William's 330Ci ZHP Maintenance and Project Thread

[ecrabb]

Nice work! The grille looks awesome and you avoided several hours of disassembly and reassembly, not to mention the can of paint is much cheaper than a new part and will likely hold up better. Plastic is plastic, after all.

Very jealous of all the coding stuff. That's something I need to get into. I hate the 37-degree warning. My wife and I joke about it all the time. It's 37 degrees! Oh, god, the humanity! I just need to take the time and read up on what I need to buy and download.

Cheers,
SC

[BMWCurves]

Good job.

Thanks!

Nice work! The grille looks awesome and you avoided several hours of disassembly and reassembly, not to mention the can of paint is much cheaper than a new part and will likely hold up better. Plastic is plastic, after all.

Very jealous of all the coding stuff. That's something I need to get into. I hate the 37-degree warning. My wife and I joke about it all the time. It's 37 degrees! Oh, god, the humanity! I just need to take the time and read up on what I need to buy and download.

Cheers,
SC

Yeah, I was pretty tired and getting to that point of "worst case the easy route doesn't work and I can fix it the other way later" sort of mentality so I just went ahead and painted it without removing the bumper.

There are a lot of coding options I have found, but pretty much all of my needs can be met with BMW Scanner and PA Soft I bought from Tony (Tnhl1989) for $35 in his for sale thread here. Installing the software is a little bit confusing, but once you get it running it's simple enough. My skimpy directions and first things I coded can be found here

[danewilson77]

Excellent progress.

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[BMWCurves]

Installed the ///M license plate cover I picked up from NoVAphotog (Daniel) in the rear. Ignoring the dirt (I haven't washed the car in ages), I think it looks quite good! Much better than the dealer-branded covers. Now I need to source another one for the front. Apparently my local BMW dealership is having a 20% off deal on accessories, so I might be able to pick one up for a bit of a discount.



In other news, over the weekend I got together all my maintenance records together which required tracking down and printing a lot of PayPal receipts, and put them into individual sleeves in a binder. Feels good to have it all together.

[330i Lover]

In Yoda talk, "mmmMMMmmm BMW fever you have! "

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[BMWCurves]

Yes, yes I am. Isn't that why we're all here?

[slater]

Installed the ///M license plate cover I picked up from NoVAphotog (Daniel) in the rear. Ignoring the dirt (I haven't washed the car in ages), I think it looks quite good! Much better than the dealer-branded covers. Now I need to source another one for the front. Apparently my local BMW dealership is having a 20% off deal on accessories, so I might be able to pick one up for a bit of a discount.

that looks really nice. when i saw daniel posted it, i thought, "i'm going to PM him NOW!" but then i saw it said, 'sale pending'... gah.

i would like two of these as well. subtle.

[Alikessu]

great look
congrats, and I like the binder idea. I should start that aswell since I recently bought my ZHP


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[BMWCurves]

A few updates over the last week or so:

Last Friday my local BMW dealership had a 20% off accessories sale so I picked up an ///M license plate cover (part no. 82120010404) like I have for the rear as well as some black BMW all weather mats (part no. 82550151192 [fronts], 82550136373 [rears]).

License Plate Cover - 12/20/15 (52,380 miles)
Installing the license plate cover was actually a bit more difficult than expected because the plastic mount that comes with a coupe is curved on the top, but straight on the bottom. As a result I had to bend the cover a bit on the top. Then I ran into the issue of one of the screw holes being stripped from one of the screws in and out a few too many times so I ran down to ACE Hardware to pick up a larger diameter self-tapping screw. Thankfully the license plate cover comes with black plastic cover things so I could hide the odd screw. I managed to snap one of the covers trying to lock it closed, but thankfully I had an extra from NoVAphotog (Daniel), so I used that. Not a great photo, but I think it looks good.



BMW All Weather Mats - 12/21/15 (52,423 miles)
I vacuumed out and wiped down the interior of my car in preparation for my trip up to Seattle with some friends to watch the new Star Wars at the Boeing IMAX that had 70/15mm projection . After I cleaned up the interior I swapped out my cloth mats for the new all weather mats I picked out since it has been raining cats and dogs here recently. Seriously, until today, it had rained every day in some manner since Thanksgiving. Install was very straight forward.





