Hello,
I'm not tired so I'm going to do a write up on today's progress...
After spending a fair few months slowly acquiring parts, I finally got to the point where I think (*think*) I have everything I need. Today we took bonnet off, disconnected the engine from its lifelines and same with the box. We now have a floating engine and gearbox which are going to removed tomorrow morning - hopefully with no hitches.
The plan for tomorrow is obviously take out engine, fit front ARB, fit my nice Z3 rack with solid guibo thingymajig.
I'm still confused as how the spacers work for the rack, as people say put them below the rack, but if you did this surelly theres no need for spacers as you could just do up the bolts all the way to the top... But I'm probably misunderstanding and it will all become clear when we remove the engine tomorrow.
m40 to m42 conversion
Moderator: martauto
Today went reasonably well, we got the knackered m40 out with no real problems apart from the prop not wanting to let go of its gearbox, but it got persuaded with the persuasion tool.
We then removed the steering rack, and the spacing became very clear so I know exactly what to do there. The nice z3 rack is temporarily fixed without spacers as we had other stuff to do. We got the steering coupling out and ground the old rubber out and fitted Theo's solid replacement - fitted like a glove (cheers Theo) and looks like its going to go onto the z3 fine. We also fitted the 20mm front ARB but it fought us all the way as the new rubbers were nice and hard and had little give, but we got there in the end.
Tomorrows job will probably prepare m42 for transplant - new clutch, new spigot bearing (got old one out today via use of a tent peg
) and mate the gearbox. I'm probably going to use the flywheel from my old m40 as it looks a lot cleaner and less worn. After that's done I'll go to hypehose and get some hydraulic hoses made up for the z3 rack and fit those before seeing if we can drop the m42 in. May also attempt fitting the rear ARB if we have time.
But all in all, going pretty well so far
We then removed the steering rack, and the spacing became very clear so I know exactly what to do there. The nice z3 rack is temporarily fixed without spacers as we had other stuff to do. We got the steering coupling out and ground the old rubber out and fitted Theo's solid replacement - fitted like a glove (cheers Theo) and looks like its going to go onto the z3 fine. We also fitted the 20mm front ARB but it fought us all the way as the new rubbers were nice and hard and had little give, but we got there in the end.
Tomorrows job will probably prepare m42 for transplant - new clutch, new spigot bearing (got old one out today via use of a tent peg
) and mate the gearbox. I'm probably going to use the flywheel from my old m40 as it looks a lot cleaner and less worn. After that's done I'll go to hypehose and get some hydraulic hoses made up for the z3 rack and fit those before seeing if we can drop the m42 in. May also attempt fitting the rear ARB if we have time. But all in all, going pretty well so far
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GrindCulture
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I had issues getting my prop from the gearbox, so used a scissor jack 
, worked a treat. Good luck with the rest of it, hope you're taking pics
, worked a treat. Good luck with the rest of it, hope you're taking pics Not in E30s any more 
I would suggest you get some M42 mounts or e34 m50 solid rubber mounts from GSF/ECP or summat like that anyway!
Check this, yours sounds much simpler but might be worth it for a bit of a heads up
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=
Check this, yours sounds much simpler but might be worth it for a bit of a heads up
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... highlight=
Proud member of the PARDON? club!
Its in 
Flickr 'Set'
And it runs, drove it a bit and even with the pas not hooked up and the alignment being waaaaaaaaay off it felt awesome, so god knows hows it going to feel when I am properly finished.
Flickr 'Set'
And it runs, drove it a bit and even with the pas not hooked up and the alignment being waaaaaaaaay off it felt awesome, so god knows hows it going to feel when I am properly finished.
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Elecblondie
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Well done, when is it out for the first time?
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GrindCulture
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It's just Meccano really, just a bit bigger, and a lot heavier.rix313 wrote:For some reason, I don't know why, I'm really dreading my engine change.
Not in E30s any more
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Elecblondie
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Don't dread it, just take your time and find a nice space to do it in. I've swapped my engine twice so far this year. First time was a bloody miserable experience; in the cold wet January, on a sloping drive etc. Second time round I found a garage to do it in.rix313 wrote:For some reason, I don't know why, I'm really dreading my engine change.
