Your wallet wanna die? Go buy that cheap 745

[Pastie Bloater]

Ok so the title is taken from The Game - Westside Story, seemed fitting seeing as the 745 is mentioned so much in rap (catch stunts in my 745 )

Making this post as several members have shown an interest in how deep the rabbit hole goes, mainly in how I managed to sink £12k in parts into this.
It's a very early 2002 E65 745i in toledo blue with a natural brown and dark blue interior (built 16/11/2001).
I originally bought the car in June 2015 with 132k miles (now 156k), after having owned a 2004 E46 330Ci Clubsport for years (and still do).
It was the cheapest E65 I could find at £2600 (I was doing it before it was cool), the next ones up were £4000+ with your choice of seized engine or blown gearbox (or both).
Some rather serious faults were apparent but I overlooked most, instead focusing on the high spec, odd interior colour scheme and 'potential'.
It was quite obvious the valve seals were completely gone (tons of smoke), the electronic handbrake didn't work, the brakes were completely worn out, it had very severe oil and coolant leaks and it was showing 8000 miles or 2 years overdue for servicing.
Also it had zero service history and one key
Brave pill?

I'll start adding to this post moving forward chronologically, with my original ownership for 1 year until June 2016 (12k miles, £6k spent) and then when I re-acquired it in July 2020 to now (1000 miles. another £6k spent).
Should mention I've done 99% of the work myself, only been in to BMW once to code a new steering wheel clock spring (£500 all in).

Please excuse the low quality photos from back in the day:

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Friday 19th November 07:18

[Pastie Bloater]

B'stard Child said:

ZX10R NIN said:

Oh wow this is going to be special & require a drink.

For the OP?

Have one for me, I don't even drink

[Pastie Bloater]

Here's the VIN breakdown (and some notes):

Prod. Date 2001-11-16
Type 745i
Series E65 (7 Series)
Body Type Saloon
Steering Right Hand Drive
Engine N62
Displacement 4.4
Power 245kw / 333hp
Drive HECK
Transmission Automatic
Colour Toledo-blau metallic (482)
Upholstery Leather "Nasca"/natural brown (U6NG)

Editions And Packages
S785 White Direction Indicator Lights

Comfort And Interior Equipment
S453 Climate-Controlled Seats, Front
S428 Warning Triangle And First Aid Kit
S431 Interior Mirror With Automatic-Dip
S416 Roller Sun Visor, Rear Lateral
S415 Sun-Blind, Rear
S441 Smoker Package
S494 Seat Heating Driver/Passenger
S460 Comfort Seat, Rear, Electr.Adjustable
S488 Lumbar Support, Driver And Passenger
S456 Comfort Seat With Memory
S423 Floor Mats Velours
S438 Fine Wood Trim
S442 Drink Holder
S496 Seat Heating, Rear
S454 Climate-Controlled Seats, Rear

Multimedia
S677 HiFi System Professional DSP - Logic 7 surround sound system with 13 speakers and 2 subs
S672 CD Changer For 6 CDs - in dash
S650 CD Drive - in dash
S601 TV Function - analogue
S630 Car Phone With Cordless Receiver - in a dash tray, couldn't get this working so put a storage tray there
S609 Navigation System Professional - has never worked, was causing MOST bus issues so looped it out of the fibre optic ring, unit needs replacing

Driver Assistance And Lightning
S521 Rain Sensor - auto lights and wipers
S508 Park Distance Control (PDC) - auditory/visual front and rear
S534 Automatic Air Conditioning - dual zone
S522 Xenon Light - xenon headlights with angel eyes, main beams halogen
S502 Headlight Cleaning System

Wheels And Drive
S245 Steering Wheel Column Adjustment,Electr.
S229 Dynamic Drive - hydraulic anti roll bars (stay tuned)
S216 Hydro Steering-Servotronic - speed sensitive power steering
S202 Steptronic - auto/sport/manual gearbox modes, buttons on steering wheel, column shifter
S268 BMW LA Wheel, Star Spoke 95

Environment And Safety
S863 Dealer List Europe
S812 National Version Great Britain
S302 Alarm System
S877 Omission Of Non-Combined Operation
S323 Soft-Close-Automatic Doors
S850 Dummy-SALAPA
S853 Language Version, English
S880 On-Board Literature, English
S316 Automatic Trunk Lid Mechanism
S261 Side Airbags For Rear Passengers - door and curtain

Other Equipment
S998 Startup Control, Internal Demand
S169 EU3 Exhaust Emissions Standard

A lot of these are standard equipment but the main take away options are:

Electrically adjustable heated and cooled memory seats in the front and back.
Rear and side window roller blinds.
Soft close doors (not 'comfort access').
Hydraulic power boot lid.
Rear door and curtain air bags like the front.
Logic 7 sound system.
Dynamic drive means no body roll.

