Loving Every Minute - BMW E46 328i, still only 20..
Discussion
McSam said:
Cheers petrolveins, I'll have a look! Definitely sounds like the sort of thing that would appeal to me 
and I'm surprised you can get so much data from it. Excellent.
I'm at Loughborough, 3black
ah ok, i had a friend who used to go to brookes who got involved with AMS at some point i think and I'm surprised you can get so much data from it. Excellent.I'm at Loughborough, 3black
McSam said:
I wasn't sure what the limit might be but did think a temperature sensor of some sort under there could be a neat solution. It's not exactly a race car, but it'd be interesting!
I haven't looked into diagnostic systems for this car yet, I don't know what's available - do you have software for your own E46?
I drive an E36 myself and the cable is slightly different but there is a chap on M3cutters who is selling cable + software kits for around £35 - I must admit I haven't actually used mine yet as I made an erreur and ordered the E46 cable by accident - and since ordering it I haven't tried it out on the family E46 yet since the opportunity hasn't arisen yet. but did think a temperature sensor of some sort under there could be a neat solution. It's not exactly a race car, but it'd be interesting! I haven't looked into diagnostic systems for this car yet, I don't know what's available - do you have software for your own E46?
Ah, I did check your profile but forgot that while some E46s were made in '98, they weren't coupes, and the model years started in '99! Fool. I'm gonna have a read of your thread now though, looks like a decent example!
Thanks for the tip on the software, too, I'll look that up when I have more free time. Though if you decide you want to sell on your E46 cable, drop me a message
Thanks for the tip on the software, too, I'll look that up when I have more free time. Though if you decide you want to sell on your E46 cable, drop me a message
After over a year I think it's about time I updated this thread!
I'll go through what I've spent/done up to now:
Airbag sytem
The car has had an intermittent airbag warning light, which is apparently very common.. Two things can do it, one being the passenger occupancy sensor (essentially a pressure-sensitive mat in the front passenger seat which checks if anyone's there and arms their airbags if there is), and the other a phantom fault in the airbag ECU. So I got a code reader, which told me the passenger occupancy sensor was faulty, and also gave a fault for "right side airbag firing circuit".
I reset it just to see if it stayed off, but alas not
The occupancy sensor is actually a pretty expensive thing to replace, but an alternative was at hand - a small resistor plug which permanently gives the correct "passenger present" signal. This was a whole £7.43 delivered, and when installed resolved that fault code.
Unforunately, while the driver's side airbag code would go away, it would always come back within a week or so. I decided to take a look:
Door card actually comes off quite easily, but more importantly it went back on again properly too!
Voila driver's side airbag. Everything looked perfect, all wiring, harnesses and connections looked brand new. If there really was a fault, it had to be in hidden wiring or within the ECU itself. I'd read about people replacing the airbag ECU and still not stopping the fault coming back occasionally, so I decided it was going to stay.
Currently, the warning light's off and has been for three or four weeks. Occasionally it comes back, and I clear it again. There's plainly no fault in the system while the light isn't on, so I'm happy enough that everything will work as intended should it be required.
Central locking / GM5 module
I started to get strange central locking issues, where the car would always lock OK, but not necessarily unlock at first time of asking. You could open the driver's door with the key when this happened, but none of the others - not even from the inside! This started out very occasional but became more regular until it was clear a complete failure was around the corner.
Some research showed there's a general "body control" module (GM5) that's responsible for this type of thing, quite a common failure, relays in it start to suffer. A new one is something like £200 and then needs coding to your car by BMW, which didn't sound ideal, but thankfully there are many out there who will recondition them, so I removed it and got it posted.
GM5 not too bad to get to, the flat grey box:
You can actually drive the car without it, but you'll have no alarm/immobiliser/central locking, electric windows or, more worryingly in March, windscreen wipers It came back repaired and working perfectly, no problems since. Not bad for £45!
Front Brakes
Nothing major. The pads were actually alright, but the discs were pretty done for, so replaced the lot with Bosch parts. These came off far easier than the rears covered earlier in the thread!
