Shift carrier mis-alignment

[Beej '86 325es]

Frame damage FTL .

Car is a total loss now mang .

bummer, guess i'll have to scrap the project. anyone want a free shell and $11k in engine parts? :p
car's actually never been in an accident though. :)

[Mike B.]

There may be an issue with the front sub-frame though... Seriously.

I have a spare that I can ship down to you (I'm in a Chicago suburb so it will be pretty quick and cheap) if your interested.

It's the same subframe that I had on my M50 swap and everything lined up perfectly with that car. Just say the word and it's yours.

[Teaguer]

More than likely the motor mounts are in a bind .
Either on the subframe or in the mount arms .

Get a second person to help you jounce it around and see what happens .

[PiercedE30]

The threads on the mount arms may be binding on the edges of the holes.

[dougsic]

very interesting. If you could find a turnbuckle/connecting rod, that would be very easy. I'll have to check into this at work and see if I can find something. Any idea how big of a bolt you used?

I just picked a bolt that was laying on the bench and half jokingly threaded it into the rod - not at all expecting the thing to fit!

When it did, I cut the head off cleanly and sure enough, it worked. The real beauty of doing this was that it allowed me to test fit the rod.

Otherwise, I would have tack welded the rod, installed it and it was too far twisted, removed the rod, cut the welds, tacked it again, installed it and still too far twisted . . .

Also, threading a bolt in there meant the rod itself stayed straight. No chance of me welding it crooked (which I've done more than once on other projects.)

I was pretty proud of my ingenuity when I mentioned this to another swapped owner, only to hear him say, "Yeah, that's what I did too."

Figures.

[Mr.SWISS]

Wrong transmission...

You should use a e36 transmission.

:stupid:

[grib]

More than likely the motor mounts are in a bind .
Either on the subframe or in the mount arms .

Get a second person to help you jounce it around and see what happens .

This is what I had to do with my engine and transmission mounts, too. It took some tweaking it get it to sit correctly. You may need to correct for 20 years worth of frame wear - some people shim their engine mounts but I didn't use any shims.

FWIW I am using an e36 carrier (except with a ZF transmission) and it sits to the right. I have seen this in other swap cars as well.

It's far far more important to get the engine/transmission/driveline straight - then from there you should be able to make some of the magic mentioned above work on your shifter.