Aj's 1999 E36 M3

[ajcanadian]

Hi everyone, my name is Aj and this is my journal for my 1999, cosmos M3/2/5. I’ve had a few e36 m3s in the past. I purchased a Dakar yellow M3 when I was 17. I loved that car to death because it was my first M and I was constantly wrenching on it. I ended up selling that car after a year of ownership because of an unexpected circumstance. Ever since then, I’ve missed having an e36 m3 because I sold that car unwillingly. 2 years and half a dozen BMWs later, I picked up another needy M3. I got the mechanical issues sorted and sold it because that car needed a complete paint job. I weighed my options to either repaint it or sell it. I chose to sell that car.





Right after I sold my AW M3, I purchased this e36 M3 from a guy that worked at ECS tuning. The previous owners of this vehicle definitely took care of it and it shows. Here are some pictures of when I bought the vehicle.



This picture was taken right after I got to Toledo from Cleveland with the thirsty girls. Peep my daily 97 328i/5 boston green over tan. It definitely feels great to have found the “right car.”








That’s how I got the car. The car originally came with contours but the previous owner swapped them out for genuine style 24s. The car was very dirty. Being a 21 year old black paint it was swirled out. Luckily, I’ve got some detailer friends, so I took it to their work and detailed it with them.



Here’s how the car sat with just a wash.





That’s after cutting and polishing the paint. Then we went and waxed it with collinite 845. Ignore the rock-chips they will get remedied soon. Shortly after that the weather got worse and I tucked the M3 away for winter for a few months. During this time period I ordered a bunch of stuff for the car.




Once the weather got warm again, I started to continue to work on the car. I ended up doing an oil change and filled an extra quart.



I also ordered a LTW replica wing. I plan to have that painted when I send the car in to get the front nose panel and front bumper resprayed. I then bought a dinan exhaust to get rid of the 90s oval tip. I also bought clear corners and sprayed the high beams yellow.






Then I ended up getting a check engine light one day for a camshaft position sensor. A new VDO unit solved the issue very quickly.



Shortly after that, I decided to revert back to ambers. I wasn’t feeling the clears honestly. The yellow french high beam definitely doesn't go well with the ambers upfront. I do plan to get Euro headlights since my depos look cheap with the angel eyes.
















I also picked up a stable mate for the E36 M3. I picked up a 2000 E39 M5 for it. It was a dream car of mine and it was a great experience with that car. When I got the M5 it needed a few things so, most of my time and money went towards the M5. After taking care of the issues it had, I daily drove it. The M5s are great dailys!

[SpaghettiM3]

Good to see you made it over here.

Looks like you are making solid progress on the M3. More details on the M5?

[ajcanadian]

Good to see you made it over here.

Looks like you are making solid progress on the M3. More details on the M5?

Thanks, I've got big plans for the M3. I'm thinking of doing a clutch/flywheel soonish, front suspension refresh (control arms, tie rods, condor control arm bushings, garagistic x brace, and respraying the front nose panel too.

So the M5 is a 2000 with 244k miles. The previous owner of it sold it to me because he was tired of dumping money into it. He owned it since 2008 and put 110k+ plus miles on it. The majority of it was highway miles. I have seen this car in my town earlier for sale 2 years ago. I called the number in the ad multiple times but nobody picked it up because it was a home phone and nobody was home, plus I never left a message, big mistake in my part.

I wasn't even in the market for an M5 but this is how the story started. I got a text message from a good friend of mine.

"Hey, I have found a clean 2000 M5 for sale in Toledo."
"Is it the black one? Ive seen it for sale."
"Yes it is. It's very clean and here's the phone number of the owner."

So what do I do? I call the owner. He tells me it's got well over 100k miles and it starts to run like garbage when it warms up. He no longer what's to dump money on it. He's spent over $7,000 in repairs during the last year and he's done with it. So I'm over my head with this. I'm thinking to myself "shit, like I might be an owner of an M5. I'm gonna have to do this."

I go to look at it the following weekend and I'm over the moon. The m5 is my dream car. I've had plenty of e39s in the past: 528is,530is, and a 540i. As soon as I got in the interior I look over the full leather dashboard and fall in love with it. This is as good as it gets in my book. Black on black with a sport full leather interior with an alcantara headliner. Then I look at the mileage and it's at 244k miles. I didn't care about it at all because I knew the vanos and timing chain guides were done. If it needed rod-bearings, I'd do it myself no biggie. I plugged my scanner in and I got codes for misfires and knock sensors. I drove the car for 10 minutes and went back and talked to the owner about my concerns and I worked out a deal with him.

After I got home with the car, I ended up ordering knock sensors, spark plugs, cam sensors, front brakes, thermostat+housing+ o rings and various seals. While I was in there I decided to flush the coolant and do an oil change. After I got the valve cover off, there was oil in the spark plug hole causing the car to misfire badly. So I had to order valve cover gaskets and wait for a few more days. I ended up replacing all the parts mentioned above which seemed to eliminate all the issues. Then I ended up cleaning it up a little and daily driving it. Needless to say, the e39 m5 is a great daily.

