That's interesting. I've seen some for 3800 aud, which is stupid cheap for a 4.4 V8 haha. Can't speak for maintenance history though.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
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That's interesting. I've seen some for 3800 aud, which is stupid cheap for a 4.4 V8 haha. Can't speak for maintenance history though.
Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
Headlights:
Put some replacement ZKW reflector bowls in the headlights and whoa! Let there be light! PO must have adjusted the headlights up thinking the dimness was an adjustment issue, because as soon as I replaced the reflectors, I was lighting up the trees. Readjusted them down to what looks normal and what a night and day difference.
Now I just need to figure out how to see if the self leveling works. When I turn on the headlights, I expect them to cycle up and down, but they don't do that. Is there a way to test them?
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7881/...144686a2_b.jpg
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Audio:
So my front left tweeter has been totally dead and the right rear midrange up in the parcel shelf is very quiet. In a quest to fix the weird speaker issues, I first picked up a new midrange and tweeter. The midrange is easy to swap, so tried that first. No dice.
Then picked up a Harmon Kardon amp from the JY thinking that was the issue. Nope.
That basically narrowed it to the radio, which interestingly enough has a dimmer display than the rest of everything and the volume knob only turns the volume up no matter which way you turn it. Guess I should have started with the radio. I got lucky and found one in a car that looks to be in near perfect shape. That immediately fixed the right rear midrange, but the front left tweeter is still dead. Probably just the speaker. I will replace that when I do the window regulator soon.
Unfortunately, the PO broke some of the plastic tabs off the silver cube trim piece above the glove box when he must have wired in the Aux input. That explains why the two trim pieces were fitting loose. So I have to try to fab up some glue to make a tab to hold that silver pin in place, because it appears this trim is hard to find and expensive.
Rain sensor:
After trying a few rain sensors, I think I got one that actually works. Hopefully it stays functional with my windshield and doesn't reinitialize to useless. But putting my hand over it triggers the wipers, so that may be a win for a whole $4.
Rain gutter trim:
I'm working on the rain gutters now. I took the passenger side off this morning and had to shake my head. PO used double sided tape to "affix" the back of the trim to the body. This resulted in it coming loose easily, which lead to scratching the paint and rubbing some areas of paint straight away. So absolutely frustrating. If you're going to go to the trouble, why not do it right?
I have new clips to replace the missing clips that go in the body. I pried the white fasteners off trim at the JY that I will glue on to my trim where they are missing. Then I should hopefully be able to reinstall it THE CORRECT WAY. Sheesh
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A bit of work going on there. Re: trim... not a bad idea to glue as a temp fix, but keep your eye on part outs on e46fanatics and maybe you can get that trim piece cheaper down the line.
Self leveling happens at startup (at least in my coupe). I can watch the DRL's level on my garage wall or the headlights if I left them on auto.
I pried some old clips off some chrome trim in the junkyard. I'm going to glue the clips back on my trim to get it to sit right. Hopefully.Quote:
Originally Posted by johnrando
That's what I thought. It doesn't do that. Neither light. The linkage on the control arm is there and hooked up. Where would you look first? I doubt both headlights are bad. Maybe the actuator on the control arm. I'll see if I can pull some codes from the leveling module.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZHPizza
Did you code the auto leveling lights in PA Soft? Was this a retrofit or fixing what was already there? Can I scroll up and find this out? ProbablyQuote:
Originally Posted by racer2086
Lol. Same lights that came on the car. No retrofit. I only replaced the burned bowls. I'll have to hook up INPA and look up codes.
Fixed the rain gutter trim on the driver and passenger sides. Wuf, that was a bigger job than I thought. Lot of prep work.
The passenger side trim was fine up to the C-pillar. All 3 glued on clips were gone, which is why it was flapping in the wind every time the door was opened, leading to the paint scratches in the earlier pictures. When I was at the junkyard, I took the clips off the trim from a car that was there in order to glue them onto mine. It also gave the opportunity to practice taking the trim off.
