An E21 I3MW rustoration

[I3MW]

Been driving this thing everywhere. Really enjoying the analog feel of this car, and that it's a little more difficult for me to get a speeding ticket compared to my other. Took it for, its' yearly inspection. Finally got around to painting the headlight brackets I welded up (was too eager when I test fit them originally).

INSP.jpg

PB3.jpg

Car developed some idle issues so I replaced the ICM and the 02 sensor, the later was the culprit.

ICM.jpg

02S.jpg

….and a new shift knob and shift boot

SKN2.jpg

[I3MW]

Working on a new Heckblende. The idea here is to tie together a few other concepts that I'm not quite finished with yet but part of relocating the trunk lock and hopefully giving the rear a more streamlined look.

HECK1.jpg

HECK2.jpg
HECK3.jpg

HECK4.jpg

HECK7.jpg

[I3MW]

ANG2.jpg

ANG20.jpg
REAR.jpg

Oh also at some point I wired up the city lights by cutting off the pig tail from the US spec side markers, that I'm no longer using, and making an intermediary harness between all the factory connectors.

FRONTNP.jpg

[cgifool]

Beautiful!

[jjgbmw323]

We will meet up once i get my car back from CT......I finally got it running but blew the alternator up....

[I3MW]

Beautiful!

Thank you sir!

We will meet up once i get my car back from CT......I finally got it running but blew the alternator up....

Sounds good! Keep me posted.

[I3MW]

Going through pictures of my next project, I realized there were a few stragglers. I also replaced the distributor cap, I don't even know what you call it but it was easy to replace. I also did the thermostat. This was necessary in getting the heat working in my car. The heater core seems good, and now the car blows hot air at speed, just need to figure out the best way to address the blower motor because that stupid clamp broke



newrotorcap.jpg



new thermostat.jpg



Anyway what I wanted to post about was Meers or mirrors as some people call them. The OEM ones were a little too bulky. I like the old school chrome ones but not enough to justify the price and drilling holes in my door. So I did what any reasonable person would do and I riced out my car with ebay parts


These are the cuplrits:

eb2.PNG
They're cheap and I like the shape. The fake CF has got to go. Would be nice if they sat a little lower too. When they arrived, I took them apart and came up with a mounting solution. A few iterations later I had an adapter plate made in CAD:

CADM1.PNG


Now shortly before typing this, but long after doing the body work on these parts, I realized I could've made a keyed slot to hide the exposed mounting bolt that should be a stud. I also could've used a threaded insert but I figured that wouldn't be as strong. There were basically three versions of this part. In some of the early pictures you'll see one exposed CSK screw. Ultimately, I decided I wanted no evidence of mounting hardware, just like the OEM design so I used a hex cap bolt and bondo'd over it. If I ever print more I'll use a keyed slot from the other side like this:


CADM3.PNG

[I3MW]

So anway jumping back to the beginning, I had to paint these things. I tried painting with glass on but I decided that wasn't good enough. I decided to try removing the glass. The first one went ok but I got too confident and shattered the mirror on the other one. Since I had to buy another set, I sacrificed a new housing to ensure I didn't break the glass.

New mirror 2nd glass removal.jpg

New mirror 1 B4.jpg

Primed and ready for paint (notice the old adapter plate):

New mirror 3 white primer.jpg

New mirror 4 first coat green.jpg

Base coat gets wet sanded and polished before clear:

New mirror 5 base coat wet sand.jpg

[I3MW]

I think they came out p good:

New mirror 5 clear coated.jpg

So now we gotta get the glass back on. I just used RTV since I think that's what they did over in china or wherever these things came from.

New mirror 7 mid asm 2.jpg

Before re assembling, I was able to open up a hole which allows the mirror to sit lower:

New mirror 6 shaft press.jpg

Pretty happy with the result:


mf2c.jpg

Nat1.jpg

[msiert]

Looks great!!!

[I3MW]

Thank you @Msiert!


Progress has been a little slow, I drove the car a lot when the weather was warm, so that's good. It got cold and I planned on getting more done but my winter car started acting up, you know just in time for winter. That was not so good but its done. Anyway the plans for this winter are:

• Re do the exhaust (wanted someone to do this for me but couldn't get a reasonable quote.
• Refresh the drivetrain - slave cylinder, guibo, possibly clutch + TOB, shifter linkage etc.
• Create an electrical box for accessories in the trunk
• Interior 2.0 - I did a lot of interior work when I first got the car. Some of it good, some of it not as much. Going to take some lessons learned and do some things over.

