24 Days Left - It ... runs?

With 25 days left, I finished and installed the new clutch-slave mounting bracket.

The bracket isn't perfect as the slave still gets a chance to "rock" inside of it's mount but at least it is no longer only half-disengaging the clutch.
To celebrate by birthday, I holed myself up with Jim in the garage.  We attacked the Mess3 with a single minded focus: make it run.  I did add a small provision: make it run, without major leaks.  While installing the clutch bracket pictured above I discovered this little gem of a problem:

A bloody red coating of transmission fluid all under the engine compartment.  That's not to say I thought anything was wrong with the transmission. BMW kindly uses ATF for power steering fluid.  The stock M3 power steering pump is actually mounted in the Ford accessory bracket with the assistance of an adapter plate.

I spent some time disassembling the power steering pump Sunday morning to discover that one of the copper crush washers in the Banjo fitting for the reservoir feed to the pump was leaking.  It was leaking badly.  When you are the owner of the only car of its kind in the world, it can get difficult to source specific parts.  I am, essentially, the only parts book for my car.  I need to know the exact make and model from which a part originates.  Without that information the parts stores are fundamentally useless.  I'll give an example via dialog.

Me: "I need an oil filter."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "Um, it's a 1997 BMW M3, with a Ford 2.5 liter engine, the Block is a '91, the head is a '74, the oil pan is a custom racing unit from KevKo, and oh, yeah, it has a custom turbo setup using a center-mount header from a company that no longer exists, but the turbo is a Precision 5857."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "The oil filter is for a 1988 Ford Thunderbird."
Parts Store Staff: "5.0?"
Me: "No the TurboCoupe, 2.3 ..."

Even with all of those "problems," the line that connects the factory M3 power steering reservoir to the factory M3 power steering pump should be something that is relatively easy to find.   And from what we discovered, that line is available, it is just a three day wait to get the line.  Oh, and that line will still not come with the small washer-like fittings that we need to.  So the dialog really went like this, with every parts store within a driving distance of my home:

Me: "I need a 16 mm copper or aluminum crush washer."
Parts Store Staff: "Make and Model?"
Me: "Do you have crush washers?"
Parts Store Staff: "Yep, some."
Me: "In metric?"
Parts Store Staff: "I don't know.  Maybe."
Me: "How about some crush washers for the power steering pump line for a 1997 BMW M3."
Parts Store Staff: "Let me check."
At this point, I assume most store staff have actually just gone to get coffee, the computer crashed when they got back, so they went for lunch, then after the tech from central IT fixed the computer, they pick up the phone again.
Parts Store Staff: "I can get that in about three or four days."
Me: "Just the washers?"
Parts Store Staff: "No, the entire line."
Me: "Does it have the washers."
Staff: "Let me check".
Coffee, IT problems, Lunch, pick up phone again."
Staff: "No, it says we will have to get those separately."

The saving grace in this dialog are two of the Napa stores in my area.  They know that I'm usually "up to something" and generally try to be helpful.  Failing to find the washers on Sunday, Jim and I decided to instead use a substantial amount of aircraft Form-A-Gasket on the washers and see if that was up to the spec of handling the pressure. 

We had dinner, rushed to clean up the tools, and around 9:00 PM had the car idling in the garage.  Given the amount of tools, rags, and various garage bits that had found their way into the engine bay over the winter, and especially the last few days, it was amazing we didn't lose a wrench.

After playing with the idle and low-load tunes for an hour, we were able to push off for what really felt like, another maiden voyage.  We worked through some of the significant hiccups and low-load drive-ability issues.  Even some of the off-boost high-load drive-ability.  But our quest for a tune was ended early.  One of the intake tubes blew off on a low-boost run and the wide-band oxygen sensor stopped working entirely. 

More to fix, more to loathe, but more progress has been made.

Also, here's a picture of the new breather can.  I made it myself.  Some of the welds are pretty ugly, the gaps from my precision machining and raw material quality left much to be desired.  I ignored most of that bug running the welder hotter than I should have...