Glad you got it running
Probably time for a bit of an update...
The car spent a few days out of the workshop as needed to make room for a lorry in there (bit of a tight fit as you can imagine). While it was out we had a look at the track rod ends on the newly fitted z3 rack, this was meant to be a simple job to see how hard they were to move... but it took 2 days of soaking in WD40 just to get the clamping bolts to budge, and the track rod ends themselves just refused to budge at all.
In hindsight we should have checked this when the rack was out of the car but we both thought as it was a z3 rack out of a fairly newish car, it should be fine, but nooooo. After shuffling some cars around we could access the hydraulic lift so we shoved the beemer onto that and proceeded to remove the rack. PITA when all the washers fall out and run away everywhere, but ah well.
Once out, could get it into a vice and apply a good old fashioned blow torch to the offending ends. This soon persuaded them to budge and we cleaned up the threads a bit and applied copious amounts of copper grease to them and re-attached them.
While we had the rack off, it seemed a sensible idea to tackle the wishbone lollypop bushes, after trying to use the puller method to no avail we got bored and just removed the wishbones, afterall its just one bolt, allbeit one side being in a very tight space so the ratchet worked 1 click at a time. Eventually got lollypops off with some leverage, tearing them off, and a angle grinder finished off the remaining bit on the wishbone. Used a friend up the road with a press to press new m3 bushes in, using the new bushes to press the old ones out. Returned to workshop to find getting lollypops back onto wishbones was a fair bit harder than expected... enter dubious use of the hydraulic lift, the lollypops tended to go on quite easily when they had the weight of the car pushing the wishbones into them
.
We also decided this was probably a good time to do the rear ARB while the car was head height, and I'm glad we did as it was a right faff trying to get the ARB to go above the fuel filler pipe and then above the diff while having the droplinks attached, but we got there in the end and I must say it looks quite nice with the shiney mounts I got sent by the OEM section on here.
The Z3 rack is half way in, with bolts and washers through the top holes, just need to get the washers in the bottom and entice the bolts to go through the washers, I can see them not playing ball, but ah well, will get there.
Oh and also, I have come up with a solution for the High Pressure PAS hose, turns out my initial thoughts that one from a 4 pot e36 would fit is correct, got to be only a couple of quid from a breakers, mine cost me a tenner, and only leaves the low pressure one to be made up and that'll be cheaper as they can use any old type of hose. I still have to get my low pressure one made up but that is on the list for next week.
Wow, sorry, that's a lot of text. I'll try to get some pictures of the car whilst its up in the air so you can see the shinyness
The car spent a few days out of the workshop as needed to make room for a lorry in there (bit of a tight fit as you can imagine). While it was out we had a look at the track rod ends on the newly fitted z3 rack, this was meant to be a simple job to see how hard they were to move... but it took 2 days of soaking in WD40 just to get the clamping bolts to budge, and the track rod ends themselves just refused to budge at all.
In hindsight we should have checked this when the rack was out of the car but we both thought as it was a z3 rack out of a fairly newish car, it should be fine, but nooooo. After shuffling some cars around we could access the hydraulic lift so we shoved the beemer onto that and proceeded to remove the rack. PITA when all the washers fall out and run away everywhere, but ah well.
Once out, could get it into a vice and apply a good old fashioned blow torch to the offending ends. This soon persuaded them to budge and we cleaned up the threads a bit and applied copious amounts of copper grease to them and re-attached them.
While we had the rack off, it seemed a sensible idea to tackle the wishbone lollypop bushes, after trying to use the puller method to no avail we got bored and just removed the wishbones, afterall its just one bolt, allbeit one side being in a very tight space so the ratchet worked 1 click at a time. Eventually got lollypops off with some leverage, tearing them off, and a angle grinder finished off the remaining bit on the wishbone. Used a friend up the road with a press to press new m3 bushes in, using the new bushes to press the old ones out. Returned to workshop to find getting lollypops back onto wishbones was a fair bit harder than expected... enter dubious use of the hydraulic lift, the lollypops tended to go on quite easily when they had the weight of the car pushing the wishbones into them
.We also decided this was probably a good time to do the rear ARB while the car was head height, and I'm glad we did as it was a right faff trying to get the ARB to go above the fuel filler pipe and then above the diff while having the droplinks attached, but we got there in the end
and I must say it looks quite nice with the shiney mounts I got sent by the OEM section on here. The Z3 rack is half way in, with bolts and washers through the top holes, just need to get the washers in the bottom and entice the bolts to go through the washers, I can see them not playing ball, but ah well, will get there.
