E36 cheap track day toy

E36 cheap track day toy

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Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Sunday 14th February 2016
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Yes that's what I thought, priced up a new plastic one. Then realised I had heard of metal ones before. Did a quick search and it was only eight pounds more for the metal one.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Monday 15th February 2016
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So I might need to get the 328 road worthy a bit quicker now. I was sitting in traffic this morning when I was rear ended by a woman who hadn't seen the queue. My beloved day car is a bit ruined.





Our body shop manager recons it's about 12K to sort out, so it will probably be written off. As we all know insurance companies are not always the quickest to pay out. So I might have to make the old estate the day car for a bit.
Well currently I'm lying in bed with whiplash and a very sore back. Once that is sorted then I will have to start.

E-bmw

9,105 posts

151 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
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Sheet! I hope you get well soon & everything gets sorted.

iSore

4,011 posts

143 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
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Hamster69 said:
Well currently I'm lying in bed with whiplash and a very sore back. Once that is sorted then I will have to start.
Think of the payout - that should ease the pain!

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
quotequote all
Well you say that. But I'm sure the car books for less than its actually worth. I will probably come out of it worse off. That's the way it usually goes.

TroubledSoul

4,589 posts

193 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
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He probably meant for the whiplash! Which, btw, you'd be quite justified to claim for if you're actually experiencing it IMO.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
quotequote all
Yes, I am very much actually experiencing it. My neck feels like someone is squeezing it every time I try to move.
I purely meant that the Audi books for a couple of grand less than they are actually selling for. So if I do get any medical compensation it will probably only make up the difference to get me back to having a car like mine. Very annoying as I have recently had a lot of the car painted and fitted new tyres.

helix402

7,832 posts

181 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
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I would recommend having a good chat with the assessor and show him the evidence of your work on the Audi. If your body shop manager has a good relationship with the assessor and is able to have a word with him this may help too. This approach worked well many years ago when I had a car written off.

E-bmw

9,105 posts

151 months

Tuesday 16th February 2016
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Alternatively, just dig your heels in & get them to replace "like for like" which, I think, they are duty bound to do.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Wednesday 17th February 2016
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The real pain for me is that I will probably have to do some more work to the estate for it to be a good day car, which pushes back when I can get the coupe out and fit the Windows. Currently I feel like doing neither.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Saturday 20th February 2016
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Long days work today. Partly caused by my crippled body but mostly by complications.
Whipped the old alternator off to start. Then with the fan removed pulled the thermostat housing off.



It has quite clearly seen better days and been leaking a bit. I'm not going to start blaming the previous owner because I don't know what he did or didn't do. What I will say is whoever worked on the front end previously was a useless tw#t! The old thermostat was held in with a ton of mastic, quite probably why it wasn't working brilliantly. My thoughts were emphasised when I had the housing off and could see the back of the water pump pulley.



I have ordered a new pulley. I gave the surfaces a good clean, fitted the new thermostat then the modified housing.



Fitted with new seals and a thin smear of sealant, not the mounds of it that was in there before. I gave it the time it takes to fit an alternator to dry. This turned out to be hours!
The new alternator although being in an aftermarket box turned out to be genuine BMW which was nice. An exact match with the old unit.



Very happy with that, for the money! The only problem, the press fit nut. Unfortunately the new alternator didn't have one fitted. A lot of faffing around latter I had managed to piece together some bits and pieces to remove the nut.



This took a lot of WD40 and working the nut backwards and forwards. But finally



After this major pain in the ass I was looking forward to bleeding the coolant then going home. When I spotted the radiator bleed screw.



Such a tw#t!
Anyway, I bled it the old fashioned way, filled the radiator with coolant from the top hose until it came out of the thermostat housing. Then ran her up and with lots of bubbles and splashing managed to bleed her.
Eventually got a warm heater and hot bottom hose.



Bit of a palaver to get there but she is now drivable. Drove 5 miles round and round my mates unit. With a nice central temperature needle and no battery light.
Need to get her booked in for a windscreen and an MOT. Then a geometry would be a good idea, seen as the wheel is pointing to two o'clock.



But she moves!

