e30 M3 minor rust repair.

[Conrad311]

you sir, are a madman, a gentleman and a scholar, this is the most brilliant thing ive ever seen, very inspiring.

You could learn more from this thread then in school! LOL

and as he says, i think i have learned more useful things from your write up than i have in the past year at an auto tech school. should have saved my 30 grand Lol
Keep it coming please!

[Nugget]

Class work! Just registered to say that basically and also to spam your page and try and get you to join retro-rides. There was a small thread up linking people to this one and I think that you'd be welcomed well and see some cool shizzle on it.
http://www.retro-rides.org/ Very nice car! :D

[xworks]

Evenin all,
Some big news to start off this update, you won't believe this!
I still can't believe my luck myself. I've sold the car!! Its not even
finished yet and I've had an offer I just can't refuse. A prince, no less,
has seen the build thread and contacted me by e-mail to say he wants
to buy the car immediately. I know, I know, unreal isn't it? And best
of all is the price he's offered, two hundred and fifty thousand
Ugandan Dollars. All I have to do is send him my bank account details,
credit card details, full name and address so he can forward the cash
and have his staff call to collect it.

F*cking spam mail scamming vermin, if there was any justice in the world they'd
all be rounded up and shot with a ball of their own shite!

Anywho, back at the ranch, the worlds longest car restoration was continuing
at it's usual hectic pace and next on the list of things to do was brakes,
starting with the beautifully aged rear calipers.....



pads out, sliding brackets slid off....



circlip off the dust boot....



and then pop the boot off the piston...



and then I use a special method to remove the piston from the
caliper. A burst of compressed air is pumped into the brake fluid
inlet port on the caliper and the procedure goes like this.
Little burst of air, piston comes out a tiny bit and springs back in,
little bit more air, piston comes out a little further and springs
straight back in again. You get pissed off with the lack of progress
and give it a proper wack of air, piston hurtles out at warp speed
and mashes your fingers between it and the caliper.....




when the pain subsides, the piston and caliper bore are inspected.
What you see below is the reason why bake fluid is recommended
to be changed every couple of years. Brake fluid you see is hygroscopic,
yep I've no idea either, however Wikipedia reckons that means
"a substance which attracts and absorbs moisture". So brake fluid
absorbs water and if it hasn't been changed in donkeys years the
water content builds up enough to the level where it starts to rust
the inside of the brake system, like so.....



the last thing to come out of the caliper is the bleed nipple....



front calipers although being a bit bigger come appart exactly the same....





with everything asunder, the first port of call was to check and clean up
the pistons.....



the two smaller rear caliper pistons on the left and front pistons on the right.
The area marked red is checked for any heavy scratches, pitting, scoring
blah, blah, blah.... They were reasonably smooth so they were given a polishing
up with 1500 grit wet and dry sandpaper. The condition of the area above
the red mark doesn't really matter as much, all it has to do is press
against the pad whereas the bit marked red has to slide in and out
through the caliper seal. Any marks on it and it's probably going to
make shite of the seal sooner or later and leak fluid.....



after that, threads in the bleed nipple hole take a clean up (M7x1).....



and then the threads where the brake pipe screws in (M10 x 1)........


then the inside of the caliper bore is checked for markings and then
also given a polish up with 1500 wet and dry.....



next up for a clean is the sliding pins, with the aid of a 7mm allen
key they screw out of the bracket.....

[xworks]

The last thing to clean up was the calipers and brackets themselves
and give them a coat of this stuff....





With everything clean, the rebuild could begin with the help of
some oe seal kits, 2 for the front (p/n 34111153202) and two
for the rear (p/n 34211157042)....



A front kit consists of a square sectioned O ring and a dust boot,
like so....



the O ring sits into it's recess in the caliper (red arrow) and then
the inside lip of the dust boot sits into the narrower recess (green arrow).....



which ends up looking like this.....



then the tricky bit, the seal and the caliper bore (NOT THE DUST BOOT)
are given a smear of brake fluid to get them slippery before offering
the piston back up for re-entry. The tricky part here is trying to get
the piston through the front of the dust boot and started into the caliper
bore. The new boot is very tight around the piston and easy to rip while
trying to stretch on. So. A bit of compressed air again while the piston is
held against the dust boot and "hey presto" the boot inflates and pops
up onto the piston allowing it to be slid back in easily.....



