Chump Car: Prepping for the Chumpianship

That’s right….chumpianship. With great finishes at BIR and HPR, Car 54 Where Are You is qualified for the Chumpianship at Road America here in a few weeks. Trying to get the car prepped to hold up for such a prestigious event isn’t easy. No one wants to haul 10 hours each way and have the car break down, so I am going the distance on making sure this thing is ready to go.

One of the major issues with E36 and E46 cars is with the oil pump drive nut coming loose in the oil pan. This results in lower than normal oil pressure and eventually a total loss, so I figured I had better drop the pan and make sure it was secured properly.

Here it is exposed on a spare motor I had. Pull the pan, and the nut is right below the crank pulley. The fix is to remove it, red loctite it, and then deform the threads so it can not back off.

And going after our chump car. Drop the subframe down and get the pan out of the way.

You don’t even need to remove the pan all the way to get to the nut, but always a good idea to remove it and check for debris in the pan.

Looks like someone has been in the pan at some point and forgot to install the bolts that secure the oil pick up tube, so while the nut was tight on both motors, it was good piece of mind to double check it.

And back together. At the same time, new control arms, fcabs, shocks/struts (to go on), oil change, yada yada. Hopefully RA will be kind to us!