The 5 Year Restoration - E30 M3 Reborn

[CurrusDei]

The doors on the car actually required a fair amount of work to empty while cataloging everything, and not breaking anything.

First step was removing the rear glass. easy. two bolts in the b pillar, suction cups helped keep it from dropping





Next this clip had to come off, popped off easily with minimal force



This guy just pries off the back



These plastic pry tools are hugely helpful. I would never do this with a screwdriver - and they're less than $5 at Harbor Freight, so who cares if you break one - you arent scratching anything.





These are the clips on the lower window trim



Rubber was a bit tired. Going to be replaced




I was able to raise and lower the window manually fairly easily



The upper trim pries off with some moderate force in the front. Be careful and definitely use a plastic tool here. Be very gentle. I bent my passenger side trim a bit taking it off, but it should straighten easily with some careful re-installing. Driver's side came off perfectly - practice makes perfect.

This is the first clip



Clips all the way across the top



Little bend, should fix ok i think



The B Pillar trim comes off with some force pushing toward the front so it can clear the lip and clips.





So i tried to preserve the original moisture barrier when removing it... didnt go so well. The heat gun melted through it instead of loosening the adhesive. So I'll need new moisture barrier material - if anyone knows where i can find that...







These are the inserts the door tweeter speaker goes into. they just twist in



Window motor



The wire is zip tied up the front part of the door (from the factory). I cut the zip ties to free the cable. You can see both ends of the cable here as i have it disconnected from the window wiring harness.



Disconnected the motor from the gear mechanism. This lets the window move completely freely. One trick i used to keep it from falling was to put a strong suction cup on the outside of the window so that the cup would get stuck on the door sill, preventing the window from falling down.



Two bolts and the motor wiggles free



The casing shell comes off easily, but i stored the two together





Window down to remove weather stripping



Worked the weather stripping down from the top. There's a surprising amount of rubber down in the door itself.





Now the upper trim on the body of the car

Started prying here



First clip released. They are old and fairly small, so they'll probably break. Fortunately replacements are cheap and plentiful



Some of the clips came off with the trim, leaving scratches. Not a problem in this case with the respray.



Worked my way up. Remember what i said about it being ok to break the plastic tools...







Now for this guy.



I just drilled out the center of the old retaining pins.



Then its just prying



And removing all the mounting clips and gaskets - not much hope of getting these off intact.



I removed the clips so the body shop has a clean surface to work with. Plastic pry tools again



And a gentle mallet tap sends the clip flying





And then on to the door mechanics. I removed the four bolts that hold on the window motor (three on the left, one in the bottom right corner of the door)





Here you see one of the two tracks on the bottom of the window glass. To the right is the insert on the window regulator arm that goes into the track. Its already out here obviously.



Once the runners are out of the tracks, the window just lifts out.



Glass out



Now to take out the regulator and arms. These two nuts hold it on.



Collapse it down into the right position and it lifts out easily.



Here its where those two nuts went



Now, this is a cool shot. Inside the door! The bolt at the bottom holds on the front track that the rubber window stripping fit into.





There is a little hook at the top that you have to watch out for, the track has to drop down before it will release. Dont force it and break this.



Now looking toward the back



The other track is held on by one of the four bolts that held in the window regulator





The little black plastic plastic clip just below center in this pic holds a clip that holds a connection on the window wiring harness.





These two bolts hold in the door lock actuator



Disconnect the hook at the top



Then disconnect the electrics



Getting emptier. Left the hook for the lock actuator hanging.



Door hardware coming off



BMW gave you a metal bracket with your metal bracket so you can bracket while you bracket.



Then there's this goo



Rear bracket



How it all goes back together



And black rubber goo coming out



Door handle





Another hook



Wiring harness extraction



Tagging



Speaker wires



More mounting points for clips





Couple more zip ties



Powered mirror connection





The last wires are on the door latch box. This thing was not easy to get off. The bolts are torqued hugely tight and the screw metal isnt super hard. My advice, do what i did on the driver's side and use hand tools - a screwdriver bit paired to a long wratchet works very well. Power tools stripped the screws almost without fail. then you have to get mean and use dremmels, flat screw drivers, and force. Fortunately all came out nicely and new bolts will be used on install of course.





