KwS's 1996 BMW M328i (M3 Swap)

[kws]

So four years ago (woah, four years!) I had a rather decent early E36 M3.

 

Unfortunately I made the mistake of selling that car, and M3s aren't getting any cheaper, so now it's harder than ever to get another one. Rubbish ones are expensive and good ones are even more expensive.

 

A couple of months ago I purchased an E91 335i, which although having been modded, so it was fast, it was as dull as bricks to drive otherwise. I wanted another analogue car, like an M3, where the only driving is done by me, not a computer.

 

I put the E91 up for sale and got offered an E36 M3 for a swap, which of course I'm going to be super interested in. Unfortunately the seller was someone reluctant to provide VIN details of the car initially, and it turned out that it was actually a 328i that had had a full M3 conversion. Initially I wasn't interested, I wanted a "real" M3, but the more I thought of it, the more a reshelled car actually made sense to me.

 

I didn't want to modify my previous M3 much, as i was concerned about ruining its "originality", so a car that already wasn't original means i can do the mods i didn't do to the previous M3. It sadly also means that it doesn't hold the same value as a real M3, but oh well.

 

So this is what I have ended up.

 

1996 BMW 328i Shell (New Zealand New)

Boston Green Metallic

Slicktop

 

The donor M3 was a South African spec BF92 1996 M3 in Daytona Violet

3.0L S50B30 engine (no emissions gear, no cats, but the full fat engine unlike the early SA spec cars)

5 Speed manual with LSD

Vader seats (Nappa leather)

M3 suspension and brakes

The donor had aluminium doors, but they weren't carried over

 

The only mods are

20" Chrome Work VS-KF

Full sound system with full boot install and a sully sik early 00s flip up touch screen headunit

 

Everything else is stock M3.

 

Unfortunately the car is a complete basket case, and has way more issues than expected and more keep popping up every day. The good thing is that I love a project, and fully intend to have this car as a nice solid car I can enjoy driving.

 

The good first

New headlining

Good condition interior (except steering wheel where all the leather has been removed)

Tidy exterior (and Boston Green is a stunning colour!)

Smooth gearbox and quiet engine (other than Vanos noise)

Head gasket and timing chain recently done, with head professionally cleaned up

 

So far the issues identified are

Vanos is dead. No power below 4000rpm, and can hear the usual grumble/rattle.

Starter doesn't always engage first time (free spins and engages when key is released, and then will start next try)

Passengers window only goes up about an inch at a time

Ignition barrel sometimes free spins

Airbag light stays on a long time before going out. Codes for passenger occupancy sensor

Shifter bushings well and truly gone

A high idle

A vacuum leak (since fixed, idle still high)

Headlight low beam not working on one side (since fixed. Fuse)

Oil cap hemorrhaging oil

All exterior rubber seals badly perished

Driveshaft coupling cracked and falling to bits

Clutch bites at the floor and the clutch pedal is offset/twisted to the left

Washer bottle sensor failed

No ext. temp sensor connected

Gearbox selector shaft seal leaking

Hose clamps missing or loose on fuel lines under car

Front LH tire losing pressure

20" wheels rub on all four guards

 

And there will no doubt be more things I discover as i go. In the meantime the car is mostly driveable, albeit leaking oil from the oil cap quicker than I can clean it off, and pumping the tire up each time I drive it.

 

The plans are to fix all the above issues, starting with the wheels are are stupid and huge, and then finally getting around to doing some mods. I have also ordered a bunch of other parts already, including Vanos seals.

 

Unfortunately the seller twisted the truth on the KM the donor car had on it, claiming the cluster fitted to the car was sourced from a friend and is from a different M3, and the original donor has about 80,000km less than the cluster (and the donors cluster was faulty so it was sold). INPA confirmed that the cluster is the one from the original donor.... so yeah.

 

I'm looking at maybe fitting a pair of Recaro seats, as they are more comfortable than the Vaders, but need to look further into he mounts for the floor.

 

The sound install in the boot will probably be coming out and standard boot linings/trim fitted. The subs sound average, likely due to settings on the amps, and i don't care enough to set them up properly.

 

I also want to upgrade the suspension, but keep standard-ish height (due to my steep driveway). Thinking Koni shocks and either stock springs or H&R. Swaybars are apparently a good upgrade too, as are binning the original rubber bushes.

 

This is the story of my 1996 BMW M328i

 

In the meantime, here are some photos.

[kws]

I can't make this stuff up, I really can't. I found out why the Vanos isn't working, and it's not what I was thinking...

I have been messing around for the past few days trying to get INPA and DIS to work properly. I can get INPA to read everything but the DME (ECU), but I finally got DIS working today, and its reading the engine DME.

This means I can finally read engine codes and see if there is anything obviously wrong.

That's a yes then. This was the only code, thankfully. I had wondered about the TPS since the reading from live data in the VNC (Vanos Control unit) in INPA was weird, but the VNC didn't have codes for those sensors, only Vanos related ones (of which it had an old code for something random in German, which wasn't an active code).

So what was weird? Well, the Throttle Position Sensor either read as below, with the engine off

And didn't change when the throttle was opened, or did this when the engine was running (also note the two bars at the very top not reading anything)

 

 

That reading looked familiar.... almost like it was reading engine position.

I disconnected the plugs, and checked the wiring colours. This was the plug off the TPS

And the Intake Cam Position Sensor

These two live right next to each other, and have identical plugs.

I check the wiring diagram, and sure enough the TPS colours were wrong. It should be Brown, Brown/Black and Red/Yellow

And the CPS should be Yellow, Black and Shielded Brown

So, what does that mean? Well, the two connectors had indeed been swapped. I swapped them over, connected them as they should be, and checked in INPA again.

The TPS now read correctly, and I also noted that the two top bars now also had a reading, so suspect that's linked to the cam sensor.

