Jacob's other Wagon

[draker]

Do you have pixel issues on your instrument cluster? If not, have to fixed them?

I'm looking to do this, little nervous about removing the gauge needles. I know you can do the drill method.. might do that.

[Laecaon]

I have no idea what you are talking about...


In other news, Car passed Emissions. Then my check engine light came on (Lean bank 1, pending lean bank 2). Then the next day the light turned off again. That was funny.

The more I drive this car, and the more I drive other cars, its gonna be hard to replace this car when the time comes. It just does car things so well.



Edit: I found this on a quick google search: http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread ... ost9871840

[draker]

Ah.. that would be because the e46 doesn't use the old pixel type lcd. My fault.

[draker]

Good idea.. I might try to find a spare cluster to test with before breaking mine.

[Laecaon]

First actually annoying electrical problem.

Airbag light is on. But it has zero codes. And everything is reporting fine viewing live data. None of the usual problems that these cars have. Based on a total of 2 threads, I think the module is dying. At least they arent much used.

I cant clear the code.

[Laecaon]

In other news, I did some reading on the car. A couple of times I swore that the car applied the brakes to one of the wheels. Also, I had way too much traction in loose surfaces for not having a LSD. Found out the cars traction control/stability control has the ability to independently brake each wheel without driver input.

So that is cool. And explains a lot.

Dont confuse that with Torque Vectoring. BMW didnt start doing that until 2009.

[Laecaon]

I should have talked about the codes a little better. The module did have codes, but they were all non active/shadow codes. Can't clear those. But being non active was confusing. But one of the codes was labeled internal fault.

So I ordered a used module from eBay. Popped it into my car. Errors galore! But that was because it came out of a 7 series which used different sensors. So I flashed my modules data onto it and boom everything was happy.

Really not to hard to do, $23 for the module. Definitely glad I have the software to talk to this car.







I also figured out I could reprogram the coolant temp gauge. Stock it hard a very wide range that it would report normal. I changed it so it now reports normal only on a much narrower range. And more quickly will change if it leaves said normal range.

[Laecaon]

Sub died again. Almost a year this time. I think I am just pushing 8" subs too hard for what I want. So I picked up a low end JL 10" for a pretty good price locally. New sub means new box. So first, I moved the amp to a new home to get it out of the way. Then designed the new box. This one was interesting to make. It's layered, because it's round. I had to cutout each layer. But it is built like a tank, and to proper size. New install is super clean, andaybe takes up less space?

[Laecaon]

It was a nice day, Tire rotation and Oil change time too. Tires are asymmetrical, so no need to dismount...

First, swap front tires side to side:





Next, swap tires front and rear ( the rear jack point is nice and can lift the whole side of the car):




Probably would have been easier if I would have just dug out the spare tire. But having a chance to look underneath is always good.


Also, there has been construction in front of my work for close to a year. I now understand why Newberg roads suck, their construction crews suck. The road is absolute shit, but its the only way to work. Finally took its toll, knocked out the camber pin on the passenger side and now the wheel is at full negative camber (which isnt much), which it never was there before...

[Laecaon]

Oh yay, car got recalled again for the driver's airbag.

Interestingly, its one of 230,000 2000-2003 3 series that had its drivers air bag replaced. And only 1% of those 230,000 have one of the bad Takata airbags. BMW knows my car went into service for the airbag, but doesnt know which brand of part went into each car.

Ill probably just pull the bag and look at it, call the dealer and what they want to do from there. Or I could bring the car in, and get a free wash , inspection, and washer fluid top off.

[flatcat19]

Damned near ever auto maker has bad airbags.

Takata was responsible for every bit of everyone's recall.

Wife's Pilot had passenger side done. Now driver side has been recalled.

Almost every Toyota rolling through our shop is the same way.

[Laecaon]

Yea, my passenger bag was replaced 2 summers ago.

Takata at this point is very dishonest company, and I imagine they wont be doing to well into the future. With every single manufacturer having to deal with recalls because of this, I bet it has left a sour taste in their mouths.


What gets me is all the drift kids with Takata harness' in their cars. Stop supporting a douche bag company!

[flatcat19]

Really.

[Laecaon]

Well few things happened here.

Car slowly started driving like shit. Worse and worse. At first couldnt redline 2nd or 3rd gear without it going into misfire/fuel cutoff. Then it would do it around 5k rpm in 2nd. Then it simply had no power above 4500 so it wouldnt even get to a point to misfire/fuel cutoff. Car felt like it lost like 50 horsepower, but also lost a third of its rev range. Did a few things.

First up, partly maintenance, partly hoping it would fix the issue, I replaced the fuel pump and filter. Pump was still OEM at 170k, filter was not (good). Everything that I see, the pumps fail between 150k and 200k. Being nearly in the middle of that, I just went ahead a replaced it. Didnt fix anything. Maybe the car starts half a revolution sooner now...

Next up, I found that I had a vacuum leak. So lets solve that. I went back to the stock CCV system on the motor (Ill comeback to this). And replaced a few well known vacuum leak things, and found a cap that was split... Sweet! fixed the vacuum leaks, no more p0171 and p0174! Car is still running like shit.

Doing some diagnostics, determined the Disa valve was dead. This valve effectively makes the intake longer or shorter based on RPM. The fix was to replace the diaphragm in the unit, but the only option was to buy the part from Russia. Got it in like a week! and managed to replace the diaphragm (something I cant actually find on any of the forums). Definitely can feel it working now when driving the car. Maybe it was always dead... But this did not fix my issue.



