#39 progress thread

#1

I was thinking a few months ago that once I got the wheel studs in I would announce that it was done. Installed the very short and cheap TC studs today but the engine bay is totally empty so I’m less done than I was a few months ago. Yesterday I turned an adapter shaft for the LTB weld on quick disconnect. Got it welded on today and installed my new NRG 007 wheel. I don’t have any recent pictures of the outside because I would actually have to clean it and remove all the parts stacked on top of it.

Here’s the “before” picture. and a bunch of recent ones. I think this picture is from april or may 2010.
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Road Atlanta is fun even on 10yo 640 wear all-seasons. The stack on the right is my paddock neighbors.

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#2

Finally reinforced the front subframe 2 weeks ago.
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Ok I do have an exterior picture from 2 weeks ago but it ugly.
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Since I’m using a ten year old Corbeau Forza the only logical place to support it is the two main steel tubes in back. I made these seat back braces out 1 inch aluminum plate my dad had been saving for 30 years. I guarantee they’ll get the job done but whether they look professional enough to pass an inspection is debatable.
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#3

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#4

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Dropped the colunm .515in.
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#5

Opened the box with the new wheel and ltb disconnect on saturday. The ltb weld on piece was .754in on the inside and the outside of the splines and on the column were .688 for the largest part but was tapered all over. So I used a piece of 1in steel rod to make a adapter/spacer from a little over 6in length piece. After test fitting I couldn’t decide and had my brother come sit in the car as well. Took another .300in off and I’m pretty sure I’ve got it perfect.
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#6

That would look a lot better if my nascar bars weren’t further out than the door bar it riveted to. I put it in and it looked great. The door wouldn’t close so I had to stretch the panel in more. I must have replaced every rivet in there three times before it was right. The big dent at the bottom is for the tab that the door window net cable mounts to. I pretty much slammed the door over and over until it fitted itself.
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New TC studs installed today. They are worryingly short but their site says this is what we use on our pro3 cars.
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#7

Looking thru the pictures I kind of get the sense that I’m looking at a disassembly thread.

The seat braces look terrific.

#8

Estimated time to full completion is six weeks since there is nothing left to buy but tires. First event is April which will be 2 years since this project started.

#9

Since my seat was blue and the hoses were blue I figured everything else should be also. The dash panels are carbon fiber and blue kevlar twill weave. The “aftermarket” front bumper spoiler assembly(not shown) is carbon also. I really wasted a lot of time on that stuff.

#10

I was thinking about what the guy selling the expensive power steering delete blocks says and last week I decided there was a better way. Cut the tubes bent them by hand and used my dad’s flaring tool. From imagination to reality in an hour and I was so proud of myself I didn’t even want to share.
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#11

I think the loop in the lower picture doesn’t need to be there, but I didn’t want to drag out the welder to plug them.

#12

First of all it seams that R&R of engine and trans together is a bad idea. The trans will go in and out from the bottom as bmw intended from now on. Some panels had to be beat back into place and repainted after the damage from the engine and trans install.

I couldn’t figure out what to hold the rear engine mount while I installed the trans until I remembered I had a Swiss seat in the closet that included a nice stainless steel caribbeaner.

I cleaned the trans, filled it and installed the trans and clutch on saturday. I also wasted a lot of time trying to put new ends on a braided line for my accumulator. It seams my military lines are only one layer of thick Teflon tube surrounded by one layer of stainless braid which doesn’t work with non crimped hose ends. I’m thinking of using tractor hydraulic hose. It is the cheapest way to do it. Hopefully it’s legal for use in the cockpit. It says 4000psi fire resistant on the outside but the steal is hidden under a layer of rubber.

Sunday my brother came up and we got the motor and trans in. Lots of issues with my oil pan being to close to the steering rack had to be solved. I worked a few more hours recovering the engine harness that I had stripped. My brother had taken the day off on monday.

