Bassboy3313

Well I'll call that a success. Ended up cutting the dash console piece in one spot to make room. This spot will allow everything to bolt back together and never be seen. This extra space allowed me to cut back the carpet inside shifter area. I made a template of the inside hump piece and traced it on the car to prep for cutting. I then proceeded to cut it out carefully with a dremel, not to hit any of the wiring or catch something on fire. Fits great and shifting feels exactly as it should now! 👍 Now I just have to get some panelbond, s

This is my assumption based on everything I've read, seen and experienced through this process... All preface lift e46 xit's, regardless of auto or manual, had the raised tunnel since bmw based all chassis' off of being manual even if they became auto's on the assembly line. Then, for some unknown reason, the facelift xit's that were manual got the raised tunnel and auto's got the flat tunnel due to shifter assembly. Again this is just my speculation with what I've seen and experienced.

Prepping for surgery. Cut out the raised trans tunnel section for shifter from a 330xi at wallys u-pull in Oshkosh this morning.

Today's pick-n-pull finds...

This is always a great time and awesome to see so many faces that I haven't seen in awhile. Thanks again @wasnt m3 and congrats @YoungCR !!!

I was so stoked to hear it fire up and idle. Guess I must of done something right, lol. Next up is fix the shifter mishap and code the B30 files with SAI delete into the car. As always, thanks for the help @B C

I'll be at Qdoba at 9am as well! 👍

@B C came over this morning to attempt some coding as it's all foreign to me. We noticed that the shifter seemed to be rubbing on something when going into 5th and reverse is a no-go completely. The shifter carrier seems to be jammed up against the tunnel floor as well, which doesn't seem right. I know the shift rod is on the correct side as it would hit the top of transmission when flipped the other way. I had to install the rear bushing carrier bracket due to my car missing this. I am curious if the way I installed it (check previous posts) pit the bushing too high which is lifti

Got the manifold off again and checked the two coolant pipes by pulling them off. First one was the pipe going to cylinder head. All looked good. Took the pipe off going to the back of timing cover and found both oring deformed and pinched 🤔 No idea how this happened. I made sure the ports were extremely cleaned and lubed up the orings when I installed it. Oh well, at least it was an obvious issue. I popped two new orings on from my spare stash, luned them up with coolant and reinstalled them. I made sure to refill coolant to see if leak was fixed before reinstalling the

Another plus side is more seat time in the Z Coupe. 👍

Bad news bears! Filled it up with fluids today and found a slow coolant leak coming from backside of the timing cover area. Which probably means the new orings on one of the new plastic coolant pipes I installed must not be seated properly. Time to tear the intake back off to fix it. 😡

Subframe secured, electrical all connected, new slave cylinder and lines installed, front axles installed, new tierod in, suspension all buttoned up, driveshaft/heatshield/exhaust installed, radiator and all hose connections done, and steering shaft connected. Waiting on all fluids to show up in mail this weekend. Then it's on to changing oil in front diff, rear diff, transmission, transaxle and engine. Along with new coolant and brake fluid.

Should be interesting... https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1979-bmw-e21-alpina-b6-2-8/

The ship has landed!

Normally all e46s have the rear manual shifter bushing bracket already on the chassis, but of course the touring did not. Went ahead and purchased the bracket from FCP Euro. Had to modify it by cutting the ears off as they were preventing the bracket from sitting flush against surface. Once good, I drilled some holes in the three tabs as well as the trans tunnel and pop riveted the brqcket on with some steel rivets. Sprayed some black paint over everything to prevent rusting as well. I also installed the front prop shaft and installed clutch fluid line on brake fluid reservoir