1984 318i build

[HENNAROT318i]

Took 2 hours to get the driveshaft to telescope, and another hour for the diff. It is finally back together and ready to go.

[2mAn]

Just tried to tap in the driveshaft and it won’t budge, guess I have to take more stuff apart to find out why.

Move further upstream towards the middle of the car. You'll see that its a two piece driveshaft. Likely will need to take a few more parts off, and being an old car that probably has never been taken apart prepare the curse jar and have lots of penetrating fluid on hand. You'll get it, its just going to take longer than expected to knock it out.

[HENNAROT318i]

Just tried to tap in the driveshaft and it won’t budge, guess I have to take more stuff apart to find out why.

[tyeler18]

The swap was a failure, the 410 diff is 3/4inch longer than the one in my car. I tried for 3 hours to get it to fit before I gave up. I thought the driveshaft would telescope some like on the muscle cars I am use to working on. So without the driveshaft able to telescope the diff will never fit. 😔

It does telescope at the center support bearing, yours probably pulled out some while removing the old diff. Either way a rubber mallet will smack it back into place. An e30 diff is an e30 diff, doesnt matter if it's medium or small case they both interchange the same.

[HENNAROT318i]

The swap was a failure, the 410 diff is 3/4inch longer than the one in my car. I tried for 3 hours to get it to fit before I gave up. I thought the driveshaft would telescope some like on the muscle cars I am use to working on. So without the driveshaft able to telescope the diff will never fit. 😔

[HENNAROT318i]

Decided to tackle the diff swap today.

[2mAn]

Smart, with a tight budget you should definitely sell the cloth interior. Not a common thing in the US so its desirable. Maybe try and package it as a whole interior deal with the door panels. You can easily get some tan vinyl door panels and by selling the interior as a complete package you should be able to get a nice amount to someone who wants the cloth

Id sell the rear wing too personally

Keep it up

[HENNAROT318i]

I still have it along with the front seats, planned on trying to sell them.

[2mAn]

Hopefully that cloth rear seat cover that you replaced with the matching leather wasnt ruined. Quite a few people would've given you some money for that

[HENNAROT318i]

I had an impulse buy that showed up, a 410lsd. Probably shouldn’t have bought it right now, but for $400 I couldn’t pass it up.

[HENNAROT318i]

Thanks for the tips packratbimmer. I will check those things out while I have the pan off. Hopefully everything is ok, because the car only has 91k on it. I did do a compression check and had 150 across all four cylinders.

[packratbimmer]

Came home tonight at a package of goodies, my injectors came. I decided to throw them in real quick. They seem to have fixed my super rich running problem, however now I have discovered it is way out of time. So I guess I will have to work on setting the timing.

Fill it with 93 octane - run it a little bit - find a hill - advance the timing until it pings a little - back off timing a smidge until the ping goes away. BTW from what I can remember, there are two possible pistons back in 1984 (round dome and piano dome, but not a piano like a BMW 2002). I suspect the two different pistons offered specific compression ratios. One might require 93 octane and the other not.

[packratbimmer]

I was wondering if this is something rare, as I have yet to see another one. I am trying to find some info on it before I start trying to clean it up and possibly ruin it.

Interesting! I have only seen one in my life. Where? On the back of my 1984 Euro 318i back in the day.

[packratbimmer]

If it has over 150K on it check the oil pump clearances while you have the pan off. Also, if it starts up and revs high for a moment while making a rattling noise you might consider putting a new set of rod bearings in while the pan is off. The 1984 L-Jet was not as refined as the 1985 and allowed the engine to rev too much on start up - that toasted a lot of bearings. The 318i M10 is a 300K + engine, but might need an oil pump, rod bearings and valve guides around 200K or so. I was heavily into these back in the 90s so feel free to fire away with questions. Good luck!

[HENNAROT318i]

Spent the day setting the timing and dyed the carpet black. Also found out my tps and o2 is bad so have those in order