Transmission Oil Sampling

As I have decided to keep my current transmission in it's current state, without a rebuild, I thought it might be prudent to check up on that state of the transmission by getting some oil analysis done on the transmission fluid. Unfortunately the sample wasn't going to be very good, as the transmission was out of the car, I wouldn't be able to follow any of the standard sample taking guidelines. I figured it would only be a baseline sample to check the condition and compare future samples against so it shouldn't be too crucial. Using the new sampling pump and sampling kit I got from ALS Tribology I drew a sample and sent it off for testing.

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Purple Tag Steering Rack

Given the age of the car and the condition of the steering rack I decided that I should investigate a rebuild or upgrade. My research brought me to a great thread over at M3Forum written by forum member Volke - Comprehensive Steering Information Thread (updated to NAM3Forum link). It seems as though the dead feeling I had been experiencing on my stock rack was due to the progressive nature of the stock E46 M3 rack. An "upgrade" or remedy to this would be the CS/CSL steering rack, E46 330i steering rack or a few options from the Z cars. Taking my research back over to M3Cutters (as M3Forum better serves LHD cars and my car is a Euro, hence RHD) I found that the E46 330i Steering Rack is normally noted with a "Purple Tag" on RHD cars and so a common upgrade is the Purple Tag Steering Rack upgrade. As I dug further it seems that as this steering rack came off a more standard car they were cheaper and easier to come by - especially refurbished/rebuilt - and showed co...

Syncro Design Works RTAB Install

Now it was time to get around to trying to install my new Syncro Design Works RTAB's. As I had not borrowed the RTAB tool from Syncro Design Works I was going to have to try figure this out on my own. At first I attempted to rig up a press on the outer ring of the RTAB using my 3-jaw puller which was more complicated than you would think. This did work quite effectively but annoyingly there wasn't much space in the jaws for how deep the press was so I had to use a somewhat flimsy grease cap to try push on the outer ring. This worked for about half the press then it completely crushed itself so I aborted before any pressure was applied to the bearing's inner race. Unfortunately I didn't manage to snap any pictures during this operation so all I have is this photo of where I had to stop: Luckily I have a mate who has a bearing press anyway so I wasn't completely out of options. This was an easy option for me as my Rear Trailing Arm was out of the car as part ...

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