Simple M3

[bwwaaaa]

wheels should look awesome.... to what pcd did you change?

Thanks! I'll have 5x114.3 on the M3 now, which will open up many more wheel options in the future.

And for everyone, because I feel like I owe more photos to this thread, my second pair of Regas arrived. I had to source two pairs to get a square setup (more on fitment later). These are in a little rougher condition, with some minor rash but it should refinish nicely. I dropped them off for refinishing yesterday, so hopefully in the next week or two I'll have them back.

Side note, my daily driver has one of the most useless wagon hatches ever. The shock towers come so far into the cabin you can't fit four wheels laid down on their side without folding down a seat. Oh well.

[C2_mad]

wheels should look awesome.... to what pcd did you change?

[bwwaaaa]

Glad to see you finally got it fixed up. Cant wait to see the new wheels. I wanted to change my hubs so bad when I had the m3.

Thanks man. Sad to see your M3 gone, but onto bigger and better things. The hub conversion thing has been something I’ve been wanting to do since before I got the car. I’m convinced 5x120 is one of the most disappointing options for cars haha.

This build looks amazing and I am glad that it did turn out well.

Much appreciated! It’s coming along slowly but surely haha.

Regamasters are epic, do them white ;-) Glad you've everything sorted, I felt your pain right through all of that post lol

Thanks! Definitely was the source of a few headaches over the last few weeks. I think I’m going to be refinishing them silver. I thought about white, but I don’t think it would work well on a silver car. TBD I suppose!

[Steven_318ti]

Regamasters are epic, do them white ;-) Glad you've everything sorted, I felt your pain right through all of that post lol

[hinrichs]

Glad to see you finally got it fixed up. Cant wait to see the new wheels. I wanted to change my hubs so bad when I had the m3.

[bwwaaaa]

It was worse before it was better

Right so, I owe some updates. And IÂ’m not sure what order to give all my information in because there are a lot of moving pieces. So IÂ’ll tell it chronologically, and hope it makes sense.

After getting my clutch done, I was still frustrated that I was feeling a “wobble” in the driveline. Everything was new, so there was no reason for this to be happening. However I decided to leave it be until it got worse, so I could finally identify what it was. Oh boy, did it get worse. More on that in a minute.

I actually took the car on a long road trip up to Northern Arizona. 3 hours up and down, and some back roads driving in between, to break in the clutch. The car did well, I didnÂ’t notice anything too alarming as I kind of babied it with the new clutch. But once we cracked 500 miles of street driving I started pushing a little more, and discovered it was still acting up.

I drove it back down and everything seemed mostly ok, so I was content to leave the car as is. It was time to focus on the interior, so I went to buy some seats from my friend, a pair of Sparco QRT-Vs out of his 930. I took the M3 because it was finally driving well enough for me to trust it, and frankly I was enjoying it more than my Acura.

Leaving his house, I gave it a “little” gas because, well why not. At the top of third the whole car felt like it hit a wall, and when I came off throttle I could hear a horrifically rattling. The car also felt like it was slipping the clutch, like one of the clutch pads was missing and it was skipping. It was a really weird sensation, and the rattling noise from inside the car sounded like it was transmission. I managed to limp it a block home.

Frustrated, and thinking it was clutch, I just sent it back to the shop that just did the clutch without digging any further. This is where everything went wrong for me honestly, I should have carved some time out to wrench and diagnose this issue myself.

The shop came back and said, eh nah not clutch it must be a seized pulley. Red flags, alarms going off, this isnÂ’t at all consistent with a seized idler pulley. But I figured if they have the car in front of them, they must have taken the time to dig through it. I order the parts, overnight delivery and drop them off.

So they take a couple days to do this (days... for pulleys), and then give me a call.

“Well, honestly it changed nothing. And when I put on the belt I noticed your crank pulley was loose. Checked the bolt, it’s hand tight.”

Well, shit.

A few things, one this tracks with all the vibration issues IÂ’ve had. I suspect the pulley has been slightly loose since I purchased the car over a year ago. Under rapid load, it wiggles and shocks the drivetrain. Alarming for crank longevity, but letÂ’s ignore that. The other thing is, it is likely that I made the problem WORSE by going to a lightweight flywheel. Despite being a reputable brand and balanced piece, it appears that there is some documented history of this happening to others. The harmonics change, and if anything is loose it rattles it free on the engine.

