Member
Cheers mate. it's definitely an involved job, but very rewarding once you've got it done! Nice, it did save me a chunk of cash doing it myself - could've been even cheaper if I kept the original ratio/didn't go 3 clutch.Originally Posted by gj124
Yes the crown wheel bolts are mega tight - my solution was to put the empty pumpkin (all LSD bits removed, just CW left) into a wood-lined vice, and lock it in place with a 1/2" extension bar through the slots in the pumpkin. Worked a treat for undoing bolts and torqueing back to spec with new CW on. See pic below for an idea on how it worked, can just see the extension poking out the right side.
I'd not used them before but will do for any new suspension in future, seriously good investment of £20. Threads/Springs still look brand new.
Cheers mate, appreciate the kind words. This set me back just shy of £3k in 2018. Now a similar one would probably be closer to 4k, maybe more again. Been seeing trashed M52 swapped 318s/320s advertised for over 3k recently, so markets a bit crazy.
Those prices in Portugal are mental though, perhaps there are less E36s there overall which has resulted in the higher prices? I agree they're long past the low end now, who knows how the prices are going to be in a few more years.
I'd absolutely love an E36 M3 but as gj124 said they run 8-10k+ normally unless the shell is complete scrap. Not much point for me getting an M3 donor except for the engine and maybe brakes. I think if I were going to that trouble I'd swap in an S54 instead as they seem to be slightly cheaper than S50s. The 2.8 suffices for now though!
Last edited by TspencerJ; 02-17-2021 at 05:53 AM. Reason: Typo
Member
Our market is really week in terms of volume compared to the UK and USA (even more maybe). With the money of 1 car here, i would buy 2 or 3 over there.
It sucks really, but that's the nature of the game i guess.
I'm in my 40s now, and i always wanted a E36, but could never affort two cars really. Let's see in next 3 years what can be arranged.
Always loved the prospect of a E36 STW Supertouring road legal car or homologation car (that never existed at the time).
Really appreciate what you have been doing with it.
As for the M3 as a donor car, my thinking was that it would make sense in UK in terms of costs and return
Member
Shortly after finishing the diff rebuild I put my car in for it's MOT (roadworthiness test in the UK). Passed all fine, bar a slight weep of gearbox oil (likely from the breather) and a sticky front caliper. Weep was something for me to sort at a later time, but I immediately knew the front caliper would be due to the old inner seal I'd used when rebuilding them ~1.5 years prior. Still had the replacement I'd been sent, so quickly popped it off and replaced. Nice and easy fix, especially as I'd planned to bleed the brakes before track anyway.
Had some new tyres delivered as my Toyo R1Rs were getting near the end of their life. 4 Yokohama AD08RS in 235/40 fitted all round. Went with the early M3 tyre setup opposed to the later M3 225/45 and 245/40 as it's supposed to remove some understeer.
I kept driving where possible to get more miles down on the diff before pushing it on the track. 1 week before the date I started hearing a very loud humming noise from the rear. Was fearing the worst that something was wrong with the diff after the rebuild, but I was assured by some mates that it was the rear wheel bearings. I'd assumed they were okay as there wasn't any play in the wheels, but someone explained to me that the way they are pressed into the trailing arm with the hub prevents them from showing play in the same way a front bearing would.
Given I'd no history of any bearings having been changed I ordered front and rears to do ASAP. Fronts were a breeze, and I took the opportunity to cut a bit of the dust shield away to help dissipate heat (tip I'd read online, whether it actually makes a difference is beyond me).
Rears gave a bit more of a fight. First side I tried the driveshaft came straight out. Obviously had been changed or removed at some point in it's life as it had grease on the splines, which I know BMW didn't do from factory. Other side not so simple. I removed both trailing arms so I could get them on the bench and set out trying to remove the other shaft. Tried a shop press which failed miserably as it was impossible to get the trailing arm sat so the shaft was square with the press. Tried heating with a MAP torch and then tapping with a hammer. No luck. Tried using an old bolt in the recess in the shaft end as an intermediary. No luck. Tried heating and then shocking the hub with cold water, still no luck.
