The complete repair, rebuild, repaint, and v8 swap of my early model sedan

[dirty30]

Yep, which was a week long ordeal after I broke a few of the bolts removing it.

It's weird, the leak almost completely stopped on its own. But there is still some dripping occasionally. I'm going to finish putting it together and hope for the best. I at least want to get a few test drives in, so if I do have to tear it out, I can fix any other issues at the same time.

I had to rebuild my exhaust today, since the trans bracket was moved back further with the 6 speed. That was an unpleasant surprise. I ran out of gas right away, and of course the local gas place had no replacement bottles.

I swear, this car hates me.

Haha! I can't wait to see what catastrophic failure awaits after I finish the last two projects on mine, the stock filter housing install and the power steering.

[ThatOneEuroE30]

This thing is awesome good work

[JGood]

I drove the car for about an hour today on some back roads. I'm definitely going to have to get used to the shifter, the 6 speed pattern seems tighter then the 5 speed. I keep grabbing 5th and 6th going for 3rd and 4th. Better then the other way around haha.

I bought some UV dye for the coolant. It looks like there's a puddle around the valley pan gasket. I've never wished for a valley pan gasket leak, but I'd give anything for that to be the problem right now! I could fix that in a few hours.

The power is good, hard to compare with the 4.0 since I switched to a 3.25 rear at the same time. The most noticeable change is the increase in power in lower RPM's. Feels like a good 50+ lb ft increase from 2k to 4k. Again, that could just be placebo from the gearing. I'll need to get it on a dyno when I get everything straight.

[Batz]

Nice job! Cant wait for the dyno chart!

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk

[JGood]

UV dye don't lie!





The valley pan must be the culprit. This is GREAT news, as I don't have to tear the entire car apart and pull the engine, just need to pull the intake manifold off. The reason it's pouring water from the bellhousing is that there is two weep holes in the back of the block above the valley pan for coolant to escape.

The bad news, is that I don't know why it's leaking. It's a new pan and gasket. I decided to try the Uro brand "upgrade pan", with a built in viton gasket. I figured this must be an upgrade to the stock gasket. However, just in Uro parts fashion, it didn't fit for shit. I had to ream out a few of the holes on opposing corners of the pan to get all of the bolts in. So I think I'll just get a new OEM pan and try that.

[dirty30]

The bad news, is that I don't know why it's leaking. It's a new pan and gasket. I decided to try the Uro brand "upgrade pan", with a built in viton gasket. I figured this must be an upgrade to the stock gasket. However, just in Uro parts fashion, it didn't fit for shit. I had to ream out a few of the holes on opposing corners of the pan to get all of the bolts in. So I think I'll just get a new OEM pan and try that.

Scrape that peice of shit gasket off the valley pan you have, order this part number (11 14 1 736 175) and install it. Thats what I have on mine, the super top secret valley pan replaceable gasket part number! Only about $15ish.

[JGood]

Scrape that peice of shit gasket off the valley pan you have, order this part number (11 14 1 736 175) and install it. Thats what I have on mine, the super top secret valley pan replaceable gasket part number! Only about $15ish.

I read the thread where you guys discussed that gasket. I called the dealer, they didn't have it, but did have the whole pan with rubber gasket. I think the issue was the casting of the Uro pan, so I just got a new pan. I'll get the seperate gasket to install on that pan next time.

I put it back together and drove it an hour, didn't leak a drop. I'm so glad I don't have to pull the engine. I just need to finish some exhaust work.

[JGood]

Here's the OE pan vs the Uro 'upgrade' pan. You can see the Uro pan has a bigger gasket and a retaining lip to keep it from blowing out. Pretty good design, pretty poor execution. The holes aren't drilled properly, I had to drill a bunch of them out bigger to even get the bolts in. Not that that bolt holes themselves weren't big enough, but the pattern was off, I could only get half of the bolts in at a time, the other half wouldn't line up. Obviously the pan is also warped or something, as it leaked when installed, and the gasket wasn't blown out. Sucks that they went through the effort to make a better design, but didn't go through the effort to make the thing fit right.

As of now, looks like Ryan's suggestion for the OE pan with the early style paper gasket is the way to go.

Uro pan:


OE pan:

[JGood]

And now that I'm looking at the old style gasket, it doesn't look compatible with the new pans. You'd either have to have one of the old m60 pans (discontinued?) or machine one of the new pans flat. Which may bring about it's own set of problems...






You can see the old style pan doesn't have the 'feet' around the bolt holes. Definitely a better design.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Looks like the new style pan has the o-ring seal integral, so that there's no reason to use the old seal with the new pan... do the new pans frequently end up leaking?

[JGood]

Yes, they're a known weak spot.


My damn fuel pump died tonight. Started hesitating and cutting out above 4k. Hooked up a pressure gauge, went for a drive, and sure enough, went from 50 to 30psi at full throttle above 4k. Always something....

[JGood]

I replaced the fuel pump with one I had laying around, and it fixed the issue for a few weeks. Then yesterday, it did the same thing, hit 5k and it lost power. It only did it once, but that pump is old, so I ordered a new stock Bosch pump last night. Last thing I want to do is kill this engine by running lean.

I'm hoping the stock pump is enough for this engine. Bruce did the calculations and posted them in the V8 subforum... a stock m60 uses up to 89 LPH of fuel, and figuring in about 315 BHP and less efficiency (.6 BSFC), it would be 119 LPH. The stock external fuel pump in late e30's is rated for 130 LPH. But, I have an early model with a low pressure in-tank pump as well. Assuming the external pumps flow the same, then I should have enough pressure, and it should sit at 51psi until redline without a problem.

I'll probably do a single in-tank Warlboro 255 with new high pressure lines next winter. I just really don't have the time/money right now for unneeded projects/mods.



Also, I know you guys like low quality video, especially taken vertically, so here is one that my friend sent me the other day. Uploaded in all of it's 240p glory.




I promise I'll get some better footage soon!

[MPLFoster]

damn. this is good.

[Denny]

Wow read the whole thread.... AMAZING! Build...

[Jon Merck]

Nice work Justin!

What clutch did you use on the 6 spd and is it holding good? I swapped mine to 6spd recently and the 540i stock clutch is slipping...