Jacob's other Wagon

[Taterhead]

Were you trying to get a picture of the car, deer, or both?

[Laecaon]

All the above. Kinda summed up a lot of the trip.

[Laecaon]

Subwoofer died. I think its physically broken, but not blown. It still sometimes comes to life and still hits well...

So I just ordered an Alpine Sub, 8 inch, dual 2ohm voice coils, rated at 350W RMS, 1000W peak. Should go well with my 360WRMS/720W peak amp.

[draker]

Bummer.

[Laecaon]

Amazon decided to do Sunday delivery... got my sub a day early.

New sub, looks pretty nice.





Sub box out of car, old sub out.



Broken Infinity. I think its either a broken tinsel wire, or a open voice coil.



And all back together.

[Laecaon]

Verdict is, this thing has way better fill. Hits are about the same. Definitely need to tune it though. This little 8" is definitely enough to convince that a 10" is not always worth it

[draker]

I've got a big sub... but I'd much rather just have a single 8"

Big sub.. big box.. need lots of space. That's why it's been sitting in my garage for about 6 years. I like your setup. Very clean and still full cargo space!

[Laecaon]

Sub is amazing. But um this one hits the cargo floor... so I spaced it up 1/4". Sounds great.


So um, BMW in their infinite wisdom lines their ball joints with rubber. This gives a nice ride when new. But worn (and it wears fast apparently) it will mess up your tires, and be non detectable by steering feel, or lifting the car and shaking the tire. No, you have to get under the car and take a prybar and pry the knuckle and LCA apart (and if it moves, well its worn), and you take channel locks and try to compress the ball joint (and if it compresses at all, its worn).

Well mine does that. Not happy... oh and LCAs on these cars are aluminum with non serviceable ball joints...

[Laecaon]

So, $280 in LCAs, $80 in rear trailing arm bushings (yes suspension like a 510 sedan), and $30 in outer tie rods.

Then probably about $100 for a 4 wheel alignment...

And probably about $250 to replace the current front tires...

[yello620]

I think it was mentioned what "BMW" stood for near the beginning of this thread.

BMW--Bavarian Money Waster

[Laecaon]

When it rains it pours...

So Yesterday I pulled the car up the driveway so I could position my ramps on my driveway. While doing that, I noticed a waterfall from the front bumper.

Oh look the coolant expansion tank has burst open.

So I coast the car onto the ramps anyways. Baxters has a Dorman brand tank... better than what Discount Import Parts would have...

Get the tank, remove it, and sure enough the automatic transmission thermostat breaks. Oh damnit, Napa is the only one to carry it and they closed 15 minutes ago (why does Napa have to close at 5pm on a Saturday?). At this point I was drenched, so I decided to shove my new waterpump I had laying around into the car for some sort of a victory.

Today, I got the thermostat (this part regulates how much cooling the ATF gets). Got it in, new tank in. Connect all the hoses. And start filling the coolant. Oh look at that, one of the hoses connected to the new tank is leaking... And its an O-ring. Well I cant find this O ring at any store, and it has no part number through BMW. Then I check Baxters again, and find they have a complete upper Radiator hose (with O ring), and its Gates branded, so not the worst. Got that on, finished filling the coolant. And now the car is sitting pretty.

The battery did go dead while I was bleeding the coolant system (apparently the Heater has a pump that you use to cycle the coolant in the system...), and when I got the car going again, it learned a new feature, and now it locks the doors at 11mph... didnt used to do that... cool.

So what did I learn? Well I was exceeding lucky it happened in my driveway. Also, to take heed of the warnings on the forums. Everyone says this tank dies. But no one on the forums would believe it would last 150k and 14 years. Mostly I am disappointed in that I didnt have all these parts on hand already as I should have known.

Suspension is for another day.

[yello620]

Do you already know about realoem.com where you can look up your part numbers?

I should probably have a spare coolant tank on hand also. Tank and heater core are the only parts of the cooling system I have not done on mine.

[Laecaon]

Yea I know about realoem. My friend was amazed when I showed it to him.

I havent seen any problems with the E46 heater core. But then again, the E39 has a way more "advanced" system.

[Laecaon]

Got around to installing suspension components. New LCAs were pretty easy to do. One nut was hard to do though, and I should have probably eaten lunch before attempting...

Rear control arm bushings werent bad. Helped I made my own tool to do the job.

Bushing pulled in my tool.



here is how it worked.


Hole for bushing


New bushing, and bushing limiters (helps to stiffen up everything without going poly).


New bushing hose clamped to make it smaller


Bracket that goes around bushing, and is what allows rear tow settings


Here is where the limiters go


And bushing installed. This was a tight fit, and to use the jack to squish the bracket down

[DRIVEN]

I'm not seeing pics, just "Image".

[RedBanner]

refresh...
refresh... yep me too.nuts

[draker]

Same

[Laecaon]

Yea me too.

[Laecaon]

Fixed. I pulled those photos from a non shareable folder, but it worked for me on my computer because I was logged into the host at the time.

[yello620]

BMW rear suspension work kinda sucks, at least it did on my E34.

Jacob, have you tried anything with INPA software? Or any of them that you can download for the BMW?