Back in Black (now with s50 and bags)

[dillon7]

Time for more updates.

First I got the car outside and degreased the bay and undercarriage.






Cleaned up my headers, driveshaft, and motor arm a little.




Then I decided to go ahead and pull the old seats out. A lot of you have been asking how they mounted and well, they are mounted pretty bad. The PO just drilled through the floorboard and stuck a bolt and nut on and called it quits...:hitler:




Anyways after gawking at the stupidity I got the seats out to reveal my extremely filthy carpet that will need cleaning soon. I didn't even bother with the awful wiring and just cut the wires, guess I'll have to go trace those all the way back soon but for now it will do.




Next up was to paint the seat belt clicks or whatever you call them.

I had some toyota TRD red paint laying around so I just used that. It came out pretty good.

Before:



After:




Then my Dad got home with the transmission and flywheel.

He fixed the bad seal and machined down the flywheel for me and also cleaned up the transmission.

All clean



Lovely flywheel



Inside of the transmission




Next up was to put the other motor arm on and get the engine attached to the hoist.






Last but not least was the e36 steering rack.

Got the old rack out with no problems.




Grinded off the perch and got the steering knuckle apart.






Went to go install the AKG kit and holes in the knuckle were too small so I had to drill those out to fit.




Then the a little ridge got in the way so I had to grind that off as well but after that I got the knuckle back together and assembled.




Next, I put the rack back in and tested to see if anything hit. I had a small place where I was rubbing on the knuckle so I grinded that down as well. After that everything felt good so I was good to go.






Then I went to go install the tie rod ends and well.....they wouldn't work.

The tie rod on the rack is male threaded along with the e30 tie rod ends so I have to figure something out. I'm kind of confused because everything I read just said put the old TRE on the new rack but never really posted pictures so I never thought anything of it. Any help here? Here are some pics.






That's it for now. More work to be done tomorrow. If somebody could comment on my tie rod situation that would be lovely. Thanks!

[misterCAFE]

deal with the tie rods for e36 rack swap: e30 or e36 but only the WHOLE UNIT cannot mix match innner/outer between series. dope build looks like your dads got you hooked up:up:

[dillon7]

deal with the tie rods for e36 rack swap: e30 or e36 but only the WHOLE UNIT cannot mix match innner/outer between series. dope build looks like your dads got you hooked up:up:

ah gotcha, don't know how I missed that important piece of info.

Thanks!

Now the question is old e30 tie rods, new e30 tie rods, or e36 tie rods.

[misterCAFE]

e36 are beefier. thats my only advice

[dillon7]

e36 are beefier. thats my only advice

Do they fit without any modification?

[misterCAFE]

yep if your e36 inner tie rods are still good just order new e36 outer tie rods (lemf) and save some money

[KVF]

Do they fit without any modification?

Yes. Very nice father and son build.

[dillon7]

I didn't get as much done as I was hoping to but oh well better than nothing.

Relocating the break booster took a lot longer than I expected. Looking online people were just saying drill 4 new holes, cut out the bigger hole and you're done. Yaaaa didn't exactly go that way.

Got the Brake booster out without a problem. Next I cut some of the rubber on the firewall and marked my new drill holes.





Next I drilled the four new holes.



Then I realized that one of the holes goes through the bracket that holds the pedals and you cant really get a nut on the bolt where the new hole is so that bracket had to come out.

I cut one of the welds and hammered down around the area where the nut wouldn't fit so it would.

My homemade vice



cut the weld



Bent it enough for the nut to fit then tac welded it back on



Rough marking of the new hole size



Got it cut out to where I needed it.



Cut out the firewall to match



Then I painted my brake booster.




That's about where I'm at now. I put the bracket back in and the pedals back on so now the break booster just needs to be bolted back in place.

I need to get an output shaft so I can line up my clutch and put it back in. Getting one this week so next time I'm home the motor will be going in and I'll be close to finishing.

I need to order e36 TRE and either a CAI system or just a stock intake boot. Any recommendations on that?

Hopefully I can get home here sometime soon so I can finish her up and go enjoy her.

[JCarp90]

I did the same thing with my tie rods. I felt so stupid. In the end, I used E36 inner and outer and they were perfect.

Also, my brake booster/pedal modification didn't look near as pretty as yours. Nice work.

[dillon7]

I did the same thing with my tie rods. I felt so stupid. In the end, I used E36 inner and outer and they were perfect.

Also, my brake booster/pedal modification didn't look near as pretty as yours. Nice work.

haha I felt like an idiot, I ordered the e36 TRE though. And thanks man, it's not that pretty but it gets the job done.

[NickL]

If you didn't modify the clevis you'll potentially have binding issues and possible premature wear on the master.

Should of just gone with the 944 booster man. Literally 2 minutes of modification and bolts right in. Clears great and are like 30$ used in a junkyard.

And lemme know if you have any questions about the swap.

[dillon7]

If you didn't modify the clevis you'll potentially have binding issues and possible premature wear on the master.

Should of just gone with the 944 booster man. Literally 2 minutes of modification and bolts right in. Clears great and are like 30$ used in a junkyard.

And lemme know if you have any questions about the swap.

Clevis is being modified, I will post pics when I do it.

Kind of wish I would have done the 944 now, but at the time I had no idea it would take this long just to move it over. Oh well live and learn.

But thanks hopefully the rest of the swap should go pretty simple. The only hard thing is the wiring which I at least have the adapter for.

oh and what intake are you running on your car? looks great.

[NickL]

Clevis is being modified, I will post pics when I do it.

Kind of wish I would have done the 944 now, but at the time I had no idea it would take this long just to move it over. Oh well live and learn.

But thanks hopefully the rest of the swap should go pretty simple. The only hard thing is the wiring which I at least have the adapter for.

oh and what intake are you running on your car? looks great.

Its just a bimmerworld 3.5" silicon boot, 3.5" euro MAF and cone filter from auto zone haha.

[dillon7]

Its just a bimmerworld 3.5" silicon boot, 3.5" euro MAF and cone filter from auto zone haha.

this

http://store.bimmerworld.com/e36-euro-hfm---mass-air-meter-only-p525.aspx

and this?

http://store.bimmerworld.com/e36-euro-hfm---mass-air-meter-only-p525.aspx

Is it really worth the $300 over just getting a stock one?

[dillon7]

Not really an update just posting some recent part purchases.

For now I'm just going with the stock air intake system. I couldn't bring myself to spend $350 on a euro MAF.

So I went and searched on ebay real quick and got a good deal on a stock HFM and intake boot. So I spent $90 for that.

Next was searching for the gaskets I still needed which were the intake manifold gasket and exhaust manifold gasket.



ECS Tuning is the way to go.

Sorry for boring updates, just documenting everything I have to make sure I don't forget anything.