2003 BMW 330ci. Felt "pent up", this is going to be my "release"

I remembered to look for the parts while trying to find my welding gloves this weekend.

No dice, I must have tossed them after the car was totalled out. Sorry man.

In reply to Mad_Ratel :

Ah, no worries!  I appreciate you looking :)  I'm the type that hoards car parts and doesnt throw away anything.  Then one day I get sick of tripping over a bunch of crap I am never going to use so I throw everything away.  Only to buy a car that needs everything I just threw away... 


In BMW news, I finished wrapping up the wires on the passenger side

(almost like I was never there)

and of course when I went to reinstall the water washer tank I noticed three things

- one random 2-wire plug on the harness side of things

- one random 3-wire plug on the radiator side of things

- my water washer tank leaks.

that last one is easy enough but I haven't checked the wire diagrams to see where the plugs might go.  My initial thoughts are the 2-wire plug might have gone to the secondary air pump and I'm relatively sure the 3-wire plug goes to the pusher fan on the grill side of the radiator (meaning I'm running just one fan, and the front fan is just dead weight at the moment).  this would make sense being an automatic car as it used to have a mechanical fan on the engine side, and an electrical fan on the grill side.  This will have to be put on a watch.  If the temps are fine this summer, I'll get rid of the pusher fan (since it's not doing anything).  If temps run high I'll rig something up to run the pusher fan in tandem with the puller fan. 

Reviewing my torque app (dude, I am really loving having access to this sort of historical information) I can see that so far my coolant temperature is peaking around 107deg C.  So far that's within the realm of "normal" but summer IS just beginning.

Good times.

(ok, quick gander at the back of the driver's headlight plug shows some bare copper. More to follow)

 

Darn it, I still haven't looked at my wiring diagrams for that connector and fan.  Our hours changed a bit so I've been driving Mrs. Hungary's wagon more lately (to pick up the kids, etc)

I did put the ignition antenna on order, and I went ahead and ordered the switch too (just the electrical switch portion, not the key part).  So hopefully that will solve that.

I gave the headlights a gander.  Swapping bulbs didn't change the discrepancy so I'm thinking ballast as the wires seem to be in ok condition.

the wires I mentioned before go to a different lamp (high beams, if I remember correctly).  It's a good thing I'm posting this otherwise I would have completely forgotten that too!

and I have to figure out where the mounting doo-dad for this box thingy is (below)... I'm relatively sure a german engineer did not want that just hanging there.  (I stowed it up on the frame rail just under the intake air box, permanent location to follow)

(Speaking of using posts as a reminder, note to self:  you still have not downloaded the software to use that cable to turn off the cog light.)

Eventually I'll sort all the stuff I have to do, and get to the stuff I want to do

Good times. 
 

An interesting discovery while digging through the internets looking for fan wiring....

First post on this page:  http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=884299

Talks about replacing the mechanical fan with an electric fan from an E46 with a manual trans, AND about how removing the front fan does little if almost nothing to the cooling system. 

That is all.

Not a lot going on with the car still (playing the waiting game with the mail).  I changed the pre-cat o2 sensor that was faulting, performed CPR on an optima red-top and stuck that in (10lbs lighter than the stock battery but my CPR might not have worked as well as my battery charger had me believing), and have been watching the coolant temps on my torque app.  So yeah, nothing exciting but I still took a couple pictures anyway

Good times

Make sure that your cooling fan is 100% reliable - overheating is not an option, not even once, with that motor. Personally I prefer to stick with the mechanical fan (replacing the clutch with the rest of the cooling system), but if you stay with the electric, just be sure it's solid.

So far it's been so good but I understand the concern.  it's kind of a rock and a hard place.

i cant be absolutely sure that the electric puller is never going to break, but at the same time there's no cheap/simple option to bring the pusher into the equation (and right now it's just dead weight).

maybe i can set some sort of alarm on my phone to go off if it hits a certain temp?  maybe set it at 120 so i can shut the car down and come to a safe stop?

I'm sure we'll think of something 

(the old mechanical fan was in the trunk with missing blades.  i threw it away)

New OEM mechanical fan and and clutch is like $100. Just sayin'.

Hahahaha, nah.  I gotta go electrical eventually, might as well learn to trust em now.

So, we have a vacation coming up this Friday and after that I'll lose my "Ramadan late starts" at work so I thought I'd do some work to the car while I still had an hour to play with every afternoon.

First and foremost, the last time I drove it I noticed the red-oil light came on at the last stop light on my way into work.  The oil was full, but looked thin.  RPM was roughly 715, and temperature was 110c.  I added up all the numbers and figured it was time for an oil change, so I broke my cardinal rule and paid someone to do work I could very well do myself.

