Floor Jack Review

I wanted a floor jack I could slide under the front of my car, reach the front frame cross member, and lift both wheels off the ground in one lift.
Once both wheels are off the ground I'll insert jack stands and let the car rest on the stands.

After measuring and researching I landed on the Harbor Freight Rapid Pump 2.5 ton floor jack, Item # 68049. Here's the review - about 1 min:

DIY Seatbelt Guide Brace

Like many Z3s the driver side seatbelt guide was broken on my car.

After finding inspiration on the Internet I made a brace from a short length of 2" wide Velcro

No Regret Toolbox Labels

Labels on toolbox drawers make it easy to find what I am looking for but what if I move the tools around? Will the labels be as easy to move?

I found a roll of dry erase sticky back plastic sheet, cut it up and made easy to change labels.
Here's how in 40 seconds.

M Roadster Impressions - After One Month

I have about 1,000 miles on the Roadster and about five hundred miles on the new tires.
Here are my thoughts so far:

The Engine
It's amazing. I have never found myself lacking for power. I have become very aware that I have to be very careful to use the power wisely or very bad things could happen.

The Handling
If I were the kind of person who made a habit of driving hard in the corners I would need a four point harness to hold me into the seat so that I could focus on driving the car rather than hanging on to the steering wheel. It's not that the seats are in inadequate, it's just that the car pulls that hard in the corners.

The Ride
This is a daily driver so I do mixed city/highway driving during rush hour 50 miles a day round trip. The car rides rough but I don't feel beat up when I arrive. I'll have to take some longer trips to see how I feel after driving several hours.

It's always a trade off between handling and ride. This car makes fewer compromises on handling than most cars and sacrifices some ride smoothness to do it.

Fit and Finish
My impression is that the car is put together better than a Honda but not as well put together as a German built BMW.

Looks
Every day when I walk out to the car to drive to work or come home I am amazed that I get to drive something that looks this cool.

Conclusion
The car is everything I had hoped for and more.

Toolbox Organization

It's hard to work on cars without tools.
My three drawer tool box was over flowing. I found a sale on a ten drawer box and started loading the tools.
I found three ways to neaten things up:

1. Make the box tools came in fit the tool box drawer
2. Purchase storage accessories that match the way you work
3. Make a storage accessory to multiply storage space.

Here is what I have so far.

Replacing the Shift Knob

The M Roadster came with an illuminated shift knob.
Mine was broken. As a gift my wife purchased a replacement knob.
Many BMWs with a manual transmission follow the same proceedure to replace the shift knob.

This is also an easy way to get to the group of buttons just above the shifter.
6:25 minutes

Removing Front Control Arm Bushings

My 97 328 convertible needed new front control arm bushings.

BMW uses these bushings on the front of all Z3 and M Roadsters as well as all of the E30 and E36 3 Series.

I found videos on the web that use a special tool to remove the bushing and another that uses a torch to heat the control arm. I don't have the tool and I don't feel comfortable heating the control arm because it has other parts that might be damaged by heat.

This is a video of the removal process using a conventional pulley puller. Here is another version of what I did involving large amounts of duct tape and an air wrench.

Pressing in the new bushing and installing the new parts on the car will be a future topic.