At 244k miles, it's been really well maintained. I bought this car thinking it'd need a new s62 and I'd have to sell my m3 to fund the new s62 but it didn't. The timing chain guides are done, both vanos units have been replaced, and even the rodbearings are done, which I later got to know about. It has also had tons of drivetrain and suspension parts replaced. It really helps to buy M cars with service history lol. Here are some more pictures of the M5
Took it to work again to wash it, clay bar it and wax it. So it could be a little more presentable











Look at all that leather =)

This was a dream come true for me. An E39 M5 and an E36 M3 were my dream cars. I never thought I'd have 2 of my dream cars at this early stage in life let alone 2 of them side by side.
Power folding mirrors work sort of
1 of many boxes of parts.
This was the first time driving the M5 out of limp mode. It felt exactly like I hoped. I was grinning on my drive home from work after replacing the sensors, thermostat, plugs and valve cover gaskets.

[Westopher]

Damn e39 m5 and the e36. What a combo. Congrats on the new car.

[Edgy]

Great stories. E36 reminds me of Fern 99 I owned for many years. And I highly recommend M3 and M5 ownership!

[ajcanadian]

Damn e39 m5 and the e36. What a combo. Congrats on the new car.

Thanks Chris! Not as deadly as having a techno e36 m3 and an e30 m3.

[ajcanadian]

Great stories. E36 reminds me of Fern 99 I owned for many years. And I highly recommend M3 and M5 ownership!

Fern green is an amazing color! Thank you much. Yes, they do pair up really well. One gets abused in twisties while the other is a great daily with tons of power.

[Mike0032]

I've been on the hunt for the right E39 M5 for nearly two years now, I can't wait until the stars align.

Great combo and looking forward to seeing more of both cars.

[Braymond141]

Great combo on cars. I had the same for a few years.

Watch out for issues with VDO crankshaft sensors. They are NOT OE as FCP has listed and they are known to cause the same issues the bridging insulation rotted original CPS cause. Get an original Siemens with BMW branding if you have ghost codes or erratic power.

[ajcanadian]

I've been on the hunt for the right E39 M5 for nearly two years now, I can't wait until the stars align.

Great combo and looking forward to seeing more of both cars.

I read earlier, you wanted a sterling grey or an Alpine white M5. That'd match great with your S15.

Thanks Mike!

[ajcanadian]

Great combo on cars. I had the same for a few years.

Watch out for issues with VDO crankshaft sensors. They are NOT OE as FCP has listed and they are known to cause the same issues the bridging insulation rotted original CPS cause. Get an original Siemens with BMW branding if you have ghost codes or erratic power.

Thank you Brett. They're definitely a solid pair.

Thanks for the heads up. As of right now, I'm really not getting any ghost codes or erratic power. Now, that I know that it'll cause problems in the future I'm going to get the OE one when I buy a new flywheel, clutch and associated while you're in there parts. Then I'll just return the vdo unit for some extra credit.

[ajcanadian]

Right after I sold my 328i, I started to daily the M3. Everything was going well until I got a call from the university’s police department. I was told that my parked car got hit. On top of that, the person that hit my car was working for the parking patrol. Luckily the damage wasn’t too severe. The bumper cracked, my grills flew out on my way home, and the bumper bracket got bent. Dealing with the university's insurance was a pain in the a**. But in the end, I got a genuine BMW bumper. While the car was in for paint, I decided to have the nose panel resprayed and my ltw wing painted.






With the coronavirus outbreak, I’ve been out of work for the past month or so and my classes have been moved to online, with that being said I have a lot of free time in my hand. So I decided, now would be the best time to get some work done on the M3. One thing that has been really bothering me since, I’ve bought this car was the front suspension. There’s no vibration or shudders but it just didn’t feel right to me. My previous e36 m3 felt a lot tighter. I decided to start by refreshing the front suspension because that’s what the car really needs at this point. I ended up buying: condor (poly) control arm bushings, control arm bushing brackets, control arms lemforder tie rod assembly with new boots and clamps, and finally a garagistic x brace.















Needless to say the drive home after doing the suspension refresh was brutal.



After that, I decided to get rid of the lit up stock shift knob for a zhp shift knob. I also got new shift boots from condor. I also ordered, a passenger door panel handle and an airbag trim piece. I’m thinking if I can stretch the leather and then put the door handle trim. I also have M rain fabric to put in my door panel inserts, but for that I’d like to buy another set of door panels as a test mule.





My flashlight in my key never worked, so I decided to mess with the key and turns out someone installed the battery backward.




I bought a Mrain plate frame from a member here.



Lastly for the exterior, I bought another pair of clear corners up front. My last set flew away while doing a pull (typical e36 things) and it also took the bulb holder with it.





During the last few hundred miles, I noticed that my clutch would slip every now and then under heavy acceleration. So I ended up buying a new slave, clutch kit, (new to me) light weight flywheel, rear main seal (while I’m in there), trans mounts, and brake fluid. I also decided to toss in a new airfilter too since the old one was pretty nasty.









Doing the clutch was pretty straight forward. Everything was going well, until the next morning. I found a puddle of oil. My best guess would be, I didn’t install the rear main seal correctly or maybe it’s the corteco gasket. At this point, I’ve decided to have a shop install a new rear main (genuine bmw kit), oil pan gasket, z3 oil pick up tube (while the oil pan is down), motor mounts, and maybe weld or safety wire the oil pump nut? I’m leaning towards having it safety wired.



Here’s how the car currently sits.

[SpaghettiM3]

Car is looking good 👍

[Westopher]

Looking good man. Ride height is solid. Still good to see after a few you got the car that is really right for you.

[ajcanadian]

Thank ya! Yeah haha, after having a Dakar, aw, and Boston green e36, I ended up finding a black on black e36 m3 to fulfil my desires, LOL

[ajcanadian]

Car is looking good 👍

Thanks for the kind words!