There was more options available like EDC, keyless entry (comfort access), radar cruise control, auto dimming wing mirrors, rear air suspension and an actual fridge on the li's etc. but these all make those particular things 5x or more expensive to fix (auto dimming wing mirror glass? £415 each to you sir).

I'll also go over some lesser-known features, like the air-conditioned centre arm rest storage compartment, perfect for keeping drinks or a Magnum cold

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Tuesday 4th May 20:51

[Pastie Bloater]

Starjet99 said:

£12k for 24k miles? Yikes. Looking forward to this!

Hmm 50p a mile in parts
At £1.10 a litre and 18mpg average that's 27p a mile
So 77p a mile together
That's equivalent to straight 6.3mpg in cost, over 24000 miles
At least it sounds good without the back box

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Tuesday 4th May 22:51

[Pastie Bloater]

I know I said chronological order but to give a flavour of the absurd complexity lurking within we can take a look at the REAR comfort seats. How complex can they be?
Well seeing as they are heated, cooled, 18 way electric adjustable with lumbar and memory, pretty complex.
They have the same adjustments as the front seats except for side bolsters and you can control the front passenger seat to move it forward (touted on the newest 7 series yes yes)

I took these out recently to fix the lumbar pumps, could just hear a clicking. One of the left side fans is also very noisy (my secret shame). Luckily everything else was working.
Also to give them a very thorough scrub and restore the faded parts with Colourlock dye in the correct colour natural brown, which is much darker than the beige option and has all the other interior trim pieces colour coded to match too (well the ones that aren't dark blue anyway).
I got the lumbar pumps working by applying 12V from an old router power supply and hitting them with a screwdriver handle (classic), started working straight away. So I added a drop of oil to each bearing and a bit of new grease to the pump internals. At £218 each from BMW this was a result.
Now they're working I need to find the noisy fan and apply the Colourlock.

As they are heated and cooled, which is just fans, the cooling works great with the air con on low. Or if you put both on it supercharges the heating, it's like sitting on a toaster.

Controls, you select the seat part then move the knob in 8 ways or twist
The reset button comes in handy when people leave them however



2 seats removed, it's just foam and leather right?
Well I'm a 15 stone pastie bloater and can just about move each of these about, will weigh one before I put them back



Good grief



Base height/tilt mechanism



At front is a motor for the leadscrews which moves the carriages forwards/backwards, to enable reclining
At rear is lumbar pump and valve block, 2 outputs for separate upper and lower lumbar



So many wires going into an arse cushion alone
Left to right: fans, heating, seat occupancy sensor



Fan close up



Arse fan layout, 3 fans
These are thoughtfully laid out as a gentleman would desire



Backrest is more of the same



Attachment 4 bar link and backrest bending mechanism, the top part bends forwards for your upper back



4 back fans with lumbar pouch at bottom



Electric head rest height adjustment and pillow
It's like an egg cup for your head
The head rests move up when you sit down (occupancy sensor)

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Wednesday 5th May 16:12

[Pastie Bloater]

mybrainhurts said:

Just spotted this thread, and a touch confused.

How the hell did you get a kitchen in a BMW?

You are confused pal that is option 493 extended storage

[Pastie Bloater]

PurpleTurtle said:

Pulls up a chair to the thread .....

What is your level of mechanical knowledge OP? Are you in the trade or a dedicated DIY-er?

Reasonably high I'm an engineer and my dad used to nut and bolt restore Rover P4s so been exposed to that from an early age.
Spent years prior to this working on my E46, so kind of knew my way round BMW, where to get parts etc.
So this as a hobby really and to get my hands dirty. I also have all the tools needed and to be fair with access to INPA/ISTA, TIS and ETK/realoem makes it a lot easier (just not on the titular wallet).

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Friday 19th November 07:09

[Pastie Bloater]

g3org3y said:

The Comfort Seats are very complex and heavy. Got them on the X5 and the driver's side 'active function' only works intermittently. Heated and cooled function work fine. Must admit, I'm not keen to try and remove to see what the issue is. According to my code reader it suggests an issue with the switch.