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Sunday 21st February 2016
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Going to pop back over this morning and check the coolant level. Hopefully I got it hot enough yesterday that this will be the last top up.
Don't worry, now it is up and running I will wean back the posts on the estate. I know most of you couldn't give a damn. But now it is up and running hopefully I can get it finished off and get the Coupe back out.

TroubledSoul

4,589 posts

193 months

Monday 22nd February 2016
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Good work mate. That pulley is shocking!

Interestingly, my M3 gives 13.9 volts when running. Should be OK I guess but might be something for me to keep an eye on.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Tuesday 23rd February 2016
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So long as it's charging over 13.6v with your consumers (lights, radio, heated rear screen) on, then it should be fine!

TroubledSoul

4,589 posts

193 months

Wednesday 24th February 2016
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Yeah will be right smile

I hope to get onto the Vanos seals this weekend....

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Sunday 28th February 2016
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So the estate is pretty much ready for MOT. Good because I attended the Sunday service this morning and it just made me want to get the Coupe back on the road. Well it was ready for MOT until I noticed this.



The near side trailing arm bush has collapsed. I will have to do it. Luckily the bushes are only a few pounds. It's just another thing to do. I'm going to put sports ones in because they are a couple of pounds more expensive and easier to fit. I will do a proper write up as this will be exactly the same as it would be on the coupe. If it works out well I may even do the the Coupe as I have shelled out on the press tool.
On the upside the battery is all re routed through to the boot. I have managed to rebuild most of the interior. It's amazing how much off it this guy managed to break while stripping it.



Luckily despite the car never having a battery in the boot before all the cutouts, brackets etc are there for it. I have had to trim some interior to fit around the battery terminals but it should look ok when finished.
Replaced the water pump pulley too.



You can see how badly he has broken it.
Everywhere I look he has bodged. Just noticed only two bolts holding the bonnet on. Which turned out not to be tight!
I still wouldn't call it a labour of love but if it's going to be my day car for a while it needs to be good.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Monday 7th March 2016
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As promised I will stop banging on about this old estate that no one really cares about. Suffice to say that with some trim trimming I have rebuilt all the interior with the battery in the correct place.



You can see the trimming I had to do. I'm guessing an original 328 had slightly different trims to fit around the battery terminal. It will be covered with something non conductive before she goes back into daily use.
The MOT is approaching fast so I need to get that bush replaced. This I will document as despite being on the tatty old estate, it is quite track car centric.
With the difference in price between a new oem bush and a poly bush being a couple of quid, poly bushes it is.
Luckily all of my bolts undid without any problems and seemed to be in good condition for their age and mileage.



With the brake hose bracket unbolted the arm swings down with no real problem.



Bracket removed and you can see the bush has defiantly seen better days.



Straight away I could see a design flaw with the special tool I have bought. It has a round cup for the bush to be pressed into. This bush has a flanged edge though which the cup would sit on top of.
There are two areas on either side of the bush where the flange is broken though. So out with the disc cutter to modify the press cup.



A quick bodge to get me out of a hole I admit but once fitted it pressed the bush through nicely.



Once pushed out to just the depth of the recess I had cut, it was then easy to cut the flange off with an air saw. At this point the rubber center fell out, showing how truly knackered it was.



I then pressed the remaining outer shell out.
Using the same tool, adapted with some big washers and a socket I was able to pull the two new poly bush halves in. A similar tactic was then used to push the central pin in. All coated liberally with bearing grease. Finally bolted back into the floor which also seems to be in surprisingly good condition.



I then carried out a full geo setup. Desperately needed anyway what with the steering wheel set to the right and car pulling to the left currently. Once I had finished and got the perfect rear toe set, you could clearly see that both sides were not bolted up where they had originally been. This is why I'm not a big fan of the "mark it before you remove the bolts" method. I concede though not everyone can do geo checks as often as I do.

Last bit of moaning about the previous mechanics work. I balanced the front wheels because the vibration through the steering around 60 was horrific. The wheels were actually better balanced with all the weights removed! And don't get me started on people who use hammer on weights on the outside of alloy wheels!

Had half an hour left before locking up time so I popped a very very cheap radio in the dash.



Of coarse BMW in there wisdom hadn't used iso plugs, so I had to hack the loom up and fit them. Then hunt down a 1998 wiring diagram to find how to power the antenna amp up. But we got there in the end.

