And so it starts, Maeve

[gwb72tii]

Man, those lower knuckle bolts could have been a major problem/very dangerous issue had they worked loose. Good thing you're in there now. As an FYI, the early car had those safety tied. You may want to think about that.

The repair manual specifies bolt cement for these once cleaned prior to reinstallation.

Appreciate the comments and advice BS. I tightened the new strut insert upper nut with air and it was easy peezy.

[gwb72tii]

Something I'd wager lot's of you have run into, the protective rubber coating on various wires that see the outside/underside of the car is crumbling away, exposing the wires. I bought some of the split accordion type tubing to put over the wires so they are protected. I am not a fan of the look of this type of tubing but it's necessary I think to protect the wires.

Here you can see the rubber coating and that a potion of it is gone. This is the driver front brake area:


Here you can see the accordion type of protective tubing. I won't be using this und the hood:

[gwb72tii]

And look what came today. FedEx from Athens, Greece in less than a week.

[gwb72tii]

It's been a good day. Maeve came with three 16x8 et33 Racing Dynamics RGR 5 spoke wheels, and one et15.
I've been looking about every other day for a matching wheel for the last 18 months and have had no luck.
I asked my son today to look for me and he found the exact match newly listed on eBay today. 2 rims for $499. So my spare will match.

I like the look of the wheels, and they are easy to keep clean.


these jut were delivered and they are basically raw aluminum which is better than I expected.

[thrty8street]

Which trailing arm bushings did you install? Factory parts (p/n 33329061946)?

[gwb72tii]

Yes, factory parts all the way. I'm now 70 years young, feel like I'm 30, like to drive fast through the corners when it's safe, all the stuff I did for the last 50 years, and don't feel the need for the car to be so stiff that it hurts to go over paint stripes.

BTW Maeve is temporarily on hold as I help the wife plant a vegetable garden and move bark and dirt for general landscaping. She keeps buying trees and things that need holes dug.

[1st 5er]

Yes, factory parts all the way. I'm now 70 years young, feel like I'm 30, like to drive fast through the corners when it's safe, all the stuff I did for the last 50 years, and don't feel the need for the car to be so stiff that it hurts to go over paint stripes.

BTW Maeve is temporarily on hold as I help the wife plant a vegetable garden and move bark and dirt for general landscaping. She keeps buying trees and things that need holes dug.

A happy wife...

[gwb72tii]

Yes, I'm alive. it's been a long time since I've posted. Doing other things wife related, and lack of enthusiasm for working on Maeve.
Part of my issue is the motor I ordered 2+ years ago, which was originally due this time last year, is delayed to the end of August this year. A little deflating knowing I can get the entire car back together and still have no motor.

Well today I started up again. Here is the issue facing me today, the sunroof:

Fortunately I have a replacement but researching how to get it out took longer than anticipated. And now, mission creep. ugh! No sense just putting everything back together as is, right? So now full removal. Cleaning, repair and reinstall of all the various sunroof pieces.

It's amazing how dirty and in need of repair things get over time. Here's a pic of the rails partially disassembled so yo can see what I mean. All of this is coming out to be made as new as possible:


I also glued and installed the trunk seal. It's a Uro product and it fits correctly. Used 3M 5200 marine adhesive (had some left from working on my boat).

[gwb72tii]

Today was CV joint day. I had removed the CV joints and they felt fine when I turned them by hand, but the boots were dried out:


in order to remove the boots, the CV joints must come off.


There is a circlip that holds the CV joint on the shaft. This one is OEM I think as there are no tabs for your circlip pliers. The grease in this joint was marginally ok, but somewhat dried out.


The CV kits you can buy come with a new boot, circlip and grease. After struggling years ago rebuilding my 2002 cv joints, my goal was to not have the ball bearings come out. If you don't know, there is a specific orientation between the outer and inner races. You can reassemble the joint incorrectly, but it will be frozen. I'm learning to navigate YouTube efficiently and there is a short to-the-point video of how to reassemble the joint. I made it to the last joint and failed. Ugh, but the video saved me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hQBPdhJtBo

[1st 5er]

YouTube U is a wonderful place.
I've earned several degrees.

[gwb72tii]

I believe the bottom of the car is complete other than motor/tranny suppports that will go in once I get my motor. The last thing really is to drain and replace the diff oil.