Switch is quite possible, my rear left cooling button is iffy, £151 for new or £60 used.
It's still iffy (way down on the pecking order).

[Pastie Bloater]

B'stard Child said:

A bit of preventative maintenance

1. Alternator bracket gasket (was pissing oil out),
2. AGA coolant pipe, (we can clearly see coolant in the valley)
3. AC Condensor, (It's farked)
4. PAS cooler, Seeing as we are there
5. low temp thermostat, (apparently an upgrade)
6. All 12 spark plugs 100K change interval (it's done 105K - apparently changed by BMW at 50K miles and I can believe that because hand tight)
7. Both rocker cover gaskets (lots of oil misting around the seal edges)
8. About 2 million other gaskets...

Needy fkers these BMW's but I've only had to go an assist once so far but I'm betting when he gets to the point of the coolant pipe removal I'll have to cut it out for him

Looks familiar the overall design of N62, N73 and Rolls-Royce 6.75 version are identical, just direct injection and cylinder count/displacement really. The Phantom and later cars were based on the E65/E66 platform so there's loads of commonality in the running gear and electrical systems.

I've also done all of these jobs, couple of notes:
1. See photo, my block didn't corrode there as it was consistently soaked in oil.
2. Is he aware the valley (around the pipe under the valley pan) is supposed to be full of coolant? It's the main return path. I did the 'toilet roll tube' fix which worked perfectly, until I replaced it with a new normal tube. Also the rear cover can/will leak next which is a gearbox off job, you can see up into that area though to look for deposits.
3. Yeah mine fell to bits when I took it out recently.
5. Just done this, Wahler 101 C vs stock 105 C, an effort to prolong seal life after a full rebuild (we'll get to that). Wahler (OEM) is cheap at ~£40 compared to the £150 'modified' ones.
6 & 7. Does he have oil down the spark plugs? Mine were full causing misfires, if doing cam cover recommend replacing spark plug tubes with new BMW ones (if you can find them) or just using lots of Permatex black top and bottom, just don't buy the Febi ones they are too small in diameter to seal (ask me how I know).

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Wednesday 5th May 17:38

[Pastie Bloater]

bungz said:

My uncle had a lower spec dag dag one of these and I thought it was sublime, felt like traveling first class everywhere even if his wasn't that fast.

Went wrong at an absolutely eye watering rate after warranty, last straw was the radio and aircon packing up and seemingly the dealers couldn't get to the bottom of either so it was punted on for a huge loss.

You mentioned the speed (or lack thereof), you might not believe me but on the move the 745 is absolutely neck and neck with my mates Audi S5 V8 (B8) at any speed, but his 0-60 is a bit quicker.

745i 4.4l 329hp 450Nm 2025kg (weighed it at the scrappies while looking for Micra bits)
S5 4.2l 350hp 440Nm 1750kg

I'm thinking these have been (and will continue to be) broken at an alarming rate, with probably the more frugal 730d's and more 'special' 760li's more likely to be kept going. Can't see many people bothering to spend the required cash on the 'middling' models when the result is a car worth nowt that does 18mpg
The proliferation of used parts to choose from on eBay is nice though.

[Pastie Bloater]

Gallons Per Mile said:

Ooh, are those rare and sought after options? I have both of those on my E90 M3! Along with blinds in the rear doors and the Logic 7 audio. I'm beginning to think the person who originally bought my car new ticked all the right boxes

Very nice options to have on an E90, it sounds like they did a good job.
I've got a big soft spot for the E90 M3 on 18s, wouldn't mind having one in 'the collection' (of 2).

[Pastie Bloater]

PurpleTurtle said:

only farming out stuff that I can't physically do (usually anything needing a ramp)

Ramp smamp
Get some pasties down you

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Thursday 6th May 11:06

[Pastie Bloater]

g3org3y said:

Sorry to derail thread, but I presume it's the whole of this that needs replacing?

Can it be done with the seat in situ or will I need to make space in the kitchen?

Yeah the switches are all in one unit on those, TIS says in-situ but if you've got a kitchen island that can take the strain of those bad boys why not. Using INPA you can activate the functions on/off to confirm it's the switch that's iffy.



Side note but what's quite rare to see generally is on the E65 there isn't a single switch/button blanking plug anywhere, all the trim pieces are custom to each option combo.

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Wednesday 5th May 22:44

[Pastie Bloater]

Not really sure how best to document the whole nearly 6 year saga, as I mentioned I can probably break it into 3 major parts:
1. When I owned the car for 1 year from June 2015 until June 2016 (12k miles, £6k spent)
2. When I sold it and what happened to it in that time (spoiler it did 11k miles trouble free).
3. How I came to own it again in July 2020 until now (1000 miles, another £6k spent).