Nasty, who can tell how long those were on there:
Not so bad, but foolish to re-use on new discs:
Trusty assistant finishing off his side:
Cooling System
Reckon I did quite well to make it this far without having to write about the cooling system. During the car's MOT in May 2013, a negligent tester let the car overheat on the ramps. In fact, it overheated so severely the pressure punched right through the expansion tank:
The radiator didn't look too clever either, shown here removed with its dead fan:
Really shouldn't be in that half-moon kinda shape at the bottom.. Apparently, the cooling system is semi-designed to fail by splitting the expansion tank like this. Rather there than the head gasket, anyway.. New radiator in:
New fan was duly fitted. If you have an electric fan that's failed, honestly, it's hilariously easy to replace - one Torx screw, four expanding screws, a wiring harness (all at the top end), and it just lifts out! With that done, the cooling system was perfect, even in 25'C traffic, and the car seemed to have suffered no ill effects.
Until...
I had a severe overheating problem on my way to work in December. Initially I thought the heater wasn't warming up as quick as it should, as within a mile I usually have some warmth. Then as the car reached temperature at the normal sort of point of the journey, the temp kept rising, extremely quickly and even when off load at 50mph. Clearly, no coolant flow at all. Stopped, let her cool, limped home and a couple of days of thought and testing later I diagnosed a sticking-closed thermostat.
This struck me as really, really unlikely - never having heard of one doing so, and on a car where the water pump is a known weak point - but it was the only thing that fitted all the symptoms. The 'stat comes as a complete unit:
£40 for a good replacement. It's nice and easy to get to, unlike the last one I did on an Audi V6 which required the whole front of the car off! In fact, you only need to get the inlet duct and radiator fan out of the way and it's simple. Twenty minute job. At least, it would be if the two of the four bolts weren't corroded down to little nipples of rust.. Much swearing, judicious vicegrip use and some gentle persuasion later, the bugger was free. New one in, and the problem was solved, the coolant flowed properly again. Major relief.
Presumably due to the temperatures reached in this particular failure, the radiator top hose developed a very fine split that meant it would dump some coolant when hot, so replaced that with a nice Febi one, and all was well in the world again.
Compression Test
A short time after this overheating problem I realised the car seemed to be using a hell of a lot more fuel. My commute is especially bad for it (10 miles with 14 roundabouts each way..) and the cold wouldn't have helped, but nevertheless it seemed excessive, around 25mpg did not impress me. I wasn't sure whether my mind was convincing me of a loss of power or not, but it did seem to be lacking something. I also had a strange tapping/popping sort of noise at idle, which sounded to me about the right frequency to be one cylinder on its power stroke (~4 pops per second). I started to doubt the integrity of the head gasket. So I bought myself a compression tester, and just this morning had a go.
Most of the plugs were looking pretty good:
But number 3 cylinder's plug wasn't even finger tight, in fact it was about half a turn loose. And it (and its coil) didn't look so happy:
Proceeded with the test, and here are my results, vs. a minimum of 142-156psi for the M52 engine and a maximum permissible variation of 7psi:
No. 1 - 192psi
No. 2 - 193psi
No. 3 - 191psi
No. 4 - 192psi
No. 5 - 191psi
No. 6 - 195psi
That looks great to me, which has pleased me no end and on firing back up afterwards, the idle noise had disappeared, and she seems considerably smoother.
If you're reading this and fancy a compression test on your E46, I can easily post a how-to, but the important points are to diable the fuel system (I pulled the fuel pump fuse (#53) with the car running and let it empty the lines until it coughed and stopped), and uniquely to the E46 remove the DME relay. This disables the ignition system, which is sensible enough, but you must do so by removing this relay (sky-blue, in the box in the top right of the engine bay). If you don't, cranking the car repeatedly with no fuel supply and the coils disconnected can apparently cause serious damage to electronic control modules. Like this, I was absolutely fine and had no engine lights on restart.
Well, that turned into a mega long post.. Congratulations on making it to the bottom
Next on the list is another service, oil, filters and possibly coolant too. After that, I'm considering reconditioning the VANOS - the seals perish, and as a result the engine can't adapt the timing quickly enough as you accelerate through the lower ranges. That's kinda what the car spends its life doing on my commute, so if they're knackered, I'd be losing a lot of power, response and fuel to it. Improvements of 5mpg are not unheard of, so seems worth looking at!
