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Any Beemer gurus here? All fixed and almost road ready.

I know what you mean Rene... even after driving the General during silage time the Duramax seems little.

Just grabbed some beer from the fridge in my garage... 15c in there!:D

13C in my shop today!
 
Nice!
What you got for a temp out side... -11c at my place and wind with snow!


we've had a warm front the last few days...SSW winds up to 30mph, the snow is all gone again, not that we had much to begin with, the snowmobilers are bitchin about it too! The cold front is coming!


Weather for Scotts, MI

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44°F | °C

Overcast Wind: SW at 16 mph Humidity: 68%


Sat... .Sun ....Mon ....Tue

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21° ...23° 14° ...19° 7° ...16° 9°
 
Nice hijack there Dean...

Actually making some progress. Just like working on a K5, some surprises, some unexpected developments.

Surprise:

006-8.jpg


Must have been a whopper of a pothole. :dunno:

Unexpected:

These are the correct OE bushings for the 318is. The only E36 that uses a different bushing is the Z3 and the 318ti.

002-15.jpg


This is what came out, and it came out very easily. Rubber looked fine, but it seemed cocked in the trail arm and off center.

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004-13.jpg


This is clearly not the same bushing. At this point I'm guessing trail arm bushings went, got replaced with Z3/318ti bushings by mistake which led to the car being sold cheap.

Sucky part was I can't rely on the marks for the bushing console to ballpark toe adjustment. I'll have to eyeball/straightedge it and take it in for a 4 wheel alignment later.
 
I recently got rid of my 96 328is. Car had a few issues itself but with over 230k on the ticker it still ran great and was a blast to drive. Sold it locally and the guy dropped an LS and t56 in it. Still waiting for my ride in it darn it. Anyway, good price and once you get some of those parts replaced youll enjoy it. Also cant go wrong with the styling of bmw
 
I recently got rid of my 96 328is. Car had a few issues itself but with over 230k on the ticker it still ran great and was a blast to drive. Sold it locally and the guy dropped an LS and t56 in it. Still waiting for my ride in it darn it. Anyway, good price and once you get some of those parts replaced youll enjoy it. Also cant go wrong with the styling of bmw

I've always liked the styling, been eyeing them for more than a few years. The LS T56 swap is most likely in this cars future, but before that will be using it as a DD and making sure it's solid enough to throw a few dollars at.

Fortunately this car only has about 142K on it (miles) so should have plenty of life left.

Guess I'm heading back to the dealer for coils now...not really finding much out there for stock height/ride.
 
Rene,

Not sure what sort of luck you're having with the normal online parts sources (RockAuto, etc) but a lot of the German car parts can be sourced through a website called PelicanParts.

For stock parts it's a decent option. Usually they offer the true OEM part, and a good quality 2nd source for a few bucks cheaper.


-G
 
My Ford Contour had a clunking rattle in the rear since the day I got it,and I just assumed it needed rear struts,because one was oily ,and felt "dead"..(passenger side)---I drove it nearly 5000 miles that way,before I came across a free set of used struts from another car like it a friend bought from a salvage yard to use its rear axle beam to replace the rusted out one on his car--the struts in the car he was fixing were practically new,so he didn't replace them,and the un-needed coils and struts off the parts car were evidently not that old ,they were Monroe-Matics and the springs looked new,and he offered them to me in exchange for some help fixing his car.............................................................................................

I had my friend replace the struts,seeing he has a lift and the tools I lacked,and when he removed the right rear strut,I saw that the coil spring had busted the last coil off ,and the razor sharp pointy peice jutting out from the strut housing was maybe 1/2" away from the sidewall of the tire!..:eek:...its a minor miracle it did not slash the tire,and I hear its a common occourance around here on many compact Fords and other vehicles....inspection stations here will look at the springs to ensure they aren't busted like that,but the places I brought my car,run by guys I knew who didn't get too picky when "inspecting" my vehicles overlooked the springs....so having a "friend" working at an inspection bay could be hazardous sometimes,if they dont check the CRITICAL parts!...a blowout after hitting a pothole at 65 mph wouldn't have been fun at all!..:doah:..
 