You can also see from the above photo, that the engine finally idles at the correct RPM now too. Obviously the engine thinking it was at WOT, but not moving, was causing the DME to keep the idle up.

The result? Its picked up a lot of down low power, almost like the Vanos is now actually doing something. Funny that. Easy way to gain power, much easier than Type-R stickers or a pod filter.

The exhaust sounds different too, I suspect this is down to the cam timing being correct now, instead of the inlet cam just sitting in one spot (or maybe even varying depending on throttle position!)

With the idle also correct, unfortunately the misfire at idle is more obvious. Hopefully it's either Vanos, or something simple like spark plugs or coils. I'll check them out shortly.

I can only presume this switch happened when the previous owner had everything unplugged to replace the head gasket. That was in 2016, so obviously it's been wrong for a while now, but confirms that I was right about the Vanos not working.

It's still slower than my old M3, but hopefully rebuilding the Vanos can make that gap closer.

[kws]

A HUGE thanks to @TimShadboltfan27 for bring me a set of wheels down from Auckland.

I removed the 20s

and on went the OEM M3 Style 24 17x7.5" wheels

[kws]

One thing the car has been suffering from since i got it is lots of play in the pedals. It turns out the bushes on the clutch pedal were stuffed, so new ones are on their way, but worse than that, the whole pedal box moved a lot when pressing a pedal. If you pushed the brake pedal, even by hand with the engine off, you could watch as the master cylinder tilted up a couple of cm. Pressing one pedal also moved the other pedal, it was all over the show.

It looks like the reason for the pedal box moving is that when the car was manual converted by the previous owner, they didn't fit number 4 in the diagram, so the pedal box isn't braced. Sigh.

Just went out and got an M8x25 bolt, loosened off the other 4, and installed the new bolt. Tightened it all up, and now almost no movement in the pedal box or master cylinder. Huge difference. Just another lazy cockup the previous owner did.

As an aside, i managed to get the remote locking working too. I replaced the batteries in the key, and used this video to program it.

 

[kws]

I don't know about you, but I don't like using gross worn out steering wheels, and the wheel on the M328i was beyond terrible. Unfortunately the replacement didn't go as planned.

When I got the car I thought something was weird about the steering wheel. It had a gross rubbery feeling, and it actually turns out that the previous owner has removed the leather and this is the padding that is normally under the leather.

It wasn't nice to hold, and was kinda squidgy and moved on the wheel. Ugh.

I thought I had won the lottery when a MINT condition, almost new three spoke wheel came up on Trademe. It was from an E46 but looked physically identical (more on that later). I purchased it and marveled at how nice the leather was. So much grain!

Due to the airbag the first step to removing the wheel is to disconnect the battery. First, move your boot trim, disconnect the LED strip and move your massive capacitor. Wait, not everyone's boot has these?

And then disconnect the negative battery terminal. Check on the battery which is which, as not everyone has enough common sense to use the proper wiring colours...

And then go make a coffee, wait for it to cool down, drink it, and then it should be safe to mess with the airbag. I don't know if the waiting time is important, but everyone else says to wait, and hell, I don't fancy an airbag to the arm or face during removal.

The airbag is held to the wheel with two T30 torx screws, one in the back of each side spoke. You can see them either side of the circular center below.

Once you undo these the airbag can be lifted out. It is hooked into the wheel at the bottom, so you need to pull the top forward and out to remove. On the back of the airbag there is an orange connector, this just pulls straight off, away from the airbag. There is also a small spade terminal to remove.

There is a large 16MM bolt in the middle of the wheel holding it to the column. Undo this a few turns, but don't take it completely off (it'll stop you taking a wheel to the face), and wiggle/pull the wheel off the spline). Make sure the wheel is dead straight, remove the bolt completely and mark the shaft to indicate center. Before you remove the wheel though, remove the lower steering wheel shroud, and disconnect the two connectors coming from the steering wheel slip ring. DO NOT try to remove the grey connector from the back of the slip ring. It isn't a connector.

Now you can remove the wheel.

This is where it went wrong though. I needed to swap the clock spring/slip ring from the back of the old wheel to the new one. Unfortunately this is where I learnt that there is one massive different between an E36 version of the wheel, and an E46 one.

On the E36, the slip ring screws to the back of the wheel with three little screws

It also comes through the back of the wheel at about 1-2 o'clock

The E46 wheel, although looking identical otherwise, has no mounting for the slip ring, as on the E46 the slip ring is mounted to the column, not the wheel

You can also notice that the wiring is designed to come through dead at the top

They are the same, but different enough that you can't easily use an E46 wheel on an E36. Apparently you can machine the back of the wheel to fit the slip ring, but that takes some precision work. You can't use the E46 slip ring or airbag, as they are two stage and have different wiring (not to mention mount to the column).

So my gorgeous mint condition wheel is useless to me. I have found a cheap replacement to my wheel on Facebook, so should have that at some point. It has all its leather, but has aged/worn. I'll probably buy a stitch on leather cover for it, but anything has to be better than the leather-less wheel.

It's a real shame I have a passengers airbag in this car, otherwise I would just bin the airbag wheel and go with a nice Momo or something. It's too obvious that the car should have an airbag wheel, when it still has the passengers airbag (unlike my old M3 with had only the drivers airbag, no passenger).

[kws]

Yet another issue I wasn't aware of until I had taken ownership of the car and driven away, was that the Airbag warning light was staying on too long, indicating an issue.

I'm not sure how or why it wasn't lit on the test drive, maybe we had the car running long enough before I got in to drive it for the light to go away, but it was indicating there was an issue every other time I turned the key. The light would come on with the ignition, as it should, flash, but then stay lit for a good few minutes, before going out.

