E91 Straight Six Bearding

Thanks... Just taken apart the plastic and rubber jigsaw puzzle, and it's dry as a bone in there, which is good to know for peace of mind if nothing else. Hopefully it stays that way, assuming I put everything back together again correctly

That’s good news on one hand, but in the other you’re no further forward with your potential issue.

It does. Never heard of driveshafts causing the symptoms given.

Well it’s been a bank holiday and so I’ve been spending time with my best friends…




Pulling it into the garage we had a mileage moment…



After various wire brushing, rust converting and painting…




fortunately I had some silver in stock so the arch lip matches relatively versus the brown before. I felt a little smug as there wasn’t a hole in the rear arch too, just a rusty patch, so that was treated and painted too.

This should hopefully buy me some time, as we’re moving house in the next few months. I may still have a new car next year, but we’ll see. I like this one and it drives well enough, plus I have the morbid curiosity of how far it will go.

I'd be also thinking Prop / Diff / Dual Mass FW if its mechanical. My money is on the flywheel if it's manual. My friend had this with his Porsche. The old Flywheel was worn out but had been left on with a new clutch. It had almost 90 degrees of slop but when driving was felt only occasionally.

He initially chased electrical / engine sensors looking for hesitation. Then suspension looking for play. Never checked the drive shafts. He was starting to think diff - there is no prop on his car.

Like I say eventually turned out to be flywheel. You can't get anywhere close to that much slop with any of the other mechanical components. A driveshaft could maybe only have a few degrees of slop. Potentially you are adding up that few degrees from each of the 4 joints to give you 4x that few degrees but I just can't imagine how you'd feel that from the seat.

If auto I'd be asking some gearbox people if the box or torque converter can give you this symptom.

Yes I had the same with my DME, hesitation under load, turned out it was a water damaged DME, had the old one cloned to 2nd hand replacement and hesitation is gone

No, but I'm intrigued.

This is who I bought badges from. They don’t have tailgate badges. See their feedback.

More E91 fun and games.

Changed my oil today, all good.

Then went to investigate the rear fog light warning on the dash. I got off to a bad start when the tab holding the bulb assembly in place snapped off.

Then I realised the bulb was working. Then I realised it was only working with the boot open. Can you see where this is going?

Yes, it's the bloody tailgate wiring again. I've fixed it before years ago but either there's a new break in a wire, or one of my original repairs has failed. It was a pig of a job and I really don't want to do it again...

It's such an annoying design flaw.

When I repaired it previously I cut into the sheath and repaired everything there, without working my way back into the body of the car. Bit of a bodge. I'm wondering how accessible the bit just inside the body is? Would it be easier to splice in longer pieces and put one of the joins under the headliner?