Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

GS6-37DZ transmission has a shorter clutch shaft because the pilot bearing is located at the flywheel in those engines. Also it has a finer bore of 26x29-22N. I will most likely fabricate extension for the clutch shaft so before I parted with the 5-speed ZF I made measurements of the pilot bearing shaft location.





I realized only later that I could also have measured the total length of the transmission from bell housing flange to output shaft flange to know exactly how much I need to shorten the drive shaft but I'm sure I'll find that information somewhere or just test-fit and measure it when I have the new tranny.

Today I took similar measurements from the 6-speed box. The clutch shaft is about 20mm shorter than in the 5-speed box. Distance from the bell housing flange to clutch shaft end is 26mm when it is 5,5 mm in the 5-speed. Earlier I planned on doing a temperature fit extension to clutch shaft that would grip on the original surface for the pilot bearing. It seems that it's not quite as simple as I thought. The length difference is so small that I wouldn't be able to keep the dimensions of the extension the same is in the original clutch shaft. In the original shaft the narrow part for the pilot bearing is 28mm long but the width of the bearing is only 10 mm I think. I would have to measure exactly where the bearing sits and then make the extension as necessary and still I might need to shorten the original shaft.

Then I started thinking about making the extension in the end of the crankshaft instead of the clutch shaft. I could make an extension that would be temperature fit on the original pilot bearing housing and would bring the pilot bearing 20 mm outwards. Pros: no need to do any irreversible changes to clutch shaft, easier to remove with a gear puller or a slide hammer without damaging the transmission bearings. Cons: There is more vibration in the crankshaft than in the clutch shaft so the risk of the extension vibrating itself loose is greater. I think I've seen commercial pilot bearing adapters like this somewhere but I don't remember where anymore.

[Click]

10/10 would spend another 2 hours reading start to now. I'm doing a lot of rust repair on my own car and it's good to see other people saving theirs. Never heard of KeyParts/Klokkerholm before reading your thread but I def plan on getting a set of rocker panels from them now!

[Skarpa]

10/10 would spend another 2 hours reading start to now. I'm doing a lot of rust repair on my own car and it's good to see other people saving theirs. Never heard of KeyParts/Klokkerholm before reading your thread but I def plan on getting a set of rocker panels from them now!

Glad to be of help :up:

[Skarpa]

I got the powdercoated parts in my hand and they are like candy. I compared a powdercoated and a painted part side by side to see if there's any difference in color. They are very close to each other. Good to know even though it's not very important in this case.


Now that I have the valve cover at hand again I wanted to see if I can actually run the breather hose as I was planning. It's incredibly tight fit between the TPS, throttle linkage, vanos solenoid, vanos hose and the coolant pipe but manages to actually clear everything.






Breather will sit something like this. I made a cardboard template for the bracket and ordered it laser cut along with the plenum brackets. The upper hose work very nicely when flipped front to back.


While switching valve covers I had a look at the valve train. Nothing out of ordinary there


Then I welded shut all the holes I drilled when removing the crosswise frame beam. I've been avoiding that because it sucks. I did replace my spot weld drill so if I was doing the same job now I could avoid drilling through everything. Oh well.


Next time I think I'll do the brackets for the sway bar and the differential.

[Skarpa]

Sway bar bracket:

[Skarpa]

I got the brackets for oil separator and plenum from the laser cutter.



I still need to weld a nut in the oil separator bracket and make some fine adjustment for it's position. Otherwise I'm happy. Although time will tell if anything needs to be changed when everything is attached to the block.

At the garage I fabricated the other sway bar bracket.


Then I took apart the rear axle and swapped the typ. 168 with the shell of typ. 188 and E36 rear cover. I lifted the rear subframe back and supported it in roughly correct orientation.




Next time I'll check the orientation with laser and make the brackets for the rear cover.

[Skarpa]

Happy birthday, project Armo! Four years ago I started taking the car apart. There's not that much recent progress, though. Except that I went on a mad shopping spree for parts and packets are starting to arrive. More on that later.

[Clearprop]

This is one crazy build... You're pretty much rebuilding a BMW from scratch!

