I swapped the trans on my e32 I bolted and strapped wood cradles to two floor jacks to do it. I looked at a couple transmission-specific floor jacks but none seemed like they would sit well under the 5hp30 or 420g transmissions.
You are not the first person I've heard talk about fitment issues of those AKG bump steer spacer plates. Could you elaborate more on what you had to modify to get them to bolt up? Was the center "slot" not wide enough? I have a set (1" plates) that I will be installing when I lower my car. Why did you have to cut the brake shield?
The center slot was slightly to narrow so i just took an angle grinder with a cut off wheel and was able to widen it in like 30 seconds and then it fit perfectly. Then since the angle they go down at the will push your brake shield into your brake rotor so you want to cut the bottom ~inch off to prevent this. And yeah I probably could’ve used a rental tranny jack but i was goin a mile a minute to finish the job lol.
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Tiny update...
Time to change the lower oil pan gasket, the old one was leaking a lot towards the back.
Draining the oil as hopefully everyone here has done at least once (hopefully more)
The typical M60 oil pump bolts tryin to have some fun partying in the oil pan, so i took each one out and loctite’d them. Its a good thing i did too, as every oil pump bolt was able to be undone with my fingers.
Weird that this probably hasn’t seen the light of day in about 25 years. So many miles and so much oil.
I put the new gasket on and you can see the difference from the old one, definitely wasn’t rubbery anymore and actually needed to pry it off with a flathead.
Rest of it went without a problem and this oil’s next 4,000 miles are gonna be spent with me.
Night shot for your enjoyment
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Fresco34: it's great to see your dedication to the car. You seem pretty competent by your description of all the work and parts you've put it. Two things I noticed:
One, you had the old radiator fail, replaced it, and the replacement failed also? Was this not a warranty job, or did you assess that the bad engine mounts caused the failure and thus it's on your nickel?
Two, all the stuff you've put in has cost a good amount. Can you tell us how much you paid for the car originally, and what's the total with all the parts (plus the tow fee, couldn't be inexpensive)?
I are engineer and find it instructive to keep a running total of car costs. F'rinstance, a friend gave me his decent condition 525i with 170,000 on it. a few months ago. I've spent less than a couple hundred bucks taking care of minor needs. I figure the average craigslist selling price is $2000 on a good day, so that's my limit, so I don't get upside down on this. But the PO put in 70,000 miles as second owner, had it professionally serviced, and about $1300 per month keeping it going. Go figure that his $1300 per month in car payments could have bought something much newer/safer/more powerful/nicer. Oh the things we do for love (or some other physical/emotional attachments).
Charlie
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to add value to these threads, either by pictures or by descriptions, so the next person with the same or similar problem stands on your shoulders.
Well when the radiator failed i just got one from a parting out car for cheap so i could drive my car until the aluminum one came in, so it didn’t have a warranty to begin with, and also the tow was “free” as i have AAA so since i was about a mile away from my house it was free. I traded in my old car and got the e34 with cash ontop so i think i paid about ~2500 which is pretty good since manual 530i’s with over 150k miles are usually going for more than $3000 in my area and mine had about 120k miles. Ive spent about $1,000 in repairs give or take some, but soon im gonna go through all my records and get a more accurate total. But honestly i love my car and id happily spend another 1,000 or however much more.
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Update Jun 15th. ///////////
Had a blown valley pan gasket so I had to deal with that
Definitely had some leaking
One of the bolts holding the water accumulator broke so i had to get the vice grips and spin it off
The little bastard
This gasket you can buy on fcpeuro is trash and doesnt work. I just ended up using this
I also got new gaskets for the accumulator
The CCV was messed up on the b40 intake and caused my car to idle very badly, so i snagged the one i had on my old b30 intake and the problem went away
I also got another volvo fan with the proper shroud!
Almost time for a 3,000 mile drive
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So for everyone (if there is anyone) interested i am still alive. My car made it across america 3,000 miles to Florida. Been quite busy with school and work so haven't been able to do anything really other than an oil change and new tires.
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