Ranger's motorswap thread

#61

Now I understand why you took up turning wrenches.

#62

Ranger Wrote

The designed in understeer isn’t a compromise, but rather a sound engineering decision. All BMW’s (to the best of my knowledge) and most all other makes are designed to have understeer. Understeer is safer in the hands of the average driver as the car just plows and slows down.

#63

Patton wrote:

[quote]To prime the oil system…How bout using the starter motor at its “slow” rpm with the coil disconnected so the engine does not start?

If you really want to insure that the engine has no load on it, remove the plugs and let the oil system and srarter do their thing(s).

Just a thought.

RP[/quote]

That’s how I’ve broken in new motor rebuilds. Don’t run the starter too long though.

#64

jlevie wrote:

[quote]Ranger Wrote

The designed in understeer isn’t a compromise, but rather a sound engineering decision. All BMW’s (to the best of my knowledge) and most all other makes are designed to have understeer. Understeer is safer in the hands of the average driver as the car just plows and slows down.[/quote]

Jim, you are on the money!

#65

rrroadster wrote:

[quote]jlevie wrote:

[quote]Ranger Wrote

The designed in understeer isn’t a compromise, but rather a sound engineering decision. All BMW’s (to the best of my knowledge) and most all other makes are designed to have understeer. Understeer is safer in the hands of the average driver as the car just plows and slows down.[/quote]

Jim, you are on the money![/quote]

Sure, but everyone assumes that OEM’s have the same values as they do. Like “BMW knows what’s best for < >, so that’s what I’m going to do”. My point is that OEM’s have lots of concerns other then one person’s idea of “best”.

Obviously a car with balanced alignment settings will be able to hang on to a curve better then a car where lateral traction has been deliberately reduced up front.

So it’s not a matter of just understeer vs. oversteer. It’s also a matter of understeer vs. making it thru the turn with no slip angle at all.

Handling was compromised, that conclusion is inescapable. The only remaining debate is to what degree it was compromised to be “safer”, and to what degree it was compromised to create a stronger litigation position.

One shouldn’t knee-jerk do it the OEM’s way like some lemming. One should ask “ok, that’s BMW’s recommendation, but does it make sense for what I want to do?”. In the case of alignment, no it doesn’t.

#66

This is probably a dumb question, but how do you get the oil dipstick tube out of the block? I think that it’s just a press fit, but I let it soak in WD40 an pulled pulled and yanked and no soap. I’m afraid that if I put more stress on the tube it’ll break. So what’s the trick?

#67

Loctite 270 = 250 deg. C. Heat that sucker up!!!

PS - Please try this outside the garage since your wife can file her own lawsuits against me.

#68

Thanks Steve, that’s a good idea.

You’re safe from the wife. She only barely tolerates my obsessions. If I asked for help, I’d get “the look”. She hasn’t lifted a finger in the suit against Molitor. Which is ok, because the last thing I need is for her to become aware of how much I’ve spent on motor related efforts in the last 7 months.

And, as I think about it, it might be a stretch for her to see herself as my advocate. Sigh.

#69

A buddy and I just spent 2 1/2hrs trying to mate the motor with the tranny. We were not successful. The last 3/4" is a bitch.

Tomorrow I guess that I’m going to have to remove the tranny and mate the two off of the car. The rear of the car is on ramps tho and I have to turn the driveshaft in order to get to all 4 bolts. I really don’t know for sure if I can get the car high enough to get it off of the ramps. I have a bad feeling that I’m going to have to dick around a lot just to get the car back down on the ground in stages, push it off of the ramps and then get it back up again. I’ll probably also have to go find taller jackstands. Is irksome. God how I’d love a lift.

#70

Yep. When I changed the clutch on the Coat it took me and a buddy 3 tries (and all afternoon) to get the tranny back on. That’s when my kids learned all kinds of new cuss words…

#71

Fred42 wrote:

WTF is the trick? It seems like JP, Robert and Chuck did it in 5min at CMP.

#72

The trick is to have a good pilot shaft so everything is properly aligned. Lubing the input shaft end and clutch splines also helps. If you have help, one should push and jiggle the trans while the other observes the gap of the bell housing/motor. Once you are within 1/2", you can pull in with bolts. Oh yea, remember the back of the motor will be down, so the trans must also be down in the back. Good luck…you going to RA next weekend? Chuck

#73

cwbaader wrote:

Hmm. I didn’t lube anything. I’ll try that and I’ll get some over-long bolts to help me pull it in. I have to see if anyone is available to assist tho. I’ve used up one buddy for the weekend already.

I’ll be at RA or die trying.

#74

I pulled the motor out and relooked the clutch alignment. When I looked in the center hole the alignment looked pretty good. But when I looked around the perimeter of the clutch disk I could see that I was off by a couple mm. So judging from the perimeter I carefully recentered the disk.

Before I tried the DIY alignment effort an hour ago I called around town and there’s not Euro or clutch shops open where I could borrow an alignment tool, and none of the autoparts store seem to have one in stock.

I then put the motor back into the bay and I’m positioned pretty well, about 3/4" away from the tranny, but it’s raining cats and dogs outside so I’m going to wait for the rain to break.

Splines were lubed but I lubed them some more. I’m thinking that the clutch centering was the issue so I’m hoping this will work.

#75

Good luck. Let me know any tricks you come up with since I will be doing this in a couple weeks myself.

#76

Clutch alignment is usually the problem. I ended up making my own pilot shaft and it lives in my tool box…goes everywhere I go. CB

#77

cwbaader wrote:

Go here.

Engine is in. Problem turned out to be the clutch alignment all right. After the second effort to align the clutch disk I was able to put the motor back in and mate it up by myself without too much trouble.

I would not have thought that one person could put a motor in.

So tomorrow night I should be ready for a test start. Or I may find out how much of a complete cock-up one person can do at an engine rebuild.

#78

ya gotta have the clutch alignment tool…you are lucky that you got it to work, I will make you one with a dead tranny and you can loan it out to other spec e30 folks.

Al

#79

FARTBREF wrote:

[quote]ya gotta have the clutch alignment tool…you are lucky that you got it to work, I will make you one with a dead tranny and you can loan it out to other spec e30 folks.

Al[/quote]

Damn cool of you.

#80

Ranger - if it makes you feel better, I once installed a 3rd gen RX7 clutch disk BACKWARDS on the flywheel, so that the clutch would almost disengage, but not quite… After days of troubleshooting and clutch bleeding - I got to drop the entire driveline again and start over. First time learning curves are STEEP. As you did, I found a visual disk alignment was good enough to stab the tranny back into the motor - good luck.

Jim