Intersting challenge today, getting the left CV shaft to fit. Did you know the distance between the wheel hub and diff hub is shorter on the left side? This is what I faced when trying to get it to fit:


Part of the problem was when you rebuild the cv joints, the inner and outer cv joint covers are not fully seated as they are a loose press fit. I tried to squeeze them together with pump pliers, but the shaft was still too long. I thought I may have to drop the diff a little but while jacking up the driver side, it popped into place. Then while tightening the socket screws the two covers came closer together. Maeve came with triple square screws on the driver side cv joints, something, as far as I can determine, is peculiar to VW and Audi. Too bad because they are a superior design, harder to strip out the socket which is easy to do with the BMW screws. Screws are torqued to 60lb/ft which is close to the BMW spec.


Then onto the sunroof bits and pieces. All the tracks and parts are removed, so today was clean the parts day. One thing I like about vintage BMW's is there are still factory parts available. The two plastic slide parts on this part can still be bought brand new:


Then the last thing today was installing the rain gutter trim. Actually went pretty easy as I've done this before when I reassembled my tii years ago. It is a job made for a rubber mallet. No pic today but another cosmetic part of Maeve is back on the car.

[gwb72tii]

Just a small task checked off the still long list of things to do. Something many of you have run into, the OEM cloth tape around various wire bundles is completely dried out, This is a pic of the wire bundle in the driver's door with all the factory tape gone. I found some tape on Amazon I really like, soft cloth tape that sticks.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EH6IZ6Y?ps ... ct_details


And because it's one of those epic days in the great Pacific Northwest, 80* and a slight breeze with no clouds, we drove this around for a while. Lots of smiles and thumbs up from people walking around.

[gwb72tii]

Lo and behold, Metric Mechanic called to tell me my motor is shipping out next week!
Now I am motivated to get Maeve ready! YAHOOOOOO!

[1st 5er]

[gwb72tii]

Did a few things, but did this first:

And then played golf, and found a ball mark my granddaughter had given me. Super awesome!


Started the inside of the car, and sound/vibration insulated under the back seat:


Seems to me the majority of electrical related problems I’ve had over the years have mostly been ground related, so I undid the fastening screw and lightly sanded the “O” connectors to insure they make good contact:


Then took out the tranny in anticipation of removing the motor next week hopefully. My new motor is supposed to arrive the 6th.

[gwb72tii]

This came in the mail;


So I staged a "what it's going to look like", something I've wanted to do for the last year and a half:

[1st 5er]

Who doesn't love an early Christmas.

[gwb72tii]

Progress. My son came down to help pull the motor. the adjustable harness lets you change the angle of the motor as you raise it:


Success!


Next step is cleaning a very dirty engine bay before installing the new motor:

[Galahad]

...
Next step is cleaning a very dirty engine bay before installing the new motor:

You're installing such a nice motor next to a fuse box with zip ties? When's that getting upgraded to match?

Project looks great, excited to see the engine go in.

[gwb72tii]

What’s wrong with zip ties?

And a big yes to upgrading the fuse box lol

[John in VA]

What’s wrong with zip ties?
And a big yes to upgrading the fuse box lol

You could go the Rod Paine-route & use O-rings to secure the fuses.

[Galahad]

What’s wrong with zip ties?

And a big yes to upgrading the fuse box lol

Nothing is specifically wrong, it just looks kinda silly

[gwb72tii]

nah it's a Rube Goldberg fix really now that the Holy Grail Labs kit is available, which I bought some time ago but haven't taken the time to install.
Now that the motor is out, I'm on to cleaning the engine bay first and then the fuse box amount other things.

[thrty8street]

Finished up installing the right rear trailing arm bushings. I figured out how to center the TA under the 12T press so this time the removal/install was way quicker. As usual the second time around, after all the trial and error of the first attempt, things go way easier. After sawing through the outer race of the bushing to make removal easy, I cleaned up the bore of the TA with a brake hone. Then a little grease on the bushing and bore and I was done in about an hour. The hardest part was centering the bushing under the press. The 12T Harbor Freight press is not a precision instrument so a little fudging enabled me to get the bushing started in the bore:

The TA bushing seems to be longer on one side than the other. Could you tell me which direction the long side should be facing, toward the inside of the car or the outside? I forgot to check this before I removed mine

[Blue Shadow]

Longer section of each inner sleeve faces center of car. From the BMW manual page 33-28