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.
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Originally Posted by hinrichs
