Where there was one, now there are two.... a M42 318i for the boy

[Jordan]

I have a good one now, well sort of. The fourth unit delivered has washers and lock washers under the nuts and those nuts broke free without an issue allowing me to flip the bracket so all is well. Goes into the car tomorrow.

[Jordan]

Some good progress today...

Pulled the center console and glovebox out so I could access and replace the evaporator and expansion valve. Found this gem while I was in there.



Console and glovebox, trim removed.



What look to be the original evaporator and expansion valve out on the bench. The valve is not labeled R12 or R134a, but the orings were original buna type, and the patina of the labels is correct for being 28 years old.



New evaporator and R134a expansion valve assembled and ready to shove in the IHKA case.



Installed



Sealed in with fresh cork butyl tape



New Nissens condenser, only took four to get a usable one...




Not pictured but a new receiver/driver was installed as well. All said and done I pulled a vacuum for 10 minutes, held it for thirty and passed vacuum testing.

I charged the system with 1.75lbs of R134a. Ambient temperature today at time of testing was 91F, with a humidity of 60%. Vent temp in the stall was observed at 47F. I'm sure it will drop a few more degrees when the vehicle is at speed on the road, but that is rad. I'm happy with that.


Last task for today was the smoked left rear wheel bearing. I only took one picture as I was fairly tired at this point and just wanted to get through it. This one was by far the easiest one I've ever done. The hub pulled out slick without the inner race sticking to it, the axle pushed out -by hand- and the wheel bearing itself pressed out and the new one back in with zero hassle.

[eternal24k]

Some good progress today...


Last task for today was the smoked left rear wheel bearing. I only took one picture as I was fairly tired at this point and just wanted to get through it. This one was by far the easiest one I've ever done. The hub pulled out slick without the inner race sticking to it, the axle pushed out -by hand- and the wheel bearing itself pressed out and the new one back in with zero hassle.

Looking good! What tools did you use for the rear wheel bearing? I just ordered an OTC 22mm hub installer as it looks like I need to do mine.

[Jordan]

I have this setup from HF, I've used it to do several dozen BMW wheel bearings on E30, E28, E36, E39 etc. Works great and pretty cheap.

https://www.harborfreight.com/front-wheel-bearing-adapters-63728.html

[Jordan]

A little bumparooski today.

Took the car over and got it through State Inspection without any fuss, then shot through a car wash, then filled the tank, then hauled the mail up north of Houston to a little gathering of Eurotrash

[Das Delfin]

No worries about the original A/C hoses?

My expansion valve has the same labels, including the yellow dot matrix stamped sticker. I have no reason to doubt its originality.

[Jordan]

No worries about the original A/C hoses?

My expansion valve has the same labels, including the yellow dot matrix stamped sticker. I have no reason to doubt its originality.

Thank you for the confirmation on the expansion valve, was pretty sure it had to be the original. No worries on the hoses, they all look to be in decent shape and if they leak there is dye in the system and I'll know. Regardless I can recharge the system eleventymillion times for the cost of the hoses and for what this car is that is a non issue.


Today I got the odometer gears replaced as while they may have worked when the seller parked it some years ago, they most definitely did not now. I went ahead and rolled the 50miles I put on the car last weekend onto the counter manually so at least I'm honest with it, then put it back together.



Also went back and changed the temporary t tap wiring on the keyless entry system I installed into permanent connections as I was satisfied with the function of the system.

[325isman]

Looking good and your son will love it.

[Jordan]

The last week has been one chronically trial and tribulation after another to sort several small details that have tested my mettle.

No one made comment that the BRAKE LINING light was on the above posted speedometer photo. I had already verified the friction components had sufficient life left and both sensors were intact so I didn't bother with it until now. Having reset the Service Interval lamp the brake lining warning was the sole lamp on the dash crying for attention.



Since I had been driving the car a bit here and there and have racked up a solid 100+ miles now the brakes albeit with life remaining... were noisy. Friction components for E30's are so damn cheap so I decided to just knock them out with new premium coated Textar rotors and pads.






