Quote:
Originally Posted by Matticus91
That's not bad at all. You'll have to let me know how they hold up for you. I may very well swap them out if I manage to get BMW to honor their parts warranty.
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I'll definitely throw up a review after I've spent some time with them once everything is bedded properly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PKumarM3
Awesome chad
I did the brakes on my car recently and just did one piece slotted rotors.
That lip looks really nice!
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1 piece would definitely have been sufficient for what I use my car for, but couldn't resist! Certainly looking forward to mounting up the lip here this weekend probably.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ne1man35
This homie has it down to the exact cent.
Thats why i love this thread so much, Chadillac has every detail you could ever want to know. Cant wait to see what you do in the future in terms of upgraded powwa!
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I'm glad you appreciate my obsessive planning process prior to most of my automotive related purchases. Power will come, but probably still down the road. My dream setup would be a Motiv-style bottom mount with a modest sized single turbo.
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Over this past weekend I was able to get the old water pump and thermostat removed, so today I picked up where I left off and started to install the new hardware. Within the first hour of being under the car, I had the new pieces bolted into place and all the associating hose clamps and quick disconnect hoses tightened down. My old unit was not Continental branded, but had showed no signs of slowing down despite having over 70,000 miles of use (mostly highway since I've owned the car).
Prior to adding coolant, I wanted to address some other weak points of the cooling system.
The first of which was finding a better solution for BMW's thin, plastic radiator vent hose that had made a mess in my 535i. My solution was some 1/4" ID fuel hose, a few 1/4" ID brass barbed fittings, and 4 small hose clamps.
I also chose to replace the hose that connects from the top of the thermostat housing to the engine block, another problem area I had on my 535i. The old one I removed actually looked pretty good and the integrated o-ring was still intact, but while I had easy access, better safe than sorry.
Now it was time to add the coolant, so I took my jug of OEM BMW coolant, and made two gallon jugs of 50/50 coolant and distilled water mixtures.
Added a battery charger, unscrewed the coolant cap, removed the bleeder screw and added nearly 1.75 gallons of coolant before it started to come out of the screw hole. At that point, I added the bleeder screw back, replaced the coolant cap, and entered the car. Ignition on, hottest temperature setting, lowest fan setting, accelerator pedal down for 10 seconds and the automatic bleeding process began. 10 or 15 minutes later and the process was complete. I added a bit more coolant and the job was complete.
While I had access, this is when I chose to swap out the pulleys and belt. I was a bit intimidated by this job before looking into exactly what was involved, but I was surprised at how quickly I had everything replaced -- less than an hour.
The calipers reached their destination yesterday and the powder coating and rebuilding process has began. Hopefully I'll have them back by early next week and can get the pads and calipers back into place. This weekend I plan to begin the paint correction process, get the front lip mounted, as well as the side skirt splitters that arrived this afternoon.