Act 1 - Couple bands

I only paid £2600 so figured I had a bit of dosh to play with, say another £2600 to break even with a (supposed) better example. Knowing how 'notorious' these were I figured a pricier example could be superficially better but need just as much work underneath. Then again this was the only one I looked at.
The guy I bought it off also had a low spec E65 730i with curiously the venerable M54 engine (as in my 330Ci). He was keeping that one, it all makes sense in hindsight.

So after purchase and a more thorough inspection and a bit of diagnostics I figured the car had the following obvious issues:

Needs a full (full) service.
Very heavy smoke when revved after idling, none while driving.
Intermittent misfire on 1 cylinder.
Brakes all completely worn out.
Electronic handbrake not working.
Random clunking in first and second gear.
Front anti roll bar drop links rattling.
SEVERE oil leaks, basically from everywhere including the usual suspects (cam covers inc. sensors & valvetronic motors, alternator bracket, upper timing case covers, lower sump, smaller things like oil pressure sensor etc.)
Heavy coolant leak, source unknown but there are several common suspects.
Power steering / dynamic drive fluid leak.
Viscous fan clutch was locked up (sounds like an artic).
Auxiliary electric pusher fan didn't work.
Auxiliary water pump (for heater core) didn't work.
Crankcase vent hoses had been bodged (presumed vacuum leak).
Sat nav didn't work, blank screen when selected.
Sometimes the stereo would go 'pop' and lose audio.
Glove box fuse box cover was broken.
It has a detachable tow bar but the electrics didn't work, appear to have been bodged into the brake lights and then disconnected.
Battery was crap and not AGM type.
Nipple on the intake pipe was broken.
The 12-13mm tool kit spanner was missing.

I've been reasonably thorough there, there's plenty more besides which I will cover but no point going into an exact play by play of how it happened of stuff that's all in the past, all the really juicy stuff is in act 3 anyway (and ongoing too).
In the next posts I'll go over the causes and fixes (and prices) for these, which I did a lot of over the period June-December 2015. Did I mention the car only had 2 months MOT when I got it? So I prioritised likely (or guaranteed) MOT fails.
I can't seem to find many photos from this period but I've got a spreadsheet with everything I did, glad I still had it saved as the full ring binder didn't come back with the car in act 3

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Saturday 8th May 05:13

[Pastie Bloater]

The good points / first impressions / personal take:

No dash warning lights besides brake pads/handbrake (and when misfiring).
Couldn't find any rust anywhere.
The Logic 7 stereo is epic (until it goes 'pop').
Turns out It has a proper tow bar so I can use my bike rack.
Goes like stink when it's not misfiring.
The seats are supremely comfy and cooling was a revelation in sunny June weather. The dog seems to enjoy them too, especially cooled in the back with shade from the blinds too
As my first big car, first automatic and first V8 it ticked off several boxes.
Dynamic drive is amazing, there's no body roll unless you're at like 8 tenths (which it then gives you to let you know you're cooking). The difference it makes is night and day.
You get accustomed to the 'luxury' features like soft close doors, power boot lid, door brakes that you can set anywhere, auto park to hold the car while stationary in drive etc. very quickly.
The idrive has tactile feedback through the pie tin, scrolling in a list is fine but needs more obvious force to 'move over' to the next list.
As mentioned the centre arm rest storage is directly air conditioned and as a small(ish) space gets surprisingly cold, stick a cornetto in there and it's still good an hour later. Mine's just a big cavern, luckily no CD holders or phone or anything like some have.
The rear blinds keep the interior cooler when parked and keep a low sun from blinding you in the rear view mirror.
The column shifter is brilliant as it completely frees up the area where the cupholders are. But having 4 stalks takes a while to get used to.
The N62 engine feels 'zingier' or a little bit 'racier' compared to the M62, in the same way the N52 does to the M54.
People just get out of your way, whereas my E46 just seemed to attract boy (and some girl) racers.
The comfort seats side bolster adjustment is like the later E60 M5, just not active.
The headrest pillows can adjust to hold your head, it would be easy to fall asleep if you were tired (as driver or passenger).
I like/need the 2 proper cupholders, especially when compared to the E63 6 series.
The CD player and 6 disc changer only plays audio CDs, not MP3 CDs, and there's no aux in.
You can programme multiple custom cruise control speeds on the dial and just move between them.





