New Daily Driver - 2001 BMW 325i

Through what can best be described as a Festivus miracle, I am now the owner of a 2001 BMW 325i:

Oddly, this was actually Katie Suddard's old car (notice the bumper sticker). It is QUITE well equipped in comparison to my old daily driver. I almost hesitated to post here in the project forum because everyone else seems to be building awesome stuff, but I've been having fun working on this the last week.

So far I have re-sealed the left rear door panel vapor shield to drastically slow down (but not completely stop, doh) a water leak:

Yanked off the old and nasty butyl tape and reapplied fresh sealer. It needs a new vapor barrier, but I'll do that in spring when things warm up. I just have to say I am blown away at how easy it is to pull the door panel on this car.

Inside I attacked the scratched up "soft touch" coating on the console. As a test I removed the scratched and peeling coating from the holder and change pocket (it looked like the area under the parking brake handle, this is the after pic):

It worked fan fricking tastic. Only cost me some hot water, soap, and elbow grease! Next I'll yank the entire console base and give it the same treatment.

On the mechanicals front I swapped in new rear shocks. The passenger rear shock was as loose as a trombone!

Replacements are just normal KYBs from Amazon. I threw on new shock mounts and new shock bumpers too. It was a cakewalk job once I had all the parts gathered.
 

And for good measure I threw in a new engine air filter. I'll do an oil change next weekend.

On the short list of things to do this month:
- New shift knob ($14)
- New shift boot ($16)
- New arm rest lid ($40)

I'm still inspecting it and figuring out what work appears to have been recently done. Looks like many bushings and cooling bits have been changed over the years, so that's good. Piecing together the records too.

Plans for now are just making it a comfy driver. I work from home, so I barely drive anyway. If I get a wild hair I might take it to a SCCA Track Night event. We'll see.

Congrats ! 
 

Is the silver Camry yours too ?

mr2s2000elise said:

Congrats ! 
 

Is the silver Camry yours too ?

Yup! That's the old daily driver. It's seen better days. Runs great, but looks awful. A tree limb fell on it last year, plus the RH quarter panel is bashed. It is a good car but my wife has been begging me to sell it. She approves of the BMW, so I'm swapping out. The Camry has 190k on it and the BMW has 250k, so it is high miles either way. At least with the BMW driving will be entertaining.

I also recently attained a high mileage e46 for a daily and I'm loving it.

As much I hear about people being afraid of working on them, I have been pleasantly surprised every step of the way how easy they are to work on.

I will be following along with interest

Hey I know this car! I don't remember many details, but basically Dad treated it to one trip to the local euro shop every time Katie came home from college with the instructions to "do whatever it needs for my daughter to drive it back to the city with zero attention or maintenance over the next semester." Paying for whatever maintancne an E46 needed twice a year was cheap insurance to make sure she got to class safely.

Then Katie graduated and moved to Atlanta, which changed the maintenance schedule significantly. I remember visiting her six months later and noticing a tennis ball-sized bubble in one sidewall.

"How long has that bubble been there?!" 

"What?!"

"Your tire! It's going to explode!"

"Oh, okay, I'll get it looked at next month."

"No, go to the tire store tomorrow... or you'll die."

TL;DR, it was a great car that had great maintenance for the first 18 or so years of its life. 
 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

The first 18 years of a car's life are the most important!

Drove it to the post office this morning. Heated seats work, rear defrost works, and the climate control had me comfy in no time. Shifts great, stops fine, and only a few rattles. I have a habit of being the "retirement home" for high-mileage daily drivers. It may be driven twice a week at this point, mostly for post office and bank runs. But it won't be a daily 'sit in Atlanta traffic" commuter. And at the price point I got it at, I have zero issues in throwing some stimulus money at it for repairs.

BTW, which shop did the work in Daytona? I might know them.

Alright, my rear door water leak repair worked! We had a good rain storm yesterday and the driver side rear floor was dry.

Checked the rest of the door seals and it looks like the passenger side front door needs to be sealed next. I tucked a towel into the door sill for now to soak up some of the incoming water. 3M Windo-Weld should be here on Saturday. I ordered some spare door trim clips as well. I'm shocked at how much stuff is available on Amazon for this car, even the door vapor barriers themselves! Prices are reasonable too.

Swapped out the cabin air filter as well. First car I've owned that didn't have it behind the glovebox door. Took me all of three minutes to swap it out, and most of that was picking leaves out of the intake box.

Heading to the DMV on Monday to get the titled switched over and the license plate.

Next project: fixing the passenger front door water leak. Like the rear door, this vapor barrier was loose at the bottom.

I grabbed a small heat gun and removed most of the old butyl tape from the back of the vapor barrier. I used 5/16" 3M Windo Weld to seal everything back up. No more leaks!

