How To Install BMW E30 Drive Shafts, DIY Steering Limiters & 6-Cyl Coding Plug Install | 057
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- Опубліковано 21 кві 2024
- How To Install BMW E30 Drive Shafts, DIY Steering Limiters & 6-Cyl Coding Plug Install | 057
Following on from the MOT prep failure that was the previous video on this BMW E30 build, I took on the task of solving the problems I'd uncovered on its inaugural test drive.
Here's what I used in this video:
E30 SKF Half Shafts: ebay.us/ef3DTr
27mm Inner Diameter Aluminium Tube: ebay.us/5sWtMj
6-Cyl Instrument Cluster Coding Plug (7k RPM): ebay.us/sIqyey
Large Adjustable Spanner: ebay.us/PCqp7b
Teng Tools Big Torque Wrench: ebay.us/BTOxax
Good news and bad news. Firstly, the good news is that the clutch no longer seems to slip, which is a huge win considering that was the main heartbreaker last time. It remains a bit of a mystery, but all we did was remove the slave cylinder, look at it, and then put it back.
My two current theories on why it slipped on the first drive:
1. The clutch slave cylinder rod was misaligned with the pivoting arm, hence removal and refitting solved it.
2. The clutch disk was somehow contaminated from storage, and it's taken a few miles to burn off and bite again.
Also good news was the large jolt through the steering did turn out to be the undertray I'd refitted. As suspected the track rods were catching on it, and it was already starting to self-clearance. I removed it and cut a couple of over-sized semi-circles in it for clearance at any ride-height. This seemed to be a great success.
With that good news aired, let's move onto the bad news. Unfortunately, after that initial drive, I got under the car and noticed a continuous streak of black CV axle grease up the length of the grey underside I'd so painstakingly refinished earlier in the series.
I cleaned that off immediately as it made me very unhappy to see such a mess. It turned out that the source of this were a couple of pin holes on the differential-side of the half shafts. These shafts are original to the car and I'd only given them a coat of black paint hoping they would last a few more years. Evidently not.
I had a look for rebuild kits, and while I am sure they are available, I opted to fully replace both axle shafts with new SKF E30 half shafts. SKF is a well-known bearing brand so I feel confident in their quality, the actual shaft rarely fails on an E30, so it's the bearings that count.
With them unboxed I got to fitting them on the car, this proved to be quite fiddly, but actually less difficult than I imagined. I showed how to fit E30 drive shafts in a fair amount of detail in the video as a how-to guide.
Another unexpected bit of bad news was that the front tyres were catching on the chassis rails in the wheel wells. I was not expecting this to be honest, but it should be expected as a considerable amount of the front end of the car has changed.
We have the front 5-lug swap featuring the SRS Concept front control arm bushings to recentre the wheel in the arch, the steering rack was changed to a Z3 rack. Plus 16" style-5 wheels from an E38, wrapped in 215-section tyres.
It contacted quite badly to the point of the inner rim of the wheel actually touching the front ARB when the suspension is at full droop. Guaranteed to be an MOT fail, and even if not, potentially dangerous.
To solve this I measured the rack part of the Z3 rack and decided to purchase some 27mm inner-diameter, 4mm wall aluminium tube to create some of my own DIY steering limited, AKA rack limiters.
On a car like this you are generally looking to get more lock, more steering angle can help you catch a slide, and on a light RWD car like this, slides aren't uncommon.
However, in this case, for safe wheel fitment, we actually need to limit the range of the steering rack. BMW even did this on some M3 models for the same reason.
With the aluminum tube, I chopped off an 8.5mm slice for the drivers side, and an 8mm slice for the passenger side which gave me around 1.5cm of clearance preventing the wheel and tyre contacting the chassis.
With this unexpected work done, and feeling very satisfied with my new driveshafts, and steering rack limiters, I took the opportunity to swap in the E30 instrument coding plug to correct my RPM gauge now I have swapped the engine from an M40 4-pot to an M52 6-pot.