First:  Find oil.  I found 10-liters of Mobile-1 0W-40.  Everything here is Castrol, and I like mobile 1 (it's BMW LL01 certified).  So I paid 45kd (almost $135) for all the oil.  I had the filter. 

I paid a guy at a lube station $15 to change the fluid and filter (hey, it was hot!  I was tired!)

This is what a $150 oil change looks like

(That's right, I paid a "Castrol" guy to put "Mobile-1" in my car ) 

And then Mr. Motivated went and pulled the cap off my hot coolant system.  Of course the expected happened.  So I stood and watched my torque app while Mr. Coolant flush shot the contents of my radiator right out the top of the expansion tank only to top it up with a pitcher he brought from the nearest sink. I'm really hoping the rapid decompression didn't hurt anything.

Note to self.  drain and fill coolant system as soon as possible.

The engine never topped 110c, so I let him do his thing until he got tired of hauling pitchers and then drove home.  No oil light, no coolant light, engine running right around 108c.  Crisis averted.

In doing all that, though, the Optima red top made it painfully obvious that my CPR had not resuscitated it near to the point that it was up to snuff enough to be my primary means of starting my car.  So out with the old, in with the original (gigantic Bosch battery).

Yesterday the mail came, and with it arrived my new ignition switch (yay).

In with the new, but when it came to "out with the old" something else came out with it!

Points for creativity and all, but I'm really not amused.

So yesterday was a wife-wagon day (I had to pick up the kids after work) but how did the car do today?

- Oil light still comes on at the very last stoplight on the way into work.  Further research points to a faulty oil pressure switch.  Parts on order.

- Coolant low light came on.  Car did not overtemp.  Will top up tonight and flush with correct coolant/distilled water when possible.  Most likely when coolant replacement parts finally get ordered and arrive.

- Ignition switch is working like a charm.  Previously I'd have to turn the key to start, then back to run to get all the lights to turn on.  Then travel back one click then all the way forward to "start" to start the car in the mornings.  The new switch eliminated all of that.  I'll have to report on whether or not the car still occasionally stalls while driving, but the outlook seems to be positive on that front.

More to follow, but the whole low coolant thing?  that's really irritating (plus I didn't get any sleep after midnight-thirty last night.  Kids, animals, and some Israeli number kept blowing up my phone), so it didn't help my grumpy mood at all today.  Hopefully tonight I'll get some rest so I can do a proper coolant bleed after the red mist clears.

Tomorrow is a wife wagon day, so it'll probably be a while before I drive the car again.

Good times

These cooling systems are notoriously difficult to bleed. Raise the nose of the car as high as you can when filling it. The two plastic bleed screws are quite fragile once they've aged, so you might want to get replacements to have handy. I went all-out and replaced them with brass o-ringed pieces.

In the sort of temps you're dealing with, low hot idle oil pressure may just be a fact of life. Get the new pressure switch in there and see what happens. It's possible heavier oil may be the solution (it always was in my older BMWs) - maybe one of the diesel oils (Rotella or Delo). FWIW, I just switched over to Castrol from Mobil1 since the latter dropped LL-01 certification on its 0w40 in the US.

What about trying some thicker oil? It cant hurt, besides your wallet, with the ambient temperatures you are dealing with. 

In reply to 02Pilot :

There is a source that makes brass replacements for those bleed screws on amazon. 

Sean

O2:  Well I did my best.  Apparently i left the states with 6 jack stands and arrived here with one and two halves (bottom halves...).  That corner is as high as the jack goes ( and much higher than it looks)

I had my helper with me, now that school's ended.  She took about a quart or so before I started her up and I added another quard or so while letting it run with the bleeder mostly open.

Slippery:  definitely an option.  If the new sensor doesnt fix it i may look into thicker crude for my next change.  Might have to get some castrol to go that route though.

Smokey:  good call.  i was able to hop on amazon and get one added to my order.  thanks!

we'll see if this gets the light to shut off

The bleeder screw has a pinhole in the middle of the cross hatch, looks like...

I bet I could do a really good job of bleeding the system if I pointed this beast uphill and let it idle   We could call it ABS!  (that's "Automatic Bleeding System")

Good times

You could go old school and add some STP for the low oil pressure issue.

I'm fairly sure there's a full synthetic version now. 

Wow, STP. That IS old school!

Glad to hear the ignition switch swap is doing the trick on electrical gremlins. Nothing worse than replacing the thing everyone says to replace and not changing anything.

In reply to Mezzanine :

Yeah no kiddin.  That could have been the case if the antenna arrived first   The ignition switch antenna did arrive yesterday, but I didn't put it in today because the ignition still seems to be behaving itself. 

Crackers: I had no idea STP was still made!!!   Holy carp.  The autoshop teacher I had for "small engines" back in 9th grade LOVED Studebaker-Packard, he always used "Studebaker Tested Products" as his go to oil.  Maybe I'll channel my inner Mr. Hood and buy a quart or two.