So in regards to the interior, one example - I didn't love the look of the tweed inserts on my door cards. I'm sure it could've been better executed but ultimately simpler is better and the tweed is not something I'm really going for. So I bought new door cards, ones without cloth centers and re did those. I think the came out great! Not quite finished but here's a sneak peak.

DC3.jpg

DC4.jpg

DC6.jpg

I also wanted to get ride of the plastic window cranks. Found some cheap parts that are metal, and the three holes they have kind of align with the Momo wheel I have. Do I get bonus points for color matching my cup holders?

DC7.jpg

Lastly, I need to plug the mirror switch location so why not make an "ash tray"

ASH1.jpg

[I3MW]

ASH2.jpg

ASH3.jpg

cardfin.jpg

[I3MW]

Unrelated - The head light setup I fabbed up is working great so I cleaned them up and added paint so they wouldn't rust. Made a few tweaks/ final touches but it is more or less the same.



lightcompare.jpg

startlightsp.jpg

LEDdisasm.jpg

midlightsprime.jpg


endlightsp.jpg

[I3MW]

Knocked the battery box off the list. It has been pretty much done for a while, just wanted to tidy things up. Here's the final product.

BatBox open.jpg

BoxBox.jpg

random photo dump:

3dwhite.jpg

lowsideclose.jpg

lowsidetufts.jpg

[I3MW]

And a few more random pictures that are probably in the wrong order.

maineback.jpg

halfint.jpg

MAIN2.jpg

MAIN.jpg

out1.jpg

That's it for now, thanks for reading!

[I3MW]

Ok got a late start this winter but I made some good progress.

The main things were:

• New clutch and drivetrain refresh
• Fabricate an exhaust that is actually removable
• Headliner color change and rear seat upgrade
• Front Bumper rework

I'm going off memory but might as well see if I can remember the general outline for the clutch and transmission refresh:

1.) get car in the air yada yada. Also disconnect the battery. I didn't do this but that's because I live my life a quarter mile at a time.
2.) Remove your exhaust. Apples to oranges for me because the PO welded the exhaust a single piece so I had to cut it off the car.
3.) Remove exhaust heat shield. 4 x 10mm nuts on studs if I recall correctly.
4.) Remove the driveshaft. 2 x 14mm nuts to the studs that support the CSB. 4x 17mm bolts pairing to the rear diff and 17mm bolts up front to the guibo. The rear diff side was p easy. Not a lot of access but BMWs design did work the with heads of the bolts having an anti clocking feature so you just need a wrench on the nut side. The guibo side is 17mm you will need to hold both the nut and the bolt head.
5.) Remove the fly wheel cover plate. I didn't have one but I bought one on eBay and threw it on at the end.
6.) Get the shifter assembly to come out with the trans. I think all you need to do is get the rear bracket that connects to the shifter plate via a rubber mount. On the other side, the shifter plate connects to the trans with hex head bolts (14 or 17 mm I forget). Those bolts connect to the via brackets with perpendicular bushing holes that socket head cap screws to the shifter plate. Let's worry about that part later.
7.) Make sure the reverse wires to the sensor and speed cable are detached. The reverse wire connectors can be pulled off at the sensor or disconnected at the intermediary cable connection inside the car. For the speedometer cable I just loosed the set screw on the trans and pulled it out.
8.) Time to pull the trans (almost). Get the bolts around the bellhousing. There are both 17mm and 14mm. I kept track of them by placing them in a cardboard sheet with a diagram I drew but its not that critical. Now, take a good look at those starter bolts. Mine had nuts on the other side. Don't know if the starter is supposed to be threaded and mine was stripped or if its by design. Getting the starter bolts out is easy. Getting them back on... well I'll tell you all about it later.
9.) Ok so now you should be ready to pull the transmission. I kept the trans mount tight and started loosening the bracket/crossmember. Two 14mm buts I think? Get ready this thing is like 50lbs. After removing the nuts on the cross member you should be able to yank that thing out. Twist and shout. I did this on my back and it felt straight on my knee. Don't do that.

