MyE28.com

I got the gearbox dropped. With it being somewhat locked up, made it a challenge dropping the driveshaft.

The flywheel friction surface looks like it has faired pretty well. There aren't many grooves. There are some heat marks- I might take a small parallel bar and run it across the surface and see if I can get a feeler gauge under it.

The thing I'm not so sure about it there is a lot of free rotation between the inner hub of the fw and the outer. I can rotate the outer part back and fourth by hand--about an inch--without the inner part of the fw moving at all. It doesn't spring back or anything like that..

It was run dry until it locked up. What other deferred maintenance is lying in wait for the OP?

Picked-up his parts from me today. LKQ take out with 6 month warranty. WP Luk Clutch Assy, Pilot Bearing and install tool. Damn, will text him, thought he should do a rear main while there too. Meant to get that for him.... Should be back on the road by Monday??

carnutdallas wrote:Should be back on the road by Monday??

Sure hope so.

Flywheel will be here today, still waiting on the special fw bolt socket.

I still need to make a bread masher tool so I can get out the pilot bearing.

Something I observed-

The plastic pivot/ball pin for the clutch release arm was still in great shape on the original gearbox. This one was black plastic. Gearbox had ~130k on it.

The replacement gearbox (-100K miles) had a white/cream color plasic pivot that was completely worn down to the point of the release arm digging into bellhousing.

Does anybody know if there is a difference in longevity between the white plastic and black plastic pivot pins? Or perhaps just different driving styles (lots of double clutching etc.) wearing the pivot pin much faster...

The replacement I got was white/cream colored plastic, and I forgot to strip the old one from the gearbox before I turned it in for core swap

I don't, but the 850CSi pivot is stainless.

#5 in realoem? 21511223281? Not on WP, dealer only? $20+ list.

I bet white one is replacement and black on original??

Yup, dealer item or anyone that carries dealer parts, like ECS:

http://www.ecstuning.com/ES41214/

I was on my own today, still managed to get everything bolted up with somewhat minimal fuss. Much easier than the m5 clutch R&R IMHO.

I got the thing ready to roll, then noticed the battery had completely flatlined. Hopefully the sucker will take a charge. I'll have to wait til tomorrow to fire it up.


When I went to bolt the slave back up to the bellhousing, I noticed a drip of brake fluid run down from the shaft seal. I moved the slave shaft back and forth and it sure as hell was wet with brake fluid. Seems like a new slave is in my future too. That is probably why I noticed that the pedal lost pressure..I pumped it a bit and it gained a bit of pressure but still doesn't feel right. My damn jack took a shit right as I was lowering the car off the front jack stands. Must have blown an internal seal or something, it was very sketchy. There will be no jacking up of the car to bleed the slave...at least with that jack. Not a good day for hydraulics I guess.

I hope this is my last driveway style transmission/clutch R&R. Exhausting.

Glad you got almost done. Can order slave and credit back those returns. Let me know next week. -R

I was finally able to drive it to work! No more carpooling!



I am running a 50/50 blend of redline D4 ATF and MT-90
It shifts pretty good. I feel a little hitch on the 1-2 shift while it's still cold. From what I hear its normal for one of these gearboxes, and there's even a detent upgrade to help fix it.

The sticker on the side of this replacement 420g said it had the "lifetime" MTF-2... Same as the unit I replaced. I drained the oil out of this newer gearbox and got a normal amount of bronze glitter and one decent sized 1/16" fleck of bronze out. IMHO not bad for ~100k miles.

Great news! Get those credit parts back to me and let me know when to order new slave. -R

Will do, I'll try to get out to you this week.

This self adjusting clutch is just bizarre. It seems the clutch hydraulics are weak because the car clunks into first at a dead stop as if the clutch wasn't totally disengaging. The pedal feel is very nice (but really light) and you wouldn't know there was a problem unless you were really concentrating on feeling the car go into first.