I went into town to get some more tape and some nuts and bolts. I got back an hour later and my brother was bleeding the brakes. When I had left the abs unit and every hard line under the hood was removed and I hadn’t even told him what corner of the garage the lines were in. He also had the clutch bled and that was disassembled to. It would have taken me a day and I thought that was pretty amazing.

I spent from Monday noon till now trying to fix the dumbass move of cutting my body harness at the firewall. I got it down to 41 wires which is still to many.

#13

What was the problem putting engine and tranny back as a unit from up top?

Re. hose to accusump. You are going to have to show Tech that your hose has metal mesh underneath. Be prepared to do this each year and for BMWCCA CR if you go to a race with them. You could keep a sample of the hose with your log book.

Another idea is to get some of the SS mesh sleeving that posers install. Run the SS mesh sleeve over your “legal but suspicious looking” hose and no one will question it.

#14

Great progress!

#15

The deadline to finish the car was today and what I thought was a wiring issue with the starter is an issue somewhere between the engine and trans. The starter solenoid worked. I could hear it click and measure voltage on the wire between the starter and solenoid. I tried banging on the starter while turning the key and it didn’t help. I thought maybe turning the flywheel a bit would help.

Thats when I realized it was a mechanical issue because turning the crank with a wrench wasn’t happening. I tried again with the clutch in. I pulled the lower bellhousing cover off and took out the strange useless sensors that came on this trans. After about 4 calls to my brother to get him to diagnose it over the phone I realized that the back of the crank scraper was tight against the flywheel.

I didn’t want to unbolt the trans to fix it so I took the sawzall to it. I chewed up the front of the bellhousing and crank a little but no issue. That took a few hours of me saying it’s not going to work because the stroke of the blade is to long. My dad showed me otherwise since he’s owned the sawzall since 1971 and I finished cutting it. When I tried to crank it again it was apparent that that wasn’t the issue.

I called my brother and told him I needed to pack it up and asked if he would find time to drop the trans this week. That was at 3pm. It took another 6 hours for me to put the front body parts back on and pack up all the tools I could imagine. Only one brake light and the turn lights worked on my trailer so we messed with that another 20 minutes. It is of course a truck issue and one of my headlights burned out also. I figured its saturday night and drunk drivers don’t tow race cars to the bar so I drove 2 hours to my brothers shop with the hazards on and one headlight.

It’s in my brothers hands now and he works 10 times faster than I do but he is a full time mechanic, a part time mechanic, is a partner in a home improvement business, and now a volunteer at the local humane society.

I don’t know what it can be and I have a stage 3+ clutch in the turbo car so a stage 4 clutch shouldn’t be an issue. All I know is that the trans needs to be dropped to figure it out. My brother thinks the new trans is the issue since it has a funny bellhousing with 2 extra sensors in it and thinks it may have come from an e36, but the part number matches the one in the rules. I could easily turn the trans by hand and turn the engine with a wrench before I installed them but I didn’t try them together.

I got my accumulator installed yesterday, and accidentally prelubed the engine before I was ready to crank it. Funny thing is that a few hours later when I tried to crank it it said I had 10 psi yet when I expected it to read zero. I haven’t messed with the calibration of the iq3 at all so I don’t know what that issue is. Hopefully it doesn’t mean a major oil port is blocked.

I ended up using 2 stainless steel oil pan plugs from the Case dealer in the oil cooler ports. They must be the only thing I can get in 22mm x 1.5 in this state. My dad drilled out one of the ss plugs and then cut one of the ends off of a galvanized male-male npt nipple and I welded the 2 together. The Case hydro shop didn’t have any real swivels with 1/2 npt fittings so I got one that only swivels until you tighten it. I put a loop in the line to keep it away from the exhaust and used a hole saw to put another hole in the firewall for the line. Then I made a grommet out of a rubber hose.

I drilled out my rivets and installed bolts in my fire extinguisher mount and improved my battery mount so hopefully I’ve got everything legal safety wise.