Trans out.jpg

Removing the clutch and pressure plate is easy, a few bolts around the perimeter:

old clutch on.jpg



I also decided to the rear main seal so I had to remove the fly wheel. This is actually pretty easy. I marked the fly wheel but it is doweled to ensure you can't install incorrectly. 17mm as well IIRC. I used a box wrench on the bolt I didn't want to remove and let it bottom out the exhaust sticking out on the side. Then 17mm socket on the bolt you wanna remove. Get creative with one bolt remaining

Flywheel first.jpg

flywheel off.jpg

[I3MW]

Now you can remove the rear main seal housing. 10mm and 14mm IIRC. Don't forget there's at least one maybe two perpendicular to the face meaning two oil pan bolts also come out. I'm sure it's possible to get the old seal out, clean up the housing and gently install the new seal:

rear main ASM old seal out.jpg

BUT there's somebody on eBay that seals a bead blasted housing and a brand new seal. It looks like this. I decided to use it.

new rear main ASM.jpg



And the pilot bearing. I borrowed bearing puller from O'rielys to yank the old one out. New one went in easily. The old one had a casing around the bearing the new one did not, but they were the same dimensionally and the new one spun nicely so I sent it:

pilot bearing comparison.jpg

Next I reinstalled the rear main seal with a new paper gasket and *tiny* bit of RTV just to hold everything in place during install. Bolt torque is critical and very light. Around 80 in-lbs IIRC. I also used blue Loctite. Next I put the flywheel back on. Again, bolt torque is CRITICAL. I forget what it was, more like 80 ft.-lbs. I again also used blue Loctite.

Now you install the clutch and pressure plate. I replaced them with a SACHs kit, alignment tool included. Start with the clutch disk. Make sure the correct face is pointed towards you and spline the tool through it so that the teeth are aligned and the small portion slips into the pilot bearing. Install your clutch assembly, this part is pretty easy and the hole patterns means you can't align it wrong. Torque to spec, I also used a tiny bit of blue Loctite here. Now you can remove the alignment tool.

Now let's switch gears to the transmission side (SEE WHAT I DID THERE). There's a bunch of seals that you probably want to replace. They all put up a good fight but nothing too challenging, even with hand tools. Just a lot of patience. I burned up a lot of time here but patience paid off.

Actually before getting into all those seals, at a minimum, you're going to want to do the throw out bearing and pivot pin. I don't have a good picture of the TOB because it came out in pieces. I think the root cause was a leaking slave cylinder, which meant I wasn't really releasing properly. This resulted in forced gear changes which ate the bearing:

Old TOB and brass.jpg

Note the old plastic pin vs the new brass one. The brass one was a A LOT tighter. I had to ream the hole out and really give it a lot of persuasion.

Might as well clean up the clutch fork too. Gave it quick spray with self etching primer:

pivot fork out.jpg

[I3MW]

I don't have a picture of the clutch fork painted but I did the same thing to the crossmember that holds the transmission mount:
trans cross member paint.jpg

Because my throw-out bearing failed spectacularly, it scored the tube that it rides on pretty good. Later on, I cleaned it up as best I could and the new TOB rode smooth. There's a seal behind this assembly that I elected to replace:

TOB tube.jpg

There are some shims in there that you don't want to lose track of.

TOB tube bearing ASM.jpg

Blue Loctite, torque to spec and flip the trans around. Same thing on the other side:

rear trans seal2.jpg

There's way more going on, on this side though. The 32mm nut you see is a whole process to get off. There's a metal seal that's keyed to the hex shape to help prevent it from backing out. If you're like me you probably saw people post about how you need a special socket for this nut. They are right. I took an existing socket I had, put it on a drill and used a clamp to hold the switch and spin the drill while I crudely turned it down with an angle grinder. Think of it as worlds crappiest lathe. Here are the rough dimensions about 41mm:

socket dims.jpg

Also note that you can see the new selector rod seal in place. It's the black piece around the rod where it meets the trans. It was a battle but doable. Lots of small picks working around the perimeter. I would later remove that linkage piece on the end of the selector rod because there’s a piece of foam you can replace. It's inside that metal case and I think it just dampens the play, probably just to prevent rattle. All you have to do is remove a retaining clip, to access the shear pin and push said pin out.