Flash really shows the colour of the dash and wood

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Friday 19th November 07:13

[Pastie Bloater]

This post covers everything up to the MOT which was due in August 2015, which gave me 2 months to get stuff sorted.
So first things first I got the missing tool kit spanner off eBay for £4.50
I then did servicing, some prep jobs, brakes and coolant hoses.

Servicing:

• Engine oil Quantum £21.58 (this was when TPS still dealt with randoms off the street, Quantum is VW 504/507 & BMW LL04)
• Oil filter Mann £7.99
• Oil filter cap BMW £26.46 (the drain plug in the cap was rounded off)
• Air filter Mann £13.37
• Fuel filter Mahle £40.10
• Coolant BMW £20.69 + deionized water Carplan £11.70
• Brake fluid £27.60 (for the price I have this done at the garage to save messing about, there's enough to be doing as it is)
• Spark plugs checked ok (found some oil around the spark plugs, we'll come back to this)
• Cabin filters checked ok
• Drive belts checked ok
• Power steering fluid checked ok
• Gearbox and diff oils left for now
• Wiper blades BMW £37.88
• Tyres checked ok
• Wheel balancing x4 £27.79
• Wheel alignment Hunter £74.84
• Air con service/regas £35 + cleaner grenade £11.99
• All bulbs interior & exterior checked ok

(service subtotal £357.13)

MOT-related and general prep:

• Battery Varta Silver Dynamic AGM £144.40
• Front anti roll bar drop links Lemforder £33.04
• Handbrake unit and cables BMW (used) £163.18, got this off eBay.de, my unit had failed and it turned out both cables had also worn through and the inner wires had snapped, so no wonder it wasn't working.
• Ignition coil Bosch £24.95, this was to fix the intermittent misfire which worked, but we'll come back to this.
• Viscous fan clutch Behr Hella £105.00, mine had locked up and was spinning at full engine speed.
• Auxiliary pusher fan NRF £210.59, mine had failed and was diagnosed by telling it to turn on in INPA. Symptom was air con getting warm while stationary.
• Crank case vent (CCV) valves BMW £31.89, mine were fine but I changed them anyway as I'd already bought them, these are apparently a common failure point causing smoking, but mine has a much more serious smoking addiction.
• Wheel centre caps BMW £34.99
• Locking wheel bolts BMW £44.11, these are the same as McGard Ultras but black instead of silver.
• Petrol filler cap BMW £17.82, the seal had perished badly.

(prep subtotal £810.06)

I replaced all the brakes, I also did the wheel bearings too as the rear ones were noisy and the fronts are the simple bolt on type so I thought while I'm in there. Also all of the hub faces were quite corroded so helped to get a true surface for the new discs.
I had the rear bearings done by a garage as I didn't have the tools at that point, and I was choosing to not pick that battle.
One lesson I learned is to buy better quality brake springs e.g. OEM ATE, as the Mintex ones corroded heavily after a couple of years and one failed, it broke and fell out

• Front discs Brembo £63.52 348x30mm
• Front pads TRW £33.79
• Front pad wear sensor TRW £9.61
• Front pad springs Mintex £7.61
• Front wheel bearings/hubs FAG £117.93
• Rear discs Zimmermann £46.80 345x24mm
• Rear pads TRW £32.26
• Rear pad wear sensor TRW £10.01
• Rear pad springs Mintex £6.19
• Rear wheel bearings FAG £75.80 + fitting £270
• Handbrake shoes TRW £27.13
• Handbrake shoe fitting kit Braymann £8.05
• Handbrake adjusting screws BMW £25.58
• Handbrake expanding locks BMW £40.70

(brakes subtotal £311.25)
(wheel bearings subtotal £463.73)

I replaced all the coolant hoses at the front of the engine as some of the plastic parts had turned brown, they usually break very easily when they're in this state. None of them appeared to be leaking though. The water pump looked brand new (albeit apparently unbranded) so I left it alone for now. The heavy leaks are usually from the pipe that runs front to back where it seals at the timing case, this needs a special repair or serious work to deal with. Also possibly the rear cover which is inside the bellhousing, and the valley pan which is under the intake manifold. As I wasn't going to address these immediately I just kept topping it up and checked the coolant (and oil and power steering fluid) level every other day.
I replaced the failed auxiliary water pump which sends coolant up to the heater matrix with an OEM Pierburg.

