'Tandy' - First project car, first Z3!

[John_B]

I'm not even going to attempt to remove the thermostat until the fan and shroud are out though, I am terrified enough of sheering a bolt, let alone trying to extract them with very limited space.

Nostradamus, thy name is me

I knew it was coming, but it still felt like I'd been kick in the balls. The lower two bolts from the thermostat sheared as soon as I laid eyes on them

This was on Wednesday after the viscous coupling tool had arrived, which at least gave me a couple of days to research and source various things to try and get them out. I started with some stud extractor sockets (I didn't even bother trying the drill-chuck or cam style ones since I knew there would not be the clearance around the stud required, as it turned out there wasn't enough clearance for the socket style either. The other thing was a freeze spray but that took a couple of days to come. In the meantime, I shoved a load more blue roll around the bolts and doused them in penetrant and topped it up a couple of times a day.

By Saturday I had everything I needed, hopefully, and got to work heating the area with the heat gun, then spraying the stud with freeze spray, then hitting it with a hammer, then going at it with vice grips. The only vice grips I had that were small enough for the left one weren't strong enough and the two arms of the vice grip itself were twisting apart, if that makes sense. Next up, I hammered a 5mm socket onto the stud, cranked it and it came out!! Repeated the process for the other stud with another 5mm socket and that one came out too!

What a relief. Although I am now down 5 sockets - 3x 10mm sockets with various bolts and bolt heads jammed in them, and 2x 5mm sockets with the two studs wedged in

With those studs out of the way, I gave the front face of the engine a good scrub - I think/hope that it was just because of the PAS leak, but everything from that level and lower was caked in an oily sludge. Engine bay cleaner, a wire brush and more blue roll had it looking better wherever I could reach.

Then it was water pump time, to my amazement (and relief, since I had no more sacrificial 5mm sockets to hand) the bolts all came out with no fuss at all. The pump itself was another story though. I pulled it - no. I tapped it with a rubber mallet - no, I tapped it with a lump hammer - no. I read on Pelican Parts there are two M6 threaded holes top and bottom that can be used to draw the pump out - both tabs around these holes broke almost instantly. I tapped it harder with the hammer - still no I tried to be creative with some scrap metal I had, but 5mm hardened steel was bending and the pump hadn't budged. I decided to quit while I was ahead and leave the pump for now - hoping to god I hadn't killed it by trying to remove it! lol. It still span freely and didn't make any noises.

I lightly greased the bolts for the pump and thermostat and I lubed the thermostat seal with a dab coolant and fitted them up, plus the replacement rad hoses.

While I had good access, I cleaned up the PAS reservoir and hoses, then replaced those awful BMW hose clamps with new jubilee clips. I'll check on it again in a few weeks and if it's still leaking look to replace the hoses and reservoir too. I bought a replacement reservoir & hose kit, but despite claiming to be compatible with the Z3, the hoses that came are clearly not the right ones

Next up was this beauty, which I ummed and ahhed about for 20 minutes before tackling. On the diagram the lower one of the cylinder head end was totally perished and being held together (barely) with duct tape, which I 'topped up' before the MOT last year in the hope of curing the emissions, however I hadn't really looked at the other cylinder head end, which to me looked to be around the same area of the engine... however with the part in front of me and looking at the engine I realise it is about a foot deep around the back of the engine with no access besides a line of sight from the drivers side, and just accessible from the passenger side, but with no line of sight and reaching shoulder-deep under the intake manifold.

I really wasn't sure I should have started this, but I threw caution to the wind and jumped in anyway, with a bit of assistance from Mrs B on the drivers side who was in charge of navigating my hands and loosening and tightening jubilee clips with a long screwdriver. In the end it wasn't bad at all. I spent longer messing about trying to move the wiring box (what a faff that thing is!!), but it probably only took 10 mins to replace the hose section.

This was what the inside of the vac line looked like I think this was causing my lumpy idle. It never cut-out on me, but it did have me worried on a few occasions when waiting at junctions

With everything refitted and the cooling system filled, I started Tandy up to run it up to the temperature and follow the coolant bleeding process. I was amazed to see;

1. It started
2. No nasty noises
3. No gushing coolant

I let it idle for about 15 minutes and watched nervously as the temp gauge rose to half-way - bearing in mind in the 10 months I have had it, the temp gauge has never gone above 1/4 - it got to half way and stayed there! (Still no gushing coolant). I put some cardboard under the engine and called it a very productive day.