A lit Airbag light is a WOF fail, but for some reason the light does go out, it just takes ages. 

Anyway, I fired up my old diagnostic laptop, launched INPA and checked for codes in the Airbag system. I had three. Two were related to voltage (low battery) and one was for "Sitzbelegungserkennung Beifahrer".

Ah yup, that old chestnut. Translated to English, it means "Seat occupancy recognition front passenger".

The occupancy sensor issue is a well known one in the E36 community. It is basically an electrical mat inside the base of the passenger seat, which detects when weight is in the seat and tells the SRS system there is someone sitting there, and in the event of an accident to fire the passenger airbag. If it doesn't detect weight, it thinks no one is there, and wont fire the airbag.

The problem is that the mat can get worn or damaged over time, just from regular movement and pressure. Apparently kneeling on the seat base can damage them too (much more concentrated pressure). Once the mat fails, it will trigger the Airbag light and throw an error code.

The official way to fix it is to disassemble the seat, remove the old mat and fit a replacement. This is an excessive amount of work for little gain.

The unofficial way to do it, is to bypass the mat with a couple of resistors and a diode, which tricks the SRS system into thinking there is always someone in the seat, and to always fire the airbag in an accident. Some people DIY this with really ugly results, but a far tidier way to do it is to buy a proper bypass plug off the likes of eBay.

Mine cost about $11 plus shipping from a German seller, a hell of a lot cheaper than the $60+ they are asking for the exact same thing on Trademe.

Installation is easy. Disconnect the battery. Wait for a few minutes, then remove the four nuts/bolts that hold down the seat, and tilt it back to access the underside. This is where I discovered my occupancy sensor control unit under the seat wasn't even plugged in... The wires were just floating around on the floor

That plug should be in the white socket on the bottom of this unit

Regardless, I chose to bypass the mat anyway. It was probably why it had been disconnected, in some misguided attempt to "fix" it.

Twist the unit sideways to release it from the seat base, unplug the black connector on the side, plug the bypass into the socket, and reattach the box to the seat base. Done. Easy.

Reinstall the seat, reconnect the battery, turn the ignition on and marvel at how the Airbag light is still lit.

I don't know if it's the same on all cars, but mine needed the codes to be cleared. I plugged my laptop back in, fired up my freshly updated (and now in English) INPA, and checked for codes. Sure enough there was one for the occupancy sensor. I cleared this, cycled the ignition, the light went straight out. I checked codes again, and nothing.

The live data from the system also shows that the "pressure sensor" is OK.

Great success. One more thing ticked off the list.

[Get it done]

I have seen Simalar results to the timing  of airbag faults in the past, a common alternative was to connect the wiring to the oil pressure this signaling the light to go out after a pre determined time .not ideal !

[kws]

Parts are arriving almost constantly, so it was time to start cracking on fixing my BMW.

It's been a month now, since I obtained the M328i, and it's spent 98% of that time in the garage in bits. I've driven it home, to and from work once, and that's as far as its been in my ownership. Unfortunately the list of failures just kept getting bigger for those first couple of weeks, but now I feel I'm almost on top of the list and it isn't growing.

Parts from all over the world, mainly The States, have arrived, with more still en route now. I decided to start with work under the car, as I needed to get new tires on the Style 24 wheels, so the car would be up on the QuickJacks, and it made sense.

The main work I needed to do was to replace all the bushing in the shifter assembly, as there was far too much play when in gear, and much like Tess, it was like trying to row in a bucket of porridge. This is work I carried out on my first BMW when I had it converted to manual, and they didn't put any bushing in at the time. The shifter shaft seal was also leaking, making a hell of a mess, and accelerating the degradation of rubber bushes etc.

The other job whilst there is to replace the drive shaft flex disk, or Giubo (usually pronounced Gwee-Boh, but apparently meant to be pronounced Joo-Boh). I noticed this was badly cracked when I had the car over the pit at work, so ordered a replacement. The drive shaft needs to be dropped to make accessing the shifter bushes easier, so it's a good time to do it.

The first step once the car was in the air, was to drop the exhaust mid section. It's not hard to drop, just four flanges to undo, but its damn heavy. It also turns out one of the front flanges has been leaking, because one flange had a crushed flat gasket and lots of sealant, the other flange had no gasket, just gasket goop.

With the exhaust section down, there is a heat shield that needs to be removed. It has six screws holding it in.

To drop the drive shaft first you must loosen off the nuts holding the center bearing as this will need to be lowered later, and remove the cross brace in the bottom of the above photo. 

I marked the two flanges with a paint pen to help align them again later, and then went in with the ugga dugga gun to spin off the bolts holding the flanges to the flex disk. These are 18mm nuts and bolts. Turns out I didn't even have an 18mm spanner (most socket and spanner sets skip 18mm as its uncommon), so I had to rush out and buy one.

Once all the bolts are out, remove the two nuts holding the center bearing in and then the drive shaft can be lowered out of the way. The Giubo was pretty shocking. It even had chunks missing.

Compared to the new one

With the shaft out I had access to the shifter assembly. I don't have photos of this in place because it was very messy and a real pain to get out. I had issues getting the rear bushing, and the "bastard" clip out, but there are lots of tutorials online on how to get them out.

Once on the bench it was obvious why there was so much play. There were no plastic washers (which take up slack) where the green arrow points, and the ones with the orange arrow were worn paper thin.

The main joint usually has a foam insert in it to increase resistance to movement. This had absorbed oil from the leaking selector shaft seal and turned to mush

This bush which supports the main shifter arm had gone soft and worn out

I stripped all the parts down and gave them a clean. I first replaced the shifter "bearing". The old one had worn and gone brittle.

I pressed out the old arm bush and fit the replacement

On went the new yellow plastic washers.

