Hi there long time lurker that is now finally getting my car sorted. So I have owned this car since 2011. I used it to drive to my wedding and love the thing. A year ago I got a job where I do 40,000 miles a year so the bmw was laid up and has sat unloved for a year and isn't looking her best. I fitted a new battery pumped up the tyres and she sprang into life a little rough running but that was to be expected and soon cleared. I took it for an mot and surprisingly it went straight through
Today was time to open more boxes, the Mayle HD arms and ARB link rods had arrived along with a new headlight washer ram for the passenger side.
First fail of the day was the front central jacking point, I think I need a bigger wooden block or something because it just crushed in.
[url="http://imageshack.com/a/img905/6420/mrTHer.jpg"]http://imageshack.com/a/img905/6420/mrTHer.jpg[/url]
So up it went on the side jacking points with the stands on the main chassis rails, Out with the headl
I thought I had better create my first ever blog to document the work which I am doing to my cheap E46 touring and have a little grumble about the thing without cluttering up the forum.
Despite all the car's faults and niggles, I love the thing and have committed myself to keeping it for 4 years, am I mad? Well my Idea of fun is spanking the stuffing out of a motorbike on a track day so probably, slightly.
The work so far...
Cooling system refresh
Radiator - replaced with a Hella item
In amongst the work on the 330d Touring, I have recently acquired a cheeky little Skoda Fabia VRS with the idea of using it as my daily. As a result, the 320d will shortly be put up for sale. With that in mind, I will probably carry out an oil service and stick another 12 months MOT on it as its due in the next couple of months. Then its just a case of giving it a very good clean!
Its been a good car and has certainly served its purpose, I just don't need a saloon car as my daily any more an
Feels like de ja vu doing all of this again albeit on a different E46!
A couple of weeks back I sourced new Sachs M Sport shocks all round, Lemforder top mounts, Lemforder tie rod ends and a replacement upper steering union joint from a low mileage compact. And as with the 320d I also bought some Eibach Pro Kit springs.
Finally got round to working on the Touring this weekend and started with the rear setup as its easier. Annoyingly the Touring requires half the interior boot trim to be
I bought the Touring in readiness for baby number two.
I checked a couple out before going for this one and I'm glad I held out. It came up for reasonable money to start with but I highlighted a couple of issues during the test drive and managed to get another £300 off the price so a good buy. Issues being a knocking from the front end suspension and a problem getting into 5th gear.
First job was to replace the front lower arms as one of them was causing a massive rattle and play in the
No updates for ages.
Since the last update I have acquired BMW number 4 - in my defence this one is purely to act as engine donor to my E30. Its an E36 328i Touring which has seen better days. Engine runs well though so thats all that matters.
I still have the 320D... Its being used as my daily as so far I haven't gotten around to replacing it. I have my heart set on a Fabia VRS though so its only a matter of time before it gets replaced.
My noisy engine hasn't re-emerged any time re
Hi folks I just thought that I would share this with you all with it being my first Blog.
I currently drive a 330D M57 engined e46 on a 2002. I have had a few issues over the years to include a worn injector causing a wobble on tickover and recent lift pump failure. The lift pump was easy to diagnose as I couldnt hear it when I operated the ignition, I even tried all of the keys to rule out the immobiliser. A new BOSCH unit sorted that fault.
The random non start issue was difficlut to
took my friend to a car park where I prity much taught most of my friends who actually graduated to driving only to find a travellers cam and little humps all over the car park..
I gave them some doughnuts in exchange
A lot has happened since my last update. I don't think I've done much to the car as such but work and home situations have changed so we have bought a 2002 330d Sport Touring (another baby on the way)
I also left the company I worked with so said bye bye to my nice company car Audi. Currently the plan is for the wife to use the Touring as her daily (this car needs a whole new blog of its own!) and I will either use the 320d for commuting or sell it and get something else.
In other news,
Hi guys,
I've recently had issues regarding my parking sensors, all were ticking correctly apart from one. *Each time I put it in reverse it beeps for 5 seconds) removing the back bumper from my car I discover that that one of the 4 cables from the loom isn't outputting anything, which is why the forth sensor isn't working. As a result I have ordered a replacement cable loom for the sensors. Can anyone advise when this loom plugs into the car? I attempted to follow the cables back but had no
After finally sourcing a 14mm Draper drain plug key socket bit I found the time to do the oil refresh.
