They do look good after you spend the time cleaning them, filling in the imperfections, then powder coating them.
Took the front end off the car yesterday ready for the motor and box coming out. The final cam ring I’ve been waiting on finally turned up too.
Started timing it up can’t seem to get continuity through the Vanos pins when fully retarded, I can on bank 5-8 with some pressure on the ratchet but not at all with 1-4 I’ve rotated back and forth to remove any oil multiple times with no luck. Removed the unit and took the piston out Teflon ring looks ok in place and smooth, did find a little slither of what looked like Teflon which I removed and made no difference. I then doubted weather I may have been a tooth out on the Vanos piston and tried a tooth either side of my mark still with no luck. Is getting continuity essential? There’s no doubt it’s fully retarded but just beginning to run out of ideas?
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What were you gonna do? Polish the bare magnesium? Magnesium polishes up, but in a darker silver, almost grey hue, and overnight, if you are in a high humidity area, it will have darkened up and already be corroding. Magnesium is a corrosive metal, react badly when touching other metals, quick to have galvanic corrosion build up between the two if not properly buffered, the whole reason the valve covers have those thick rubber seals for the bolts. But it is very easily castable from a mold, is very stiff, and is about 35% lighter than aluminum.
Back in the mid eighties, I was really into the older Mini Coopers. My father raced them professionally, and I grew up at the race tracks, and at the race shop, actually paid attention enough to know that I wanted to so too. I ended up building a full race '68 Mini Cooper S for road racing and and hill climb races. I had the original 10" magnesium Minilite rims with 8" wide tarmac/gravel race tires doing a 10.5 mile hill climb on a road called Kennon road, up to the city of Baguio, a super curvy, dangerous road up the mountain, beautiful part in Northern Luzon. Anyway, during the race, I had the right rear tire get a puncture from a rock or something, with about five miles left to go, kept the throttle pinned and just kept going. Made it up in a little bit over 11mins, My practice times were in the low 10's. Was just too bad that I got the puncture. By the time we crossed the line, the tire was completely disintegrated, and the rim was still pretty rollable, chunks were missing from the rims edges, but the magnesium really held itself together quite amazingly considering that we were hitting well over 110mph in some stretches, It was one hell of a fun time, but the autocross club that threw the event wasn't allowed to do it again because it was just too dangerous a location. I'd love to build a car for something like Pikes Peak some day, but the moneys not there in my bank account, so Snotty's stuck in the normal world of just regular fast ludicrous driving.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
I do not believe continuity is essential.
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Thanks for that! Yea used the Beisan kit and pressed the lip.
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No I was going to polish them thinking they were aluminium before I blasted them. Yea no doubt good for some applications just ugly as hell bare. Love the classic minis always wanted a clubman with the square headlights. Absolute rot boxes in the UK though no matter what model it was. Reasonable ones are holding good money now probably pay a good bit more for reasonable mini than an immaculate 540i!
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The last three I got my hands on all came from Amsterdam. One had a small amount of rust, wasn't too bad, I only paid $3200 for that one, it was an '89. I sold it for 8, didn't do anything to it but install a good sound system, gas and oil. The other one was a '91, that one was awesome, only needed a wash and wax, and a set of tires, red and white, exactly like the one that the girl in the last Italian Job movie had in the beginning of the movie. I kept that for a couple years, paid $4500, it sold for $18,000. I did real well with that one. The last one was an unfinished project. It was a 1980 Mini Clubman with the square front end. But the kid I bought it from had already cut the front end off in preparation for the new subframe that you get when you do the Honda B18 swap. It was all there, just had to put it together. Paid 5 grand for it, spent 5 more, got it all done and dialed in, Came with a Jenvey Stage 3 fuel injection, headers, head was ported and polished, got an AEM engine management computer, car spent a few hours on a dyno and got 275hp, totally ridiculous on that tiny car that originally had 89hp. But the stupid stage three fuel injection was like an on off switch, car ran like crazy, but I would burn thru 5 gallons to go 8 miles. I yank'd it off and sold it for $500, got a stock injection system off of an Acura Integra, smaller fuel rail, smaller injectors, reconfigured the tune, and hp dropped down to 245, was much more drivable, and got awesome mileage. I had fun with that car and let it go because some kid made me an offer I didn't refuse. Car went for $28,000. Cost for shipping was always a little bit over a grand. It's cheaper to load these things up on a ship from Europe, than it is to ship one across the country. I should get back into that. But my favorite ones are the early Mini's Like from '67 to '69 with the ten inch Minilites and the small tail lights, those a harder to find, and worth more money to buy.
Set the controls for the heart of the sun
Wasn’t quite as productive as I had hoped over my week off but got a few jobs done.