Saturday's haul of replaced parts:

Sunday morning, no leaks on the cardboard so I refitted the splash guard, put the wheels back on and took it for a drive. I was out for about 30 minutes and the temp gauge was perfect. Also the heat from the blowers!! It was warm before, but only now do I realise it clearly wasn't as warm as it should have been! That will be nice now on cooler days.

I was going to tackle to rear beam bushes on Sunday, I have bought some threaded bar and a section of 3" capped pipe to follow a home-brew subframe bush removal tool. However despite being able to loosen the 22mm nut - which I was sure would have been the main blocker - when I looked at the mangled bolts holding the bracket to the chassis, I quickly changed my mind. I'm hoping to take the Z3 on holiday in a couple of weeks, and this has all the hallmarks of being a lengthy endeavor.

Instead I cleaned up and painted the rear disc hubs and I have removed the spare wheel cage hinge, however I cannot undo the 'wire', so it is unceremoniously hanging under the car at the moment while I have sanded down the corrosion and been painting it black. I taped a dust sheet over the back of the car to protect against paint & overspray.

Pretty productive weekend all in all, and glorious weather for being out both days working on the car. I have noticed one of the rear ARB bush brackets has come undone, so I've got floflex polybushes to fit at the same time as I re-seat that bracket, but apart from that I'm done now until after the holiday - providing Mrs B can pack lightly enough for us to fit it all in the Z3!

 

[John_B]

Yesterday evening I fitted the replacement rear ARB bushes and reinstalled the cleaned up & painted spare wheel cage. The driver's side bush & bracket was a bit of a mess. I'd spotted it a couple of weeks ago when I was looking at removing the spare wheel carrier - the tab of the bracket that goes into the slot had come free (or not been installed correctly), so it was still bolted tight, however over the subsequent time and miles, movement in the ARB had slightly bent the mounting bracket down where the stud is. And so before I could reinstall it properly I had to bend it back, which was not the easiest thing to do while being terrified of damaging the thread or breaking the stud and/or backet.

And the replacement bushes I'd got (Floflex) did not have the cut down the flat face to wrap around the bar. Surely a manufacturing defect or just a terrible design!? Even on a factory fresh ARB and lubed up to the eye balls, you'd never slide a bushing around those bends. So I cut them myself.

That's Tandy done now for a little while, I'm taking him down to Cornwall next week and so I didn't want to start any other jobs that could go wrong or take longer than anticipated. It is a 600 mile round journey, plus pootling around while I'm there, so it should be a good test! And this weekend I'm going on the 'Fish & Chip run to Hornsea' (Forthcoming Events) which I'm using as a shake-down for all the work I've done over the last couple of weeks. Mainly checking the coolant system at sustained motorway speeds!

When I'm back I want to have a crack at the rear beam bushes, I'm also fancying removing the rear ARB to sand that down, repaint it and replace the droplinks and/or bushes.

 

[John_B]

210 miles covered on the Hornsea Fish & Chip run and it didn't miss a beat. The windscreen wipers also got a thorough test too It was great to meet some members and have some cracking fish & chips as well.

 

[John_B]

Nothing really to report progress-wise, however worth mentioning that we did Cornwall and back - with Mrs B and just about every cubic millimetre of available space crammed with stuff! - and Tandy didn't miss a beat.

We packed our clothes into vac-bags which worked really well. And our Dry-robes were slotted behind the seats - this worked well and avoided taking up 25% of the boot space, however the lost inch of driver's leg room was a real f***er on the way down in heavy traffic. I thought my right knee was going to explode by the time we arrived. Mrs B has a tiny bladder - which is usually a curse on long journeys. This time I was grateful for the frequent chance to stand and stretch my legs. I said to her I couldn't believe what a difference an inch made, she smirked. Not sure why... I also found that I was just able to stuff the tonneau cover behind the roll-hoops with the roof up meaning I could take the tonneau without being committed to the whole journey with the roof either up or down.

I did 808 miles in total and for all but 150 of them we had the roof down

 

[John_B]

This weekend I had a few hours on Sunday morning to work on the car.

First I bypassed the footwell speaker amp. Since fitting the aftermarket head unit a couple on months ago the footwell speakers haven't worked. I followed this guide and it has worked a treat:

After that I made a start on fitting the OBC & stalk supplied by Andy Spurs Fan. Luckily the OBC plug was sitting right underneath the clock opening, so I didn't need to remove the centre console to fish it out. The stalk was a bit trickier, but I managed to replace it without removing the wheel. All plugged in and it worked right off the bat. I have an OAT sensor to fit, I just ran out of time this weekend, so for the time being it'll be "-40" brrrr.

