BMW E36 - Drift - DIY Projects

95. Happy New Year

2011-12-30T02:49:00.000-08:00

Hi guys'n'girls!

This is my last post for this year. So, I just wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year!

So, what can you expect from this blog in 2012 ?

I'll redesign it - current template decided it's time for retirement... huh
I'll try to organize posts trough tags, for easier browsing
I'll refresh (and reupload) the Downloads section
New posts:

DIY installation of a 18 button OBC
My suspension upgrade - 5000km report
I'll show our 'new' 1996 E36 compact (316i)
Last photos from our drift car project...
A general post about all stuff related to our cars... mostly, what went wrong

Thank you all for following, and especially thank you all for commenting!

Until the new posts are up, you can visit my BMW related Squidoo Lenses:

DIY Installing BMW Angel Eyes

BMW M3 CRT

10 fun facts: BMW

Best gifts for BMW drivers

BMW M3 GTS

Quiz: BMW E36 - Ultimate quiz

94. Installing angel eyes on BMW E36

2011-11-22T03:02:00.000-08:00

Well, this weekend I installed angel eyes on my friends 323ti Compact. (Check out my last post)

I was skeptical about those add-on angel eyes rings, but, I must admit that I was wrong. Installation is extremely easy and quick, and the AE rings look completely stock. My main concern was fixing the rings on the head lamps. BMW angel eyes kits are often sold with a 'No need to drill/glue/hokus-pokus' lines... Well - it's true. No need to do anything horrible to your headlights. The installation is 100% reversible. And, best part is - they are really fixed in their places when you're done.

So, here's a quick step by step:

1. Disconnect and take off your headlamps.
2. Take them apart:

3. Take off the round inner lenses from the headlight cover (As pictured, I had to use a screwdriver to undo the screws - 3 per lens. Some headlights have the lenses glued with silicone, so you must use a thin knife to take them off)
4. Insert Angel eyes rings into the headlight cover. Try to be gentle as possible.
5. Put the inner lenses back on. It'll probably go harder back in...

6. Put the headlight back together (route the wires to the rear of the light - to the bulb socket cover)
7. Connect the rings to the supplied inverters (one inverter per headlight)
8. Connect the two wires from the inverter to your parking light bulb.
9. Glue the inverter with a two-side adhesive tape inside your headlight. (There's a lot of space, don't worry)
10. Put the lights back on your car, connect them, and adjust the height.

That's it. Took me 30 minutes for both headlights.

Here's a few photos of the car with angel eyes:
(The rest are in the post before this one.)

Where can you buy BMW E36 Angel Eyes ???
Try Amazon! :)

93. E36 323ti Compact - A few photos

2011-11-21T13:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last post. Sorry for that. I'll try to bring you all up to speed in the next couple of days.

For now, I'll share a couple of photographs I took yesterday.

The car pictured above is my friends E36 323ti Compact. (You might remember his 323 Coupe in Dakar Yellow...) He bought the Compact about two weeks ago. The car was already on M-Tech suspension, it has a M50B52 engine, and a couple of other modifications. Oh, the car's actually from the BMW Individual line, so, that explains the unusual interior color combination.

Here's a list of things he modified in the last week or so...
1. Replaced complete brake system (was modified for drift use)
2. Had front seats re-upholstered (were totally torn)
3. Retrofitted the ///M steering wheel (it had a regular 4 spoke item)
4. Installed angel eyes kit
5. Fitted BBS 17" rims and winter tires (was sitting on some 15" steel rims, with wrong tire size)
6. Installed new speakers and head-unit (there was none)
7. Fitted the mesh in the M bumper (again, there was none)
8. Complete engine service (that's normal)
9. New alternator (the old one was squeaking)
10. (and probably a lot more stuff I don't really know about) :)

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the car when he bought it.

