BMW e36 M3, Silver cross
Discussion
After seeing a few inspirational e36 threads here of late, I thought I'd add my contribution, nowhere near as grandiose as some of the restoration threads, just a journal of my experience of owning and improving an old BMW.
I wanted to keep a record, for myself, of the cars journey under my ownership, So thought I'd collate my threads from various forums to a single thread here, as I seem to spend more time on PH than any other forum of late.
So......
15/11/2015
I viewed a few cars over the 6 months or so I was looking,and phoned many others during that time, some where utter dogs, with either very dubious history, part history, or none at all, others way over priced, and some good cars, just in the wrong colour combination (for me) one of those had only done 57k miles and was a colour I rather liked, Boston Green, but the interior was just too much, in the AT photo's it looked very mustard yellow, I hoped the colour was Modena, and had just photo'd really badly, unfortunately after a 2 hour drive from home to North Cambridge to view, it was very, very mustartd yellow, I have no idea what the colour was, maybe an individual colour but it was certainly not for me.
Another car I saw was a far more sensible arctic/black combination, some may say a little boring, me, I call it understated..and, as I had already owned a titanium/black e46 M3 so I knew I like the combination and could live with it for a long time.
The car in question, was by no means perfect, it's definitely had some paint on the tonneau cover and boot lid, but as far as I could see it's was rot free, had full history and was showing 87300 miles, a A4 ring binder full of receipts and history, a couple of those highlights being, £1200 spent last year having the hood overhauled, another big bill for the diff seals and doughnut being done in 2014 along with RTA bushes. So on face value, appeared to have been a well cared for over the course of it's life, and hopefully not I will not hiding many horrors.
As an added bonus the previous owner had just fitted a new Milltek, cat back exhaust, he also agreed to through in the, very good condition OE back-box, if the Milltek was not to my liking, I could always refit the OE exhaust, and sell of the Milltek.
A couple of notable problems on first inspection were a believed, snapped bowden cable on the passenger seat, as it will not fold forward, I've since researched and this looks easily fixed.
Another, was a rattle from the hood, but only when the hood is up, I think I have now solved this, While applying gummi pflege to all the rubber seals I partially folded the roof to gain assess to all the seals around the rear Tourneau, while cleaning noticed a bolt loose on the main actuator push-rod which folds the roof, I nipped it up and once finished cleaning the seals took the car for a quick spin and my hood rattle seems to have gone, I say "seems to" as it was an intermittent rattle so I'll wait for a while before ticking it off the jobs to do list.
So, without further ado, my new (to me) car.
Like all new cars we buy there's always a 'to-do list' and this is no different, but for once I will resist modifying and lean more towards keeping the car as OE as I can.
One little deviation to this is a re-trimmed steering wheel, I've already spoken to Jack at Royals about getting buying one his exchange wheels, in either a stock form or maybe, just maybe opting to have perforated leather on the 3, 6 & 9 O'clock positions
Thanks for reading.
16/11/2015
Got one of the silly niggles out of the way tonight.
When I test drove the car I did not try the electric wing mirror switch as the position the previous owner had them set to was also perfect for me.
When I got home and started to tinker, as you do, I realised the switch did not work on either side, as both sides where not moving in any direction, I hoped it would be the switch and not the motors in the mirrors that failed, I removed it and tried cleaning the terminals and eventually got the up and down, and left function to work but not matter what I did, pushing the stick to the right resulted in nothing.
A quick scour of eBay and a few clicks of the mouse saw a very good condition used part winging it's way from Glasgow, the part was sitting on the kitchen side when I got home so I dashed off to the garage to get it fitted, 'et viola' I have fully functioning mirrors and all for the princely sum of £5.50... result.
On another note I'm getting the steering wheel replaced, not that there is anything particularly wrong with it, well, nothing more than you would expect of a 17 year old steering wheel, but I'm a rather fussy sod and like things I touch to feel just so, possibly a mild form of OCD?
02/12/2015
Another job checked off the little niggles list today.
When I bought the car the passenger seat would not fold forward, at first I expected the Bowden cable that attaches the handles on the sides of the seats tot he mechanism on the seat base, but after removing the seat back over the weekend I found the cable was all intact and working.
