ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,188
Club RR Member Number: 170
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This is arguably a little modern for Retro Rides. OTOH, most E36s are now over 20 years and this one (being a latish car) is not many years away from being 20!) If it is so please feel free to remove it . So how did I come by this car? Basically, I sold all of my retros and then spent some of the accrued cash on the tasty Series 1 Escort! However, the memories of how the MkIVs rust had not left me! With all of the goodies this had something had to be done. That came in the flavour of this car being my new daily: What was the story with this car? My friend for a variety of reasons needed be rid of this car (wife, and generally having many cars). I for one reason or another had been involved quite a bit with it (from the purchase to where it ended up prior to me buying it), with all of the work being done within the car covering 2,000 miles. The spec included: Powerflex lower arm lollypqop bushes and Black Series RTAB bushes. New Lemforder arms up front from an E30 Koni suspension all round lowered at around 40mm New genuine BMW 850i top mounts (my friend ordered the earlier 6 pot dampers as opposed to the later ones). New OE clutch kit fitted. Special order leather interior binned in favour of half leather Sport seats ; the interior was very dirty prior to him buying it. 17" Style 68 wheels with brand new tyres Fully serviced bar the coolant and fuel filter Was the car trouble free? Of course not! The faults included: The car not warming up (and it even running in the blue part of the gauge when coasting downhill! The rear heated window not working A horrifically rattly rear shelf Non working central locking The car driving with a mind of its own. Small issues admitedly, but niggly enough for a daily driver IMO. The first issue I had to cure at this time of year was the thermostat. Some may call me nuts here but I shelled out for a BMW item ; on previous cars I was rather annoyed with the poor results pattern thermostats gave, and a Wahler thermostat was only £3 cheaper than BMW's list price, which I had a discount on anyway . Despite some issues with bleeding the system despite following the bleeding procedure to the letter (I removed the heater matrix pipe to dispel of any excess air) I ended with with an amazingly warm heater, and temperature gauge which stayed within the middle upon warming up! I also filled it up with BMW approved coolant but with not coming from the dealer . Again, some may say coolant is coolant, but after the issues I had with the Triumph Stag and other cars with cheapo coolant (the coolant turned brown within a year in both cases!) I did not wish to take any chances on a car which has a reputation for potentially overheating. The rattling shelf required most of the rear interior to be removed in order to simply refix the rear shelf! However, it is now far less annoying to drive! At the same time I refixed the earth for the rear heated window which saw it working once more . Furthermore I had to car's geometry checked. It would not really drive in a straight line and the car felt like the rear and front of it were doing different things! Being lowered (and an E36) my local guy could not track it (with his hook over the tyre gauges, the wheel arches would have been damaged badly. So I ended up shelling out a small fortune for a bloke with a Hunter alignment system (where the gauges clip onto the rim) to align the car. Sure enough, the toe on all 4 wheels was all over the shop (they were all toeing out the front of the car having a toal of 0.57' toe out and the rear having 1 22' total toe out!). with the rest of the settings being relatively consistent. With the toe changed the car drove far better. It drives even better now but I shall digress on this in the next update . This naturally leaves the central locking to solved. That should be fun, but for a cheapish winter smoker the car is a joy to drive . In terms of VFM they are superb machines. The plans? Not many but I shall spill more later .
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Last Edit: Dec 2, 2014 18:12:57 GMT by ChasR
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Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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Looking forward to seeing how you get on wit this. First port of call with e36 central locking is to check the cable on the left hand side of the boot when you open it, there is probably a break in the wires ( I had the same fault ) I also have the problem where my central locking doesnt work on the boot at all, but that I suppose is a safty factor as you need the key to open it, just hope I don't ever shut the key in the boot! I need to get my parcel shelf off the make it black again, as opposed to the dodgy brown / purple they seem to fade to (if it was black to begin with)
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qwerty
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,409
Club RR Member Number: 52
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Much prefer the non M spec bumpers.
Seems like a nice sensibly upgraded E36.
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Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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this would be fun
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Last Edit: Dec 2, 2014 10:19:50 GMT by Ian
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V12 engine, 4 turbos, no interior, carbon bodywork, slammed to deck..