It's actually surprisingly easy to get the trim off UP TO the c-pillar. The c-pillar then get's a little more technical. The key part is getting the c-pillar part off and on without breaking clips. This does a pretty good job of explaining it. Full BMW instructions here: https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e...-strip/AzMts9D
Here's how it looked when it came off, missing all 3 clips and the foam tape cushion to go against the body:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7920/...48b3d762_b.jpg
First thing was to get everything nice and clean using my trusty 3M adhesive cleaner and then etch some lines in the metal to help align the clips once the glue is on. I used one of those electric engravers I had kicking around.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7920/...48b3d762_b.jpg
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7920/...48b3d762_b.jpg
I chose this glue I found at the store. It seemed perfectly suited for my job. It bonds plastic to plastic (really good I might add) and plastic to metal.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7838/...f7f85102_b.jpg
My biggest mistake, though, was not roughening the metal up. The two upper clips came off when I went to install the trim. The epoxy sticks to COATED metal, meaning epoxy coated which this is not since it is just painted, so roughening it up helps with the micromechanical retention of the glue. These next pics are the first gluing before I scuffed it with the dremel.
Take the dremel and clean the old glue off the clips.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7832/...2f30bc87_b.jpg
Some important notes about the clips:
- The clips are right vs left! The two upper clips have a taller wall that faces the outside of the trim, so don't glue passenger side clips on the driver's side trim.
- Additionally, the upper most clip has the stop towards the bottom, whereas the lower clip has the stop towards the top. This is critical, because the lower clip stop is what lines the bottom of the c-pillar portion of the trim to the door trim and the breastwork on the quarter panel. The upper clip stop prevents the trim from sliding forward towards the front fender.
- The placement of the clips is critical. Too high or low, and the trim won't sit right. Too close to the edge and it will sit too far from the body when mounted on the car. There was a tiny bit of residual glue left on the trim that helped me pick the right position for them and then etch lines in the metal. But for future reference, I measured 10 times and the height position for the top edge of the bottom clip is 51mm from the base of the trim, measured from the first crease in the metal.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7825/...aa5f09c2_b.jpg
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7843/...45883231_b.jpg
Now that the clips are on, I had to come up with a way to replace the thin rubber edging that sits on the edge of the trim on the body side. It runs from the joint where the c-pillar portion is glued to the rest of the rain gutter down to the bottom. There is no chance you find this in a store, so I cut up some old windshield wiper blades and glued them on. Not exactly like factory, but better than $420 for new trim.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7851/...f2a86bbf_b.jpg
Next was replacing the missing foam strip. I got the right width foam at the store, but it wasn't as thick, so I just double layered it.
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Cleaned up the area on the car. I don't have mystic blue touch up paint, but I do have jet black and clearcoat for my E38. So I cleaned the area well and coated the bare areas with the clear coat just to seal things up. This is FL, so no salt around, but just being thorough.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7875/...e2473065_b.jpg
New clips on the body (pn 51138204858):
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7876/...786fc9c6_b.jpg
And the finished product! Note the position of the bottom of the trim. When fully slid down against the stop on the clip, it sits right at the crease in the quarter panel.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7915/...516224de_b.jpg
Here's the driver's side piece. The c-pillar part only had the lower clip debonded, but the clip was still on the car. The upper clip was split in half. Additionally, the C-pillar portion was separated from the rest of the rain gutter, so the two would slide apart and the rain gutter would run down into the front fender. I ended up using traditional JB weld to glue the two pieces of metal together.
But first, I had to repair the c-pillar clips. I think someone in the past tried to re-glue it with the trim still on the car because there was glue on the body, glue on the trim, and where the glue remained was not even close to where the clip should be to make the trim sit right.
Cleaned off the trim and made my alignment marks...upper line 51mm away from bottom.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7879/...738d894f_b.jpg
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No more pics of that side. I got lazy. But it's back in business!
I need to do this. Expect a PM from me later tonight. You seem to have it well sorted haha
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Nice werk
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Fixed my possessed side mirrors. I had to pull the fuse on my road trip home after I bought the car because they would move on their own while I was driving, which was so bizarre and really dangerous. They also didn't respond to the mirror switch, making things wonderfully infuriating. Some research and reading indicated that a lot of E46 owners have this issue and no one came up with a definitive solution. Some say the ribbon cables, some say the driver's mirror motor, some say the passenger mirror motor, some say the switch, no one really seemed to know.