I haven't been for a drive yet with the OBC to see how the MPG works out. It came off another 1.9 M44, so I am hopeful that it doesn't need the KVBR adjusting, but I know what to do if it does. I'm going to the AV8 meet on Saturday, so should be a good run to assess the impact of the amp-bypass and check out the OBC.

 

[John_B]

This weekend I went to the AV8 meet. Another 303 miles of glorious top-down motoring The OBC gave me a readout of 34.0 MPG, I calculated it manually to be 33.3. I still haven't fir the OAT sensor however the audio was noticeably louder with the footwell speakers now working again.

On the subject of audio, on an impulse I bought some facelift lateral trims from ebay which gave me the option to upgrade the rear speakers without needing to Dremel the existing trim.

Such a pain in the ass removing the roll-hoops and oddments box for anything to do with the rear speakers. I managed this time with the seats still in place which is a slight bonus - although the time saving was probably eaten up with removing and refitting the lower seat belt bolt with the seats in place

The speakers I have fitted are 10cm Alpine 2-ways, which is the same model as the 13cm ones I put in the footwells, so while the footwell speakers have helped the volume, it's still borderline too quiet at motorway speeds with the roof down. Hopefully these will give it another little boost. I am toying with the idea of the DIY subwoofer, however on the Cornwall trip my wife discovered and fell in love with the oddments box - so I might not be very popular if I took that away.

Before I fitted the mesh grills, I masked-off the plastic surround and gave the mesh itself a quick coat of black hammerite as they were looking a bit tatty

 

[John_B]

Do you ever have one of those jobs to do that you expect to keep you busy for a couple of hours (or more) and then have completed it in 5 minutes? That was my weekend job of fitting the OAT sensor. I think the most time consuming part was refitting the outer-most headlight bolt. What a terrible location they chose!

I do want to find out how the sensor is secured in place from factory though, as I put the sensor probe down the little shaft leading to the hole in the cover next to the fog light, but then there is nothing there to actually hold it in place. So for now it's pressed into the hole with some creative tie-wrap work. But for it works and I can tick-off the OBC from my task list.

I can't keep putting it off - next up I'm tackling the rear beam bushes. It would be nice if they were done in 5 minutes too, although I expect it's going to be a multi-day/week ordeal. I am also expecting an AutoDoc delivery today containing replacement cam & crank shaft sensors, crankcase breather valve and some better quality spark plugs - my next assault on the lumpy idle which persists (plus, cleaning the ICV) ....

 

[John_B]

Today also marks the one-year anniversary of me buying the car!

We have come a long way and I dread to think how much I have spent on parts and tools, but it has been a blast and I have learnt so much already.

 

[John_B]

I made a start on the main beam bushes this weekend. However I think I have ran into a show-stopper. (As a reminder, I don't believe they need doing, more a case of wanting to do them) Amazingly I was able to loosen the 4x bracket bolts after soaking them in penetrant overnight. Unfortunately I don't think there is enough clearance to remove the threaded bolt while the subframe is still on the car. And even if there was room, I wasn't able to break it loose anyway.

I've not put it all back together yet while I have a bit of a think and search for inspiration, but I reckon I'll put it all back together as-is, and then will upgrade the task to a full subframe removal and refresh this winter. It does look pretty nasty. I just dread removing the exhaust and prop/drive shafty bits which I've never gotten hands-on with before.

While the rear wheels were removed I took the opportunity to replace the handbrake shoes and hardware. I knew conceptually how the handbrake works, but it was the first time I have really looked at the mechanism in detail. Quite interesting actually. I'll not know how effective my work was and whether adjustments are required until it's back on the ground. But I can turn the disc with the handbrake off, and can't with it on. So shouldn't be far off

I also installed some garage-art

 

[Althulas]

To break it as @Lee said you’ll nearly s*** yourself I used another spanner to hook onto the other one to add some mechanical leaverage it was still tough to break the seal but I didn’t all that there, I would just drop the whole lot if you can’t get sufficient purchase.

 

[John_B]

To break it as @Lee said you’ll nearly s*** yourself I used another spanner to hook onto the other one to add some mechanical leaverage it was still tough to break the seal but I didn’t all that there, I would just drop the whole lot if you can’t get sufficient purchase.

Good to know! Thank you.

I think you're right, dropping the whole subframe is going to be the way forward. It would definitely benefit from a clean up and repaint (or replacement....). I'm just papping myself at the thought of removing the exhaust and the diff. Lots of research and YT video watching required!!