One issue may have been the door panels clips. Almost all the ones at the bottom were missing their O-rings:

They are supposed to look like this:

New panel clips are only $7 for a pack of 20, so no big deal. I also ordered a pack of 20 interior trim clips, also only $7.

Put everything back together and dumped a bucket of water on the door. No leaks, great success!

Since I was ahead of schedule on the door repair, I went ahead and yanked out the center console.

Removal was stupid easy. Plus now I can give it a good vacuum. You can see the scratched up coating, blech.

Next stop, the kitchen sink! A good dose of very hot water and lots of scrubbing with a plastic brush took the "soft touch" coating right off.

All the pieces are air drying now. Tomorrow I'll wipe it all down with some Armor-All like I did the cup holder and change pocket.

Didn't get around to the oil change this weekend, maybe next weekend. Need to yank the arm rest next and get it ready for new parts.

Great project. 

I love it when people that never owned a BMW complain that they are complex and expensive to maintain. Neither has been true for me. 

Where did you get the door clips?

Slippery (Forum Supporter) said:

Great project. 

I love it when people that never owned a BMW complain that they are complex and expensive to maintain. Neither has been true for me. 

So far things just seem well engineered. My VWs were "clumsy" compared to how the BMW is screwed together. And the knowledge base online is amazing for almost every repair.

jfryjfry (FS) said:

Where did you get the door clips?

Amazon:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B078RPDF23/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And the door trim clips:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B078RPKDK1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Honestly almost everything I've needed so far came from Amazon. Shocks, shock mounts, clips, Windo Weld. I've already created an Amazon List for the BMW parts. Stuff like shifter, shifter boot, arm rest, headlight lenses, backup light lenses, and more.

I did buy shock bumpers from a local parts store, but that was a royal PITA that I won't be doing again. From now on I'll do my own part number research and buy online.

In reply to slefain :

You may use it already, but realoem.com is super helpful (and free) way to find part numbers. 

ManhattanM (fka NY535iManual) said:

In reply to slefain :

You may use it already, but realoem.com is super helpful (and free) way to find part numbers. 

I have been using my Google-Fu, but that site is now bookmarked.

Just got back from the DMV, titled transferred and license plate acquired!

Keeping with the freshened up interior theme, the old shift know was toast:

$14 later, Amazon delivered a perfect fine replacement:

But now the shift boot looks yucky. Off with it!

A little Lexol leather cleaner followed by some conditioner and it looks a lot better:

And finally I put the console back together. MUCH better looking now:

Slow and steady progress, but now the it is a little nicer place to sit now:

Thinking about yanking the pieces in front of the shift bezel next to remove the soft-touch coating as well. I was going to wait until I replaced the radio, but that may be a little way off. I'm pricing out quick-strut assemblies now, as the fronts are shot. Doesn't look like too bad a job either.

Gotta find some decent floormats, the stock ones are toast. I'm also eyeing some fitted seat covers from IGGEE. They are supposed to be extremely tight fitting, so much so that they almost look like the OE leather.

Spent last saturday swapping out the front struts:

Luckily Monroe sells complete strut assemblies, so I ordered two and jumped to it. Took an hour and 20 minutes to swap out both sides. Part of that time was wasted by my stupid floor jack that now only raises in 1mm increments. Gotta replace that soon.

Unfortunately the passenger side strut tower is mushroomed, which is common these cars.

My plan is get a cheap strut tower brace and use it to clamp the sheetmetal back down. BMW sells reinforcement plates, but they are pricey for some reason.

Passenger side ball joint is shot, so next up is replacing both lower control arms. Parts are cheap and replacing the entire control arm is easier than swapping just the ball joints. I'll do sway bar end links while I'm in there.

Might be worth swapping the lollypops also. Cant remember if you did those yet. 

Slippery (Forum Supporter) said:

Might be worth swapping the lollypops also. Cant remember if you did those yet. 

Ordered a front suspension refresh kit, should be here tomorrow. It includes the steering links that I think are the lollipops you speak of.

The kit includes all this:

I'm going to install everything except the steering rods, as I don't want to pay for an alignment yet.

Well last weekend was front suspension refresh day!

Not many pictures this time because the whole process was a royal PITA. Getting to this point took WAY longer than it should have:


See that weird donut bushing on the end of the control arm? I had to beat that thing like it owed me money to get it on there. I ended up using a 10# sledge and some wood blocks but I finally got it on. Jeez.

Removing the inner passenger side ball joint nut was a bear. It is a lock nut so it fights you every step. And there is only room to slip a wrench in there and move it one flat. After fighting that one I decided there had to be a better way. If you look down from the top of the engine you can JUST see the driver side ball joint nut from the top. Ah ha, DEPLOY THE SNORKUS!!!

All half inch drive extensions BTW, didn't know I had that many.