[I3MW]

Here's the finished product ready to go back in:

inputshaftandbearing.jpg

BUT before we do that, let's do a quick shifter refresh.

shifter plate asm 1.jpg

You're gonna want to replace those brackets that house the Allen head bolts. Those clearance holes are encapsulated in rubber and supposedly they wear out.

Also get a new rubber mount for the rear support. Also pictured is a new gear selector rod as part of the shifter linkage. I think you could probably just clean the old one up and re use tbh:

sifter support bushing.jpg

I choose to strip the shifter plate and that little bracket that holds the rear support rubber and re paint. Might as well do the shifter bushings for the ball socket:

shifter plate asm 2.jpg



That's pretty much it. Installation is the reverse of assembly (helpful I know). FWIW I did this completely by myself, on jack stands. It sucks but its definitely do able. Getting the transmission aligned and in is the hardest part. But, the two starter bolts are a close second.

Anyway, I pre assembled the cross member and trans mount to the trans - hand tight, not torqued to spec. Same with the shifter plate it can be loosely attached and go up with everything. Pretty much I rolled under there with the trans on my chest and bench pressed it up. It's nice that the engine will actually tilt down so you down have to tip the trans up as much as you would expect. Slight tilt up and take the output shaft and turn it a little each way like you're picking a lock. Maybe rock it back and forth a bit and swear a bunch, you'll get it. Then by hand get at least one of the 14mm bolts for the cross member engaged. Keep one hand on the other side of the cross member and do the second nut. From there it would be a cake walk except for the god forsaken nut under the intake manifold for the starter bolt. You can either remove the intake manifold or superman your self over the engine bay get a little electrical tape on the 17mm nut and spend an hour cutting your hand up trying to thread in on the 17mm bolt. Your call.

Fun fact: I had to install the trans twice because I didn’t notice the stupid pivot fork return spring fell off. Not really sure how that happened but I tried to save it without pulling the trans. Couldn't get it from the outside with a pick or anything. So in a fit of rage I dropped the trans real fast, reinstalled the spring and got the transmission back in in record time. Through anger and caffeine all things are possible.

Anyway once you tighten up all the bolts on the bell housing, I would torque the trans mount and cross member to spec.

Before reinstalling the drive shaft, exhaust etc.. I installed and bled the new slave cylinder just incase there were any surprises. A power bleed makes this too an easy one person job.

[cgifool]

Thanks for the writeup!

From my experience, the shifter bushing rubber doesn't "wear out" as much as disintegrate when the shifter-shaft seal and/or output shaft seal start leaking and throwing trans oil all over the rubber. Just like rack bushings due after getting soaked by oil leaking out of the engine and oil pan.

[I3MW]

Thanks for the writeup!

From my experience, the shifter bushing rubber doesn't "wear out" as much as disintegrate when the shifter-shaft seal and/or output shaft seal start leaking and throwing trans oil all over the rubber. Just like rack bushings due after getting soaked by oil leaking out of the engine and oil pan.

Of course! And that seems like a fair diagnosis. All my mounts were covered in fluid and probably pretty mushy. My shifter started to develop noticeable slop at the end of the summer and tightening up the bolts made a good difference because I think they just kind of loosened. But regardless everyone seems to say just replace them when you get a chance and that definitely makes sense.

[I3MW]

Also if you elect to do the CSB, here are some pictures that may help. This wasn't too bad. There's on 17 or 19mm bolt hidden in the center of the u joint. This fastens the joint to the side of the drive shaft portion you want to service. It's on tight af but a box wrench and breaker bar did the trick IIRC. I don't think the mated splines are supposed to be super tight, meaning at this point you should be able to slide the male spline out but after 40 years mine was really fused. I watched a youtube video of a guy doing this on an E30. Just put one side in a vice and hammer the flat face of the 4 bolt flange hard AF. This did the trick real quick and believe me I tried a bunch of other weird ways before this. Just do what the E30 guy did. Getting the old Center Support Bearing off is harder than getting the new one on. The good news is you can be destructive towards to bearing, not the driveshaft. The bearing casing is actually pretty thin metal so work your way around it evenly. Clean up the shaft before you try to get the new bearing on. I really sanded the area where the bearing sits and even hit it with a buffing wheel on a bench grinder.

driveshaft 1.jpg

Oh the bright marks on the u-joint were from a file, incase I had to keep track of them but this ended up not being relevant.

driveshaft2.jpg

I don't have any after pictures probably because I started getting crunched for time but hopefully you get the idea.