I’ve never had a coolant leak through the valley cover on any of the M62s I’ve had but seen plenty of posts about it. I don’t like the original set up on these vanos models so decided I wanted to get a paper gasket in there one way or another.
I went for the cheap skate option and got the old man to set me off on the Miller to machine the little notches off around the bolt holes. We were short on time and it’s only a small Miller so this meant multiple moves to get at all the notches. We cheated on the setting up and screwed it a piece of wood mounted to the bed and I machined each notch off individually within a couple of thou and finished it with a block sander.
Couple of other goodies turned up for it today in the form of a Clutch and flywheel set up. I went for a Lightweight Fly at 6.9kg and custom clutch set up to fit with the 5 speed box. I went with a Sachs sprung clutch plate at a little extra cost but thought it would be worth it to reduce the Idle chatter.
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Last edited by LincsM62; 06-02-2020 at 03:41 PM.
Hey guys, made a lot of progress over the last couple of weeks but been on a seriously tight time schedule so haven’t taken as many pictures as I’d have liked! I’ve completed the engine and it’s now in the car! Had a few disasters along the way! Sheared one of the 6mm studs holding the rear water jacket plate when removing it, which really fought me all the way! I drilled it out, snapped the stud extractor, managed to remove it went to the next size up still wouldn’t budge so ended up drilling it completely out and tapping it to 8mm but I guess you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth LOL! The exhaust manifolds fit nicely but think they would have been extremely difficult to fit without the engine at least partially out of the car and almost impossible without an extra pair of hands!
I got everything else connected up today and tried to fire her up, made good oil pressure and cranked over nicely but wouldn’t start! Came up with engine failsafe mode and the throttle blade was constantly flicking open and closed did a bit of research and convinced myself that the N62 throttle was no good. Went and grabbed the code reader from the old mans and couldn’t connect to the ECU just came up with link error. Decided to just try the old 535i ECU to see weather I could connect the code reader to it and sure enough it worked fine, the throttle blade clicking stopped so took a shot at starting it and it fired up good as gold! Haven’t got the cooling system plumbed in yet so only ran her for a few seconds but was happy that the work I had done was ok!
I’m going to plumb the cooling system in tomorrow so my question is... is it safe for me to let the engine run up to temp etc on idle using the old 535i ECU? I’m assuming the fuelling will be way off but I’m not expecting to be ripping off doing pulls or revving it’s nuts off it but just want to make sure everything on the cooling side works and would like to check for any gremlins! Thanks in advance!
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Been a while since my last update, ran out of time before harvest started and ran into a couple of unforeseen issues that scuppered any chance of getting it running and driving in June. Resolved all my ECU issues and engine runs nice and quietly, run it up to temp several times with no dramas, have a couple of vids but unsure on how to upload on here? As my description of how it sounds really would do it no justice at all, the way it picks up with the LWFW coupled with the manifolds shares more likeness of that with a sports bike than a big old V8. You’ll have to excuse the gross looking engine bay, it’s now been stood a year and needs some loving.
My main issue is that I can’t get the clutch to dis engage, I have done some troubleshooting and spoke to the guy who supplied the clutch and FW, he immediately apologised and suspected the clutch plate was the wrong way round. Plate was clearly marked engine side gearbox side etc and was assembled in accordance with this but apparently because of the LWFW these instructions are to be dis regarded and reversed which I was un aware of. The most frustrating part about this is that because of the aftermarket exhaust manifolds the gearbox can’t be removed without removing those too and they can’t be removed unless engine is off it’s mounts so from here the most logical option seems to be to remove engine and box together once again . This has prompted me to overhaul the box once out too so hopefully doesn’t ever have to come out again LOL! I’m going to try a longer slave Cylinder from the E36 before removing but I am not holding my breath, my clutch man seemed fairly certain the plate was the problem.
Not E39 related but I’m sure we can all appreciate the crusty BMW affliction is infectious. Picked this old girl up off a mate for virtually nothing, has a blown headgasket but otherwise very tidy! Would have been rude not too!
1999 540 Auto with Eaton M112 supercharger
Airlift 3H/P management, M5 steering box, M5 LSD, Eibach/Dinan front and rear anti roll bars, PM Modifich door boards, 4 Eton 6.5s, Sound Magus VS3500.1, 2 x 10" Kove audio subs, Alpine ICS X7 Headunit, 19" BBS Hammer Sports RT245/RT246, Muffler delete, electric coolant fan.
Finally had the chance to rectify my issues! Flipped the clutch plate and it now disengages, what a relief! This came with its own set of woes... the car drove but the clutch slips with barely a touch of the throttle. This is my first time dealing with a self adjusting clutch cover and turns out once the pressure has been released it adjusts its self as if the clutch plate is worn, so out it all came again, I re adjusted the cover and we are now winning, the car drives well...thank god!