And that little donut bushing bastard? It wasn't done with me yet. You can get a 16mm socket on the top bolt, but only a wrench can reach the bottom one:

The conundrum is that it is easy to bolt in the donut bushing when it isn't connected to the control arm. But when it is on the control arm, it does not want to go on straight. I ended up threading in the top bolt, then wedging a floor jack between the brake rotor and the wheel well to pull the bushing outward to get the second bolt in place.

But now everything is nice and shiny! I'm saving the tie rods for later, steering feels fine for now. I kind of want to do the sway bar bushings, which are the last bits of old rubber remaining in the front suspension.

Boring update, but kind of funny. I'm not sure when the oil was changed last, but by the looks of this filter it has been a while:

I also had a humbling experience assuming I knew how much oil this car held. I ordered six quarts of Amazon 5w30 full synthetic. I figured I'll pour five quarts in and toss the extra quart in the trunk because I was warned it burned a little oil. Except I added five quarts and it was still low. Ruh roh. A quick Google search reveals that BMW for some reason made this engine to hold SEVEN quarts of oil!

Well crap, now I need to run to the parts store and pick up two quarts of Mobil 1. Why Mobil 1? Because the research I did on the Amazon oil shows it being darn near the same as Mobil 1. And I can't exactly get two more quarts of Amazon oil on a Sunday afternoon. $20 later I'm all set. So I let my "car guy expertise" get ahead of me and got reminded that I need to actually read up on doing work on my cars sometimes.

Yesterday was brake day, hooray!

Yeah, I only slapped pads on it. The rotors are fine, just a little flash rust. New pads are nothing fancy, just stock replacement materials. I had made a plan to change pads on all four wheels. Had my parts, gathered my tools, yanked the wheels, good to go. Then scope creep came calling...

"You've got a random DST light, you should pull the ABS sensors and clean them. You're right there, it will be easy. One little bolt and the sensor just slides out..."



(snap)

So I spend the next hour drilling out the bolt shard. Of course I didn't have the right size tap or EZ-out, so I said screw it. I grabbed a grade-8 bolt that was slightly bigger diameter than the remains of the snapped bolt hole and made it self-tapping. The ABS sensor bolt is only tightened to 5nm, so the bolt is darn near decorative. I had to use a tack hammer to get the ABS sensor back in its hole anyway, so that bolt isn't holding much anyway.

Got everything back together, bedded in the pads (it stops REALLY well now) and no ABS issues. I'll take it.

With warmer weather it became apparent that the radiator fan was not doing well. After a few diagnostic steps it was determined that the fan had crapped out. Luckily Dorman sells a drop-in replacement, so that's what me and my oldest boy did last weekend:



Quite possibly the easiest radiator fan I've ever touched. Four plastic pins, one Torx bolt, and one electrical connector. Then the whole unit slides up and out. I swear it was like swapping a PCI card on my old computer, it was that easy. Took us less than 20 minutes. After a few test drives everything is cool as a cucumber!

Still need to swap out the coolant pipes under the intake, as well as the oil line that seems to feed the VANOS unit.

After kicking the can as far down the road a possible, the heater pipe leak finally became too much to ignore. So I tore into it last weekend:

Pretty much everything to the right of the dip stick has to come off.

It took about five hours because I had no idea what I was doing and stopped to watch YouTube videos of the process. I also took the time to hit every rubber connection with lube and carefully disassemble everything.

I stopped at this point and will spend time cleaning and tidying things up. I want to replace any vacuum lines I can find since two already crumbled.

These are the two heater pipes that need replacement. The top pipe is leaking at the left side connection. Original 22 year old plastic pipes, I ain't even mad.

One thing to note. When I yanked the engine undertray the hardware was pretty much corroded or missing. Quick search on Amazon got me a complete new hardware set for the sum of $10. I am constantly shocked how cheap some parts can be on this car.

Time to yank the old heater pipes. And man were they toast. The ends just snapped off in the block and oil cooler.

22 years of service, I ain't even mad.

I have no idea where I got this hook tool from, but it was ideal for yanking out the remaining crumbled pipe ends from the engine. You can only pull the pieces out, or else you risk plastic crud getting into your cooling system. The hook was great for breaking up the chunks while I kept a vacuum cleaner hose next to it to collect pieces.

Once the plastic chunks were out, I still had to deal with the remains of the seals and antifreeze crust that was stuck in the openings. I scraped out what I could gently, but it turns out a wheel cylinder hone is darn near perfect for the job. I lubricated the stones with antifreeze and turn it slowly with a cordless drill. I moved the hone in and out to keep from creating grooves.

There's still some staining inside the water port openings, but the interior walls are smooth. I don't think the hone affected the opening diameter. I had the hone set for light pressure. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out.

On the intake manifold I replaced all the small vacuum lines which were crumbling. I'm hoping my gas mileage improves after this as there were some decent vacuum leaks apparently.

Just have to clean some old RTV off the DISA valve opening and replace the intake manifold gasket then I can start reassembly. Still going to be a few weeks but that is okay if it is done right.