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bazzateer
Posted a lot
Imping along sans Vogue
Posts: 3,653
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Looking forward to updates
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1968 Singer Chamois Sport 1972 Sunbeam Imp Sport 1976 Datsun 260Z 2+2 1998 Peugeot Boxer Pilote motorhome 2003 Rover 75 1.8 Club SE (daily) 2006 MG ZT 190+ (another daily) 2007 BMW 530d Touring M Sport (tow car)
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,188
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Many thanks for the kind comments. I hope that I can live up to the expectations, but being a daily things may be kept quite tame . Looking forward to seeing how you get on wit this. First port of call with e36 central locking is to check the cable on the left hand side of the boot when you open it, there is probably a break in the wires ( I had the same fault ) I also have the problem where my central locking doesnt work on the boot at all, but that I suppose is a safty factor as you need the key to open it, just hope I don't ever shut the key in the boot! I need to get my parcel shelf off the make it black again, as opposed to the dodgy brown / purple they seem to fade to (if it was black to begin with) Many thanks for the tips regarding the central locking. I shall keep an eye out for that. As for looking the keys in the boot I never did that, honest! this would be fun Now you are giving me ideas! Gah, it's a daily, the Escort is the plaything! Anyway, some updates! Changing this: Resulted in this, as well as windows which demisted: Part of the windows not demisting well, despite driving the car for quite some time as well as poor airflow (mainly from the lower foot vent, but the rest were not much better) may have been down to this chap: I cannot say it was the easiest pollen filter to change (it looks to be an afterthought in terms of design!), where I only had to remove the driver's side part of the dash as well as the footvent (which had been bodged back into place with some tape (the vent was not really on)). What the photos do not show are the many leaves which the pollen filter was also storing ; for not long the footwell became an autumn brown colour! They smelled lovely... I guess that did not help the condensation either! A new pollen filter later, the vent correctly attached (why do people bodge things when it does not take much longer for the job to be performed correctly?). After this the heater was awesome and all of the airvents had plenty of force! It is surprising how the simple fixes can make the car so much easier to live with! At around the same time my friend had the paperwork through to get his plates back. A sad detail here but I figured I would treat the car to some age related plates with a vague dealer touch to them. Not quite Euro plates I admit, but still better than nothing . At the same time I picked up some Continental WinterContact tyres for the 15" wheels which were part of the deal, so as to prep the car for what the winter throws at it. It did different it has to be said from its previous guise but I was in for a surprise: They do not look as bad as I thought they would but things can still do with improving . The surprise I was in store for was the drive of the car. To put it bluntly it has literally been transformed on these wheels in more ways than one! Firstly there is the performance; the car seems to feel like it has gained at least 10BHP! Whilst the thermostat swap may have helped matters I cannot help thinking that the wheels helped (the M-Sport Style 68s are heavier than these, especially the rears!). Then there is handling. The ride has improved no end but I guess that was to be expected with the baloon sidewalls. I put these wheels on with the temperatures still being in the low teens, where being winter tyres these should have been at a disadvantage ; How wrong I was. The car feels far more planted on country roads, it is miles safer to drive in the wet (it was a combination of understeer and oversteer heaven if going a little too fast, and not all stupidly either!), along with the turn in of the steering feeling simply fantastic, a far cry from the vagueness it had on the 17" wheels? What was the cause? Who knows? The tyre pressures were correct for both wheels, but maybe it was due to the extra weight of the 17s, maybe it was also due to the fact that the 17s were on E46 sized tyres (225/45R17 and 245/40R17) rather than the E36 ones (215/45R17 and 235/40R17). OTOH maybe it was down to the tyres having cheapo budgets on, although they were fresh budgets with some peeps seeming to have a good opinion on them. Whatever the cause it has left me with a dilemna. So much for just a daily! I prefer the 17s in terms of aesthetics but love the 15s for how the car feels! I have decided (for now ) that I will most likely buy a set of 16" wheels or go for a set of lightweight 17" (boring I know, but Rays would have been on the wishlist, although cheap they are not!). How do other BMW 17" wheels (like the BBS RC041s) compare to the weight of my Style 68s? I do reckon that my issue is an unsprung weight one but what do you peeps reckon? Oh, and some more shots: Damn, this is sounding more like a boring 'wannabe' driver's thread! I guess I better show other details I have attented to! As penitence, have a shot of this:
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Last Edit: Dec 3, 2014 21:45:51 GMT by ChasR
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I will be keeping a close eye on this thread. Car has bags of potential
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BMW e36 compact
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Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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www.bmwstylewheels.com/3have a look here if you want BMW wheels, with weights listed for some of them. You have dropped 2kg per wheel by changing to the 15's so it will make a difference to how it feels. The above site says that you have dropped from 9.5kg to 7.5kg Some of the 16's will be of a similar weight to the 15's.
