91 318is Never ending project(s) journal

[Drei Zwanzig]

Man, oh man... what a turn-around. Well done indeed. You really pay attention to details and I love that. I also like that you don't take any shortcuts as so many do nowadays... "get them coilovers on, slap in that big engine, stance/poke/fitment/thing and go do some donuts while filming for Instagram..." -type of jobs, and that's cool too, but there's nothing like a thorough project like this one.
Now I sounded very old (I'm not... I am.. well, I'm not :p).

You gave me several good ideas for my own build, and quite a lot of tips. Thanks.

Can't wait to see the final product when it's painted etc...
Good luck with the rest of your restoration.

Stay with it!!

[monty23psk]

Got the diff back from Agent and his father in law Mark. Things a beauty. It got a rebuild including the REM polishing. Here is the diff returned with a nice fresh paint coat. You can also see the Condor stud kit as well. Hope to have the car on the road Wed night. Just need to install it and add a quart of Redline oil.




Here is picture of the internals as is and then after the REM polish.

[Powling]

GHAT DAMN! Its beautiful.

[monty23psk]

Whine is GONE!!!!! So good to drive a quiet car inside the cabin. Dealt with it for about 2 years. Even the exhaust is on the quiet side. Here is a quick (and bad) shot of it installed.


I also finished the plastic treatment for the jack holder knob. Here are the 3 items installed.

[monty23psk]

Took the DA and some extra rubbing compound to shine her up before leaving to the Vintage. Better that the current hazy red look.

[monty23psk]

After my 2k mile trip for the vintage, I notice with the extra weight in the trunk and bumps on the road, I was getting a little rubbing at the rear fenders with the 215 tires. Not sure why BMW did this, but the rear fenders are rolled only half the way and the front half is at 90 degrees. On the trip, I ordered the Eastwood fender roller as for its price, had the best review. I received it and just today after 2 hours with a heat gun, the full arch is rolled and no more rubbing over bumps. Here is a picture of the machine. I will be renting it out through my rental website to fellow enthusiasts.

[monty23psk]

So after driving a bunch of miles with the new rear end, it am still getting a small clunk when I put it in gear from the rear. The only thing I didn't replace was the diff mount. I have a BMW made mz3 solid rubber one but it has 12 years and ~120k miles on it. Since I went the AKG path, I got one for for the diff. I just to the old one pressed out and new one in. I also got the rear aligned at a shop to get it back in spec as much as possible with the adjustable TABs.

[midnytegsedan]

Nice fathers day read. Went through your whole thread, great work.!!

[ForcedFirebird]

Nice fathers day read. Went through your whole thread, great work.!!

Met this guy about 8 or 9 yr ago. Small meet, about 5 people showed up. Top notch resto right here!!!

[monty23psk]

Hey everyone, been awhile. Since my last update, our 3rd child was born so car has just been sitting there with minor use or work. In preparation for the 2019 Vintage, I am starting up again. I sent in cluster to Bavarian Restoration to restore the instrument cluster as my SI board is bad, and I have a battery drain. I also have a sporadic speedo/mpg gauge and it all points to the instrument cluster. I got it back and here is a picture of it. I also has order some years ago a new trim piece that goes below and new screws from BMW. I painted the bezel when I painted the cluster face. Bavarian also added a speedo calibration tool, which is the cable you see at the bottom. I will use my phone's GPS to calibrate the speed.



The car is on jack stands, as I am also upgrading my diff to a 3.73 LSD. Agent, on this board, is helping me with it. They rebuilt my 4.10 open diff.

[monty23psk]

I decided to change my spare tire as I needed a 6.5 wide rim so that the tire did not bump up the trunk carpet. I found out that the e34 spare tire, is a steelie with the right width. I found one pretty much never used and swapped the tire.

[Codym42]

I didn't know Bav Rest made a speedo calibration tool. That's really cool. Does it plug into the stock cluster or are there other modifications to be made?

Hopefully I'll see you and your car at The Vintage! I've registered mine but I need to fix a few things before I trust it to make the drive there and back.

[monty23psk]

I didn't know Bav Rest made a speedo calibration tool. That's really cool. Does it plug into the stock cluster or are there other modifications to be made?

Hopefully I'll see you and your car at The Vintage! I've registered mine but I need to fix a few things before I trust it to make the drive there and back.

Hey Cody,

I don't know if it plugs in or is solder. The wiring goes into the cluster where the speedo is but I didnt take it apart at that level when I got it back to know for sure. Reach out to Greg at Bav Rest for the details. The cost for it was $20 on top of what he did, so I didn't hesitate to add it. Still need to do the calibration so then I can tidy up cover over the steering column.

Hope to see you at the Vintage.

[monty23psk]

A small quarantine update. I have notice that my battery is not holding a charger after 48 hours. I only have a 43mA draw with everything connected, so I know I am within specs. But batter is now 2 years old and lower Bosch model. I would love a yellow top from Optima, H6 model but $ and while I know I can get a replacement at no cost at Pepboys, I decided to try using a battery tender. I will be out of town for a few weeks so just have the battery topped off is not a bad idea. After many night doing reading reviews, I settled on the CTECK MXS 5.0. All the top brand vehicles owner use them and even Jay Leno raved about them. I got it from Amazon installed it. With trunk in the rear, and the trunk organizer, I want to leave the lead connected all the time. This model has the plug which is fused and it has a cover to prevent anything touching the contacts. Nice quality. They also sell a 25ft extension which I might use if I want to mount the tender to the wall. I ran the connecter through the small hole int he carpet trim that is used to access the fuel door lock release.

Here is the device:
20200613_224614 by Alexander Montoya, on Flickr

Here is trunk organizer moved out of the way to show the connector lead connect to the tender:
20200613_225006 by Alexander Montoya, on Flickr

[monty23psk]

I found out something yesterday. Today, BMW sells a charger, it looks to be a rebranded CTEK version.