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The NEWEST official E36 OT Thread!!

614K views 9K replies 87 participants last post by  hornhospital 
#1 ·
New new version of the official E36 OT thread.
 
#7,984 ·
That's terrible. Typical insurance nonsense. I know you've seen the same with hurricane damage claims down there in Orlando. They screwed over a bunch of people here after Katrina. Now we pay 10x as much for half the coverage. If you live south of I-10 your wind damage insurance is sky high. Incidentally, unless you get over toward Mobile Bay there's no major body of water anywhere around here, the Gulf of Mexico being 20+ miles south of me, yet we pay premiums like we built on the beach.
 
#7,986 ·
There were so many houses burned to the ground that it's just taking adjusters a long time to get the estimates done. Apparently if your house is standing it's easier to estimate the repair then it is to establish the rebuild cost when everything in a neighborhood is gone.

We got lucky with Irma with no damage, then in April there was a freak hail storm here that cut a swath across our part of Orlando. Golf ball sized hail swiss cheesed the pool enclosure and pounded the shingles. So far the insurance company has been more than fair and they're paying the full cost less the normal deductible.
 
#7,987 ·
that's good to hear, don. i have only had to deal with homeowner insurance once, when a semi took out the tree in front of the house and managed to damage not only my house but the neighbor's house and the sidewalk.

i was fortunate, though, because the entire street not only got repaved but new sidewalks as well as part of an infrastructure upgrade that was in planning. i would have been reimbursed for some of the expense, minus the deductible, but the insurance estimate came in about 2k less than the actual estimate. i would have had to go to court for the balance if the walks were not being redone. i did not know, however, that this was the case when i was given a check from the insurance. i did get the deductible back, though, as that is what the cost of the stump removal wound up being.

all in all, no out of pocket expenses and i have no tree and a new sidewalk. it worked out for me, but lesson learned.

i did try to go through the trucking company insurance but the company stonewalled me claiming it wasn't their driver's fault but the electric company who placed traffic cones to reroute traffic, causing the driver to come too close to the tree, which leaned in toward the street. it was a frustrating mess for sure...i am so much more familiar with dealing with car insurance adjusters than home owner adjusters....



in other news, not much has changed,....df still has too much on his plate, mrs df wants everything yesterday, jr df is doing well (thank god) and is managing to keep his head above water and maintain a work/school/musician balance, and the bills just do not stop....work has been busy, as always, and i am constantly pushing myself forward to be the best i can be, and my superiors are aware and appreciate this effort, however since everyone is busier than a one armed sailor in a rowboat getting time to actually sit down and hash out proposals and enact changes in positions, i fear i am stuck on the hamster wheel until after the fall, when things will slow down a but and i should be able to negotiate a hybrid position of tech development and qa inspection. sort of an in between position of operations manager and tech trainer.

i have a studio but have been too busy to spend quality time there in any consistent fashion, but i am managing a sketch group. we meet 4th Mondays.

i still have my supercharger plans on the drawing board, just not much beyond there as yet...just too much else going on and without a garage it is far tougher than i thought it would be to tinker the way i had hoped...que cera cera, no??

anyway, not been on here much lately due to work/life balance, but i stalk when i can....

keep well, guys. stay safe.




df
 
#7,989 · (Edited)
Hi all! :hi: Not a ton to report here. It has been a warm summer by Seattle standards, but that just means temps in the 80s rather than the 70s, so I don't see what all the fuss is about. It has been very dry, so there are some sizeable wildfires currently burning here, too.

Otherwise, work has finally settled down a bit for the time being, and I have continued to focus my attention on planning/strategizing the GTO restoration. Still shooting for a late-December ship date to finally get it out here in Seattle and begin tearing it apart. I would've had it here this month had it not been for the BMW rear suspension/subframe overhaul saga. Anyhow, I'm enjoying getting my head into the GTO again after so many years of focusing on other things. I'll be (hopefully) picking up a solid trunk lid this weekend to replace the somewhat rusty one currently on my car. They don't make re-pops for the trunk lids like they do for many other body panels, so you're stuck with having to source an original. Luckily, or so it seems, I found someone who has two solid trunk lids. Hopefully it pans out.
 
