Just your average BMW Fanboy’s Build Thread (PIC HEAVY)

[RozeTheHornet]

*DISCLAIMER* If you don't have lots of time to kill, just look at the photos (PIC HEAVY) and video... I got a bit carried away with typing... *DISCLAIMER*

All I can really say about the M3 is I genuinely believe this is the best all round car. I take it into the middle of the woods, with mountain bikes on the roof and it is faultless. In the snow it was brilliant. It is my daily, that I leave in car parks everywhere and never worry about it. I can drive it all day, any distance, in any weather in comfort, with soft leather heated seats, climate control, cruise control and a great radio (still with about 30mpg on long journeys). Now it has also done drift day duties, better than any of my other "Drift Cars". It is faster, snappier, more fun, more controllable and more reliable than any other car I have drifted so far. I am now almost 100% sure that I will be selling the 540 and just keeping this as my one, do everything car.

Anyway, safe to say yesterday went very well for me. Drift day at Pod went off with no issues at all (well, one small issue). Couldn't have gone better for me. Obviously a few things to improve it have been noticed. I need stiffer front springs as the roll (now I have no anti roll bar) is fairly boat like. The fuel cap leaked slightly on the first outing, this was because the rubber seal inside the cap was perished so will be replacing that (fixed this with electrical tape over the perished seal... worked a charm). Never overheated (or even to the red heat warning indicator), but the car did get hotter then I would like, so will be fitting a larger rad, or maybe an oil cooler / power steering cooler. I will raise the front slightly as the wheel was rubbing on full lock on the inner arch lining, could just remove the lining, but I would like to raise it a bit more anyway. Uniroyal Rainsport 3's are super good steers, and the KR20's are just amazing. Tonnes of grip and last forever.

VIDEOS: I will upload more videos whenever I get round to sorting through them

Dan (RB20 R32) chasing me:


PICTURES: Will also upload any more when I upload the videos...

Current Job List is:
1. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!).
2. Fit new fuel cap rubber.
3. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option...
4. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Here are a few more photos and videos I couldn't help but share

VIDEOS:
1st Run

2nd Run

3rd Run

4th Run: (minor crashu by Ed, him and car are all good though!)

5th Run: (Sam driving, first time ever in the car and first skid in months, and still drives it better than I can ...)

6th Run: (weirdly the harder I try, the worse i seem to drive...)
https://youtu.be/VShWsrIGN1s


PHOTOS:

This is my new favorite photo of any of my cars... Thanks for taking this Cara!

More pics taken by Ian Blackett and Paula Blackett. If you ever go to Pod, go check out the picture trailer/van they have there. Amazing Photographers.

Current Job List is:
1. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!).
2. Fit new fuel cap rubber (called BMW and will get a new fuel cap Saturday).
3. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option (thinking Mishimoto stuff, expensive but great quality and no bad reviews that I have found yet...).
4. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.

 

[Bu11et]

Good driving dude! Car looks to go well.

Watching your vids, you should try take a wider line and maybe try 3rd and you'd be able to link it all up, just requires a bit of balls due to the bumpyness of the fast corner and the concrete barriers - especially with no handbrake

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Good driving dude! Car looks to go well.

Watching your vids, you should try take a wider line and maybe try 3rd and you'd be able to link it all up, just requires a bit of balls due to the bumpyness of the fast corner and the concrete barriers - especially with no handbrake

Thanks dude! The car is just so good .

I link it in my other cars, but after watching one of my mates hit the wall on the 2nd run of the day, and then filming another friend hit the wall (4th video) I decided it just was not worth it tbh... Did try a few times. But its got such a long diff that 3rd was a struggle. Hooked it once in a run that I annoyingly didn't film, but couldn't get the line right without a handbrake to actually link it well. So went back to trying to not kill my daily . Next time I will have my handbrake sorted so might have a bit more confidence to send it...

Been following your S13 build thread for ever, awesome car and awesome build!!! Also great choice going with the KR20s. After the day in the M3 I am not buying anything else as rears again, had more than enough grip, and lasted a full day when I normally go through at least 5 sets of part worns. Just need a supplier for 265's (Camskill unfortunately don't do any better then 235/17 which is what I was running).

Good luck in DriftCup!!!

 

[Bu11et]

Thanks dude! The car is just so good .

