Mike's Cosmos Black 1998 M3 Sedan (M3/4/5) - Project Concord

[mike.bmw]

Howdy R3V!

I have been slacking on my E30 318iS thread, but I have news! Last month I purchased a Cosmos Black 1998 M3 Sedan (M3/4/5). It's a 244,000-mile, two-owner car, with the second owner of ten years being a tech at the dealership where the car sold new. I've been binge watching M539 Restorations on YouTube lately, so taking a page from Sreten's book, I'm calling this Project Concord (as I purchased it in Concord, North Carolina).

DSC_0229 by mike.bevels, on Flickr

I've been running a series of articles on BimmerLife.com, so instead of rehashing everything here in the initial post, you can read about the fly-and-drive story and subsequent work that I've been doing over the past month in the following stories:

• Planes, Trains, and M3s: A Fly-And-Drive Story
• Project Concord: Breaking Eggs To Make An Omelette
• Channeling My Inner Hack Mechanic—Sometime
• Winter Is Coming—The Art Of Indoor Events

I'll work on setting up this thread in a similar fashion to my E30 thread, with a table of contents, some DIYs, experiences with the car, and lots of photos. So many photos you'll never want to see an E36 sedan again. Just you wait.

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It has required a bit of work, but I knew it would. Here are some specs as I've come to learn them:

Engine:
- AFE Intake
- Active Autowerke Exhaust

Drivetrain:
- E60 shifter
- Stamped Style 24 LTW wheels

Suspension:
- Bilstein Sports
- H&R Sport Springs

Interior:
- Boa Boa Cloth/Alcantara
- Professionally recovered headliner in suede/Alcantara
- Cocoa Mats
- Continental/VDO head unit

That's it for now. I'll be posting more updates soon. Thanks for following along!

[mike.bmw]

Reserved Post 1.

[mike.bmw]

Reserved Post 2.

[mike.bmw]

Reserved Post 3.

[KI4UJO]

Nice! As a fellow M3/4/5 owner, you won't regret this purchase decision. I've considered selling mine a couple of times, and then realize how stupid that would be.

[mike.bmw]

Happy Holidays!

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I have been trying to take that shot for a few weeks now, but the street has been closed for various activities. Well, not at 6:30AM this morning, when it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit outside! I had taken a similar shot with my E30 on Christmas Eve last year, just with the tree on the opposite side of the street:

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Lots of driving and various photos, when I have time:

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Other than that, I've been enjoying the car. It has received a new cooling system: Stewart pump, thermostat, CSF radiator w/ poly offset mounts for clearance, a new expansion tank and cap, and hoses all around (performed by a local shop RRT). I've done all of the door lock actuators, replaced the trans mounts, replaced the rear sway bar endlinks, replaced the trunk harness, replaced both broken front seat recline gears, and the washer fluid reservoir tank, hoses, nozzles, and valves. Lots more work to come!

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[YAN-3]

very cool. where in VA are ya located?

[mike.bmw]

very cool. where in VA are ya located?

Thanks! I'm in Northern, VA.

[mike.bmw]

I've been busy with lots of small-scale projects on Project Concord.

The windshield washer reservoir was cracked so I replaced it. But it couldn't have been that easy, right?

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The level sensor grommet broke, so I had to order one. Once I got that back together, I realized that washer fluid was coming out from under the hood pad, so I removed that to find the heated nozzles were cracked at the 90-degree bend where the hose attaches. I'm not a "cheap" person per se, but at $60 per heated nozzle I decided to go with non-heated nozzles and the corresponding check valves. New hose as well!

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I clipped the pigtails off the heated nozzles, heat-strinked the exposed ends, and electrical-taped them as well.

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Naturally once I had it all back together I realized that I had routed the hoses incorrectly. So I took it apart again and fixed that.