Well for one thing, the ribbon cable is all one with the motor, so you have to replace them together. In my case, I can confidently say it was the driver's mirror motor, as my ribbon cable looked perfect and swapping them proved to be a success. Of course, take the donor mirror and plug it into the car first to make sure it fixes your problem. As soon as I did, the mirror switch immediately worked and controlled both mirrors. Once you pull the good motor and ribbon out, do the same test just to be sure everything still works and nothing got damaged.
Here are some pics...I grabbed a driver's mirror from a '04 Mystic blue E46 in the junkyard. I couldn't just swap the whole mirror mainly because the base was matte black and not the gloss black of the ZHP. Plus it was more beat up than mine anyway.
Remove the glass to expose the motor assembly. I've already removed the 3 screws that hold the motor to the housing.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7802/4...770b55b8_b.jpg20190401_191505 by racer2086, on Flickr
Remove the mirror cover and foam to expose the ribbon cable where it wraps around the housing and dives into the base.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7869/4...d1bb416e_b.jpg20190401_191519 by racer2086, on Flickr
Remove the cover on the under side of the mirror so you can get better access to were the ribbon cable comes through. Pry from the middle of the cover...the edge closest to the outside of the mirror has a tab that will pull out. The opposite side toward the base has two long tabs on it that will not pry out.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7846/4...32ca7498_b.jpg20190401_191948 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7838/4...1f5d2f36_b.jpg20190401_193949 by racer2086, on Flickr
Mark the ribbon cable for each connector. You will be removing the plastic connectors from the ribbon cable so you can slide the ribbon out of the housing. If you look close on the connectors, you will see where it is marked for pin 1 and 3.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7803/4...46747417_b.jpg20190401_191723 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7915/4...f34fca40_b.jpg20190401_191719 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7882/4...749933bc_b.jpg20190401_191911 by racer2086, on Flickr
Remove the foam on the base to make it easier to get the ribbon cable out.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7922/3...b43d5c96_b.jpg20190401_191941 by racer2086, on Flickr
Watch how the ribbon cable is routed so you can put it back the same way. If you notice, the ribbon is wrapped at places with black tape. You will have to play this by ear, since some will slide through, but others you may have to unwrap to pull through the base and the rewrap after. The wrap is where the cable is folded and taped for protection.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7924/3...28fc529f_b.jpg20190401_191944 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7897/4...e6b99f4e_b.jpg20190401_191952 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7927/4...d7de5014_b.jpg20190401_192916 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7846/3...5654ccce_b.jpg20190401_192039 by racer2086, on Flickr
Then it is just the reverse to slip that good motor/ribbon into your good housing. Then, enjoy your newly working mirrors :)
After that, I decided to wash her for the first time (yikes, I know). Threw a quick layer of wax on for protection. I was trying to hold out until I had enough time to clay, compound, polish, seal, and wax. I was surprised the paint wasn't as bad as I thought. The trunk lid has a bunch of scratches on it. Will be hard to get those completely out. But overall not bad. Cleaned up nice and looks so good with the wheels cleaned. Sorry for the night time shots...doesn't do the paint or the color justice. I LOVE this blue. Was thinking Orient, but I wouldn't have been happy with how dark it is. This still looks blue in darker lighting.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7914/4...492a289c_b.jpg20190402_200841 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/7897/4...c7b388a3_b.jpg20190402_200835 by racer2086, on Flickr
Oh, and flipped 111k on Sunday.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7847/4...e5681ac9_b.jpg2019-04-08_11-56-44 by racer2086, on Flickr
Still gotta smoke test the engine to find vacuum leaks. SES light is on and off.
I absolutely hate those stupid ribbon motors. I've wanted the tilting feature since my E30 days, and when I bought my ZHP with poorly retrofitted M3 mirrors, it didn't work. I was so bummed. I've replaced motor after motor and none of them worked 100% properly. Sick of dealing with these stupid ribbon motors.
Yeah, I mean looking at it, they seem so fragile and not a great long-term material for something that gets weathered, moved, and used fairly regularly. I mean if you fold the mirrors in manually parking in the street, that's twisting that ribbon cable.Quote:
Originally Posted by az3579
I'm surprised you've replaced the motor and still have the problem. Maybe you got a couple bum motors?
