BMW E36 Blog

If you’re thinking about replacing your BMW E36 M42 or M44 spark plugs, then this DIY (Do It Yourself) is for you. It was written by Olaf Johnson. The procedure is very clear and the pictures are just fabulous. I hope you will find it useful. Thanks Olaf.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

I ordered my set off eBay for $20 free shipping. The dealership wanted $13.95 per plug. I decided to stick to OEM and be simple since this was my first time doing this DIY. I started the car before so I could take note of how the car started before changing the plugs (listen to sound, vibration and start speed).

Start with a cold engine; Get out your tools from the BMW Tool Tray in the trunk. If your tray is empty or molested with as is the case with buying used cars you can buy the two tools from the dealership for $20 or so or get it at eBay or the junkyard for cheap. I’m not sure if other spark plug tools are compatible with these cars.

Removal of the cover to get to the wire set that caps the plugs is easy on the M42/M44 E36 Engines.

OEM Bosch Super Plugs

I finally get to use these tools. This one is the spark plug wrench

Next get the wrench’s twister thingy that allows you to turn the wrench.

Open this by turning the two circles so the slits are vertical.

Careful not to break the cover clip at the front end.

Find your smurf tool and begin pulling the wire set caps off each plug. Start at the front (hole #1) where you can see better and have more room to maneuver.

Use it to pull out the plug wire set. Start at the front since it is easier to get to and see what you are doing.

Slide it over the head and pull up. It may take some effort if your plugs were not changed in a while.

If it is tough to pull you can use the spark plug wrench twister tool to get a good grip.

The cap comes off easily and you will see the hole that the plug sits in. Go to work with your wrench. If your plugs are old and haven’t been changed in awhile get ready to put some elbow grease in. Also remember to turn counter-clockwise to remove the plugs. Be careful not to damage the plug threading or the holes threading that the plug screws into or you could seriously damage your engine (ie. The engine will need to be replaced). So no power tools for this DIY!!! The plugs are also screwed in deep so be prepared to be standing there twisting for a few minutes until the plug releases.

Hole #1: You will hear a nice suction pop when the wire set cap is released from the hole.

use the wrench like this. Twist counter clockwise to release the plug. Again if your plugs are old it will be stubborn for the first twist. It’s also screwed in deep so keep at it until you feel the plug is loose.

Keep twisting. They are screwed in deep so be patient.

Hole #4 is particularly difficult to get to. Be creative and use lots of elbow grease especially if your plugs are old and stubborn to twist off.

The Spark Plug Wrench should grip the plug when you are done screwing it loose. Just lift the wrench up and the plug will come out with the wrench. Inspect the old plug, clean the hole* if it is dusty or oily and replace with the new plug and spark plug wire set cap for that hole before moving onto the next hole.

Note: If you have air-in-the-can you should blow any dust or debris out the hole before removing the old plug. You DO NOT WANT to get anything into the hole or chamber that lies below the plug. So once the old plug is out DO NOT clean or put anything down there. It may get into your chamber and damage the engine. And that is a trip to the dealership you do not want to make since a new engine will run you $5,000 to $8,000 plus the labor cost at around that much.

Some of your plug holes may be covered in oil and may look like this when you pull them out. A little bit of oil should be fine for now like I have here in my 2nd plug hole, but a lot of oil and you should replace the Valve Head gasket as soon as you can which is an easy DIY.

The threads on my second plug is covered in oil but the spark plug’s head is dry ?!

Inside second plug’s hole after the plug is removed notice oil trail. There was no oil deep inside the hole, and at best I could only see oil on the ledge.

Second plug:

Two of my middle plugs at hole#2 and #3 had oil in them, with 2 being the worse. Oddly enough, the oil was only on the top half and the threads of the plug but there was absolutely no oil on the business end of the plug a.k.a the spark plug head

When you are done you can inspect the old plugs for clues as to what is going on inside your engine block. I haven’t worked out how to read plugs yet, but I will read up on it later. You can easily Google this info.

When you are done clean your tools and put everything back and start your car and listen to the engine and note the start up time. Does it sound/start better?