#7,991 · (Edited)
What's up fella's...
Maintenance costs and repairs have settled down significantly this year so far on the stable (well maybe not so much on the E46) so I decided to finally get that set of CSL style wheels I've always been keen on for the E93.

18" Sparco Pro Corsa CSL Style, made by OZ WHEELS, absolutely stunning. As I wanted mine in silver, the shop will have them in 2-3 weeks when next shipment arrives from Italy...
_(Bmw badge fits in place of Sparco logo)
 

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#7,992 · (Edited)
Today's lesson in how to not be a sucker: I needed to replace the bearings in the bottom bracket (i.e., crank) of my bike, which is my primary mode of transportation. The bearings are press-fit into the frame of the bike, and to remove them, you need to use a special $35 tool to bang them out. No big deal. That tool comes with the bearing drifts needed to install the new bearings, but oddly does not include the actual bearing press tool. For that, they want you to spend an additional $75 for was is literally nothing more than a section of all-thread with a few washers and nuts with handles tack-welded on:


^This tool costs $75... Yes, really. :rolleyes:

My solution? Create my own press tool using $3.00 worth of hardware from Home Depot...


^New bearings.


^Frame with old bearings already removed.


^My homemade $3.00 bearing press tool.


^New bearings pressed into frame and ready for crank. Done.

It's amazing what some companies think they can get away with.
 
#7,993 · (Edited)
:clap: Well done, sir!

It's the same with the "BMW specialty tools". Hundreds of dollars for simple metal bars and plates that any reasonably handy DIYer can put together for pennys.


^This tool costs $75... Yes, really. :rolleyes:
It's the blue Plasti-dip on the handles. The rest of it cost $5. The Plasti-dip and printing was $70...... ;)
 
#7,994 ·
I scored a solid victory for the ongoing GTO restoration today. A few weekends ago, I bought what I thought was a solid rear deck lid to replace the rusty one that is currently on my GTO. Price was great and the seller was a very nice guy. He had two to choose from and I picked the one that looked the best of the two. Everything seemed great, but then when I got it home and took a closer look, I found a small pinhole along the side that I hadn't noticed before. I grabbed a wire wheel to clean it up a bit and the pinholes started growing rapidly...:(



I contacted my body shop, who said they can fix it, but the goal is to minimize as much metal fabrication as possible with this restoration, as there is undoubtedly going to be quite a bit of fab work as it is. So the hunt continued for another deck lid. I searched on the GTO forum for anyone selling a '66 GTO deck lid, and came across someone who had posted an ad over two years ago for what he claimed was the nicest one he's ever seen (they're hard to find in even moderately decent shape). On a wing and a prayer, I contacted him to ask if there was any chance he still had the deck lid. Turns out he never sold it! Bingo. The guy had originally bought it for his '67 GTO 35 years ago, but didn't realize at the time that the '66 deck lid is slightly different and didn't fit his '67. But he held onto the '66 deck lid for over 35 years because of how nice it was just in case he ever found himself owing a '66 in need of restoration. Anyhow, he sold it to me for an extremely low price, stating that he just wanted it to go to a good home after decades of holding onto it, and he also wanted to pay forward some of the kindness that he has received from others in the Pontiac community over the years. I promised to do the same, which I certainly will. Anyhow, it was a bit of a triumph for me. It may look like a slightly crusty old body panel, but it's solid and damage free, which is hard to find when you're talking about 52 year old non-galvanized steel.