Took this today just because. Will never see 111,111 again.
https://live.staticflickr.com/7832/4...bcbb8c39_b.jpg2019-04-09_02-58-44 by racer2086, on Flickr
Haven't updated this thread in a long time. The car has been very spoiled in the last 2 months...
Both front window regulators have been replaced. The passenger side had a crappy aftermarket one that sounded like you were tearing nylon when the window goes up or down. It was something inside where that cable wraps up that was doing it. Both regulators I zip-tied like the thread on here, so hopefully they don't go bad for 10+ years.
Next, I got a switch center from an M3 with the tire pressure button and sport button. I ran a wire to the DSC for the TPMS and also installed a v2 Sprint booster I bought new off Ebay. The TPMS I coded, but doesn't work because my module is CI-12 and not CI-13. Bummer. But the sprint booster works great. I wired it in totally different from the write up on here, and made a schematic of the two-wire sprint booster button, for others in the future:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7d472861_b.jpg
Measuring the voltage across the black and red wires going to the switch, voltage is near 0 volts when the thing is in normal mode. In green mode, the voltage is positive ~5v and in red mode, the voltage is negative ~-5v. That's why the red LED needs to be flipped in circuit to work.
I did not unsolder anything from the sprint booster switch itself. I just added wiring to the relevant spots and ran the Sport button and new LEDs in parallel with the sprint booster components.
Here is the sprint booster untouched:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0369d8dc_b.jpg
And here it is with the wiring soldered:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f82e9c98_b.jpg
I added a BMW connector to the new wires, which will go to the new wires from the switch center. This way things can be easily disconnected if removal is necessary in the future.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...3aa18cfb_b.jpg
I will make another post with what I did with the switch center. I used the factory pins in the back for the actual switch, so no switch replacement or modification is necessary (from the factory, the switch is designed to just ground the pin it goes to on the DME), and only added wires for the new LEDs.
For the sport button, I bought LEDs off amazon and used some thin gauge wire I had to solder to them. I did not glue them to the button circuit board, but rather just glued them together and then soldered to them with the wires. It's pretty delicate, so getting it back in the switch panel is tricky. But cut the plastic cage for the button with a dremel so the wires have room to go through.
Amazon LEDs: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Here are the LEDs set into the button. REMEMBER -- the red LED needs to be reversed! You can see where the wires go through the plastic:
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This is the wire that goes from pin 17 of the switch center (this is the line from the sport button switch that grounds the DME in the M3 to signal sport engaged). In line with my wire is a resistor that simulates the 1k resistor in line of the sprint booster button as shown in the schematic above. This wire plugs into the BMW connector plug that connects to the sprint booster switch.
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Success! Makes the car feel like it has 30 more HP.
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Found a set of metal pedals in the junkyard. They were for an auto, so I just used the dead pedal.
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And then it got a full compound, polish, and seal with Griots Poly Wax
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GREAT job on the Sport button. Ty for sharing.
PDC Retrofit also done! And at the same time, I re-clearcoated the top of the back bumper. The clearcoat was entirely stripped from the bumper above the black trim. I figured I should do all of this, while I was retrofitting the PDC, since the bumper had to come off and the trim swapped out.
It turned out pretty good. From 6 feet away it looks great. Up close you can see some orange peel even after 2 rounds of wet sanding. And up near the rear wheel wells, you can see the line where the remaining clear coat starts despite trying to bevel it. It's not that bad, though.
