Joined the Club Today

[SteelBlue]

5 hours ago, jc43089 said:

The A/C compressor has sleeve dowels on some of the bolts, just pull/pry straight out from the engine.  Looks good, that will be a piece of cake to pull straight out the front.

 

Edit: did you remove the 4 long bolts that go through the compressor body?  The bracket won't come off unless you get the bolt out that is hidden by the tone ring/front pulley.

@ChrisO will have to confirm as he was working on pulling it off, but I believe he pulled all four of the bolts that hold the compressor on the bracket. It just appears to be seized or something to the bracket. We didn’t have any good prying tools so we were only able to hit it with a hammer but didn’t get very far.

[HipMF]

2 hours ago, SteelBlue said:

@ChrisO will have to confirm as he was working on pulling it off, but I believe he pulled all four of the bolts that hold the compressor on the bracket. It just appears to be seized or something to the bracket. We didn’t have any good prying tools so we were only able to hit it with a hammer but didn’t get very far.

I think there's a hidden bolt. Did you look at the drawing on realoem? 😐

[SteelBlue]

2 hours ago, HipMF said:

I think there's a hidden bolt. Did you look at the drawing on realoem? 😐

I'm thinking it might be 15/16 in this diagram. There's really no good diagrams that show how the compressor mounts unfortunately...

[SteelBlue]

It's out

Was a bear, but I'm pretty proud I was able to do it myself. Biggest pain was getting the oil pan to clear the steering column but once I pushed it from the side I was able to manage. 0/10 would not recommend doing this in a narrow storage unit.

Let the build begin.

[B C]

Nice work! Those harbor freight load levelers are good to have. Always fun when the red plastic handle loosens up while cranking on it. That generally happens when your harness is getting pinched up against the firewall, shifter is jammed into the trans tunnel, crank pulley is smashed into the radiator support and you are trying to quickly alleviate the impending doom

[SteelBlue]

3 minutes ago, snap said:

Nice work! Those harbor freight load levelers are good to have. Always fun when the red plastic handle loosens up while cranking on it. That generally happens when your harness is getting pinched up against the firewall, shifter is jammed into the trans tunnel, crank pulley is smashed into the radiator support and you are trying to quickly alleviate the impending doom

Crane and load balancer curtesy of @GunMetalGrey. I'm not sure how you would pull this out with out a load balancer.

[B C]

FWIW, I didnt even attempt installing the 24V with the G260 in from above. I dropped the subframe and installed the engine and trans from below. There are a few ways to go about it. Are you installing the engine in the e30 really quickly or are you going to tear into the engine a bit before installing it?

[SteelBlue]

20 minutes ago, snap said:

FWIW, I didnt even attempt installing the 24V with the G260 in from above. I dropped the subframe and installed the engine and trans from below. There are a few ways to go about it. Are you installing the engine in the e30 really quickly or are you going to tear into the engine a bit before installing it?

Was thinking about dropping the subframe on the M3 but didn’t want to deal with the steering column.

The E30 is at Ben’s shop so that’s where it will be put into the car. Can’t even get the motor out of the storage unit until the M3 is gone so it won’t be going in immediately. I planned to do a bit of a refresh. It needs a VCG but I’ll probably do a couple of the other refresh bits while I have easy access to it.

Was thinking maybe this winter depending on my garage/shop setup to pull it and do more a full rebuild as it is high mileage.

But I want to drive it this summer so that will wait for now.

[ChrisO]

Time to roll her on her roof in the parking lot for the subframe and diff

[KaiserRolls]

What coilovers did you end up going with?

[SteelBlue]

7 hours ago, KaiserRolls said:

What coilovers did you end up going with?

JOMs for the time being.

[GunMetalGrey]

17 hours ago, SteelBlue said:

0/10 would not recommend doing this in a narrow storage unit.

You should see what some of the MKE guys work in. The units are wide enough that you can only sneak past one side. 
Storage unit's are not the optimal place though, no doubt!

Glad to see it's out!

[SteelBlue]

Best part about building a car is ordering the stuff and waiting for it to get to your house.

Radiator and fan showed up as well as the wheels. Thank you eBay for the 20% off site wide that allowed me to get these for stupid cheap.

16x8 +25 square. Picked up some tires from @GunMetalGrey to pair with them today as well.

M50 has been sold and now I'm just waiting on my ECS order from @patsbimmer1 to start replacing some of the perishables on the S52.

Also, my headers are white. My little homage to how they used to have them back in the day.

