The motor came back from the machine shop in mid-Dec. Gavin Gray from the Chicago E12 group was a good friend to have as he helped me transport things back home. The short block surprisingly wasn't that heavy for two guys to lift. We got it positioned near the tail gate of his Subaru station wagon, I attached the arms that hold it to the engine stand (with the arm assembly removed from the head of the engine stand) and then we lifted it onto the stand and the arm thing back into its slot. Slid the handle back in the stand and the cotter pin, and we were done. No sweat really.

    It's late January and I haven't done much because it has just been too cold outside. I put in the front urethane swaybar endlinks but that was because it was an easy enough job. I still need to do the rears. The engine is just sitting on the stand wrapped in plastic wrap from the machine shop ready to have the head mounted and the rest of the assembly with the timing cover and oil pan finished. Hopefully in the springtime I can get this process going again! I have the gasket sealants/prep and thread locking compound ready to go. Also the few misc parts like dowels to hold the head gasket on the deck of the block and a new timing chain tensioner are (or will be very soon) ready to go. The pics show the finished bottom end at the machine shop as I picked it up along with the engine waiting to be finished now sitting in my garage.

    It's been a long time since any updates, mostly due to my unheated garage and Chicago winter temps in January through March. The pictures here are of me, Dave Rutkowski, and Gavin Gray who came over to help me in early April to get the head mounted on the short block. Dave has a euro 635csi (early E12 based E24) with the "L" block 3453cc motor I have. He just rebuilt it in 2002 so his knowledge of the engine is very fresh. Gavin came to hang out and see my new M5 and offer moral support. Gavin is a fellow E12 owner who has helped me with this engine rebuild saga before. I'm the guy in the blue BMW Williams hat, Dave is leaning over the motor, and Gavin is peeking at what we're doing.

We got the head mounted and the lower timing chain cover back on after having to remove it because the machine shop didn't put the tensioner rail in right. Frustrating because this necessitated removing the monster, 325 lb/ft 36mm nut to get the cover off. So we torqued it back as best we could with a long lever (conduit bender end on the end of my breaker bar).

Other updates are from this weekend (April 15th) when I put the upper timing chain cover on (not pictured) and discovered I'm missing some bolts that hold the oil pump on. A trip to the dealer this week should rectify that quite easily.