More photos of the car, rather than just the bits of it that are broken, to come soon
I'll go through what I've spent/done up to now:
Airbag sytem
The car has had an intermittent airbag warning light, which is apparently very common.. Two things can do it, one being the passenger occupancy sensor (essentially a pressure-sensitive mat in the front passenger seat which checks if anyone's there and arms their airbags if there is), and the other a phantom fault in the airbag ECU. So I got a code reader, which told me the passenger occupancy sensor was faulty, and also gave a fault for "right side airbag firing circuit".
I reset it just to see if it stayed off, but alas not
The occupancy sensor is actually a pretty expensive thing to replace, but an alternative was at hand - a small resistor plug which permanently gives the correct "passenger present" signal. This was a whole £7.43 delivered, and when installed resolved that fault code.
Unforunately, while the driver's side airbag code would go away, it would always come back within a week or so. I decided to take a look:
Door card actually comes off quite easily, but more importantly it went back on again properly too!
Voila driver's side airbag. Everything looked perfect, all wiring, harnesses and connections looked brand new. If there really was a fault, it had to be in hidden wiring or within the ECU itself. I'd read about people replacing the airbag ECU and still not stopping the fault coming back occasionally, so I decided it was going to stay.
Currently, the warning light's off and has been for three or four weeks. Occasionally it comes back, and I clear it again. There's plainly no fault in the system while the light isn't on, so I'm happy enough that everything will work as intended should it be required.
Central locking / GM5 module
I started to get strange central locking issues, where the car would always lock OK, but not necessarily unlock at first time of asking. You could open the driver's door with the key when this happened, but none of the others - not even from the inside! This started out very occasional but became more regular until it was clear a complete failure was around the corner.
Some research showed there's a general "body control" module (GM5) that's responsible for this type of thing, quite a common failure, relays in it start to suffer. A new one is something like £200 and then needs coding to your car by BMW, which didn't sound ideal, but thankfully there are many out there who will recondition them, so I removed it and got it posted.
GM5 not too bad to get to, the flat grey box:
You can actually drive the car without it, but you'll have no alarm/immobiliser/central locking, electric windows or, more worryingly in March, windscreen wipers
It came back repaired and working perfectly, no problems since. Not bad for £45!Front Brakes
Nothing major. The pads were actually alright, but the discs were pretty done for, so replaced the lot with Bosch parts. These came off far easier than the rears covered earlier in the thread!
Nasty, who can tell how long those were on there:
Not so bad, but foolish to re-use on new discs:
Trusty assistant finishing off his side:
Cooling System
Reckon I did quite well to make it this far without having to write about the cooling system. During the car's MOT in May 2013, a negligent tester let the car overheat on the ramps. In fact, it overheated so severely the pressure punched right through the expansion tank:
The radiator didn't look too clever either, shown here removed with its dead fan:
Really shouldn't be in that half-moon kinda shape at the bottom.. Apparently, the cooling system is semi-designed to fail by splitting the expansion tank like this. Rather there than the head gasket, anyway.. New radiator in:
New fan was duly fitted. If you have an electric fan that's failed, honestly, it's hilariously easy to replace - one Torx screw, four expanding screws, a wiring harness (all at the top end), and it just lifts out! With that done, the cooling system was perfect, even in 25'C traffic, and the car seemed to have suffered no ill effects.
Until...
I had a severe overheating problem on my way to work in December. Initially I thought the heater wasn't warming up as quick as it should, as within a mile I usually have some warmth. Then as the car reached temperature at the normal sort of point of the journey, the temp kept rising, extremely quickly and even when off load at 50mph. Clearly, no coolant flow at all. Stopped, let her cool, limped home and a couple of days of thought and testing later I diagnosed a sticking-closed thermostat.
This struck me as really, really unlikely - never having heard of one doing so, and on a car where the water pump is a known weak point - but it was the only thing that fitted all the symptoms. The 'stat comes as a complete unit:
£40 for a good replacement. It's nice and easy to get to, unlike the last one I did on an Audi V6 which required the whole front of the car off! In fact, you only need to get the inlet duct and radiator fan out of the way and it's simple. Twenty minute job. At least, it would be if the two of the four bolts weren't corroded down to little nipples of rust.. Much swearing, judicious vicegrip use and some gentle persuasion later, the bugger was free. New one in, and the problem was solved, the coolant flowed properly again. Major relief.
Presumably due to the temperatures reached in this particular failure, the radiator top hose developed a very fine split that meant it would dump some coolant when hot, so replaced that with a nice Febi one, and all was well in the world again.
