So yes… i have 2 months(ish) to E36 B204 ready for my yearly pelgrimage to the Spa Francorchamps racetrack in Belgium.
And god what I am looking forward to it this year!
Compared to last year many things have changed (again, i don’t seem to drive at a racetrack twice with the same car)
Pre-Preparations
Coming home from Mettet (BE) in July, and also doing an event on Meppen (DE) in August i noticed that there was more and more noise coming from the gearbox…what could only mean one thing: the custom made bearing adapter has left it’s intended position.
Which isn’t the first time this happend but now it was with a steel one instead of alloy so somewhat unexpected.
To get to this part it’s an engine out job.
Good!
Means i can also combat an increasing nasty oil leak, to get to that possible leaking location: also engine out!
Since the engine needed to get out I also changed the O-Rings where the oil return from the turbo goes into the block and where the dipstick/filler tube goes into the block… for good measure.
Both O-Rings were squared after 20ish years.
The source of the remainder oil leak was in the back of the head, on the exhaust cam there is a core plug… known to leak if you research it. I just placed the new coreplug in front/behind (depends on your point of view) the old one.
About the bearing adapter…
About that handgrenade in my gearbox.
Having a 160grams piece of steel potentially move about in your bellhousing is not a nice idea.. even it sits behind the clutchplate.
Anyway, after removing the gearbox and clutchcover we did find out bearing adapter loose, but how?
It was fitted with green locktite and had an interference fit…. odd
It apprears that the bronze bushing inside my crankshaft turned into dust.
odd… but anyway… clean the hole and make a new one!
Which i did, also took the liberty to remove some excess weight of it.
It has a new interference fit to the crank 😉
after that, it is ‘only’ to put it all together and place the engine back in the car… easy.
See? that only took 2 nights 🙂
Not there yet, still a few items to tick off my to-do list before we go to spa… and only 4 weekends left!