shitboxbmw

 After another nice ride check underneath by beater and found oil soaking down from the engine. After some inspection made assumption that oil filter housing seal is done. Omg, it was done totally, rubber was like really hard plastic. After googling a bit, found out this is another standard bmw thing, basically 20 years made their part. This fix was cheep, 2.5eur for elring seal, and relatively easy. Also changed oil line from oil housing into vanos unit, was leaking slowly. Those kinda fixes are kinda optional, but to my mind when car is used on it's limit become required, or if want car to not fail randomly. Also new termostat went in this round, not liking fluctuating engine temp at all. Note, woring on termostat this happened But welding machine helped me out Old termostat had strange o-ring stuck between parts.   So far so good, need winter tyres on the front and hunt for action time.

 Clucth was slipping to had to do something with it. Well slipping when abused, I would guess that used normally it would last another 30kkm.  Anyhow, option 1 was refresh only clutch with pressure plate, plus machine out pressure mounting area on flywheel, option 2 switch to single mass flywheel kit from valeo. Last one seemed better option, cause it improves clutch pedal response and stays standard/daily vs sport clutch grip, also torque output doesn't require to go non standard over 244mm diameter.  Bellow is lock tool hacked for torquing flywheel to spec. Welding stick on hand sometimes saves some headache. Used the chance to refresh crankshaft seal, good old wood brick and hammer did it's magic. Bellow you can see macgyver style tool to pulling out gearbox shaft bearing from inside crankshaft, worked like a charm. Another interesting solution was used to fix this Well maybe dumb, but didn't have other ideas, so just cut those bolts to the surface ant drilled holes. U...

 So things in front of the car were taken care first, also required less custom work. I read that e36, e46 standard issue with subframe mounting need to be eliminated if drifting is in the menu, so decided to check what state mine is in: Pictures speak for themselves but in short situation was not great, standard some would call Even daily driven car appears to be in risk for mounting layers to crack and disconnect from chassis welds. Youtube helped to understand metal sandwich layers and how weld inner structure to outer layer and overlaying custom plates into one.  I am amateur welder pro would tell for sure, but from my understanding it should be good enough. As someone said, know how to grind if welding isn't your strong side :) And some care need to be done from the trunk area as well, cause inner construction car disconnect from chassis layer there as well. Interesting part was differential welding. Also googled/youtubed that just welding gears won't last and extra plate...

 Shit box bmw theme continues... Above one made me taste few bites of excitement cake to slide side ways and smoke tyres , could not resist to switch to something daily drive-able and less beaten up. Big part of daily drive-able vs trailer only car is price of course. After some sells tracking found e46 silver sedan with m52TUB25 which is labelled by 323i model. Basically it's early version of m54B25 with bit less grunt, real m54 would bump price at least 500-700e, 3 litter another 500e, so was obvious to stick up with lower range 2.5 litter and idea that it's enough to start learning driving side ways.  From technical point of view this engine is closer to m54 than m52, cause has dual vanos, cylinder walls has steel sleeves unlike older m52 with nicosil/alusil coating on top of aluminium, which are prone to major failure when not serviced extra carefully. Of course car had some issues but important to me things were fine: -engine -shell free of accident damage -norm...