As a last effort before getting another trailing arm I ordered a ball-peen hammer to use as an intermediary between the driveshaft and a 4lb sledgehammer, which I'd read can work due to the force it allows you to transfer. A few hard taps and it came out in an instant. Deep down I like to think my prior efforts assisted, as the ease it came out with the ball-peen was almost as infuriating as it was relieving haha.
To remove the hubs I just used a race driver on the back of the hub where it goes through the bearing. Few taps and it came out easily, taking the inner bearing race with it. One race had some nasty pitting on (pic below). As I was reusing the hubs (£70~ for 2 new ones sans bearing!), I made a cut into the races and split them with a cold chisel. I deep cleaned the hubs to remove any road grime.
Once the hub was removed it became clear the bearing in the side with the stuck driveshaft was absolutely shot. Whether it was this bad before all the heat I'm not sure, but as you can see in the video below it wasn't in good shape.
To remove the bearings I used some threaded bar along with an assortment of nuts, washers and bearing races. Devised a method to pull the bearing out using an old scrap brake disc over the top. Can kind of see how I did it in the pics below. Some race drivers went under the brake disk where each of the upper/lower control arms bolt on to space the disk off the trailing arm. Worked a treat and saved me buying an actual tool for it.
New bearings sat in ready to be pressed. To make sure it went in flush I first wound it in by hand using some threaded bar and race drivers. Once happy it was going in straight moved to the press and fully seated it.
Bearings were fully seated, so in went the circlip and finally flipped it over to install the hub. I did this upside down so that the rear of the wheel bearing was supported. If you try drive the hub in from the top without supporting the wheel bearing you risk splitting the new bearing.
Everything went back onto the car easy, with grease added to the splines of the driveshafts to prevent any repeat corrosion. Had to realign the rear due to taking the trailing arms off, but thanks to having access to a maintenance pit I could do a string alignment easily.
Member
I can appreciate that, owning/insuring/running 2 cars is definitely a luxury a lot of us can't afford. I'd love a 2nd car so I could take my time more when working on the E36, but know part of my driving force to get things done is knowing I need to drive it to work/Uni haha. Hopefully you are able to get one soon though mate, good luck with it.
I'm also a big fan of the road legal STW tribute cars. More and more people seem to be doing them recently, even in the UK.
And yeah you're probably right, at the time of purchasing I was at University (still am now) so funds were tighter than stretching to M3 costs. Getting the 328 is what's allowed me to afford maintenance/upgrades, which likely wouldn't be budgeted for had I got an M3. I'm not exactly looking to make money off the car either, just drive and enjoy it. Perhaps an M3 will find it's way later if I can justify the costs
Member
Track day came around and of course the weather decided to piss down all morning, leaving the track nice and soggy. Cars were spinning left, right and centre, me included. The hangar hairpin (first corner) was especially greasy and caught me off-guard going into the second lap, resulting in a near 360 spin. Only got 8 or so laps in over the morning as Javelin closed the track several times to allow for water to drain off. Track closed early for lunch too in the hopes it would clear up by the end of the hour.
Luckily it did and once it reopened I really started to get the laps in. Bar a couple of sketchy moments in the palmer curves, I managed to keep it under control and slowly build my confidence and speed with each lap. The mate I went up with was not so lucky and had a nasty spin in the same curves, knocking a chunk out of his brand new wheels on the curb... ouch!
3.46 Diff worked a dream propelling me out of the corners, especially once I had some heat in the tyres. Think the ratio was spot on for Bedford as a track. Odometer read ~130 miles by the end of the session which was roughly 34 laps of the circuit.
Brakes were a noticeable issue, even with the Redstuff pads and high temp fluid I had pretty bad brake fade after doing 6-8 laps in a row. Not sure if that's down to my braking technique or the pads were glazed or what. Will be looking into it and perhaps look at swapping the pads out for something else. If anyone can recommend pads my ears are open (just need to be available in the UK).
