316 superlite

[petrolhead]

I spent a fair amount of hours investigating what kind bump steer I get with my front end setup. I actually got some useful results and I was able to make it more neutral . Now I believeI can fine tune it and I know how to change it if the need arises in the future.

Height to which the steering rack is installed seemed to be the most critical. I tried with shims between tierod inner end and rack, but that seemed like no big deal even when you have steering angle. If anyone else has measured these I'd be very interested to learn.

Jarno

[petrolhead]

Port and Starboard control arms! A nice touch :grin:

I originally marked the diff bearing caps and shims to the casing like that so I won't mix them up. Then I saw similar color coding left/right on a Le Mans racer and got all excited :)

E36 (M-sport?) control arms with eccentric M3 bushes and new joints. Bushes move the wheel 2cm forwards, and the arms move it about 4-5mm. In all, quite a bit. Change in caster angle and caster trail should be noticeable. I even calculated how much it affects weight distribution :D, by ~1% or so.



Sway bar links will be M3-style for all the obvious reasons:

[Ray Smoodiver]

Port and Starboard control arms! A nice touch :grin:

[petrolhead]

I compared a pair of E36 control arms to E30 items. The E36 ones move the wheel 4mm forwards, contrary to what I've read from various sources. I am sure about my measurements. Any thoughts about this? Is there supposed to be a difference between E36 M sport and non-M sport arms? I'm thinking mine might be M-sport ones :/..

-Jarno

Rear axle bolted to the car. Noticed that the pipes for parking brake cables I made, are too short and in wrong position.

[Bearmw]

Hillarious man. I can so relate.

[petrolhead]

[petrolhead]

I bought a pair of Recaros.. They need new linings but that's a small problem. Only one of them in the pic. The other is torn gray :)

Short video of the seat, how it works. Commentary is in elvish: http://petrolhead.kuvat.fi/kuvat/BMW...203_220403.3gp

Rear axle, done!

[petrolhead]

I disassembled the rear arms:




Angle grinder, wire brush, sand blasting, acid..


Epoxy primer paint


Matte black spray can paint (3,90€ :) )


Assemble everything with new stuff..

[Sh3rpak!ng]

[petrolhead]

Rear end

After some creative pause, I started work on the rear axle carrier..

Set it up level:


..check if the mounting points are where they're supposed to be



-straighten as neccessary or atleast try :)

Attempted reinforcement welds where the factory welds looked insufficient:


..I used the angle gauge to also check the adjustment bits whatdoyoucallthem would be welded on in correct position:


Nut interferes with the bushing top hat. But not if you flip the bolt the other way around, I learned. Ofcourse then the trailing arm can't be removed without dropping the whole axle carrier but who does that anyway :)


Quick and careless sandblasting, then give it some wire brush & angle grinder, then a coat of epoxy primer:

No it won't stay white.

-Jarno


..edit:


..edit2: Tight fit with a flipped bolt, but no need to cut the bush top hat:

[Nisse Järnet]

Front pinion bearing must be pressed/pulled out to replace the crush sleeve. And for that, the ring gear/LSD unit needs to come out, but that isn't a big job.

A note on replacing shaft seals. They have a steel spring or ring around inner seal lip. I tried to rather press the seals in rather than hammer them on, so the small rings won't fly off.

Ok damn :P

I will try to just swap it and see how it feels :)

[petrolhead]

Final contact pattern was something like this, on the "acceleration"(?) side:


-coast side:


-Not the best pic nor the clearest contact marks I know :D

Final backlash, on the tight side but oh what the hell.. video: http://petrolhead.kuvat.fi/kuvat/198...330_165958.mp4

Some of the stuff that got replaced


Slip torque is now ~140Nm, whereas on a stock 25% LSD it's something like 40-50Nm.

-that note says "NO OIL! FILL UP THE OIL!" :D

[petrolhead]

Front pinion bearing must be pressed/pulled out to replace the crush sleeve. And for that, the ring gear/LSD unit needs to come out, but that isn't a big job.

A note on replacing shaft seals. They have a steel spring or ring around inner seal lip. I tried to rather press the seals in rather than hammer them on, so the small rings won't fly off.

[Nisse Järnet]

Yeah i think i will give that a try! The diff is in really good shape with low mileage so i dont plan to rebuild it.
Maybe a new crush sleeve will help, if you can replace it without disassemble the diff.. :P

[petrolhead]

Well, I know nothing about diffs either, I'm just trying to follow instuctions I have :D.
In theory.. Your pinion bearings are pressed close enough to eachother to have enough preload now, the crush sleeve is crushed in between. If you loosen the nut and re-tighten, it presses the bearings tighter and further crushes the piece in between, a little bit atleast :-?.
Repair manual says minimum of 185Nm should be reached on the nut but without exceeding max friction torque.

I don't know.. change the flange (and seal perhaps?), torque it to >185Nm an see if bearings bacame too tight. What's there to lose if you're playing with old used bearings etc. parts anyway. If it goes wrong just take it apart and reassemble with new stuff. That's what I'd probably do.

-Jarno