Ownership Verified: 1995 BMW M3 (US 3.0L), track day car

:lol:
Everything takes a while to reach Brazil, even news. :p
 
thomas, just get it over with and move to Texas. :p
 
drove the m3 up & down the street yesterday. The engine feels good. I do hear some sort of air leak type of noise when I push the clutch in. Something's definitely wrong there. :(

The front bumper is also rubbing with the right-front tire when I turn left.. need to remove it before I can actually drive the car.


I'm just happy that the engine seems to be good. .. and sad that the tranny might not be.
 
so besides clean up, the front bumper is the only body damage? in the pictures the other panels and even the rockers don't have any damage from what i can tell.
 
mostly front bumper.. yes. Right now it also looks like there is a leak in the clutch's hydraulic system. But it does seem that the engine is ok (w00t)
 
Whew!
 
Was finally able to work on the M3 on Saturday. I took it to a shop this morning to have it looked over as well. Things are looking pretty good, but I'll know more later today or tomorrow.

I pulled the old bumper, underpanel, and wheel well liners out on Saturday. I also installed the new kidney grilles (brand new.. nice & shiny) and passenger corner marker. The driver's marker needs to be replaced as well, but it'll work for now. I replaced the trunk gasket with a brand new piece as well. The door gaskets are next :)

I test fit the new bumper (ordered an aftermarket bumper kit from DDM Tuning a few weeks ago. I'll still need to get it painted, but I'll at put it on temporarily until then.

Now that the bumper and liners aren't rubbing the wheels anymore the car drives nicely. It feels like it did before.. the engine revs nicely.. etc. I do hear a whooshing sound, but I'm wondering if it's just the intake that I'm hearing. The clutch's engagement point is definitely changing though... it varies almost every time I use the pedal. So, it'll be looked at, and hopefully it's just the master cylinder (or slave cylinder again).

I also found the old rear diffuser piece in the marsh area... before it started raining again recently. The marsh was almost completely dry.. so I found the diffuser, which is still in great shape, and I saw a bumper trim piece that I couldn't quite get to. I'll have to get to it once it dries out more :p

So right now the car is missing everything forward of the wheels and below the headlights. It looks weird.. but it drives again.

- - - Updated - - -

new bumper kit from DDM Tuning
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replacement fog lights and some other bits
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bought a rear diffuser from someone.. then found my old one in the marsh. It needs to be cleaned up though :p
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the jack pads I ordered a couple of months ago. They're OEM.. but they're not at all useful for most floor jacks. They're a hard plastic and will just slide off of most floor jacks.. grr. The car is a pain to jack up safely.
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replacement passenger corner lamp and brand new kidney grilles
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before shot..
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removed the busted Motion Motorsport underpanel. This is likely what ensured that only the bumper cover was damaged
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so the bumper rebar can be unbolted from the chassis easily.. just unbolt four bolts that are accessible through the bumper cover. In this way the whole bumper assembly can be removed quite easily. However, if you just want to remove the cover you have to pry out (destroy) 8 plastic rivets. Nothing else holds the bumper cover onto the car.. except a few small screws on the back side. I have new plastic rivets coming today, but I only ordered 4 because it sounded like that's all I needed from what I read online. Now I need to make a dealer run :(
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old busted bumper off. I also found a fog light I thought was missing jammed up inside the car.
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decided I needed to remove the fender liners as well.. easier to do that than to temporarily install the new cover so the M3 could be driven. I drove the car to the shop today with no bumper or fender liners.
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new bumper test fit.. cracked one tab and broke another minor piece off as well. Going to have to be careful with this thing. It fits nicely though.
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installed the new grilles.. so shiny
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replaced the trunk gasket as well. Old:
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new..
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everything in the garage for now
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Indeed!

Must have been weird going back to the marsh and finding bits of the car still there. :lol:
 
Hehe :) It'll be better than ever though after you're done and you'll learn so much about it :)
 
yup.. I definitely appreciate that part of it. I'm fixing a lot of things while I'm doing this too.

so..
I picked up the expanding rivet nuts for the bumper today and started assembling things. The bumper obviously still needs to be painted, and that is keeping me from installing the lower grille piece and the lip. I also severely need new fender liners... but I'll get to that a bit later.

The car was looked over today by a bmw mechanic and he drove the car a bit.. it looks and drives nicely to him. I likely was seeing the result of water and possibly rust being in the clutch area.. driving it has made things better. I'm expecting to drive the car to Leavenworth this weekend for my company retreat.

I destroyed a fog light wire by driving the car yesterday and today.. guess I didn't tie it up enough. So, I need to get a new plug wire for a fog light :(

The M3 still needs the rear diffuser installed.. and I have a few other things to finish up. But it's "back together" for now, until I can get the bumper painted and really finish things.


from the garage.. before starting work today
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last 'before' shot for the day
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got fogs in the bumper.. this took some work. It's quite the assembly. The fogs are new to me.. and they finally match each other, rather than being slightly different designs.
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the fog assembly. The bracket on the right is supposedly attaching to the bumper rebar when the bumper is in place. I didn't bother with it today since the front bumper will come back off soon.
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'after' shots.. looks pretty good for what it is
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still missing the rear trim piece
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I drove the car to Leavenworth on Thursday and back home today, with a little bit of driving in between. It worked very well... drives like it did before, except that the frontend is a bit light at speed (I doubt the m3 lip helps much, but the underpanel I had sure helped).

On the way out I lost my brake ducts. They were a bit worn, but in pretty good shape still. So now I need to spend an extra $70 or so on new brake ducts, along with the new wheel well liners that are needed. Oh well... I'm glad the car wasn't damaged more than just the front bumper, rear diffuser, and some bent metal around the left-rear fender from getting towed out.
 
Over Friday and Saturday I got the black OEM luxury bumper on... but realized that the passenger bumper bracket is broken off of the bumper cover. It's not meant to be removed.. so the one I have from the old bumper will have to be plastic welded on... or something. At least it looks better, for now.

I also got the rear diffuser/trim piece reinstalled.. and installed a couple of other replacement pieces while I was at it (bracket that holds wires to the hood strut, etc.).

I also cut the old passenger side fog light plug off (it was left dragging on pavement... oops) and crimped on a new plug... only to realize I had the wrong plug. Sooo.. I need to make a junk yard visit and cut off a plug with wires from any random e36


so, the car is kind of complete now. The luxury bumper means it currently has slats in the middle rather than a mesh, and it's missing the front lip. And with the missing passenger bumper cover bracket the cover likes to pop out too far. I also need to get a passenger side brake duct and then buy a new underpanel and get that installed. It's a process.. but things are looking up :)



old and dirty
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oem luxury bumper next to aftermarket new bumper
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installing the new bumper
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new and clean
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so you can see what the 'sport' bumper looks like.. same bumper, but different grille and it has a lip
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