Well, I wish him all the luck with the car, and I'm sure he'll take good care of it. :)

92. BMW Slowly reveals...

2011-06-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

Did you notice, how BMW (the company) teases people with their new models? They tease for half a year before they finally reveal the pictures and tech data... Well, we're not like them... We'll show you the final car in a couple of days... LOL. Until then, here are some more pictures... :)

91. Drifting Blues...

2011-06-10T04:58:00.000-07:00

Of course, we didn't leave it black'n'white. It did need some paint.
Here are some pictures... try to figure out how this all looks without the newspaper and masking tape... :) Update tommorow...

A little preview: ;)

More tomorrow.

P.S.
Eric Clapton - Drifting Blues

90. It's a Panda !!!

2011-06-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hey! Here's some more pics from the painting process... :)
It looks like a PANDA! :) Update tomorrow! :)

89. Paint, paint, and some more paint!

2011-06-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been too long, since the last update!
There's loads of stuff that Casper has done to the car, but the most important thing is, that the painting is on the way...

So, here are a few shots that we took two days ago... :) :) :)

I got a call from my friend: 'Hey, I fixed the engine... It gooooes! So good, that I destroyed the bumper!' :)

Building a new garage for our 'Racing Team':

Preparing for painting...

Casper is the main actor in this chapter.
Well, he knows what he's doing...

Primer/filler is going on the car:

M3 replica mirrors were naughty, so we hung them:

My little air compressor is still working like a charm. This is the fifth car that it painted...

More priming:

Sanding the trunk lid... It's like sanding concrete...

This is how the car looks in primer... Should we leave it like this? Nah...

I did some of the work as well... ;) So, here's a mug-shot of my crazy face...

Yea! It's smooth like a baby's bottom...

We're not pros, so we don't know how to mix this stuff without instructions...
I guess, you have to draw everything for us...
(P.S. we almost forgot to stir the paint...)

Paint cloud... Couldn't see the other end of the garage...

The white part is done...
(It's not pro work, but we'll peel off the paint sooner or later...)

More pics soon... (Casper did the black parts yesterday.) :) :) :)

88. Last touches before painting

2011-04-17T02:10:00.000-07:00

So, we have moved the car to my friends place. He's working on the final touches on the car. He already properly fitted the trunk lid, gave new life to the handbrake, started working on door cards... :) Hopefully, the car will have a shiny new paint in the next week or two... :) Can't wait! Here's some images he sent me:

87. Racing interior - Check!

2011-04-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yup, our racing interior is almost done. :)
Thanks to my friend Casper, we managed to repaint the whole interior and put in the dash and seats... (Well, just to see how things are going to look.)
The black stuff that we sprayed is some sort of rubber... How cool is that!? :) ;)
There's still a lot to do, but we'll fix everything up in a couple of days :)

And now, the pictures:
(Don't mind my neighbor - he was trying to make the rest of us laugh, well, trying to wear my kids old clothes was kinda funny.) :-P

More details about the things that were done - in a day or two.

86. 3 Years!

2011-03-31T00:16:00.000-07:00

Well, if you haven't noticed - yesterday this blog celebrated 3 years of existence. :)
So, it's 3 years, since I bought my first BMW. :)

Here are some small thumbs (sorry, don't have any larger images) that show how this blog evolved... :)

Expect a major redesign soon. :)
Stay tuned. :)

85. Taking care of rust... hopefully

2011-03-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

Well, good thing is, that this body isn't a complete rust bucket, like my previous ones...

The small rust holes were point-welded, then protected with some Hammerite anti-rust paint, seams were filled with Car System filler (the one that looks OEM, rubbery type), and then painted with some primer. It's coming along nicely, and it'll be ready for final coat of paint in a couple of days. I just have to take care of all them wires. ;)
P.S. The trunk is almost ready. It needs just one more coat of white paint :) Yey!

Here are some pictures.
(I'll try to dig up some 'before' photos later...)
Click on the thumbnails for larger view!

I know. It's not pretty. But, it's strong. :)

This is the anti-rust Hammerite paint that I use: (Great stuff, BTW)

84. My E36 316 exhaust - muffler trouble

2011-03-23T02:59:00.000-07:00

When it rains, it pours - Now, that's just about right. Two days after I fixed my brakes, my muffler almost fell off. :( OK, I did hear that the exhaust had a leak, but all my cars had it... I'm kind of used to the sound. (Where's that 'head bang' smiley when you need it?)