I link it in my other cars, but after watching one of my mates hit the wall on the 2nd run of the day, and then filming another friend hit the wall (4th video) I decided it just was not worth it tbh... Did try a few times. But its got such a long diff that 3rd was a struggle. Hooked it once in a run that I annoyingly didn't film, but couldn't get the line right without a handbrake to actually link it well. So went back to trying to not kill my daily . Next time I will have my handbrake sorted so might have a bit more confidence to send it...

Been following your S13 build thread for ever, awesome car and awesome build!!! Also great choice going with the KR20s. After the day in the M3 I am not buying anything else as rears again, had more than enough grip, and lasted a full day when I normally go through at least 5 sets of part worns. Just need a supplier for 265's (Camskill unfortunately don't do any better then 235/17 which is what I was running).

Good luck in DriftCup!!!

Good man, confidence is key!


Thanks buddy, looking forward to using the KR20 this year in Driftcup and hoping for some good results!

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Got these delivered yesterday, new 12k HSD front springs to replace the current 7k's which are too soft now I am running no front anti roll bar. Also got some Powerflex Adjustable Rear LCA's. I used to run these on my 330, because the stock lower arms like to bend and they were absolutely perfect. Makes rear alignments much easier and the build quality is great. We worked out at the alignment, you cannot adjust the rear of the M3 to anything below -1 degrees of negative camber using the OEM excentric bolts and stock lower arms. So adjustable lower arms were needed. Cant wait to get the springs and arms fitted. Mainly the springs so I can soften the dampers up again and rub less...

I also picked up a new fuel cap and fit it last weekend, not an achievement, but means I can now delete it from my things to do list...

Current Job List is:

1. Fit new front 12k springs.
2. Fit Powerflex adjustable rear LCA's.
3. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.
4. Get an alignment after all of the above.
4. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!).
5. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option (thinking Mishimoto stuff, expensive but great quality and no bad reviews that I have found yet...).

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Ok so its been a while since I last did an update... Not that much has gone on really.
When I last left off I had just got the rear LCAs and the 12k front springs.
Here is a bulk update, sorry for all the pictures but I find them better at explaining things than my words.

The good news is the coilover came off super easy, and the 12k front springs are now on the car and it handles so much better than before with way less body roll... Also softened up the damping so is more comfy than before. Win Win.

The bad news is that when the wheel came off, we noticed the anti roll bar mounting point had spun round and decided it didn't like the brand new uniroyals... So removed the anti roll bar mounting point as i'm not running one anyway...

And to top it off, the uniroyals had been arguing with the arch liner and inner body of the car...

Nothing a little bit of primer couldn't fix though

The front tyres being not safe any more did however make a great excuse to run a square 9j set up. Which looks sick and will be staying, plus some 10mm(ish) rear spacers. I will also get them all refurbished to be the same colour soon. There is a bit more rubbing in the front now against the arch liner, but to be honest, it looks so much cooler now that I just don't care, will keep checking on it and might remove the liner if it gets bad.
A better plus point is the car handles so much better. Going from a 225/255 stagger to 255/265 has made a huge difference.

Also took the time to fit an aux cable to the car, which was a genuine nightmare but so worth the effort! I can do a write up of the process if anyone is interested but there are loads of youtube videos out there already explaining it.
Getting access to the aux plug:

With the Aux cable plugged in and playing music:

Aux cable tucked away back in its little cupboard:

My goals for this car have slightly changed since last time, as per, but here is the current Job List:

1. Fit Powerflex adjustable rear LCA's.
2. Remove the front brakes and fit the front brake refurbish kit.
3. Fit the braided hoses.
4. Get another Alignment.
5. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
6. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!). Well May didn't happen... so July?
7. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.
8. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option (thinking Mishimoto stuff, expensive but great quality and no bad reviews that I have found yet...).

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Hi All, here comes another update. Why is is every time I work on this car, I find more and more that is wrong with it...

So, the car has had a vibration under braking (and for a while after heavy breaking). Back in Feb I replaced the front discs and pads assuming the discs were warped. Problem was still there. So finally got round to giving a mate (THANKS DAN) my front calipers and a rebuild kit, so he could strip them and put them all back together. (this is one of them with shiny new seals and a shiny new piston).

He rebuilt both of them, and noticed that there was a small difference in the actual caliper... (not got photos of them off the car, but here is them on the car showing the difference... One is smooth, one has ridges on it. They also run different size bleed nipples.)

My first guess was maybe one is BMW and one is aftermarket... But in fact (after some googling), the smooth caliper is an E46 M3 Caliper, the one with ridges is an E36 M3 caliper. Both designed to run 60mm pad thickness and 28mm disk thickness. But the E46 caliper is designed for 325mm discs, and the E36 one is designed for 315mm discs.

