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


Take all the transmission related parts off the donor car


Jack your car up and start pulling all the automatic transmission parts


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.


Crawl back under the car and clean everything up, new crankshaft seal, UUC lightweight flywheel and M5 clutch (bought used)


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


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


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.