What I did discover however, was the end of the Bowden cable was no longer attached to the mechanism and the circlip used to hold the end to the pin was missing, I pushed the end over the pin and hey presto fully operational seat once again, I ordered a couple or 5mm stainless E-Clip from eBay which arrived this morning, 5 min later the clip fitted and the seat is sorted.
I also had time to swap out the awful LED number plate lights that the previous owner had fitted and bought up a warning every time the lights were switched on "very annoying" it's now got good old fashioned bulbs fitted and no more warning lights.
And after many hour agonising over which wheel to order I finally made my mind up last night and ordered a stock looking grained leather steering wheel with M coloured stitching from Jack at Royal steering wheels, I was thinking of going for the perforated leather panels on the sides but as I want to go down the OEM look thought against it. the wheels should be ready by mid December, cannot wait.
10/12/2015
Not a major job done tonight, but a job that needed to be done none the less.
The boot on my car was a pain in the ass to open, both the gas struts that assist and dampen the opening were shot and not helping but hindering.
I looked in to getting OE struts from BMW but the cost was ridiculous compared the what OEM Magneti Marelli struts are selling for on eBay.
I ended up ordering from a seller in Latvia for a total of just over £20, delivered in just over a week.
18/12/2015
A more exciting post this time.
After ordering my new wheel from Royal steering wheels a couple of weeks ago it finally arrived today, exactly as communicated by Jack the owner, I ended up going for the OE style grained leather and not the smooth/perforated leather variety as I really want to keep things as OE as possible on this car.
You can just make out the new replacement illuminated gearknob which I got from BMW a couple of weeks back and fitted this afternoon, not a job I want to do to often, the old one was a right ball ache to got off.
Oh.. and please excuse the carbon dipped gear surround and trim over the glove box, these will be replaced in due course.
23/12/2015
I've needed to send my insurance company (Classic line) a bunch of photos to prove the condition for my approved valuation policy since purchasing the car back in November, today was the first real opportunity I've had to grab some half decent shots.
I say half decent, but these are more like quarter decent, anyway these are the best photos I've managed to get so far.
01/01/2016
I've had a really annoying rattle from the rear near side since I bought it, I originally thought it could of been part of the roof mechanism, the more I've driven it, the more I've thought it was a shot rear top mount.
I ordered a set of Meyle HD mounts and reinforcement plates a couple of weeks ago, today was the first opportunity to get them fitted while the rest of the family sat and watched films.
New years days is not the greatest time to be working on the car but I have to make the most of the free time even if I had a foggy head.
As I had suspected, both RTM's where knackered.
June 2016
This is where my thread backup finishes, the rest will be a synopsis to bring events up to date.
Being rather fussy about things I had the interior re-re-connolised, it was by not in a bad state, far from it I just like things, especially those I touch to be in tip-top condition.
So the interior was removed and dropped of at a local leather specialist to be worked on, a week later it was dropped off and re-fitted, the results are exactly what I wanted, soft, matte and impeccability clean. and also very hard to photo without it looking shiny.
While the interior was out I took the opportunity to do something about the woeful audio, now I know the car was made in '97 but I find it hard to believe a car with a list of £40,000+ had such bad audio equipment fitted from the factory.
So it was all sympathetically removed and stored should it ever need to be returned to bone stock.
Fitted in it's place was a set or Morel Dotech ovation 5.25" mids, in the stock kick panel location, the door now has the Morel MT23 tweeters fitted, again in the standard positions, the ski hatch was removed and replaced with a small sealed enclosure, in to which I fitted a CDT QES820, 8" sub. The fron t is powered from a Genesis profile 2, which the sub gets it power from a Genesis profile sub.
August 2016
Attended a driver training day a north Weald airfield.
As well as the day itself, my wife bought me a personal plate, something I had been talking about for years, but never actually getting round to doing.
05/03/17
As much as I wanted to keep the car OE, thie right height, was something that always jarred, it had to much arch gap on the front, I agonised for weeks about fitting lowering springs, but eventually I made the decision to go ahead, So I ordered a set of Eibach pro spring for a subtle drop of 25mm - 15mm fron t to rear.
I ended up fitting new front and rear, Boge Sach shocks, with new bump stops and dust boots, new front and rear drop links and new Lemforde front top mounts.