A bit of back story to this. When I got the car from the dealership, there was a vibration from the wheel under breaking. So it went back and they replaced one of the calipers. This resolved the issue for a while... Issue started again and that is when I decided to replace the disks. So either the car was sold to me with a pair of E36 M3 front calipers and they replaced the dead one with a E46 M3 one. Or (more likely as the car had 60k miles when i got it...) the car was sold to me with a pair of OEM E46 M3 front calipers, and they replaced one with an E36 M3 caliper...

Anyway. When re fitting the calipers, the brake line was looking slightly worse for wear, so took the opportunity to replace this with some new copper line.

Also finally fit the braided brake lines... (terrible photo below that you can basically only see the yellow Hel logo band on the black line...)

Bled the brakes and went for a test drive, ABS disabled locks up the front easily enough, even now i'm running 255 fronts rather than 225s.

1. Either buy another E46 M3 caliper and have that refurbished, or just throw more money at the car and get a BBK...
2. Fit Powerflex adjustable rear LCA's.
3. Fit rear braided hoses.
4. Get another Alignment.
5. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
6. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!). Well May didn't happen... so July?. July wont happen either now, why am I like this?
7. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.
8. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option (thinking Mishimoto stuff, expensive but great quality and no bad reviews that I have found yet...).

 

[Bu11et]

FYI on Mishimoto stuff, I've read alot of people saying that it's just re-branded eBay stuff with a higher price tag...

 

[RozeTheHornet]

FYI on Mishimoto stuff, I've read alot of people saying that it's just re-branded eBay stuff with a higher price tag...

Not heard that before, thanks for the heads up though!
Started looking at the Tegiwa M3 Cup parts instead, they obviously work on the M3 Cup cars so assume they are higher quality, also way cheaper than Mishimoto stuff!

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Its been a while... Just been busy with work and stuff. But a breakdown forced me to actually work on one of the cars again so here we are .

On Sunday night the M3 alternator decided it didn't want to generate electricity any more, and left me stranded in Tolworth. A quick call to the AA got me home by 23:00... Yay.

Monday morning I called BMW and was offered an alternator for £711... no thanks. Euro Car Parts sell the exact same part (Valeo) but without the BMW label for £299, after a discount and surcharge the damage was just under £200... Result.

Anyway, Monday I removed the old dead alternator... For anyone doing this, you will need pliers for the plastic retaining clips, a 12mm, 13mm, 16mm, 17mm socket, a Torx 50 socket and a 6mm Allen socket.

Step 1: Open the bonnet, remember how much you hate working on cars, consider just selling all your cars, make a cup of tea and just dive in.

Step 2: Remove the plastic clips holding on the feeds to the air box, remove the clamp holding the airbox to the intake and remove the air filter.

Step 3: Remove the airbox. To do this you will also need to undo the igniter for the headlights. Congratulations, you can now see the culprit.

Step 4: Remove this oil hard line, remove the positive terminal on the back of the alternator (17mm), and the clip on the sensor (this clip is a nightmare to get back on, be warned)

Step 5: Annoyingly i didn't take any photos to demonstrate, but using the Torx50 and a Bar, loosen the belt tensioner, this is the pulley that is down and left from the alternator pulley. Whilst pressing the bar to loosen the belt, you will be able to pull the belt off the alternator.
Then use the 16mm to remove the top and bottom bolts holding the alternator on, and wiggle the alternator out, this required a lot of force for me...
Congratulations, you are half way there.

Step 6: Unbox your new alternator and be amazed at how clean and shiny it is, praying that you never have to do this again...

Step 7: Reverse stages 1-5. Torque the alternator bolts to 42nm, and the 6mm oil hard line to 22nm. The rest just do tight (I couldn't find torque settings for any others).

I then went to reconnect the battery, and managed to snap the positive battery terminal tightening bolt. Dick. Luckily I have the 540 still just sitting on my drive, so I stole one from the 540 negative which i then replaced with a much nicer looking (and frankly easier to deal with) negative terminal.

As I had actually done something to the 540, I thought why not actually run it for a while and check to see how its doing... Of course the battery is dead. So i have now left the battery charging and gave it a quick oil change so that when i start it later in the week it is all good to go!

Anyway, went back to the M3, and all started perfectly. Great news!