Compression Test
A short time after this overheating problem I realised the car seemed to be using a hell of a lot more fuel. My commute is especially bad for it (10 miles with 14 roundabouts each way..) and the cold wouldn't have helped, but nevertheless it seemed excessive, around 25mpg did not impress me. I wasn't sure whether my mind was convincing me of a loss of power or not, but it did seem to be lacking something. I also had a strange tapping/popping sort of noise at idle, which sounded to me about the right frequency to be one cylinder on its power stroke (~4 pops per second). I started to doubt the integrity of the head gasket. So I bought myself a compression tester, and just this morning had a go.
Most of the plugs were looking pretty good:
But number 3 cylinder's plug wasn't even finger tight, in fact it was about half a turn loose. And it (and its coil) didn't look so happy:
Proceeded with the test, and here are my results, vs. a minimum of 142-156psi for the M52 engine and a maximum permissible variation of 7psi:
No. 1 - 192psi
No. 2 - 193psi
No. 3 - 191psi
No. 4 - 192psi
No. 5 - 191psi
No. 6 - 195psi
That looks great to me, which has pleased me no end
and on firing back up afterwards, the idle noise had disappeared, and she seems considerably smoother. If you're reading this and fancy a compression test on your E46, I can easily post a how-to, but the important points are to diable the fuel system (I pulled the fuel pump fuse (#53) with the car running and let it empty the lines until it coughed and stopped), and uniquely to the E46 remove the DME relay. This disables the ignition system, which is sensible enough, but you must do so by removing this relay (sky-blue, in the box in the top right of the engine bay). If you don't, cranking the car repeatedly with no fuel supply and the coils disconnected can apparently cause serious damage to electronic control modules. Like this, I was absolutely fine and had no engine lights on restart.
Well, that turned into a mega long post.. Congratulations on making it to the bottom
Next on the list is another service, oil, filters and possibly coolant too. After that, I'm considering reconditioning the VANOS - the seals perish, and as a result the engine can't adapt the timing quickly enough as you accelerate through the lower ranges. That's kinda what the car spends its life doing on my commute, so if they're knackered, I'd be losing a lot of power, response and fuel to it. Improvements of 5mpg are not unheard of, so seems worth looking at!
More photos of the car, rather than just the bits of it that are broken, to come soon
I'm not sure about the rear end in general - I am detecting a slight bit of uncertainty in its response to sudden inputs, but most of the time it's fine. I can't be sure whether it's a change in my car, or the fact that I've been evaluating a lot of brand-new ones recently and its usual characteristic might stand out in contrast!
I'll take a good look around when I service it. It's unfortunate that I'm only really using the car for commuting at the moment, little chance to stretch her legs, maybe I should plan a bit of a drive soon..
I'll take a good look around when I service it. It's unfortunate that I'm only really using the car for commuting at the moment, little chance to stretch her legs, maybe I should plan a bit of a drive soon..
Cheers Sav!
Service time today. This is actually the first car I've kept long enough for it to need a second service, that made me realise I must rather like it
Not a huge amount of space to work in here, but it'll do:
Sump nut came off nicely, it was on tight but not overtight. Seeing as I'm the one who put it there, I was glad about that! The access hatch in the undertray is perfect, no idea why other manufacturers design undertrays to be fully removed for oil changes. Equally excellent is the oil filter housing on the front & top of the engine bay.
I'd noticed during the compression test last month that the cabin filter was well buggered, so I changed that while the oil was draining. This surprised me after only 18 months and 15k:
Old vs new, bloody hell..
The oil draining's down to a trickle by now, but time enough to get the K&N open air filter off. I've decided to revert back to the standard airbox for now - in my daily commute there's little benefit to having a beautifully howling top end, and until I get my fabricated heatshield in, it's going to be suffering a lot of soak from the engine. So back to OEM we go..
This is rather nicer. Yes, some of the resonant urge in the midrange is gone and the top end is a shade muted, but in normal use it's quieter and doesn't make the annoying faint hiss that the open filter generates on part load.