23/04/2017
Since I bough the M3, it's had an intermittent problem with the offside, fog light, While trying to remove it recently to see what was going on, I broke the bloody holder, so it's been held in with Sellotape for the past two months
I pick up a new holder recently so set about swapping it over this morning, I rather naively thought this would be possible from the front of the car, that's not the case.
I found the easiest way was to remove the wheel arch liner, which gives good access to the rear of the bumper, and the screws that hold it in place. With the holder swapped I found that the negative cable had not been pushed home properly on to the bulb and as a result had some corrosion on it, a quick going over with a small wire brush, that some sand paper soon cleaned it up and had the light working as it should.
With that job out of the way, and while the arch liner was removed I gave the arch a good cleaning and hovered out the crud that has accumulated in the inner front wing.
Drivers side had a fair amount collected in there.
Offside and nearside after a good going over with a stiff bristled brush.
The photo above shows a stupidly long break pad wear sensor cables has been used on the last pad change, I'll get a proper part ordered and swap that over in due course.
I also took the opportunity to remove and check the slider pins on both front calipers, all four were in good shape, with no pitting or scoring, I gave that a quick clean with some brake cleaner and a scotch bright pad and popped them back in, without any lube. judging from the condition of the pins I can only assume they have either been changed or have been well maintained. Either way a little preventative maintenance never hurt anything.
Cheers.
I wanted to keep a record, for myself, of the cars journey under my ownership, So thought I'd collate my threads from various forums to a single thread here, as I seem to spend more time on PH than any other forum of late.
So......
15/11/2015
I viewed a few cars over the 6 months or so I was looking,and phoned many others during that time, some where utter dogs, with either very dubious history, part history, or none at all, others way over priced, and some good cars, just in the wrong colour combination (for me) one of those had only done 57k miles and was a colour I rather liked, Boston Green, but the interior was just too much, in the AT photo's it looked very mustard yellow, I hoped the colour was Modena, and had just photo'd really badly, unfortunately after a 2 hour drive from home to North Cambridge to view, it was very, very mustartd yellow, I have no idea what the colour was, maybe an individual colour but it was certainly not for me.
Another car I saw was a far more sensible arctic/black combination, some may say a little boring, me, I call it understated..and, as I had already owned a titanium/black e46 M3 so I knew I like the combination and could live with it for a long time.
The car in question, was by no means perfect, it's definitely had some paint on the tonneau cover and boot lid, but as far as I could see it's was rot free, had full history and was showing 87300 miles, a A4 ring binder full of receipts and history, a couple of those highlights being, £1200 spent last year having the hood overhauled, another big bill for the diff seals and doughnut being done in 2014 along with RTA bushes. So on face value, appeared to have been a well cared for over the course of it's life, and hopefully not I will not hiding many horrors.
As an added bonus the previous owner had just fitted a new Milltek, cat back exhaust, he also agreed to through in the, very good condition OE back-box, if the Milltek was not to my liking, I could always refit the OE exhaust, and sell of the Milltek.
A couple of notable problems on first inspection were a believed, snapped bowden cable on the passenger seat, as it will not fold forward, I've since researched and this looks easily fixed.
Another, was a rattle from the hood, but only when the hood is up, I think I have now solved this, While applying gummi pflege to all the rubber seals I partially folded the roof to gain assess to all the seals around the rear Tourneau, while cleaning noticed a bolt loose on the main actuator push-rod which folds the roof, I nipped it up and once finished cleaning the seals took the car for a quick spin and my hood rattle seems to have gone, I say "seems to" as it was an intermittent rattle so I'll wait for a while before ticking it off the jobs to do list.
So, without further ado, my new (to me) car.
Like all new cars we buy there's always a 'to-do list' and this is no different, but for once I will resist modifying and lean more towards keeping the car as OE as I can.
One little deviation to this is a re-trimmed steering wheel, I've already spoken to Jack at Royals about getting buying one his exchange wheels, in either a stock form or maybe, just maybe opting to have perforated leather on the 3, 6 & 9 O'clock positions
Thanks for reading.
16/11/2015
Got one of the silly niggles out of the way tonight.
