Ahoy yall
Here's last June/July til now. I fully appreciate to some this car is just "traffic" but I'd not long got rid of my dream car, a 6 cylinder, RWD, 2 door coupe and I have always liked the way e46's looked. This isn't a full restoration, it's basically replacing what it needs and maintaining it to a standard I am happy with and using it. I now understand why the seller seemed to question that I was going to drive it on the road. I think all cars deserve to have their lives prolonged where possible. Come along with me on one of the most modern cars I have ever worked on. Usually they're pre 1995.
Car : relatively low mile (these are frequently over 150k these days), cat S, 330ci, ex drift car.
Here's pictures of the car before the seller arrived. Note, camber difference side to side, odd wheels front to rear, front wing pushed back where wheel has contacted it. Lacquer peel on bonnet. You'll notice its a hotel carpark. Alarm bells were ringing but I had done a reg check en-route.
Doesn't look rusty other than where that damage has occured.
Black leather interior, not many options really, auto lights were about all I could tell, mods - hydro handbrake and steering angle because the ackerman was well out when test driving and cheap coilovers.
Cheap - with 2 months MOT. Let the fun begin.
remove steering mods and replace with factory parts. Bolts were all unmatching and not at all suited to the purpose. Inner and outer tie rods sorted.
Positive camber on Passengers side was as a result of a bent coilover lower body. I should assume this car hit a curb.
Sourced standard front hub locally with standard 330ci struts.
Roughly at this point I sourced 4 matching wheels to replace the drifters.
Some components were missing in the engine bay - namely the cabin filter housing in the centre above the engine. Sourced and fit.
I begin to investigate the many MANY lights on the dash.
I work on computers pretty much all day every day so I don't have one at home and havent faffed about on one for over a decade really - RR is usually via mobile.
Sourced a laptop and a cable, followed by a few 12 hour downloads failing and hours and HOURS (no word of a lie I spent 5-8 hour days on weekends googling and sitting in the car with the laptop on my knee for close to 6 weeks) spent on the drive wondering what the hell I'm looking at and what the car is telling me.
Turns out an ABS sensor was out amongst many other things, re calibrated the steering angle sensor. Replaced the ABS sensor. ABS pump wasnt happy, source a replacement pump, remove hydro handbrake lines and re-plum in standard lines. Code in pump... still not happy. What was up?
Weeeeeelllll it was about that time I noticed the vin on the chassis was not the same as that on the ECU. This is really what sent me into the research rabbit hole, didn't know what to google or if I would be able to have working ABS. Turns out, ABS doesn't need the matching ECU vin coded into it as all the other modules. If you look at the above photos, you'll see what I had missed "e46 SPORTWAGON"
So what was my problem? The tool I was using to code in the VIN to the car wasn't working properly and wasn't telling me it wasn't working, so had to be redownloaded.
Success was sweet the day that was fixed.
Following that another engine code : 02 band 2 sensor wasn't happy. I know BMW manifolds are a pita, a decade ago we messed about with a friends 320 so wasn't looking forward to it, got the exhaust hot with the engine running, bought a 02 tool and got under the car. curse word says I. it's the one hard up against the floor of the car above the other side of the exhaust. Manifold had to come out.
Winter came. I was out on the drive in negative numbers getting that exhaust off. Rain or shine. Those bolts FML not again. Do you see the frost? Well my central locking stopped working at some point here, so I had to start using the key to open and close the door as replacing battery in key did nothing. Lock failed. I now have 2 keys, I bought a new lock piece set to replace just the broken pieces but when swapping them over I was trying to get the spring back together and it ripped my fingers apart before yeeting some of the lock pins into the grass. I managed to find all but 1 so couldn't use the standard lock cylinder any more...huff.
I spent 4 hours getting the one closest bolt to the firewall out at the back having removed engine mount, everything above the engine, cross brace, steering coupler, evacuated the a/c and removed all that. My hands and tools were just too big. I was getting 5 degrees of motion before having to reposition. New ways to murder people were invented.