You can use your fingers to hold the piston instead of the piece of steel
used above if you wish, everybody should build up a good tolerance of
pain, it's good for you.



The rear pistons are no where near as dramatic. Dust boot on piston.....



new O ring in caliper bore, piston slid in, and when in, dust boot
is popped over its lip (blue arrow)....





and then the circlip is popped on to secure the boot.....







bleed nipples are cleaned up and refitted with a tiny dab of anti-seize
grease on the threads.....



And finally the caliper bushes. The original ones had little hard nylon
inserts inside them.....



whereas the newer ones haven't. I guess the rubber is just a little
harder now and they're not needed.....



anywho, they push into the caliper like so.....

[xworks]

Brakes done, onto the driveshafts. The inner and outer joints on both
shafts felt slightly knotchy, so.......









with most of the grease cleaned off you could see the circlip that
holds the joint onto the shaft. If your taking these apart for
inspection it's recommended that you mark the 3 pieces like shown
below so they can go back together in exactly the same place.....



when cleaned up you could see where 22 years of hard driving had
led to the balls wearing a groove into the outer piece of the joint, which
explained the slight knotchiness. But of more concern was the pitting
that was found, the surface of the outer joint where the balls run on
was starting to give way......



The outer joint (the one that slips into the hub) can't be dismantled
like the inner one because the cap is crimped onto the cv joint. (red arrow)
To get if off you have to burst it off, damaging it in the process....



after seeing the condition of the inside joints and deciding I wasn't going
to reuse these shafts I had nothing to loose bursting off the caps and having
a look at the condition of the outer joints.....



and they were a hell of a lot worse than the inside ones



the balls themselves were also fairly pitted, but your going to have to
use your imagination cause I'm still to thick to figure out how the
f*cking zoom works on this camera.....



The shafts were replaced with a pair of GKN Lobro one's which are
exactly what the original one's are and what you'll buy at the main dealer.
Only they're half the price at the motor factors....

[xworks]

Up next was the rear beam and trailing arms. Over the years I'd been
reading various methods used by some people to re-enforce the trailing
arms and also seen pictures of the Z3 rear trailing arms and had decided
I'd give it a go. This is probably way overkill on whats going to be a road
car but sure the metal and welder are just sitting there, all it costs is a little
time and effort. So, piece of tubing.....



knotched out.....





hammered on (making sure distance X 120mm is the maximum, otherwise the
tube hits off the exhaust bracket on the beam whilst the arm is rotating
on the car,
tack them on and dummy build to check before fully welding).....





and then the next modification, which I think is to stop camber changes
by re-enforcing the hub carrier part of the arm.
Cardboard template first....



bit of 3mm angle iron....



chop, chop, file, file, measure, measure, offer up, f*ck, f*ck,
chop, cho.....





the one thing to be careful of with these is to make sure they won't
foul the driveshafts when fitted. Even though the hubs aren't fitted you
can hold the driveshaft up roughly in place and check the clearance
before final welding.....





Then the old bushes had to come out with the aid of a few sockets
and some threaded bar....







and with the arms totally bare, off they went for sand blasting and powder coat,
which left them looking like this upon return.....

[xworks]

mmmmmmm, shiny parts........



first job on the re-coated arms was to re-insert some bushes.
Originally they were fitted with oe offset bushes, which were a disaster
to fit last time around. They pop in just as easily as normal ones but
trying to get the offset right so you end up with the desired geometry
changes can be a real pig. This time around we're going to try a
different approach to altering the rear geometry. So, old offset bushes
get binned (2 on top) to be replaced by standard bushes (4 in bottom).....



the bushes are again pushed in with the help of some sockets and
threaded bar. Looking at the bush in the pic below, they are pushed
in tapered end first (right hand side in pic)......



and they push in from the outer side inwards as this side of each
eye on the wishbone is slightly tapered at the edge to help start them
on their way.....



as is always the case when trying to push something into a tight hole
lubrication helps greatly.....





with them all back in you should end up with the fat bits of the bushes
sticking out towards the outside......