• Auxiliary water pump Pierburg £55.28
• Upper rad hose BMW £62.19
• Lower rad hose BMW £46.15
• Lower rad hose temp sensor BMW £27.18
• Hose BMW (exp tank - rad) £23.76
• Hose BMW (exp tank - block) BMW £47.25
• Hose BMW (exp tank - pump) £36.18
• Hose BMW (pump - gbox cooler) £40.68
• Expansion tank cap Meyle £4.79
• Radiator drain plug BMW £7.20
• Hose clamps x2 BMW £2.95
• Hose bracket BMW £4.76

(cooling subtotal £358.37)

So the total on this first lot of jobs is £2305
I'd only managed to put about 1000 miles on it in this time as I was doing so much work on it.
It passed the MOT with these advisories:

1. Offside Rear Suspension arm has slight play in a pin/bush
2. Oil leak (no kidding, we'll take a look at that next)

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Sunday 23 May 11:12

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Tuesday 25th May 08:33

[Pastie Bloater]

Pastie Bloater said:

Rear comfort seats
took these out recently to fix the lumbar pumps
Now they're working I need to find the noisy fan and apply the Colourlock.

Feel like I've got a pretty good handle on how the seats work now, the fans are laid out as below.
For the noisy rear left fan when I put the seat back in the car I could hear all of them working, but if I put any pressure on the one in red below I can hear something catching the fan and stopping it. The fans are guarded by their metal frame on top and 'netlon' mesh below, so I'll take a look at this but should be an easy fix.
The cooling button seems to be working fine now, might have been a loose connection (I'll take it).
You can see the front seat cooling pays particular attention to a specific area, how much of this effect is physical or just psychosomatic I don't know.







This is the 'netlon', we use tubes of this stuff at work to protect machined components.



For the rear seat refurb I first cleaned them with:
1. Autoglym leather cleaner using brush
2. Magic sponge moistened with water
3. Colourlock strong leather cleaner with sponge/brush

I then applied several coats of Colourlock leather fresh dye in the correct BMW natural brown.
This really restores the original colour and finish, especially to the heavily faded headrests and any 'scuffed' areas where the leather turns white. For this perforated leather it also gets in the holes and dyes the 'edges' of the holes. This is ideal as you can't clean there and you could still see staining in the holes after cleaning, especially standing back you could tell where stains had been even though the leather surface wasn't stained.
I sprayed dry PTFE lube on/in all the moving parts to hopefully reduce any speaks and groans. Seems like they come mostly from the seats moving against the side and centre trims.





For the front seats as you can see above the driver side is really worse for wear after 156k miles, but to be fair they were in this condition when I got the car. The big hole has been caused by one of the sharp-ended upholstery 'hog rings' turning round and cutting its way through. The seat base foam has also gone, but oddly enough the specific cooled-but-not-active (aka 'massage') version is still available from BMW (£185).
So the driver seat will get new seat base foam and the leather recovered with these below I found on eBay.de.
Hard to find the covering specific to colour (duh), comfort version, heated and cooled, gets progressively rarer.
The passenger side is ok just needs the same refurb as the rears.

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Wednesday 26th May 07:10

[Pastie Bloater]

MORE?
That's only 54 rows of a 380 row spreadsheet

For pudding the Colourlock kit plus extra gubbins was £87
I used nearly all of the 150ml dye on the rear seats though
Another bottle of dye will be £25

Can definitely recommend it, but also need to get the cleaning spirit and a sanding pad:
https://www.colourlock.com/all-diy-products/kits/c...

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Sunday 23 May 10:32

[Pastie Bloater]

This post covers from the MOT in August 2015 through to the end of 2015.
Most of this is still working off the original diagnosis list with a few failures thrown in.

In terms of oil leaks basically every seal was leaking, so I thought I could separate the engine into upper and lower sections. Upper includes valve cover gaskets etc, as per list below, lower includes the 2 sump gaskets and the notorious alternator bracket gasket. It has a water cooled alternator and the bracket where this mounts to has an oil passage which goes nowhere as it doesn't have the oil cooler, but basically needs the front subframe dropping or engine out to replace (we can have a good look at this later on). So I dealt with the upper end first as I was concerned with oil getting down onto the exhaust manifolds possibly causing a fire, and the oil I found in the spark plug wells would kill the coils (see ignition coil section below too).
Someone had put red silicone gasket maker all around the hardened valve covers and spark plug tubes but there's no way this is going to work.
In terms of coolant and power steering fluid leaks they were manageable, power steering wasn't bad at all really. The coolant wasn't visibly escaping so must have been the dreaded 'valley pipe' where the leakage evaporates before it escapes out of a bleed hole. As the system has a 2 bar rad cap and 105C thermostat sometimes leaks can be hard to track down as the coolant vaporises as it leaks and very small ones won't really leave behind traces of crystals.