Then the bottom end, 4 bolts holding the centre section to the lower manifold. Of course the upper middle one was buggered up. Couldn't get a straight shot with the drill and too small space for grinder.
It was raining, I was unhappy getting drips up my sleeves and generally being soaked. Gave up and came back the next weekend with a new tool - finger sander.
The lord had tested me and I had won.
What next? Well, I worked through the other dash lights to this point :
Success right? RIGHT!? Closes bonnet and goes indoors to have dinner...
...next day
pull bonnet cable *ping*
"no......really" I said with a defeated tone.
pulled out the bonnet grilles to have a look around for the cable, weeeeeellllll turns out, my cables were entirely behind the slam panel with no way to get to them, usually at least one side is partially visible in there to pull on. So even after cutting a small access hole in the plastic surrounding where the cable should be I couldn't open the bonnet.
Now I'm not proud of this but needs must...
Couldnt find a bonnet locally that matched perfectly so ended up with a slightly damaged facelift bonnet. Managed to source a replacement wing for the bent one at the same time. Bolted them up, didn't align panel gaps this was just so the bonnet could open and close no problem. Done.
You know what happened next?
The bonnet release handle snapped.
I went out and bought bonnet pins - stuff it. No more damned cable troubles for me.
It was still really cold, and I recalled the last time I had run the car a few months before the radiator needed replacing as the bottom of it had hit something. Close inspection revealed a new slam panel was needed as it was just as crooked behind the bumper.
Whilst I was sourcing a slam panel, a realisation came over me that in all of this, I'd forgotten to check if the car had antifreeze in it AND IT WAS SUB ZERO OUTSIDE.
Thank my stars no core plugs were damaged, replaced the rad and slam panel, couldnt be bothered to put back in the air con at this point working on the car was really beginning to be a chore and not exciting any more.
And that was it until last month.
I thought, what more is there to do? Lets go for an MOT.
ffffffffffffaaaiiiiillllllllllll
I knew it was going to fail if I'm honest just didn't expect it to be as many things as it was. Feel free to look on .gov
Bushes, ball joints, arms, brakes, light aim. Lets go.
On the drive too and from MOT, the car was pulling power now the ABS was working. I can only guess as a result of the welded diff, I'd sourced a replacement 2.93 diff at the same time I got the bonnet last year just hadn't got round to it.
Drained, cleaned, replaced oil and "new" one in.
Following doing the front lower wishbones I started on actually fitting the brakes, Fronts - no problem.
Rears however.
What? the carrier is 5mm too small? AFTER I had cleaned it up. Id thought the guy sold me the wrong calipers. Nope. Turns out even though the car still had it's large case diff, albeit welded. Some mother-F had downgraded the rear trailing arms to 318-320 units. If I'm honest, not something you can really tell when you buy a car. I found this our as I was bolting it upto the car, the paint being removed is from me cussing and leaving the brake lines off getting fluid on the calipers. I was annoyed lets just say that. Had to go for a walk.
What does that mean, well the rear brakes were smaller.
Either... I buy new small calipers and keep the small brakes or replace the lot. I chose replace the lot.
Sourced a "new" 330ci full rear end.
broke it down to just what I needed and what I was going to sell on.
I didn't take any photos of the after because that's where I am now drivers side back together with new calipers, shoes, pads etc, waiting for new backing plates so I can refit the passenger side handbrake mech ahead of what I think is it being done?!
Do I feel like it's all been worth it? Not yet, it still largely looks like it was an ex drift car with the front bumper being scratched to all hell and with bonnet pins. I've been through the wars to get here and IF I can be bothered I'll sort those once the car is back on the road.
Somewhere in all that I did the rocker cover gasket. Crazy just how much hardware needs to come out to do it.
So now I can breathe, I think the end is near. Here's what has returned my blood down from boiling point.