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Buy another E46 M3 caliper and have that refurbished.
2. Fit Powerflex adjustable rear LCA's.
3. Fit rear braided hoses.
4. Get another Alignment.
5. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
6. Tidy up the 540i then probably sell it (Hopefully start in May!!!). Well May didn't happen... so July?. July wont happen either now, why am I like this? Maybe it will be done by Christmas...
7. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.
8. Look into and decide on an improved cooling option, decided, just going to get a Tegiwa radiator.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Actually had a few hours free this weekend (for the first time in a while) so took a look at the 540.

Started with tidying the car up. We have been using it as a dry store for any parts that our group have been looking at selling / keeping for the last few months. Mostly IS200 parts, but a few BMW cooling related things. Removed all the parts and now have them in my garage because I knew that the cleaner I made the car, the more motivated I would be to get it roadworthy again.
Still needs a full wash inside and out, but already it looks so much better when its not full of spares.



Whilst I was emptying the car, I left the battery on charge to get it running again.
Checked the oil, topped it up a bit, topped up the water, threw in a Jerry can of V Power, jumped in the car, turned the key and it started perfectly, first time, on the key, no hesitation and ran perfectly. Plugged in my EDU whilst I let the car warm up, only one error code popped up which was the multi-function steering wheel, which is obviously missing.
Warmed the car up for a while, checked for any noises, leaks or any other bad stuff all to find nothing wrong!!! Shut it off, checked for codes again and still all clean. Super happy with myself so I decided to run it again and gave it a bit of a blip (sorry neighbors). It sounds so awesome! I cannot wait to get this thing back on the road again. Hearing it again always makes me reconsider selling it once its back on the road, but the current want for a Harley (and no need for two drift cars...) will need funding somehow .



Current list of jobs to do:
1. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
2. Buy another E46 M3 caliper and have that refurbished.
3. Fit Powerflex adjustable rear LCA's.
4. Fit rear braided hoses.
5. Get another Alignment.
6. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.
7. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
8. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Its been a while since i last updated this... and not much happened to the car until the last 2 weeks.
On the plus side lots has happened in the last 2 weeks!

To start I noticed i was missing a load of pixels in the passenger side light, which was also full of water (may be a connection between these two things but not 100% sure)

So naturally I decided to sort this out first (not the dying clutch, shitty alignment, wrong front caliper, exhaust leaks, fitting the camber arms, replacing the squeaky front bearing or fittng the dual caliper stuff...).

Bought some used lights off ebay for cheap expecting them not to work but worth it anyway, they arrived, turned out to be genuine BMW parts not aftermarket or another OE label. Fit them and they worked perfectly! Well, i say perfectly... they did turn out to be facelift lights which use a different loom, so I bought replacement looms from BMW. These however deleted the interior boot light and threw up error codes. I then ended up cutting the BMW adapter loom and my old loom to create a working loom that now works perfectly. I can do a write up for this if anyone wants it but it was way more work then it was worth tbh.

Anyway, here is how it looked after I was done! Lights work perfectly and are in such a good condition that the car looks way better for it.

This whole light fix kicked me into actually putting time and money into getting the car back to where I want it to be...

So I finally bought an E46 M3 front caliper and rebuild kit, gave them to Dan (THANKS DAN!) who refurbished the caliper. I remved the E36 M3 caliper off the front passenger passenger side and replaced it. (Yes I now have a freshly rebuilt but not painted or anything E36 M3 front caliper if anyone wants one cheap).
Didn't take any photos of this because anyone following this thread has seen enough caliper related things to not see any more.

After that I decided I needed to sort the rear fitment, hopped onto Driftworks and ordered some 12mm spacers.

Here is BEFORE:

and AFTER:

It doesn't look that flush but without rolling the arches any bigger would rub so i'm happy for now.

Next up was the slipping clutch. I kind of went overkill with this and decided if i was going to bother changing the clutch then i might as well just go ham.
Gave MJF Engineering in Dorking a call (the only person other than myself or my friends who i will let work on the M3) and booked the M3 in for a new clutch and flywheel. Honestly Mark is a legend, anyone with a BMW should use him, the man knows everything there is to know about BMW's, is a genuinely nice guy and is always happy to help.
Turned up on Friday with the car and left my adjustable camber arms in the boot for him to do as well if he had the time and to do anything else he felt like needed doing.

