Joey's iS

[marines2060]

awesome progress joey, keep it up.

[IRON-E]

Hey joey, I like that trunk liner, I wonder wher you came up with that?.....

[JinormusJ]

awesome progress joey, keep it up.

Thanks, and thanks again for the hookup!

Hey joey, I like that trunk liner, I wonder wher you came up with that?.....

:pimp:

[TFJR]

Great stuff! Congrats on the completed swap.

[JinormusJ]

Thanks! Took a while, but im really enjoying it right now

Clutch dump ferrdaize!

Shifter is still really sloppy, but I don't know what else there is to refresh; new Garagistic linkage bushing, new shifter cup, new connector washers, new shift knuckle..

Seems like the slop is coming from the selector rod at the knuckle; might just sand down another plastic washer and shove that in there. We'll see

[IRON-E]

Try an e34 shifter, my buddy switched out my stock shifter and the slop is gone by about 85%.

[JinormusJ]

Joey's iS

The selector? Or the shifter itself?

I'm running a Z3 1.9, exactly what I was running in my last e30, but it was much more crisp. Slop is about an inch to the right; shifting into 1st/2nd is exactly like it should, but 5th is just jello-y

[IRON-E]

The selector? Or the shifter itself?

I'm running a Z3 1.9, exactly what I was running in my last e30, but it was much more crisp. Slop is about an inch to the right; shifting into 1st/2nd is exactly like it should, but 5th is just jello-y

Nvm

[JinormusJ]

Yeah

Now you know my confusion Ed haha

[JinormusJ]

Joey's iS

So carrying on with the thread:


I found a nice Z3 that Massi at Saab and Volvo Dismantling let me pick something off of:




Z3 2.7L/L Linear Steering rack
:firehop: :firehop: :firehop: :firehop: :firehop:



Isn't she pretty? :mrgreen:
Pulled from a 1999 Z3 2.8 with 61k miles that failed because of electrical problems.
Just replaced a few O-rings and this beauty is good to go; ready to mount


Here is the part plate; these racks have been discontinued by BMW and have been replaced by e36 racks with 2.7L/L. They won't have the same travel distance because they have been cut short. If you want an original Z3 Rack 2.7 L/L with the 54.5mm travel, you need this part number!



It reads 1 092 031
BMW complete part number reads:
32 12 1 092 031


Just need to find new tie rods; should order my spacer set from AKG within the next few days.

[JinormusJ]

Ordered my AKG steering rack kit; should be here by Thursday. Super excited

[JinormusJ]

Photobucket is down for the next 2-3 weeks, so I can't really update anything, but I can at least keep you guys up to speed on the thread.

Ended up doing my rack swap on Thursday (the day before I left for a weekend vacation). NEVER AGAIN will I leave my car unfixed over the weekend... Most stressful vacation I've ever been on because I ran into some issues with binding and auto-corrective steering not working.

I love my new Z3 Rack. Its amazing, steering radius is decreased (Meaning, your rack travels further and thus you have tighter steering; U-turns and u-turn clutch dumps/whips are easy as 1-2-3), and steering response is immense. I love it!......

Except for the fact I need an alignment BAD, I have a decent-to-huge amount of bump-steer, and my auto-return on my steering isn't returning my steering wheel to center after a turn (If I turn to full lock going 2mph, it stays stuck in full lock). My steering also has a flat spot taking any kind of tighter turn.

I have ruled out to the following factors:
1st: Alignment
My wheels are off bad. This will be the first thing I do at a hopefully reputable shop. I would normally just go to Ryan GMW, but they are 20 miles+ and require freeway travel; both of which are unsafe to do so as the car sits. The car does not "re-center" the wheel after a turn, meaning I have to manual turn the wheel back; however, when reversing, the auto-leveling steering works.

2nd: Binding
Possible binding of my knuckle is causing a flat spot. There is no audible metal grinding or sounds from the steering system while turning, just the hum of the power-steering pump under heavy load (full lock). I did not inspect the linkage knuckle while steering with the car on the lift to check for binding. (It was late and my buddy needed to leave and my e30 was the only car there). I probably should have, but I will have free time next week to work it out.

3rd: Bleeding
My fluid is brown in the reservoir. It was regular Red ATF before the swap, and my power-steering was working perfectly fine, but now it does not seem to return my wheel back to center after a turn. Maybe a kink in pressure lines causing uneven pressure (there is stuttering from the power-steering pump like its struggling to push fluid at a certain point in the turn, but not all the time.). Could this be a possible cause of my flat spot or lack of auto-correction as well? I will be checking my hoses as well as my knuckle when I have it up on the lift.