The diff was very straight forward, I made sure that the fill plug came out first before draining and all went to plan. I thought the oil looked good as it poured out a kind of golden syrup colour. It wasn't until I opened the bottle of new oil that I realised that the new stuff is pretty much clear! So well worth doing.
Gearbox needed the cover removing and the fuel filter cover partiall
Today I finally got around to ordering some gearbox and diff oil.
For anyone interested, I went with the following:
2 litres of Fuchs TITAN SINTOFLUID SAE 75W-80 Manual Transmission Fluid MTF 75W80
1 litre of Fuchs TITAN SINTOPOID SAE 75W-90 Synthetic Gear Oil 75W90
All for just over £30 delivered via OpieOils on eBay (worked out cheaper via eBay even with club discounts etc)
I just need to source a 14mm hex key now.
In other news...
I plugged the car into INPA and cleared
Well this is my first blog.....EVER!
Firstly I just wanna say this site is much better than another site I am a member of which I now rarely use. The members on here are far more supportive and helpful so thank you.
I rarely get a chance to get on t'internet due to work so I'm not ignoring anyone.
So I bought my car as when I had my 328i e36 touring I wanted a black 330i touring sport e46 with black leather and everything black and as many nice options as I could. Took me 3 years to find
Its been a while since my last update.
I'd like to say the car has been running flawlessly without a hitch, unfortunately if I did I would be lying.
Since the suspension refresh the ride has certainly improved, I still have a slight dead spot in the steering which bugs me but for now I am living with it.
The main issue I've had has been of the annoying intermittent variety, which only occurs when the car is warm (not cold or hot). It feels like a misfire and occurs around 2k, after a wh
Firstly - a disclaimer: I am clearly not a mechanic and not very capable. If you do what i do and it goes terribly wrong then do not blame me. The tools that i generally use are a hammer, pry bars and an angle grinder so think baboon with power tools and you'll not be far wrong. It will not be neat or pretty but hopefully functional and i'll learn bits as i go along...
To be honest the 328 sounded a bit weedy and had hardly any noise at all.
On my previous 325 i had taken off the huge a
Over the weekend, i completed a swirl flap delete which i was very shocked as normally the only tools i would use would be an angle grinder and hammer.
Took around 4/5 hours to do and some of the fiddely things were a right pain getting it back together but all in all really good.
It felt good to save £150 odd quid and also have the knowledge that i actually managed to do it myself!
I also gave the engine bay a good clean with degreaser and cleaned it all up! Looks really great now
Rubbish blog title, couldn't think of anything else.
The plan this weekend was to replace all four shock absorbers. I sourced some well priced Sachs OEM shocks and they arrived in time for fitting on Saturday.
As expected, the rears went on with ease. One nut at the bottom, and one at the top (once you get through the boot liner).
The fronts, in theory, are quite straight forward compared to other cars I've worked on. However, this is only in theory....in reality its a different matt
So after a weekend of fun with the steering rack I spent yesterday afternoon dropping the rack for a second time to correctly centre the steering rack and steering wheel. After a couple of attempts I managed to get the steering wheel roughly in the right location. Once finished I rushed off to my mates garage to get my new Uniroyal Rain Sport 3's fitted.
Today I took the car to another garage to get the wheel alignment sorted. The TC light is still on so I'm hoping that is going to reset its
I spent most of this weekend working on our recently acquired 2004 320d. Since owning the car I've noticed an issue with the handling and I think specifically the steering characteristics.
The steering feels light and twitchy at speed and heavy and slow to centre at lower speeds. I've eyeballed the usual suspension and steering components and all appear OK. The tyres are ditchfinders but the wear looks even, regardless of that I have ordered new Uniroyal Rainsport3's and they are being delive
hi im new to e46 zone because im stuck with a problem, iv got a 2001 e46 330coupe and im having trouble with the airbag light staying on, first of all i came across this problem when i first bought the car, it had cloth seats, i took them out and changed them for leather seats out of a srap front end smashed/ damaged e46 at work,
when putting in the leather seats an pluging them in, i found that on the passengers side the is a wire, one blue and one brown with a yellow connecting plug comi
I've only just joined this site as I've only just got my first bmw.. but its ace. It helped me out a lot reading all the info you guys put on here about common problems and what to look for when buying an e46.
Keep up the good work!!
Also does anyone know of any Eonon group buys going on?? Im after one.
Cheers.