This was quite easy to do, the coding plug lives just beneath the cluster and can be popped out following the removal of the knee roll and a couple of trim pieces.
The work culminated in a much more successful test drive!
For more helpful how-to guides and restorations: www.spannerrash.com/
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#bmwe30 #e30build #m52 #m52b28 #m52e30 #m50 #e30 #e30m52 #e30m50 - Авто та транспорт
![Why Won't My M52 Swapped E30 Run?? [M52B28 BMW E30 Build First Start Problem Solving] 054](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q2fOAhrOLPo/mqdefault.jpg)
You've put so much time and effort in to this build
Keep going
Brilliant to watch you at work
Thanks Alan, we're back making progress now thankfully. Can't wait to get it done and put a few miles on it.
I started restoring my e30 after watching your video. Your e30 is so cool
Awesome, thank you!
I hope your E30 restoration goes well.
Congrats! I’m doing an m54 swap in my 318 and really enjoying all the tips I’ve learned such as driveshaft lengths, g240 compatibility, etc.
keep up the great work!
Awesome really glad the vids have been useful for you so far. Hope the M54 swap is going well. 😃
Been following the series from the start and love watching the videos, keep it up! 💪 I just got my e30 m50 swap done in a week, although not as clean and well done as your work 😅 It's still a blast to drive! The M5x engines are perfect in the e30 chassis 🔥
Nice work! A week is pretty mega, its taking far far longer than that for me haha! I'm learning a lot though. I can't wait to get mine on the road and really enjoy that new engine, in theory the 24v engine should give the perfect balance and fun factor in the E30 chassis. Glad yours is meeting expectations. 👌
Great news on the clutch and slave issues. Bedding in is always a good plan.
Cheers! I'm thrilled not to be removing that gearbox again. 😆
@SPANNERRASH yeah for sure its a bugger of a job . Strange how it slipped then didn't. I'll be thinking about how or what the difference was for a while.
Could have just needed a good bed in, or had hand grease or brake fluid on the mating surface.
Sounds good when you giver beans!
I'm a fan of Chevron 94 fuel, great for preventing predetination plus no ethanol corn business, the dme will learn you, your driving characteristics, your fuel air temp and elevation after a few weeks.
@@Flordeh Yeah I was thinking that myself that it somehow got contaminated. Or it may simply have needed to bed in with its new flywheel companion.
I'll definitely be using high octane and low ethanol fuel in this car, the higher ethanol stuff plays havoc with these older cars, especially if they are stored for any length of time and not in daily use. 👍
Great! And, hitting 7000!! I don't think I have revved past 6 ish! I bought a CB360 in the 90s, though it was like new and only had 800 miles, the clutch was slipping bad; it had been sitting for years. I figured that I needed to replace it. By the time I got home, say 20 miles later, it was perfect!
I probably should take it gently as the engine hasn't been running again for long, but sometimes you got to just let it eat! 😆
It sings happily up to 7k which is great, people seem to say an M52 is safe up to that level, but not much beyond. I hopefully won't find out the hard way if they were wrong!
Yeah exactly about the clutch, it's well possible it just had to re-bed itself with its new flywheel and that was the whole issue. All I know is the news so far is positive on the clutch! 🥳
I had a similar issue the cv boot on one of mine was torn and slinging grease everywhere. At first I also ordered a new pair of aftermarket shafts, but they were absolutely rubbish, first time I gave it full beans from a stand still one of the shafts totally grenaded itself 😂 in the end I spent about £150 or so quid at my local main dealers and bought the rebuild kits for both my old drive shafts and rebuilt them, after numerous burnouts and standing starts they are perfect. I can’t remember the brand of the drive shafts I bought initially, but the cv boots were larger as you mentioned and were rubbing on the strut so eventually if one hadn’t broke it would have worn through and that too quite quickly. I hope you have better luck than me
Bloody hell, that sounds like you had a miserable time with aftermarket shafts. These ones definitely seem to fit nicely compared to what you're describing.