Solution?

An extremely overpriced ATI Damper from VAC. For the record, after looking at this thing closely, I cannot imagine why this is so expensive. However it seems to be the only fool proof way to ensure this doesnÂ’t happen again. I also ordered new hardware, woodruff keys, pins etc.

The logic was, as long as nothing was damaged on the crank snout, this (properly torqued to spec) would hold together much better than OEM with the added vibration of the LTW flywheel.

LetÂ’s now ADD some complication to the situation. The shop where the car was refused to do this. They said they were uncomfortable being responsible for the repair, and hadnÂ’t done this before. 1. Alarming for a BMW specialty shop, 2. The car was still broken and I needed to move it. So I once again asked my friend to bring his Raptor and trailer over, and we hauled it back to my house. But weÂ’re still not out of the woods yet friends. I had the parts in hand, and I had the car, but to properly torque the center crank bolt, you need to hold the engine in place and crank it to 300ft/lbs. While IÂ’m capable of doing a lot here at home, I donÂ’t have the tools to hold the rotating assembly in place, nor do I own an torque wrench that goes anywhere near that rating.

So yesterday the car hopped on yet another trailer, and it was off to a shop I knew could handle it. I should have gone there in the first place, they have been the only people I trust other than myself to work on my cars over the years. Literally in the same day, they had it done and running like new.

That was taken this morning. It runs just as it should. I feel no difference with the ATI damper, other than the elusive vibration I have been chasing for a year is finally gone. I imagine another OEM damper would have done that, but itÂ’s impossible to buy a NOS one. So I had to pay a premium for this one.

Takeaways

So there you have it, the M3 is finally fixed. But at what cost?

Here are my takeaways, and IÂ’m treating this as a learning experience. I went to a shop for all of this work because IÂ’ve been swamped with work and particularly unmotivated to wrench. I went to a shop I was unfamiliar with because of availability, and it bit me in the ass. I should have taken the time to go through the car myself. Even though it would have been sent to a shop regardless (due to a lack of proper tools) I would have saved two weeks of headaches and about $250 in parts I didnÂ’t need to change.

IÂ’m stoked the M3 is 100% again, but what an annoying adventure to get there. You may publicly laugh at my stupidity

I want to end on a high note though, so letÂ’s talk about something more fun. I bought new wheels!

New Wheels

My friends know me as a real wheel snob. I like old school, authentic and rare wheels, and have a particular disdain for replicas and knock offs. Since I bought the M3, IÂ’ve had this idea kicking around my head to run a specific wheel. But there were some challenges in doing this. 5x120 as a bolt pattern sucks, the quality wheels are limited and the really cool stuff is horrifically expensive IF it shows up at all. Someone show me 5x120 concave TE37s that have sold recently. You just canÂ’t find them.

Likewise, adapters are not my thing. Not only does it give you limited room for good fitment, my experience with them has been sketchy at best. Though I know plenty of people have run them without issue, itÂ’s just simply a no-go for me.

I found, just by random chance, a company in New York called Core4 Motorsports that actually make redrilled E36 M3 hubs. They sell this as a kit, but I reached out to Tom, the owner, and he was willing to sell me just the hubs and a template to redrill my E46 rotors. TheyÂ’re actually in route now, and will be here next week, but I had to explain that these were coming to make this next part make sense.

HereÂ’s a teaser for my new wheels. Yes, for those in the know, these are Regamasters. They are one of my favorite wheels of all time, and I can’t wait to get these on the M3. While I’m certainly not the first to do this, I hope my take will be unique.

I’ll have more to talk about these soon, but I thought itÂ’d be fun to share here.

So thatÂ’s my update. I actually have even more to talk about, but IÂ’m going to pace myself. So stay tuned.

[bwwaaaa]

i hope the clunking issue is behind you now..... sure it will be!

Unfortunately, my problems have gotten much, much worse. But more on that soon.

[C2_mad]

i hope the clunking issue is behind you now..... sure it will be!

[bwwaaaa]

just read the whole thing, love your attention to detail. keep up the great work.

as for you noise, i had something exactly the same a couple of years ago on my 320d e46 i bought. tried everything like you. changed the drive shaft itself and all my problems were gone. i hear the drive shafts are balanced from factory and once taken apart they have to be put back together in the same orientation or they will be unbalanced. so i can only assume, someone had mine apart to change the carier bearing at some point and didnt pay attention to this detail. i went throught 3 guibos in like 8 months. it would also only do it under hard accelaration. changed mine with one from a scrapyard and its been fine since.