 

[Althulas]

Dropping the whole lot on a Jack is a bit dicey and a pain on your own, I bought
Oypla 500kg Motorcycle Motor Bike... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077BPL3ND?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
And
Wheeled Wooden Platform Dolly |... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078PM33TR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
For reinstalling it back in as a whole unit a lot easier. You can borrow mine if you wish but you would have to collect and return it as it’s a heavy item for posting.

 

[John_B]

Thank you, that is really kind. If I do it, it'll be this autumn/winter - maybe October-November time when I'd be happy to park it up and accept it's going to be off the road for some time.

 

[Duncodin]

There's threads on here that show how to change those bushes without dropping the beam and without removing the threaded bolt.

I did it and didn't even need to loosen the exhaust.

 

[John_B]

There's threads on here that show how to change those bushes without dropping the beam and without removing the threaded bolt.

I did it and didn't even need to loosen the exhaust.

Thanks for reminding me about that actually. I saw that How-To ages ago and had forgotten about it. I think one step I might have over-looked is to undo the bottom shock mounts and to undo both sides of the subframe at the same time. So far although I have cracked the bracket bolts loose on the other side, I have only fully undone the corner I am working on. That might give me the clearance required!

To be honest, I am still leaning towards a full subframe refurb though. It could definitely use it

 

[John_B]

Over the last few days I have changed the cam shaft and crank shaft position sensors. Removing the upper part of the intake manifold was as easy as some of you guys told me it was, so thanks! I didn't go as far as disconnecting or removing the fuel rail, I thought that was asking for trouble. It made access and threading the new sensor cables around the lower manifold a bit tricky, but I came up with what I thought was a particularly ingenious solution and tied some string to the old sensor before I pulled it through, then tied the string to the new sensor and pulled it back the other way. Boom! I also changed the crank case breather valve and cleaned the Idle control valve at the same time.

I was prepared for the intake manifold to be in bits for a few days while I wrestled with stubborn bolts and impossible cable routings, but in actual fact the manifold was back together and engine running within 90 mins.

The last thing I did in this wave of troubleshooting the rough cold start and lumpy idle was changing the spark plugs. I was trying to keep costs down last year when I did the first service and bought cheap plugs. I thought now it was worth spending the extra couple of quid (literally!) on some better ones. So I have fitted NGK V-Line. I also discovered and fell in love with a magnetic spark plug socket I just wish I had found it last year when I spent hours messing about fishing out sockets that preferred the company of the plug over the ratchet.

I have done a handful of cold-starts since, and it has been perfect. The previous cold-start I did when I depressurized the fuel system the whole car was shuddering and shaking, by far the worst it has been. It seems much happier now! The idle is still a little lumpy, but short of doing smoke tests I think it is just an M44 being an M44!

Another little haul of parts for the bin

And I celebrated with a run ("Test drive") into the peaks:

 

[John_B]

I did a thing!

This is Donna (aka 'doner' ), she is a 1.9 with 130k on the clock and is in pretty rough shape. However the hard-top alone is nearly worth what I paid for the car, so figured it was worth the effort of breaking, as well as grabbing some parts for Tandy. The engine and gearbox run well and it had a new clutch 20k ago, and so if anything happens to Tandy's engine (180k) while I have it, I can do my first engine swap. The ultimate goal here is to try and make a little profit that I can put towards a 2.8 or 3.0 to go into Tandy.

I briefly entertained the idea of re-selling the hard-top and car separately, however I was looking at the structural sills yesterday and they are rotten through, so sadly I think Donna has driven her last miles. Her heroic final act will be to spread her (good) parts into the community so they may live on in other Z3s

I'll be listing various parts over the next few weeks, but if there is anything you need, feel free to drop me a PM

 

[Duncodin]

I like donna's number plate. Triple 8 is a super lucky number. Lucky Monkey.

Not worth a fortune but novel. Somebody will want it.

 

[John_B]

I like donna's number plate. Triple 8 is a super lucky number. Lucky Monkey.

Not worth a fortune but novel. Somebody will want it.

I hope so, 'Plate Hunters' have quoted me that it is worth £500, although I am dubious about whether that is just a ploy to get me to sell it with them, and then it eventually sells for £50 .

I have just SORNed it and believe I have to wait 5 days before I can take the plate off

 

[Clivez]

Under the bonnet is a big improvement. Unfortunately bmw painted the engine bay in dull paint which never looks brilliant. And you don't have so much black plastic on show as the six cylinder engines which shines up nicely. But it is looking good to me.
I use autoglym vinyl and rubber care on all the plastic in the engine bay and inside the car. I was recommended it by someone on here and it is very good.
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