Well, as you'll see from the pictures, my silencer almost fell from my car, since it was completely cut-off from the pipe. It was hanging on the two rubber mounts in the back... Oh boy, imagine what would've happened if it fell off on the highway. :(

Right, so, once again, I found some silencers lying around my garage. Of course, it wasn't from a 316. I took it off my ex 320. I don't have to say that it was completely different from my old one... And then, it was welding time. A lot of welding, teeth grinding, tube bending, and so on. But, thanks to my friends help, we managed to put it on. The car now has a deeper sound, and I kinda like it.

Yea, it looks ugly. (The welds and piping, I mean)...
I probably lost power with this (up?)grade... But It'll stay for now. :)

83. My E36 316 service and brakes upgrade

2011-03-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

Since I like to drive my 316i without worries, I did the regular oil service.
It's 13000 kilometers from the last one, so I thought it was time for some new oil, oil filter, spark plugs... I drove to my friends to do the job. The service was done in matter of minutes... I didn't even get a chance to finish my Red Bull. :o)

Right... A few days after that, my front brakes started producing some horrible tunes... :( I thought I would just replace the pads... but no. The pads were 110% worn, and the discs - well, they were even worse.

One thing always bothered me with the 316. The front discs were single-piece, not vented. Meaning, the brakes would quickly fade after just minutes of spirited driving.

Luckily, I had some 325 discs, calipers and pads lying around the garage, so I decided to go for a upgrade. The job is pretty straight-forward, since everything is plug and play. :)

Here's a picture of the 325 disc mounted on my 316:

If you like, I can make a picture of the old pads and discs... :o)
Just leave a comment. :)

Some stuff that you'll probably need for a oil/brake service:

P.S.
This is the filter that I use - Great stuff:
(make sure that you get the correct one for your engine)

82. Fiberglass hood and trunk

2011-03-23T02:23:00.000-07:00

Like I said, weight is a killer on a track car. So, I managed to get a fiberglass hood and trunk for my car.
The hoods were made by Gagi84 - he drifts a V8 powered E36 GTR. (GMZ Drift Team) Cool!

Here are some pictures:
(click on the thumbs for a larger image)

You can see that I already made the holes for the BMW roundel, rear wing, and hood pins. I also made the hood-pin holes on the cars shell.

Here's the front hood:

I'll play with it in a day or two... :)

And, I'll need a couple of these:

81. E39 to E36 Steering wheel retrofit DIY

2011-01-22T02:29:00.000-08:00

Well, I got tired of my steering wheel... And, I found a nice wheel from a E39... so, this was kind of expected:

My old wheel:

Removing is simple. First, disconnect the battery. You don't want that airbag blowing into your face. And, you certainly don't want to see that pesky air-bag light on your instrument cluster. Unscrew the torx bolts that are in the back of the wheel. Take the air-bag gently off the wheel. Unscrew the central bolt that holds the steering wheel, and disconnect the two connectors. Pull the wheel towards you, and that's it.

This is the E39 leather, 3 spoke wheel that I installed. It's like new. :)

Installation is reverse of the removal.

Well, I had to take it out a couple of times, to center it, but it wasn't that hard... :)

80. 323 - End of the road...

2011-01-22T02:15:00.000-08:00

Well, my friend's yellow E36 coupe had some ups and downs over the past few weeks...

We decided to restore the M3 look... see for yourself...

Before:

After:

But, unfortunately, the test drive wasn't that good... :(

I don't want to be a pig, but - this was a classic example of a woman behind the wheel... My friend was properly turning left, when she rammed him from behind...

