Trying to get my bearings!

This engine parts replacement business is taking more time than I thought A couple of problems I created myself so I'm actually to blame for most of the delays. New water pump and thermostat arrived and were duly put in place, something else to tick off. Sump gasket, inlet and exhaust gaskets arrived from BMW as well as new big end bearings so I could get on with the next stage.   

Water pump and thermostat in place.

I've put off doing anything with the bearings because the ARP bolts I ordered took longer to be delivered than expected. They arrived today BUT are the wrong ones! Will have to order them all over again! But anyway I decided to check the crankshaft as well as check the clearance of the new bearings.

New standard bearings for my M44 engine. The two on the top are old, showing slight wear. 

New torque wrenches, wrong ARP bolts, plastigauge.

Sump removed,  con rods 2 and 3 sticking up ready for bearing checks.I marked each con rod and bolt so as not to get them mixed up.

A small amount of Plastigauge placed across the face of the crankshaft ... 

 ... before bolting on the bearing and bearing cover and torquing to 20Nm and 70 degrees

Dave mentioned the tolerance for the M44 big-end bearings (conrod) is between 0,02 - 0,055mm. Mine, at least nr. 3 as you can see is 0,025 which is very little wear. I hope the other 3 are just as good.  

I'll clean this off with some WD40.

While waiting for the parts I continued to clean up the wiring. I intend to shorten the spark plug feed and ODB II connector as well as many others.

Unnecessarily long cables. I'll cut and splice them.

I'll continue with other parts of the car until the new ARP bolts arrive. I hope they don't take too long!

Engine cleanup

The mega job continues, a little bit everyday!Tried quite a few tips found on youtube on how to clean an engine, especially the cylinder head but in the end, as I want to do it in situe, I found the best way was with an slightly abrasive buffing disk attached to a drill.

First thing was to get the engine up on the stand. 

Easier to put the bracket on straight and as central as possible and then attach it to the stand.

It's quite stiff so "almost" no worry about spinning round by itself.

Decided to change the water pump and thermostat.

Easier to clean area behind too!

To help get the old water pump out one can screw in long (40mm) M6 bolts into the two threaded holes provided in the pump. By screwing them in they push against the housing and force the pump out. One can also use a small crowbar to gently lever out the pump.

Old and new pumps, the new one has a composite impeller.

One tip was soaking parts in diesel for a week - it didn't work!

Painted areas of rust on the block with rust converter. Then used black engine block paint.

It'll look better when all the bits are put back on again.

As mentioned the best way I found to clean aluminium parts was with a slightly abrasive buffing wheel.These engine mounts have come out pretty well. 

Mount for the alternator and belt tensioner was a bit fiddly to clean. Alternator needed just a wire brush and then a blast of compressed air. 

Time to spend a little time on the bulk head, wire wool and a polish.

In the next few days the thermostat, ARP bolts, clutch plate, gaskets etc. should be delivered. Then need to remove the sump to remove and check big end bearings before ordering new.

Clutch upgrade continues

I looked around for an M3 clutch and eBay UK and eBay US ended up being very expensive when postage was added. I then looked at eBay Germany and up popped a couple of second hand clutch assemblies including flywheel. Got in touch with one guy and ended up paying €200 for the whole assembly including postage to Sweden. Only a few days later all 18kg arrived! 

Little clean up required

The clutch plate and pressure plate are much bigger than the M44 version but the flywheel is exactly the same size, same number of teeth, same mounting points etc. but the clutch space available is very much more.

Locked the flywheel in place and then easy to remove the eight flywheel retaining bolts.

Not sure whether I need to replace the retaining bolts, should be enough to add a little Loctite I would have thought - ideas? That goes for the  clutch pressure plate retaining bolts too?

Flywheel match! 

Flywheel removed ready to remove pilot bearing. Dave sent me a youtube link to someone who used bread to remove the bearing - well it worked for me too!

This is the new M3 flywheel temporarily in place. It should fit nicely into the gearbox housing.

Tomorrow I'll nip into the local BMW dealer and order clutch plate, release bearing, pilot bearing, inlet and exhaust gaskets, also considering changing to ARP bolts and replacing crankshaft bearings so will need a new M42 gasket as well (my M44 sump was replaced by a shortened M42). It will all be quite expensive but may as well replace as much as possible - if it's really needed!

Engine needs a cleanup and repaint.

On to the engine

Now the engine's out it's time to clean and replace. As well as the clutch, Dave advised me to renew big end bearings and change ARP bolts. I may as well do as much as I can while the engine's out. Although it's really fun doing it I'm not sure if I want to do it too often! 

Alternator and bracket are now removed and the clutch pressure plate and clutch removed. 

The M3 version of the clutch is 240mm in diameter and the clutch for the M44 engine I have is 215mm. I don't think it will fit inside the lip of the flywheel unless I change the flywheel too. But then will the gearbox bell housing fit over it?

I tried sand blasting the engine mounts but the finish wasn't as good as I expected so I may spray paint them metal finish, maybe use Hamerite silver. The block I'll clean up and paint black and everything else sand or spray with a metal finish paint. 

Gearbox needs a clean up and change of oil.

As I mentioned everything was done to quickly to build the car, without too much thought to where things went or whether they were even used. I'm now going to re-wire at least everything in the engine bay. Also heating hose pipes were directed badly and those not being used were capped badly.

Most of this has to be connected before the inlet manifold is put back.

Winter strip begins

UPDATED
Hi there! Nice you could drop in. The weather has been slowly getting colder and wetter and even a small amount of snow fell last week. I thought it was best to start the winter jobs early so I'm sure (or pretty sure at least) that the car will be ready for the spring. The main job is changing the clutch so Saturday I put the car up on blocks and started removing most of the bits in the way of getting the engine out. 

