The 5 Year Restoration - E30 M3 Reborn

[jhaurimn]

Cant wait to see this thing painted and watch you meticulously put it back together, just as you took it apart. :)

[CurrusDei]

Thanks guys. Catching up some

I first removed the cover from the bell housing that pulls away to reveal the flywheel and the sensors that are housed near it – one is called the flywheel crankshaft position sensor (12141708619) and one is called the position transmitter (12521287784)

Cover



Bolts – I belive the big ones go in front, small ones in rear, but don’t remember



Bolts out



I pried the cover off gently with a plastic pry tool so I didn’t scratch any metal









I also disconnected the support that holds the exhaust manifold downpipes to the transmission housing. Bushings obviously need to be replaced





note how the lower part attaches





Coming off





Clutch slave cylinder removed





Sensors here





Here is the top end of the Crank position sensors



Top sensor (don’t know which is which yet, Ill figure it out later)





Bottom sensors


Bolts that hold on the heatshield also hold on the sensors



Then they pull out

Oh time for these gems of transmission mounts





This one was… not doing its job



Other one was at least whole



Up next, separating engine and trans.

[CurrusDei]

To separate the transmission from the engine, these seven bolts must be removed

Passenger side



Top bolt here holds in the starter



Three bolts on the top here – Big one just left of center is the other starter bolt. Top two come off as well



You can see the bolt positions here (looking ahead a bit – 4 are used for the engine stand, the other 3 are empty)



When you remove the two starter bolts the starter will stay in place if you haven’t removed the screws in back.



Mine had a snail under it. He was thoroughly roasted – nothing left but the shell. Cue the slow car jokes, right? We’ll count it as good luck.



I jerked the transmission back a bit by hand, then it didn’t want to move



Bring back out the cheapo Harbor Freight pry tool and the mallet



Worked by way around the housing, prying gently. Tore up the plastic pry tool a bit, but who cares – its like $5 for a set.



And off she comes









I was surprised at how light the transmission is. I can pick it up by myself pretty easily. Its not light, but I expected a lot more weight.

Clutch pack coming off



See how all the bolts came out easily….



…except one. Dremmel scars from cutting off the bolt that stripped. Going to replace the pressure plate and clutch, so no worries.





With the pressure plate off, the clutch comes off easily and there are 8 bolts holding on the flywheel



Impacted those off, and a few whacks with a soft mallet..



I wasn’t sure if the starter would interfere with the engine stand mounting point, so I took it off before mounting the engine. The two main bolts were removed when I took off the transmission. The teeth of the starter normally hook into the fly wheel but that has already been removed, so the only thing I had left was where the back of the starter attaches near the arm that supports the air plenum from underneath.





You can remove the two bolts on the bracket, but I just removed the bolt that holds both the bracket and the air plenum support arm.



Then it will pull straight out



Now for this engine stand. I wanted to mount the engine so that the valve cover was facing straight up to make it easier to work on. The issue is, the engine sits in the car tilted over to the right a bit. I spent an hour or so trying to match the engine to the stand using various positions of the hoist – it was a pain. Things went MUCH smoother when I took the stand apart and assembled it on the engine in the air.





I put down the stand but the engine wouldn’t rotate, took it back off and greased it with some thick all purpose grease.



The first time I put the engine down I matched the insert to the stand. This time I just lifted up the stand and put it on the insert.



It shifted a bit, but was still upright.

WARNING: If you follow this strategy, be VERY Careful when putting the engine down and keep the hoist attached and the chains tight until the stand is on all four wheels. Do not try to lower it too fast. I put mine down carefully and it still tried to fall over to the right. I leveled out the stand with my body weight and it never got away from me, but if someone was hurrying this could go badly. It’s a lot of weight and can be dangerous. So, be careful.





I used hardware from Fastenal to mount the engine. Some guys have used the OEM hardware, but I don’t think the top bolts work. As best I can remember, these are the sizes I used. (got from S14 .net thread here: [IMG]http://s14net.vbulletin.net/forum/s14/general-e30-m3-discussion/46136-putting-an-s14-on-an-engine-stand)

(2) M8x1.25 70mm length
(2) M10x1.5 70mm length

A few pics

[ChaosTheory]

makes me wish i didn't sell mine. Life forced me too. One day I will get another E30 M3

[JosE30rejel]

Quite the work you have done so far but inspiring none the less. Never had an E30 M3 but due to your work Ill be looking forward to getting one in the future, cheers!