Next up, wheel bearings.
A little of the powder coating had found it's way onto the inside of
the hub so this took a little sanding up first....



then the new wheel bearings (aftermarket SKF) get battered into their
hole until you feel them butt up solid against the back lip in the hub.....



followed by fresh circlips.....





and then the brake backing plate, secured by two little m6 bolts....




and finally the handbrakes shoes anchor bracket, which is secured
by two little m8 bolts....



then with all that crap fitted the hub can be pressed back in.....





remembering to support the inner race of the wheel bearing whilst doing
so or else it shit's itself. Which is nice.....

[xworks]

After that we moved on to the brake pipes while waiting for other parts
to arrive (or more accurately waiting for the cash to pay for them to
magically appear from somewhere). To no ones surprise the
"rust jihad" had also launched an attack on the rear steel brake pipes
and fittings at some stage and they weren't looking in their first flush
of youth....







So, a roll of 1/4 inch copper brake pipe and some fittings.....



mark out and cut the length needed to make each pipe (www.realoem.com
really helps here, they list the length of each pipe, although it helps to always add
30mm to be safe)....



after rolling the pipe off the roll and cutting it, it can look a little
crap with kinks all over the place so a large hardback book or
piece of timber rolled on top of it a few times usually gets it nice
and flat.....



next up is making a flare on one end of it. The end of the pipe needs a
little filing or sanding to round it off, from this.....



to this.....



then we break out the brake flaring tool.....



pop the clamp in the vise and pop the pipe through the correct size
hole......



then using one of the....one of the.....f*ck, what are they called again,
I think i'm getting alzheimer's, I'm going to have to start writing me name
and address on the inside of me jocks soon. PIPE FLARES. using
one of the pipe flares you pop the pipe through the clamp till it's
level with the shoulder on the matching size flare, like so......



tighten up the screws on the clamp to grip the pipe tightly and drop some
oil on the top of the pipe and on the inside face of the flare before dropping
it on to the pipe.....



apply the press and mushy, mushy.....





and this is the result, the top face is good to go but underneath is
tapered because the clamp hole was tapered this side......



and for the fitting being used the underneath needs to be flat,
so, turn the clamp over to the non countersunk holes side.....

[xworks]

position the pipe again.....



some more oil and mushy, mushy, again......





which usually gives you a nice fat flare on the end of the pipe (apart
from the times it goes arseways which I've chosen not to mention).....





then spends hours of enjoyment trying to replicate the original pipes
bends and kinks.....



before offering it up to the wishbone to see just how much of a balls
you've made of it....




when happy with the shape of it (or ran out of patience trying) it's
time to mark and cut it for the flare the other end.....




it's not possible to accurately describe in words the level of frustration
thats felt when you make the final flare on a pipe only to discover
you forgot to put the fitting on first.



with the fitting on, the second flare can be done...



and before final fitment some fresh clips cause the old ones were.....




the other thing thats handy to have around at this stage of the build is a
little tub of grease. Everything that gets fitted to the exterior of the shell
gets a smear of grease first to stop water/dampness collecting between it
and the shell down the line and causing rust to reoccur.....





with the solid pipes done some stainless braided pipes replaced the
standard rubber flexi ones....





before finishing with the flaring tool the rest of the brake pipes were
copied.....



and fitted.....



Pipes done, onto the rear handbrake shoes setup which is
made up of all this crap.....



the shoes themselves were only fitted a little while before the car came
off the road so they're barley used.....



a good rub of 60 grit sandpaper brings the linings up like new again.....



and then theres this little collection of stuff that likes to fall off the edge of
the workbench and never be seen again.....



starting with the row of 4 little bits on top in the last picture which
make up the manual adjuster for adjusting up the handbrake shoes.
This bit screws into that bit.....



they then pop into this bit....

[xworks]

and finally this bit slides on over the lot, oh and copper grease everywhere
this stuff just lives for the opportunity to seize up ......



Get it? Got it! Good.