As an aside I see the "pre-load" of the drive shaft as often discussed topic. I'm by no means an expert but I don't think it's that big of deal. Although maybe I should drive my car on the highway now before I comment. But basically all I did was install everything loosely to make sure I wasn't backing myself into a corner assembly wise (I didn't know if the guibo would be able to go on after or if I have to install the front vs the rear bolts first). Anyway once everything was installed - bolts barely threaded on and holding everything in place, I tighten the bolts to the rear diff first. Then I did the guibo fairly tight. Then I did the two nuts on the CSB while pushing it forward (towards the engine, not the trunk). The studs that hold the CSB are in like a t-slot so there's a lot of wiggle room. That's why they need to call out this "pre-load" idea but don't be intimidated, it's far less technical than any preload procedure ive seen before. Then I tighten the guibo all the way. Now not to muddy the waters here but I noticed that the CSB was pushed forward more one side, left to right. Like one stud was more forward than the other so, I loosened the CSB a little to let it even out and more gently pre loaded the CSB while re tightened making sure the studs were the same amount forward. Hopefully this make sense. Like I said I don't think this pre load is super technical I think its more so you can get vibration issues if it is too far back or uneven.

CSB2.jpg

CSB1.jpg

[I3MW]

At this point you would just put your exhaust back on... must be nice.


old exhaust.jpg


I found some two bolt exhaust flanges for my pipe diameter and welded them on. I bought them so long ago I don't remember the exact diameter but I think ~2". I used the band saw at work to get some pretty straight cuts.

exhaust 1.jpg

exhaust2.jpg

Even though I don't plan on ever driving this thing in the winter, I live in new England so the exposed metal gets high temp paint.

exhast paint1.jpg


No pictures of it back on the car because, well I forgot, and now the car is on the ground so. But hopefully you get the idea.

exhaust paint2.jpg

[HappyE21]

I’m just now reading this thread, I love the build you got going on. I plan to do something similar with the exhaust in the future. How hard was it to install that battery relocation kit? Does the kit on raceTEP have everything you need? What was it like hooking it up to the fuse box and the starter?

I cut the battery tray out of my car during this engine rebuild, now I don’t really have a choice other than to put it in the trunk, I know somebody in here modified the tray to bolt back into the engine bay but I’d rather just throw it in the trunk.

[I3MW]

I’m just now reading this thread, I love the build you got going on. I plan to do something similar with the exhaust in the future. How hard was it to install that battery relocation kit? Does the kit on raceTEP have everything you need? What was it like hooking it up to the fuse box and the starter?

I cut the battery tray out of my car during this engine rebuild, now I don’t really have a choice other than to put it in the trunk, I know somebody in here modified the tray to bolt back into the engine bay but I’d rather just throw it in the trunk.

Thank you! When it comes to the battery there's definitely more than one way to skin a cat. I'll give you too many of my thoughts and you can take your pick.

To properly relocate the battery to the rear is fairly expensive, circuit protection and large diameter wire adds up quick, plus there's your time. But from an engineering perspective its a good solution. Now if you are looking purely at overall weight reduction the best option would be to buy a super lightweight battery e.g. AntiGravity brand and keep it in the factory location. If that's what you want, I would bolt up the factory tray, save yourself a lot of time and money.

Personally I like having the battery in the back. It helps the overall weight distribution which is more important to me than absolute weight savings and it means I can run whatever battery I want. But most important, is that it gives me more room in the engine bay for go fast parts later on. The added bonus is improved structural rigidity (supposedly, I have no way of really verifying).

Now let's talk about the raceTEP. First off, is that what I have lol? I honestly don't know because I found it locally on FB market place. Got it for a bargain, I remember those bars being kind of expensive. Secondly I welded it in, but you can definitely bolt it in and that may be a better choice if you plan on running in a specific auto-x class etc.

So how hard was it for me to install? Easy, I just welded from inside of the trunk. Drilling holes would be a bit harder and I would think the car would have to be in the air, with the wheels off, but I don't think it would be anything too crazy. As for wiring I'd definitely have some kind of circuit protection as close to the battery as possible. You don't need to run two separate wires like it do though. I'm happy to go into more detail on this but that's probably enough to start.