Back in 1997 I bought a Goodmans 400W car amplifier, and a few years later I bought a comically named ‘Vented Innovative Bass Enclosure’ (VIBE) bass box. These have been lying around gathering dust, so after yesterday’s wiring, today I’ve shoved them in the M3′s boot. There’s still a bit of wiring to be tidied when I get some better leads, but here’s a quick photo anyway.

The amplifier is stuck to the top of the bass box with Velcro, and the box is screwed down into the boot carpet (not the boot floor itself). The amplifier is bridged into the box, and has a 120Hz low pass filter applied. I’ve no idea of the steepness of the filter or the actual power available, but with a bit of tweaking on the head unit the sound is now more than acceptable. I’m really impressed with the components in the front of the car – having reduced their low frequency load they’re keeping up well with the sub.

This afternoon a visitor arrived in his new M car.

The E39 M5 is an awesome car. While it’s the polar opposite M car when compared to the E30 M3, it’s good to see how the concept has evolved.

After a good blat around the countryside in the M5 we returned to base and I finished painting my spare set of wheels for the 330d. This is relevant to the project because now they’re finished, they’re on eBay, and hopefully they’ll fund some new wheels for the M3.

At the end of the day, while reflecting on how good a weekend I’d had, I realised I’d left the 330d key in the M5. This meant I was forced to take the M3 on a proper drive to collect that key, which in a way was good because it needed a run. The journey was really enjoyable; the defining moment being an open 90 degree left hander I took right at the top of second, engine and tyres singing with a twist of opposite lock – ahhh, what a weekend!

Among other things today, I’ve sorted the front brakes on an E39 528i and the rear shocks and top mounts on an E36 M3 Evo. More importantly, I’ve also made massive progress on the project M3.

First things first, the exhaust mounts were looking a bit crinkly bottom.

So they were easily renewed:

The rear anti-roll bar drop links were also worn:

Replacing these looked to be very difficult, but a quick phone call to the walking, talking Haynes manual told me that a bit of lube and constant hand pressure was all that’s required.

And actually it wasn’t as hard as expected. While doing all this I re-copper greased the backs of the rear brake pads in an attempt to reduce the amount of brake squeal.

I also elected to fit the front wheel arch liners kindly supplied by Craig.

As expected, I’ve found a bit of rust behind both of them, so I’ll be looking into a bit of cut and plating soon. Rust photos:

This all done, I’ve decided it’s time to fit a bit more audio to the M3. Nothing horrendous – I’ve no wish to spend any money or put too much weight in it, but it would be nice to have a bit of bass line. I’ve therefore gutted the interior and run remote power signal and audio to the boot:

Results and pictures hopefully to follow tomorrow. A big thanks today to Ben Smith for his assistance with all the progress.

I’ve been and collected some bits from BMW. Here we have two new rear ARB drop links, some nuts and bolts for the front wheel arch liners and an exhaust mount. Sadly I’d ordered two exhaust mounts yet only one arrived, but I’m assured that the other one will be popped in the post and should arrive before the weekend.

I hope to get the drop links and exhaust mounts fitted quickly Friday evening or Saturday morning. Then onto the wheel arch liners as mentioned last time.

Something I omitted to mention last time, but I drove Craig Smith’s Sport Evo on Tuesday evening. Well, well, well! It’s clear to see the evolution path from my S14 to the E36′s S50 engines; the 2.5 litre sport evo has considerably more torque low down, and it just gets better as it revs.

Next time the two cars are together I’ll try and get some photographs. Craig’s car is in extremely good condition, and feels like a much newer car than mine. He’s got the big (standard fit) bucket seats. For those that don’t know, they look like this:

Upon reflection though, I’ve come a long way with ‘Wol’ over the last three months, and looking forward, I hope that with new wheels and wheel arch liners, a bit of body work and maybe a less brash exhaust, I’ll soon be loving it when a plan comes together.

I’ve just been doing a bit of reading on s14.net and have come across this check for the fuel pump. I know Ian Haynes has mentioned this to me before, but I thought that if I post it on here I might remember to check this out in the future, as I fear my fuel supply isn’t quite right.

–

“Locate and remove the fuel pump relay. Flip the relay over and look for T30 (12V constant) and T 87(power to Fuel Pumps). Look for the corresponding terminals on the relay plug and jump them. The Main Pump should run. If it does not, the wiring to the pump is shorted or more likely, the main pump is dead. If the pump runs…follow the OBC bypass procedure.”