Big thanks to JimLev! Had a slightly miss positioned trigger wheel throwing a vanos code, he’s posted loads of info out there regarding the adjustment but now with the LWFW having no locking hole for TDC made things a little more tricky but managed it with a bit of guidance from him!
Need to tidy up a few more bits before I would call it finished but pleased I’ve got this far! Changed my exhaust set up a little in the form of a pair of stainless sports cats. I’m not super happy with the set up as it sits but at this point I need to just drive it for a while before throwing any more money at it. The cats are 2.5 “ and fitted to the manifolds via some 304 link pipes and clamps. I then I MIG’d some other link pipes and reducers with 2.5” mild to join to the remaining part of my original exhaust which is 2.25” Y to a 2.25” single exit, this seems a little counter productive in my head and can’t help but wonder weather this will be strangling it somewhat high in the Rev range?
Sorry for the lack of pics this is the only one I have of the remaining exhaust piece, at this stage I was starting to loose the will to live...Any thoughts on this? Any advice on how big I should go without loosing my low end?
Here is an exhaust clip as promised.
https://youtu.be/nlgrKX4saWw
Last edited by LincsM62; 03-18-2021 at 07:16 AM.
Lincs, good to hear you’ve got it sorted out. Your exhaust sounds perfect.
I never had my hands on a LWFW, I’m wondering how easy/hard it would be to mark the location where the crank locking pin goes by looking and measuring your old dual mass FW.
This has been quite the read! What trans/adaptor setup did you go with? I've been looking into the 310/320 with adaptor, but can't find one that's compatible with the factory CPS location.
sounds great, well done
Hey folks, It’s been a while, I’m finally back for some updates!
Life got in the way, new house, new girlfriend and a new business so my project got mothballed for a while but I’ve been chipping away at the old girl for the last 6 months and finally feel like I’m getting close to calling it finished!
Few things I’ve rectified in this time.
Engine Fail safe programme - electronic thermostat control damaged 2 separate ECUs by burning out the pins, took a little head scratching and a new throttle body to work out but got there in the end!
Vanos trigger wheel adjustment.
Some small rust repair patches on the jacking points, Very common in the U.K. luckily I’d been keeping an eye on them and cut right back and replaced with some 2mm thick laser cut plates.
All of which I took no pics for, which I know makes for some stale reading for you guys but I did have a crack at building an exhaust system and managed to take a few! I treated myself to a new R tech 180 mig welder earlier this year so I thought I’d give the stainless a shot and was reasonably pleased with the results.
This is what I came up with. Back box is only tacked in the pic but I went with a 2.5” Y into a single 3” and finished with a twin exit back box. All components are 304 or above and I made it easy for myself with some slip joint sleeves but ended up making a pie cut for the back box to fit anyway. Most of the parts were bought through profusion exhausts on eBay and used a couple of 2.5”-3” increasers as exhaust tips. I wanted it to be easily serviceable as I know the cheaper sports cats have a tendency to burn out so they are fitted with joiners and clamps to the manifolds. Everything totalled around £400 and a days labour.
https://youtube.com/shorts/cY8jEXJylLU?feature=share
It gets a lot of comments on how nice it sounds even the MOT tester! Shame about the spelling hahaha!
Before it’s MOT I also did a full set of brakes, new discs, pads, callipers and braided lines all round, both the front callipers had seized and been freed off previously so I thought I’d give it a birthday and do the lot! Provided by Mtech Brakes.
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Nice work, like noisy exhaust comment “in such a lovely way”.
Beautiful BMW and a great read, thank you.
Current BMW
2002 E53 X5 4.6i (4.4 to 4.6 swap)
Former BMWs
1996 BMW Z3
1998 BMW E36 M3 Sedan
2004 BMW E46 M3
I’ve got a friend with a dyno so got it rigged up this week and did a power run. This is on the stock map.
https://youtube.com/shorts/NmhaKFNkCwY?feature=share
YouTube seems to insist it’s uploaded as a short and kills the quality of my vids so apologies for that!
It’s lean pretty much everywhere through the Rev range, so I’m in talks with another local guy for adjusting the map as my friend only does aftermarket ECUs.
Not quite sure how I feel about the numbers, seem to have lost some peak torque and was hoping to get up nicely into the 300s in terms of power but not too disappointed. Hopefully a bit more fuel will improve the situation but not expecting miracles. Besides, I also have no idea how this dyno compares with other dyno figures.
Either way it’s an absolute blast to drive and really pleased with how tidy it looks!
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