A purists nightmare - E46 drift build

[Tkuhn]

UPDATE

Installed the Hold Fast steering wheel my girlfriend got me for christmas.

Wrapped and installed the rear roof extension.

And I am soooo hypeddd to share this with you guys, first might I add! 

Quite a few more loose ends to tie up but soooo excited to see this thing on the ground!

[m42b32]

Wow, that looks fantastic!!

[YoungCR]

Looks great!

[Tkuhn]

UPDATE.

Some bad news today.

Last night we found out there was a problem with my clutch. After trying a few things including removing and installing the slave, rebleeding it and making sure the clutch fork hadn't fallen off or anything we found the problem. (Clutch pedal was hard as a rock immediately).

My new pressure plate was the same as the old one which is a LUK self adjusting one. And after reading these can be flawed from the factory, the plate is fully adjusted which is bad. (The springs are fully extended)

Sooo I was forced to pull the trans, again. 

Here you can see the difference. New one is on the right and the old one is on the left. Notice the difference in the self adjusting springs. 

Luckily things went pretty smooth and I had everything out in just under 2 hours.

I will be contacting the company I ordered through but I have little faith that they will resolve anything due to their lack of replying to emails after my order. I may end up ordering a sprung disc with non adjusting pressure plate like I should have in the first place.

I didnt let this get me down completely so I continued on to other things. 

I wanted to have the rear decklid covered last year but never got around to it, I ended up interior painting the old faded and nasty grey decklid cover.

Then made covers for the speaker area and other hole in the top out of some plastic. 

Turned out pretty well.

 That's it for now until I figure out what my plan is with the transmission/clutch situation.

[Jdesign]

MAN this looks sooooo good. Bummer about the pressure plate. Seems like it wont be that big of a set back though, just annoying.

[Tkuhn]

Jdesign said:

MAN this looks sooooo good. Bummer about the pressure plate. Seems like it wont be that big of a set back though, just annoying.

100% annoying. Lol also seems that you can reset the pressure plates. Sooo I suppose I should try that.

[Tkuhn]

Aight boyzzz. I devised a way to reset the pressure plate back to the install position thanks to a YouTube search. Some say to use a 3 jaw puller but the way I did it worked like a charm!

First step was to make a hole on my work bench and then support the pressure plate mounting spots. I used some m8 nuts. Next was to devise something the size of the throw out bearing with a hole in it to allow a large bolt to be put through the bench and the pusher (which I used one of the old shipping locks from the pressure plates with the tabs cut off). 

Here's a pic of the hackery I set up.

Then I set the pressure plate on the nuts, sent the bolt through the bench and set it up to pull the fingers on the pressure plate down. This is a pic of the fingers pulled down.

Once it's to a certain point you can move the self adjuster with a screwdriver. I moved it all the way back into the install position.

Then while holding the adjuster in the service position I backed off the pinch bolt set up and BAM! Shes back in the install position.

So I did this to both pressure plates and ultimately I opted to put the old pressure plate back into the car with the new carbon kevlar disc.

Here it is all installed back in the car, as you can see the springs are pulled all the way back which is how they should be.

Soooo I could have put the trans back in but I decided to not be a lazy sack of shit and I ordered the detent pin rebuild kit for my trans. (I totally forgot that they should be replaced when we had it out the first time.) Hopefully that shows up by the weekend so this large step backward can be done by Sunday night lol.

[Jdesign]

Piece of cake.

[straight6pwr]

why do you want to have a stripped interior but then start covering random things back up?

[Tkuhn]

straight6pwr said:

why do you want to have a stripped interior but then start covering random things back up?

It's not really stripped. Cant run back seats because of the subframe bracing but I wouldnt want to run rear seats anyways because they are heavy. I have no carpet but that's because the carpet was junk when I got the chassis(thus the floor plates), wouldnt mind putting carpet back in just the front. I wanted to cover the rear decklid last season just never got around to it and I reinstalled door cards because it looks nicer lol. 

It's a difficult balance between keeping it comfortable since it is a street car but also trying to save weight where possible since I am stock engine mostly.

I'd like to remove the sunroof and install a delete panel to get all that weight off the highest point of the car, just cant get myself to spend 250+ yet hahah

[Jdesign]

Tkuhn said:

I'd like to remove the sunroof and install a delete panel to get all that weight off the highest point of the car, just cant get myself to spend 250+ yet hahah

Make it yourself, its super easy.

[Tkuhn]

Jdesign said:

Make it yourself, its super easy.

I dont want just a panel that rivets in though. I want it to fit flush with where the sunroof was.

[patsbimmer1]

This thing looks so bad ass.  I fucking love it!

[Tkuhn]

patsbimmer1 said:

This thing looks so bad ass.  I fucking love it!

Thank you! I cant wait to get past this clutch ordeal and get it back on the ground. Detent fix kit shows up today hopefully. I ordered a blind hole plug puller kit which showed up yesterday. So replace the detent stuff then the trans and everything can go back on. Then I need to finish wrapping the rest bumper and the wrap is complete until I can order a rear lip which I really want and I think will complete the look for now Haha. 

Also not sure if I should do clear reflectors on the bumper or red still. Red would hopefully get me out of some tickets for the clear tails lol but I think clear would look so much better haha.

[patsbimmer1]

Tkuhn said:

Thank you! I cant wait to get past this clutch ordeal and get it back on the ground. Detent fix kit shows up today hopefully. I ordered a blind hole plug puller kit which showed up yesterday. So replace the detent stuff then the trans and everything can go back on. Then I need to finish wrapping the rest bumper and the wrap is complete until I can order a rear lip which I really want and I think will complete the look for now Haha. 

Also not sure if I should do clear reflectors on the bumper or red still. Red would hopefully get me out of some tickets for the clear tails lol but I think clear would look so much better haha.

Let's be honest here, you're getting pulled over at every opportunity they have.  Go clear.

[Jdesign]

Tkuhn said:

I dont want just a panel that rivets in though. I want it to fit flush with where the sunroof was.

And I agree. Buy some fiberglass or carbon and just lay a mold over the old sunroof. 

patsbimmer1 said:

Let's be honest here, you're getting pulled over at every opportunity they have.  Go clear.

This. Clear 100%

[Tkuhn]

@patsbimmer1 @Jdesign true Haha I'll have to order them either way cause I smashed the fuck out of them getting the old ones out 

And Jason that's not the worst idea Haha. We will see how ambitious I get.

[wasnt m3]

I think it'd look nice and clean if you wrapped the reflectors to match the car, just my 2 cents.

[Tkuhn]

wasnt m3 said:

I think it'd look nice and clean if you wrapped the reflectors to match the car, just my 2 cents.

That did cross my mind as well.

[Tkuhn]

small update:

Installed the shift pin and detent pin repair kit last night. Then got the trans into the car along with everything I had to take off to pull it. The clutch works correctly now lol. So the car is back on the ground. 

Also I finished the Frankenstein mirrors that a friend from Instagram told me I could make. It's a combination of some aftermarket e46 base plates and a Nissan style mirror. He didn't want me to completely share his secret though haha.

Although these are proably a level 15 on a scale to ten for wrapping I still attempted it. Not 100% happy with it but I'd say I did okay.

And here's a pic installed on the car.

I really dig them, looks way better than the e36 M mirrors and more out of the box than e46 M mirrors.