I bought the Febi spark plug tubes as the BMW ones are apparently not available anymore, or at least weren't when I tried to get them. There is a rubber seal moulded onto the top and bottom, what I didn't realise is the Febi ones are too small in diameter at the lower end so don't seal, we'll come back to this later.

For some reason I bought a Meyle oil pressure switch, not really sure why as I don't buy Meyle parts as I'd had several bad experiences with them on my E46. I'm gonna assume I ordered a different brand off eBay and they sent a Meyle and I couldn't be bothered to get another (I should have). They're not an OEM but heavily lean on the 'OEM quality' which I don't think is justified. The switch failed soon after fitting, which actually caused the only breakdown I've had in this car. I was driving to work one day and had an oil pressure warning, got recovered to the same local garage and they replaced it with a BMW one for £12 with £114 diagnosis and labour (ffs).
It was quite funny when I got recovered on a low loader as when I got winched on the tow bar at the back grounded out. The car was stuck until we jacked the rear end up and put some wood under the rear wheels.
On the point I find Febi parts to be hit and miss, again I greatly prefer actual OEM parts (that is for the given part e.g. Bosch coils, not Bosch oil filters). So with all the Febi parts I check them to see if they're good and worth fitting or just reboxed cheap parts, you get both situations.
For BMWs the brands I typically rely on as of today are Lemforder, TRW, Sachs, ATE, Textar, Mann, Mahle, Hengst, Continental (drive belts), Castrol, Michelin, Gates, Hella Behr, Corteco, Elring, Bosch, Wahler, Saleri, Febi. But like I said it depends on what type of parts they are too.

I replaced the bodged crank case vent hoses with the updated insulated type, my valve covers have the crank case vent valves build into each so they're just simple pipes. Some have the right side valve built into the hose (see diagram below). I'll explain how to test the crank case vacuum later, mine was ok. Inadequate crank case vacuum from faulty valves or say excessive blowby will cause oil leaks as the pressure pushes oil out of all the seals. Although my valves were ok when checked it might explain why I had so many leaks from places beyond the typical ones affected by 15 year old brittle gaskets.

Valve cover gaskets & oil seals:

• Valve cover gasket 1-4 Elring £49.38
• Valve cover gasket 5-8 Elring £58.77
• Upper timing cover seal 1-4 BMW £6.02
• Upper timing cover seal 5-8 BMW £6.02
• Spark plug tubes x8 Febi £66.56
• Vanos solenoid small o-ring x4 BMW £7.58
• Vanos solenoid large o-ring x4 BMW £13.15
• Camshaft position sensor seal x2 BMW £7.89
• Sensor o-rings x4 BMW £5.04
• Sensor bolts x8 BMW £12.28
• Vacuum pump seal repair kit eBay £7.34
• Oil pressure switch Meyle £4.72 (replaced)
• Oil pressure switch BMW £12.42 +£114.00 fitting
• Crank case vent hose 1-4 BMW £43.44
• Crank case vent hose 5-8 BMW £45.91
• Oil non-return valve x4 BMW £63.36

(seals subtotal £400.46)

After the first ignition coil failure and cleaning out all the oil from around the spark plugs I had subsequent coil failures 3 times on essentially a weekly basis, until I replaced all the remaining ones too. As a V8 it's not a disaster you can just feel a vibration and get the engine management light, it cuts fuel to that cylinder so no risk to cats from unburnt fuel. I had another car to use (Polo 1.4 TDI) so I didn't run it misfiring, and they always manifested on a cold start in a morning. I managed to get a good price on the individual purchases but had to stump up when I bought the last 4. I think £20-25 is the going rate.
The coil failures would have been caused by having the spark plugs sat under 2 inches of oil, it gets between the plug and coil and the resistance works the coils harder until they fail.

Ignition coils:

• Ignition coil Bosch 1x £16.00, 1x £19.99, 1x £21.00, 4x £39.00

(ignition coils subtotal £212.99)

I replaced the rear suspension parts referred to on the MOT advisory, they helpfully showed me exactly which ones were gone. I had a good relationship with them as they knew I was doing most of the work myself but were going to use them for several jobs I couldn't tackle on my uneven drive (or didn't want to do). They'd also fit the parts I supplied as I was only buying decent parts, their main gripe was with people turning up with dirt cheap eBay parts that would fail prematurely and they'd get the comeback (kind of like the Meyle oil pressure switch if I'd had them fit it in the first place).

