Hey guys. I've been trying to post for a while. But I ended up having to get a new phone and forgot my password. And the reset password doesn't work. The admin still hasn't seen my email. But I just correctly guessed my password and I'm back.
I've been working on this thing pretty much 7 days a week. The E36 remains a fantastic daily driver. I did just have to do the cam angle sensor on it. And apparently got a faulty sensor and had to do it again, but it's good.
Anyway, the past several weeks I removed the sunroof cassette again that was dripping and not going down the drain. Looked at everything. Home Depot got involved and a small piece of weather stripping and some silicone was added on top of the cassette in front of the wind deflector. I think there is supposed to be a seal there but it was missing. There was some rubber on the corners and it looks like there is supposed to be a piece on the front that was missing. This thing had been out at least once before. Or it's not supposed to be there I couldn't really find a good picture. Either way, it's back up and not leaking.
What I think I really missed though was the alignment pin. I read ISTA again and there's an alignment dowel pin on the left front side of the cassette. It even says in case of leaks cassette must be exactly aligned. When I did this back in March I did not see this and did not put a pin in there. So I put a wheel hanging pin up there and got it nicely aligned. It also says there is no rear pin on the e53 into use the rear glass before tightening it. Which worked out as I left the rear glass on this time.
Before fitting the cassette up I decided to reinstall the redone headliner shade. Water stained light gray is now black. It was a little tricky getting that to operate smoothly and get the springs on the left side figured out. After 3 or 4 days, the roof is functioning perfectly and not a single drip. Passed a very long pressure wash test and also a torrential rain / near tornado.
Then I set about getting the black headliner up and all the black upper interior pieces. It was a real pain getting the three clips on the rear of the headliner to slide horizontally all at the same time. I about lost it with that but eventually got it. I cut a small notch in the leftmost clip which gave me a little wiggle room. I also sprayed the fabric dye stuff on the new to me black pillars and sun visors. The a pillars were sun-faded towards a blue but the fabric spray stuff worked. This took way longer than it should have to get everything up without breaking anything. It is a million times better than that light gray and water stained mess. I'll put some pics up once I get it out of the garage again in the daylight. The black rear upper cargo hooks were super hard to find. I'm happy about those.
Once the interior was finally finished, a few more mechanical things,
- the s54 hydraulic timing chain tensioner OE from INA finally came off back order. That is a no-brainer. Replaced original spring tensioner with 130k on it
- new Bosch front oxygen sensors, was getting a few mixture codes.
- new valve cover gasket. Genuine valve cover bolts. I should have replaced the valve cover. It was hard to clean.
- new fuel filter, replacing original 2005. More chassis cleaning and light rust removal fluid filming stuff in that area.
- new slave cylinder, as the old one was rusted and I could never bleed it. New metal clutch pipe as it was a little crusty. CDV pill deleted. I had one hell of a time getting the rubber line to separate from the pipe. Two pry bars for a tiny little o-ring. Rust..
- but the brakes again, bled the clutch
Now this is where everything has gone wrong. After bleeding the clutch, I touched the clutch pedal and heard a ping noise. Pushed it a few more times and heard some fluid gushing noises, and there's fluid dripping out of the bell housing. I didn't align the slave cylinder push rod correctly on the fork, and the rod is now down in the bellhousing.
When I went in there before to clean and grease the fork, the fork was barely on. Just trying to clean it it felt like I was going to knock it off. I couldn't even clean it. I suspect when the clutch was done previously (not too long ago unfortunately), the metal clip was reused and it doesn't have much clipping left to it.
When I went in trying to get the rod back the fork was already sitting cockeyed. So, no two ways about it the transmission has to come off.
The exhaust bracket bolts are soaking. I did order the UUC single mass kit, because why not. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to take the transfer box off first. And I think I can leave the whole exhaust in place which is great. I never did have to replace the output seal, that was a false alarm, it was already replaced. The tech I had inspect this saw all the grease from it and presumed the trans was already low, but it's been holding the level and is no longer actively leaking. I guess I'm going to do all the transmission seals the shifter bushings and the shift pin stuff. I did order the rear main cover as well.
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'17 F30 340ix 6mt. Daily driver
'05 E53 3.0 6mt. In for rear subframe service
'93 318is. M52 and 328is conversion next
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