Got a call on Tuesday and he had finished.
He not only fit the new clutch and flywheel, but also did the bearing, removed the clutch delay valve (cannot recommend this enough to anyone who has a BMW that came with a CDV), replaced both gearbox mounts because they were completely shot, replaced the very cracked Prop Donut, fitted the camber arms (which is a pain in the ass and involves removing the diff, which is the only reason I decided to pay someone to do it rather then myself) and replaced the outer bushes for the arms because again one was cracked and the other was completely disintegrated. Oh and he noticed I has an exhaust leak so replaced the nuts, bolts and seals for those, and saw all my rear suspension bolts were rusty and falling apart so replaced those too.
All the work was unbelievably cheap and again, I cannot recommend him enough to anyone.

I have the car booked in with Dan for yet another alignment on the 1st (i need to remove one of the two locking collars on my rear springs to get the car as low as I want it before this), I will also dropping my spare hubs to him to be sand blasted, powder coated and have new bearings put in. Hopefully will fit those mid Feb.

After that the wheels will go in for a full refurb. Hopefully will get round to giving it a full service and then it is ready for more skids and maybe a grip day or two!

The 540 has not really been touched since the last update. Still just trying to find the time and motivation to get that back to where I am happy with it.

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Remove rear locking collars.
2. Give Dan spare M3 hubs for full refresh.
3. Get another Alignment.
4. Fit rear braided hoses.
5. Fit refreshed front hubs.
6. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
7. Service the M3.
8. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
9. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.
10. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

So we did a car hang on Saturday to try sort out Todd's MX5 after he crashed the last one and bought this super clean low mileage replacement.
Whilst we were there I thought i might as well start doing the service stuff I have wanted to do to the M3 for a while.

Changed the Cabin Filter:

Did an oil change and oil filter change, didn't get any photos of this so enjoy a screenshot of a friends snapchat story:

Whilst doing the oil change, I noticed that my janky alignment had caused some pretty serious issues (never got round to going and getting Dan to do my alignment, or hubs)... Fairly confident that one of my tie rods is bent from running over one of the Pod kerbs, so need to get that sorted by Dan (put my OEM fronts with new KR20's on in the meantime because I just had them lying around and need to drive the car).

Looked at doing the Spark Plugs and realised i couldn't be bothered to remove the intake so didn't.
Contemplated doing the squeaky wheel bearing, then realised none of us had the right tool.
Decided against doing the fuel filter because it was cold and i didn't feel like getting covered in fuel.
Helped Sam and Todd ruin a stupidly clean MX5 for the rest of the day.

All in all this was a fairly unproductive day, but getting closer to where I need the car to be.

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Change the front Hub.
2. Remove rear locking collars.
3. Give Dan spare M3 hubs for full refresh.
4. Get another Alignment.
5. Change Spark Plugs
6. Change Fuel Filter
7. Fit rear braided hoses.
8. Fit refreshed front hubs.
9. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
10. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
11. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.
12. Fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

Welcome to another episode of "replace every part of your car until it is basically new again".

So last weekend I noticed that another weird noise had started on the car, this was clearly coming from the rear passenger side wheel though. Kind of sounded like a cross between my wallet crying and someone grinding steel.

Pulled over and could clearly see that the pad (or what was left of the pad) was chewing my disk to pieces... Realised it was too late to save the disk so just carried on with my weekend tbh.
Decided that as I had done the fronts, I might as well do the rears properly too so ordered a new pair of OEM disks, some Pads and a caliper rebuild kit.
Look at the size of these discs!!!

Got a free afternoon after work yesterday and started trying to take it all apart (its only 5 bolts per side to get the caliper, bracket and disc off the car so how long could it take...). Top tip, don't buy a BMW. Every single nut and bolt is always rustier then the Titanic and completely seized. Or you wont have the right tools because BMW like to use obscure sized hardware.

To start with the Caliper mounting sliding bolts are a 7mm allen which is fine in itself, but you cant get a 7mm allen socket and a ratchet in the space between the top caliper bolt and the damper. Halfords dont sell 7mm allen's either, other than an obscenely long one. Luckily in our shed I found a shit load of imperial allens and one of them fit close enough to get these out.

Took the Calipers off and found this...
This is what the drivers side rear pads looked like:

And now the passenger side... I may have found the problem:

This obviously had not had a good effect on the Disc, so I am glad I decided to order every replacement part i would need already. From the state of the pads and the disc I would assume that the caliper was binding on and just slowly eating away.

Tried taking the Caliper Bracket off in order to remove the old discs but again, obviously being a BMW, the bolts are fully siezed. And of course the only 6 sided socket that I don't have is a 16mm, so i covered them in WD40 and will be sourcing a 6 sided 16mm shortly to try finish this job.