Will also play with the alignment setup too, rear definitely needs to come down a bit which will throw the camber/toe off. Though my home alignment felt pretty good I may get a 4-wheel alignment done on a proper rack so I've got a better baseline for future string alignments.
Can't wait to do another event, but covid and lack of funds have been a bit of a barrier in the time since. Hopefully later this year will be able to get back out. Pics obligatory of the event photographer below.
And with my mate in the pits. We were dead happy to have booked garage space in advance given the weather situation. Could at least keep warm and dry when we could go out.
ʎlpuǝᴉɹɟ ʎɹǝʌ
Car looks like a blast man. Def. a little tall in the rear. Do you have stock non-M brakes?
CARS
02.92 325is / 06.72 2002 / 02.91 XJ / 08.04 R53 JCW
Member
Not much track experience but I was advised to go for EBC Bluestuff over reds in my old MX-5 for the track. No idea if they were actually any better because I switched to them from standard pads. I think Pagid RS-29's are pretty much the best you can get for BMW's but cost a fortune compared to EBC's. The Nurburgring VLN E36's use Hawk DTC pads - probably a bit savage for the road though if it's also your daily.
Member
Cheers man, yeah looking back at the pictures it's really noticeable. And yes, stock non-M vented brakes.
I figured stock brakes with good pads, braided lines and high temp fluid would be fine until I actually need bigger brakes, but maybe I'll start looking to gather parts for 330iF/328iR caliper swap so I've got the option.
Member
Given how poorly they seemed to work after any hard braking I'm inclined to try a different brand before buying EBC again. Will keep Bluestuff in mind though as their website says they are more aimed towards track & street use than reds. Few of my mates with renaultsports use PBS which they rate, but I've yet to hear any reviews of them on BMWs. I've heard good stuff about RS-29s from the E46 crowd before so will have a look into those. Even if they are a tad expensive, can always have them just as a track pad and swap to some cheaper ones for daily use. Are Hawk pads even available in the UK? I thought they were US supplied only.
Member
Work on the car been pretty quiet since summer last year. Going back to Uni has meant less funds available for car parts, and crap weather makes working outdoors less than appealing.
Found a nice puddle in the spare wheel well just after xmas, initially assumed tail light seals had gone as there was a water mark coming down from one. Ordered new seals and the weather strips that go around the lights as they were disintegrating too. BMW parts department got them out quick and for a pretty reasonable price.
I'd never had the lights off in my ownership, so was greeted by lots of sludge, dirt and leaves which definitely weren't helping the lights seal to the body.
Cleaned the light up and the recess for the light to sit in (washed the car afterwards too, so excuse all the road grime on the body)
I drained the boot and moped up any water left in it to prevent the carpets going mouldy, and all went back together nicely with the new seals and weather stripping. I hoped that would solve it, but after a few more days of rain I was greeted to yet another puddle. Was quite confused as I couldn't see any other water marks than the one by the tail light when I looked previously, but after pulling off the plastic panel that goes along the inside of the trunk I found this.
So, confirmed it was trunk seal leaking, likely alongside the taillight too. I was surprised I'd not noticed any water in the boot before considering how badly it had surface rusted. I did see some holes along this panel which perhaps acted as a drain of some sort previously, or it was minimal enough to exit through the drain bung in the spare wheel well. Rear bumper came off to check for any rust or signs of standing water in other panels, which luckily there was no sign of.
Got a new boot seal on order and in the mean time I sanded all the rust back to bare metal, treated with several coats of Kurust, primered and applied Fern Green paint over. Forgot to take any pictures of it before applying the new boot seal, but I've no longer got any leaks which is great.
Thankfully it was only surface rust and nothing too serious, but I'll be keeping an eye on both the panel and the boot for water ingress/signs of rust. The main body of the car is pretty much rust free (this being the only main bit I've found). The bonnet/trunk lid have the worst of it, thanks to the notorious BMW dealer fitting of sports spoilers (No rust prevention on the holes they drilled on a brand new car - great workmanship!). I see those as minor issues as they can be replaced easily without cutting/welding necessary. If a clean Fern Green coupe/vert comes up for breaking I'll likely try and source a whole front end to have as spares with the colour being so uncommon.