ProClip Cell Phone Mount - 12/26/15 (52,788 miles)
As an early present I received a ProClip cell phone mount (item no. 511666) from my parents which I had been eagerly awaiting to put into my car. I had heard about it from NorCalZman who liked his back in the iPhone 6S thread since it fit an iPhone 6S with a slim case. First issue I had was that the mount did not come with any mounting hardware. I had two screws that came with the Bimmian bracket, but I didn't think two was enough. I ran out to Home Depot and bought four #8-32 x 3/8" stainless steel machine screws and #8-32 nylon lock nuts that were very similar to the mounting hardware that came with the Bimmian bracket.

To mount the ProClip I unscrewed the center screw that mates the two parts of the ProClip together so I could mount the back plate to the Bimmian Bracket. I found that I would have to rotate the plate 90 degrees so that I could put screws in all four holes. After placing the four screws I remounted the second piece of the ProClip and then adjusted the width of the ProClip by loosening the two side adjustment screws, placing my phone in the mount and adjusting the width, removing the phone, and tightening down the two adjustment screws again. All set! I used it when I went up to Seattle and it worked great, I really like the setup since it is within the same plane of the shifter and not very distracting. Since then I had to make some adjustments so photos are from today when I removed it to spray paint the screws with the same black spray paint I used on my lower grille. I'll update with new photos later. EDIT: new photos with the painted hardware can be seen here. I apologize that there aren't any photos showing what the mount looks like with my phone in the mount, but I don't have any other photo-taking gadgets currently.

The ProClip mount


The ProClip mounting plate with two Bimmian mounting screws/nuts.


Bimmian bracket


ProClip mounting plate bolted to Bimmian bracket with mounting hardware bought from Home Depot


Front part of the ProClip mount reattached to the mounting bracket


Side view of it all together



Leather Shift and Parking Brake Boots - 12/26/15 (52,788 miles)
Even though I like the alcantara boots because they were a ZHP-only option, I feel like with my leather steering wheel I should have a leather shift boot (part no. 25111434426) and parking brake boot (part no. 34408227928) to match. I picked up a brand new shift boot and a used parking brake boot off of E46Fanatics classifieds for cheap. For the shift boot I simply removed the shift knob by pulling it up, pulled out the alcantara boot and swapped it with the leather boot, then reinstalled the shift knob. The parking brake boot required using a trim removal tool to push the upper portion of the boot away from the console. Once it was free, you turn it inside out to expose the zip tie which I then cut, freeing the alcantara boot. I installed the leather boot, applied a new zip tie, and secured the new boot in place. All in all a pretty quick job that I think improves the interior.

Alcantara shift boot


Shift knob removed


Alcantara shift boot swapped out for leather boot


Shift knob reinstalled


Alcantara parking brake boot


Alcantara boot flipped inside out exposing zip tie


Zip tie removed along with alcantara boot


Leather parking brake boot installed


Overall I think those two additions help keep the cabin feel modern. I may switch back to my alcantara boots though, they are in great condition and definitely are characteristic of the car and make the car feel distinct from most other things.

Other notes:

• Both of the doors are rattling pretty bad around the speaker grilles. I can't tell if it's a result of something loose/broken in there rattling around or if it's the cold weather providing enough material shrinkage that they can now rattle but will improve with warmer weather. Either way, it's annoying, but it also occurred in my previous E46.
• I swapped my usual key for my extra key during my trip to Seattle to charge it. I remember reading that taking long trips with your second key will help charge it. Not sure if that's true but couldn't hurt, could it?
• The car ran great all the way up to Seattle and back with zero issues, averaging about 28 mpg.
• I need new wiper blades. I'm going to try out Bosch Icons I think and see how they do. Going through the best windshield wiper thread didn't reveal any one clear choice, but one-piece wipers have always done well for me in the past.
• I believe the issue with my yellow low-oil warning light coming on is due both to consumption of oil by the engine (a tiny bit is being consumed, maybe half a quart over 3,500 miles) but also that it comes on most often with sustained downhill drives. I live at around 800 feet and to get almost anywhere I have to lose elevation. If the oil level sensor points toward the rear of the car, perhaps prolonged declines incorrectly trick the sensor into thinking there is insufficient oil. Maybe not. Either way I'm replacing the sensor on the next oil change, which I will switch to Mobil1 0W-40 which I ordered from CostCo thanks to Shawn's sharp eye.

[Vas]

Skip the Bosch and get oe euro blades