PSA: Measure Twice, Cut Once!

It's an old saying, originally referring to carpentry.  "Measure twice, cut once."  In other words, if you do the preparation work right, you'll spend a lot less time correcting your mistakes after the fact.  It's a great piece of advice, and it's one I'm still trying to learn to live by.  Sometimes I do... and sometimes I don't.

I end up messing with a lot of small stuff on my BMW.  Not all of it is worth writing about - replacing a driveshaft, sure.  Fixing some burnt-out lightbulbs?  Messing with a clutch return spring?  Perhaps not.  But as I find myself in the middle of a problem, again, I feel like this is something I oughtta share.  It's not the first time, but this is a great example.  You see, a while back I decided that I needed to replace the bushings on my clutch pedal.  It sounds like a relatively minor thing, but you'd be surprised.  This was step one:

Remove the driver's seat.  (Don't mind the crap!)  The clutch pedal attaches in multiple places up under the dashboard, and the furthest-up of which is the actual pivot point itself.  The bushings themselves weren't that hard, but getting the return spring back in place was a pain.  It's what pushes the clutch pedal back up when you let your foot off.  When you're putting the pedal assembly back together, you need to compress the spring and secure it to get it back in place, usually done with zip ties.  When I originally did this - probably about a month ago - I made the mistake of wrapping the zip ties all the way around the spring, which compressed it just fine.  Unfortunately, it wound up getting stuck between the spring itself and the ends of the shaft that runs through the spring.  This created a slight "sticking" at the very top of the clutch travel.  It wasn't enough for the clutch to slip or mess with engagement, but it was enough to annoy the everliving piss out of me on a daily basis, as I would have to reach my foot under the clutch pedal and pop it up to make the cruise control system function again.

And here's where the issue begins.

Of course, I only noticed this issue and figured out where it was coming from after I had put everything back together.  What with my day-to-day workload, needing to fix other people's cars on my time off, and generally being a bit of a lazy person, it took me nearly a month to get to fixing it.  By the time I did, I really just wanted to get it over with quickly.

In my haste to get everything back apart in order to remove the captured ziptie pieces, I disassembled the pedal assembly in the wrong order.  The plastic loop at the top of the picture above is what connects the clutch master cylinder to the pedal itself.  While I was pulling the pedal out to get the return spring assembly back in, the loop pulled off of the rod which pushes the piston down in the master cylinder.  I didn't even figure out this had happened till I put everything back together and the clutch wasn't doing anything.  After trying to get the rod back into the plastic loop twice, the whole thing just split in half.

The part that says "attaches to clutch pedal."  Dammit.

Cue profanity and shaking of head.  Without the link to the master cylinder, the clutch was inop.  I considered doing some kind of repair to the loop (gorilla glue and a band clamp) but ended up deciding the stress on that part would likely lead to it falling apart again when I needed it most.  I tried finding something of a similar shape at a hardware store to modify for use, but had no luck.  Of course the loop itself is integral to the entire master cylinder, so the whole thing had to be replaced.  I started searching locally for one.  The best I could do was having CarQuest order an off-brand unit, with a guess that it might arrive in two days time.

So I ended up ordering it from Pelican Parts (who I order most of my BMW parts from), along with some other things I needed - a new clutch switch (which was broken) and a thermostat housing gasket to cure a slow coolant leak.  Even with expedited shipping, it ended up taking four days for the parts to get to me, which meant borrowing cars and bumming rides to work - never fun.

It looks so innocent here.

Actually getting everything back in and functioning was an adventure as well.  Full dis-assembly of the under dash area, laying on my back for a few hours, that sort of thing.  This presented its own set of challenges.  I had to compress and tie the return spring probably 4 different times before I got it right.  While laying on my back re-assembling the spring, I dropped a small pivot pin behind and under the carpet.  That was almost an hour of my life wasted pulling apart trim pieces to get under the carpet!  After that, one of the plastic halves that support the spring snapped while positioning it, which entailed a drive over to the BMW parts department.

Of course when you disconnect the lines to the reservoir and the clutch slave cylinder, air gets in the system, so you have to bleed it for it to function.  That was a whole new adventure.  The valve on the slave cylinder was strategically placed in the worst possible location, making getting a wrench on it at all a chore.  For hydraulic bleeding and flushing I used a Motive Power  Bleeder, which pressurizes the whole system from the reservoir - making it a much simpler one-person task.  Attach the bleeder, pump it up to 15psi, and open the valve of whatever you're bleeding till no more air or dirty fluid comes out.  Well, halfway through bleeding the stream of brake fluid switched to spurts of air.  Confused, I unhooked the bleeder and checked the reservoir - still mostly full.  Poured more in, same thing.  Called around to more well-educated BMW people, and found out something interesting - the reservoir is divided in half by a plastic wall, and the rear of the reservoir is for the clutch.  Liquid gets into the clutch side by pouring until the level reaches a small "window" at the top of the wall and running over.  By this point I had no more brake fluid, which necessitated a run to the auto parts store.  30 minutes later, bleed two more times, and the clutch is finally working again!

Clutch arm bushings.  Just not worth it.

At this point, I'd spent 8 hours just that day on fixing it.  The previous time (trying to remove the zip ties) was more like four hours.  And the initial day - when I replaced the clutch arm bushings - was probably around 5.  So I had a total of almost 20 hours of my life in this stupid project, which I can never have back.  I originally only intended to spend $40 on the project (for the bushings, and a heavy-duty adjustable clutch stop.)  I ended up buying a new master cylinder ($68), new clutch switch ($8), new return spring brackets ($19), paying for expedited shipping ($12.50), and another liter of DOT 4 brake fluid ($7), which brings the total I've wasted on this stupid project up to a faintly absurd $154.50, give or take a few cents.

On the upside, I might have the smoothest clutch pedal in any E36 ever.  But still, the lesson I'm trying desperately to learn here is: Measure twice.  Cut once.  If I had done this right the first time, It would have been about 5 hours, $40, and much less forehead-slapping.