Easter Day driveline fluids.

Odometer ~ 30,600

I posted recently about changing the transmission fluid and LSD fluid. Today I was fortunate enough to use my father in laws car lift to do the work.

First we tried to do the LSD fluid but realized that it required extruded Allen bits not hex sockets. Jerry drove into town and picked up 12,14,17 mm bits.

I moved onto the transmission fluid while I waited for the tools and found the dirt shield to be the most challenging part of that job. Everything went well besides having an extra dirt shield screw left over.

The 14mm hex bit maid the LSD fluid change go pretty quickly.

The final job of the day was the e-brake adjustment. That turned out to be a real stumper. The instructions came from Pelicanparts.com and they were for a e30 not a e46. I knew this going into the job, but I figured they must be the same. Apparently not! We searched for a sproket inside the rear wheel hub for about 15 minutes. We finally gave up and put the tires back on.

The new fluid in the LSD seems to have dramatically improved the noises. I broke it in with some figure 8's at low speed and at first I heard the familiar grabing noise but after a couple turns it disappeared and I'm happy to report it seems to have fixed the problem. Cool!
The transmission fluid change has improved shifting, requiring less effort. I can still detect a slight grab when changing from 2nd to 3rd gear at about 3k-4k rpm. Benefits may show them self later when the car has completely cooled down. That has been the time of most shift stickiness.