Brakes were physically much improved now, and the shake at 80mph is gone, but the damn brake lining lamp is still on...

I sat down to comb over the warning lamp diagram which at first glance is simply, but the longer you look at it and try to apply it to a disassembled cluster... the more complicated it gets.



I found on the PCB of the cluster there was a resistor that had got pretty toasty, and the heat caused a cold solder joint....




Ah! I was so pleased with myself, I reflowed this resistor and found everything in spec so I put it all back together certain that was my problem... and nope....

I blew the cluster all back apart again to trace the path through the circuits and make sure I had not missed anything. I probed each through hole component and found all of the resistors and diodes in spec, and then wired up he bare board on the bench with a power supply to test the logic gate of the transistor switch. With 12v+ supplied to C1 pin 23, ground C1 pin 20, and a jumper between C1 pin 21 / C2 pin 26 the light was off. Remove the jumper, it came on! Satisfied I had proved the problem was NOT inside the cluster I put the thing back together -again- and reinstalled it in the vehicle.

My task then just became considerably larger in scale as I knew I either had an open somewhere in the brake lining circuit, or a short to ground. Either will trigger the warning lamp.

I began at the C1 connector, pin 21 and followed the wire through the car where I could easily access it. I checked the connector at the rear wear sensor first and found the chassis side to have 12v. I then moved up to the front sensor and probed its connector, and found again 12v to be present, but only on the black wire (coming from the rear sensor) I was probing in the engine bay so I disconnected the lead from the strut and pulled it all up and into the engine bay so I could work with it easier. With my fluke is tone mode I just started probing the brown wire until I found the section that was failed open....

Except... there was no damage to the insulation and there appeared to be nothing visually wrong... wtf... I literally poked at the wire with both probes until I narrowed it down to a 2" section of the brown wire just up stream of the LF wear sensor connector. I gentle tugging on the wire showed me that the conductor was broken inside the insulation as I could pull it apart... and did until the jacket snapped.

Note the 1/4" section of the insulation that is tapered from me tugging it apart... with no wire inside... how freaking odd!



Cleaned the wires up with some thinner, stripped back each jacket a little and used an open barrel splice to permanently crimp them back together.



A little heat shrink applied over the top of that union and it was done....

Big moment as reconnected the sensor to the end of the repaired harness, jumped back in the car, turned the key.. and rejoiced at the brake lining lamp going out! Yay!

[dasmanschaft012]

Ahh the little wins

[Jordan]

The replacement glass fog lamp lenses I ordered showed up today from Russia. Quality is nice, not OEM ZKW by any means, but perfectly nice enough for anyone unless you take a knee and make like you're going to lick a foglamp.

I had already broken and chipped the lenses off a spare pair of fogs and cleaned the sealant channel in preparation for their arrival. The left fog on the car is full of rusty residue from water intrusion so I elected to work from a spare set.



Applied a beam of 3M Windo-weld around the sealant channel and snapped each lense on before securing them for the cure overnight with padded bar clamps.

[2mAn]

Im guessing the other M42 car is still waiting for the motor to be built?

[Jordan]

Im guessing the other M42 car is still waiting for the motor to be built?

Yes, I'm waiting on a fairly serious setback I'm more than a little pissed off about.

I ordered a M47d20 crankshaft from a machine shop in the UK and paid a pretty penny for it as it had already been reconditioned and was "ready to go"

When my machinist finally got around to working with it and mocking up the engine he realized the stroke was off (82,8mm vs the 88mm it is supposed to be.

The place in the UK shipped me a M41d17 crankshaft instead. I send them several messages through ebay but once they realized I was asking for my money back they went completely silent and haven't returned a message in 9 days despite daily messaging.

I'm well outside the ebay/paypal timeframe for opening a claim so I'm not sure what to do with this shit.

[Jordan]

Now finished with the gaskets glued on, these look really nice for the money. $32 for the lenses shipped from Russia, and another $25 for a tube of 3M windoweld, of which you need about 2% of lol.

[jeenyus]

RTV works too.