A quick, pictureless entry tonight. I’ve washed the car, cleaned the interior, and filled it with fuel for the first time in over a month. I’ve also ordered some middle exhaust box mounts and some rear drop links from BMW which I’ll pick up tomorrow or Thursday.

I met up with Craig Smith tonight, and he has kindly donated two front wheel arch liners to the project, so many thanks to him. This is good because the nearside arch liner is definitely bust, so I plan on replacing both this weekend. I only hope I don’t find too much rust when I do so. I also want to copper slip the back of the rear brake pads as they’re squeaking a lot under light braking.

Finally, I’ve agreed to buy a set of 16″ sport evo wheels from Craig. They should really smarten up the car and sharpen the driving experience – just need to sell some crap on eBay to raise funds…

Things have moved fast over the weekend. On some advice from Andy Eccles I instructed eBay to notify me of any new items matching a search ‘E30 M3 LSD’. Saturday afternoon, eBay email me with a fresh item.

I made contact with the vendor, agreed a buy it now price, and collected the differential on Sunday morning. It’s actually from a Z3M, and as such is a 3.15:1, slightly higher ratio than the car’s standard 3.25:1 (but not as silly rev-happy as the open 3.64:1 diff I’ve been running!).

The UK BMW world being a small one, Simon Stevinson knows the vendor, and confirms that it was removed to allow that chap to track prep his car, and is a good condition 45K mile old unit.

Sunday lunchtime I swap it in.

The results? Perfect! A completely silent, smooth and solid drive. The slightly higher gearing isn’t really noticeable, and while I realise it means it’s ever so slightly less track suited, it is more suited to real world driving – something I intend to give it quite a bit of now that, for the first time since I bought it, I consider it to be 100%.

Of course, there’s always a downside, and while fitting the diff in the lovely sunshine I noticed another spot of rust on the boot floor, and that some exhaust mounts and the rear drop links are badly perished. Plenty still left to do then, but really getting there now.

I’m very disappointed to say that having spent a good deal of time and effort doing my best to rebuild the LSD, I’ve just refitted it tonight and it’s no better.

With advice from Ian and Simon, and a huge amount of help from Robin and Ben, the LSD was dismantled, cleaned, and had its bolts replaced.

The bolts were threadlocked and torqued up correctly, and today I fitted the new sensor and oil.

Sadly though, the knocking noise on the overrun is even more present. Due to its frequency I’d say it’s either the pinion bearing, or just the meshing between the crown wheel and pinion, but in any case, I think the most sensible course of action now is either to hand the unit over for a full refurbish, or to source a known good second hand unit.

Any help on either of these avenues greatly appreciated.

I’ve got the differential open, and while speaking to Simon Stevinson, I realise that there are actually a few bits missing.

Looking at the picture below, all twelve big bolts are present, but of the eight smaller allen headed bolts, only one is present. The others are either entirely absent, or the heads have sheared off.

These bits have been floating around, and have caused a few chips to the crown wheel, and I conclude caused the damage to the speed sensor. The lack of movement in the bearings suggests that the crash damaged wheel is a bit of a red herring.

Here are a few more pictures of the damage to the crown wheel. It’s chipped only at the edge.

The differential is going to go up to Simon’s this weekend for further inspection. In the meantime the car has Robin’s open differential, and amusingly, that diff is running the old oil from the LSD, which means that those bolts are now getting ground up in that differential too. Nice!

Quick photo of the diff draining:

There’s an interesting discussion taking place about all this here.

I’ve had a good look at the inside of the differential and noticed that one of the blades on the wheel that passes through the sensor looks a bit bent, which would explain how it easily clipped the speed sensor.

In the photo below, the blade marked with a red arrow is bent left relative to the rest of the blades. This might not look obvious as the camera appears to be square to the blade’s end, but note the left edge of all the other blades can be seen.

In this photo below I’ve rotated the wheel so that the suspect blade is at the bottom – this shows the difference in angle more clearly.

I’ve ordered a new speed sensor and I’ll bend that spoke back with a pair of mole grips. The next question is whether to just refit it and hope for the best, or hold out and have the differential’s bearings replaced. I’ve received one quote of £300 + VAT which sounds a bit steep, I’m waiting to hear back on another.

We didn’t take many pictures last night, but here are a few to give the event a bit more ‘feel’.

Differential out and on the jack:

The void:

And Robin in his jump suit refitting the diff:

That’s all for now. I plan to fully drain and photograph the LSD tonight.