How To Guide Make a complete bog up of simple tasks!

[Steve Medlock]

Job 1 was to fit the braided clutch hose. It all looked so much easier than I was expecting. I removed the slave cylinder and old plastic? hose and fitted the new braided line. I remembered that some people had trouble bleeding the line with the slave insitu so I connected up my pressure bleeder and bled some fluid through. I then noticed that the pedal was down on the floor and thought, no it should be up to bleed so I lifted the pedal and then pushed it down again to see if I had 'pedal' yet! Bang! I found the actuating rod some way from the car and the piston was eventually recovered from the flower bed.... Indoors to order new cylinder with much unhappiness.

Job 2 was new front discs and pads. Another straight forward job that I've done so many times. But not on this car. All went OK, although the little hex screw holding the disc in place needed the impact wrench on full to loosen it. Carrier painted. Back plate painted. New disc fitted. Caliper fitted and OOH that doesn't look right! So I have 300mm discs not 286....never noticed. Indoors to order more discs with much unhappiness.

I'll get there in the end but......

 

[Dino D]

Sounds better than most of my jobs!

Re the 300m discs - I *think* you just need bigger carriers to go from 286 to 300 - from a 325i.
I think at @Mario did this. I bought 300mm discs, calipers and carriers from @mwpe but discovered I already had 300mm fitted sold them on to Mario.

 

[Steve Medlock]

Sounds better than most of my jobs!

Re the 300m discs - I *think* you just need bigger carriers to go from 286 to 300 - from a 325i.
I think at @Mario did this. I bought 300mm discs, calipers and carriers from @mwpe but discovered I already had 300mm fitted sold them on to Mario.

I haven't checked what calipers or carriers I have, but the old discs are definitely 300mm. I honestly didn't realise until after I'd re-fitted the caliper and suddenly noticed that the pads were overlapping the edge of the disc. I have a pretty good history file for my car with receipts going way back, but I'm realising that its not complete. The clutch hose and slave cylinder were not originals but I Don't have receipts for them. Just annoying that I've now got to wait until the bigger discs arrive. Well, and also that I have some 286s that I don't need....

 

[Dino D]

I haven't checked what calipers or carriers I have, but the old discs are definitely 300mm. I honestly didn't realise until after I'd re-fitted the caliper and suddenly noticed that the pads were overlapping the edge of the disc. I have a pretty good history file for my car with receipts going way back, but I'm realising that its not complete. The clutch hose and slave cylinder were not originals but I Don't have receipts for them. Just annoying that I've now got to wait until the bigger discs arrive. Well, and also that I have some 286s that I don't need....

Ah I see you have 300mm on and not 286..
Instead of wasting the 286 you can investigate a rear brake upgrade - might be a bit much will look cool

I think something was done on some of the early 2.8 - as they are supposed to have 286mm but mine also has 300mm.
My car was only modified by the last owner before me and he meticulously documented everything- nothing about 300mm was mentioned so I suspect some early 2.8 like ours just had 300mm for some some reason - maybe they put them on as part of the LSD option?

 

[Delk]

I loved reading this as we have all been there and done that.

I cant count how many times I had to stand back and wonder why I just did whatever I did.

 

[Mario]

Yeah I fitted those 300mm ones to the front of my imported 2.5i with no issues, they work well !! but it looks like you already have them. hope they can let you take back those 286 ones - or sell them on the forum I am sure someone can make good use of them

 

[Dino D]

Yeah I fitted those 300mm ones to the front of my imported 2.5i with no issues, they work well !! but it looks like you already have them. hope they can let you take back those 286 ones - or sell them on the forum I am sure someone can make good use of them

Where did you find a 2.5 Z3- weren’t they US a only?

 

[Steve Medlock]

Sounds better than most of my jobs!

Re the 300m discs - I *think* you just need bigger carriers to go from 286 to 300 - from a 325i.
I think at @Mario did this. I bought 300mm discs, calipers and carriers from @mwpe but discovered I already had 300mm fitted sold them on to Mario.

My calipers are BMW 54/22 which were fitted to a lot of small BMs and I think are the standard part 34116758113 for the 2.8. The carriers are just marked 505 91 60 CN4 and I've not been able to identify those but clearly they are larger than standard. Hopefully my larger discs will come tomorrow or Friday then I can sign that job off.

 

[Steve Medlock]

The clutch hose was a real pig of a job and in the end, I put back the old hose as there didn't seem anything actually wrong with it. The new hose that I bought was no good unfortunately as it didn't have a bend at the lower end there just wasn't anywhere near enough room in the transmission tunnel for a straight connection. I wasted so much time on that including removing a small section of sound proofing to see if that would help.

Also the bleed screw that came with the new slave cylinder was too long and I had to re-use the old screw. The worst part for me, was getting the nuts back on the studs that hold the cylinder in place. Took b. ages!