I also noticed that the HSD's had decided they didnt like having a dust boot anymore, but at this point I have far bigger issues to worry about then trying to sort this...

Current list of jobs to do (why does this list only ever seem to grow...):
1. Remove the old discs and replace with new.
2. Get the calipers and rebuild kit to Dan, or Sam... or Warren to be rebuilt.
3. Fit rear braided hoses.
4. Whilst they are being done, figure out how to and maybe fit the dual caliper brackets, calipers, lines, hydro etc to the M3.
5. Remove rear locking collars whilst I have everything off the rear of the car.
6. Change the front Hub.
7. Give Dan spare M3 front hubs for full refresh and new bearings.
8. Get another Alignment.
9. Change Spark Plugs.
10. Change Fuel Filter.
11. Fit refreshed front hubs.
12. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
13. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
14. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

So, It feels like every time I work on this car, I find more and more that is wrong with it... welcome to another post containing mostly failure, disappointment, emotional breakdowns and just throwing money at this thing.
View attachment 310059

Left off last time being unable to get the caliper bracket off the car, Amazon speedy delivery got me a 16mm impact socket delivered within 24 hours and I managed to get the bracket off, which was or course mostly dust.

Moved onto the caliper retaining bolts, three came off with enough WD40 but one was pre rounded. Drilled that over the course of an hour and a trip to buy more drill bits.

Got the Disk off and you can see the state of it against a new disk. Really glad I got fresh discs to go on the car.
View attachment 310043

Next up was the caliper... this did not go well.
The bleed nipple was sized and pre rounded on both sides, the caliper to brake hose was also seized and rounded and best of all, the brake hose to hardline connection was also rounded and seized. Brilliant.
Cut the hard line on both sides and got the calipers inside.
View attachment 310047

As you can see (both sides were this bad) the calipers were completely ruined, so Ebay came in clutch again and I managed to get a freshly rebuilt caliper for dirt cheap.
Found another for the same price but completely stripped, which was perfect as I already had rebuild kits, so rebuilt that and now have two freshly rebuilt calipers ready to go back on the car.
Also already have braided hoses ready to go on the car as I replaced the fronts when refreshing the front brakes, but never got round to fitting the rears so threw them on the new calipers ready to be refit...
View attachment 310060

So the next big mission is to sort the rear brake lines. I thought this would be easy as I would just need to find the closest point that BMW join two lines together and re run new line from there. I noticed that on the drivers side this was really close to the point where the break line joins.
View attachment 310050

Brilliant, went on RealOEM and found the part number for this clearly short piece of line and ordered it. When it arrived I realised something was wrong.
View attachment 310051

Bit of back story to try make this make more sense. When I got this car, BMW had just announced an airbag recall, so I sent it in to my local garage to get this done. Whilst the car was there they did a free check over the whole car and noticed dreaded boot floor cracks. I contacted the dealer who offered to fit a reddish kit and I only paid for the kit and not the labour. Clearly whoever fit the kit realised that they had to remove the end of the lines to weld the plates in, decided to cut the steel line, re flare it and replace what was left with copper line instead.

The whole point of this "Build" is to do everything properly, so I decided to just go ahead, trace back to where this joined the OEM lines and fit this.
FYI, this is not an easy job without removing the tank and subframe.
Removing the OEM lines in the first place is easy enough, remove the joint on the nearside just above the hub end of the driveshaft, use a spanner to loosen the bracket that holds the line to the boot floor on both sides of the car and yank the pipe out.
Once it was out I bent the new steel line to shape, re fit it to the car and had a real nightmare getting the hose to bolt back to the chassis, these two brackets are a nightmare but 30 mins and bleeding knuckles later, the line was in!
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Had a look under the car and realised that the passenger side line is a single run all the way from the rear hose to the abs unit in the engine bay, which routes down behind the engine, over the bell housing, down the side of the gearbox then down the chassis. It looks like a nightmare to remove, bend and fit a new line. I really didn't feel like doing this so had a little breakdown and instead of having a cry, decided to finally remove one of my rear locking collars to try get the rear lower...
Whilst down there I also realised that one of my rear droplinks was broken, and of course the nut was rounded and dust...
View attachment 310058

I then had a full breakdown, cursed a lot, told all my mates never to buy a BMW, and moved on to changing the spark plugs.
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Luckily this went surprisingly well and I found no fresh issues and actually did something to the M3 that have wanted to do for ages!