A new main joint was obtained also. This comes with the new foam insert. This is an updated design that actually does away with the plastic washers on this end of the shift rod. Interestingly it's also made of an alloy and significantly lighter than the old steel one.

You can see on the new one there is a built in sleeve that takes up the space where the washers would have been on the old one

One tip I will say, is DO NOT REMOVE the retaining clip on the joint. It's a real prick to get back into place, and impossible to put on once the joint is in the car. Instead, slip the ring up the joint so it exposes the hole for the retaining pin. Move the ring to where the green line is. Once the retaining pin is in place, this allows you to easily push the ring back into place to lock the pin in.

Before I could refit the shifter assembly, I needed to tackle the horribly leaking selector seal. This is a very common issue, and other than bad access, not a hard job to fix. I gave the area a quick clean to expose the old seal. The rubber was hard as a rock and I couldn't get a screwdriver or a pick into it, so no wonder it was leaking. I ended up using the recommended alternate option, instead of removing the old seal (which was proving hard), drift the old seal further into the bore and then install the new seal in front of it. Use a 15mm deep socket to install the seal, as it's a perfect fit on the seals outer edge.

With the seal in, I reinstalled the shifter assembly. A quick test shows its lovely and notchy in its feel, with minimal movement in gear. Can't wait to drive with it.

Now I needed to install the new Giubo and reinstall the drive shaft. This is bit of a shitty job, due to limited space for ratchets and spanners, but fairly straight forward.

One major thing to keep in mind is to ensure the arrows point toward the flange that the bolt attaches to. You can just make out the small arrow in the below photo. The green arrow is pointing both to it, and in the direction its pointing in. The green line is where the flange should be that the bolt goes through.

Once all the bolts are in, all the nuts are on and lightly nipped up, I torqued all the bolts up (per flange. Start with the three bolts on one flange and then do the other three) to the required 115NM. This is a lot of torque when lying on a rolling creeper with limited room!

I torqued them all up, and then did a quick pass of all bolts again to make sure they were all locked in nice and tight.

Then it was a matter of refitting the center bearing (remembering to preload the center bearing 5mm to the front of the car), rear brace and heat shield.

I still need to refit the exhaust, but I'm waiting on new gaskets, which should hopefully show up early next week.

As an aside, I also replaced the fuel filter whilst under the car today. It was too hard to get good photos under there of it, so no good guide (and there are heaps out there already), but it's interesting to note the old one was either the original filter, or hadn't been replaced in a long time. There was no obvious date stamp on it, but the label on the filter is old enough that I can't even find a matching photo online. Even if it isn't really that old, no harm in knowing it has a new one in there now.

I'm getting closer to having the car back on the road. Unfortunately before I can take it for another hoon I need to remove the valve cover and replace the gasket as I found out the other day it's hemorrhaging oil down the back corner. This means I may as well rebuild the Vanos whilst I'm in there. Yay.

[kws]

BMW remote keys have a reputation for the rubber buttons wearing out. Thankfully it's not that hard to give them a spruce up.

The rubber buttons on the remote go soft and wear out from repeated use and age. This makes them hard to press, ugly and sometimes if they go sticky, unpleasant to touch.

Both of the keys that came with the car look the same. The Lock button is just sticky mush that doesn't actually respond unless you mash your finger inside the rubber, and all the diagrams have worn off.

Start by accessing the screws on the back of the housing. If it's still there, there will be a small panel covering them that just pops off

Remove the screws and the back will come off. This is also a good time to change the batteries if they are low. CR1220 x2.

The guts of the remote are a press fit into the housing. Gently dig it out of the housing and put to one side.

Now you can see the horror. The mashed up rubber. Also note in the above photo, the black thing at the top of the key with writing on it, that is the EWS transponder chip. These don't tend to be held in with anything, and will take any opportunity to fall out and piss off somewhere hard to find it again. Take it out and put it somewhere safe. Don't lose it or its a new key plus coding.

I purchased a couple of these "Replacement Remote Key Fob Case Shell 3 Buttons Fit For Bmw E38 E39 E36 Black" from Ebay. There are some different variations depending on what sort of key you have.

The ones I bought have the provision for a red light to flash through the housing. Unfortunately my older style keys don't have the light, it's where the transponder lives, so I had to cut that off the new button pads. This did need further trimming to fit the EWS chip in snuggly.

The old button pad is held in by being moulded through small notches in the key housing. You can push the old rubber pads out from the front, but if they are still stuck in there you may need to cut around the edges to help it along.

The replacement button pad pushes in from the back of the housing.

This took a lot of trimming to fit the transponder chip in, and also to fit a capacitor that sticks out on the circuit board. I had to trim along the orange line to give it space, or it would push the Lock button outwards

I reassembled the key, and tested. The buttons are much easier to press now and work reliably. The key looks and feels nicer.

The fit isn't perfect, and the buttons don't quite sit flush, but I'm hoping as they wear in a bit it will level out.

Over all though, for the $1.09 per button pad, it's a steal and such an easy way to give it new life. Sometimes it's the small things that are the best.

[Adoom]

I have suspicions that this might be the same "M3" I saw many months ago, sometime last year, being driven through Lower Hutt, by a skinny guy with possibly a shaved head.

It only got my attention because the car looked tidy but the number plates were super fucked, turns out they were for a Primera.

/LING

[kws]

Nah, unlikely. The seller brought the car down from Auckland for me, and was the one that converted it to M3. It hasnt spent any time down here until i got it.

[kws]

Okay, it's been a while since my last post, but the car has still been progressing. I left off with the exhaust on the ground waiting for exhaust gaskets, and needing to replace the valve cover gasket. The parts arrived, so I got on with it.

With the arrival of the exhaust gaskets for the manifold to center section flanges, I could refit the exhaust. This thing is a damn beast, but with some carefully juggling, wiggling and bolting, I got it back into place.