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Once the washer system was fully functional, I turned to something that had been bothering me since I bought the car: water spots on the windows. BAD water spots. Water spots forged in the depths of hell. Nothing seemed to remove these (specific water-spot removal chemicals, white vinegar/water solutions, magic eraser, etc). So I broke out the buffer and some compound. BOOM! Done.

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Another small project was replacing the lower door plugs. These were long gone and I believe the voids were causing extra wind noise while driving. I found some 20mm rubber sheet metal plugs on Amazon that work perfectly:

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Moving forward, I'll try to go into more detail on specific work/repairs/upgrades in individual posts. I glossed over some things that I had included in the BimmerLife articles linked in the first post: trunk harness replacement, door lock actuator replacement, trans mounts, rear sway bar endlinks, cooling system replacement, roof paint correction, driver and passenger seat recline gear replacement.

And some beauty shots for good measure:

DSC_0634 by mike.bevels, on Flickr

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[YAN-3]

Thanks! I'm in Northern, VA.

Woodbridge area. We should g2g for a shoot....once I get my M3 on the ground again lol

[mike.bmw]

I did some work on the car today. Well, let's be honest, I do work on the car every day. But today I'm posting about it!

After I had a shop replace the radiator, the thermostat failed open a week later. So I had the shop replace the water pump (Stewart), thermostat, hoses, expansion tank, etc. Pretty much everything except the coolant level sensor. And I had a shop do it because I didn't want to deal with coolant (draining, disposing, refilling, bleeding).

Well, that broke too. So today I replaced it. I did this without loosing too much coolant by clamping off the small top hose that runs to the expansion tank, and the larger lower hose that runs under the intake manifold.

I sucked out the coolant from the expansion tank with this nifty $10 extractor from Amazon. I put it in a clean (and empty) distilled water jug.

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And then I removed all of the pieces of the old coolant level sensor. It really came apart in there. I did this with a long, thin rod and pushed the debris out the open hold in the bottom of the expansion tank.

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I threaded the new sensor into place, unclamped the hoses, put the shroud back into place, buttoned everything up, and then bled the system.

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Job done. No more "Low coolant" warning light at start up and shut down. Hurray.

Earlier in the week, I replaced the alternator on my E30 318is (for a second time as the first one was DOA, which I found out after installing it).

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I also wrote a piece for BimmerLife this week on removing stubbon water spots from glass: https://bimmerlife.com/2023/01/16/wa...n-water-spots/

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And I got out a few times for one of my favorite things, taking photos of cars:

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[OSAH racing]

I love that British racing green e36. I am guessing its BRG. What did you think of it? awesome photo quality as usual.

[mike.bmw]

I love that British racing green e36. I am guessing its BRG. What did you think of it? awesome photo quality as usual.

Thanks! I have no idea what color green that E36 is, but it looks nice. May have been a wrap, but I didn't look too closely at it.

E36 Mini Meet at Katie's Cars and Coffee yesterday! 3 M345s and 3 coupes. There were a handful of other E36 Ms scattered throughout the event as well.

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And my friend Alexis' new acquisition as of a few months ago:

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And some shots of my M345, Project Concord, from a quick lunch run on Friday.

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[mike.bmw]

What's new? Last week I took a short trip to Puerto Rico with my family. And then I wrote a feature piece for BimmerLife and published it earlier this week (I'm the editor)!

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Article: https://bimmerlife.com/2023/01/30/bm...n-puerto-rico/

A friend hooked me up with a fire extinguisher mount, so today I picked up some hardware and installed it along with the loose fire extinguisher that came in the car.

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And I've been taking photos, which isn't a new thing. Another friend, Douglas, was kind enough to be a second driver.

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And we got some snow in Virginia. Barely any, but we'll count it.

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And more photos, just because I like taking them.

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That's all for now!

[mike.bmw]

Some minor fixes here and there, but nothing worth reporting. Lots of great driving though! Here are some shots form the past couple of weeks (and some bonus shots with a friend's E36 M3).

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And some shots of my E30 for good measure:

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