Time for an overhaul of my 1.9 '98 BMW Z3 Individual

[Matt Barnes]

ok, no real time last weekend but ... yes I went and did it.... zinc plated the pad retaining springs...

gave them a good clean up and into the tanks they went

not brilliant, as I did sort of rushed it, and they got a bit "burnt" on the copper wires....

but. for today... decided to clean up and paint the front wheel arches, ready to receive the shiny shocks !

so gave them a decent scrub, firstly with wire pads to get rid of the mud, then warm soapy water, then washed down and then sprayed with brake cleaner as a degreaser... and we get here.

also ground down the front subframe and thankfully no nasty surprises under the grot

liberally coated the whole lot in Kurust...

and let it do it's magic

turned completely black in about 10 minutes

one thing I did notice was an area of crust where the seam sealer meets the lollipops, on both sides, so that needed some attention

then it was a general mask up, and on with my favourite paint !!.... I didn't go too precise as most of that will be covered by wheel arch liner anyway.

with that drying, I then masked from behind the wheel arch and out, so that I could get enamel black on the subframe... and yes I was temped to zinc plate the bolts, but talked myself out of it

so I got done today what I planned to do, so I'm happy with that.....next is replacing those tie rods and getting that new cross brace on...

 

[Matt Barnes]

I know I should wait but I couldn't help it...... decided to try and offer up the "new" front shocks... fought for what was like 20 minutes when these things weigh a ton when you're at an awkward angle... could I get those bolts into the mounting holes ?.... no..

tried the old shocks and they slipped straight back in... when I looked at the bolts on my "new" ones they were slightly splayed out. The holes on an E36 must be ever so slightly wider. Anyway I took a large adjustable spanner to the top plate and slowly tried to straighten it up so all the mounting bolts were parallel. Then we were all good !

I've ordered two new gaskets for the top of the struts, and for now the shocks are back in the garage snuggled under their favourite blanket...

next step is definitely the tie rods... I promise !... they should be the last of the old stuff to take off.

I'll look at that offside brake pipe again to decide whether to make a union in the wheel arch, or... try and run a new one through the engine bay

 

[Andyboy]

E36's and Z3's are all the same. There's a locating lug on the hub. It may be that aftermarket struts aren't drilled as precisely as the originals.

 

[Matt Barnes]

E36's and Z3's are all the same. There's a locating lug on the hub. It may be that aftermarket struts aren't drilled as precisely as the originals.

cheers @Andyboy .. makes sense, little tweak sorted it out

 

[ktnez99]

Welcome to the “That one Neighbour” Club!

View attachment 255435

I wonder if I should get a trolley jack thinking don't they have to be super low to get under the sills on our cars?

 

[Althulas]

From experience a low profile jack is far more usable on our cars, I don’t use my old standard sized jack any more.

 

[AntStark]

I wonder if I should get a trolley jack thinking don't they have to be super low to get under the sills on our cars?

Slippery slope that.. you’ll use it and notice something that you’ll think ‘that can’t be too hard to fix’ .. before you know it you are knee deep looking at catalogues of socket sets and flare nut spanner’s.

 

[Matt Barnes]

I wonder if I should get a trolley jack thinking don't they have to be super low to get under the sills on our cars?

hi mate...I survived with a normal trolley jack for this entire project. Only got a low profile one as I put my subframe on a trolley, but then realised I couldn't get my jack under it. Plus my old jack was feeling lonely and needed a fwend...

 

[AntStark]

Waits patiently for an update ..with this lack of progress we’ll be calling you Mazza soon

 

[Matt Barnes]

well hello everyone and Happy New Year..... hope you're all well......and yes... it's been a while.

Decided to take the whole Christmas period completely out of the garage, and the first week of January was spent overcoming the mental torture of going back to work, after allowing myself three weeks off which basically consisted of drinking various forms of alcohol.

Come the second week of Jan I had to focus on the Octavia as the dreaded MoT was looming. One of last year's pickups was "underside surface corrosion"... well... come on, that's a breeze for me now !.... so ground down the subframe and trailing arms and coated the lot in Kurust, which come the day of the races had turned a nice black. It did fail though on rear wheel bearings and a nearside driveshaft... I needed the car so let them do it.... £602 later I had the car back !..... interestingly, they pulled me up as an Advisory for "Underbody sealing".... the Kurust. I can only think it was because now, they can't see if it's rusty or not !

Anyway back to the Zed..... today was my first day back on it (after replacing the sodding rear wiper motor on the Skoda).... I wasn't going to do much other than remove the Tie Rods.

and yes I do have the obligatory Rocker cover gasket leak above.

Got the boot off, and good news, no power steering fluid leaks

wasn't any point in using the ball joint tool as the whole lot was coming off, so just used an Adjustable and a rubber mallet. Sad thing is, the shiniest thing in this photo is the spanner !

and off she popped...... here's a Lesser Mottled Offside Tie Rod in it's natural habitat

and here we have a rare glimpse of a Mottled pair soon after mating

I also sprayed the inner arch connector case black...... too much ?

whe I got them on the bench I noticed something that clearly isn't right..


The new outer tie rods have a conical slit, expecting a compression fitting (yellow arrow) and the old Inner tie rods do seem to have like a compression fitting (green arrow)

The new Inner Tie rods though come with just a nut (blue arrow). Not sure yet if you can get that compression fitting separately or I need to get different Tie Rods?

 

[Althulas]

That’s a disappointment, can you send them back?

 

[Matt Barnes]

That’s a disappointment, can you send them back?

bought them a couple of years back so doubtful. I never even realised until I compared them against the old ones. I might try and find the "compression" nuts somewhere. If not, it's finding compatible outer tie rods

 

[Pingu]

Not many people have the heat required to undo the tie rods, but if you have an angle grinder (w/ cutting disc), you can cut the rod through the nut, and use one of the old compression rings.

 

[Matt Barnes]

Not many people have the heat required to undo the tie rods, but if you have an angle grinder (w/ cutting disc), you can cut the rod through the nut, and use one of the old compression rings.

thank you @Pingu .. re using it did cross my mind, but I wasn't sure if it was classed as a "consumable" that you're supposed to replace. If I do get it off I've got to stop myself zinc plating it

 

[Stevo7682]

Compression rings available on ebay.
I had a guy in about a week ago with a zed 3 for a tracking.
He had changed track rods and track rod ends fitted without rings told him we weren't doing it until they were fitted found part number on real oem for him didn't check dealership price but readily available on ebay .

Stephen.

 

[Matt Barnes]

Compression rings available on ebay.
I had a guy in about a week ago with a zed 3 for a tracking.
He had changed track rods and track rod ends fitted without rings told him we weren't doing it until they were fitted found part number on real oem for him didn't check dealership price but readily available on ebay .

Stephen.

thank you mate...honestly never gave it a thought until compared them

 

[Matt Barnes]

thank you mate...honestly never gave it a thought until compared them

Just ordered a pair from LLLParts..