Just as a quick side note, when cleaning up under the car I noted that two of the nuts I removed from the giubo were completely wrong. That wouldn't have helped the balance of the drive shaft. 

They all got replaced, as they are Distorted Thread locking nuts. The top of them is basically squished and distorted, so when you put new nuts on, they bind on the threads and wont come loose. Reusing them is a no-no, because they will no longer bind like they should. Similar concept to Nyloc nuts, but can handle higher heat.

With the underside work done, I could finally refit the wheels with new rubber on them and lower the car down a bit and finish the work inside the car. I needed to refit the clutch pedal, as I had removed it to replace the bushes. I tried some flashy delrin bushes, but unless I removed the whole pedal box and fitted them on the bench, there was no way I could press the bushes on in the car, they were just too tight. Instead I went with a pair of new OEM bushes, slathered in grease.

Thanks to the bolt I fitted that was missing from the pedal box, and the new bushes, the clutch pedal feels much better now; it doesn't move off the side, and I don't hit the dead pedal now.

The other thing I wanted to do whilst under there was to replace the throttle cable, as my original one was well munted and made the throttle sticky. It was also ugly, and I don't like ugly.

Removing the cable was easy enough, once you get the plastic clip out of the firewall (have fun one that one), it was just a case of pulling it through the engine bay and disassembling where it attached to the linkage. This is where it all kinda went wrong, all over one tiny little stupid (but crucial) bit of plastic.

As I was attaching the white plastic clip back on the end of the cable so it could attach to the linkage, I dropped it.

Of all the places, and things to drop, it was a plastic clip, between the 5th and 6th intake runners. It didn't come out the bottom, and I couldn't go magnet fishing because it was plastic. I tried moving and jiggling things in the area to see if it would drop down, and even lifted the car up and tried to fish around with my hand from underneath to find it. It didn't work, I had only one option left.

The whole intake had to come off. Thankfully removing one isn't too hard, and it's something I had done before on my old M3, it's just bit of a prick to get at some of the hoses and bolts.

Oh there it is, sitting on the starter motor...

This little bastard.

I then proceeded to immediately drop it again; onto the floor this time, so until it was ready to go back on, it went into my pocket.

Having the intake off did give me a chance to have a quick look around, and give the throttles a quick clean, so it wasn't all bad. Back together it went, and on went the new throttle cable (assembling over a large rag, so I wouldn't drop it again. See, I learn from my mistakes!).

Whilst setting up the new cable I encountered two things that made me facepalm. One, the throttle return stop had been mangled, and bent back. This stop is what stops the throttle pedal linkage going back too far when you take your foot off the pedal. If it goes back too far, there will be too much slack in the cable and you will never adjust it out. No prizes for guessing how I found this issue. 

I bent it back as flat as I could, which made the pedal sit better, and allowed me to correctly adjust the cable. Being bent back was no accident; it took a lot of work to bend it forward again, so I can only suspect it was done intentionally to compensate for the stuffed cable.

The second issue, was that the throttle stop was badly adjusted. On my car because the shell was originally auto, instead of a normal solid "stop" under the pedal, I have the kickdown button still.

The throttle stop/kickdown button sits behind the pedal and is what stops you putting pedal to the metal, or more accurately, damaging the throttle cable by trying to pull it further than the throttle plate will allow. On the flip side, if it's not adjusted enough, it will stop you getting to Wide Open Throttle (WOT).

The whole thing is on a thread and screws into the floor, but does have a locking nut that stops it goes in too far. On my car that locking nut was wound way out, which meant that the stop couldn't be wound in as far as it needed to be, which means by the time the throttle pedal stopped, I was only seeing about 3/4" opening, not WOT. No wonder this car felt slow!

I wound the locking nut down, and wound the stop in enough that when the kickdown button (which now does nothing but offer some nice physical feedback through my foot when pressed) is pressed, the throttle is 100% open.

With that mess cleared up, I moved out of the interior and into the engine bay for one last job for the day. The valve cover gasket.

I noticed it was BADLY leaking down the back corner, so ordered a replacement a while back. I had intended to rebuild the vanos whilst the cover was off, but decided to postpone that (for reasons I will explain in a later post) and just stop it leaking.

Replacement is easy; Remove the coils, a whole bunch of bolts, and then the cover itself. When removing the coils, you also need to move the loom out of the way, so I rest that on the strut tower.

I didn't notice, or remember, that the coil connectors are actually numbered via a small brown plastic tag on each wire (as seen in the photo), so instead I put a small dot for each coil it went to (1 dot for coil 1, 6 for the 6th coil) with a paint pen. This is the connector for coil 2. The dots are covered by the locking clip when assembled. It never hurts to over mark things before disassembly.

And off comes the cover. It takes a lot of wiggling to get the back to clear the cable holder and the rear cam cap, but it does fit.

This is the corner that was leaking. The gasket wasnt that old, it must have been replaced when they did the head work, but for whatever reason it just didn't seal here

The other leak I had was a bad one into a couple of the spark plug tubes, via the rubber washer on the bolts. I ordered a bunch of these (you need 20x btw, I came up two short). The old ones were hard as rocks and shorter than the new ones

I cut them all off the bolts, and pressed the new ones on. I slathered them in red rubber grease, and used a socket and a hammer to press them on. Much quick and easier than doing it by hand. Pop the new rubber washer over the threads, hold the socket on top, and give it a few good whacks with a hammer until it pops over the shoulder.

The new gasket was then fitted to the head, with a small amount of sealant in the corners of where it goes over the cam bridge in the front, and then back on the cover went. The bolts were then refitted with the new washers. Now, with the bolts be VERY careful refitting them. They are too easy to pull the threads out of the head if you over torque them. In this case I did them to 8NM working from the middle outwards and all was well

On went some new coils, and it looked like an engine again.