[Chris4soc1]

Great thread! Keep up the good work!

[CurrusDei]

Thanks for the kind words guys. As of now, there is nothing left for me to take off the outside of the car and the next step is the chassis dolly. Time to catch up on the thread

Removed a bunch of stuff off the trunk, don’t remember if I posted this yet












This will need to be replaced, don’t want water in the trunk



Next up was the wiring harness. I went back and forth on if I could leave part of it in the car so that the engine bay could be painted, or if I should just take the whole thing out. Ultimately I elected the latter option – why go this far and pull up short on this item. I do wish that BMW had put in a quick disconnect through the firewall or below the fuse box. This is one BIG harness.

MESS





I decided to start at the back and work my way forward. So – to the trunk.

Here’s the amp bypass from my stereo thread



Lotsa more wires, the two bare wires go to the trunk open/close sensor – not sure why they were cut, but they’ll be being repaired when I overhaul the wiring harness.



The black wire without tape on it goes up into the roof of the trunk and to the light. Sorry for the blurry pics.





One wire runs around the driver side of the trunk and makes a 90 degree turn to run under the rear trunk lip over the tail lights.



This contains the connections for the tail lights, trunk lock, license plate lights, and rear reflectors.

Running under the trunk lip



Driver side wire dropdown. The black connector is for the tail lights. The white connector is for the rear reflectors.

Here is the driver side rear reflector



Same on the passenger side. You can see one of the license plate lights here.



Driver side license plate light



Cable tie on driver side that holds cables going to the rear light check relay.



Close-up of the metal tab that holds the wiring harness in



Wiring hanging



The trunk illumination light pops out easily





License plate lights have screws



Looks like there has been some corrosion – probably will try to replace the connections





Disconnected the rear trunk actuator



Here it is



and the lock mechanism that it moves



See where it connects to the push button trunk release in the white clip by my finger (with overspray on it – grumble)



And off comes the spoiler



Bolts off



When the bolts are off the spoiler just lifts out. Feels very heavy compared to the CF spoiler.



Negative wire terminal off



Positive terminal runs through the conduit shown here and through the rear seat wall



Conduit/cover off



Comes out under the red bar shown here, under the brown padding



Now, to get the harness fully out, you have to disconnect the speed sensor at the differential, electrical connections to the fuel tank, and other things underneath the car. Coming in next update.

[wark]

Nice work! Sub'd for more.

[CurrusDei]

Alright, Thanksgiving. Time to bring this thread current :up:

Before I could free the back part of the wiring harness I had to get under the car to free a few sensors that tie into the main harness

Looking up from the bottom into the back seat



Speedo sensor comes off the diff



Brake wear sensor





I took a handful of videos tracking the path of various lines under the car.

This seemed more efficient than test and photos.









Some wires run to the fuel lever sensors and pumps



The two you see in the picture above run off the back of the fuel tank. Not easy to get out but unbolting the tank gives you some more clearance.



Some lines run over to the fuel sender pump



Pulling wires from the underside to the topside



On the topside



Part of the wiring harness runs over to the passenger side



On the passenger side, some of the wires split off from the main harness by the rear seat brace bar



These wires continue down toward the door sill (the white translucent clip (not the one in my hands) around the wires here plugs into the sheet metal on the inside of the door sill.



This connector looks a bit singed. The connection goes to the overhead lights.





Moving toward the front, here is the door sensor and speaker



You’ll notice on the passenger side that there are two main “sets” of wires that run down the side, one crosses over from the main harness that runs down the driver side, the other runs from the positive terminal on the battery down the passenger side and up into the engine bay. Here you’ll see where I have started to coil up this positive terminal wire.