The biggest problem was the cabling. Most of it was laying between the engine and inlet manifold so it was easier to remove the manifold and once the engine is out I'll spend time tidying up. It was also easier to get to alternator and starter motor cables. As the gearbox has to come out together with the engine, the seats, carpet, dashboard, console and heater had to be removed to to get to the gear lever linkage.

Inlet manifold removed. Spaghetti all over the place.

Spaghetti all over the place here too! It's a good opportunity to clean up. At least now I know where everything goes whereas when I was building it things were simply put in place without any particular order. 

Well during the week the car was stripped even more. Drive shaft was a real bugger to remove, upside down, blood flowing the wrong way. Must be less blood the older one becomes! Gear linkage and clutch master cylinder were straightforward to remove. Engine mounts etc were also easy.

Feels really great to have the engine out so I'm able to clean up and try and get it back to nearly new status again.

Will need to clean up the workshop a little, it's a bit cramped with car bits, tools and wine rack laying around - wine rack!

Gearbox is now off and I have access to the clutch. I need to double check that an M3 clutch and pressure plate fit inside the bell housing. I found a forum that says it does. I'll give the engine a good clean and sandblast some of it as well as change cam belt, water pump etc. 

I'm really glad that I started so early in the winter season, means I can take it easy and hopefully get things right this tie.

Here is a little time lapse video of the job so far!

Wonderful if one could work this fast!

Hope you can drop back soon!

First MOT - it's a pass!

Hello there! With the MOT coming up I drew up a list of repairs that needed doing.

1. Battery needed fixing in place. I used the same rubber strap solution I had before I moved the battery.
2. Windscreen water bottle missing, the new battery position meant that  the old water bottle had to be moved. I bought a water bag instead but hadn't mounted it - I made a temporary solution for the MOT test.
3. Seat belts - the four point belt is not allowed in Sweden so I disconnected one point!
4. Front ball joints had to be replaced - thanks Peter for sending the lower joints (Triumph QR1572S). Upper are standard Ford Transit QD117RHT which I bought locally.
5. Super Charger - I replaced the belt with a shorter one which bypassed the SC!
6. Front wing bracket - welded and painted and back in place.
7. Brakes - wasn't sure  if they would pass but took a gamble and left them as was.

I picked an MOT station (bil besikningen) that I heard was more sympathetic towards amateur built cars. This was the one in Uppsala north of Stockholm about 60 miles from home. Typically on the day it rained really hard and almost blew a gale for the first time in more than 3 months. It was almost like my first experience in the rain 3 years ago but this time it wasn't the Poseidon Adventure as before as I now had the soft top in place. It was now rather cozy and warm. Two and a half hours I was in Uppsala.

The test was very uneventful in fact apart from I removed the soft top to make it easier for the young lady doing the test to get in and out and also the sump kept hitting the lift mechanism so had to help push the front of the car up a few times. It was difficult for the tester to operate the pedals too but it worked out well in the end. Head lights were aligned correctly, brakes and hand brake were fine, exhaust emissions were very low and the small amount of stone wool I inserted kept the noise level down too! A pass without comments so I was very pleased. Next one is in two years and then every year after that.

The test was so much better and fairer than the first at Dekra!

Underneath will have to be cleaned up over the winter to stop any possible rust creeping in.

Lambda test results.

Now I have a few opportunities left to go out for drives in the country then it'll be down to getting the engine out and clutch changed.

See you soon!

Three year Anniversary!

Welcome back! How time flies! Wasn't summer fantastic? The hot weather started the day we started our vacation at the beginning of July and kept going until the day we went back to work 4 weeks later. I managed to get out in the car for several day trips but not the long trip I was hoping for. Never mind there is always next year. The car has now passed 16,000 miles (28,000km) since it went on the road three years ago.

Two weeks ago I felt the clutch slipping so have been taking it easy ever since. Found out that because I installed the super charger the standard clutch wasn't able to cope with the extra power. I need to upgrade the clutch to either a 328 or M3. This I'll do over the winter along with all the other jobs I need to do. The MOT is in 3 weeks so hopefully the clutch will last that long at least. Funnily enough, having taken it really easy with the clutch I tried an empty tank test. I passed the magic 300 mile on a tank of fuel for the first time. Fantastic really, 500km on 35 litres of fuel!

Started coughing and spluttering - lucky I had an extra 5 litres in a can!

A few weeks ago I suffered the same fate as Steve, Dave and James, one of the front wing brackets broke. Strange really as I believe the other guys brackets had broken soon after the cars were built mine however has lasted 3 years. Perhaps that's an indication of the difference in road quality between England and Sweden ;-) Less stress on smooth roads perhaps! It was still attached by the side bolt so I tied it up with wire, which has held well. As the MOT test is coming up I decided to do a more permanent fix.

Not sure if this is how the other's brackets broke.

While taking off the wing and bracket I noticed the steering rod balljoints need replacing and I may as well change the upper wishbone balljoints too.

Perhaps it's the extreme temperature range that deteriorates the rubber or perhaps 3 years is the normal life expectancy. 

Out at my favourite Cafe "Rosenhill" and parked next to this. 

I had to keep an eye on it just in case mine was thrown in the boot and driven off.

Hopefully I'll be reporting in three weeks that the car passed it's first MOT with flying colours but first I need to fix the battery in place, install the windscreen washer bag, bleed brakes, disconnect one of the four point safety belt harnesses (illegal to have more than three!) and probably need to bribe the inspector. Wish me luck!