No comments on the coolant but for the fan I find a couple of whacks on the 32 mm wrench with a hammer usually breaks it free without getting out the pulley holder. Having said that if you broke a pulley holder my trick probably wouldn't be enough.
No comments on the coolant but for the fan I find a couple of whacks on the 32 mm wrench with a hammer usually breaks it free without getting out the pulley holder. Having said that if you broke a pulley holder my trick probably wouldn't be enough.
Drain the block, and the radiator. Did you replace *everything* in the system? T stat, T stat housing, water pump, radiator, hoses and overflow? If not, do so. I'd also replace the fan and fan clutch.
Then use a vacuum tool to refill it, with the nose of the car up in the air...
I drained the radiator and it was a little dark but that's it. I'll drain the block, install the new metal housing and reassemble. Everything looks to be in great shape and frankly I don't want this project to become any larger than it already has for now. Maybe it's silly to not replace the rest of the cooling system but I've had no probs besides the thermostat and everything looks really good.
it's not hard to get back into it later.
I got a wrench on the nut (1 1/8 or 1/4") and wailed on it with several different hammers including an air hammer with no luck. But that is a good suggestion and it worked the first time.
When you drain the block be ready for the insane amount of fluid that will come out. I made a mess even with an oil pan underneath the car.
In reply to jfryjfry (FS) :
Doesn't matter what it looks like. It's old and plastic, it's gonna fail with no warning. I'd also replace the motor mounts. I did the entire cooling system on my old M3, including the fan and fan clutch. I neglected the check the Vorshlag motor mounts.
Turns out the stud had seperated on them and when I started up the car one day the fan shot into my brand new radiator. Broke the fan, fan shroud and holed the radiator. Did I mention this was the day before a track event too? Good times.
Well doc, you've managed to spend about $500 of my residual money. Haha. Just ordered the radiator, expansion tank, pump , pulley, cap and hoses.
that should take care of all of that stuff.
the motor mounts.... I'll take a look at them
In reply to jfryjfry (FS) :
Just buy them. If you want to upgrade, get the Group N knock offs that Bimmerworld sells. Hard to tell if they're bad, but if they go, you break stuff like I did.
Strongly suggest you consider replacing the plastic radiator fan as mentioned above. Mine shed three blades one morning as I was winding my 328is out in third gear and the shards perforated my one year old radiator in several places. It was original to the car and had somewhere around 130k miles.
this is what I found behind the thermostat. It's not just loose globs - it's corrosion. I'm cleaning it out but hoping it isn't throughout the system. I can't see any in the head as far as I can see into it. I've no reason to think that the coolant isn't 157k miles old from 1998. Hopefully the new stuff keeps any that is in there from getting any worse.
this is what a pile of love looks like.
All kinds of doodads that have bugged me for years.
I had broken crappy liners in here before
now I have nice ones But no pic of them I'll get some
I've never had a battery cover Or hold down I ordered both but the hold down doesn't seem to work with my battery I might have the wrong battery in there I'm going to have to figure that out
I picked the one from the convertible because it looked flat compared to the sedan which looked like it had compartments. I figured they'd mount the same. Like so many other parts on these, the sedan coupe and conv are all different. And it didn't fit. It didn't fit in the front right corner. So I notched it and it is now covering my battery. No more concerns about something metal bouncing around back there and shorting out!
There should be a few different holes for the hold down depending on the size battery you have. Push the battery all the way forward and see which one of the holes lines up best.
I am sure you figured this out, but the hold down on these clamps the battery by the bottom lip. It can be tricky to install.
I like the euro 3 spoke steering wheel
BMWs used blue coolant from the factory, so there was at least one coolant change. IIRC, the dealer claimed that using green coolant leads to corrosion in BMWs and that mixing with BMW coolant shouldn't be done. But they also charged a crazy amount for the blue stuff.
I'm glad you are putting some work into this. They are fantastic cars.
Yeah that steering wheel was going to be a surprise but I didn't realize it was in the pic until too late.
the gnarly shifter and boot will also be replaced. The stock wheel, apart from being uggggly, was fine but I wanted to be able to see and feel some of the improvements I've been doing. Proper Wheel liners are awesome but don't improve the drivin experience as much as a fresh steering wheel.
the coolant is all blue so likely original. It could have been topped off at some point with green. In fact I might have done it myself in ignorance but I doubt it as I tend to do a lot of research before doing things. Not always, but often.
A few years later and I still have this thing and still rarely drive it and am still working on it!
the headliner started to sag so I'm recovering it and replacing and recovering the a- and c-pillars.
I bought all new ones before I began except for the drivers/left c-pillar and then of course that one broke while removing it.
and it is the the side that no one has any more. Does anyone have a new one???
and I am looking for a sunroof motor/gearbox. I've stripped out the plastic gear somehow. Surely someone here has pulled the sunroof out of an e36 and doesn't need it.....
Sounds just as needy as mine did back when they were new. Glad I got rid of mine. Glad you're enjoying yours.
Finished the headliner and a and c pillars. It's really nice to have brand new pillar covers (except the LR!). I never had good fronts. One was a coupe that didn't fit right at all.
I'll get pics later.
I had worn rtabs so I replaced them with new oem ones + limiters about 1k miles ago. It fixed the rear end wandering left on-power and right off-power.
but I still had a slight thump in the back.
figured it was the diff bushings. So I ordered a set of oem/oem-spec diff bushings.
finally got around to pulling the diff. But why stop there???
the last pic is the 4 bearings in the rear uprights. They weren't great. Some slight play in each. Not bad to replace though, with this plus some assorted large sockets:
not sure why I didn't believe them when they said don't use impact wrench... i did just that when replacing the bushings on the z06 and realized my folly (the threads in the big C started to come apart). Luckily it still works and I just use a long 3/4 ratchet with it.
so I replaced those 4, and am slated to replace the inner upper arm bushings and bought two new lower arms w/bushings. I welded the inner nut on because there doesn't seem to be a good/any way to access it while installed. So hopefully now I can r/r the upper arm in the future if needed without dropping the subframe.
I cleaned up the subframe and diff and painted them with por15. It is super shiny and hopefully stays somewhat so. Because it's under the car I think it might not fade.
I also got new subframe bushings even though the ones on it look fine.
luckily there was no evidence of any tears or fractures that I could see. I'll do another careful Inspection to confirm but I think I'm good to go.
the diff has evidence of some leaking so I got new seals and have done them all except the input shaft seal so far. That had a lock ring I will probably have to destroy to remove so I ordered a new one.
this car is getting a lot of love and I hope to be able to drive it a lot in the near future.
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