MyE28.com DEV

wkohler wrote:The iX looks great! Need you some muffler hangers though.

Thanks and I'm getting to it, okay? Not like it's the only project I have... Know the feeling?

Dialed in the coilovers on my Z and got the RPF1s on.

Bought my motor

Well - how's this for a real pain in the ass. Sunday night I buttoned the e46 up after changing the 3 diff mounts and the rear lower control arms. While I was in there I used new rear sway bushings, new torx bolts for the driveshaft and halfshafts and new LCA adjuster hardware. All nice and tidy.



And I drove the car Sunday night and yesterday, about 125 miles in all, and it felt great through twistys and up to ~85 on the Thruway. And this morning coming over the mountains the car felt great! I was revelling in how nice and snug the rear end felt. No rear steer, no thumpity-bump from the bad diff mounts. Just a very happy camper.

And as I hit the first highway stretch of my commute and got up over 60mph, the car started making making a lot of noise and vibration. Bearing-type noise and vibration. VERY much like a bad bearing vibe. I can make a slight turn to the left and it almost stops. It gets worse when turning to the right. This basically isolates the problem to the left side. BUT - I've lost a rear bearing on this car. It took a LONG time for the bearing to get THIS bad. And when I say bad, I mean that after about 2 miles sustained at 65 mph it was REALLY BAD. Also, if I turn HARD left, the vibration gets bad again. So it's like this - straight ahead, vibe; turn right, bad vibe; gentle left, less vibe; HARD left, bad vibe.

Did I really lose a bearing, coincidentally to the other rear end work, and it went that bad that quickly? Could this be a CV Joint/halfshaft problem?

Painted it.

Uhhh, pictars?

Got a little farther on tearing down the e34 525i last night; pulled the half-shafts, diff, driveshaft & exhaust, getting ready to yank the engine. Once that's done, the shell will be off to its next life as part of the decor in my church's youth group meeting area, The Garage. The youth pastor has some wild ideas for it; it's gonna be so cool.

wkohler wrote:Uhhh, pictars?

's ugly. When it's all done I'll take a couple. Probably be putting the bumpers back on on Sunday AM before our meet. They'll most likely still be wet, but whatever.

It's temporarily permanent, and not for concours

davintosh wrote:... decor in my church's youth group meeting area, The Garage. The youth pastor has some wild ideas for it; it's gonna be so cool.

This definitely will require pics.

1st 5er wrote:

davintosh wrote:... decor in my church's youth group meeting area, The Garage. The youth pastor has some wild ideas for it; it's gonna be so cool.

This definitely will require pics.

Without a doubt.

The e32 has been not quite right since I put the Eibachs and Billies on... Pulling slightly to the right, and feeling like something is binding when I roll to a stop with my foot off the brakes. I had pulled the brake pads off the front & regreased them a week or two ago -- no joy. So tonight I did the same with the rear brakes, and also decided to put the snow tires on ( ) because they have fewer miles on them and are in much better shape than the Kuhmos that are mounted on the BBSs. And because South Dakota.

While I was putting the left front wheel on, my forehead light (it was dark out) happened to flash on the spring perch, and the new paint showed some scuffing; the tire had been rubbing! What the... Checked the right side, and sure enough, rubbing there too, worse than the left side. They are et-15 wheels, but those wheels had never rubbed before, and putting lowering springs on it didn't affect the position of the spring perch, so I'm totally cornfused.

wkohler wrote:Uhhh, pictars?

Took the e32 back to the shop that did the alignment ~a month ago & had them take a second look at things, because the front end still didn't feel quite right, and the steering wheel was off-center. It spent about an hour on the rack, and now it's perfect. Tracks straight & true, minimal tramlining when driving down the grooved highway on the way to work... It just goes where I point it. I like my car again!

Last week I successfully yanked one of the four toasted subframe bushings out of the X5, but horked up my homebuilt pulling tool in the process. So... I broke down last week and ordered the Baum Tools e53 kit #B334140X5.



It was expensive, but not as expensive as having the BMW dealership or the local indie do the job, plus there are several guys on the xoutpost.com board who want to rent it to do their rides too, which should help offset the cost somewhat.