I still need to roll my fenders properly. I know someone posted that 15mm offset still wasn’t close to the max trackwidth, but my 10mm offset drag dr41 stick out pretty damn far and If they are legal I still need to roll the fenders.

Every time I go to the track it’s at least 96 degrees and blazing sun. I’ll be happy if that happens my first race because I’m totally unprepared for rain. I have 1 set of shaved tires and no defog or washer system now. I have most of a helmet blower system to install at the track.

Bottom line is that it’s a good thing I haven’t registered and paid for racing and comp school yet because I may not make it! I thought if I couldn’t get the car running I’d volunteer but at the new rate for volunteer points it’s a waste of a weekend.

Are there any rental spece30s for the weekend. I just got a replacement credit card that’s to heavy to carry around. I wish I was addicted to crack because it would be a lot cheaper.

#16

Hope it isn’t the trans (since it came from me :(). If it is we’ll work out a refund.

#17

A trans with 2 sensor ports in the bellhousing is an e model trans. As far as I know the e model trans is entirely compatible. Obviously you don’t need the two flywheel sensors for an i engine.

I can’t imagine how the scraper hit the flywheel. It must have been made with the bolt holes in the wrong place, I guess. You cut the scraper such that the oil pump fit properly and did the test fitting to ensure that the scraper didn’t hit the crank, correct? If not, that’s why the crank won’t turn.

I didn’t understand the bit about putting plugs into the oil cooler ports (OEM oil filter adapter?). What you wrote makes it hard to understand how oil is going to flow once the oil tstat opens.

In order to get things that swivel from the hydraulic shop you have to get JIC fittings. I think I have a bunch in the classifieds.

#18

I’m not using the oil cooler and my brother removed the thermostat from it so he said I could use either port for the accumulator.

I did fit the the scraper properly but It’s possible that it migrated forward while the rtv cured. I waited a day after gluing it to the block but when I put the oil pan on some squeezed out and I think it must have taken a week to cure. I used 7.3 motorcraft rtv to hold it to the block which is supposed to be some really strong stuff and regular copper rtv between the scraper and pan.

#19

[quote=“turbo329is” post=64992]I’m not using the oil cooler and my brother removed the thermostat from it so he said I could use either port for the accumulator.

I did fit the the scraper properly but It’s possible that it migrated forward while the rtv cured. I waited a day after gluing it to the block but when I put the oil pan on some squeezed out and I think it must have taken a week to cure. I used 7.3 motorcraft rtv to hold it to the block which is supposed to be some really strong stuff and regular copper rtv between the scraper and pan.[/quote]

The scraper has some oblong holes and some that are round. The round holes are only a tiny bit bigger than the 6mm bolt so they shouldn’t have let it move any. The normal process for installing the scraper results in some pretty small clearances to the crank counterweights, certainly no more than a half a mm. And the flywheel is certainly farther away than half a mm. Besides, as you said, the scraper going on to the flywheel isn’t the issue.

Since the scraper did move enough to hit the flywheel, than it certainly moved enough to hit crank lobes, assuming the scraper was fit close enough to them to “scrape”.

Jim Levie would know what removing the tstat does to oil flow, I don’t. This is important because as you may know, removing the coolant tstat allows coolant to bypass the radiator. I’d confirm the issue.

The easier solution, if you’re going to do the RangerGress oil cooler delete is to do the oil filter e motor style. There’s a $10 adapter that goes on the block and the filter threads right on. What makes the oil cooler delete mod work is lots of air flow to the oil pan and a well done coolant system. If either of those are inadequate, you’ll end up remembering your oil cooler fondly.

#20

I have the scraper from IE. It has all round holes. If the scraper was hitting a counterweight I would expect it to be able to rotate until the weight hit the scraper and not be locked up completely. I’m not sure that the scraper moved after installing because I didn’t pay attention to how far it stuck out past the back of the pan when I installed it.