Oh and also, I have come up with a solution for the High Pressure PAS hose, turns out my initial thoughts that one from a 4 pot e36 would fit is correct, got to be only a couple of quid from a breakers, mine cost me a tenner, and only leaves the low pressure one to be made up and that'll be cheaper as they can use any old type of hose. I still have to get my low pressure one made up but that is on the list for next week.
Wow, sorry, that's a lot of text. I'll try to get some pictures of the car whilst its up in the air so you can see the shinyness
hehe, yep, its getting there, slowly but surely...
out of interest, is it possible to adjust the drums so the handbrake fully engages 2 or 3 clicks up? I had a mk3 astra that did this and you could handbrake the thing superbly.
out of interest, is it possible to adjust the drums so the handbrake fully engages 2 or 3 clicks up? I had a mk3 astra that did this and you could handbrake the thing superbly.
out of interest, is it possible to adjust the drums so the handbrake fully engages 2 or 3 clicks up? I had a mk3 astra that did this and you could handbrake the thing superbly.
Yes it is, but 5 clicks is more standard.
Jack the back of the car and support.
Release handbrake then raise it 5 clicks.
Remove the handle and gaiter then do the nuts up on the cables until you feel the shoes drag on the drums when you try turn them.
Reassemble and lower car.
Job done!
Proud member of the PARDON? club!
I thought it was bad practice to use the nuts on the handbrake itself, and better to use set up the auto adjustment on the drums themselves.
And the reason for wanting 2 - 3 clicks is leverage, to lock the rear wheels while doing approximately 30mph requires a fair bit of force, and this is hard to achieve when the handbrake is set up normally as at the angle it engages, its difficult to get extra force on it. Well for me it is anyway, probably something to do with my disability but ah well. If 2 - 3 clicks is possible and wont damage anything I'll give it a shot when I change the shoes in the drums.
And the reason for wanting 2 - 3 clicks is leverage, to lock the rear wheels while doing approximately 30mph requires a fair bit of force, and this is hard to achieve when the handbrake is set up normally as at the angle it engages, its difficult to get extra force on it. Well for me it is anyway, probably something to do with my disability but ah well. If 2 - 3 clicks is possible and wont damage anything I'll give it a shot when I change the shoes in the drums.
It is, but it has to be done to be combined with shoe replacement. My car has brand new brakes at the back and athough the auto adjuster will take up some slack, you still need to take up some of the tension in the cables as well becuase even after setting my brakes up and getting the adjuster working the handbrake was coming right up to the extent of its travel without the adjust taking up any more slack. So its a bit of a combination really.I thought it was bad practice to use the nuts on the handbrake itself, and better to use set up the auto adjustment on the drums themselves.
Proud member of the PARDON? club!
Power Steering successfully plumbed in, and without the need for custom pipes OR bending existing pipes, although some people may see it as a slight bodge, but it works and isn't leaking so far.
Basically, when I ordered my high pressure pipe from the e36 318 they sent me all the power steering pipes. The high pressure side fits the e30 fine, the pump side needs a slight tweak to get the angle 100% but we managed that with an adjustable spanner. The low pressure side from the e36 fits quite nicely too on the rack and includes a nice cooler, however the rubber pipe is too short to go up to the reservoir - so what we did is took the low pressure side from the e30 rack, hacksawed the pipe off 3 or 4 inches after the bend after where the rubber hose meets the metal pipe, this metal pipe can then be inserted into the e36's rubber hose and jubilee clipped up (we used 3 to be safe) and bob's your uncle, extra length, and the bend in the pipe helps to aim the extension pipe in the right place.