Here's last June/July til now. I fully appreciate to some this car is just "traffic" but I'd not long got rid of my dream car, a 6 cylinder, RWD, 2 door coupe and I have always liked the way e46's looked. This isn't a full restoration, it's basically replacing what it needs and maintaining it to a standard I am happy with and using it. I now understand why the seller seemed to question that I was going to drive it on the road. I think all cars deserve to have their lives prolonged where possible. Come along with me on one of the most modern cars I have ever worked on. Usually they're pre 1995.
Car : relatively low mile (these are frequently over 150k these days), cat S, 330ci, ex drift car.
Here's pictures of the car before the seller arrived. Note, camber difference side to side, odd wheels front to rear, front wing pushed back where wheel has contacted it. Lacquer peel on bonnet. You'll notice its a hotel carpark. Alarm bells were ringing but I had done a reg check en-route.
Doesn't look rusty other than where that damage has occured.
Black leather interior, not many options really, auto lights were about all I could tell, mods - hydro handbrake and steering angle because the ackerman was well out when test driving and cheap coilovers.
Cheap - with 2 months MOT. Let the fun begin.
remove steering mods and replace with factory parts. Bolts were all unmatching and not at all suited to the purpose. Inner and outer tie rods sorted.
Positive camber on Passengers side was as a result of a bent coilover lower body. I should assume this car hit a curb.
Sourced standard front hub locally with standard 330ci struts.
Roughly at this point I sourced 4 matching wheels to replace the drifters.
Some components were missing in the engine bay - namely the cabin filter housing in the centre above the engine. Sourced and fit.
I begin to investigate the many MANY lights on the dash.
I work on computers pretty much all day every day so I don't have one at home and havent faffed about on one for over a decade really - RR is usually via mobile.
Sourced a laptop and a cable, followed by a few 12 hour downloads failing and hours and HOURS (no word of a lie I spent 5-8 hour days on weekends googling and sitting in the car with the laptop on my knee for close to 6 weeks) spent on the drive wondering what the hell I'm looking at and what the car is telling me.
Turns out an ABS sensor was out amongst many other things, re calibrated the steering angle sensor. Replaced the ABS sensor. ABS pump wasnt happy, source a replacement pump, remove hydro handbrake lines and re-plum in standard lines. Code in pump... still not happy. What was up?
Weeeeeelllll it was about that time I noticed the vin on the chassis was not the same as that on the ECU. This is really what sent me into the research rabbit hole, didn't know what to google or if I would be able to have working ABS. Turns out, ABS doesn't need the matching ECU vin coded into it as all the other modules. If you look at the above photos, you'll see what I had missed "e46 SPORTWAGON"
So what was my problem? The tool I was using to code in the VIN to the car wasn't working properly and wasn't telling me it wasn't working, so had to be redownloaded.
Success was sweet the day that was fixed.
Following that another engine code : 02 band 2 sensor wasn't happy. I know BMW manifolds are a pita, a decade ago we messed about with a friends 320 so wasn't looking forward to it, got the exhaust hot with the engine running, bought a 02 tool and got under the car. curse word says I. it's the one hard up against the floor of the car above the other side of the exhaust. Manifold had to come out.
Winter came. I was out on the drive in negative numbers getting that exhaust off. Rain or shine. Those bolts FML not again. Do you see the frost? Well my central locking stopped working at some point here, so I had to start using the key to open and close the door as replacing battery in key did nothing. Lock failed. I now have 2 keys, I bought a new lock piece set to replace just the broken pieces but when swapping them over I was trying to get the spring back together and it ripped my fingers apart before yeeting some of the lock pins into the grass. I managed to find all but 1 so couldn't use the standard lock cylinder any more...huff.
I spent 4 hours getting the one closest bolt to the firewall out at the back having removed engine mount, everything above the engine, cross brace, steering coupler, evacuated the a/c and removed all that. My hands and tools were just too big. I was getting 5 degrees of motion before having to reposition. New ways to murder people were invented.