As of now, Car is rendered unsafe and inoperable, so I'd like to get all these sorted out ASAP. I was scared with all the bump-steer/twitchy memory-steer from just traveling 30MPH.

Luckily, just got back tonight, and since well... I have work tomorrow morning, with some grit, spit, can-do-it-ive-ness, and over 20+ hours of researching my situation over the weekend, it's fixed!

UPDATE

So I finally got back from my trip and was able to tackle the rest of this beast. Upon getting my car on jacks I noticed a few things:

1. Alignment and Auto-Centering
Yes, it came as to no surprise, my alignment was VERY toe-in /-----\. What I noticed before of just one wheel being off ended up being both wheels off with one way worse than the other. After some 20+ hours of researching steering geometry, castor, toe, and self-leveling; I've learned these key things.
Toe-in causes the wheels to be in a perpetual gridlock for grip and causes the wheels not to be able to self level, as the wheel opposite the turn (left turn/right wheel or right turn/left wheel) will be continually applying force into a steer. This in turn causes "memory-steer" which is often confused with bump-steer. Memory steer is the aspect that, if you steer to one side, the wheels will steer themselves back to that side because the opposite wheel will lock into more grip and continue the steer, even after the steering wheel is let go (and presumably, in a balanced system, will auto-level). Ultimately, this causes the car not to auto-level while traveling forward.
Toe-out, \-----/ on the other hand, will place the wheels in a position to where the castor will cause the wheels to be in a perpetual state of correction as both wheels are struggling to steer inward because of the nature of forward travel vs. grip of the wheel, leading to more stability, especially at higher speeds. After I aligned the wheels to correct specs as stated in the e30 Bentley manual: 1/32" toe-out (or close enough to that), my auto-correction worked perfectly fine.
I also noted that when I was toe-in, auto-leveling worked while I was traveling reverse, but now it work vice-versa (toe-out; auto-leveling while going forward).

2. Binding Knuckle. Bad.
I noticed the u-joint closest to the firewall (the top one; connected to the steering column spline, not the rack spline) was binging on itself from the increased angle of the rack; I ended up grinding the squared-off joints with a dremel to round them out, and a little inside the "U" and it freed up enough clearance. Applied some WD-40 afterward for safe measure and I'm free to enjoy my rack.

3. Bump-steer
After the barnyard string alignment and knuckle-binding issues were fixed, I took it out for a test drive and noticed NO BUMPSTEER WHATSOEVER with the spacer on top of the rack. It was better than even my stock e30 rack which had loads of bump steer. I made sure to drive over plenty of speed bumps and took an uneven back-road at higher speeds (60-70MPH): no drama to report.
As stated before, my "bump-steer" was actually memory-steer caused by my toe-in condition, and was confused as bump-steer. I also used the e36 tie-rods (which I highly recommend) because they are beefier, and have better tie-rod joints; these are probably the cause of my decreased bump -steer as my e30 rods were shot

4. Power steering stuttering.
I still have slight stuttering from my power-steering going lock-to-lock; not a full "OMG, it feels like power steering is gone" kind of stuttering, but just slight... Difficulty if that makes sense. As I had my car on jacks, I was spinning the wheel lock-to-lock and noticed my air bubbles coming out, so I put my money on air in my system; either it will most likely bleed itself out due to the nature of how BMW designed their power-steering system, or I just have to do a flush. No big deal as it hardly effects driving



TL-DR
My problems were:
1. Alignment was toe-in causing auto-centering not to work; aligning my wheels properly to slightly toe-out (1/32" toe-put) fixed my centering issue
2. Knuckle was binding; grinded down u-joint with dremel; no more binding.
3. No bumpsteer at stock height with spacers underneath rack. Stability better than even my e30 rack
4. Still have some air in system

Here's a picture of the glorious Z3 rack before being pulled just to null you all over (it's the only pic that seems to work ATM)



(And yes, I did replace that tie-rod ;D)






I have to say

OMG-HOLYCRAP this rack is awesome

[cgk_iii]

So guys i finally got all the pieces needed for my motor and am now looking for a machine shop to take it to. Someone who knows what they're doing but not going to over charge me. Any ideas? Suggestions?

[cgk_iii]

Wow definitely posted in the wrong thread ^^ My bad!

[JinormusJ]

B