(Girls, i'm not putting you all in the same category. - I know that girls can be damn good drivers. My fiancée is probably a better driver then 80% of men that I know.) :)

Well, the insurance already covered the damage (total), and the car is already sold... It's end of the road for this one... :(

79. Go-Drift.com Grobnik SNOW track-day

2011-01-22T02:03:00.000-08:00

Somehow, I decided to take my E36 daily driver (1.6L engine) to a track day.
The weather forecast was promising snow, and that meant that I had some chance to have fun on a real race track. Well, I know I don't have a LSD on my daily driver, but that didn't bother me much. I wanted fun, not record-breaking performance. :)

The night before the track day, I decided to mount a bucket seat into my E36. That's because I didn't want to find myself flying around the car, while drifting. (If I can call it that)... :)

So, here's a picture of the seat mounted...

The mounting process was really straight-forward. The mounts were already made to fit an E36, so I practically had to take 4 bolts out, replace the seat and put the bolts back on. Well, so I thought. Somehow, when I wanted to test-drive my 'upgraded' E36, I found out that I forgot about the seat-belt buckle. Original seats have them mounted at the side, but bucket seats don't. After a minute, I decided to take the rear-seat, central buckle and mount it to the racing seat. Well, it worked. But that meant I had to take the seat out again, mount the buckle, and put everything back in the car.

Moving on. The next morning, I woke up and saw that the snow was really there. :) But, I didn't expect THAT much snow. Well, here are a couple of pictures of my trip to the race track:

Well, I don't really have to tell you that I had so much fun driving on a snowy road... And, the whole 60 miles of it were completely empty! It was sideways all the way! :)

...

When I came to the track, I saw this:

The access road to the pits wasn't plowed. :( And, I was the first to arrive... Well, there wasn't really much to do, except to wait...

And then, other enthusiasts started to show up:

We decided to make our own road to the pits... A couple of 4x4's went ahead, and made way for our little RWD machines... But, it didn't go smooth as we planned. Our little (mostly BMW) convoy stopped every 200(or so) meters, to dig someone out... :) Team work all the way! :)

Well, finally, here are some shots of the track, and cars that were there. Unfortunately, there was too much snow to have fun in our BMWs... But, it was a really great day, nonetheless.

This beauty had to sit this one out:

Wow! I realized it's already 2011! Huh... how time flies... it feels like I started this blog yesterday... :)

78. 323 Coupe - Restoring the M3 look

2010-12-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

So, another E36 has visited my garage...

My friend wants to restore the original M3 look on his E36 323i. And there are some electrical issues that need sorting out. Of course, I'm more than willing to help... So, here are some pictures...

My tiny garage is going to provide shelter for another E36 - my drift machine is looking poor under that snow...

Kidneys and lip painted black, removed that hideous lights... Will fit some nice angel eyes...

I just love to see when people decide to restore E36 cars to their former glory. Rice just doesn't fit here...

Stay tuned :)

77. My new E36... Again!

2010-12-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

You've probably know this by now - I'm a total E36 nut.
Yea. I've bought another E36. If you follow my blog, you'll recognize this one. It was from my friend.
It's the one that we had to break into...

And, now, some pictures:

Yeeees! We have snow! It's great fun to drive around when it's snowing. The rear end of my BMW is all over the road. All the time. :)

The yellow car is from my other friend. (The one who owned that red 325 limo.) He's planning on restoring the original M-look on this car.

P.S.
My 'new' E36 is 316. The yellow one is 323.

76. Drift car dashboard

2010-10-06T04:11:00.000-07:00

This is how my drift car's interior looked when I bought it:
Not pretty... I know.

That's why I pulled out my tools... (check out the wall decoration) ;)

And, the dash is starting to look better:

I'm still working on it, but this is how it'll look...

75. New rear lights

2010-10-06T04:06:00.000-07:00

I did treat my 318is with some new rear lights:

Ordered them from German eBay.

Don't you love that red/white combo?

A small job, and not very expensive either -> Big difference! :)

BMW 3 SERIES E36 92-98 4 DR TAIL LAMPS / LIGHTS RED/CLEAR Euro Performance 1 SET RH & LH 1992,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998

Only $96,44

74. Breaking into a locked E36

2010-10-06T03:52:00.000-07:00

Well, my friend locked his keys (all three of them) into his E36. And, to top it off, the car was running.
Don't ask me how he managed to do it... :) LOL!