This really picked me up and I went back to tackle the passenger side brake line, started practising on some copper line which went well, then at this point I realised that my brake flaring tool specifically says "does not flare steel".

Que another mini breakdown, cut out the old droplink, ordered a new droplink and gave up until that arrives...

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Replace passenger side brake line.
2. Fit the refreshed rear calipers and braided hoses.
3. Fit the new rear discs.
4. Get the car to a driveable state again.
5. Give Dan spare M3 front hubs for full refresh and new bearings.
6. Fit refreshed front hubs.
7. Change Fuel Filter.
8. Get another Alignment.
9. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
10. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
11. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.
12. Get a new front and rear sub frame and have it powder coated.
13. Get new trailing arms and have them powder coated, with fresh bearings installed and the dual caliper brackets.
14. Fit dual caliper system and sneaky hydro.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

So. Today was a good day, mostly.

Left off waiting for parts and slowly recovering from many mini breakdowns.

Decided to suck it up and work on getting the passenger side brake lines done.
Steel Flaring tool arrived so practised a few tiles on the old line we removed from the drivers side, and when i was confident managed to flare the OEM line that was already on the car. Cut the old (but still in good condition) drivers side OEM steel line to the right length, flared that then bent it to shape. all went perfectly as planned so threw the old caliper brackets, brand new BMW disks, fully rebuilt calipers, brand new pads, new HEL braided lines and lastly the small podiums that the joint between the Steel Line and Braided Hose sits on, on the car.

Went to go bleed the brakes and of course the battery was flat, jumped the car and it fired up perfectly. No missfires so looks like the spark plug change went well...
Start trying to bleed the brakes and fluid is pissing out of the drivers side bleed nipple. Further investigation shows that the drivers side nipple was too long compared with the passenger side one.
Decided to throw more money at the car, called BMW and just ordered some new ones from them (at a ridiculous price) so I can be 100% sure that they are right. Now just got to wait for those to come in and the car should be derivable again!!!

Droplink arrived so I fit that after a fight with the Anti Roll bar to get the bolt to line up.

Then it started raining so I gave up and went inside. After tripping over a shit load of parts just lying around in my kitchen and living room and bathroom and bedroom, I then spent about two hours cleaning up parts, tools and general rubbish and made a pile of parts that I now have either to put on the M3/540...

(This is all just from inside my house)

I realised that I didn't know what half the stuff was (the bags of miscellaneous bolts), so I spent another hour making a spreadsheet or what I actually had, I then went into the Shed and did the same and worked out what I have and what I can sell if I can be bothered to take photos and stick things on Ebay.

If anyone reading this needs anything below, drop me a message:
An E39 Passenger Side Driveshaft,
A freshly rebuilt (100mile used) E36 M3 front passenger side caliper,
A BMW Aux Adapter (Part Number 65 12 0 153 503),
A brand new E46 (Non M) Diff Mounting Nut and Bolt set (Part Number 33 17 6 760 336),
One Style 67 18 x 8J ET47 (E46 M3) Front Wheel in some kind of Grey with no tyre,
Two Style 71 17 x 8J ET20 wheels with bald tyres,
Two brand new (still labelled) 225/45/18 Kenda KR20's,
Four 235/45/18 Michelin Primacy's all circa 3mm left,

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Fit the new bleed nipples and get the car to a drive able state again...
2. Give Dan spare M3 front hubs for full refresh and new bearings.
3. Fit refreshed front hubs.
4. Change Fuel Filter.
5. Get another Alignment.
6. Refurbish the 9J wheels and get fresh sticky rubber.
7. Tidy up the 540i then maybe sell it...
8. Buy and fit a Tegiwa Rad for the M3.
9. Get a new front and rear sub frame and have it powder coated.
10. Get new trailing arms and have them powder coated, with fresh bearings installed and the dual caliper brackets.
11. Fit dual caliper system and sneaky hydro.

 

[RozeTheHornet]

So welcome to yet another bulk update on the M3 build. Its been a busy few months with not a lot of actual photos. First of all I want to thank Sam Stocks and Dan Cogswell for the huge amount of help they were getting this all together.

So this all started because I bought some IRP dual caliper brackets to convert the rear to a dual caliper set up with a hydro rather then internal drum brake handbrake that kept breaking.
I decided that if I was going to keep the M3 forever (which I now have to because it owes me way too much money...) then I might as well do everything properly. Seeing as it now had a brand new clutch and flywheel, new discs pads and calipers rebuilt, head work recently done, full service completed recently, the only things really on the car that were not new now was the underside, all the bushes, the cooling system and interior stuff.