[Earl]

Never knew they made saleen reps in 16's and 4x100

[suspenceful]

I'm excited to see this come together with your spin on it.

[SteelBlue]

Went to the unit to get some work done. Got less done than I would have liked(shockingly).

Wanted to pull the steering rack from the M3. However, the tie rod end nuts were just spinning after loosening them a bit. Unfortunate, as they are pretty new. So I'll be cutting those tomorrow. With that out should be able to pull the subframe(is it even worth it?).

To not waste the entire trip over there, I started pulling some things(that I could get to) off the motor. Pulled the motor mount arms so I could clean them up and paint them. Pulled the exhaust manifold off, took studs and nuts home to clean(should I get new ones of these or should existing ones be okay to reuse?). Didn't have a 22mm wrench so I will take the O2 sensors off tomorrow.

Hopefully pulling the driveshaft and diff tomorrow. 

Just waiting on my ECS order to start replacing some items on the motor.

Also, what fluid am I supposed to using in an orange tag manual ZF trans?? I can find no definitive answer. I can find that it says to just use ATF, some say you're supposed to use a specific kind. BimmerForum thread about it and this BimmerFest thread with C H A R TS

[wasnt m3]

Redline MTL

[KaiserRolls]

1 hour ago, wasnt m3 said:

Redline MTL

+1

 

some people make a cocktail out of MTL and gear oil as well

[B C]

Consider getting a magnetic drain plug. The getrags ive owned did not have them but could easily have had one installed. 

If nothing else stick a neodymium magnet to the outside of the drain plug

[Boris3]

Trick with the tie rod end nuts is to put a jack under the joint for a little tension --keeps it from spinning enough to remove the nut.  Same thing for the control arm ball joint nuts.

[ChrisO]

1 hour ago, Boris3 said:

Trick with the tie rod end nuts is to put a jack under the joint for a little tension --keeps it from spinning enough to remove the nut.  Same thing for the control arm ball joint nuts.

The would have been good to know about 3 hours ago haha  @SteelBlue

We cut them in half with a Sawzall

[SteelBlue]

Live and learn lol

I've already got a pair of assemblies in the cart, so not a big deal, but would have preferred to use the ones already there.

Got the driveshaft out today with the help of @ChrisO. Propane torch was very helpful in getting the nuts to loosen. Was in the process of pulling the diff, but we couldn't cut the ebrake cable. Also, the control arm bolts broke at the bottom of the knuckles on the rear. We had enough blade in the sawzall to cut the one of the control arms, but not enough for the second one. Was able to pull the axle out of the diff a little bit on the side we were able to cut, but the ebrake line is preventing it from coming all the way out.

I was able to start breaking down the motor a little bit today as well. @MPW3RLee was able to lend me the clutch fan tool to remove it. Allowed me to pull the thermostat and water pump pulley off. Water pump seems to be seized onto the block a little bit, I removed all 4 corner bolts so it might need some convincing unless there is something I am missing. EDIT: I see you have to use two bolts to back it off. Started removing some off the VCG stuff while I was there as well.

Any recommendations for removing O2 sensors from exhaust manifolds? Would like to use the existing ones and save myself some money, but they seem to be really on there. Can't get a ton of leverage because I can't slip a pipe over the end of the wrench. Maybe just need a bigger pipe.

Motor mount arms and exhaust manifold studs and nuts are getting a CLR bath later.

@MPW3RLee also hooked it up and got my tires mounted on the wheels today. Lookin 乇乂ㄒ尺卂 ㄒ卄丨匚匚

Will probably go a slimmer side wall in the future, but @GunMetalGrey was selling these for cheap.

[B C]

Love those BBS bb

[Boris3]

Sawzall also works! 

Since my go to has often been whaling on things with a BFH, I've been getting better at stepping away and seeking insights from friends/forums as to possible tricks of the trade. Admittedly, I still have several "hammers" and am a work in progress.

Good luck with the project.

[SteelBlue]

8 minutes ago, snap said:

Love those BBS bb

thx

5 minutes ago, Boris3 said:

Sawzall also works! 

Since my go to has often been whaling on things with a BFH, I've been getting better at stepping away and seeking insights from friends/forums as to possible tricks of the trade. Admittedly, I still have several "hammers" and am a work in progress.

Good luck with the project.

Normally would take my time and do my due diligence, but this car is going to the scarp yard as soon as this diff is out so I've been okay with doing it the hack way.