Another F81 Build Thread

[Matt@Evolve]

Looking great!

[swagon]

Amazing progress. How many hours a day you average?

[nine zeros]

This is killer. Very nice - great color choice too.

[attbimmer]

Originally Posted by swagon

Amazing progress. How many hours a day you average?

Hard to say. During the week it is mostly after 8:30pm or so that I can start and have certainly had some late nights, but only rarely past 11. Occasionally I can sneak in a little time earlier. On weekends it varies based on other family commitments. I've had a few lucky weekends the last 2 months that weren't too busy, so was able to knock out some bigger things then. Trying to take advantage before things get even busier. At this point I'm nearing a point where most big things are done and I can hopefully get it powered and running again and just sort few remaining things.

Just out of curiosity I did an estimate given that most days I do at least some work on it and weekends usually more and I started mid October and that came out to close to 500 hours.

[attbimmer]

Back to regularly scheduled programming. I finished plastic welding the inside of the rear bumper. It is very solid now and the outside joints look decent. It lines up well with the body and the mounting points on the bumper carriers and underneath heat shields, so I think I'm in good shaper. I will likely take it like this to my body shop and let them do any additional filler and shaping on the outside of it before prime/paint.





While I was looking at exhaust parts to order new copper nuts, I noticed that there are suppos d to be gaskets between the turbos and down pipes. Mine didn't have any when I took it apart. Also the when I took apart the wagons N20 it didn't have any either, so I didn't even think about. I ordered gaskets and they arrived so I will try to get them installed soon. They are about an 1/8" think, so seems it will be a bit tight with the band clamps, but I'm assuming they will fit fine. Is it common to not use those gaskets or was it just carelessness on the previous owner when they did downpipes?

[Matt@Evolve]

Can't see how they wouldn't leak without them. We always re-use or replace the gaskets if they're damaged.

[attbimmer]

Well I took off one of the down pipes and found that the gaskets are there after all. I didn't notice it from above since they sit in a recessed channel, but they are there so that's good. Glad I checked now and not after more of it was together.

My windshield guy has time Friday to stop by and put in the windshield and the rear side glass, so I went ahead and started putting in the dashboard. I had taken pictures of where all the screws went and most are all the same. The ones holding the actual dash in are a bit larger with washers. Also the gauge cluster has 2 shorter screws.

The leather dash on this car wasn't taken care of the best, so it started to bubble up and shrink in the back. Unfortunately to fully fix it properly it would have to be completely redone. It wasn't that bad, so I ended up just regluong it with contact cement and it looks much better now.




Next I'll be working on getting the exhaust on and am getting pretty close to where I will start to power things on again.

If anyone knows someone who is good at remote coding to help get the car coded properly for things like the rear wiper, moon roof, ... Let me know.

[EezyBeezy]

Maybe kubax86 of Bimmer-Remote.com can help you out with the remote coding. Solid guy; has been a great service to us all here on BP.

[attbimmer]

Well tonight was a later one. I got the full exhaust on. It started with welding on the 2 extra mount points for the rear exhaust hangers. I cut them off the donor, cleaned up both sides, made a little jig out of wood to mark the locations, painted with weld through primer, sanded off the couple sections I would actually weld directly and then layed down some truly hideous welds. 😁 They are nice and strong though, so I can live with that. Painted again with underbody coating and they were ready for the exhaust.





After that it was just basic exhaust bolt on.





Right at the end when I was just about done attaching the muffler, I looked up at the valves and noticed the motor wasn't connected to the actual valve. I then looked closer and it seems someone decided to weld the valves open with some monster welds. Why do this when it is so easy to just have them coded to work the way you want I have no idea. Was quite disappointing. It will now have to come back off at some point to see if there is a way to salvage them or will need to replace them.



Still I'm glad to have another step done and at least taking off the exhaust is a very easy task.

[TouringM3]

The dome light split was such a pain in the ass - great work man, keep it up!

[scotty737]

You should try to DIY the coding. I was able to do it with little experience. It really wasn’t that challenging.

[attbimmer]

Originally Posted by scotty737

You should try to DIY the coding. I was able to do it with little experience. It really wasn’t that challenging.

I agree I will give it a try first and see.

[attbimmer]

Just a little work today. Had the windshield installed. Luckily the one we took out of the wagon came out without cracking and was nearly perfect. It must have been replaced recently. For the rear side glass my installer wanted to have all the other trim in first and I was still missing a few clips so we will put them in later.

I also spent a little time trying to to get the front panels aligned better. What I found worked best was to start with the top rear of the front fenders and get them aligned as well as possible with the a pillar base and front of the doors. I then left the rest of the fender loose and got the rear of the hood aligned with the rear of the front fenders. After that I adjusted the rest of the front fenders to align with the hood. It's still not perfect, butuch better. I'll need to still adjust the front bumper. I got a bunch of factory screws for it and will put them all in to replace the random parts the previous guys used.



I also got a bit more of the front interior together with the glove box and panels for passenger side in. Also placed in the main center console part and will get that finished off tomorrow.

[0NIN]

What coding actually needs to be done?

[attbimmer]

Originally Posted by 0NIN

What coding actually needs to be done?