Well, if it has been an issue for a while now, it really is worth checking the driveshaft's balance. As C2_mad said, driveshafts should be assembled exactly the way they were, otherwise the balance is lost. They usually marked from factory with white dots, I see someone marked yours as well. Trouble is, you never know who did the job before that and if they assembled it correctly.
Hope you get this sorted soon.

Long overdue, but thank you both for the feedback. I ended up sourcing a new-to-me driveshaft locally based on this, because it was either this or the clutch that was causing the problem. With both replaced (see update below haha) I think IÂ’ll finally be in good shape.

Replace Everything Approach

So after taking some feedback from everyone and weighing my options, I decided to just replace what was left on the M3. I have done every bit of suspension, and most of the drivetrain, but the clutch and driveshaft were still original. Rather than fight though the issues incrementally anymore, I just ordered everything I needed to make the car brand new. Truth be told, I did not do this job myself, but the shop sent me photos the entire time. Normally I wouldnÂ’t mind doing a clutch too much, but given the heat here in Arizona and my lack of space, I was completely unmotivated to wrestle that out on the floor.

There was the clutch in the car. Clearly it had seen some serious abuse. I noted the hot spots and uneven wear, and I wonder if the clutch itself had come unbalanced. There are some particularly deep digs in the pressure plate and flywheel, and it seems to me that maybe abuse lead to some issues that was causing the clunk under heavy load.

Also thanks to suggestions here, I sourced a new-used driveshaft. The last guy bought this brand new, had it in his car for about 10k miles and got t-boned. So I hope that this one is balanced and in good spec.

Some while IÂ’m in there stuff. New rear main, though my old one wasnÂ’t leaking, selector rod seal replaced, throw out and pilot bearings, so on and so forth. For the clutch kit, I went with the Bimmerworld package which was a JB Racing flywheel and a Sachs OEM sprung clutch. Not pictured, also had a braided clutch line put in. Everything is new and replaced now.

I drove the car back home yesterday. Some noticeable chatter from the flywheel, that was to be expected. I havenÂ’t been able to really launch it to see if the driveline rattle is gone, because I wanted to give the clutch some time to properly break in. IÂ’m going to try to get in a few hundred miles at least to get everything squared away, then test it again.

The car has been rebooked for paint (beginning of 2021), and I’m hoping to get my headliner done next month. So in relatively short order we should have a solid “Stage One” completed for this car.

[gnmzl]

Well, if it has been an issue for a while now, it really is worth checking the driveshaft's balance. As C2_mad said, driveshafts should be assembled exactly the way they were, otherwise the balance is lost. They usually marked from factory with white dots, I see someone marked yours as well. Trouble is, you never know who did the job before that and if they assembled it correctly.
Hope you get this sorted soon.

[C2_mad]

just read the whole thing, love your attention to detail. keep up the great work.

as for you noise, i had something exactly the same a couple of years ago on my 320d e46 i bought. tried everything like you. changed the drive shaft itself and all my problems were gone. i hear the drive shafts are balanced from factory and once taken apart they have to be put back together in the same orientation or they will be unbalanced. so i can only assume, someone had mine apart to change the carier bearing at some point and didnt pay attention to this detail. i went throught 3 guibos in like 8 months. it would also only do it under hard accelaration. changed mine with one from a scrapyard and its been fine since.

[bwwaaaa]

Seems the park brake cables are very close to the driveshaft. I'm not familiar with the rear axle/suspension geometry.., but if the
suspension compresses it looks like the park brake cables could be pushed forwart and contact the driveshaft...

Continental makes old school looking radios if you ever want to get a modern one...

On the cables, they are close but there were no signs of contact on them. There’s not too much room to move them elsewhere, but nothing near them should really interfere, short of something being severely wrong. After another round of test driving yesterday it seems as though it is coming from the center of the transmission tunnel.

On the radio, I had looked at the Continental one, but ultimately decided against it because it’s slightly off from the OEM look. So far I’ve been delighted with the CD43 I got. It works great and looks perfect, so I’ll call that a win!

