My M60 Mtech II dream

[P Arkus]

So this weekend was a very productive one. Took the car for a final rinse on friday in that short period where it didnt rain, cleaned the exterior thoroughly, and put the car up on wheel dollies.


Friday/Saturday I started draining all the fluids, removing as much as I knew how on the engine, and dropping the exhaust. Luckily with how good the car has been taken care of, the exhaust didnt rust on and was not that difficult to drop. Sunday was my Bday so I barely did anything (had the AC Discharged), and yesterday I finished pulling the engine thanks to the help of a couple good friends.













Still lots to clean up in the engine bay if I want it looking anywhere near show quality


Next step will be taking off all the AC lines along with the condenser, and I need to pull both the front and rear subframes to get them reinforced. Slowly but surely its all coming along nicely!

[2002jm]

great work

Will be watching this. Love the m-tech 2. Can you post some interior pictures?
thanks,
jm

[P Arkus]

Thanks. Not too much for interior pics, but here you go...




Those are the pics from when I bought the car. I've kept the interior just as clean. I have a Lukebox in the trunk and was lucky enough to find a folding armrest rear seat in the exact same pattern as my fronts. I also have an E30 M3 rear seat waiting in my basement. One day when the funds allow, i'm hoping to put some recaro SRD's or Speeds up front and the M3 seat in the rear, all custom upholstered.

[2002jm]

looks nice

Those are the exact same seats I have in my car, but yours look 100% better:)
Good work on the car, great example of the m-tech 2!
jm

[P Arkus]

spent last weekend cleaning up the garage and organizing so that I have actual space to put the car on jackstands perminently and start removing subframes. Also separated the engine and tranny, and strapped the engine to a pallet so its ready for sale. Reinforced the pallet with about five 2x4's and it seemed to do the trick.

This weekend was a very busy one. With a soccer tournament breaking up my days (2 games each day), I still managed to do some work in between games. Saturday I tackled the whole front end and managed to pull the front subframe, steering rack, front sway bar, control arms, and strut assembly. Today I was feeling quite dead from all the soccer and unfortunately got a bit lazy. Got a late start in the garage and have pretty much everything ready and detached to pull the rear subframe assembly and trailing arms in the next few days, but just didn't have the energy to get it all done today.

Should have it all out by Wednesday night, then hoping to start cleaning up the engine bay, and still have all the parts I need to prep for paint. I'm starting to realize I need to make a schedule for all of this as i'm all over the place with the stuff i'm currently working on!

[P Arkus]

Well I got the whole rear assembly (Subframe, Trailing Arms, Diff, Hub Assembly) out of the car tonight. That was a fun b!tch to tackle lol. So now both the front and rear is completely taken apart. Got the rear assembly sitting on my wheel dollies for ease of transport around the garage.




Was able to separate the subframe from the RTA's and the Diff, now tomorrow morning I need to figure out how to separate the RTA's from the hub assembly. Seeing as I've never taken out Axles, I'll have to do some research to see how to proceed. Good thing I have an E30 Bentley, I'm sure i'll be getting well aquainted with that soon.

Hoping to get much more progress this weekend.

[P Arkus]

So its been a while since my last update. Lost a bunch of time and money when my Audi broke down and I needed to fix it, and after fixing that, I honestly lost a lot of motivation to be working in the garage on the E30. Just needed a break from the cars for a bit. But thanks to a friend for providing me with a tip about a E39 540i 6speed at pick n pull, I decided to go check it out. Went to the junkyard and the transmission was still there so I got to workin again. Dropped the exhaust and driveshaft so I could have better access to all the bolts on the transmission and allow it to drop a bit. Unbolted all the bolts until I got to the top ones which were almost unaccessible. I needed 5 extensions to get to them. Got the first one but the second just wouldn't grab no matter what I did. Took a picture and found this...



So that was a good few hours waster to leave the wreckers without a transmission (not to mention almost breaking my thumb in the process). I left pissed off but being stubborn and cheap, I was determined to get that transmission. Went back sunday with a couple friends so we could pull the whole engine out and I would deal with the transmission then. This was a fun day. We pulled the engine in an hour, and I was able to hammer on an Etorx bit and get that damn screw out. Huge thanks to those guys for helping me out with this!



So now I have the last huge piece of the puzzle in my garage. Spent some time today cleaning it all up.



Also managed to find an ECU from a 94 540. I have the ECU from the car I pulled the engine from, but that car was a 95 which means the ECU had EWS which is the security system. Would not be able to make it work without changing the locks and ignition and didn't wanna deal with it.



Also sent out my exhaust manifolds to get titanium ceramic coated. Love the way they turned out. Also all my subframes are now reinforced and powdercoated.




So I can say I got my motivation back and will be going strong again on this. Also what really helped my motivation is the fact that these transmission go anywhere from 800-1500 bucks, and I managed to snag this one for a whopping $180. Now at least I have some money saved for other parts I will surely need!

Stay tuned for the next update hopefully coming soon!

[CENTURION]

WOW man this is amazing. cant wait for the climax!! :)

[ThatOneEuroE30]

This build is awesome can't believe I haven't seen it. Good work dude

[CorvallisBMW]

All the parts look amazing, nice!

[SmallDave]

Bought the guide too, hopefully going to do the swap next summer, I'll be watching closely to see how it goes for you!

[P Arkus]

Small unexpected update. Found a good deal on Kijiji for these bad boys so I picked them up today.



They are Recaro SR3's from a Mitsubishi Evo IV. Will need to make custom brackets for them to fit the E30 and then have them and my E30 M3 rear seats and doorcards custom reupholstered. Hoping to get that done over winter time.

[P Arkus]

Long overdue update. Been quite busy and havent had as much time to work on the car as I wanted to. Also with Canadian winters, I just dont have the motivation to work in a garage with crappy lighting, but i'm coming around. Starting to put together all the suspension components, fixed the leak in my gas tank, and Por15'd a few items to prevent them from rusting over time. Will post pictures of how it all turned out later on.

Now I have a quick question i'm hoping some of you V8 guru's can help me with. I'm looking to get my valve covers painted, along with the engine cover and the coil pack covers. I want to pick up another set of coil pack covers, but does anyone know if the M62 covers will fit on the M60 valve cover? The part numbers are different but I dont know if anything actually changed seeing as most parts are interchangable between the engines (head related). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[JGood]

Now I have a quick question i'm hoping some of you V8 guru's can help me with. I'm looking to get my valve covers painted, along with the engine cover and the coil pack covers. I want to pick up another set of coil pack covers, but does anyone know if the M62 covers will fit on the M60 valve cover? The part numbers are different but I dont know if anything actually changed seeing as most parts are interchangable between the engines (head related). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Nope, they do not. Nothing lines up at all unfortunately. I bought a mint set to replace mine and found out the hard way.

[P Arkus]

Damn, thats what I was afraid of. Ok thanks for the confirmation Justin!