 
#7,997 ·
Good grief, I had no idea ECS had bought Pelican. Regardless of promises, I'll believe there won't be changes when we've had a year with Pelican maintaining their status quo. As the saying goes "believe but verify". I see nothing good coming of this. :tsk:
Thanks for the heads up, Karl. Or should I say "Ice Man"? ;)
 
#7,998 · (Edited)
Yeah, I had no idea that ECS had bought out Pelican, either. I knew they had absorbed Turner a few years ago, but I didn't know that ECS had effectively dissolved Turner and their R&D department, which is a true shame. With Turner's long history in motorsport, their R&D program was responsible for developing new performance parts and bringing them to market - something few companies do. Makes me nervous for Pelican, and curious to know why they agreed to sell to ECS. Pelican seemed like it was a pretty big operation, but perhaps they had lost some of their market share to the big stalwarts like Amazon, etc. over the years and were feeling some pressure to stay afloat. Just guessing, though.
 
#7,999 ·
If you read through some of the Jalopnik article, the Pelican owner had reached the point where most family owned businesses usually wind up. He wanted to get his equity out and move on to new challenges.

Personally I haven't ordered anything from ECS in a couple years, mainly because of the issues cited, the biggest being an indication an item is "in stock" all the way through the purchase process only to find out it's not and will take weeks to get after you've provided CC info and completed the purchase. The last time they did that it took several calls to get the order cancelled and I had to use the fraud word multiple times to get it through to them that they couldn't do that.
 
#8,000 ·
Wow talk about being out of the loop, I had no idea there was a **** show. I continue to occasionally order from them, generally I think they have been pretty good, and have gotten better about marking whether an item was in stock or not. Also they seem to process and ship orders that are in stock very quickly.

Pelican in my experience has often been the most expensive option, but they did have some unique items, and I can appreciate all of the DIY’s they contributed to the community. I also have to give credit to ECS for literally having a picture of every damn thing they sell lol, ECS has better documentation for other people’s parts than they have themselves haha. And of course being a middle man, they are also often more expensive than other sources, not unreasonably so in my opinion.

But hey in case anyone was wondering, the hurricane was a big let down here in the triangle, just a lot of rain, lost power for a whole 30 seconds. I did a ridiculous amount of preparation too.
 

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#8,002 ·
Wow talk about being out of the loop, I had no idea there was a **** show. I continue to occasionally order from them, generally I think they have been pretty good, and have gotten better about marking whether an item was in stock or not. Also they seem to process and ship orders that are in stock very quickly.

Pelican in my experience has often been the most expensive option, but they did have some unique items, and I can appreciate all of the DIY's they contributed to the community. I also have to give credit to ECS for literally having a picture of every damn thing they sell lol, ECS has better documentation for other people's parts than they have themselves haha. And of course being a middle man, they are also often more expensive than other sources, not unreasonably so in my opinion.

But hey in case anyone was wondering, the hurricane was a big let down here in the triangle, just a lot of rain, lost power for a whole 30 seconds. I did a ridiculous amount of preparation too.
Glad you dodged the bad part of it! Better to be prepared and not need than need it and not be prepared. :thumbup:
 
#8,001 · (Edited)
It's the weirdest thing, I was just watching CNN right now, as we just got up this morning, and the situation with the flooding and I seemed to recall that you are from the Carolina states and was wondering about how things are....be careful and safe....hang around more :D

(Edit: you just had to make post #8000 :mad: )

"Magnum this is a private line...clear off!"
 
#8,005 ·
(Edit: you just had to make post #8000 :mad: )
Hahahaha [emoji8]

Ya I haven't been around much, hard to think of posting here unless I got car stuff going on, but I definitely do have some updates in that department. But just the usual, a whole whack of parts waiting to be installed.

Hey speaking of Magnum, didn't Magnum PI drive a 308? I dressed up as him for Halloween couple years ago, looked everywhere for a 308 car rental but couldn't find one.

Nothing but rain here, no storms or anything cool like that. This picture pretty much sums up my experience...
 

