cheap M3, whats the worst..

Touched the car for the firs t time in what felt like ages. Rear arm was detached but handbrake cable wouldn't come out.

Its off. Off side handbrake mech in now functional. Camber arm bush is a total mess and the bolt appears to be fused to the centre. I think ill have to burn the centre out then think about the shell. Making a tool to refit should be easy.

Bought a cover for the car that will be going on tonight whilst the car is dry. Now that the garage is almost built I should get more time to work on the car (wishful thinking...)
 
update.

as per my other thread, i got the spring arm and camber arm bushes out of one of the rear trailing arms, i offered up one of the new bushes and it slotted straight through the hole. its meant to be a press in item. the hole for the spring arm bush is 0.27mm larger than the other hole. fail.

i have bought an evo rear subframe with diff and arms attached, ill have that in my hands this weekend

aim of the game is disassemble, remove bushes, refit new bushes, fit adjustable camber arms.

subframe will be cleaned up, inspected and add reinforcement if needed.

my trailing arms have poly bushes, the new arms dont, so ill have the joys of removing the old trailing arm bushes to look forward too (which i hear is a pig)

when THAT is all done, remove old subframe and fit new one.

need to decide if i keep the evo diff.

original diff is 3.15, evo diff is 3.23
 
been out shopping. i have a evo subframe, diff and all arms in the back of the golf

its so heavy im going to have to disassemble it in the car to get it out.

so, im going to start again with getting the rear suspension sorted
 
it appears i got an infraction for a hotlinked image, apologies for that.

seeing as pictures appear to be the order of the day, here are some i prepared earlier

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here is the original arm i had. the top hole is the one causing the issue, bush goes straight through

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the gear i picked up today, had to be loaded in with an engine crane..

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low suspension plus 200kg (easily) of bits

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i was faced with that when i got back, it would have to be disassembled to get it out. lots of dirt, corroded bolts, some swearing, but it worked

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stripped it apart for rebushing and cleaning. one camber arm bolt was really stubborn but eventually it all came apart

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crusty evo diff.

will get to work on it soon. there is a lot of work plus im painting the outside of the house too so it could take a while
 
the weather was terrible lastnight and seeing as the house/diy things im doing at the mo are all outdoor i had a bit of time on my hands after i finished cursing the weather and the paint

both brake discs were refusing to budge so i went mcguiver on them

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this week ive been stripping paint of an iron drain pipe so i had the angle grinder etc nearby and had a crack at the arms. lots of rust came off in just 10 minutes but the results could be good.

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the fiddly bits need to flexi ginder pad to finish them off
 
Looks like you need to get to know rust removal by electrolysis. All the rage for years on my building-our-own-cars forum. You go from this...
KsMk3.jpg

To this...
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...while you kick back and have some beers. This front upright looked as bad as the rear hub carrier above...
gUetw.jpg

No effort (well OK they didn't prime themselves afterwards) and no angle-grinder wire brush and the instant parkinsons/arthritis that goes with it. All you need is a big enough tub of water, some soda, a power supply (e.g. car battery charger) and a bit of steel (but not stainless) for an electrode. Here's a good artlicle about it...

http://www.htpaa.org.au/article-electro.php

And the long running thread on it on my other forum...

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=9158

It's coooool
 
i had forgotten all about the electrolysis thing. the results look great

sadly i think ive taken a step too far tonight. whilst sat having a beer with the neighbour i got stuck into fitting a bush

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and another

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one arm totally rebushed with lemforder ball joints :D

looks like i wont have to cheat and sent it away for someone else to do
 
had a seriously back breaking day today

removed the ball joints from the other new arm and inserted the new ones (after a small panic when i couldnt find one of them)

all four new ball joints are now in

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next i set to the trailing arm bushes, all i had to do was remove them as the car currently has poly items which i will put into the new arms

lots of drilling, then put a bolted a bolt through the core and twisted it out. sawed the metal casing and chiselled it out. both of those are out. one was BMW branded, not sure if it was original or not, and one was febi (one of the worst aftermarket brands in my experience) which goes to show you what life is like for these 36s

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i thought i was going to pack up and move on to levelling the ground inside the the "garage" ready for the floor to go in. spent hours doing that feeling like i was going to die.

finished that but was feeling stubborn (didnt want to tidy up the tools there and then) so carried on with car bits

next was the subframe. the mounting bushes needed to come out. same process as before and it wasnt fun.

got two out

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one more thing, i got the complete handbrake mech off the new arms which is a real pig but all components are out and its easy to see how/why they seize. my are refreshed now, but im too tired to even think about what the next stage is
 
Didn't have much car time today. The remaining sub frame bushes have got me stumped though. Will have to try a brighter idea tomorrow.

Have a look at the diff flanges, both are six bolt so evo diff can go straight on.

Need diff oil but the BMW boards seem to almost blindly recommend one product without any justification other than its what opie sells :-(
 
Can't believe you managed to use the threaded bar removal technique. I tried doing that the other day on some S14 bushes, all I managed to do was bend threaded rods and suffer a mild bout of tourettes. Took the damn thing to the garage in the end and did the job in seconds with their press.
 
it was m12, the same size as the bolt hole. i added washers in there too and they were pushing/pulling 1/2 drive sockets. the washers were deformed and some of the thread was damaged but the rod was 1m long so i could shorten it.

a combination of that, an exhaust clamp and a towing eye... and they went in and out pretty easily. the difficult part was aligning them.

these subframe bushes are nylon cased, so hard to hammer and they have a rubber/goo jacket so arnt likely to ever move anyway. im going to have to hand saw out all the rubber and then chop apart the case :(

after that the new components want paint.

the rest of the old stuff has to be removed.

then i fit the new bits

itll be roadworthy again then :D

next will be find body parts and then put some money aside to then get new MAF and lambdas
 
need some advice. firstly, does anyone have any experience of whether rust converter is a good primer? the manufactuer "FLAG" gives conflicting info. the parts are all painted in rust converter, i dont know whether im best off adding primer and then painting or just painting.

next question is about BMW parts. how fast are they likely to be able to get bolts in for me? i want all new bolts on the rear ideally for saturday.

the trailing arms, spring platforms, subframe and trailing arm hanger have all been ground down and painted

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oh, and the adjustable camber arms are in da haus

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new diff oil and drop links tomorrow and im almost ready
 
Ive not kept tabs on car costs for years. I gave up on keeping tabs on costs completely shortly after starting the house. The bm hasn't been that dear, just into four figures with the bits I can remember off the top of my head and ive only driven it a few times and done about 200 miles I think, most of that was just bringing it home.
 
I started keeping a spreadsheet of what my car costs on a monthly basis....I stopped doing it 3 months in as it got depressing. Maybe because it was a cheap car but with the mot next week it will probably be about 1 or 1.5 times the price I paid for the car I've spent running it. Petrol is another matter entirely....
 
Need info on the paint and bolts, lets not talk about money!

Car costs can be odd. Last October/November the golf wanted tyres, water pump cambelt and all tensioners and then two rear calipers in quick succession, but ive not lifted the bonnet since and have done about 15k in it.

Just accept that cars will be a continual massive outgoing for your money, esp if you actually like cars that work well.
 
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