Next up, front end auxiliary drive belts. Yes, plural, I didn't realise this before looking but it turns out BMW decided to have a common belt for all M52s to power the water pump, alternator and PAS pump, and then add an extended pulley and another belt for the air con where fitted, which is a new one on me. Here they be:
I faced these with some trepidation, having no idea how long they'd been on, but it turns out BMW saw fit to put little plastic covers over the tensioners, so they were in perfect nick, and with a T50 bit on my 3/8 ratchet they moved easily. The lower left one, for the air con, was dead easy and I was really pleased with myself.. until I realised the longer one could only come off past it, so it needed to come off again
The A/C belt (left) looked OK, but the main one (right) was rather more tired and I was very glad to be changing it.
Oil filter housing cleaned up and new O-ring and filter installed, new sump washer swapped in (though the old one looked good so kept that in the toolbox), torqued up, back on the deck, and 6.5 litres later...
She's ready to go!
Drove beautifully, and idles noticeably quieter with the belts replaced. I think various coolant spillages and years of ageing had them slipping quite regularly. Happy with my Sunday's work, anyhow! Researching changing the VANOS seals as my next job.
Service time today. This is actually the first car I've kept long enough for it to need a second service, that made me realise I must rather like it
Not a huge amount of space to work in here, but it'll do:
Sump nut came off nicely, it was on tight but not overtight. Seeing as I'm the one who put it there, I was glad about that! The access hatch in the undertray is perfect, no idea why other manufacturers design undertrays to be fully removed for oil changes. Equally excellent is the oil filter housing on the front & top of the engine bay.
I'd noticed during the compression test last month that the cabin filter was well buggered, so I changed that while the oil was draining. This surprised me after only 18 months and 15k:
Old vs new, bloody hell..
The oil draining's down to a trickle by now, but time enough to get the K&N open air filter off. I've decided to revert back to the standard airbox for now - in my daily commute there's little benefit to having a beautifully howling top end, and until I get my fabricated heatshield in, it's going to be suffering a lot of soak from the engine. So back to OEM we go..
This is rather nicer. Yes, some of the resonant urge in the midrange is gone and the top end is a shade muted, but in normal use it's quieter and doesn't make the annoying faint hiss that the open filter generates on part load.
Next up, front end auxiliary drive belts. Yes, plural, I didn't realise this before looking but it turns out BMW decided to have a common belt for all M52s to power the water pump, alternator and PAS pump, and then add an extended pulley and another belt for the air con where fitted, which is a new one on me. Here they be:
I faced these with some trepidation, having no idea how long they'd been on, but it turns out BMW saw fit to put little plastic covers over the tensioners, so they were in perfect nick, and with a T50 bit on my 3/8 ratchet they moved easily. The lower left one, for the air con, was dead easy and I was really pleased with myself.. until I realised the longer one could only come off past it, so it needed to come off again
The A/C belt (left) looked OK, but the main one (right) was rather more tired and I was very glad to be changing it.
Oil filter housing cleaned up and new O-ring and filter installed, new sump washer swapped in (though the old one looked good so kept that in the toolbox), torqued up, back on the deck, and 6.5 litres later...
She's ready to go!
Drove beautifully, and idles noticeably quieter with the belts replaced. I think various coolant spillages and years of ageing had them slipping quite regularly. Happy with my Sunday's work, anyhow! Researching changing the VANOS seals as my next job.
Edited by McSam on Sunday 2nd February 18:15
St. Anger said:
Holy thread resurrection! I'm looking at buying one of these next week, how are you getting on with it?
Ah, I fear I'm too late! Sorry I didn't notice your reply, did you take the plunge in the end? I hope so, because I still have nothing but praise for this car, no competition at this price point.If you're still looking, I can give plenty of buying advice, having had most of the common issues by now
Heh, very nice - I find myself in a similar situation now, but with two 328is instead! The stiff, hard E36 for tracks and the comparatively lovely, soft and quiet E46 for road
A minor update - it's often mentioned on here that you should only ever fit original BMW thermostats, with these engines being very sensitive to overheating and the cooling systems in general being a weak point. You know what? They're right.
I fitted a Cirocli thermostat from Euro Car Parts as a matter of emergency when mine stuck closed back in November, and you know what, it's already failed. It became unreliable and then stuck open completely within about 500 miles, obviously right before going on a 1200 mile trip to and around Scotland, why not.. A proper replacement is now installed. Thanks to this car having (oddly, by all accounts) an electric radiator fan rather than a viscous coupling, it was a pretty quick job and all seems well again.