How long have you been having this issue? If the driveshaft itself is hitting something, there will be marks on it, I'm sure you have visually inspected it.
That sound does not point to a clutch assembly or gearbox internal problem, it is way to pronounced to be internal, at least that's what I draw from the video.
Looking at the pictures - when you had the flex disk changed, new hardware was used which does not appear to be OEM. Here are my thoughts - if the bolts are not the exact same length as OEM ones, upon hard acceleration when the engine/trans combo flexes to one side, the rear subframe remains somewhat in its place due to the poly bushings, the flex disk does what it's supposed to do and flexes. that's when a bolt that is a bit too long will come in contact with the casting ribs of the transmission behind the output shaft flange. The noise in the video resembles this very strongly.

This has been an issue well before the car had poly bushings anywhere. Truth be told I started doing bushings partly to try and remedy this problem. Initially I thought I had some sort of wheel hop problem, given the symptoms. It hasn’t gotten any better/worse through all the bushings changes or guibo change.

Right now my two leading theories are:

1. Driveshaft. I have replaced all the mounting pieces, but the physical driveshaft halves themselves are original. It seems as though it could be u joint failure at this stage.

2. Clutch/Flywheel. It doesn’t sound internal to the transmission, but it’s the only other thing in the driveline that remains untouched. I have a rear main seal leak anyways, so it may be worth changing just for the peace of mind.

[gnmzl]

How long have you been having this issue? If the driveshaft itself is hitting something, there will be marks on it, I'm sure you have visually inspected it.
That sound does not point to a clutch assembly or gearbox internal problem, it is way to pronounced to be internal, at least that's what I draw from the video.
Looking at the pictures - when you had the flex disk changed, new hardware was used which does not appear to be OEM. Here are my thoughts - if the bolts are not the exact same length as OEM ones, upon hard acceleration when the engine/trans combo flexes to one side, the rear subframe remains somewhat in its place due to the poly bushings, the flex disk does what it's supposed to do and flexes. that's when a bolt that is a bit too long will come in contact with the casting ribs of the transmission behind the output shaft flange. The noise in the video resembles this very strongly.

[OrangeBlue]

https://youtu.be/FYLPfs5Y4XY

Any suggestions?

Seems the park brake cables are very close to the driveshaft. I'm not familiar with the rear axle/suspension geometry.., but if the
suspension compresses it looks like the park brake cables could be pushed forwart and contact the driveshaft...

Continental makes old school looking radios if you ever want to get a modern one...

[bwwaaaa]

Clunking

So I’m having some serious troubles, and I’m hoping someone can give me insight on the cause. I have been chasing a drive train vibration/clunk/knocking sound for a few months now.

From a dig/barely moving start in 1st or 2nd gear, if I launch the car (WOT) a very loud vibration/banging will come from the transmission tunnel. If you’ve followed my thread, I have now replaced the motor mounts, rear subframe mounts, RTABs, reinforced the RTAB pockets, done suspension, wheels and tires, ruling out a lot of issues like wheel hop and other items shifting. However the problem has persisted through these replacements.

I just had the transmission mounts, guibo, center support bearing and differential bushings all replaced this week in hopes that would finally do it.

Here is the problem, despite now everything short of the physical two pieces of the drive shaft being new, I’m still having issues. Video attached, the noise is at the very end, it sounds like an impact gun in the center console.

https://youtu.be/FYLPfs5Y4XY
(Only way I could share the video was through YouTube I guess)

What I thought was the driveshaft center support bearing failing, must be something else, but I’m a little at a loss. The car drives otherwise perfectly, there are no vibrations, clunks or rattles under normal driving conditions, or even spirited driving at higher gears or not from a launching situation. This only happens from a launch which is why I initially believe it had to do with the rear subframe or rear trailing arms causing interference or movement. If you watch the above video, the rattling of the plastics in the car amplifies it, but the source sounds like it is coming from directly under the arm rest (roughly where the CSB is give or take. But it seems as though the sound is likely traveling up or down the driveline from it’s source.

At this stage my thoughts are: the u-joints in the driveshaft may be bad, the differential internals may have some sort of problem, the clutch/flywheel may be having some sort of problems, or the trans itself has some sort of internal problem.

I’m going to dig deeper into this obviously, but I **** to just throw random parts against the wall to see what sticks, especially with such large jobs like clutch/flywheel. I don’t feel/hear anything off about the clutch currently that would have been alarming, and likewise the differential doesn’t howl/shriek/grind or act strangely.

Any suggestions?