Some testing shows no signs of leaking anymore, which is good. The clutch pedal and throttle feel much better, with less slack and more immediate response. Unfortunately despite replacing the bushes in the shifter, there is still too much play (although FAR less than before), and it appears to be coming from the joint at the bottom of the shift lever itself, so that will need to be replaced, maybe with a short shifter?

The biggest disappointment is that despite replacing the coils and checking the spark plugs, there is still a very noticeable misfire at idle. It sounds like the old girl has some wild lumpy cams. I'm working on this now, so hopefully I can nail it soon.

[kws]

Yet another issue that was discovered on the car was that there were signs of oil leaking from the bottom of the vanos solenoid cover. This is a clear indicator that the solenoid seals are beyond their useful life.

The other issue I noticed was that one of the bolt heads was missing from the cover, so that needed to be addressed. They are common for breaking over time, so I made sure to have some replacements on hand.

I ordered a whole vanos rebuild kit, including new M5 seals (as per a very useful guide) but decided as I was limited on time, and the vanos appeared to be working OK now it was plugged in, I didn't want to take the time to rebuild the whole thing yet. It also didn't help that my fan clutch tool hasn't arrived, so I couldn't remove the fan to access the vanos unit.

The solenoid seals are the most common point of failure anyway, and with mine leaking, it's a fairly easy thing to replace.

First is to remove the solenoid cover. Its held on by 4 screws, with either a hex head (if original bolts) or torx (if replaced). The broken off bolt was still there, just with no head. I used some vice grips to slowly turn it until i could spin it out

The cover was missing one half of the gasket, and had evidence of the bottom solenoid moving in the housing (the black circle on the cover is from the solenoid pressing against it). The bottom of the cover was caked in old oil

The solenoids popped out easily, and as expected the seals were flat.

The gauze filters were still fitted (usually removed when serviced), although most of the gauze was missing, like the last lot I serviced. Using a small screwdriver I broke off all the brown plastic for the filter, and removed it. I also used a scalpel to cut off the old seals. The old seals were hard as plastic, well overdue for replacement

As with my last guide I used a 9v battery and brake cleaner to clean out the solenoids. They were surprisingly clean though, with nothing gross coming out of them like the ones I did on my old M3. Both give a nice solid click when powered.

The new seals were fitted, and you can clearly see the improved shape of the M5 seals

Everything was thoroughly cleaned, and the solenoids refitted to the vanos unit

New gaskets were fitted to the cover, along with a thin smear of sealant to keep them in place

The cover was then refitted, with one new bolt (I can't fit my Torx driver in the space with the fan fitted). I will fit all new bolts, and join the solder points on the solenoids, when I remove it all to refresh the vanos later.

I noticed when I had the valve cover off that the intake cam sensor had a very big air gap. I know from INPA that it appears to read OK, but I wanted to look further into this. It turns out, looking at the sensor, the previous owner had pinched and hulk smashed the O-Ring on the sensor so it was sitting out quite a bit. The screw was finger tight too.

Yeah it shouldn't look like this

It turns out you can order these seals separately, but I didn't know I needed them so dug through my viton O-Ring kit and found one that fit well. The one in the photo was too big, but I did eventually find one that sealed well

The sensor now sits flush with the head. It probably isn't making any difference, but it bothered me as it was.

One last test needed to be done before I could go give it a try, and that was to fire up the old beast and run the DIS vanos leak test. This test is used to see if the vanos solenoids can keep the cam at a certain degree over a certain period of time or if the seals leak, resulting the cam angle slipping. There is some allowance for variation, up to about 5 degrees off target over 10 seconds if I recall correctly.

I didn't test beforehand, I should have but I forgot, but after the seals my solenoids can hold the cam at about 3-5 degrees off target for as long as you want. That's pretty good in my books, for a vanos unit that has done almost 300,000km and never been rebuilt. I'll be interested to see if there is as much variation after rebuilding the vanos unit.

So, after all this work, there was only one thing left to do. Hoon.

The car runs and drives very well, with plenty of power. It feels much more like my old one, pushing you into your seat when you put your foot down. There are still some issues, like the misfire at idle, but overall it's significantly better than when I got it.

Not to mention, it looks better! Loving the Style 24s and new Pirelli Dragon Sport tires.

[Nominal]

Looking good - I like your detailed explanations of the fixes.

[kws]

Don't worry guys, this is the last post today; Just playing catch up. I had my suspicions that the aux fan wasn't working, and I wanted make sure before it caused issues.

The temp gauge has been pretty stable, but in all the time I have driven the car I haven't heard the aux fan running, which seemed odd.

The aux fan sits in front of the radiator, and is an electric supplement to the main viscous engine fan. You can just make it out behind the grilles in this photo. Its big.

The aux fan is two-speed, with it turning on low speed at a certain temperature and if the temp still doesn't come down it will crank up to high speed. At high speed its moving a ton of air, but is very loud.

On the E36 the easiest way to test the fan (other than INPA, which didn't turn it on) is to jump the connector for the temp sensor on the driver's side of the radiator.

Disconnect it from the sensor, turn the ignition to ON, and using something metal, bridge two of the terminals. The ground is the bottom pin of the three (looking at the connector head on, with the notch at the top, ground is on the bottom), and the other two pins are the speeds. One should activate low speed when shorted to ground, and the other high speed when shorted to ground.

Low speed

High speed

Now, if your car, like mine, does nothing when you bridge these, the first port of call should be fuses. There will be two fuses for the fan. Check the lid of the fuse box to identify which ones they are, and see if they are blown. One of mine was, it was the smaller of the two, so I popped in a replacement and tested again. This time I had both high and low speeds. Success.