Member
Also picked up a modified M54B30 intake cam ready to drop into my engine. 5mm lopped off the vanos gear splines to make sure it engages correctly. Should provide a mild performance increase in mid range and top end once I've got the tuning dialled for it. Will be doing a vanos rebuild alongside with the Besian Systems kit. Seems logical given it's got 128k on and will be coming off to fit the cam anyway. Be interesting to see just how much improvement I can get out of it, as it's very cheap (£100) compared to even the cheapest sets of aftermarket cams (£750+).
Member
A few days of nice weather and a bank holiday this past weekend gave me an opportunity to tackle the M54b30 intake cam swap.
Disassembly was a breeze, I've replaced the valve cover gasket previously so was pretty quick to get it all apart. Although I'd seen some vanos removal DIYs without use of the vanos wrench, I was glad to have got one as it made getting the vanos on/off a piece of cake.
Interestingly the M5X specific crank locking pin I got didn't fit properly, assumingly down to poor machining tolerances. Instead I used a large torx screwdriver with the same diameter as the tip of the crank lock pin. Went in easily, confirmed it locked the flywheel and stuck the gearbox in gear for peace of mind.
I read several threads regarding how easy it supposedly is to snap the cams in half upon removal. I'm guessing this was an overstatement, as I don't see how that's possible without brainlessly removing a single cam cap at a time and putting immense stress on the cam at a single point via the valve springs underneath. It's very easy to see which cam lobes are acting on the valve springs and hence causing tension.
I just evenly untightened each cap nut a quarter turn, taking extra care over the ones under tension. Came off easy with no signs of snapping being a possibility. I then swapped the cam sensor trigger wheel from the B28 cam to the B30 cam, applied some assembly lube and refitted it.
To properly seat the cam for reinstallation, I got the cam roughly in the correct timing position (I kept stock timing degree using normal blocks) and took note of which lobes would be acting on the valve springs. IIRC it was cylinder 3 and 5 lobes.
From there, put all the cam caps on and the nuts on by a thread and slowly tightened the 4 nuts for the caps over cyl 3 and 5 a quarter turn at a time in a star pattern. Every now and then took up the slack on the other cap caps using fingers and kept working it down slowly until all were tight. Then was just a case of torqueing each to spec and refitting the cam gears/chain
Vanos seal and o-ring were easy enough to change. I didn't do the anti-rattle ring as mine had no signs of vanos rattle, however upon inspection there was some axial play in the shaft. Again, no actual rattle so it appears okay for now, though I might look to get a spare vanos unit to refurb completely and swap over in the future. I'm guessing the diagram spring on the end of the intake cam in later models (mine included) has something to do with dampening the effects of the axial play.
To re-fit the vanos I put the timing block back on the intake cam and attached vanos wrench to turn the intake cam as far clockwise as possible. This put the cam to the advanced position, so when I actually fitted the vanos unit I could turn it back anti-clockwise to the normal position and allow the helical splines to fully mate. It went in nice and smoothly with no binding.
Engine started up immediately, sounded spot on and drives great. I'm still tweaking the ignition timing and vanos, but overall feels like a great improvement throughout the rev range so far. Engine pulls feel both smoother and stronger, no doubt attributed to the new vanos seals too. I feel like it's also made up for some of the low down torque loss experienced by the M50 manifold. Annoyingly I neglected to log a load graph before the swap, so can't compare load before/after the cam install.
Will be looking to acquire an M50B25NV intake cam to get machined and fitted in place of the exhaust cam some time in the future, but for now I'm pretty happy with the power from this engine. Looking forward to driving the car more now the weathers improving. An engine bay clean is on the cards next though as it's pretty filthy in there!
Member
Small update - things have been pretty slow while wrapping up my degree, thanks to both time and funds being limited.
Had a small overheating scare in traffic on a fairly warm day recently, luckily I noticed the temp gauge creeping up before it hit red and managed to coast into a cul-de-sac to let the car cool off. A lovely older Scottish bloke came out of the house I pulled up outside of and started conversation, who much to my surprise said he used to race E36 M3s at Knockhill back in the 90s. Safe to say I had a great chat while waiting for things to cool down!
