The 1992 Wagon is getting a 5 speed

[Bruno]

I decided to share my wrenching week, took a week off from work to finally make my wagon the way she should be. My wagon is a Texas car with zero rust so it is a perfect project car. This year is the 5 speed swap and mocking up the turbo bits. Next year I will install the turbo with megasquirt.
For the project I purchased a retired 525i sedan 5 speed from an ex member of this forum in Quebec. Having a donor car helps if you are missing little bits and pieces and to try your hand at disassembling things before tacking it on your car.

What I achieved was:
- 5 speed swap with 535i diff, uuc flywheel and M5 stage 2 clutch for turbo to be, changing all the wearable parts with new one
- Front bilsteins with H&R lowering springs
- thrust arms
- door seals
- replaced aftermarket radio with OEM radio modified with Aux port.
- replaced OBC and OBC bulbs
- Replaced engine mounts with Ireland engineering urethane 325i mounts.

5 speed swap

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/donor.jpg
Take all the transmission related parts off the donor car

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/525swap.jpg
Jack your car up and start pulling all the automatic transmission parts

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/525auto.jpg
Look at your automatic transmission on the floor and ponder why France built the GM tranny. I will either find another wagon with a bad tranny or sell it, the transmission was rebuilt by the previous owner and was working flawlessly.

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/uuc.jpg
Crawl back under the car and clean everything up, new crankshaft seal, UUC lightweight flywheel and M5 clutch (bought used)

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/shifter.jpg
E36 M3 shifter rod installed with 318i shifter linkage (I had it in my part bin and it made the shifter sit better)
Now I need to finish my gauge panel, wire my gauges up and install a new shifter.

It was a lot of work but the results are amazing and well worth it.

Engine mounts
The mounts were in bad shape, the front right one was sagging so I decided to replace them with IE urethane ones, they fit nicely, are cheap and should last a long time. This will also be a good upgrade for turbo.

Radio

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/radio.jpg
I was never happy with the sound of the aftermarket radio, the aux port wasn't loud enough, and I wanted to have the OEM look back.
The po left the OEM radio plug in place but cut a bunch of wires (speakers and power) to feed the aftermarket pioneer radio, so I re-soldered them all back in with shrink wrap.

The result

http://www.bmwe34.net/Ebay/525it.jpg
Time to test the car while picking up groceries, parking far away from all the other cars... and off course a car was parked close to me when I came back.
The Self leveling system wasn't touched. I will tweak it when I install the M5 rear sway bad.

[BennyM]

Woah.

[ScottyWM]

Now THAT's a vacation well spent!

[Bruno]

added a bunch of pictures for better appreciation, I will write the procedure on the website later.

[genphreak]

W00t! What an achievement- Love the e36 shifter retrofit, the twin gauge pod.

Agree with the radios; for aftermarket I like the JVCs as the radios work with the e34 antennae (tho the non nonsense functional design of the OE units is way better).

Good luck selling the trans. A good choice of kit there too. the car will be a real sleeper- (can see it now all those dudes in overdone cars getting shamed (e.g. eaten by a 6-cyl stocker wagon!).

Is that a non-vanos motor? Not sure anyone has done megasquirt+vanos, but I would've missed it if only recently done (?) and should be common really by now.

Yep... real nice work. Will be watching your threads for more goodness ;)

[Bruno]

I am running a non vanos, I have a spare engine now and I will be rebuilding it with the internal of a M54, that will bring the engine to 3.0l a turbo on top of it should work very nicely, but this is for next year.
Right now I need to dye all the seats champagne color, will post pics of the results.

I guess I am getting older, lowering the car too much doesn't appeal to me anymore, just removing the fender gap. Same with the radio, OEM looks nice.

[genphreak]

Sounds like it'll be everything a BMW wagon should be to me Bruno. Balance is a large part of getting ones enhancements right.