If you still don't have anything from the fan, turn the ignition off and check the plug for the fan (in the bottom of the fan on my car), and check to see if the fan even physically spins by hand (make sure ignition is OFF first!). You'll need to do more troubleshooting of our own if you still don't have any luck, as there are relays that can be tested too.

I haven't been able to test the temp sensor turns it on automatically yet as I haven't been able to get the coolant hot enough (my viscous fan is over cooling at the moment; replacement soon), but I'll keep an ear out for it.

[fuel]

have you done a compression test to see if the engine has good even compression across the board?

[kws]

4 hours ago, fuel said:

have you done a compression test to see if the engine has good even compression across the board?

It's unlikely to be down on compression, they aren't really known for having issues there and it recently had a new head gasket and head work done. 

According to my diagnostic testing everything is pointing at the idle issue being an intake leak, so I'm working on that ATM. 

[kws]

Progress on the BMW is slow. Unfortunately I fix one thing, and in the process find something else that is broken and needs more parts ordered.

The idle was still rough and it bothered me. It's not like I don't enjoy the sound of a nice lumpy cam, but the car shouldn't idle like that, so something was wrong.

I ran through the diagnostics in the BMW diagnostic software, DIS, and the only thing that came back as "unusual" was the idle valve reading (0 kg/h)

According to this, the idle valve is shut, and not passing any air, yet it is still idling. It should be between 8 and 18 kg/h, not zero. As it states, if the reading is below 10, check for unmetered air. Unmetered air is any air that enters the intake after the airflow meter, so it's not measured by the airflow meter. This is usually caused by loose hose clamps, cracks in hoses/pipes, or a failure in the Crank Case Ventilation system (CCV).

I had previously cleaned and checked the idle valve, so I knew that moved freely, and I could get the idle valve reading to change by opening and closing the throttle, so obviously the valve operates, it's just not "needed" at idle.

The obvious points in the intake to look at are the intake piping and elbow between the airflow meter and the plenum. The elbow especially is prone to cracking, but after a thorough check my intake piping and elbow were fine.

So the next thing was to remove the whole intake again, replace all the CCV parts/hoses, vacuum lines and O-Rings and see if that fixes it.

I noticed last time I had the intake off that the CCV was looking rather ugly, with a coating of old oil on it. I did check and tighten the hoses, but that obviously didn't make a difference. You can see it tucked behind the idle valve

It's a bit grotty. Ignore the buggered knock sensor in the background. It's not throwing a code, but is on the list of things to replace once I sort the idle issue.

I pulled the idle valve and CCV out

I had ordered a bunch of parts for this job, so set about replacing the ICV piping and CCV.

On the bench the CCV was looking pretty average

All the hoses had gone very soft, but none of them had cracks or holes in them. This big top hose in particular felt like it was made of jelly in one bend

Here is the new CCV oil separator with the new hoses. I replaced all of them, including the hose to the sump (not in the photo)

Both hoses on the idle valve had also softened a bit, but were in useable shape. Unfortunately I missed ordering the hose on the left in the photo, so had to reuse the one on there, but it was in good condition anyway.

One of the hoses has this weird metal plug in it. Not sure what it's normally for, maybe something emissions related? When I fit the replacement hose, I put a small clamp on that plug too, just to be sure it wasn't leaking

Everything under here was original, as shown by the date stamps

The other thing I needed to replace, to see if it helps the idle, are the o-rings on the inlet trumpets. The old ones were flat, and as hard as plastic

I found it very hard to find information on these o-rings, so had to order from BMW instead of using generic ones of the correct size. So, here are the sizes for future reference.

52mm OD

2mm thick

The profile difference new to old is quite different. The old ones were so hard one snapped like plastic when I removed it

Much better. I slathered them in rubber grease to help installation.

No photo of it, but the Fuel Pressure Regulator vacuum hose got replaced too. That is in one heck of a nasty place to get to! It wasn't cracked, but was hard and would've failed eventually.

Since the intake was all apart, one thing I wanted to try was to smoke test the throttles/vacuum manifold and see if there were any leaks post throttle. Since the previous owner had these off the head, I had my suspicions that maybe there was a leak there. There was certainly some precedence for them doing it wrong...

I read on another forum about smoke testing using a small container (jar in this case), some incense, and hose. Light the incense (I used cones as they are smaller and fit better in the jar), blow it out so it smokes, pop it in the jar, wait for it to fill the jar with smoke and then with one hose leading to the intake, blow into the other hose. This blows the smoke into the intake, and if it finds a way out, it'll be obvious where it's leaking from

I ran it into the brake booster hose. This connects to the vacuum manifold which then connects post throttles

I can confirm there are no leaks post throttles now, which is good. I haven't tested with the plenum and intake piping in place yet, but I'll do that next time I have the MAF (airflow meter) out. If it's all sealed, there should be zero smoke escaping.

With the intake off I took this chance to replace the starter motor, since it hides under the intake, and was intermittently not starting the car. I will have another post on that job though. It was not fun.

After replacing the starter motor I refitted the CCV assembly, ICV, and then the intake assembly with the new o-rings. It was looking like an engine again, finally.

One last thing to replace was the fan clutch. The one on the car was locking when cold, causing the engine to run cooler than desired, and making a hell of a racket. I finally gave in and purchased a proper 32mm fan clutch spanner off Trademe. This made the job too easy, and I now wonder why I never got one earlier.

The old clutch had a date stamp in 2011, so obviously it had been replaced, but didn't last long. It seemed to be a decent OEM brand; Horton, which is apparently a Sachs original unit.

My replacement I picked carefully. There are a lot of knock off clutches around which don't operate correctly, so after much research I went with the tried and true Hella/BEHR unit. This is widely regarded as one of the best ones to buy. It also has the proper bimetallic strip on the front, unlike the knock offs which usually have a spiral. It wasn't cheap, so it better be good!