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#8,008 · (Edited)
Some of you may have seen this, but in case you hadn't, thought I'd post it. It's one ambitious project, and hopefully at some point they'll have some real performance data or dyno curves to show. They've built their own cylinder head and valve train, replacing poppet valves with rotary valves . https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEV_uX1zf8&feature=youtu.be

Sent from my iPhone using Bimmerfest
 
#8,014 ·
You know I did see that, and if it wasn't them that I saw, it was someone else. As I recall it was being done for some kind of car show or competition thing. It is pretty cool, and interesting, I forget what the downside to rotary valves was but I remember it being something. Personally I love the idea, no valve float, should be able to get some screaming high rpm's, then again, in an inline 6 you won't get too far with that anyways. I suppose one downside would be not having any variability in the timing, and not being able to adjust anything equivalent to valve lift. Seems like they would last a lot longer than a traditional setup though, and if anything screws up you don't have to worry about it since it is a non interference engine now.
 
#8,010 ·
Hello friends!

Sort of stumbled upon the forum while trying to figure out why my car is giving me electrical error codes

I couldn't help but pop in and say hi

***x1f44b;
 
#8,012 ·
Hey guys!

So after looking back a page or two it seems as if a few of you are in the same boat as I am with not being around much due to work/life, etc. Seems crazy to go back only one page and see posts from 3 months ago! Not as busy as it once was.

Things are going alright here. Still in the Navy, still flying, and still in VA (for at least another year and some change). Got promoted a few months ago so that's cool.

Still have the E36 and she's been running well. She hasn't changed much. Coming up on a decade of ownership this June! Almost pulled the trigger on an F80 M3 at the beginning of the summer but decided to wait due to spending a little more money than usual on travel and other leisurely activities. Don't fret however, the E36 isn't going anywhere. Too much sentimental value and it costs me literally nothing to own (found out I qualified for "collectible" insurance, $270 a YEAR :D). She doesn't see as much road time as she used to, but I get her out enough to stretch the legs, maybe hit a Cars & Coffee, and drive her for a few days before I get back in the SUV.

What's new? Hope all is well with everyone!
 
#8,015 ·
Hey guys!

So after looking back a page or two it seems as if a few of you are in the same boat as I am with not being around much due to work/life, etc. Seems crazy to go back only one page and see posts from 3 months ago! Not as busy as it once was.

Things are going alright here. Still in the Navy, still flying, and still in VA (for at least another year and some change). Got promoted a few months ago so that's cool.

Still have the E36 and she's been running well. She hasn't changed much. Coming up on a decade of ownership this June! Almost pulled the trigger on an F80 M3 at the beginning of the summer but decided to wait due to spending a little more money than usual on travel and other leisurely activities. Don't fret however, the E36 isn't going anywhere. Too much sentimental value and it costs me literally nothing to own (found out I qualified for "collectible" insurance, $270 a YEAR :D). She doesn't see as much road time as she used to, but I get her out enough to stretch the legs, maybe hit a Cars & Coffee, and drive her for a few days before I get back in the SUV.

What's new? Hope all is well with everyone!
Hey Carlos, thanks for popping in! Congrats on your promo, glad to hear everything is good. I've made about 4 trips to ODU lately for work, and I'll be going back possibly this week! I don't suppose you're around that area are you?
 
#8,017 ·
Hey Ken! Hope the weather didnt get you too bad down there!

Hey Carlos, thanks for popping in! Congrats on your promo, glad to hear everything is good. I've made about 4 trips to ODU lately for work, and I'll be going back possibly this week! I don't suppose you're around that area are you?
Nice! I'm not far from ODU. I live in central Norfolk, not too far from the airport. Pending unscheduled changes I'll be around for the rest of this month then gone for most of November.
 
#8,016 ·
Hmmmm, this could be why it was missing.....
Plugs from my wifes Grand Cherokee all looked like this. Supposed to have a 0.040" gap, they all were burnt down below the ceramic and had more that a 0.120" gap. I'm amazed it even ran. Spark plug Auto part Automotive ignition part Automotive engine part
 
#8,039 ·
Hmmmm, this could be why it was missing.....
Plugs from my wifes Grand Cherokee all looked like this. Supposed to have a 0.040" gap, they all were burnt down below the ceramic and had more that a 0.120" gap. I'm amazed it even ran. View attachment 823459
Spark plug gap isn't nearly as critical these days with modern induction coils, so they can be pretty tolerant.
 
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