Just for fun, I set up my webcam to take a snapshot every 2 seconds, and I strung them all together to make a time-lapse video of the removing & installing the bushing on one corner. The whole job as it was recorded took just over an hour, and that was with some futzing around with the muffler hanger, and screwing up the bushing alignment on my first try; had to pull the thing back out. Oh well; just glad I didn't have to do that without the tool! The other two bushings went much faster; took a long lunch break, got them pulled & replaced, and had everything cleaned up in less than 2 hours.

Here's the video -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grTMssDU-iw

Took it, and my son to the local end of summer Bimmer meet.

I successfully completely ignored the Jeep Patriot again today...

Damn I hate that car

MicahO wrote:Did I really lose a bearing, coincidentally to the other rear end work, and it went that bad that quickly? Could this be a CV Joint/halfshaft problem?

The good news here was a big facepalm. Apparently I had cracked the lugs on all four wheels before I started that diff-bushing-job last weekend. Then when I was done, I tightened up the rear, dropped the car off the lift and drove off.....forgetting to re-tighten the front wheels.

The e46 got new oil and filter and new FCABs this past Sunday. Thankfully I did that work before tearing the bearing out of the rear, and found the loose wheel in the process.

Duh. The silver lining is the ever-growing arsenal of tools. Yes, I ordered everything I needed to swap the bearing before I checked those front lugs.

davintosh wrote:Last week I successfully yanked one of the four toasted subframe bushings out of the X5, but horked up my homebuilt pulling tool in the process. So... I broke down last week and ordered the Baum Tools e53 kit #B334140X5.

Great video Dave!

It really helps having those various tools around. I ended this weekend with yet another BMW-specific tool that will be available to myself and others (though I didn't need to use this one.....yet). They make so many jobs so much easier..... The subframe bushings with the 3026 tool were a snap.

That X5 tool in the video looks like you can change the span to fit many different bushing/bore sizes. Could it be used for the e28 subframe bushings as well?

Drove it to San Antonio this evening, just got back in
with all this stuffed in the back...



http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh ... st25316105

Black on black Tourings

Drove it to work and back on 5 cylinders, as one of the plug wires had worn through after rubbing on the e34 airbox for too long. New wire set fitted, and she runs better than before.

Brake switch replaced (ABS Warning), transmission conductor plate replaced along with all seals, filters & harness connectors, MB correct synthetic fluid. Transmission control unit replaced (submerged in fluid). Right front seat belt buckle replaced (SRS warning). Tires rotated & balanced. Synthetic swapped into the diff and a oil & filter change. What hurt the worst was the $100.00 a day rental for a piece of shit Jeep Wrangler 4 door, what a waste of metal.

I put the snow tires on the E90 today. I wasn't planning on doing that this early but if we get snow mid-week I need to be prepared.

Looked at the coolant drip.

No love for the E36 today. I need tires, but I need to do ball joints and control arm bushings first. I've got one joint done, but a plan for the bushings and started on the other side today. Broke loose one of the bolts holding the strut to the steering knuckle. Then broke the other one. Tough stuff, I was putting some pressure on the business end of my 3' cheater when it broke. I don't think it was over 300 pounds or so before it broke. A combination of being bathed in locktite and a year or two in Canada. So I spent a couple of hours drilling and tapping. At the end of the day, 5 hours of work or so, I'm back on the road without anything fixed except what I broke.

And WTF, why do they need to start using 16MM and 18MM bolt heads. I've been wrenching on German stuff for decades now and never saw a single 16 or 18 until the E36/E39 era. What's next, Whitworth?

1st 5er got his annual inspection sticker.

1st 5er wrote:1st 5er got his annual inspection sticker.

That sounds like a good day. Now get that S38 in there!

rmiddendorf wrote:

1st 5er wrote:1st 5er got his annual inspection sticker.

That sounds like a good day. Now get that S38 in there!

See my sig.
I've been mulling over something else for 1st 5er.
And besides, I've still not made any headway on one of my other projects.