Culprit was the aux fan not turning on. Tested both relays which were fine, but bridging pins on the fan switch would only cause the fan to spin 90% of the time. The other 10% the fan needed some help to start spinning. After taking the fan off and giving it a good clean it seemed to be back to working 100% of the time again, but I was still a bit worried about it failing.
Decided to order a Spal puller fan to mount behind the radiator and wire up to turn on with the higher temp setting of the fan switch. This way if temps creep up too high or the aux fan were to conk out, the Spal could kick in at the higher temp (88*) and keep things cool. I went for the VA18-AP70/LL-86A, which is a 16" straight blade puller rated at 1859cfm. Should be plenty for what I need, even as a primary fan should the aux eventually die and get removed.
I used Spals 900mm mounting kit, which made mounting pretty easy with the holes present on the radiator. I no longer have the original clutch fan shroud, so will look to source one or alternatively fab one up. I wanted to add as little extra wiring as possible to the bay, so utilised the factory high speed relay and fan controller wire for power. The issue with this approach is that both fan relays run off the same 30a fuse, which may not hold up to the increased draw when the fans switch over.
To remedy this, I added a second 30a fuse onto the low-speed relays power input. With stock wiring, this takes its 12v power from the highspeed relay with a connecting cable. I cut the cable and soldered on an inline fuse holder, with the other end attaching to the power terminal in the fuse box. This allows both relays to act independently of each other and let me use the factory fan harness without adding extra relays.
All seems to run perfect for now. Yet to hear the Spal come on in traffic, but puts my mind to ease knowing its there just in case. Will be looking to install a VDO water temp gauge soon to accurately monitor temps - the factory buffered gauge just doesn't give enough information.
Member
TspencerJ, what did you do to 'clean' the Aux fan? I've got two E36's that need their Aux fans serviced up and am interested in what you did to clean (just serious air pressure or..?)
Also I want to rid my clutch fan so it doesn't sound like my Chevy Colorado, but thanks for the info on the wiring diagram, a bit confusing but I'm sure looking at the EWT diagram for my car I should be able to figure it out.
[redacted]
Member
I just removed the fan from the car, cleared any debris out of the shroud and sprayed a fair bit of electrical contact cleaner into the fan motor. I could see debris come out of the gap in the unit with each spray discharge. After that I jumped the fan switch plug several times again, and found the fan span without assistance again reliably. Probably wasn't the best approach as I didn't open the motor up, but have had no further troubles with the aux fan not spinning up itself since.
I've attached a crude drawing over the auxiliary fan wiring diagram, should explain how I added the 2nd fuse better. To add the new fan into the aux fan controller wiring, I just wired the pos input to the high-speed power wire and neg to ground wire on the aux fan plug wiring. Hope that helps
Member
While sorting through my parents garage this past week I was greeted by a nice surprise - an x-brace I'd purchased at some point and forgotten about!
Being a 328 I don't have captive nuts in the front subframe from factory, so I borrowed a friends riv-nut gun and installed 4 M8 rivnuts into the subframe. Although using a proper riv-nut tool I was still anxious about the nuts spinning, so dabbed a bit of threadlock onto the rivnut collar before compressing them.
After leaving the threadlock to set overnight, the brace went on and each bolt torqued up just fine. Not done any spirited driving yet since installation, but the front axle does feel a hell of a lot stiffer/more connected just driving normally. Look forward to see what the difference is like on some backroads soon!
Member
Thank you SO much for the diagram and the explanation and also what you did to the Aux fan. Honestly, so envious of the work and effort you've put into your '36. Was considering to my other coupe BRG too since it needs a paint job but just suggested it to the old man.
Many many thanks again, lurking but following this with great interest.
[redacted]
Member
No sweat, always happy to pass on information. I'd love a true BRG like on the E36 M3 GT models, but Fern green is definitely a nice metallic alternative!
Last edited by TspencerJ; 06-15-2021 at 04:31 PM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks