Great Writeup!
 

I really enjoy this forum the more and more I use it. This is a great writeup and helped me with the odd bits of doing an overhaul like this. I completed it this weekend. It took me two weekends of time not spending all day and taking my time labeling everything. I have to got to say, if you can take out as much as possible. It makes things so much easier although it does add to your removal and put back together time. I figured why not do other stuff when I've got the car taken apart as much as I have. Note it does help that my 318ti is not my daily and can stand to be worked on slowly. The biggest pain of this job was that rear coolant connector, everything else was simple in comparison. I ended up taking out the air vent grating, the metal cowl that goes around that area and moving the main harness box further back into that area. This gave me more wiggle room to get my hands into remove the connector. I recommend removing the secondary air pump so you can then easily remove the alternator. My alternator was coming out anyways as the main bearing in it is very noisy and likely on its way out, thus needing a rebuild. Removing both of these parts makes the starter bolts simple. I used a 3/8" rachet with a 7" wobble extension with a swivel joint on the end. It made removing the bolts pretty simple to do after a good spray down with pb blaster. I never had to get under the car except for removing / reinstalling the drain plug on the block and the drain spigot on the radiator. I have a question though for those that know. The secondary air pump valve that sits on the left front of the engine (mines an m44) has a 1/8" diameter rubber hosing that looks to run under the car to the fuel filter area. My question is it normal or even good for there to be two round inline cartridge filters on this hosing run? I need to replace this hosing run as it's cracking in a few places.

A somewhat serious but inquisitive question for those that may know. As a pretense I don't ask the following because of an aversion to spending money or doing maintenance; if anything I spend a lot more money then I should when I do maintenance replacing things because I'm already in an area, if it really needs it or not. So with that being said, has anyone ever successfully used anything other than the BMW genuine or oem hoses? In this regard I'm wondering if in place of these specifically molded parts has anyone used high quality generic hosing you can buy in custom lengths instead (keeping in mind to get the right id / od for the connector it is going on? Depending on the hose, the cost could be more or less than the genuine BMW molded parts. I guess I'm more asking this as a question for very long term availability of parts for our cars, especially the most commonly replaced ones.

I second the great write up on this here.

I used normal 1/8th inch that is available from my local shop. It ends up being 3.2 instead of stock 3.3mm I thought. I also got a t-connector that was 1/8th inch. The connections were a little harder to get on the oem endings but has worked fine for me.

I replaced the vacuum to the fuel filter with the same stuff. Minus well do the filter too. Though the date of manufacture is on the filter if you wanted to check first.

Not sure what you mean about the round cartridge filter. maybe look at the diagrams on realoem.

Bradestar I figured it out earlier today looking at enough diagrams on that filter question I posed first. The po apparently got cheap and removed the entire factory carbon filter cartridge and casing to replace it with two cheap inline carbon filters. I'm missing the entire carbon filter assembly in my car. Now to get the replacement.

This was asked 4 years ago, and nobody answered. I came here to ask the same question. I don't care about all the subtle differences between the m42 and m44, I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go along; I just want to make sure I have all the parts before I take my car apart.

My starter is going wonky, and I'll have to replace it soon, I figured I should replace the coolant hoses as long as I'm in there.

There are a few differences through the revisions. I recommend going to realoem.com, selecting the Ti (E36, classic, compact) and entering your build date, and then select Engine. Under Engine Cooling there is a Cooling System / Water Hoses diagram. You can then search for the part numbers on Pelican's site. I had very good luck with this to help track down some small parts.

On RealOEM, if you put in the last 7 of your VIN, it will populate everything about your car, including build date. :D