Happens every time...
Happens every time...
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
They really are fun to drive quickly. I got a lowball offer on mine today and I'm tempted to just put the very expensive experience behind me since I'm just too tall for it. Sucks
In reply to OHSCrifle :
If you're ready to be done with the car, by all means, sell it.
Otherwise, have you considered investing in an aftermarket seat to gain additional headroom? (I'm assuming it's a headroom issue?)
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
It is a headroom issue and the thought of an aftermarket seat has crossed my mind..
In reply to OHSCrifle :
There are in fact lots of seat brackets for the E9x/E8x platform... plenty of Recaros fit without an issue. I'm just throwing that out there. 😳
roninsoldier83 said:In reply to OHSCrifle :
There are in fact lots of seat brackets for the E9x/E8x platform... plenty of Recaros fit without an issue. I'm just throwing that out there. 😳
BMW performance seats might go a hair lower. Manual sport seats might, too. I already replaced the original comfort seats with a set of sports. And the money pit has me drained.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
That's fair. These cars will bankrupt you trying to get them "right".
I have a set of manual sports seats. If you would like, we can measure and compare our seats to see if there are any real differences?
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
I'm interested in your measurements.
Can you measure from center bottom of the seat back to the underside of the sun shade - as close to plumb as possible, like this?
This is with sport power seats on lowest setting at the back of the seat bottom and the highest setting at the front of the seat bottom.
Mine are 38.5"
In reply to OHSCrifle :
For the sake of consistency, do you have your seat slid as far back as possible?
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
It was not all the way back. But I just moved it all the way back and got the same result.
Ok, so my seat also wasn't moved all the way back.
This is what is looks like with the back of the seat all the way down and the front of the seat all the way up (it's a pretty aggressive amount of rake!):
For contrast, here's what it looks like with both the front and rear of the seat in their lowest positions:
Keep in mind that I've lowered my stock seats by cutting the tabs off of them by a whopping 2mm.
In reply to roninsoldier83 :
Thanks for measuring! Looks like the tale of the tape is perhaps 1/2" or 3/4" additional headroom for manual sport seats (modified).
The extreme seat bottom rake is how I get some support under my inseam 35 legs when my heels are on the floor.
...Anybody want to swap a set of beige manual sports for some average condition beige motorized sports?
In reply to OHSCrifle :
I wonder if you just had the base of a manual seat if you could just remove the rails and bolt them onto your power seat?
roninsoldier83 said:In reply to OHSCrifle :
I wonder if you just had the base of a manual seat if you could just remove the rails and bolt them onto your power seat?
I'm kinda curious now. Will have to watch for junkyard E9x because I'm tired of buying new/retail parts. Also need to take a closer look at your seat bottom pics on the blog. And comparing to my own seat bottom pics.
I made a thread here on GRM a while ago:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/rust-converter-on-differential-tail-shaft-stub-axles-could-it-cause-a-pulsing-or-vibration/282217/page1/
In essence, after rebuilding the differential and driving the car around, I noted somewhat of a pulsing or rhythmic vibration once the car was moving. My wife can't tell anything is different. Truthfully, if I'm not paying close attention, neither can I. I suppose there's always the possibility that the pulsing/rhythmic vibration was there beforehand and I just didn't notice it until after the swap, and I'm just being overly paranoid due to the fact that I've never rebuilt a diff before and I'm not confident in my abilities.
To describe what it's like, it almost feels more like a slight whirring, almost like the tires are going over something in the road every few feet (they're not). I've had two (three?) sets of tires on the car and the issue is present with both sets, so I didn't believe it was a wheel/tire issue.
To be clear, it isn't really vibrating the whole car, I really only notice it through the pedals and if I'm not paying attention to it, I don't notice anything.
When I was putting the diff back together, I measured backlash and it was perfectly within spec, but admittedly, I only checked it in one spot. As it turns out, I know jack-E36 M3 about rebuilding diffs, other than what I found on the Internet and I didn't see anyone recommending checking it in multiple spots.
I don't think I could tell much of a difference with the whirring/vibration regardless of if the car is in gear vs in neutral.
I consulted AI (my first mistake!) and it suggested that maybe there could be a slight imbalance, surface unevenness, or the driveshaft flange not seating perfectly flush due to the rust converter primer. So, I got under the car, disconnected the driveshaft and sanded down the mating surfaces. No change. Big shocker.
The Hive seemed to think it was more likely either an issue with the guibo or center carrier bearing on the driveshaft... I saw the labor involved in removing the driveshaft and carrier bearing and decided to do the unthinkable: I took it to a local BMW indie shop (The Garage). Yeah, it's gotten to the point that I'm sick of troubleshooting this POS.
I just got off of the phone with the shop after dropping the car off with them yesterday and here's what they found:
1. The rear tires needed an extra bit of weight/balancing, but that didn't resolve the issue.
2. They said the driveshaft, including the guibo and center carrier bearing was fine. Glad I didn't go through the trouble of pulling it and replacing things that wouldn't have solved the problem!
3. They said they heard a little bit of noise out of the differential itself. When I inquired about it, he said they heard a bit of extra noise while using a mechanic's stethoscope. I didn't inquire as to the nature of the noise (gear noise, bearing noise, etc). He didn't seem convinced it was the issue, or at least mentioned it would be a whole lot more expensive than what he believed the likely [main?] issue to be:
4. I was told they found some resistance in the front right wheel bearing. He was under the impression this was our most likely culprit. Which, I believe there was a bit of whirring noise before I installed the diff that I probably wrote off as tire noise when I still had the RT660's on. Perhaps jumping curbs at HPR and having a couple of off-track excursions were less than kind to my wheel bearing? Come to think of it, the steering does feel just a bit looser than I remember, but it's hard to say if that's not just a placebo effect?
So, we'll replace the wheel bearing and see if the problem is resolved. If not, I'm not removing the diff again, so I guess I'll just live with it.
For anyone thinking about buying one of these cars, here is the latest crop of issues:
-The A/C isn't working again. I haven't bothered to troubleshoot this aspect due to it being November here in Colorado (translation: the weather is nice and cool this time of year). I'll revisit this issue in the spring.
-It looks like there's a problem with the right front wheel bearing.
-The parking brake is getting pretty loose and now doesn't want to hold the car on a steep incline. It was fine before I installed the diff. Maybe me using it so many times to remove/install the diff wore something down? Either way, apparently I should remove the rear wheels and try to adjust it.
I feel like I've been troubleshooting something on this car on a regular basis for the past 2.5 years. That's probably not an accurate statement, as I'm sure quite a bit of that has to do with me tinkering with things, not to mention the plethora of things to fix and replace from previous owner neglect and the accident. Still, I feel like there's been too much troubleshooting for a car that I've only driven 8000 miles in the past 2.5 years (purchased with 133,000 miles, now at 141,000 miles). I'm pretty burned out. There's a chance that in the spring, this old bird might be moving onto someone else's garage.
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