Then the bottom end, 4 bolts holding the centre section to the lower manifold. Of course the upper middle one was buggered up. Couldn't get a straight shot with the drill and too small space for grinder.
It was raining, I was unhappy getting drips up my sleeves and generally being soaked. Gave up and came back the next weekend with a new tool - finger sander.
The lord had tested me and I had won.
What next? Well, I worked through the other dash lights to this point :
Success right? RIGHT!? Closes bonnet and goes indoors to have dinner...
...next day
pull bonnet cable *ping*
"no......really" I said with a defeated tone.
pulled out the bonnet grilles to have a look around for the cable, weeeeeellllll turns out, my cables were entirely behind the slam panel with no way to get to them, usually at least one side is partially visible in there to pull on. So even after cutting a small access hole in the plastic surrounding where the cable should be I couldn't open the bonnet.
Now I'm not proud of this but needs must...
Couldnt find a bonnet locally that matched perfectly so ended up with a slightly damaged facelift bonnet. Managed to source a replacement wing for the bent one at the same time. Bolted them up, didn't align panel gaps this was just so the bonnet could open and close no problem. Done.
You know what happened next?
The bonnet release handle snapped.
I went out and bought bonnet pins - stuff it. No more damned cable troubles for me.
It was still really cold, and I recalled the last time I had run the car a few months before the radiator needed replacing as the bottom of it had hit something. Close inspection revealed a new slam panel was needed as it was just as crooked behind the bumper.
Whilst I was sourcing a slam panel, a realisation came over me that in all of this, I'd forgotten to check if the car had antifreeze in it AND IT WAS SUB ZERO OUTSIDE.
Thank my stars no core plugs were damaged, replaced the rad and slam panel, couldnt be bothered to put back in the air con at this point working on the car was really beginning to be a chore and not exciting any more.
And that was it until last month.
I thought, what more is there to do? Lets go for an MOT.
ffffffffffffaaaiiiiillllllllllll
I knew it was going to fail if I'm honest just didn't expect it to be as many things as it was. Feel free to look on .gov
Bushes, ball joints, arms, brakes, light aim. Lets go.
On the drive too and from MOT, the car was pulling power now the ABS was working. I can only guess as a result of the welded diff, I'd sourced a replacement 2.93 diff at the same time I got the bonnet last year just hadn't got round to it.
Drained, cleaned, replaced oil and "new" one in.
Following doing the front lower wishbones I started on actually fitting the brakes, Fronts - no problem.
Rears however.
What? the carrier is 5mm too small? AFTER I had cleaned it up. Id thought the guy sold me the wrong calipers. Nope. Turns out even though the car still had it's large case diff, albeit welded. Some mother-F had downgraded the rear trailing arms to 318-320 units. If I'm honest, not something you can really tell when you buy a car. I found this our as I was bolting it upto the car, the paint being removed is from me cussing and leaving the brake lines off getting fluid on the calipers. I was annoyed lets just say that. Had to go for a walk.
What does that mean, well the rear brakes were smaller.
Either... I buy new small calipers and keep the small brakes or replace the lot. I chose replace the lot.
Sourced a "new" 330ci full rear end.
broke it down to just what I needed and what I was going to sell on.
I didn't take any photos of the after because that's where I am now drivers side back together with new calipers, shoes, pads etc, waiting for new backing plates so I can refit the passenger side handbrake mech ahead of what I think is it being done?!
Do I feel like it's all been worth it? Not yet, it still largely looks like it was an ex drift car with the front bumper being scratched to all hell and with bonnet pins. I've been through the wars to get here and IF I can be bothered I'll sort those once the car is back on the road.
Somewhere in all that I did the rocker cover gasket. Crazy just how much hardware needs to come out to do it.
So now I can breathe, I think the end is near. Here's what has returned my blood down from boiling point.