Here's some photos from a great run alongside BorkFactor's 328i. We stopped off at Fyvie Castle for a look, and did this rather wonderful route. It's always a pleasure to show this car some good roads, it still performs admirably!
A minor update - it's often mentioned on here that you should only ever fit original BMW thermostats, with these engines being very sensitive to overheating and the cooling systems in general being a weak point. You know what? They're right.
I fitted a Cirocli thermostat from Euro Car Parts as a matter of emergency when mine stuck closed back in November, and you know what, it's already failed. It became unreliable and then stuck open completely within about 500 miles, obviously right before going on a 1200 mile trip to and around Scotland, why not.. A proper replacement is now installed. Thanks to this car having (oddly, by all accounts) an electric radiator fan rather than a viscous coupling, it was a pretty quick job and all seems well again.
Here's some photos from a great run alongside BorkFactor's 328i. We stopped off at Fyvie Castle for a look, and did this rather wonderful route. It's always a pleasure to show this car some good roads, it still performs admirably!
I may be wrong (sure I'm not) but the m50 mani mod is only for e36. U need m50 mani from 2.5 and fit it to 2.8. They don't fit e46. Oh and I know on e36 the Thermostat housing splints so need a metal one so with the water pump and they can go, not sure of its same with e46
Edited by dazz1871part2 on Tuesday 9th September 20:39
dazz1871part2 said:
I may be wrong (sure I'm not) but the m50 mani mod is only for e36. U need m50 mani from 2.5 and fit it to 2.8. They don't fit e46. Oh and I know on e36 the Thermostat housing splints so need a metal one so with the water pump and they can go, not sure of its same with e46
You're half right about the inlet manifolds - the M50 part doesn't marry up to E46 M52TUB28s very well, the twin VANOS design is quite different. What you can do, however, is fit the manifold from the M54 in a 330i, this fits OK with a throttle body adapter plate and gives the same (if not better) results. Now I have my track toy E36 as well I don't feel too much need for more power but that would be on the list!The whole cooling system is a bit dodgy on E46 too, but mine has had everything except the water pump and lower radiator hose replaced. All E46 M52s have plastic thermostat housings which seem pretty robust - I haven't managed to break any of the three I've handled - but you can't remove the actual thermostat from the housing without breaking it, so you have to replace the whole lot which is annoying. My E36 is an aluminum housing
Thanks very much, I'll bear that in mind selling up isn't on the cards yet, and you might have to fight my mum for it since she's grown rather fond of this car, but if I get her a nice 320d cab instead then she might be satisfied!
I just realised I forgot to put anything in here about replacing the front lower wishbone rear bushes. While the car had been driving just fine, there was perhaps some deadness to the initial steering response and I noticed uneven tyre wear. I went to get the geometry checked out and found that the rear was a little off (toeing in excessively), but the front was pretty.. "mobile"! The right-hand lower wishbone rear bush was shot, and the left looked like it might not be far behind.
A bit of research showed that these are extremely common failures, and that the best options are Meyle HD for a very high quality rubber replacement, or poly for weightier steering response and maximum durability. I went down the Powerflex route since I don't have access to a press, and thought it would be much easier to fit. As a bonus, the pair cost about as much as one Meyle part!
After some inspection I reckoned I'd be able to achieve this without removing the wishbone from the car, which was useful as some of the bolts looked like no fun at all. After removing a great big steel crossbrace and unbolting the "lollipops" that house these bushes, here we are:
Fortunately everything so far had been very tight, but did at least undo without objection so that was a nice start. Next, enter my super-special bush removal tool:
This worked a treat, highly recommended. What's not recommended is the colossal ballache of trying to remove the old bush from the lollipop housing.. They're filled with oil, which will spurt everywhere when you pierce them, and have a steel collar around them so forcing them out is not an option. In the end, I had to take them over to a mate with a vice.. We burnt them out, which was quite satisfying but made a hell of a mess:
Then set to with the vice and a hacksaw to get the steel collar out..
This leaves us with the lollipop, shown here after a bit of wire-brushing to get the worst of the inevitable burrs off it. My strong advice, even if you're fitting poly bushes, would be to get some replacement lollipops for this job because removing the old bushes made it such a pain, and it would have been barely half an hour per side to simply swap in new parts.