Door handles are easy



here's the back, inside the door





This little guy lives on the inside of the door and provides the bolt studs for the nuts to hold the door handle hinge.



Here's how it fits in



Unhooking more electrics. This looks like a sensor that sits on the door lock arm.



Here what it looks like after you remove the black box



One more bolt to release the high tech motion control mechanism... steel rods



How it sits in the car.



Misc door hardware









lock releases with this C clip









EMPTY DOOR!! Now, just do it all over again on the other side



And some organization afterward will help later



Remember what i said about door latch box hand tools? Proof from the driver's side...



And the driver's side lock didnt look so hot. Guessing this is related to the dent that is in the same location. Body shop is working that one out

[gills]

wowo, zino! The picture taking and sharing on here takes just as much time and effort as doing the work on the car. Seriously, a huge thank you.

I can't believe (but at the same time not that surprised) BMW didn't make a junction on the electrical harness between the engine compartment harness and main chassis harness. When I was peaking mine I was praying that there was one, but now I know. That sucks! After doing a similarly extensive rebuild on a S13 240sx recently, I was very grateful there was a "Super Mega Junction" (Nissan lingo) that allowed the harnesses to be separated. Damn Germans...

[CurrusDei]

One Year In... M3 Build Thread

I know exactly the M3 you're talking about, it's white. I believe its at a junkyard somewhere. Did it sell at 8k? If so that ridiculous. But alas I think you are right about finding an okay example in the teens.

Looks like it sold for "best offer". Even assuming that was $5k, still a lot. Such a shame to see one banged up like that-should be on the road.

[Rouvld]

Thanks! I saw a couple good ones on eBay go in the mid 20s. There was a also a slammed up, rusted shell (literally, no engine, no interior, no suspension or subframes) that went for $8k. Sadly I think the days of grabbing good ones in the teens are past us. But a good one snagged for in the 20s would be a great deal if it doesn't need a respray.

Merry Christmas everyone. The M3 did ok this year as well :)

[ATTACH]103362[/ATTACH]

I know exactly the M3 you're talking about, it's white. I believe its at a junkyard somewhere. Did it sell at 8k? If so that ridiculous. But alas I think you are right about finding an okay example in the teens.

[CurrusDei]

Rear Subframe

Going a bit out of order here, but since i just posted the front subframe - here's the rear.

Drive shaft to rear diff



If i were doing this again i would remove the driveshaft before the engine/trans to keep the shaft from rotating while unbolting from the diff. As it happened here i used a strap wrench and elbow grease to keep it from moving while I worked at the bolts.





After burning many calories...



Center bearing unbolts easily



And out she comes





Detatched the metal brake line from the rubber brake line end section on both sides







Here's the T junction where the single brake line coming from the ABS unit splits into left and right sections. I fount it best to leave this to disconnect until after the diff was out.



Had to remove the parking brake lines as well. Think i covered this when i did my rear bearings, but its covered numerous places also.

Two little spring loaded inserts.



And unhook at least one of the two spring clips

Then the shoes and brake adjuster come out easily.



The little clip thing that activates the brake.



It comes off easily, the two pieces pivot around that little dowel.



Then the line pulls out the back.



Then they unclip to swing free of where they mount to the sway bar link mounting bracket





Speaking of rear sway bar links. The bushings on this guy were pretty shredded. I took the bar off separately from the rear subframe assembly.



Bolt off



Both sides - you can see the parking brake line holder here really well.



And main rear swaybar bracket mounts







This is where the balancing act began. I put furniture dollies under each brake rotor/shield to catch the assembly when i released the shock (and lowered it down gently using the floor jack.



Once each was down, i could easily remove the springs.





I supported the diff with my floor jack (the sides are still up in this pic, but you get the idea)



Removed the rear subframe bolts



And the bracket that goes between the subframe bushing houseing and the frame





Released the rear shock mounts (the shocks were already hanging, just wanted more room to maneuver)



Dropped the shocks



Double checked that everything was removed/supported, and then removed the differential mounting bolt







Be VERY careful if you do this, especially if by yourself. It was not as smooth a process as it looks here and this is a fair amount of weight to be moving around in an awkward position. Do this at your own risk



Lowered the floor jack, and out she came.







Shell status achieved (doors were empty here and trim off, will cover that next)