Ownership Verified: Someone stole my trunk and 2 cylinders - a compact winter beater

As it was evident from the roadtrip, the clutch is in need of replacement. But before that i was offered a limited slip diff with the same ratio as my current diff - 3.45:1 in good condition for 350 eur.

And boy was this a good decision. The old diff had a lot of slack between the crown and pinion and i heard noises from it for a while, but boy was i not prepared for this (there’s still oil in the diff btw):


After getting the lsd i had to do some service on it. Cleaning it was in order and i had to change the flanges over from the old diff.

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Painted with 2k black paint (comparison before and after the service):

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Put 75w140 castrol lsd oil in it and installed:

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Then i focused my attention to the gearbox.

Had to play the standard extension game:

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And the gearbox was out.

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The thing had to be cleaned of course:

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This is the moment i realised i bought the wrong oil. I found conflicting info about which oil to put in it. So i bought 75w80. Turns out the sticker on the gearbox demands ATF. So this had to wait till monday.

Meanwhile, let’s look at the clutch. It was properly worn and the surfaces on the flywheel and the pressure plate are wearing signs of heat damage and are genetrally not in good condition.

Old dual mass flywheel:
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Clutch plate comparison:
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Comparison between old and new pressure plate:
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On top are the old components, on the bottom are the new ones.
The dual mass setup is replaced by a single mass flywheel, that has been machined to make it even lighter. The clutch disc and pressure plate are the ones i have bought in Dubrovnik.
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Old flywheel off:
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Turns out, the bolts from the dual mass flywheel are too long, so i had to use the bolts from the m20 out of the e30 (didn’t want to go buy new bolts at this stage). Put threadlock on them and torqued to 110nm.

New setup installed:
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All that remained at this point was to reassemble everything. I also cleaned and relubed the whole gearlinkage while i was at it aswell.

In conclusion, the car dives much better now. I didn’t realise how much i missed having an LSD in the car. Corners are so much more fun when you can steer with the right pedal.

The lighter flywheel has the desired effect of allowing the engine to be a lot more responsive to throttle inputs, which is nice :p

A weird phenomenon occured though.

Before i replaced all of this, everytime is stopped, there was heat radiating from below the car, the fan came on very often and even a mechanic friend who did the last oil change on the car said that the engine is way too hot.

Now, the fan doesn’t come on anymore and there is 0 heat radiating from under the car anymore.

My guess is that the fluid changes, diff change and clutch change significantly lowered the friction in the drivetrain, causing less strain on the engine and the components to run much cooler.

Anyway…

Next on the agenda is the front of the engine. Many seals need to be replaced and while i’m at it, also the chain guides and water pump. This will be fun…
 
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Very, very good job. LSDs make the world a better place. And btw:

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","height":"768","width":"1024","src":"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/s4Vkcsm.jpg"}[/IMG2]

[IMG2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","height":"768","width":"1024","src":"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/PK02B6f.jpg"}[/IMG2]

This is some first grade Telegram sticker material right there. :lol:
 
Mitchi;n3553174 said:
This is some first grade Telegram sticker material right there. :lol:

Pics made by IceBone . But feel free to make stickers :p
 
Stickers made!
 
So... it's been a while. Time for some updates on the car. Last time i changed the differential to a limited slip one, which proved to be a very good move.

However, soon after that, i noticed that there's something wrong with the steering. After an investigation, the problem was located in the steering rack. Not uncommon in old bmws. So, since the MOT was fast approaching and it annoyed the hell out of me, a replacement was found.

A yellow tag rack from an e46 330d convertible.
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Top new one, bottom old one:
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While at it, i also changed the arb droplinks to new ford mondeo ones (with ball joints on both ends, instead of stubber bush on one end).
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While doing this, i noticed that the oil leakage from the engine was aproaching critical levels, which would also result in an mot fail. Got a warning for it last year, but this time the engine was oily the next day after cleaning and leaving puddles everywhere. So, a few days after changing the steering rack, the engine had to be resealed. Which ment disassembly of the whole front end of the car:
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Remember, always work safely:
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Everything spotless and leak free after assembly
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MOT passed without issues.