50 PH-points to anyone who can ID the stray centre cap in the background there
Thankfully the Powerflex bushes were correct and slotted in OK with the vice, would have been tight but probably doable without it. And they mated up rather nicely back onto the car:
The results were very impressive, the vagueness was gone and it made me realise just how pronounced it must have been before. The car now turns in sharply, feels more responsive and the steering has weighted up significantly - in fact it's now heavier than the E36 and feels really rather lovely alignment all sorted and it's been fine for a few thousand miles since. Recommended for any high-miler E36/46s out there.. But for God's sake get new lollipops!
selling up isn't on the cards yet, and you might have to fight my mum for it since she's grown rather fond of this car, but if I get her a nice 320d cab instead then she might be satisfied!I just realised I forgot to put anything in here about replacing the front lower wishbone rear bushes. While the car had been driving just fine, there was perhaps some deadness to the initial steering response and I noticed uneven tyre wear. I went to get the geometry checked out and found that the rear was a little off (toeing in excessively), but the front was pretty.. "mobile"! The right-hand lower wishbone rear bush was shot, and the left looked like it might not be far behind.
A bit of research showed that these are extremely common failures, and that the best options are Meyle HD for a very high quality rubber replacement, or poly for weightier steering response and maximum durability. I went down the Powerflex route since I don't have access to a press, and thought it would be much easier to fit. As a bonus, the pair cost about as much as one Meyle part!
After some inspection I reckoned I'd be able to achieve this without removing the wishbone from the car, which was useful as some of the bolts looked like no fun at all. After removing a great big steel crossbrace and unbolting the "lollipops" that house these bushes, here we are:
Fortunately everything so far had been very tight, but did at least undo without objection so that was a nice start. Next, enter my super-special bush removal tool:
This worked a treat, highly recommended. What's not recommended is the colossal ballache of trying to remove the old bush from the lollipop housing.. They're filled with oil, which will spurt everywhere when you pierce them, and have a steel collar around them so forcing them out is not an option. In the end, I had to take them over to a mate with a vice.. We burnt them out, which was quite satisfying but made a hell of a mess:
Then set to with the vice and a hacksaw to get the steel collar out..
This leaves us with the lollipop, shown here after a bit of wire-brushing to get the worst of the inevitable burrs off it. My strong advice, even if you're fitting poly bushes, would be to get some replacement lollipops for this job because removing the old bushes made it such a pain, and it would have been barely half an hour per side to simply swap in new parts.
50 PH-points to anyone who can ID the stray centre cap in the background there
Thankfully the Powerflex bushes were correct and slotted in OK with the vice, would have been tight but probably doable without it. And they mated up rather nicely back onto the car:
The results were very impressive, the vagueness was gone and it made me realise just how pronounced it must have been before. The car now turns in sharply, feels more responsive and the steering has weighted up significantly - in fact it's now heavier than the E36 and feels really rather lovely
alignment all sorted and it's been fine for a few thousand miles since. Recommended for any high-miler E36/46s out there.. But for God's sake get new lollipops! McSam said:
A minor update - it's often mentioned on here that you should only ever fit original BMW thermostats, with these engines being very sensitive to overheating and the cooling systems in general being a weak point. You know what? They're right.
I fitted a Cirocli thermostat from Euro Car Parts as a matter of emergency when mine stuck closed back in November, and you know what, it's already failed. It became unreliable and then stuck open completely within about 500 miles, obviously right before going on a 1200 mile trip to and around Scotland, why not.. A proper replacement is now installed.
Count yourself lucky, I had a thermostat from the same place mainly because I can't get one anywhere else (seriously, always get the revised version which doesn't fit) set my car on fire, which was nice. I fitted a Cirocli thermostat from Euro Car Parts as a matter of emergency when mine stuck closed back in November, and you know what, it's already failed. It became unreliable and then stuck open completely within about 500 miles, obviously right before going on a 1200 mile trip to and around Scotland, why not.. A proper replacement is now installed.
sparks_E39 said:
If the E46 is anything like the E39 then you should only use oem or BMW parts for most things. Buy cheap, buy twice. Especially when it comes to the cooling system.
This always, brakes, coolant system, basically just buy everything from BMW, I am still struggling to find the crack stat for mine so opted to change stat and use original housing.Don't buy cheap s
t parts for them, BMW parts are just as reasonable in price, sometimes cheaper and they actually work, and don't buy cheap radiator caps either, buy a BMW for the same price as anywhere else as they work.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff