Tranny + Upgrade's 2004, Progress Thread (pics)

[James Crivellone]

Well it has finally started, today the car went into the shop as an automatic, and will leave as a manual, with quite a few upgrades.

Day 1 was mainly removing everything, we got the rear diff out, driveline, exhaust, heatshield, front sway bar, rear sway bar, and most of the rear subframe unbolted for easy removal. Tommorrow the transmission comes out as well as teh rear subframe, plus the pedals and shift linkage gets installed.


I am also doing rear subframe bushings, rear trailing arm bushings, new front/rear swap bars, m3 steering rack, strut tower brace, 3.25LSD Diff, and several other parts. as well as brand new 325i exhaust

Here are the pictures from today








Tommorrow I will post more updates and pictures of the Getrag installed in the car :D

[Erick]

Good luck with it man.

I hope you have more luck then TJ did. I know part of what he had to go through to get his tranny out.

[James Crivellone]

Good luck with it man.

I hope you have more luck then TJ did. I know part of what he had to go through to get his tranny out.

Anything I should know?

[rs4pro3]

They are VERY heavy. I pulled and reinstalled the auto tranny on my mom's 1986 528e and it 's not light. The hardest part is removing the bolts that hold the flywheel to the Torque convertor.

[Kruzen]

can't wait man. lemme know if you need a hand, i'm down in the area on the weekends still.. Got my front door panels put in today :twisted:

i just gotta remove the chrome trim on the rear ones and get them to fit a bit better, and then toss in new seats and the interior will be donde!

[BS87]

Yeah, the Getrags are quite lighter than the ZFs.


Nice sig James :twisted:

[Erick]

Good luck with it man.

I hope you have more luck then TJ did. I know part of what he had to go through to get his tranny out.

Anything I should know?

Well... I would've said remove the engine... I think it would be a hell of a lot easier. But it seems you started with it there. Just good luck with all the bolts. If you come to any problems, you can ask me, TJ, or Robby as we've been there for hours to do this.

[James Crivellone]

Good luck with it man.

I hope you have more luck then TJ did. I know part of what he had to go through to get his tranny out.

Anything I should know?

Well... I would've said remove the engine... I think it would be a hell of a lot easier. But it seems you started with it there. Just good luck with all the bolts. If you come to any problems, you can ask me, TJ, or Robby as we've been there for hours to do this.

Yeah pulling the motor is last resort at the moment, while its not hard its just another step I would have to do.

We will find out tommorrow

[Digitalwave]

Looks like you are going to tear me up time wise.

For removing the auto, we forgot to take the lower torque converter cover all the way off, and of course you have to loosen the flywheel bolts. Have someone help you buy putting a socket on the front crack to turn/hold the flywheel when removing the bolts.

[Erick]

And let us know if you find a 16mm bolt in the tranny :P

[hamann318is]

Good luck on this. I really wish I had the time and money to do some of this stuff. Can't wait to see yours completed!

[James Crivellone]

Day 2


Today was the final day of disassembly, tommorrow the car starts going together.


First thing I did today was remove the subframe and pop the bushings out, this took a blowtorch, a sawzall, and a big ass drill, either way each one took about 10 min to get out, tommorrow I am installing the new bushings into the carriers.

Second was the trailing arm bushings, these installed nicely and are ready to be installed.

The largest project of today was removing the ZF Slushbox, this took about 2 hours to remove from the car, it took around 5 minutes to remove the torque converter bolts, and another hour and a half to get the lines out and actually remove the transmission from the car, damn that sucker is heavy.

Tommorrow is day 1 of putting everything back together, first thing I am doing is removing the auto selector in the cabin, and installing the 5 speed pedal clusters and get hte slave cylinder all plumbed in. Second task I will bne installing the stainless brake lines and get the subframe reinstalled, once that is complete I will get the Getrag 260 installed into the car.

Here are pictures from today, when we set the tranny down it started leaking a bit, so it looks like I killed it, which may as well be the case :D






Also, you have no idea how much it helps to have friends around to help this, at once point I had 7 people around the car handing us tools, and getting under the car and wrenching on it, crowded but it worked out VERY well.

Anyway that is it for today, I will once again have an update tommorrow :D

[Kruzen]

where was i?

:evil:

[Erick]

wow! That's awsome timing! That car will be back in the road in no time.

[James Crivellone]

Day 3

No pictures, sorry I forgot to take some


Today had highs and lows, it went to the shitter when i found out that bmpd sent me the wrong clutch, so I could not install the transmission, the preassure plate does not line up with the flywheel pins at all, not even close. I called my contact at a local euro shop who has WorldPac and I am getting another clutch kit tommorrow at 2pm, so no big delay

with the tranmission not going in I concentrated on other projects, I removed the steering rack, and the M3 one will go in tommorrow. I also got the Rear Subframe installed, as well as my 3.25LSD Diff. The Pedals for the 5speed are installed and the slave is all plumbed in, and the stainless steel brakelines are installed. the center console shifter was removed and the hole is exposed for the shift linkage.

so tommorrow first off the rear end gets re assembled, and the steering rack gets installed, if all goes well the car will drive out of the garage in the late evening early morning :D