Pushed the e12 out into the abundant sunlight. Poked and prodded for awhile then had some lunch and played around some more. A gull shit on the trunk, so I pushed it back in the garage. Guess it really didn't have to leave that garage, but I feel better about things in the sunlight.

Yesterday... Emily was in town for a few hours, so I swapped in the winter boots for her 318Ti. No serious snow yet, but she's ready for it when it comes.

We waved goodbye to The Slug yesterday...



The X5 was purchased to replace the Freestar. Before selling it though I took it to the local vo-tech college where we had them cut out the one spot of rust on it (left rocker, just forward of the rear wheel, like most every other Freestar/Windstar. ) Also got it into the Ford dealership last week to get the torque converter replaced because of a recall. They had it all day on Monday for the job, but when I picked it up the check engine light was on, so had to take it back on Wednesday; somebody forgot to plug the oxygen sensor back in.

I placed an ad for it on CraigsList, then linked to it on Facebook. My niece and her hubby were in the market for a van (two little kids) so they jumped on it. They're a great couple, so we gave them the Friends & Family discount & knocked $1000 off the CL ask price.

Last month I sold a 2006 F-150 and bought a 2000 diesel F-250. Altho the F-150 was significantly more luxurious, it's 5.4l engine was outside of it's comfort zone with the 24' enclosed trailer I got used a couple months ago. The F-150 was getting 8mpg @60mph.

Last week I replaced the OEM stereo with a double-din headunit and upgraded the OEM speakers. The primary objective was to hook up a backup camera because I found that getting the hitch ball in the right place with a 24' trailer is much harder than it was with the old open trailer....Now Moosehead's trailer. With the open trailer you just had to get close and then you could muscle the trailer hitch into place. With the 24' trailer, however, there's no moving it at all so the hitch ball has to be within about an inch of perfectly positioned. Without a camera getting the hitch perfectly positioned required a lot of patience. A virtue that has never been my strong suit.

So now I have decent tunes for when I'm feeling nostalgic re. the early 90's and zooming up and down the Autobahns, and whenever I put the truck into reverse the screen on the double-din unit switches automatically to the backup camera.



This weekend I spent a bunch more time on the F-250. I pulled out the carpet and, on hands and knees, scrubbed the ever living crap out of it. It took >24hrs for the carpet's insulation backing to dry. Then I took a long hard look at the original carpet, cleaner but still no prize, vs. the aftermarket carpet that I bought a couple weeks ago. I decided that the aftermarket carpet looked cheap. So I re-installed the no longer stinky but cosmetically not terrific OEM carpet.

The big project this weekend was paint repair on the truck's rear rocker panels...those behind the rear wheels. They were badly battered by years of gravel. The paint was beat to crap and lots of the gravel hits were deep enough that there was rust at the base of the pockmarks. The paint was entirely gone in the most vulnerable regions and was replaced by rust.

Using a wire brush and sander I sanded down to mostly bare metal. I sanded with, in order, 80, 150, & 220. Then a couple coats of primer, a couple coats of paint, sanded with 800, then 2000. Then a couple coats of clearcoat and sanded with 800 then 2000. Then rubbing compound by hand which is pretty aggressive, then rubbing compound with the dual-action buffer.

I did about 2 sq ft on both sides of the truck, so 4 sq ft total. That was the most serious car painting effort I've ever done, and I'd have to say that it turned out pretty damned good. The rear rocker panels look pretty much perfect, and they looked awful before.

Next, I'll redo a 8" stripe going all the way forward to the front wheels. That'll make the rocker panels look pretty much perfect.

About a month ago I ordered new upholstery for the truck. The F-150 had really nice leather seats and the cloth seats in the F-250 were awful and the contrast stuck in my craw. The truck's rear seats got their new leather Friday, but the leather kit for the front seats isn't here yet. So at least the rear seats look nice. Working by flashlight I re-installed the seats last night.

I spent a couple too many hours today with the e34, trying to wrestle the M20 out of the engine bay. I was being lazy and left the transmission on; not working for me doing the job solo. I'm planning to try again tonight with one of my sons helping, but it may be best to just unbolt the trans and be done with it.

edit; y'all happy now?