The things I'm aware of at the moment are

• Moonroof
• Upper tail gate glass opener
• Rear wiper and washer

Beyond that will see I guess.

[attbimmer]

After finding the valves welded on the muffler I had, I decided to look again at what was available for sale locally. Since the secondary cats were gutted on the s action I had I also wanted to find a stock set for that. I found a full stock exhaust from a comp PKG car only a few minutes away that had just reduced price from $600 to 250. I ended up getting it for 150 and it was the full section from the end of the downpipes all the way to the muffler un cut. I just put that entire section on for now and will decide what to do with the m performance exhaust later. Hopefully I get grind off the welds and get the valves working again.

To those screaming that the stock exhaust is crap, I don't necessarily disagree, but having the car fully stock for the moment should help when I go to the CA BAR to get the swap officially certified. I likely won't keep it that way for long, but for now it will do.



With the car up in the air I also bled the brakes again and bled the clutch. For whatever reason bleeding the clutch was quite annoying. There would be little bits of fluid come out and then lots of air repeatedly despite the reservoir filled well above the hose that feeds the clutch master. Eventually it seems to be ok with no more air coming out and after pumping the clutch pedal some it feels pretty good. Will have to see once the seats in and car is running how it actually feels.

[attbimmer]

Didn't have much time today, but ended up getting the rest of the dash together as well as the center console. For the moment I put in the indicator stalks from the M3 and will test with it before swapping in the one from the wagon to see what works with it and to see if it will work or if I'll need to get an LCI wagon version.



Up to this point I haven't done any deep cleaning of the carpets since I've been going in and out a bunch, but will do that next and then reinstall the front seats. The rear seats should be ready this week as well.

[attbimmer]

Yesterday I cleaned up the carpets and then installed the front seats. I had just a couple ground wires I had to connect and the wire for the overhead lights that goes to the door open sensors that got finished. None of the lift gate is wired in yet, but figured I'd connect the battery and just see what happens.

Was a bit nervous for the first connection, but nothing popped when connected and things mostly went as expected. The rear electronics module and front dome lights/moonroof module are from the wagon and will need coding before they work properly. I may try to temporarily swap in the ones from th M3 just to compare what works/doesn't with each. I'll fill up the engine with coolant soon as well and try starting to motor.





Also the plates for the car came in.

[attbimmer]

Tonight was back to more wiring. Was working on the lift gate harness. It didn't need major work, but it still took a few hours. I had to add 2 wires to support the LCI tail lights as well as remove the wiring for the older style back up camera and replace with the newer style wiring.

The harness from the sedan is significantly shorter than for the wagon.



Extending the wires for the tail lights was simple, but extending the wiring for the camera will be a little trickier. The camera has 8 wires. 2 of which are just plain separate thin gauge wires, but then there are 2 sets of 3 wires that are in a special shielded casing. Not sure what protocol this camera is using. I found some numbers on the wiring bundles, so will look up to see if I can find some. Just extending them with normal wires may cause other issues with the signals. It needs to be extended about 3'.

The harness is connected on the trunk side, but still need to fish it into the lift gate and then put it fully back together.



I also discovered one little connector on the side of the lift gate harness with a single pin near the REM. I missed that when pulling things out of the main wagon harness, so will have to go look to see where it goes. The wire on the lift gate side goes to 1 of 4 wires that are part of the buttons to close the lift gate or lock the car.

[attbimmer]

Only a little time today. Dumped the old harness on the floor and looked for that one wire connector. Found it near the remnants of the REM connectors and traced it back to the FEM. Pulled out that pin and then added it into the M3 harness. Luckily I had left most of the right side wiring still easily accessible and just had to take out the kick panel in the passenger foot well and lower cover.

It's the one grey wire on my finger in pin 32.



Very convenient that all the extra wires have a nice open slot to plug right into. Even the extra wires for the LCI tail lights. Almost like BMW planned for this from the beginning. 😁



Next I decided to fish the lift gate harness into the lift gate. I ran some fish tape from the right tail light up to the harness entry point and fed it through long enough that the majority of the harness could get wrapped in tape against it so that I was never really tugging on the wires themselves, but instead the metal fish tape. I did have to depin 3 of the larger connectors (those for tail lights and wiper motor) and remove bolts for the gate opener on the right to make room for it to fit through. It was still quite snug at times, but eventually made it through without ever needing too much force.

Up to here was the hard part.



After that was just glancing back at some old pictures and connecting everything up. You can usually tell if something is in the right spot or not just based on the memory in the wiring.

[attbimmer]

The clips I needed for the rear side window trim arrived earlier this week, so today I got the trim installed along with the rear side windows.

While my windshield installer was here, he also glued on the shark fin that apparently uses the same glue to ensure it is water tight.




I'll be gone for the next week, so will be on pause for a bit. When back the rear bumper and rear seats should be ready.

[attbimmer]

I couldn't help it and decided to fill up the coolant and try to start the engine. It fired right up just like if it had never been transplanted. I let it run for just a few minutes. Idle was a little rough but overall seemed fine. Clutch was working and drove its first foot forward and backward as an M3 wagon. It still feels soft, so I'll bleed it more later on.