When fitted in place this little setup sits between the top of the two shoes.
When everythings back together and you line up the brake disc so that
you can poke a flat screwdriver in though one of the wheel stud holes
and adjust the knurled nut (red arrow) to spread the shoes out towards the
drum.



and at the other end of the shoes is the actual handbrake mechanism,
made up of this delightful pile of stuff.....




fat pin drops in here.....



and that slots in to here.....



and the end of the handbrake cable.....



connects in here with the aid of the smaller pin....



like so......



so that when your out playing in the winter snow you
can pull the handbrake in the direction of the red arrow
and spread the two little levers out in the green arrow directions,
which pushes the shoes out against the drum, locking the rear wheels
and spinning the car around like a pro, right up until you wack the kerb
and f*ck up your brand new alloys.....



none of which will happen until this stuff moves from the bench onto
the wishbone.....





again plenty of copper grease.....



the other little collection of springs the sit on the brake shoes were
fairly rusted, so Bmw sell the whole lot under one part number
(p/n 34419064267).......



and they sit on like so......



anti rattle clips screw through the brake shoes and into the back plate.....



the return springs can be a little awkward to stretch on in place





So, a little bit of twine and a spanner makes it a little easier to pull them
into their slots.....



followed by brake disc back on and grub screw greased and refitted.....



and align the disc to pop the flat screwdriver in to adjust up the shoes.....



when thats done the brake caliper anchor bracket went back on.....





a set of fresh oe spec Jurid 547 rear pads .....



were fitted....

[xworks]

along with the caliper.....





caliper in place, sliding pins go back in. Copper grease on the pins and
a dab of locktite on the threads.....





with the pins tightened up, the caps go back on the rubber bushes
to keep it weather tight.....



and finally the anti rattle clips pop on.......



The last parts needed to finish off the rear wishbones were the abs
sensors. Unfortunately the old sensors had become quite emotionally
and physically attached to the wishbones, so attached in fact that it
took a large selection of hammers and some colourful language to
separate them. Unfortunately the sensors didn't take kindly to this and
in revenge bent into shite rendering them scrap......



Not the end of the world however as the wiring on the sensors was well
past it's sell by date anyway......





what very nearly did bring about the end of my world, by heart attack,
was the price i got quoted for 4 new sensors. Obviously these are also
made from moon minerals. Thankfully Colm_Mc came
to the rescue with 4 sensors that looked as good as new
(thank Colm I owe you one).....



just for the record the rear sensors are interchangeable.....



while the fronts are sided left and right as denoted by the little "L" and
"R" on them.....



a good smear of grease on the sensors before fitting should mean future
hammer massages are not necessary for removal down the line.....





Which brings us up neatly to the end of the first half of this
update, join us tomorrow evening for the concluding
episode..........

[xworks]

And now we return to the conclusion of this years
update.

With the wishbones complete it was on to the rear beam.......



As mentioned a
little earlier the car used to be fitted with eccentric wishbone bushes to
try and dial out some of the excessive camber that comes with lowering the car.
However these were a pain in the arse to get right and needed to come in
and out 3 times to get them exactly right, which is a lot of ballache. So this
time around we're going to try one of the other options, which involves
welding these little brackets on.....



and using these 5 series eccentric bolts and washers.....



I've only got two crappy phone pics of the welding on of the brackets
as it was done in work in the day job, and as this beam doesn't look remotely
like anything fitted to a double decker bus, I thought it might be better not to
draw attention to it by doing a photo shoot . The pair of brackets welded to the outside
wishbone pickup point are placed with the original bolt hole
smack bang in the middle and the slot in the bracket is placed horizontal.
The idea behind these two is to be
able to adjust rear toe in/out. As the rear toe isn't to greatly
affected you don't generally have to move the wishbone
forward or backward a great deal to get the ideal setting.....



The inside pick up points are a different story though.
The main reason for doing all this is to be able to correct the
negative camber gained by lowering the suspension and as such the
brackets fitted to the inner pick up point have the slot vertical and place the original
bolt hole right at the bottom like shown which gives you maximum
scope for raising the inner pickup point and getting rid of some of that
excessive negative camber ......



and with everything welded up and the original bolt holes filed
out to match the new elongated slots this is roughly how it all
should work (red arrows adjusting camber, blue for toe)......



which looked like this after returning from powder coating......







next up, the eccentric bolts that move the wishbone pick up points
up or down. The bolts have little indents on the top face of them
so as you rotate the bolts you can see how many indents it takes
to add/subtract a certain amount of camber/toe.......



however when all this lot is fitted back in the car you'd need a neck
like a giraffe to see these markings, so, marks are traced out to the edge
of the bolt head.....



and over the edge where they're enlarged with a hacksaw blade
which should make them a little easier to see back on the car.....