I also did carefully select SKF ones instead of just the cheapest ones I could find.
In all honesty, these half shafts SHOULD be OE quality... But time will tell. So far so good!
Your killin it bro. Dont ever stop or get discouraged. Its the journey not the destination 🫡🫡🫡🫡
Cheers man! 🙏
Mate, the car is acceleration beautifully, this ratio is exactly what you need. You will be disapointed if you install any longer ratio diff. I recently found out, that a really good upgrade on the E46 M3 is the 4.10 ratio swap! If you plan on dailying the car then yes you should change the diff. If you plan having the car for the weekends the don't worry, te excitment you will be getting is gona be worth keeping it in!
Hey Marios, I can totally see where you are coming from, but the issue I have is the short ratio is so short it makes 1st gear fairly pointless, and 5th gear too short to cruise on the motorway with.
In a way, it's almost like having a car where 5th gear has broken and can't be used. 😆
I am hoping with a longer diff, I will just be driving the car a gear lower than I currently am the whole time, and in 5th I can get onto the motorway without it giving me a headache after 10 minutes.
I suspect I will get a bit more used to it when I have the MOT and drive the car, but I do want to be able to go on a road trip in the car for example, and with this diff I think that would be extremely taxing.
Bear in mind I am not chasing maximum power from this car, I am chasing maximum driving enjoyment. 😃
@@SPANNERRASH Ok so maybe indeed a 3.64 diff would be a better choice, as the engine is quite torqey already and you will have better mpg for sure.
cant wait to see the car with bodywork done :)
Me too, it's going to look sublime in Mora Metallic I am sure of it.
MOT first though like. 😅
Nice work. Great news about the clutch. Jobs are getting slightly less now.
Cheers Bob, yeah I was super happy about the clutch, that was really miserable when I thought I had to take everything back apart.
Still a bit of a mystery to me about the slipping though. Maybe we will never know. Thats cars for you.
brilliant build thread ....very detailed and informative
Thanks Dal, hope it's useful for you mate!
Absolutely awesome mate.
So happy it’s coming together after your last video low point.
Can’t wait for the next video.
Cheers Shane! Yeah I am feeling much more positive about the project again thanks to that clutch miraculously gripping.
Despite the annoyance of the wheel touching the chassis and the driveshafts slinging. She will be MOTed soon enough. 🤞
The project is nearing completion 👏🏽. What’s the next step after the MOT? Bodywork? Will you be fitting a kit? Excited to see it play out!
Feeling good about progress again! We're back on track.
Got an aftermarket MTech II kit on standby already, will need to figure out how to fit it all. Always loved that look.
Plenty of bodywork and paint work to do along the way too, excited to turn it into my ideal E30.
I might do the interior stuff before the exterior cosmetics though.
Really excited to get the car on the road and enjoy it over the summer while ironing out any bugs.
Cheers!
Great problem solving
Cheers Chris, good progress I reckon.
the clutch should slip a low rpm and where you have torque, maybe it's bedded now...
Yeah in theory the clutch is having to work hardest at max torque which on this engine is probably when WOT at around 4-5k RPM when its making max torque, but I can't get it to slip now even if I am trying to make it. I think its good to go.
My theory is it was contaminated with something. Either that or the slave cylinder really was misaligned...
Brilliant! Quick question - how is the self centering of the steering after rack swap and suspension mods? I'm having a little bit of trouble with mine not self centering all the way
Interesting question, I haven't noticed that as an issue which might mean mines normal. But now you've mentioned it I will definitely check that when I take it on a longer drive.
Hopefully it does self centre because that sounds really annoying. I'll report back if it does turn out to be an issue.
Had a similar thing happen on my 325i after doing a manual swap- has some leaks that soaked my just-cleaned subframe, exhaust etc. 🙄
Now that it runs it’s slowly asking for bushings to be replaced at the rear 🤪 - it’s fun.