Over a few months of waiting for cheap parts to pop up on ebay, I managed to piece together a full spare rear subframe and associated arms.

I also decided to replace the front control arms, hubs, bearings, power steering rack, bushes etc. To be honest things got out of hand and I ended up with a fully blasted and powder coated rear end with all new SuperPro or Powerflex bushes, Dausfab rear Toe Plates, Powerflex Camber Arms, new wheel bearings all round, sand blasted front knuckles and all size caliper brackets, brand new hubs, all new BMW nuts, bolts, washers etc front and rear, brand new front control arms, a new steering rack, 6 E46 M3 rear wheels sand blasted and powdercoated, then 4 more because I couldn't help myself, then new tyres for all of them... (4 x 265/35/18 KR20s, 4 x 265/35/18 Accelera 651 Sport's and 2 x Dunlop Direzza Semi Slicks), a Mishimoto radiator, hoses and an intake boot, I'm sure there is more that I have forgotten about.

Anyway, over the course of 4 weeks myself, Sam, Ed, my dad and Dan all got the M3 stripped, entire front and rear end out the bottom of the car, new Polybushes fitted into the freshly powdercoated parts, sandblasted knuckles, new bearings pressed on, Mishimoto rad and hoses fitted and everything torqued up to spec with new nuts and bolts. We also decided to tidy up my tool storage and made some foam inserts for the boot and my toolbox.

Got the car aligned on Friday Night, re torqued everything and on the following Wednesday (22nd) we headed up to Santa Pod for a test day in the "new" car.

Its amazing, there is a little more noise and stiffness in the ride quality then there was on the OEM BMW Bushes, but no where near as bad as anyone makes out, in fact its barely noticeable. There is however way more grip, better steering feel, less noises from the old ruined bushings, old bearings and the old destroyed front control arm.

Here is some media from the Pod Day. Big up Ian Blackett for the photos and Sam Stocks and Ed Dyer for their video skills.

Video: I'm not sure how well the video will show it, but the M3 was faster then any other car that was there that I managed to do a session with. The car was running 265 KR20A's with everything set to full soft and if I did not leave a full corner at the hairpin between myself and the car in front, no matter how slow I tried to go, we would be running into the back of them by the Start/Finish section. It felt as fast in the wet as it used to in the dry on 225's. It is unbelievable now even though it still has no handbrake .

I almost forgot, the 540i is also gone to a new home, it has been sold again since then but hopefully someone will get it who will fix it up properly!

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Change Fuel Filter.
2. Change Reversing Light Switch
3. Fit Dual Caliper System

 

[Gooly]

Pics from pod look great!

 

[RozeTheHornet]

So I had another fun day of carchaeology on the M3 this weekend. I heard a nocking noise from the rear end since coming back from Pod so decided to do another nut and bolt check (the 4th one now) and found some interesting things.

First off the passenger side adjustable lower arm nut had come loose on the inner side so had to tighten that up. But in order to do that on an E46 M3 you need to remove the silencer and move the centre section to the side to reach the nut.

Removed the silencer and noticed that all three of the rubber exhaust hangers had broken, all in the same place too...

Removed these and have ordered new billet ones from Hack Engineering, then tightened up the camber arm bolt.

Next issue I found was one of the anti roll bar bolts had stripped its captive nut, so replaced that with a longer bolt and new nut.

After that decided that now would be a good time to replace the Fuel Filter which was easy enough, then replace my reverse light switch on the gearbox as my reverse lights and parking sensors no longer activated.
This led to an interesting discovery. A bit of S6S420G knowledge is that Manual boxes have the reverse light switch (Number 9) on top of the gearbox in a very hard to reach location:

On the SMG gearboxes however then located them at the bottom of the gearbox in an easier position (Number 18):

My car is factory manual car, and I have never had any reason to assume that the current gearbox was not the OEM one, however the reversing sensor shows that my car clearly has an SMG gearbox in it. So at some point in its life the factory manual gearbox has been removed from my car and has been replaced by a manual converted SMG box (still an S6S420G). I don't know why, but I assume because the factory one had died? Whatever way you look at it though, I am very glad that I have gone through this car to the level of detail that I have and replaced as much as I have because every time we look more into the car, more seems to have been done previously that is not right and needs resolving.

Current list of jobs to do:
1. Fit Billet Exhaust Hangers
2. Fit Dual Caliper System