Rear suspension:

• Rear right control arm Lemforder £75.72
• Rear right guide rod £59.40

(rear suspension subtotal £135.12)

For the clunk in first and second gear I had the garage replace the flex disc/guibo, this fixed the issue in itself but I'd say the gearbox wasn't 100% overall. It still had a sticky change down to first and putting it in drive from park had a bit of a clunk, drove fine though. Cheap parts so that helps offset fitting cost.

Propshaft:

• Flex disc Lemforder £19.43
• Centring bush Febi £12.73
• Center bearing Febi £33.55
• Fitting £188.88

(propshaft subtotal £254.59)

Beyond the oil pressure switch actual breakdown and the ignition coils I did have two more failures during this period. First was some electrical haywires which I traced to the 'integrated supply module', I can't remember what this does but it's just an electrical power supply module with fuses and what have you in it (bear in mind I'm a mechanical engineer not electrical). This is apparently a common failure, like with some E46 issues some are a matter of when not if).

The second was a flat tyre on the day before Christmas Eve that turned out to be a cracked wheel. The ones available on eBay were all either cracked or welded (and £100-200) so I enquired at BMW, they said as it was Christmas I could have 20% off instead of my usual 10% so that was nice. Had to go get that on Christmas Eve. At this point and after having my E46 for 6 years I was on first name terms with my local BMW parts department, they always knew it was me from my Manc accent
Usual conversation just went "hi it's Pastie, got the part numbers for you XYZ"..."hi Pastie that's £xxx"..."ok I'll have them cheers"
The rear wheels are style 95 19x10" with 275/40R19 tyres. Fronts are 19x9" with 245/45R19.

I also did another oil change to 'flush out' a little, as I had no service history.
For the broken intake pipe nipple I managed to epoxy a little brass tube into the bore, and then epoxy a larger one onto that to size for the vacuum hose. It's held firm for 6 years now so was a good repair, but probably not ideal as if it dislodged it could end up in the engine, although the larger one I put on the outside meant it couldn't be pulled through the small bore. At £34 I should have just replaced it but I figured it would just get broken again (there's a similar thing on the M54 engine 'F piece').

• Rear alloy wheel BMW £433.50
• Integrated supply module BMW £67.05
• Engine oil Quantum £21.58
• Oil filter Mann £7.99

The total on this second lot of jobs is £1659
Running total is £3964
At this point I'd done 4500 miles
I've still only covered 86 rows out of 380 on the spreadsheet
Should mention these costs are just parts and labour, I can also add up tax, insurance, MOTs, fuel etc. later to give a full ownership figure.

Thinking back to the original big diagnosis list I'd solved quite a bit and had these known issues left from it, so in terms of driving it was in an ok position really. The concern with the smoking is carbon fouling of cylinders, plugs, cats, O2 sensors, exhaust manifold etc. but without doing a 32x valve stem seal replacement that requires either the engine out to remove the cylinder heads or a £1k special tool kit to do it in situ (which would NOT be fun doing outside, or at all really) there's not a lot you can do. The main thing was there was no smoke while driving (check by following it) so I figured just keep the idling to a minimum and it should be ok. They can get so bad as to be belching smoke while idling though.

• Very heavy smoke when revved after idling, none while driving (valve stem seals).
• Heavy oil leaks from alternator bracket & sump.
• Heavy coolant leak, most likely valley pipe.

^These top 3 are all the major notorious engine faults. Notorious as the are assumed to be inevitable and book time for each individually is like 20+ hours. That means a £2.93 alternator bracket gasket becomes a 4 figure job (starting with a 2 or higher).

• Minor power steering / dynamic drive fluid leak.
• Sat nav didn't work, blank screen when selected.
• Sometimes the stereo would go 'pop' and lose audio.
• Glove box fuse box cover was broken.
• It has a detachable tow bar but the electrics didn't work, appear to have been bodged into the brake lights and then disconnected.

As I mentioned before I don't have many photos but I can highlight the diagrams to explain what I'm on about above.



















Water cooled alternator

Edited by Pastie Bloater on Wednesday 26th May 07:24

[Pastie Bloater]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I'll be on the hook for a new kitchen if I put any more scratches in the island