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,188
Club RR Member Number: 170
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www.bmwstylewheels.com/3have a look here if you want BMW wheels, with weights listed for some of them. You have dropped 2kg per wheel by changing to the 15's so it will make a difference to how it feels. The above site says that you have dropped from 9.5kg to 7.5kg Some of the 16's will be of a similar weight to the 15's. Now that website is a gift and a curse . Many thanks for sharing the link! It has taken out a few choices for me and brought some in as well. It would seem that the wheel weight (and in turns the unsprung weight) would have been the reason for why the car felt so different when the wheel sets were switched. Some other choices have been included thought .
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What tyres did you have on the style 68?
I suspect that the non staggered tyre setup helps as well, in terms of balance.
You can go even better with styling 34 15" alloys (6.02kg, forged OEM BMW wheel).
E90 alloys are quite interesting because they have a lower ET value, but not as low as the 5/7 series wheels. Which means you can fit themm without too much arch work. I haven't found a lightweight 17" set, they seem to be all around 8-10kg.
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Click picture for more
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Nice motor, Chas! Where did you get the plates made? I didn't think you could get fonts like that any more. I looked everywhere for Charles Wright font plates some time ago but could only find the new one. Got the thermostat to do on mine this weekend, should improve the fuel economy somewhat.
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,188
Club RR Member Number: 170
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What tyres did you have on the style 68? I suspect that the non staggered tyre setup helps as well, in terms of balance. You can go even better with styling 34 15" alloys (6.02kg, forged OEM BMW wheel). E90 alloys are quite interesting because they have a lower ET value, but not as low as the 5/7 series wheels. Which means you can fit themm without too much arch work. I haven't found a lightweight 17" set, they seem to be all around 8-10kg. Another way is unsprung weight. I had replace my old OEM Delphi shocks for Bilstein B4 on my E46 and although the new shocks are fine they do weigh a bit more than the Delphi ones. I understand that some shock manufactures uses aluminium body for the shocks instead of steel. ZF (Sachs/ Boge) do alloys ones for the E46. Might be the same story for the E36. Now that is very interesting to hear, and many thanks for the viewpoints . The tyres on the 17s were BCTs up front in 225/45R17s and Acceleras on the rear with 245/40R17s. Both sets had tyres with less than 1,000 miles worth of wear on them in addition to them being barely a year old. I was coming to the same conclusion about the 17s, which is a bit of a shame. I prefer the looks of them but to make a car handle worse and become slower? No thanks . With the 16s however a few choices seem to be available ; I may pull a similar trick with the wheels as to what my first Porsche had (the 17" Boxster wheels were actually lighter than what came off; the Turbo did drive better but that was like comparing chalk and cheese with the suspension setups etc.). Dampers are a very interesting point. Bilstein B6s (and other monotube dampers) get around the issue of unsprung weight well by becoming upside down dampers, small wonder they are considered to be superb dampers . Whilst I did pick up the Koni units at the time of fitting them I cannot remember how the weight of them compared to what came off. Nice motor, Chas! Where did you get the plates made? I didn't think you could get fonts like that any more. I looked everywhere for Charles Wright font plates some time ago but could only find the new one. Got the thermostat to do on mine this weekend, should improve the fuel economy somewhat. Many thanks Dean . I got the plates made up by this bloke. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161006768776Normally I tend to use DMB Graphics for older plates (they did a superb job on the 944 regarding the old plates and the quality was second to none (although the eBay chap is a very close second), but I required some plates ASAP and I did not fancy faffing about waiting somewhere to have them made during my work lunch break or be waiting too long for a set of plates to be made up! DMB however did drag up an old dealer setup which a customer provided for the Porsche (I'll probably use them with the Escort if I am honest!). Regarding the thermostat, if you do not go for a BMW item be warned that some suppliers sell two types of thermostat, an 88 degree item (which I do not think has the bypass foot (bad news for any car which originally had the thermostat have one) and a 92. Both what came out and what I put in were a 92 degree item with the foot on both thermostats. You probably already know this but I would also shell out for the EPDM gasket (for the top rad hose sealing on the thermostat housing) in addition to the thermostat seal if you wish to avoid leaks (both of mine upon being removed were not fit to be reused). Oh, and you can change the 'stat without removing the viscous coupling . Why thank you, and I wonder how you know that Rich .