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

This post was contributed by Bernard Gutnick. It’s about how to replace the camshaft position sensor inside his 1997 BMW E36 328i.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

The DIY is in PDF format. Click here to read the DIY

Replace BMW E36 Camshaft Position Sensor

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

Thanks to Valery for the translation of the Professional Car Audio Upgrade. He is so kind and has translated the whole DIY for us. I’m still confused a little bit about some parts of this DIY because I don’t have much knowledge about fiberglass, but I think the result is awesome! Now, you can understand the procedure easily. Thanks again Valery.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

Hi everyone, I’m 19 and I own a E36 325TDS with a lot of extra parts for it so that I modify inside and out a little bit. I installed a Oxygen Alium 5, 13cm diameter Kit and a 20cm Speaker Oxy Alium 203.

First, I removed the vinyl, and then cut the panel

Next, I cut a piece of MDF (Medium Density Foam) of 19mm thick

A little bit of fiber to maintain the MDF. Check out the door:

Here is what I used, you’ll tell me “It is not wow” but I couldn’t afford better, these speakers are really good for the price.

Setting the canvas, this is not some cheap fabric this is lycra I know I know back to work, major advantage of the lycra is its scalability.

Application of resin (What is that? Ken can you help ?):

Once the resin is dry on the fabric, cut a piece of glass fiber as so:

What you get once resin applied:

Now the most annoying part of the project smooth all of it :s:  I hate doing it lol Here is what you get when installed:

The installation progressed a bit, I replaced my previous kit by a MAC Audio Diamonds 2.13Here are the pics

So, It’s been a while since I’ve done it, I will soon replace them by a Focal Utopia 136W kit.

My latest project:
Here is the idea, as you might remember I’ve installed new speakers in my doors, I then realized that I couldn’t open my glovebox anymore lol Anyway, I decided to fit a subwoofer instead of the glovebox.The subwoofer is a Focal 27A, here we go, pictures !

First, build the box in medium 19mm, I reached a volume of 15L. I had to take out the fan system to gain space and pack everything to fit it in.

Fixing plate to hold it

What It looks like after the Subwoofer is inserted.:

Application of the canvas to get a good shape.

I then used foil to unmould the shape I got, made of fiber.

What you get with 3 layers of fiber. Where I am right now.

Smooth the whole thing and black vinyl, with golden screws. Check out the result

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.

I wrote six articles until now about how you can make your BMW lights turn on automatically at night. I will summarize these posts for you in case you have missed them. In the first post, I proved that this should be something easy to implement inside a BMW E36 car. In the second post, I presented a circuit diagram that will help you create the electronic circuit that is supposed to control your lights and turn them on automatically when it gets dark. Of course, if you don’t know how to implement such a circuit or you simply feeling too lazy to do it, you can ask some electrician to do it for you. I’m sure he will agree if you paid him $20. In the third post, I wrote about my first attempt to implement this circuit and told you that it’s partially working but it needed some enhancements. In the fourth post, I created a video with the circuit implemented on breadboard and connected directly to my brother’s car lights. In the fifth post, I soldered the circuit on permanent board and showed you exactly how I intend to use it inside my car. In the sixth post, I posted 4 videos that I shoot while testing the auto light system. In case you didn’t see these videos I suggest you check them first before proceeding.

Aright, today, I decided to solve the last problem that I’ve mentioned in the last post, which is main lights problem. I didn’t know previously which wire(s) I should use to turn the main lights on using the auto-light circuit, so my car used to turn the angel eyes lights and the dashboard lights on automatically at night, but not the main lights. As you can see, this is good, but it’s not good enough. So, I decided to try and solve this problem today. To do that, I looked in my Bentley manual and I found the lighting system diagram for the BMW E36. I finally found that I should use the yellow wire to turn the main lights on, so now it should be a very easy task. Take a look at the new wiring diagram for the auto-light circuit. The new modifications are in red:

Please notice that I’ve introduced 4 diodes to get 4 wires out of the relay to be able to control:
1. Left angel eye light (yellow/gray).
2. Right angel eye light (purple/gray).
3. Dashboard lights (black/gray).
4. Main lights (yellow).