Now just to get it running right!

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Tuesday 8th March 2016
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So back to the engine again tonight which is all future track day relevant!
It really hasn't been starting well. Cranking for a good ten seconds or so before starting. I have a hunch it's the crank sensor and is running purely off the cam signal. Both sensors plug in next to one another, but annoyingly deep behind the inlet manifold.



Not a great picture but you get the idea of how inaccessible they are. Anyway with the air filter and a breather removed I managed to get my hand down there. From what I understand, the car will run rough with one or other of the sensors unplugged and will only not start if both sensors are unplugged. Going on this logic I unplugged the cam sensor. The car wouldn't start. Which tells me that the crank must be sending no signal. To back my theory up, I plugged the cam sensor back in and unplugged the crank. The car starts, but in the slow, long cranking way it had before.
I will try to get a new sensor tomorrow.
On the positive side I managed to remove the old broken radiator bleed screw. I drilled through it the used a stud axtractor.



I'm glad I got this done before it goes into daily service as it seems to be leaking a bit.

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Sunday 13th March 2016
quotequote all
Finally! The estate is a usable road car. Looking at a track day in April so hopefully I will now have time to get the coupe out and look at these windows.

Final estate update for now, fingers crossed!
I got the new crank sensor Saturday morning. Fitted with a new bolt and wire routed back up under the manifold. It started instantly. Big sigh of relief! She ran at 3k rpm for a while, then hunted a bit. I put the tester on and had a look at the data.



You annoyingly can't reset the fuel adaptions with this machine. But you can see the huge adjustment it's built up at idle while it's been running with no crank signal. This will readapt over time. After running for half an hour or so we were starting to get a smooth idle.
Now the wheel speed sensors. There is not a lot to be said for these but I thought I would include them as it's exactly the same as the coupe and the sort of thing people might need to do on their track car. If you remove the disc, you can see the sensor between the hub and sensor ring. This does make things a bit easier than the rears. As you can chisel in the right direction.



This will take hours! My hand still hurts the day after.
Amazingly the O/S bolt actually undid. Not so for the N/S and once the sensor was removed I had to drill the snapped bolt out.



But we got there in the end.



As I had the hubs stripped I gave the calliper holders a quick sand blasting. Might be slightly over the top, but it got them so much cleaner than a wire brush would. Should mean the pads can move nice and easily.

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Thought I better have a look at sorting out the gearbox mount. Unfortunately another example of the previous owners workmanship.

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Don't get me wrong I understand things snapping. In fact when I removed the gearbox cradle another bolt sheared off. But I sorted it out there and then. I definitely didn't sell the car with one bolt holding the box in!
The bolt I snapped was easy on the N/S. The old broken bolt however was not the easiest! Being just above the exhaust. In the end I worked out a system to cut a drill bit down so my small chuck would fit above the exhaust, then spin this with an extension.



Before anyone suggests, the previous owner quite possibly didn't have my tool kit or facilities. He had the engine out and swapped the exhausts, so had the opportunity to drill it when it was easy. Anyway, got there in the end and tapped both holes. When removing the exhaust mount from the gbox cradle I found he had also cross threaded a bolt, which wasn't tight and snapped rather than undo. More drilling and tapping.



In the end though we have a cradle fitted, that properly supports the box and holds the exhaust tight.



Back on the floor. Fault codes cleared down, really annoyingly it now says that one of the rear wheel speed sensors is faulty. Never mind! Took here for the first road test since the scary drive to work. It's a wollowy old beast but all the clanking and banging has gone. The wheel is straight and she goes straight. But the thing I'm most pleased with, its f#cking fast!

Hamster69

Original Poster:

747 posts

145 months

Monday 14th March 2016
quotequote all
So there I was, upwardly mobile with a road car that actually works. All ready to get the coupe back out, probably next weekend. Then yesterday I'm in another car crash! Rear ended again, this time sitting at a roundabout waiting to pull out. No pictures this time, but thankfully (in some ways) I wasn't in my car.
It wasn't a huge shunt. Both cars drove away, but it has definitely woken up my whiplash. Back in bed again wondering if I will ever get to see the coupe again.