It's going in for its tracking hopefully tomorrow, going for 2.4mm - this is also quite annoying, I spent about half an hour searching this forum trying to track down a measurement in degrees, but time after time its given in mm's, however I would have thought wheel size / tyre size would alter the measurement in mm's??? Only one I found in degrees was 0.1 to 0.18.
and isn't leaking so far. Basically, when I ordered my high pressure pipe from the e36 318 they sent me all the power steering pipes. The high pressure side fits the e30 fine, the pump side needs a slight tweak to get the angle 100% but we managed that with an adjustable spanner. The low pressure side from the e36 fits quite nicely too on the rack and includes a nice cooler, however the rubber pipe is too short to go up to the reservoir - so what we did is took the low pressure side from the e30 rack, hacksawed the pipe off 3 or 4 inches after the bend after where the rubber hose meets the metal pipe, this metal pipe can then be inserted into the e36's rubber hose and jubilee clipped up (we used 3 to be safe) and bob's your uncle, extra length, and the bend in the pipe helps to aim the extension pipe in the right place.
It's going in for its tracking hopefully tomorrow, going for 2.4mm - this is also quite annoying, I spent about half an hour searching this forum trying to track down a measurement in degrees, but time after time its given in mm's, however I would have thought wheel size / tyre size would alter the measurement in mm's??? Only one I found in degrees was 0.1 to 0.18.
hello, what's the recommended idle speed of an m42, mine quite happily idles at 500rpm and doesn't stall even if I accidentally bring the clutch up a bit quickly, goes down to about 300 but splutters back up fine. A friend told me it should be about 750rpm but if its happy down at 500 is there any problem?
Ideally you want to source one out of a e30 like I did as then its a straight swap, if the one from the 318ti (are you sure its a m42, seem to remember ti's coming with m44s which are even more of a headache) is very cheap then you'll need to find a e30 m42 exhaust manifold, loom, maybe inlet manifold and maybe a PAS pump but I'm not 100% on that. I'd personally find one out of an e30 just for ease, plenty of good ones about for circa 150 quid.
free bump, anyone able to shed some light on the idle speed?
free bump, anyone able to shed some light on the idle speed?
BMW 318 2dr Atlantis blue road rally car
not quite a straight swap the prop is about 1-2" shorter on the iS (m40 1.6 - m42 1.mt1104 wrote:Ideally you want to source one out of a e30 like I did as then its a straight swap, if the one from the 318ti (are you sure its a m42, seem to remember ti's coming with m44s which are even more of a headache) is very cheap then you'll need to find a e30 m42 exhaust manifold, loom, maybe inlet manifold and maybe a PAS pump but I'm not 100% on that. I'd personally find one out of an e30 just for ease, plenty of good ones about for circa 150 quid.
free bump, anyone able to shed some light on the idle speed?
and exhaust is diffrent make sure you get them off the donor car.-
Elecblondie
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If you retain the m40's gearbox the prop isn't a problem.jon552 wrote:not quite a straight swap the prop is about 1-2" shorter on the iS (m40 1.6 - m42 1.mt1104 wrote:Ideally you want to source one out of a e30 like I did as then its a straight swap, if the one from the 318ti (are you sure its a m42, seem to remember ti's coming with m44s which are even more of a headache) is very cheap then you'll need to find a e30 m42 exhaust manifold, loom, maybe inlet manifold and maybe a PAS pump but I'm not 100% on that. I'd personally find one out of an e30 just for ease, plenty of good ones about for circa 150 quid.
free bump, anyone able to shed some light on the idle speed?
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Elecblondie
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Yes it will mate up, but the spigot bearing will probably need changing.
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E30Mark
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Indeed! spigot bearings changed size sep '90.Elecblondie wrote:Yes it will mate up, but the spigot bearing will probably need changing.
1 & 2 bed flats in Bournemouth areas, with parking
PM for details
PM for details
make sure you have the right one for the gearbox though, I get sent the wrong one by ECP but luckily the one in the engine was the correct size so I just greased it up and put it back in.
The exhaust from the e30 318is is needed though, I modified my m40 one and tbh was more hassle than it was worth.
The exhaust from the e30 318is is needed though, I modified my m40 one and tbh was more hassle than it was worth.
BMW 318 2dr Atlantis blue road rally car