The diodes should serve as a precaution measure to prevent the interference between the 4 parts mentioned above.

With this new information, I thought that I’ve figured the solution to my problem, so I decided to go out and connect it to see if it’s going to work or not.

For some reason, when I connect the fourth controller to the yellow wire (main lights), the circuit started to make a buzzing sound (resulting from the relay being switched on and off very quickly) and the headlights turn on and off very quickly too. I’m not really sure about this problem and how to solve it. So, I’m going to review everything I did. The only reason I can think of right now that is causing this problem is that the relay is not suitable for the headlights some how. I’m going to try another relay with larger current limit and see if this solves the problem. If you guys have any idea why this is happening, I would appreciate your comments.

As you can see, this is still unfinished work, so if you want to implement this in your car, I suggest you wait until I figure out the solution for this problem to avoid paying for parts and work that is not proven to be 100% successful yet.

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 M3 information source.

I have mentioned in my previous post Turning Your BMW Lights On Automatically At Night . . . System Testing that while I was trying to get the auto light inside my E36 to work, I’ve burned something. Actually, what I have burned was the Trip Odometer LCD light. At first, I thought this is something really serious and that I have to pay some serious bucks to solve the problem, but after some research, it turned out that it’s actually a bulb in the cluster that needs to be replaced. Piece of cake, right? So, I followed the steps in Installing Silver Gauge Cluster Rings for your BMW . . . DIY! post to remove the gauge cluster. It’s a really good DIY (Do It Yourself). Anyway, please follow these steps for a quick guide on how to do this nice fix.

Disclaimer: Use this info at your own risk!! I’m not responsible if this didn’t work for you :-).

Take a look at my Trip Odometer LCD light. It’s not working and my cluster looks really bad and ugly. Isn’t it?

To start the fix, you will need to remove the gauge cluster. You can start by removing the screws that hold the gauge cluster. There are two of them at 11 & 1 clock. Take a look at these:

When you remove the screws, simply push the bottom of the cluster to the back a little bit and it will move. After that you will need to pull it slowly and carefully. The ultimate target is to slide the gauge cluster from behind the steering wheel like this:

You will notice that there are some wires that are connected to the cluster and they will prevent you from sliding the cluster out. There are three of them, one on the right and two on the left. Take a look at the following (it’s the one on the right)

Before removing it, please disconnect your battery. I didn’t disconnect it and a warning sound started out. I don’t know what this sound was, but it was really annoying. So, I say unplug your battery to make sure the process goes as smooth as possible.

IMPORTANT: If you have the OEM radio from BMW, do NOT disconnect your battery unless you’re 100% sure that you have the PIN code that can unlock your radio.

Removing the three wires is a real pain and they need a lot of attention, but eventually you can do it. When you unplug these wires, you will be able to slide the gauge cluster out. Now turn it and look at the back, here’s the light that needs to be replaced.

Using a flat screwdriver, you can remove that light. Now, here’s a thing that really shocked me. I had the light that I’m going to use as a replacement right here and these lights are usually just pull-out and put the new one instead PERIOD. Surprisingly, this was not the case here. The light was stuck and not going to be pulled out easily as I previously thought, so I had to remove it from it’s plastic cavity to find out that the light bulb is connected to the light connectors. Take a look:-

God damn it! So, I thought, ok lets cut the old bulb wires and solder the new wires instead, but to my surprise AGAIN , it didn’t hold. So I finally was able to squeeze the new bulb inside the plastic cavity in a way its wires will be connected to the steel connectors. After that, I tested the bulb and it worked.

Alright, now the nightmare has ended! So, I put everything back in the reverse order and here’s the result. A clear trip odometer LCD . Awesome!

So, what do you think? Isn’t that a cool fix or what?

Are you looking for more do it yourself procedures (DIY) ? I recommend the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual for you. I got it and I think it’s a gold mine for us -BMW E36 Owners-. If you didn’t grab your copy yet, get it right now! I’m sure you’ll find this book worth every penny you’ve paid for. Get the Bentley BMW 3 series service manual

BMW E36 Blog: The ultimate BMW E36 information source.