Here are some pics of how things looked before the clear coat.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...18fe9114_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160358 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...023844f3_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160402 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...80854660_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160407 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4ea7557c_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160410 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6ef2eb58_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160413 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...237d2d78_h.jpg[/url]20190602_160422 by racer2086, on Flickr
Here it is with the clear coat dried before any wet sanding or polishing. I used Wurth Clear Coat, which says it gives 2k performance without the two parts. Wurth provides a lot of material for German car manufacturers lines. I'm happy with it.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e6cab007_h.jpg[/url]20190602_181118 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8908b1d5_h.jpg[/url]20190602_181122 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...21ffd0f4_h.jpg[/url]20190602_181128 by racer2086, on Flickr
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4f153d6e_h.jpg[/url]20190602_181139 by racer2086, on Flickr
Wet-sanded:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0bc225ec_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...42bbe495_h.jpg
And finally compounded and polished:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...bc7612ff_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e7f4f533_h.jpg
PDC Trim installed:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c6e41775_h.jpg
And back on the car with sensors in place:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7eb24571_h.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...199dbe27_h.jpg
I was shocked to see how just cleaning the base layer of paint and coating with clear coat brought the metallic right back out. It appeared to have zero metallic left without the clear coat, but once painted, it popped again like the rest of the car. So cool. All in about $30 for the clear coat and wet/dry sand paper and about 4 hours of time, including dry time.
Really impressive results
Holy crap, that all came out great. Now I need to go outside and detail my wagon...
This is really cool. I really dig the stock look.Quote:
Originally Posted by racer2086
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I'll have to add mileage and log this stuff to the first page, but about 500-1000 miles ago, I replaced all 6 coils with new Delphi ones from FCP in hopes that would take care of the 2800 rpm studder.
This is what the coil on plug #5 looked like vs #6. Definitely something going on there.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...31ce8164_b.jpg
I pulled the plug, also, so I could clean the carbon off the plug.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5d3b2ec4_b.jpg
Previously, I cleared engine adaptations, which seemed to take care of the studder issue until the adaptations readjusted and it slowly came back. So, I cleared the adaptations now when replacing the new coils and threw the plug and coils in. Wow! What a difference in the responsiveness. I didn't expect that at all. Honestly, the normal non-sprint booster throttle made me feel like the sprint booster was on. Now the car pulls great and feels legit fast with the sprint booster. BUT, the studder is back at the 2800 rpm and has thrown another code here and there for the bank 2 O2 sensor. Boo. Even after cleaning the MAF, no changes. So I'll probably get the DME flashed, as most have, once I get my other car running again, in case the worst happens.
More to come!
Cleaned up the silver cube trim with a toothbrush, soap and water. You don't realize how dirty it is until you brush it, rinse it, and dry it. They really pop once cleaned. Not great pics sorry
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0595b32b_b.jpg
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...50467a1f_b.jpg
Also picked up a set of AL and ZKW xenon headlights out of the JY along with the AL mounts. The goal was to swap the ZKW lenses into the AL lights with the metal reflectors and install halo rings at the same time. This project took a while just due to no free time, but once going it only took a day or two. Now the ZKW assemblies and AL lenses will be up for (cheap) sale.
Comparison of the mounts:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0dd58b8e_b.jpg
All the posts on the forums talk about changing the light adjustment and removing the whole assembly inside. You don't need to do that. For the ZKW lights, you don't even have to disassemble the ZKW lights or remove the outer lens to get the projector housing and lens out. Just remove the bowl, pop the bezel off, and then slide the projector out the back. You will probably need to remove the outer lens to get the bezel back on, but can get lucky without it. The AL lights are a little harder, as those projectors and lens won't come out the back, so the front cover has to come off, bezel off, and the lens assembly removed from the front. Then it's a simple swap of lenses after that. Installing the halo rings wasn't too bad either.
Reassembled with the angel eyes and new MM lenses:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b9b549a3_b.jpg
Here is the cutoff without anything adjusted; sharp but messy:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f35a82e2_b.jpg
They were pointing to the sky when I drove, so adjusted them down and kinda left/right. Problem is my driveway is a pretty decent incline and I don't have anywhere else to adjust them. Also don't know the specs for adjustment.
Here they are after some adjusting. They really light up the road now though. My biggest gripe is that the cutoff isn't parallel with the ground, as I expected, but slightly angled off parallel. Both lights are like that, and I don't know how to fix it. There's no tip adjustment, right?
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ff80a876_b.jpg
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And the AEs installed and wired with remote trigger to interior lights and normal trigger to ignition voltage:
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https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9928db33_b.jpg
Phone has a harder time with the bright lights in dimmer ambient lighting. Think it looks good though. Love this car :)
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8eb52c34_b.jpg
Wow, that trim cleaned up nicely. You're right, it's hard to tell how dirty it was until it was clean.