I also had a reoccurring other code, evap valve circuit open. Went to the junkyard and grabbed 3 of them for like $4, popped one in and the code went away, yay.


And because lets just make sure they arent the culprit, I replaced the front 02 sensors. Nope, car still runs crappy.

At this point I made a post about the issue on a BMW forum, and one of the guys there suggested I do an exhaust back pressure test, especially since I only ever had misfire/fuel cutoff on cylinders 4,5, & 6 (car has true full twin exhaust, two manifolds, double inlet/outlet on resonator and muffler). Ordered a 30 psi gauge on Amazon, with a air hose connector, I could use my leak down tester hose. Well the results came back pretty conclusive. Bank 1: 0 psi at idle and 2k RPM, 4psi at 4k RPM. Bank 2: 0psi at idle, 5psi at 2k RPM, and 10psi at 4k RPM. My catalytic converter on bank two had collapsed.

So then I bought these:


Got them installed. HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE CAR WORKS. The car is faster than it ever has been before. No more errors codes due to it not running well (just for not having cats/ rear O2s...). Bangs of the rev limiter into the next gear. And the car sounds just a bit louder.


Other than engine stuffs, I upgraded the mids and tweeters in the car. Tweeters are awesome, so much more clear and definitely go to a higher frequency then the stock ones. Mids while more clear, dont like being pushed, still better than stock. May replace the mids again (or move them to the rear doors and get better front ones)


Oh and fuck the stock CCV system in the car. Oil consumption went back up after putting it in. Designing a new catch can so I can rip the stock system out again. My old catch can worked great, and the car didnt consume much oil, but it was small and I filled it up often.

[flatcat19]

A couple of my co-workers own newer Bimmers

One is an E46 M3 and the other is a newer 535 twin turbo( don't know series.)

They both complain about lots of oil blowby.

Doesn't help, I know. You're just not the only one going through this.

[Laecaon]

Its a few things. Valve stem seals definitely helped when I did them. If I had the head off, I would have had the valve guides replaced too.

The CCV system can clog, then it backs up and shoves the intake with oil (not whats going on here)

Between the E46 and E36 engines there is only 1 legitimate difference. No one complains about oil consumption with the E36, at least not on the same scale. The piston rings. BMW switched to low friction rings on the E46. Ringlands are said to get super dirty, not allowing rings to move correctly. Also, they really like vacuum. Which the catch can pulls way more vacuum than the stock system.

The 535i or xi is probably an E60.



Anyways, Airbag is scheduled for September 1st.

Should get rid of my check engine light this weekend. All my parts to make an 02 simulator arrive Thursday.



I realized the other day, I have put 50k miles on this car. In that time, the Evap readiness monitor has never set to ready, but has also never failed. I have no codes for it. I dunno.

Im at 174k miles. Car drives super tight still. Everything sans the onboard computer button works. During the hunt for a car for my sister, I got to drive a few cars, and well I just don't like other cars. Steering is so floaty on supposedly good handling cars; and nothing quite has the throttle response like this car, while they may be faster they dont feel like they want to go faster.

Ill have my loan paid off in March, 8 months ahead of schedule. And I really dont know what I want next. What I know is, a 200k mile BMW is probably not something I want to mess around with.

What I have learn from this car, I dont really care what people say about hard to work on cars, this car was a breeze. Buy an enthusiast car, and you can find all the answers you will ever need; buy a car the manufacturer cares about, and all the little things and nuances will be in a greater light; Finally buy a car you actually like, and it will "reward" you will everything it does excellently.

[Taterhead]

Well said.

[flatcat19]

Would anti-foulers fix your MIL code, if it's getting cat codes.

Did the fouler tips on my maxima when I switched to headers. No issue whatsoever.

[Laecaon]

Problem is, The 02 bungs on the headers are in a horrible spot. I had to cut one of the bungs in half just to get it to clear the body. There isnt even room to get a 90 degree one on. I dont have the rear 02 sensors in the car at all right now.

Its ok. Right now without the 02 sensors at all, its only giving me 02 heater circuit bad. Im sure it will then freak out once I fix that.

02 heater simulator is cake. 10 ohm 50W resistor. Just be careful as it will get hot, so store it appropriately.

The 02 simulator uses a 555 timer, and simply switches the voltage back and forth from .1 to .9 volts every 3 seconds. Makes the ECU happy enough.

[Laecaon]

Airbag maybe replaced. All I know is it took the 2 hours to do a 30 minute job.

O2 simulator is working, kinda.

O2 part works great, car thinks the cat is present and the O2 sensors are behaving appropriately.

O2 heater, well I messed up. I went off of what other people said, and it's not quite right. Car has a pending code. But it won't actually make it a real code. Basically I need a new resistor to trick it.


If you really want to know, the car is looking for about a 2.5 ohm resistor. Problem is it's pumping 79watts of power through it. Buying a 2.5ohm 100w resistor is a bit spendy, but also not enough power handling for the temperature in the engine bay. Instead, 4 10 ohm 50 watt resistors in parallel equal 2.5ohms and is a lot cheaper, and will handle the power better, each resistor only sees 19.6 watts. So that is what I need to do.




BMW did diagnose my oil leak. Oil Pan! It's a slow leak. BMW also gave me a quote to fix the oil pan leak; $1300. WTF. I'm just gonna do it myself.