Well, we had to break in.

And, after 15 phone calls to various BMW technicians, we decided to do it our way:

Shady characters:

Let's try the hammer:

No go. Let's try something bigger:

Finally - we're in...

If you do this in front of your neighbor's house - don't forget to clean the mess:

We broke the window, because I have 5 sets in stock:

Yea, this one will fit nicely:

Damn! Who's gonna clean this mess?

73. Suspension and brakes on my E36 318is

2010-10-06T03:37:00.000-07:00

Brake pads are something I have to change two-three times a year. (Front ones, I don't have rear disc brakes... yet.) Here's a couple of photos from the last change.

My car in the air:

New stuff:

Brake changing DIY for dummies:

Old VS. New:

Old ones:

Did you notice how uneven did my old pads wear out? I'm guessing, my right disc is bent...
Not much, but enough to destroy the pads...
I started getting some slight vibrations, and noise from my front right wheel... And that's why I decided to change my front suspension and brakes. Completely.

First of all, I have an extra suspension from one of my EX cars - 325 limo. And, since my car was originally a 316, I have smaller, non-vented discs on my car. I guess, that I'll solve a problem or two with the swap. Not to mention the benefits of a brake system upgrade. :) I'll do it this weekend. And you'll be the first to read about it. ;) Huh :)

Oh, and, almost forgot - I'll spice things up a little with some new springs:
Vogtland! :)

Pretty in pink! ;)

Amazon:

Sport Spring Kits (BMW | E36 | M3 | 93-95)

And a few items... for the next change:

BMW OEM Textar Front Brake Pads for Z3, Z4, E36 & E46 3 Series Sedan & Coupe & Convertible & Touring & Compact

Only $59,99

72. My E36 almost caught fire!

2010-10-06T03:22:00.000-07:00

So, this was a real shocker!

One day, while driving home from work, nasty smell started coming out of my air vents. The smell was easy to recognize - it was burned plastic.

As soon as I drove off the highway, I stopped the car. By the time, there was a lot of smoke coming from the vents, as well. Believe me, that's not a good sign. (Especially if you don't have a fire extinguisher in the car.) I quickly stopped the car, and disconnected the battery in a couple of seconds. I might have set a new world record in doing it.

At first, I thought that my head unit installation was bad, so I pulled it out of the dashboard. (If you remember, I installed it a couple of months ago.) It wasn't bad.
Then, I tore out the panel that's under the steering column... And there it was. All of the wires, coming from the light switch, were melted together.
Luckily, there was no real fire, just a lot of smoke. I waited for the smoke to clear, and I started investigating. I found out that, the previous owner had installed some over-kill fuses. The fuses didn't break, and that's why my wires started melting (and fuses, too).

Right. The first thing for me, was to buy some new fuses, and 200 meters of insulation tape. LOL. (And, I bought a fire extinguisher, as well.) After a couple of hours, my BMW was again, on the road. Well, half of the electrics didn't work, but I could drive home, at least.

It took me two days to repair/replace all the melted wires (All of the wires under the dash started melting).
And it took me a day to find the cause of the whole mess. I found it on my trunk lid. There was a short at the hole where the wires come out of the lid. I fixed that, and from then, no problems. :)

Sorry, I don't have a lot of pictures. I was tight with time (since, I need the car to drive to work.). And, it was raining at the time... So, here's just one little detail - after fixing the short on the trunk lid. (Note - those huge red and black wires are for the third brake light on the wing). I did put some silicone there after I took the picture, so, now it's fully water-proof. :)

P.S. I used self-extinguishing tape to wrap the wires. :) Yea!

What have I learned?

NEVER put over-sized fuses in your car.
ALWAYS have a fire extinguisher in your car.
REGULARLY check your electrical installation for sings of wear.

:)

This is a nice thing to have!

71. My first E36 coupe

2010-09-13T04:04:00.000-07:00

:)

Well, just a few photos... I have a lot of stuff going on, so I'll write some meaningful posts in a while...