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!