Let's see what else? 

Oh!  I've had everything forward of my air filter housing off for that headlight bulb swap I was doing a while back.  Recently my IAT reading peaked at 75deg C.  Today, same ambient temp, the IAT was down 5deg C with everything hooked up the way the Bavarian engineers intended.  (so that was kind of neat).

Anyhoo, it's off to vacation for me.  I'll see you guys in a couple weeks.  'Till then, I'll leave you with a picture of the boxed ignition switch antenna

Cheers guys!

Hey, back from vacation and my little brass plug arrived and apparently just in time as the plastic one it's replacing came out in three pieces.

I was able to remove it by hammering a thin flat head screwdriver into the remnants, but for a second there I was a bit worried I was going to have to take the wife's car this morning.  A good reminder, though, that I need to get to ordering the rest of the coolant bits.  Still waiting for the bank account to catch up before I make the big purchase(s) though.  You hear that car?  I promise I'm not procrastinating.  Please dont blow up your expansion tank.

Otherwise, just trying to get settled in.  Work hit me pretty hard on the first day back.  One of the jets apparently heard I had a good time and is making up for it.

Good times.

Ugh. Work. Nothing worse than work getting in the way of our projects and life, right? Speaking of which...I've got just about 10 days to get my project running for your visit.

Hey, I was just peaking in on your thread!
 

You're machining trigger wheels, using an Atlas Shaper you just HAPPEN to have laying around the garage to remove material from your intake manifolds, and making wires look like this:



And I'm over here like "ah! no!  A plastic screw broke when I tried to change it...  "   

Yeah, if I didn't have to go in to the office, I'd have all the time I wanted in the garage and none of the money.  When I go in to the office I get all the money and none of the time.  There HAS to be a happy medium in there somewhere...

Ah well, that's what vacations are for, 10-days and counting! 

Hungary Bill said:

...And I'm over here like "ah! no!  A plastic screw broke when I tried to change it...  "   

 

I laughed hard at this. Some days we get to do fun stuff, other days progress looks like extracting a plastic screw. I'm getting better at finding...no, making time for my projects. Still not enough time but it means I stare at my phone less, so that has to be a positive!

Man, just got settled from one vacation and now it's time for another.  it's a tough life...

Before I left for the last vacation my rear view mirror fell off (I haven't reattached it yet), this time one of the reverse sensors failed and I'm getting an annoying 5-second beep whenever I back up.  Oh, and one of those pretty chrome exhaust tips fell off (weight reduction?).  I'll probably pull the other off to match

I did, finally, start installing the software needed to make that cable work on my car but I'm old and time is short so things like that take more time than they should.  I think I'm 3 minutes into 50skid's 10-minute install video

Anyhoo, I better get going!  I've got a hot date with a fellow forum member and his yellow Fiat and I need to get my butt to the airport.

See y'all soon!

The date was a success! (that's Mezzanine and a certain "wrapped food" enthusiast in the picture).  First we worked on the Fiat:

It turns out that if you ask two GRM members to make a standoff for your Fiat's throttle linkage, what happens instead is they create a pointy knife like device, install it onto the throttle, and everyone takes turns using the gas pedal to make slashing motions at the two members remaining in the engine bay (under the guise of testing throttle adjustment ideas).  Hard to explain through typed media, but I was pretty surprised no one peed their pants.

The sad thing is, that pointy knife like device actually worked because we went for a spin afterwards

After that the three of us went and barbecued in the park with a pretty large group of family and friends, it was definitely good times.

Back on track, I decided I'd take advantage of the fact that the kids are still on "Tacoma time" and get some work done to the car.  The issue is:  Driver's headlight inop, horn inop, pusher fan installed and not hooked up.

Here we go!


 

The fan was easily removed.  The headlight was troubleshot down to a bad ballast (that was the thing hanging a few pictures back, it turns out).  And the horn?  That was traced to a bad connection under some electrical tape.  (How do I keep finding these cars with electrical problems???)

All put back together and the horn works, The bad ballast was moved to the passenger side until one could be ordered, the previously hanging driver's side ballast was installed correctly and is now secure, and I spent the rest of the day running errands.

Fast forward to this morning and the car wont start.

Key turns, everything turns on, starter no do anything.  Not even a "click".  More to follow on that one, I guess.  The money I've been waiting for finally hit my bank account, so next on the list might finally be that cooling system.

I like to weigh things that come off the car.  It makes me think I'm doing something useful.

That pusher fan weighs 7lbs!  Shewt, if I get rid of 20 more of these then I can carry a skinny passenger without suffering the weight penalty!

(also:  please don't tell Mrs. Hungary what I do in the kitchen while she's asleep)