Engine and Transmission work
Been a while? Somehow it seems longer than a month since I've last posted. I've been busy, but it seems like i have and have not been at the same time, whatever that means...
Prepping the 5-speed for install onto my M10. Many thanks to C.D. and my friend Jeff for explaining the diesel gas method of manual transmission cleaning - the gas went in clear and came out looking like sandy lakewater. I'm sure this helped the transmission greatly. I've since flushed it twice with ATF and replaced all necessary shaft seals.
It had better be in good shape. Cleaning this thing to this degree sucked.
Mocking up the Metric Mechanic 5 speed kit. The rubber bushing they provide is long gone, so I've decided to try a urethane one I had sitting around. Should work well:
New clutch and pressure plate, resurfaced flywheel. Much thanks to Dave Varco at aardvark for hooking me up with these bits, as well as the new seals for my transmission other related bits.
Yes, I plated my clutch fork.
I kid you not, this picture was taken a mere 5 minutes after the one above. Picked up the transmission, and it slid right in first shot. I just kind of stood there and blinked for a bit.
I also got a used MM shortened driveshaft for my car, which I stripped and POR-15'ed. It was a tad rusty from having sat outside for a while.
To make up for the ease of transmission install, I fought with this turd for about an hour. Man, give me a heaterbox over this thing anyday:
Fabricating my throttle cable brackets was also a good time. Once again, I went to Fink's site to see what he had done, and to what degree I could rip off his creative skills... I came up with this strikingly similar design:
They're mocked up in ABS plastic here, and I recreated them out of galvanized steel once I had he proper angles all figured out. Of course, its damn near impossible to re-create bends like that, but I like to think I came close. A search of the FAQ showed a few things about what other people had done for throttle brackets for their EFI cars, so I'm going to add to that by showing my solutions here.
Here's the brackets in steel:
and on the manifold:
I'm using a 325i throttle cable, which ends in a little hook. I found a bushing at O'Reily that fits over this hook really snug. I cut a slot in the bushing to fit over the cable, then slid it up over the hook. The hook has a cup at the end which prevents the bushing from coming off.
I'm also using a tii part on the firewall to transfer the pedal movement to the cable. In the pic below, the slotted hole is where the bushing fits in, with the hook part facing the opposite side of the flared end. I don't know how well I'm explaining that, but its very rigid and transfers movement at a 1:1.15 ratio to pedal movement. From my art-school math classes, I'm pretty sure this is optimal.
This set-up allows for a lot of fine-tuning. The 325i cable has an adjustment screw at the throttle body which will help in tightening everything up when I go for the final assembly of all this stuff, maybe as early as next weekend.
All of my underhood wiring is wrapped up now. All I have left to do is run fuel lines and I can drop the engine and transmission in.
Prepping the 5-speed for install onto my M10. Many thanks to C.D. and my friend Jeff for explaining the diesel gas method of manual transmission cleaning - the gas went in clear and came out looking like sandy lakewater. I'm sure this helped the transmission greatly. I've since flushed it twice with ATF and replaced all necessary shaft seals.
It had better be in good shape. Cleaning this thing to this degree sucked.
Mocking up the Metric Mechanic 5 speed kit. The rubber bushing they provide is long gone, so I've decided to try a urethane one I had sitting around. Should work well:
New clutch and pressure plate, resurfaced flywheel. Much thanks to Dave Varco at aardvark for hooking me up with these bits, as well as the new seals for my transmission other related bits.
Yes, I plated my clutch fork.
I kid you not, this picture was taken a mere 5 minutes after the one above. Picked up the transmission, and it slid right in first shot. I just kind of stood there and blinked for a bit.
I also got a used MM shortened driveshaft for my car, which I stripped and POR-15'ed. It was a tad rusty from having sat outside for a while.
To make up for the ease of transmission install, I fought with this turd for about an hour. Man, give me a heaterbox over this thing anyday:
Fabricating my throttle cable brackets was also a good time. Once again, I went to Fink's site to see what he had done, and to what degree I could rip off his creative skills... I came up with this strikingly similar design:
They're mocked up in ABS plastic here, and I recreated them out of galvanized steel once I had he proper angles all figured out. Of course, its damn near impossible to re-create bends like that, but I like to think I came close. A search of the FAQ showed a few things about what other people had done for throttle brackets for their EFI cars, so I'm going to add to that by showing my solutions here.
Here's the brackets in steel:
and on the manifold:
I'm using a 325i throttle cable, which ends in a little hook. I found a bushing at O'Reily that fits over this hook really snug. I cut a slot in the bushing to fit over the cable, then slid it up over the hook. The hook has a cup at the end which prevents the bushing from coming off.
I'm also using a tii part on the firewall to transfer the pedal movement to the cable. In the pic below, the slotted hole is where the bushing fits in, with the hook part facing the opposite side of the flared end. I don't know how well I'm explaining that, but its very rigid and transfers movement at a 1:1.15 ratio to pedal movement. From my art-school math classes, I'm pretty sure this is optimal.
This set-up allows for a lot of fine-tuning. The 325i cable has an adjustment screw at the throttle body which will help in tightening everything up when I go for the final assembly of all this stuff, maybe as early as next weekend.
All of my underhood wiring is wrapped up now. All I have left to do is run fuel lines and I can drop the engine and transmission in.
