straight6pwr said:

that's sad, did you at least go cruising with the top down a couple times?

Definitely a bummer since I really like the car and it has a ton of potential, I have been driving it quite a bit now that I got it running properly and will continue to do so till someone buys it! Drove up the lakefront with the top down on Friday and it was a lot of fun.

Snap said:

Getting rid of your m20 car. You are dead to me

Your 318 needs body repairs from a failed ragedrift, correct?

And yeah the 318is still needs some front end bodywork after I accidentally went hunting with it... I'm pretty sure the m42 is two cylinders short of epic ragedrifts in its current form, but I'm thinking some megasquirts and positive intake pressures could make up the difference

Your 318 needs body repairs from a failed ragedrift, correct?

WHILE valve_to_piston=FALSE;

RunningM20Count=5;

ELSE

END

I also cleaned everything I took off because it was all covered in sludge from the valve cover and cam seals leaking everywhere. I'm sure other things are leaking too but at least I got some of the sources. It looked like the distributor cap and rotor had never been changed as the contacts were really badly pitted and crusty, It definitely runs a lot better now. 

While bleeding the cooling system I noticed that the temp gauge was bouncing/skipping around. I had a similar issue on my 318is and so I pulled the cluster to check out the grounding nuts on the back: 

The temp gauge nut was freely spinning and a few threads away from falling off. The fuel gauge nut was also a bit loose so I tightened them down and the gauges are reading nice and steady now. 

I climbed under the car with the intention of pulling the speed sensor in the diff to see if it were cracked or gunked up and found this (I unplugged it prior to taking the picture): 

Pretty sure that's the problem haha. 

I snipped the other wire and brought the plug home to my apartment. Disassembled it, trimmed back the ends of inner pieces of the plug covering what was left of the wires, soldered on a new, heavier gauge wire, and then used some heat shrink to stiffen the joint so it wont fray/split down the road. Tomorrow or Wednesday I will reconnect the plug and see if that solved the no speedo problem. 

I also changed the oil with some castrol GTX 20w50 and a new filter as it was looking pretty old. Now that I know my timing belt isn't made of dust and dreams I took the car out for a more spirited drive and it runs like a champ. The clunk/knock from the rear when shifting between 1st/2nd and 2nd/3rd is much better so I will call it good for now too. Still have some more maintenance to catch up on but it's definitely coming along nicely.

m42b32 said:

split seams on the convertible top.

its cuz your car is a fatty fatty 2x4

and also, i wouldnt expect a 325i vert to have a factory LSD. more often than not, they weren't driven in the winter/mountains/etc so the option wasn't added as much.

These lock 'rebuild' kits are only about $30 and have every part to build a completely new lock.

New lock assembled, matched to the key and all lubed up:

\

Installed it back into the door and now I have a functional door lock and the double lock works perfectly too. Central locking isn't working so next I'm going to try the trick where you eliminate the live wire loop in the driver's door to fix it.

Also made an attempt to start sewing up some of the split seams on the convertible top. I'm using a sewing awl and some strong outdoor polyester thread, and once I figured out how to use the thing I was able to fix a 2" split. I started looking over the top and there's probably 10 feet of seams I need to repair as I need to completely re-sew the support wires across the roof, so that's gonna take a while...

Whatever backwoods China plant makes the bushings gives zero shits

Open diff surprise. 

New diff mount installed!

Valve adjustment, needs an oil change but thankfully no sludge buildup

Tonight I checked on the rear shock mounts and it turns out they were both completely blown out. When I removed them the center sleeves pretty much just fell right out. I happened to have a set of new E46 M3 convertible RSM's and reinforcement plates that came with some suspension parts I bought for the M3 a while back so I threw those in. Doing these on a vert is a million times easier than a coupe or sedan, I had both sides done in less than half an hour since you don't have to rip the trunk apart to get them out. 

Drove it very nicely (nothing over 3500rpm as I still haven't done the timing belt) around the block to see how things are going, the clunk seemed to be mostly gone except for when I did a more aggressive shift from 2nd to 3rd. Any other time it was nice and tight so I'm just going to ignore it for now and not beat on it too hard. Engine idled much more smoothly on the cold start though I probably should clean the ICV as it still has a small stumble off idle when it's cold. It seemed to run a lot smoother and quieter in general though. There is still a constant clicking noise that seems to be unrelated to RPM's that I am going to try and locate and quiet down, maybe something emissions related but I'm not sure. When replacing the diff mount I must've damaged the speed sensor since the speedometer no longer works...oops. Also, the car sat outside in the rain this past week and I came back to a number of really wet spots in the interior, so restitching and conditioning the top went from a "I'll get to it eventually" thing to the next priority.

Snap said:

so you haven't driven it yet with the new mounts in?  

Not yet unfortunately. The PO told me the timing belt was done 4 years ago (which would make it due for a change now) but the sticker says 2007 so I'm avoiding starting it till I get the new belt in.

Check the condition of the transmission mounts. More times than not they are destroyed from a trans output seal leak