Jacob's other Wagon

[Laecaon]

Yes I have. And was quite successful. And then my harddrive failed on my laptop and I lost the whole setup. I had it working fine in Windows 7 X64 which is supposedly harder to do... took quite awhile to find the proper tutorial. I think I read like 10 ways to do it before I finally figured it out.


Things I have done with it;
Turned on closing windows from keyfob (opening was already an option).
Activated the alarm, which was required for the lights to flash when I locked/unlocked. Car has no alarm on it.
Fog lights stay on with High Beams.
Halogen Highs on with HID Highs.

I activated the auto lock doors at a certain speed, but it only works the first time I drive the car after disconnecting the battery.

I never did get the fault code reading to work.

And then I also messed it up when I tried to add support for my friends R56 Mini Cooper S.

[Laecaon]

New tie rods on. Car stopped making sounds from the suspension/steering. Drove it down the road and back, everything feels way stiffer. Alignment soon.

[Laecaon]

Car got aligned today. It drives totally different. Its a tad twitchy on bumpy roads, but definitely likes going faster now. Corners feel better than ever, feels like the car is really digging into the road and grabbing. Overall I am happy.


Also my ride today to go pick up the car ran into issues, so I rode my bike. Ow. 24 minutes on a bike after not having really exercised since last summer... And bummed by my average speed; 11.5 mph. I used to ride this bike at 23mph on flat ground.


Getting a new set of tires on the car. Going to have the one good tire placed on my spare since I do have a full size spare and who knows how old it is (well it probably has a date stamp on it).

[DRIVEN]

I was wondering if that was yours. Bruce said he likes driving it.

[Laecaon]

So the Alpine sub died... Glue failure which caused a torn cone. And Alpine has a authorized dealer network, meaning that since I bought it on Amazon its not covered under a warranty. What a waste. Wouldnt have bought it there if I knew before hand. I expected better for a Type-R Alpine...

So now that I have been without bass for sometime, I had to order a new sub. Its a Cadence Acoustic S2W8D2 v.2, or a dual voice coil 2ohm sub capable of up to 500W RMS, not that I am pushing that. So far I can only find good reviews. We will see. Thursday I get it.

[Laecaon]

Well shit. Did a leak down test today (just got a leak down tester gauge and a compression checker). Its not good.

Cylinder 6 had a miraculous 2.5% loss. As for the rest, well um I tried testing a few times.

Cylinder 2&5 came in at 13% loss. 3 at 19% loss, 1 at 26% loss, and 4 at 47% loss.... I tested 4 like 6 times, plugging the oil cap made the dip stick tube gurgle.

Fuck. I dont know what I am doing next.

I guess the carfax showed this. A first owner who had it for 7 years and only put on 40k... he didnt drive the car, which means he didnt break the engine in.

[Laecaon]

I should also say, Compression check came back perfect. And this is super consistent with the forums. And most point at poor vacuum in the crank case, and bad oil rings on the pistons. Most seem to agree that a deep engine cleaner every oil change keeps the engine consuming less. It also noteworthy that some changed their oil as it turned black, and their motors stopped consuming oil. And finally, I have found reports of guys who have only replaced the oil rings to avoid re-honing the block (great compression), and got rid of their oil consumption.

Jury is still out. I love this car. I dont know what I want to do. If deep surgery is on the block, its going 3 liter (As a time saver of course).

[DRIVEN]

Let me guess, Carfax also showed religious 10k mile oil change intervals?

[Laecaon]

Didn't say that, but it has a lifetime of going to Kuni and Rasmussen BMW for whatevers. BMW doesn't like sharing too much.

[Laecaon]

New cars equals plastic parts. Plastic parts fail.

157k, radiator.

Radiator developed the tiniest of cracks, which seems to only open when really really hot. Low coolant light has flashed a few times, but isnt staying on. And at least the crack is on top of the radiator so its only releasing some pressure right now. But Im not driving it to work monday (too far, and too strenuous of a drive).

Napa, Baxters, Autozone all had one in stock, but they all carried the same brand, Spectra, which in this application doesnt fit the car well, so Amazon got the sale, get the part Tuesday with a brand that people seem to like. Forums say its a two hour job. Cool.

Also I found the source of my biggest oil leak. Fucking valve cover is warped. Yay plastic again. There is a local BMW wrecking yard, so Im gonna see about getting one there.

[flatcat19]

See how much a set of projectors run.
The 540/325 style lights.


I have had nothing but issues with Spectra radiators.

[Laecaon]

They are cheap if you know how to source stuff (and then you dont have mis matched new headlight on one side of the car look).

Lights for any car are money. Go find the cost of a F150 headlight after a rock goes through one.

Ask your parts guy how much for a 07 Tundra tail light, or Headlight. Or how about the new Corolla LED headlight? (Hate those, they are pointed way to high from the factory, so blinding.)

At least on my car the front plastic lens is swappable for cheap and many people make replacements, and we have an aftermarket projector that is a direct bolt in for my car. Luckily my car came with the lights that dont burn up.

Im not ever shocked by the price of lights. I love good lighting. I have a really fucking bright flashlight and spent at least a week deciding which one to buy before I bought it. LEDs cost money, good optics cost money. High performance plastics and coatings cost money.



But yes, I could not have owned this car if I didnt do my own work. I have saved hundreds if not thousands on just labor for this car.

[Laecaon]

Parts are on order... For valve cover gasket, vamos rebuild, and valve stem seals. Should all be here Friday. Gonna hit up the junkyard for a new valve cover, hopefully one of the many cars there has a unique warped one. Wanting to do the work Saturday, before we get into the rainy season. Also redo my catch can.

[Laecaon]

Well I dun did fuck up. Dropped a valve into the cylinder... Yay for more work.

[wayno]

[DRIVEN]

l

[Laecaon]

I have avoided pulling the head. More after dinner/shower.

[Laecaon]

Everything started off fine. Got everything disassembled.

Coils removed:



Valve cover off:



At this point the cams have been removed. Now I needed to remove the cam bases, but the lifters will fall out the bottom. So I saw a trick where you use magnets to hold the lifters up.






And cam bases removed. Valve springs exposed:




It was at this point I attempted to replace the valve stem seals. Hooked up my air compressor, easily removed the spring retainer on one of the valves, changed out the valve seal. When I went to reinstall the spring retainer I managed to push the valve down. Two problems, not enough psi from my compressor, read a bit and thought 60psi should be fine, after this I have bumped it up 100psi (my leak down tester will do 100psi). Secondly, my valve tool is much better suited for the head off the car. So then I decided it was time to pull the intake manifold. That took awhile as BMW made a super special intake that varies the effective length of the manifold. Finally got it out and looked in the intake ports. I could see the top of the valve just chilling there. So I taped up a screw driver and needle nose pliers and managed to shove the valve back up. Yay no head removal.


Here is the intake manifold off the car. You can also see something I made.




Different shot.




My valve spring compressor! Diy'ed it because it's simple and saving money. As you can probably tell, it hooks onto the bar in the photos above and then you can press down the springs easily. I need to modify the handle a bit to make it compatible with the exhaust side and to make it one person friendly.


The foot of the compressor pushes down on two springs at once. I have a different tool to remove the valve keepers as it is way faster.




Over all though my experiences with this are great. Everything is pretty easy, just a lot of little steps.

[DRIVEN]

Doesn't look like fun to me.

[Laecaon]

Basically 3 hours just to replace the valve stem seals. But they are done. Damn those valve springs are strong. Pictures later of my final tool I made. I would redesign it if I was doing it again.