When I test drove the car I did not try the electric wing mirror switch as the position the previous owner had them set to was also perfect for me.
When I got home and started to tinker, as you do, I realised the switch did not work on either side, as both sides where not moving in any direction, I hoped it would be the switch and not the motors in the mirrors that failed, I removed it and tried cleaning the terminals and eventually got the up and down, and left function to work but not matter what I did, pushing the stick to the right resulted in nothing.
A quick scour of eBay and a few clicks of the mouse saw a very good condition used part winging it's way from Glasgow, the part was sitting on the kitchen side when I got home so I dashed off to the garage to get it fitted, 'et viola' I have fully functioning mirrors and all for the princely sum of £5.50... result.
On another note I'm getting the steering wheel replaced, not that there is anything particularly wrong with it, well, nothing more than you would expect of a 17 year old steering wheel, but I'm a rather fussy sod and like things I touch to feel just so, possibly a mild form of OCD?
02/12/2015
Another job checked off the little niggles list today.
When I bought the car the passenger seat would not fold forward, at first I expected the Bowden cable that attaches the handles on the sides of the seats tot he mechanism on the seat base, but after removing the seat back over the weekend I found the cable was all intact and working.
What I did discover however, was the end of the Bowden cable was no longer attached to the mechanism and the circlip used to hold the end to the pin was missing, I pushed the end over the pin and hey presto fully operational seat once again, I ordered a couple or 5mm stainless E-Clip from eBay which arrived this morning, 5 min later the clip fitted and the seat is sorted.
I also had time to swap out the awful LED number plate lights that the previous owner had fitted and bought up a warning every time the lights were switched on "very annoying" it's now got good old fashioned bulbs fitted and no more warning lights.
And after many hour agonising over which wheel to order I finally made my mind up last night and ordered a stock looking grained leather steering wheel with M coloured stitching from Jack at Royal steering wheels, I was thinking of going for the perforated leather panels on the sides but as I want to go down the OEM look thought against it. the wheels should be ready by mid December, cannot wait.
10/12/2015
Not a major job done tonight, but a job that needed to be done none the less.
The boot on my car was a pain in the ass to open, both the gas struts that assist and dampen the opening were shot and not helping but hindering.
I looked in to getting OE struts from BMW but the cost was ridiculous compared the what OEM Magneti Marelli struts are selling for on eBay.
I ended up ordering from a seller in Latvia for a total of just over £20, delivered in just over a week.
18/12/2015
A more exciting post this time.
After ordering my new wheel from Royal steering wheels a couple of weeks ago it finally arrived today, exactly as communicated by Jack the owner, I ended up going for the OE style grained leather and not the smooth/perforated leather variety as I really want to keep things as OE as possible on this car.
You can just make out the new replacement illuminated gearknob which I got from BMW a couple of weeks back and fitted this afternoon, not a job I want to do to often, the old one was a right ball ache to got off.
Oh.. and please excuse the carbon dipped gear surround and trim over the glove box, these will be replaced in due course.
23/12/2015
I've needed to send my insurance company (Classic line) a bunch of photos to prove the condition for my approved valuation policy since purchasing the car back in November, today was the first real opportunity I've had to grab some half decent shots.
I say half decent, but these are more like quarter decent, anyway these are the best photos I've managed to get so far.
01/01/2016
I've had a really annoying rattle from the rear near side since I bought it, I originally thought it could of been part of the roof mechanism, the more I've driven it, the more I've thought it was a shot rear top mount.
I ordered a set of Meyle HD mounts and reinforcement plates a couple of weeks ago, today was the first opportunity to get them fitted while the rest of the family sat and watched films.
New years days is not the greatest time to be working on the car but I have to make the most of the free time even if I had a foggy head.
As I had suspected, both RTM's where knackered.
June 2016
This is where my thread backup finishes, the rest will be a synopsis to bring events up to date.
Being rather fussy about things I had the interior re-re-connolised, it was by not in a bad state, far from it I just like things, especially those I touch to be in tip-top condition.
So the interior was removed and dropped of at a local leather specialist to be worked on, a week later it was dropped off and re-fitted, the results are exactly what I wanted, soft, matte and impeccability clean. and also very hard to photo without it looking shiny.
