My $400 89 325i

[Jean]

Today I've installed the dash and the rest of the interior and started on the gas tank removal. I still need to clean the engine bay before installing the front subframe.

Got all new bolts/nuts for the front/rear subframes and trailing arms. Gaskets and hoses/pipes are for the heater core for my 318i.



Need to order new wheel bearings and related nuts/clips and bolts/nuts for the steering rack to subframe.

[GaryE30]

Looking good man! Cool build up.

[SpecM]

Man, that seems cheap. I have to do mine, but for $60 it does not seem worth the aggravation of doing it myself.

yea not bad, but that didn't include trailing arm removal I'm sure

[Jean]

yea not bad, but that didn't include trailing arm removal I'm sure

Nope, I already had them out though. I just brought the arms to the shop to do the job and will supply oem bearings (about 50 a pop).

[atomic]

Today I've installed the dash and the rest of the interior and started on the gas tank removal. I still need to clean the engine bay before installing the front subframe.

Got all new bolts/nuts for the front/rear subframes and trailing arms. Gaskets and hoses/pipes are for the heater core for my 318i.



Need to order new wheel bearings and related nuts/clips and bolts/nuts for the steering rack to subframe.

I do not see any CnB trademarks on those packages... :D


Project is coming along nicely too, looks great!

[Jean]

Yeah I was dissapointed too, wtf! :)

3 day weekend coming up so I plan on making some progress, maybe clean up the engine bay, remove the gask tank, remove rear shocks, remove inserts and hubs from the front struts and take them to the machine shop. Hopefully I'll have a ZF tranny and driveshaft this week for my m52. I would like to get the long block/tranny dropped in before the end of this year.

Steering rack can be installed with the engine (long block) installed yes? Reason is I have an e36 3.2 rack but it's condition is unknown to me and want to wait until I get a newer rack and use this one as a core or something. I have new complete tie rod ends / boots already for it and just need to get the steering linkage modified...

[alpinaclone]

With an m20 I know you can change racks in situ, I assume it is the same for the twinc engines. You can either tweak the lower mounting tabs a little (ghetto (me)) or unbolt the drivers side engine mount and jack the engine up a hair.

[E30FreaK89]

awsome work!! im glad to see that are still guys out there that when they pull everything apart they clean and paint (make everything look new again) before going back in!

[Jean]

Got a 97 ZF with shift linkage and tranny mount, along with flywheel (and used clutch lol) and driveshaft (fron end is from the zf, and I gotta figure out which of the two rear parts is the right one to use).









got the m52 flywheel as well







m52 guibo/flex disc



front side of the driveshaft



one of these two should be e36 328i, owner wasn't sure which one as he didn't mark them so I got both ends.



splines look the same



difference in length



i can't find any part numbers on it other than "17" on one and "29" on the other





I guess I'll need to measure it maybe and compare length against realoem or bentley or something else?

Any suggestions?

[e30s52]

nice build. that flywheel looks really tired. how many miles are on it?

[Jean]

80k according to po...does it look like I need another one or?

[el bob]

If you can, bring the flywheel by the machine shop. At the worst, it'll just need a re-grind. The machine to use for flywheel surfacing is called a Blanchard Grinder.

That flywheel doesn't look like a regular M20 flywheel so I'm not sure if it will need the same grinding procedure, but hopefully the machine shop will know.

You probably already know this, but now that the sections of the driveshafts are separated, you need to get the complete, two-piece assembly rebalanced whenever you decide to reattach one of the two back halves. That is, unless you know exactly which orientation to use and you know exactly which one of those pieces came attached to the front half from the factory. It's not a big job or anything, just an important one.

Argh I need a trans too! lol

[Jean]

I wasn't happy when I saw the driveshaft wasn't marked, so yes I'll look for a local driveshaft shop that will get it balanced and put a new CSB on it. I need to read up on what CSB I should use (e36 vs e30) and make sure I give them the right rear section of the driveshaft.

Flywheel, I'll drop it off tomorrow and see what machine shop will tell me. I assume any machine shop will know what to do, and how to check if it's within spec yes?

Thanks.

[el bob]

I would like to say that any machine shop will know what to do, but some flywheels are special. Peerless, real name Robert I believe (?), recently had to jump through some hoola hoops to find a machinist capable of resurfacing the dual-mass flywheel he recently serviced for an M42 E30. IIRC, the machinist had to know how to specially separate the different parts of the flywheel before doing machine work and then also how to reassemble them.

If it was me, I would send a quick email to Matt @ The Racers Market and ask him if there's anything special about it. He works with Mike McCoy and the rest of the TRM crew who know these things as part of their job.

I would also call up VAC Motorsports and ask them how they do it. It's not really wasting their time because in the odd event you find that you will die if it's not done the miraculous way they do it, they'll get some business out of the phone call. Most likely not, but the possibility exists so the call isn't without merit. Chances are it's just a simple, "throw it on the grinder" answer that any machinist in the country could tell you, but I don't know for sure.

[e30this]

did you find anything out about the flywheel jean?