So after all that work, what are the results? Good news, the fan clutch works perfectly. Bad news, the idle is still lumpy. Strangely, the car runs and drives like a bat outta hell, and pulls very hard, but it just wont idle smoothly.

I need to run the DIS test again to see if the idle valve is working properly or not now, and I also need to smoke test the whole intake. At this point though I have decided that I'm just going to drive and enjoy the car, without worrying too much about the idle. I want to check the valve clearances in the future, as I doubt they have been done, but I'll leave that for future Me to sort out.

[kws]

Ugh, What a terrible place to hide a starter motor. I had to do it though, mine was getting worse and worse.

Yet another issue I wasn't made aware of when I obtained the car, was that it has an intermittent starting issue, where the starter motor will whirr into life, but not engage the flywheel. This only seems to happen when the engine is hot, and usually it takes a couple of tries and then the solenoid will throw the bendix correctly, and start the engine.

BMW loves to hide critical items, in terrible places. The starter is a good example of this. As something that shouldn't need to be replaced often, of course it's going to be hard to get at, and the bolts super tight/seized.

Here it is, hiding at the back of the engine, under where the intake would be

"Oh, that's not so bad" I hear you say. Well, here are the two retaining bolts.

Oh come on. Why do they have to face the back of the car?!

What isn't that obvious, is that they are up against the fire wall, so you would need a very specifically angled spanner, of a certain length, to get to them. A straight spanner does not work (I tried. Even purchased a lovely new set of E-Torx spanners for the job. Sigh).

This is what is needed

A 1/2" ratchet, six extensions, an adaptor, a wobbly, and an E10 E-Torx socket. Don't try to use a 10mm 12 sided socket on them, or you will be in a world of pain when you strip them.

The main thing that was useful here, is that most of the extensions I used were of the wobbly ended variety, which means they can operate at a slight angle instead of being dead straight. Without this, it would've been much harder.

First step is to disconnect the battery, lest you short the starter motor terminals and either run yourself over, or burn the car to the ground. 

Now you need to slide under the car, and undo the bolts holding the transmission mount brace on. I didn't need to support the transmission, the engine stopped it dropping too far, but you will need a small jack to lower it slowly and raise it back up again once done. Also keep in mind that the fan on the front of the engine might get mighty friendly with the radiator; mine was already removed, but keep an eye on that, or remove it.

With the engine and trans tilted back, and the help of your lovely assistant in the engine bay (using handy dandy step ladder), guide massive undoing rod of power up from under the car, onto the bolts and then using your muscles in the limited space, crank that ratchet and crack them bolts. Be damn sure to have your helper make sure the socket doesn't slip off the bolts though!

My bolts were well seized, and took all my muscles and then some to crack them.

Before removing the bolts, it'd be a good idea to undo the wiring on the solenoid, as this can be tight.

Once they are cracked you can undo them 1/16th of a turn at a time with your fingertips until they finally come out. You will probably swear a lot at this part.

The starter should be free to come out once they have been removed. There is a dowel at the top that the motor sits on, apparently this can seize, but mine was OK. Employ some percussive persuasion if it doesn't want to play ball.

Once mine was out, I stripped it down to see the dirt packed, rusty mess that it was, and straight into the bin it went.

Now, replacements are damn expensive. A genuine, remanufactured one is about $200NZD plus shipping from your preferred overseas supplier (and they aint light), a brand new one, is about $1100NZD plus shipping. It's also M3 and Z3M specific.

Being the tight arse I am (or more like, being sick of pouring money into this car), I went with a different alternative. A seller on Trademe, RareElectrical, out of the US of A, sells a lot of starter motors and associated bits. One of their starters that was listed, matches the part number for my starter, and states it will suit an M3 3.0. Its only $157 including shipping. Cheaper than a second-hand one even.

I know it's not genuine, it's a knockoff, but the seller has good feedback, so it can't be all bad. I took a punt and ordered one.

It arrived quick smart, and it looks the part

A quick side by side with the old one shows the solenoid is clocked slightly differently on the new one. This is one thing I had been made aware of, is that a BMW M52 starter (from a 328i for example) will fit and work, but the inlet plenum will contact the solenoid. Well, guess that's that, this is an M52 starter.

No matter, I can make it work.

Installation is the reverse, except I did the bolts up from the top with a 10mm ratchet. I said a prayer to the car gods, and I managed to not damage the bolts. I would highly recommend copper grease on the bolts, and dowel, before installation, just in case you need to remove it in future.

And the wiring goes on OK.

You can see how far upwards the new solenoid is when compared to the photos of the old one above.

I insulated the main terminal with insulation tape, just as a precaution, but ideally what I have seen done is to ziptie a small flap of rubber over the top of the solenoid. The plenum does come very close to the solenoid, so I used some washers under the mounts on the plenum, to space it up slightly. It gives me about 3-4mm space now, using two washers on each mount. This is enough to easily clear the terminals and not pinch the wires.

Before I put everything back together, I reconnected the battery. No sparks, no smoke and no flames. It's a win so far.

Turn the key, the starter turns and the engine starts up. Obviously without the intake on I shut it off quickly, but now I know the new starter worked, so back on went the intake.

With it all reassembled, still no sparks, smoke or flames. The new starter sounds very good, it spins so much smoother and quicker than the old one, and with repeated testing, hot or cold, it starts every time the ignition barrel lets it.

Great success, now I just need to fix the ignition barrel.

[Mr Vapour]

top work so far. 

I have the original starter out of that car you could of had if I had known. 

also i find a 9mm and a 11mm socket work very well on those bolts. i have also got a e torx set for those bolts now. but prior to that I have removed 3 boxes at pick a part with a long extension shambles similar to yours and a 11mm socket