Sorry about the hijack.:doah:

Maybe this will help...recomendend by the BMW club of Edmonton.

Autobran /Vincent 780-487-7337

Velocity / Alex 780-905-6936

www.triskaauto.ca /They are in Beaumont /Dan 780-980 2442

All supposed to be good guys to get parts from.
 
Did the bushings have an arrow for what direction they go in

Glad your getting it

No arrow. i'm not sure why the old looks different than the replacements I got from BMW, but every pic I've seen of the correct part looks exactly like what I got. I think the aluminum outer sleeve just corroded on the ones that were on the car. The inner side appears to have been a crimped edge that would have sat in the slot you can see in the pic. Once that crimped edge rotted off the rubber eventually slid within the sleeve toeing both rear tires in as far as they can be.

Rene,

Not sure what sort of luck you're having with the normal online parts sources (RockAuto, etc) but a lot of the German car parts can be sourced through a website called PelicanParts.

For stock parts it's a decent option. Usually they offer the true OEM part, and a good quality 2nd source for a few bucks cheaper.


-G

No joy at Pelican. I did find Suplex 06026 replacement rear springs at www.bimmerspecialist.ca which aren't too bad (right around $100 per spring) and ship from Canada so no customs BS to deal with. I'm probably just gonna order those and hope they're here before next weekend.
 
No luck at pelican? That doesn't sound right. Most of my BMW stuff comes from bavauto.com, or pelican parts

Although, more and more is coming from rockauto, when they have the brands I want. Just have to be a bit more careful that you have the right part number than at the dedicated BMW sites
 
Called BMW, they want $535 for a pair of coil springs. :screwy:

Had my wife call Autobahn, have a new pair coming in for $175. Thanks Dean!

Sorry about the hijack.:doah:

Maybe this will help...recomendend by the BMW club of Edmonton.

Autobran /Vincent 780-487-7337

Velocity / Alex 780-905-6936

www.triskaauto.ca /They are in Beaumont /Dan 780-980 2442

All supposed to be good guys to get parts from.
 
Nothing underneath Dean, in fact the whole car is pretty good. I have one small area behind the driver's tire that has a small perforation. Other than that just a few spots of surface crap, the kind that start with scratches or stone chips. For the very short term I scraped and wire brushed those and brushed on some black tremclad. Blends in real good to the black on the car and will keep it in check for the rest of winter...
 
Finally got on this for more than a few minutes this weekend. Had my eldest daughter Jess helping me...and after a few minor setbacks we got the passenger side all done last night.

Today we got the driver's side buttoned up and got to take it for a short drive around the neighborhood. All better now...new rear coils, new rear shocks and near rear trailing arm bushings make a world of difference. No pic's as there wasn't anything pic worthy IMO.

This week I have a wiring issue to deal with. Luckily it's a well documented "known issue" with E36's so there is plenty of 'help' from the interweb. If that does take care of my wiring prob's then I'm about ready for a mechanical inspection, reg and insurance.
 
Got the wiring sorted out today. The trunk holds the license plate and has a wiring harness running into it from the driver's side tail light area. The trunk opens to over 90 degrees for good access, but that bends this wiring every time the trunk is opened and closed. I removed the upper grommet and tried to just slide the wiring sleeve down...but one small wire was completely severed and jammed in the wiring sleeve.

I slit the sleeve down about 10 inches or so. Of the 8 wires in the harness there was one without damage. One was severed, another was hanging on by a few bare strands and several more had breaks in the insulation. I repaired them all, taped them and then taped the whole bundle. It's a somewhat temporary fix...BMW does sell a replacement harness for about $100. For now I'll use the trunk as sparingly as possible.

At this point I tried the lights and still didn't have dash lights, right front and right rear park lights. So I started checking fuses, and found an oddball fuse much bigger than the rest...and it was blown. I replaced it with a normal sized fuse (20 amp) and lo and behold I have dash lights, and all the park lights now work.
 
Nicely done Rene'...(and Jessica)

hope the inspection goes well, and your driving this week!
 
Prolly won't have time to get it on the road this week...I'm never done work early enough to get stuff done. The mechanical can happen after reg and insurance apparently, but the registry hours match mine too nicely so getting it registered is gonna be interesting.
 
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