Next got myself of winter steelies from an e90 with bigger ET and central dog dish caps. Looks perfect.
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Since the stance of the winter steelies with et31 looked so good, i had to replicate this with the et47 style 46 summer wheels, so i bought a set of spacers. :)
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One thing that bothered me since the purchase of the car was the worn out steering wheel:
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So a used but very good condition replacement was bought and installed:
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Makes a ton of a difference both in looks and feel.

Fast forward to before roadtrip/ringmeet.

First i had the interior properly cleaned, seats out and everything.
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Suspension also needed a few things in order for me to be happy. So new Front A arms were installed
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Also had to readjust the handbrake, so now it actually holds the car on a hill without problems. A very usefull feature in the alps.

As ringmeet curses go, a last moment discovery was made, the valve cover ventilation hose was cracked.
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Replacement was installed the day before departing on the roadtrip.

Last thing that was done, wheel alignment the day before roadtrip, which was neccesitated by changing the A arms.
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More stuff needs to be done for me to be happy, but so far, the car has been awesome to drive on the roadtrip ringmeet, with an average fuel consumption of 8.1l/100km on alpine passes and no oil leakage whatsoever. I am happy with it so far :)
 
Is the "yellow tag" steering rack supposed to be special or something?
 
It's slightly quicker than the regular one, but not as quick as the sought after z3/m3 purple tag rack.
 
Interesting.
Learned something new today. Thanks for the explanation.
 
So, on the roadtrip one thing was bothering me very much. Above 6k rpm or so the gearlever started vibrating. It was not really visible but audible. A very annoying chirpy noise.

Turns out the plastic balljoint cup was very broken. The balljoint could move like 3 or 4 mm up and down, which it shuld not be able to do.

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So after getting back i immediatelly ordered the parts necessary to shut it up. I had a connecting beam lying around, so i have cleaned it before hand. Changed both the rubber grommet that connects it to the top of the gearbox and the plastic ball joint. Everything was then greased thoroughly.

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Installed:

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The vibrations are gone and the shifter itself also feels so much better.

After installing it i also noticed that the guibo/hardy disc has many cracks. So that's next on the list of the parts that need changing.

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That video is better and funnier than entire comedy careers.
 
It was time to change the guibo. Last time i saw that it was quite cracked, so it was time.

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While it was all apart i also managed to snap a pic of the double shear gearlinkage:

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New guibo installed:

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This is it for the drivetrain so far. Everything is fixed.

I need to install new handbrake cables next, and hopefully some reinforcement goodies. Will keep you updated.
 
That thing looks very similar to the one used on a Discovery, commonly known as the donut here. Well known for failing and I've had to replace one in the past, good job getting it done before it becomes an issue. :)
 
Old one is quite cracked on closer inspection, no tears yet, but i didn't want to push it.
 
After i parked my car at my boss' place overnight the other day, i have discovered a weasel was in my engine bay. Luckily no damage that i could see. Had the car cheked out at neighbours place anyway.

No chewed up cabled underneath:

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No fault codes on ecu:

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In the afternoon it was time to change the cabin fan resistor. Suddenly, i noticed that the cabin fan is only working on max setting, which is a clear indicator that the resistor array is gone.

I was dreading this job, because the access is very limited and space is tight. Ah well..

Had to remove the top part of the intake manifold to gain enough of an access hole:

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Fan and old resistor removed:

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Comparison between new and old resistor array:

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I have vacuumed all of the leaves and shit out of the heater core and around the fan, cleaned everything with lidl wipes and microfiber towels as good as i could. Also cleaned the fan and regreased the bearings with white lithium grease.

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I have cabin ventilation again!
 
Because weasels. :LOL:
 
I guess you checked that the fan motor spun freely.

When then resistor packs up, chances are the motor is what killed it in the first place. :)
 
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