[bmwtool]

Fantastic build.

[Skarpa]

This is one crazy build... You're pretty much rebuilding a BMW from scratch!

Fantastic build.

Thanks!

Today I tackled the fuel pump. I bought a used fuel pump assembly from a fuel injected car to get the tank sensor and the fuel pump mount. The pump is supposed to be in working order as well but I had already bought a 255 lph Walbro so that's what I'll use. It's an unused one so I know where I stand with it.


Walbro and the stock pump are shaped differently at the bottom and the pump mount required some filing to accommodate the filter.




I cut a piece of 5mm rubber under the pump for vibration insulation.


I also wrapped the pump in rubber and fixed it with two hose clamps.


After thinking about it for a moment I realized that it's never going to fit through the tank hole like this. I removed the rubber and the clamps and the pump still seems to sit there pretty firmly. I think that's the way the original pump is mounted as well. I soldered new wires for the connectors. I had cut the originals to remove the connectors to re-plate the pump mount.

Ready to stick into tank.

[Skarpa]

Yesterday I made the brackets for the diff rear cover. I checked with laser that the diff points in same direction as before and then made vertical brackets out of RHS.


The diff must of course be only supported by the bushings so I put 5mm worth of washers between the bushing and RHS. I will replace them later with steel discs.




I welded everything tightly and felt smug. Then it struck me: The sway bar - where will it sit? And the correct answer is of course: Exactly where I just spent 30 minutes welding new steel beams.


So I took a grinder and turned the top ends of my brackets into dust. I added chamfers and closed the top ends with pieces of plate.


Because I had just cut off about half of my previus welding seams I added gussets for the brackets.


I tried to finish as much of the welding as possible so I tacked all kinds of small screws and brackets in place. I also added the support for gas tank filler pipe. The original piece was surprisingly rustless.


Then I made the pass-through for the gas tank breather pipe.








[

Not a lot of welding left anymore..

[Skarpa]

Brake calipers assembled:

[Skarpa]

Christmas came and went and Santa was very generous this year:

[Insert huge pile of original spare parts, cant be bothered to rehost the pics]

Now that the christmas hurry is over I had time to work at the carage for change. I glued the gas tank breather protection tube in place as well as the spacers for the diff brackets.


On the previous pic you can see an opening where I cut away a rusted through body stud. I patched that and made a new stud out of a cut sheet metal screw.

[Northern]

Then I started thinking about making the extension in the end of the crankshaft instead of the clutch shaft. I could make an extension that would be temperature fit on the original pilot bearing housing and would bring the pilot bearing 20 mm outwards. Pros: no need to do any irreversible changes to clutch shaft, easier to remove with a gear puller or a slide hammer without damaging the transmission bearings. Cons: There is more vibration in the crankshaft than in the clutch shaft so the risk of the extension vibrating itself loose is greater. I think I've seen commercial pilot bearing adapters like this somewhere but I don't remember where anymore.

There was some place (I think Zionsville?) that used to sell these pilot bearing adapters, but if I remember right, they stopped selling them because of failures where it would vibrate loose.

with a quick google search, it looks like JB racing still sell something like this.

[Skarpa]

There was some place (I think Zionsville?) that used to sell these pilot bearing adapters, but if I remember right, they stopped selling them because of failures where it would vibrate loose.

with a quick google search, it looks like JB racing still sell something like this.

Alright, thanks. i found the Zionsville part also myself and noticed that they don't have it available any more. I did some measurements and it seems that the clutch shaft would actually be able to enter the pilot bearing a few millimeters even in stock position. At the moment I'm contemplating on using a wider than stock bearing (13mm is the maximum width I found) and using a spacer or another bearing behind it to leave the bearing protruding a few mills. I'll use a bit of play-dough or something similar on the clutch shaft and test-fit the transmission to see how much it actually enters the bearing. Measuring it is not so accurate since you need to take several measurements and calculate from there so the measuring errors may sum up.

And then for something completely different: I just love hove nice the parts sometimes turn just by cleaning them. In this case the drive shaft tunnel heat shield.

Before:


After:


Mint! As they would say in a certain dead roadside animal themed youtube show.