I have had very good results with Royal Purple Synchromax in the 420G. Wouldn't run anything else. Shifts great at all temperatures. Best feeling gearbox I've ever had.

I have a deep distrust of the self adjusting pressure plates. I did find out that you can swap the self adjusting iron maiden pressure plate for an ordinary 240mm plate from an e36, assuming of course that you're not stuck with the 265mm setup from the e34. I am still testing mine but I got a few miles on it last night and the tires slipped before the clutch did. So far so good.

rollcentre wrote:Will do, I'll try to get out to you this week.

This self adjusting clutch is just bizarre. It seems the clutch hydraulics are weak because the car clunks into first at a dead stop as if the clutch wasn't totally disengaging. The pedal feel is very nice (but really light) and you wouldn't know there was a problem unless you were really concentrating on feeling the car go into first.

You did remove/disable the clutch delay valve, right?

Jeremy wrote:

rollcentre wrote:Will do, I'll try to get out to you this week.

This self adjusting clutch is just bizarre. It seems the clutch hydraulics are weak because the car clunks into first at a dead stop as if the clutch wasn't totally disengaging. The pedal feel is very nice (but really light) and you wouldn't know there was a problem unless you were really concentrating on feeling the car go into first.

You did remove/disable the clutch delay valve, right?

No I didn't. I actually just googled this, and recall that piece was still present on the slave input. I'll have to get rid of that!

turbodan wrote:I have had very good results with Royal Purple Synchromax in the 420G. Wouldn't run anything else. Shifts great at all temperatures. Best feeling gearbox I've ever had.

I have a deep distrust of the self adjusting pressure plates. I did find out that you can swap the self adjusting iron maiden pressure plate for an ordinary 240mm plate from an e36, assuming of course that you're not stuck with the 265mm setup from the e34. I am still testing mine but I got a few miles on it last night and the tires slipped before the clutch did. So far so good.

I have heard good stuff about that RP, and also pennzoil's synchromesh gear lube. If I have problems with this redline blend when it gets cooler outside ill have to change it. I probably should have went with MTL/D4 blend instead of MT-90/D4.

turbodan wrote: Oct 03, 2014 1:04 PM The aluminum flywheels are not without compromise. The Getrag was designed with the dual mass flywheel in mind and can be quite noisy without it. With my cams set just right the idle rattle would be eliminated but it has to be the smoothest idle you've ever felt. There is also a tendency to rattle/grind at low RPM and high load when lugging a high gear. These sounds are normal but very alarming when you are not expecting them.

Last problem is that the 540i clutches use solid hub discs. For a non-dual mass flywheel a sprung hub clutch has much better engagement characteristics. You can get along with the solid disc but it does try to shudder if you don't modulate the clutch just right.

All things considered I do like the aluminum flywheel but it is not for everyone. They aren't cheap either. Cost wise you can get a dual mass on ebay for the same price.

Turbodan: If you are still present on this forum I've just sent you a PM related to this post. I need your help :-)

Best regards,
Sven David

I'm not sure if the PM to turbodan worked, so I'll type the question here. Anyone else that could provide useful info will be good:


Hi turbodan! I hope you are still present at this forum.

You write about the aluminum flywheel in combination with the Getrag gearboxes potentially can make a grinding noise.

I have bought a 1992 E34 M5 3,8L for approx 1,5 months ago. It has the JB Racing solid flywheel and a Getrag S6 420G gearbox. When I bought it it had a Sachs Engineering Race clutch-kit installed. It was too hard for me so I bought and had installed a new Sachs clutch-kit for a 3.6L since I was told this would fit the flywheel installed. You probably know all of this but my car came with a double mass flywheel and it also had the ZF 5-speed gearbox originally.

After the garage changed the clutch I'm experiencing some noises that COULD be the ones you are referring to, but I am not sure. If you get this message I'd really appreciate it if you could take a look:

Sound is present:

0:15 – 0:20
0:31 – 0:34
0:39 – 0:41

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AcvOiijjY

Anything else you could provide me of info will be of great help!