While the interior was out I took the opportunity to do something about the woeful audio, now I know the car was made in '97 but I find it hard to believe a car with a list of £40,000+ had such bad audio equipment fitted from the factory.
So it was all sympathetically removed and stored should it ever need to be returned to bone stock.
Fitted in it's place was a set or Morel Dotech ovation 5.25" mids, in the stock kick panel location, the door now has the Morel MT23 tweeters fitted, again in the standard positions, the ski hatch was removed and replaced with a small sealed enclosure, in to which I fitted a CDT QES820, 8" sub. The fron t is powered from a Genesis profile 2, which the sub gets it power from a Genesis profile sub.
August 2016
Attended a driver training day a north Weald airfield.
As well as the day itself, my wife bought me a personal plate, something I had been talking about for years, but never actually getting round to doing.
05/03/17
As much as I wanted to keep the car OE, thie right height, was something that always jarred, it had to much arch gap on the front, I agonised for weeks about fitting lowering springs, but eventually I made the decision to go ahead, So I ordered a set of Eibach pro spring for a subtle drop of 25mm - 15mm fron t to rear.
I ended up fitting new front and rear, Boge Sach shocks, with new bump stops and dust boots, new front and rear drop links and new Lemforde front top mounts.
23/04/2017
Since I bough the M3, it's had an intermittent problem with the offside, fog light, While trying to remove it recently to see what was going on, I broke the bloody holder, so it's been held in with Sellotape for the past two months
I pick up a new holder recently so set about swapping it over this morning, I rather naively thought this would be possible from the front of the car, that's not the case.
I found the easiest way was to remove the wheel arch liner, which gives good access to the rear of the bumper, and the screws that hold it in place. With the holder swapped I found that the negative cable had not been pushed home properly on to the bulb and as a result had some corrosion on it, a quick going over with a small wire brush, that some sand paper soon cleaned it up and had the light working as it should.
With that job out of the way, and while the arch liner was removed I gave the arch a good cleaning and hovered out the crud that has accumulated in the inner front wing.
Drivers side had a fair amount collected in there.
Offside and nearside after a good going over with a stiff bristled brush.
The photo above shows a stupidly long break pad wear sensor cables has been used on the last pad change, I'll get a proper part ordered and swap that over in due course.
I also took the opportunity to remove and check the slider pins on both front calipers, all four were in good shape, with no pitting or scoring, I gave that a quick clean with some brake cleaner and a scotch bright pad and popped them back in, without any lube. judging from the condition of the pins I can only assume they have either been changed or have been well maintained. Either way a little preventative maintenance never hurt anything.
Cheers.
Great to see you are giving the car the attention it deserves.
Regarding the top mounts did they have any play in them at all (either up and or or side to side) movement? I ask as I have a slight knock from the rear but the mounts look to be fine when I took the bottom damper bolt off and tried to get some movement out of them.
Regarding the top mounts did they have any play in them at all (either up and or or side to side) movement? I ask as I have a slight knock from the rear but the mounts look to be fine when I took the bottom damper bolt off and tried to get some movement out of them.
mwstewart said:
That looks lovely underneath!
TheDukeGTi said:
Good work sir. Some good inspiration for mine.
Cheers for the comments gents.SebringMan said:
Great to see you are giving the car the attention it deserves.
Regarding the top mounts did they have any play in them at all (either up and or or side to side) movement? I ask as I have a slight knock from the rear but the mounts look to be fine when I took the bottom damper bolt off and tried to get some movement out of them.
I didn't need to remove the lower shock bolt so determine the top mounts were knackered. I jacked the rear of the car and removed the wheels held the shock body and I could move them laterally, I never tried to move them vertically, but imagine the top washer touching the outer rubber bushing would prevent much vertical movement, in my case it was the steel inserts that had separated which was causing the movements, and subsequent knocking noise.Regarding the top mounts did they have any play in them at all (either up and or or side to side) movement? I ask as I have a slight knock from the rear but the mounts look to be fine when I took the bottom damper bolt off and tried to get some movement out of them.
If I was to do it again, I think I would not even remove the lower shock bolt, I think you could get enough droop on the lower arm to be able to clear the top of the strut from the body work. Obviously this is on a convertible, a coupe may be a different proposition.
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