What did you do for your ZHP/ BMW / MINI today? #2

[Galapolis]

She passed TÜV today. Noticed the diff is starting to leak only 3 years after sealing it, maybe it's time for a LSD?

[t.er]

Will be curious to hear if it's as advertised!

I feel it is, with some disclaimers - I don't have first-hand experience with any other fabric dye, so hard to say how this feels relative to other products.

That said after a thorough brushing it does feel soft, not as soft/fabric-ey as without dye but I assume it's to be expected.

I will say though that I really dislike the spray quality from the cans. It's not a standard spray nozzle like paint, more of like a nozzle from aerosolized sunscreen. It kept sputtering no matter what I did, which was fine for the deck since it's so absorbent - but not at all ok on my re-wrapped pillars since the alcantara fabric is super thin. It turned out fine though, since I ended up using a shop towel to wipe and spread the dye around.







And then a before and after of my A-pillars:

[BADCLOWN]

Didn’t get a chance to throw the 135s on for winter last year due to shoulder surgery but got a chance this year. Threw on the spacers/winter setup for storage and cleaned/put in storage the CHs

[t.er]

My battery is just shy of 10 years - was hoping to get it past that mark but alas it kicked the can. It was fine, right up until... it wasn't. Noticed the starter wasn't as powerful and the battery was at 11.9V, then the next day it was down to 9.5V.

All I had was a crappy 40 year old charger with zero buttons, just hook up and go - had it on the charger for 7 hours and it still didn't start, which threw a wrench in my plans to change it in the Costco parking lot. I'm so glad to have a top box on my bike:





Unfortunately no pic but pro tip, don't forget to extract the vent plug from the old OE battery. Both the new Interstate I have and the old OE battery has 2 vents, so you just plug the one that is closest to the ground.

[fredo]

^ good thing this happened at home and not in the middle of nowhere.

[t.er]

^ good thing this happened at home and not in the middle of nowhere.

Would've been pretty crappy if it happened on my cross-country road trip!

[Will]

Changed front brakes and flushed fluid. Zimmerman rotors, Jurid pads, ATE fluid. The OE BMW pads are Jurid. But the replacements didn't have pad shim/plate on the outboard pad. So far so good, pads/rotors wearing evenly, and initial bite when cold is indistinguishable to OE BMW.

Also fixed the wheel well to bumper plastic cover, replaced a couple screws up top and the bottom was broken so zipped tied it for now.

[BMWCurves]

Are those the bottles the progression of the color of fluid as you did the brake flush?

[Will]

Are those the bottles the progression of the color of fluid as you did the brake flush?

Pretty much, yes. Here's the order I flushed, and the corresponding bottle:

1) Pass Rear: far left bottle;
2) Driver's Rear: 2nd bottle from left;
3) Pass Front: 2/3 bottle 3rd from left;
4) Driver's Front: remaining 1/3 of bottle 3rd from left and then the 4th bottle from L.
5) Driver's Front: bottle on the right, to ensure the fluid coming out was clean.

The color would have been a little bit darker for each bottle, but there's some dilution by the clean fluid towards the end of each flush. 4 year old fluid (not proud of that). But glad to report the brake pedal feels good.

In retrospect, it would have made more sense to use 1 bottle per corner and use a clean / empty bottle to check that the fluid pushing out each corner was clean and clear. Prob would have saved on some wasted fluid, too.

[CPHES]

01 330Ci Vert - 177k miles - new Interstate AGM battery - $169 at Costco. Replacing a Die Hard Gold that went toes up at 11 months.