Materials to Maintain Your ZHP IIIII Hand Protection IIIII Tools to Maintain Your ZHP
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Long island, New York
    Posts
    1,493

    Cooling System, Fuel Pump, CABs Done

    All:
    This weekend did some preventative maintenance on my new ZHP. I ordered all my parts from autohausaz, with mixed results-I'll explain later.

    In prep for the cooling system refresh, I removed the airbox and MAF to give myself plenty of room to work.

    First, drained all the coolant and was happy to see coolant looked very clean. Next removed both hoses, which was probably the hardest part of the whole project. Removed the old thermostat, lubed up the new one and replaced. Removed the serpentine belt, water pump pulley and finally the water pump. Again, the pump appeared to be in great shape but you never really know what plastic is hiding. Installed the new water pump--Graf with a metal impeller. Removed and replaced the expnansion tank. Reattached new hoses and new temp sensor. Put the serpentine belt back on and turned on the heater to 91 degrees and fan on low and slowly refilled the sysytem with my 50/50 mix of BMW coolant and distilled water. Had the bleed screw open and bled the system. So far so good.

    Got in the car and started the engine and prayed to the BMW gods for no leaks. Not enough clean living I guess as I quickly observed a small stream of coolant leaking somewhere from the expansion tank. It appeared to be coming from where the hose attaches to the expansion tank. Shut the engine and found the leak at that aforementioned spot. I noticed that the metal clip for the hose was not really snapping into place. I took the hoses off and removed the tank to investigate. It appeared that the slot for the metal clip was not manufactured correctly. Anyway, I tried to make sure it was really clean and reattached everything and started the engine again...same damned leak. Tried everything to get the clip to snap on with no success. I was a bit irritated. Had to take the new tank off and replace it with the old tank. Thing went on literally with a snap. Refilled the system as at least a half gallon of coolant was on my garage floor from all the screwing around with the expansion tank. Bled it and started the car and all was right in the world. Oh yea and I had hot hot heat blowing--that's a good thing.

    Next up was the fuel filter change. Only took about half an hour with minimal gas spillage. Finished up by replacing the Control Arm Bushiungs with Meyle HDs. Took me about 2.5 hours and most of that was spent wrestling the carriers off the arms with my three jaw puller. The new CABs went on really easy by lubing up the arms with the dish washing liquid. Reattached bushings, torqued to 44 lbs, reattached wheels and lowered the car.

    After I was finally done, took the car out for a spirited drive and everything was perfect. The slight steering wheel wobble I had previously noticed was gone.

    As a side note, I will be sending the expansion tank back for a replacement and will replace the tank next year when I change the coolant.

    Sorry for the verbose posting but I had to share.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Middle River, MD
    Posts
    1,022
    Did you notice any issues with the fitment of the Graf water pump? On my E30 (I know, I know, I compare this all the time), when I'd buy water pumps, the fitment would always be slightly off even though it was made to BMW spec.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    Long island, New York
    Posts
    1,493
    No, it fit in perfect. Indeed, I really was cognizant of the fit as I am always worried about leaks and performance. However, next time I may go with the Stewart. I am interested to see how the Graf performs. Did you have issues with the Graf? However, the Uro Expansion tank gave me problems. Not only did it leak, I also had difficulty getting the level sensor to fit correctly.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Middle River, MD
    Posts
    1,022
    I'm about to purchase a new water pump as the records do not indicate it was ever replaced. I was going to go with a Graf simply for the metal impellers, but if there are any fitment issues with aftermarket parts, I'd like to not have to spend an extra hour finagling things to fit.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    New Orleans
    Posts
    264
    I just put a Graf metal impeller pump in on Saturday. Fits perfectly. When I first bought my E36 years ago, I installed a Graf metal impeller (looks identical to the E46 pump) and it worked great for years. About 80k miles into the pump's life, it started to have a slow coolant drip from the bearings, but no catastrophic failure, FYI.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2011
    Location
    Middle River, MD
    Posts
    1,022
    Autozone.com
    Oh cool. Sounds like a good deal. I was gonna go with ECS Tuning's kit, but I'd like to have all other parts OEM BMW and then use the Graf pump. I don't think that's an available kit.

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