Surprised that the wheel is touching the sway bar- many people run these rims but they add small spacers to prevent rubbing.
Had to also replace my coding plug. My car had a 4cylinder version for some reason. I ended up mistakenly getting a 6cylinder ETA plug- so that sucks. Finally got the correct IS plug. 😶🌫️
Haha heartbreaking to see your clean parts fouled, isn't it? 😆
Luckily I did all new bushings on mine as I went, I knew I'd regret not doing it.
And yeah I was shocked too about the rim contacting, wasn't expecting that at all. I'm wondering how nobody else has highlighted this issue. Maybe nobody else noticed as its only at full droop it could touch that bad.
Or maybe very few people have done this specific combo of rack, 5-lug swap and wheels. Should be solved with the limiters at least, but annoying that I had to. 🙃
@@SPANNERRASHyeah. I still have don’t my 5 lug swap- although I have all the parts. Really having a hard time letting go of the 15” rims. I’m scared the car will be too rough of a ride. What do you think of your ride quality?
Your car sounds great!
@@polloloci21 I think the ride falls apart when people try to run 17s on an E30 thanks to them also having to run low profile tyres to make them fit.
The tyres on these 16s should be ample side wall to cushion the ride, but right now the ride quality isn't great.
I haven't dialled the damper settings up or down yet to see if that makes a difference but I have a feeling I might need to revisit the suspension and maybe try some softer springs.
The B roads around here are atrocious and the car feels like it rattles your teeth a bit. Couldnt help noticing that on the test runs. 😆
I'm confident that's all due to the coilovers and how they are set up though, rather than the tyres.
@@SPANNERRASH I hope so too. I think 16s are the sweet spot for e30s. Anything larger looks a bit off. My friend wants me to run his e36 m3 Motorsport rims- they are nice but I’m not interested. I’m not into big rims- I had a 72 Fiat 500f- I had 12” rims 😂- so 16” rims are huge compared to those. I don’t have coil overs- gonna see if I can just get away with stock e36 struts/shocks. We’ll see.
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😍
I ve had these new shafts and broke them on autocross next day and swaped back the oem ones which never broke 😂
These same SKF ones?!? They're supposed to be good OE quality.
I will hang onto the original ones as I bet they can be refurbished one day. But hopefully not needed any time soon. 😅
@@SPANNERRASH yup that brand also claims to be oe quality and shaft was also thicker thn oem same as yours But the problem is bearing are really weak on these new ones
@@beowolf9991 Yeah thats why I opted for SKF as they are a well regarded bearing brand, and its the bearings that fail.
If you're saying the ones you broke were the same SKF ones then I'm pretty worried. But I guess time will tell... So far so good at least.
@@SPANNERRASH yeahh maybe it will not break on youre car because mine is v6 nismo swaped e30 and it broke of hard launching on autocross
@@beowolf9991 Ahh, thats useful to know. I wont be doing too many repeated hard launches I don't think, well maybe one or two when it feels right. 🤭
We will see how they hold up, will certainly report back if I have any problems.
How are those SKF driveshafts? mine lasted 100 km then had the same play as the originals removed from the car .
To be honest I was pleasantly surprised by how high quality they appeared, but I am starting to worry a bit as I've had a couple of people saying theirs didn't last. 😅
what is the style of these wheels? and tyre specs
Hi Tomas, check out my videos about 5-lug swapping this E30 for full specs of wheel and tyre, but in short they are OE BMW 16" style-5 wheels that came off an E38 7 series.
They look perfect on an E30 don't they?
@@SPANNERRASH indeed they look awesome mate ;)
how big is your shaft?
Just big enough to fit between the diff output flange and the wheel hub. Although I have two.
You made the wood stuff urself?
Sure did, check out my previous video on building wheel cribs for full details on those. They're a game changer!
@@SPANNERRASH Will do, they're pretty cool
Nothing worse than full droop
😂