Latest drama

After replacing my guibo and driving a couple miles, I started to hear some noise from the driver's front wheel. I'm pretty sure it's a wheel bearing, the 8x16 wheels and 35mm wheel spacers I'm sure stress them pretty good, so i expect to be replacing them every few thousand miles. So I stop by Pep Boys on my way to work, and get a set of bearings. Once I get the car on a jack, I can feel that the wheel is REALLY loose, like a couple inches of play! Bad news.
Once I get the hub off and bearings out, I realize that the bearings are the wrong size. Then I remember the brake upgrade, check the faq to find out what the PO probably did. Then I order some 320i bearings. When the parts guy delivers them, i realize that they are the same as the 2002 bearings, and much smaller than the ones i pulled from the hub. Puzzled, i call Ireland to find out what's going on. I am informed that the larger bearings are for the 2002tii struts, which the PO must have installed with the brake upgrade. So, i go back to Pep Boys and get the bigger tii bearings. When i get them to the shop, i test fit them on the spindle. They are way to big for the spindle, but the 2002/320i fit fine.

WHAT?!?

Turns out, the powder coated strut tubes I got with the car from the PO, which I had installed the week before were 2002 struts, and the old rusty ones i pulled off and threw away were 2002tii struts! So I was driving with mismatched hub/bearing/spindles and it was a miracle I didn't do any serious damage.

I'm gonna stick with the powercoated 2002 struts, so I've ordered a junkyard set of 83 320i hubs ($100) and some new girling volvo calipers ($40 each). I almost bought some cross-drilled rotors ($66 each) but decided that could wait.

Built Motor assembly next!