Positive terminal wire goes up a series of tie downs and into the engine bay





Nice and wrapped



Cleaned, taped, and tied





There was one wire left when I had cleared out the others





It runs back to the gas tank flap lock, easy to disconnect. The actuator comes off as well



On the driver’s side, separating the wire that runs up to the ceiling reading light



Complex junction around where the left side of the driver seat would be



Floor spaghetti



Passenger door wiring connection coming out



Passenger speaker



Harness running under the passenger seat area



Passenger side rolled up



Unattaching sensor on hand brake



Going over the transmission tunnel



and back down the other side



This guy was just coiled up under my seat. Quick research says its the seatbelt buzzer sensor.



Front driver side speaker





steering column



four screws hold on the stalks







I read that this is the seatbelt buzzer relay



Plastic cover over a set of relays behind/below the front driver speaker.



Ugh, such a mess





There was one more electrical attachment in the engine bay – I think this is the Fuel Tank Breather Valve, but all the new ones are plastic



Now, find someone to help with this part. The entire harness has to be fed through a small hole under the fuse box. My buddy from my neighborhood (who works on VWs a lot) helped with this part. It is not an easy pass through – just go slowly, don’t break anything, and take a break if you get frustrated. After a while, your reward is a huge mess of wire on the floor, and some very skinned knuckles.



…and a very empty car







Handy use for my engine hoist box...

[CurrusDei]

Actually there was one line left after the harness came out



It goes back to the fuel filler flap lock



And the drains from the sunroof empty through the side of the car through these vents.



The actuator comes out easily - screws here



NOW, for removing the rest of the engine accessories.

Starting inside, hood release cable



And the mechanism that releases the hood. Careful with this guy. I vaguely remember almost injuring myself taking this off, but dont remember how, so...good luck with that.



The grommet that goes through the firewall



Accelerator Cable Removal









Firewall insulation was peeling badly everywhere. Looking forward to replacing



Heat sheild coming off





could stand to be replaced



As could its hardware - unless the titanic museum wants them back



*Edit: ordered a new heat shield and hardware as part of my to me-from me christmas gift :-)*

potato photo of the insulation retaining bits and the downspouts from the ac box



Another potato photo, passenger side insulation



Clips that hold the O2 sensor wire



...and with insulation removed



Grommets that the wires for the front brake sensors pass through



And removing shift linkage. This boy was pretty tired. Explains why the shifter would swing back and forth like an inverted grandfather clock pendulum.



Potato again

[CurrusDei]

Tried to pressure bleed the brakes to flush out all the old fluid - but the brakes were sitting on my shelf, so i couldnt depress the pedal.



The Pressure wasnt getting past the ABS unit, so, time to take off the ABS unit, after we take off the evap stuff









More on where that Fuel Tank Breather Valve goes





And fuel feed and return lines



Now, ABS unit. I did way more labeling here than is necessary, but painters tape never killed anyone...that I know of.

















The lines run through the round rubber grommets you see on the right of this pic, and the cylinder in the middle is the brake pressure regulator.



More tagging




Disconnecting from the chassis







fast forward, and...



The anti-vibration feet are two piece metal and rubber


Then I manually drained the fluid and caught the excess in a rag. Air compressor helped here





And unattached the brake lines from the junction point with the rubber brake lines in the wheel wells







Solid lines out. These were in really good shape. With some cleaning up/polishing i think Ill reuse these.



Brake line free engine bay



How she sat then.

[CurrusDei]

Sideskirts coming off

Four clips with these screws hold the bottom of the side-skirt to the frame



The front and rear of the side skirts are held on by pins and a bolt





And several clips along the top. I just gently popped them lose





Removed the rear undercover plates – easy to figure out



Here are some pics - there were sedementary layers of dirt in here - probably from the first Bush administration.

This guy was chipped. Will replace





Rear exhaust hanger



The rear bumper removes just like the front – two square plastic covers hide the two bolts that hold the bumper on. I removed these and it slid off easily



Found my rear reflector



Removed the wiring and the plastic battery tray







The brown is dirt and gunk, not rust




Rear bumper and skirts off

[nauqneyugn]

Are most of the pictures on this page not showing up for anyone else?

[CurrusDei]

I just logged in from another browser not logged into my account. Looks like the hosting linking changed recently. Is this the last photo you can see?



.if so, i have a looooot of pics to rehost

[nauqneyugn]

Yeah, that's the last one I see. I like pictures; looking forward to you rehosting them. :)