[xworks]

The other thing that can be helpful is a reference point on the actual
beam, so with the aid of the dremel.....



a few little groves are etched and filled in with white paint......









all of which should make adjustment down the line a little easier, or,
I've just waisted a load of time for nothing, we'll see.
Before fitting up the wishbones to the rear beam the inner faces of
the bolts and washers are given a coating of grease to help them
rotate when adjusting......



a fresh set of beam bushes are fitted and the washers fitted on top
with grease everywhere as these bit love to seize....







some fresh anti roll bar links and handbrake cable brackets are fitted
to the wishbones......





The other little bits needed at this stage is the spring pads, the
two arrowed are for the bottom of the springs and the other two with
the bump stops in the middle of them are for the top.



The whole lot is built up on a sheet of ply wood so it can be slid under
the car when complete and jacked up into place.....





before that can happen however the beam mount bolts have got to be
refitted to the shell, before they are dropped in they're plastered with
anti-seize grease.....



and then they're dropped down into place in these holes at the edges
of the floorpan under where the rear seat goes.....





The other bits needing refitting before the axle can be lifted back up in to place
is the rear shocks......

[xworks]

First up gotta assemble them. These "gigantic" bump stops slide on.....



followed by the dust boots......



and then a fresh set of top mounts.....



followed by a bevelled washer and nut......



The other little bits that were to be fitted was the little plates fitted to Z3
rear shocks, pictured number 9 below......



When the shock is refitted to the shell the top plate on the shock mount does
a nice job of spreading out the load when the body is pushing down on
them. However when the situation is reversed and the shock is pulling
down on the shell all thats spreading the load on top of the turret is
two little m8 nuts, which sometimes can lead to stress cracks around the
nuts. These 2 little steel plates which were used on the Z3 can be fitted
under the nuts to help spread out the load better.
Which is all marvellous but I'd forgot to order them from the dealer and
was now ready to refit everything and was in no mood to have to wait
another few days for them to arrive. So, the tight arse's guide to top
mount plates......















Unfortunately the only flat steel I had lying around was 5mm thick and
took forever to cut and file to shape, on the bright side should I ever
decide to drive off a cliff the rear shock mounts should be well up to it......



and then at long last fire it all back into the shell.....

[xworks]

And then there was the front end.
One nasty front subframe.....



one freshly powder coated front subframe......



done one mod to the subframe back when I first got the car and this was
down to the fact it had started to crack across the red line in the pic below
(red circle is where the engine mount bolts down to and the reason why
this bit started to crack off).......



the subframe was given a fresh weld across the red line both sides and
plates fabricated up and welded on underneath to strengthen the whole
piece. Only thing to watch out for is to cut a hole in the plate so you
can still get a socket through it to tighten the engine mounting bolt.....



First thing to go back on the subframe is the front antiroll bar, which is
bolted on by these two little lads....



I've yet to remove one of these that wasn't caked in rust on the inside
so a little smear of grease should slow down the antiroll bar bushing
rubbing the powder coating off the inside so quickly......



And then the only polybushes to get fitted to this whole car. As you've
probably seen by now I've replaced more or less every bush with standard
rubber ones and the reason is I don't want to feel every pebble on the road.
I don't want to involuntarily brace myself every time I see a pothole coming.
I had cars when I was younger that the springs and shocks were probably
just ornaments on, there was that little movement in the suspension, and
although polybushes and stiffer this and that make for a faster car around a
track, this car was a bloody good drive on the road when it left the factory on standard
bushes according to any press releases from back in the day.
I'm probably just gettin old (I'll probably be fuckin geriatric by the time this thread gets
finished).
Anywho, bushes came with the car when I bought it and there perfectly
good to go again.....





A heavy smear of grease where the subframe mounts up to the chassis
legs should keep the moisture(rust) out.....





Rear antiroll bar was back from powder coating to so it got bolted
back to the floor pan.....





And then the front struts which made the most dramatic transformation
of all the powder coated bits.....