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Last Edit: Dec 4, 2014 23:21:53 GMT by ChasR
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www.bmwstylewheels.com/3have a look here if you want BMW wheels, with weights listed for some of them. You have dropped 2kg per wheel by changing to the 15's so it will make a difference to how it feels. The above site says that you have dropped from 9.5kg to 7.5kg Handy site for BMW wheels - thanks!
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1986 Mercedes 200 (W124) (Standard and daily) 1976 Peugeot 404 1800 Stickshift (Standard - awaiting complete resto, engine done) 1984 Ford Cortina (P100) LDV - Cab and chassis restored, interior and glass not fitted, brand new 3 liter engine (last 110kw Sierra XR6 engine fitted and married to 5 speed Toyota Gearbox), load body needed.
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Sinky
Posted a lot
Run Baby Run......Please!
Posts: 1,395
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Nice car youv got there. I just got myself a e46 323ci yesterday
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2001 Volvo XC70 wagon
2003 Piaggio X9 Evo
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Thanks for the info on the plates, Chas.
As for the thermostat, I bought one for my M50 before it popped, along with a metal thermostat housing - my original plastic one cracked as I was re-assembling. I've got the gaskets too. What do you mean by bypass foot? The one that came out of my M50 just looked like a regular 'stat, as does the replacement!
Good news that it can be done without removing the fan, although I think I'll have a go at removing it as I have a new viscous unit from the M50 too...
Have you had any luck on the wheels yet?
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,188
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Thanks for the info on the plates, Chas. As for the thermostat, I bought one for my M50 before it popped, along with a metal thermostat housing - my original plastic one cracked as I was re-assembling. I've got the gaskets too. What do you mean by bypass foot? The one that came out of my M50 just looked like a regular 'stat, as does the replacement! Good news that it can be done without removing the fan, although I think I'll have a go at removing it as I have a new viscous unit from the M50 too... Have you had any luck on the wheels yet? No worries Dan, the website is a handy source for sure. As for the thermostat I learned that my Stag in MkII form (as do many modern cars) have a foot on the thermostat to allow a bypass circuit in the cooling system. This allows for the radiator to be put out of the equation and for the coolant to basically go around the engine so as to allow for faster warm up times. However, this bypass also requires to be closed off once the car has reached operating temperature, hence the requirement for the bypass foot. Without the foot on thermostats it has been said that overheating is potentially prone to occurring since hot coolant will go back into the engine in the uncooled state, meaning that removing a thermostat from such cars will bring little benefit and potentially make things worse. Small wonder that Stags gained a reputation for overheating when the MkIs did not require a bypass foot due to a differing inlet manifold design and possibly why (as a positive attribute) manufacturers went to combining thermostat housings and thermostats as a one piece item, as well as being able to assmeble things quicker and charge more for items! At the end of the no car does well with a reputation for overheating (Rover K-Series did someone say?). Both of mine looked identical to the one below, and the receipt said that it should also fit an M50 engined car as well as an M52 as shown here. In hindsight I should have grabbed the part number off the thermostat but I also sick of the car staying cold everywhere bar traffic : Hopefully that did put you to sleep :/! As for the wheels I am selling my 17" wheels although I have yet to advertise them correctly now that I have some good images to play with. I reckon that I shall settle on a set of 16" wheels after much deliberation and investigation (I am trying to see how much the BBS RC041s weigh with little success), but what I go for will be another matter . Or maybe I should get some 16" E46 steelies and go banded .
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Last Edit: Dec 7, 2014 16:03:50 GMT by ChasR
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Ian
Part of things
Posts: 977
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I could weigh my spare, but it has a tyre on it, also not that close to the car at the moment!
Apparently 19.6lbs which is about 8.9kg (Internet found that)
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I see what you mean now Chas - thanks for the in-depth explanation. I've just done my thermostat today and noticed the bypass foot. Nice having warm heaters isn't it?!
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