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Karter16

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Everything posted by Karter16

  1. I wonder if it’s something to do with the button icons having different surface areas that illuminate, and they have adjusted the brightness of each LED so the brightness of each button appears to match?
  2. Oh yours is next level! You could just about slap a badge on that and sell it!
  3. Might be worth having a look at https://github.com/Wnthr/arduino-alpine-remote/blob/master/src/AlpineRemote.cpp which might be helpful in that it references the hex codes to send for various commands. Might be an easier place to start than trying to capture the IR signals and replay them. I note that the readme.md on that project indicates that it's a variation on the standard NEC IR protocol. Cool project!
  4. Yeah that's what Dad and I did a few years ago when we were applying 3M 7333 epoxy to the RACP reinforcement plates - ours looked like the below. It worked great, and was better than spending hundreds of dollars on something we needed to use once.
  5. looks like the valueline rear bumper part number 51128222609 to me.
  6. Hey thanks for that - good to have your details as I do have a couple of other pieces of the interior that I'd like to get touched up, so will reach out to you when I'm ready for that 👍
  7. Yeah I'm thinking that I'll probably go down this route. The current silver trim I have is absolutely flawless, so thinking that I'll sell it on to someone who wants the silver and then replace with a new set of Titan Shadow rather than painting over trim that's in mint condition. I don't have to do the door handles as a previous owner had them wrapped in leather/pleather and it's actually a pretty decent job and wears well, so will probably leave as is.
  8. Well another weekend day, another nap time, another short window to get some stuff done on the car. The plan for the day was replacing the steering wheel with the new OE item that I purchased last year, but while I waited after disconnecting the battery to be sure to be sure that the airbags were clear to work with I decided that today was finally replacing the gas struts on the boot so that the car no longer sounds like a dying goat when you open the boot lid. The old one The new one - not genuine because I couldn't justify $50 more each to get the "E46 M3" stamp on the genuine one, given these are probably going to start groaning again after a couple of years anyway. Then it was on to swapping out the wheel. Pressing in on the clock springs to release the airbag is the trickiest part of the exercise, but even that was pretty straightforward as I had the new wheel to refer to which meant I was able to see exactly what it was I was trying to press on, and how much force was needed to depress the spring. I had the old one out in fairly short order. And the new one was even easier to install. Pushing the airbag back into place at the end is extremely satisfying. Am planning on getting the dash and gear surround trim in Titan Shadow at some point so that it all matches/looks original.
  9. Looking great! This is a very cool project and certainly no mean feat! I am very much enjoying following this! Keep up the great work!
  10. Thanks! yeah they really are gorgeous! And yes, they were not cheap, but provided I look after them they should hold their value pretty well in comparison to the other options I was considering. Yeah I'd love to know the story of why they were removed from their original car. I don't know why in this case but I do know in general it was not uncommonly done in the UK where the car was being used on the track and a bucket seat that supported use of a harness was required. (I mean if that was me I would have still kept the original seats rather than sold them), but I guess back then you could buy replacements from BMW etc. and maybe it wasn't foreseen that they'd become quite so popular/unobtainable 🤷‍♂️
  11. Well with a wife recovering from a major surgery and two small children I haven't had a lot of time to get down to the car, but I did manage to grab a couple of hours today while the smaller of the tiny humans napped. The sports seats were out in no time (surprisingly easier to manhandle out than various forum posts had led me to believe, they're not THAT heavy and unwieldy), and sadly plainly showing how long it is since I properly cleaned the interior 🙈 This finally gave me the opportunity to get the wet vac out and finally clean up the coffee that had presumably been spilt by a previous owner of the car. It looks like it must have spilt on the passenger seat and dripped through to the carpet. (underside of the seat did not show signs of coffee however so 🤷‍♂️). I did a vacuum and wet vac on the bits that needed it. Just did a fairly quick clean, as still intend to pull everything out and do a deep clean at some point in the future (I was running on limited time today). That's better! Then it was time to get the bucket seats into the car. Being significantly lighter this was fairly easy, I used towels etc. round the door to make sure I didn't scratch the seats, but it wasn't really needed as it was easy to fit them through the door and into place. After connecting the wiring it was on to getting the seat placed properly and torqued down. I followed the advice that M3_Power had given me to make sure you keep sliding the seat back and forwards on the sliders as you tighten it down, to make sure its sliding freely and locking into place correctly with all 4 locking pins when you select a position. That was all pretty straightforward and in short order I had the passenger seat installed. Then it was on to the driver's side, and again just a case of repeating the process. More straightforward and quicker to do than I was expecting, and THEY LOOK AWESOME! I haven't had a chance to take the car for a drive yet, but will try to take it for a drive tomorrow. These photos also highlight that I really need to get the new steering wheel installed, as the old one is looking pretty bad now. Might try to get that done tomorrow as well, will see how I go. In terms of the seats I'm super happy with them, they're exactly what I was wanting and it's so satisfying having bucket seats that are genuine, period correct, look awesome, and are in amazing condition. They were of course $$$, so I wasn't completely sure I wouldn't experience some form of buyer's regret, but I have not so far 😂 Very happy 😍
  12. Well it's an exciting week in the life of this project. Around 18 months ago I decided that I wanted to take a bit of a deviation from keeping the car stock, and look into options around bucket seats. Although I want to ensure that I can always revert the car exactly to stock, I felt that bucket seats would provide a significant improvement to the driving experience of the car. I find I move around a fair bit in the standard sports seats, so wanted something that would hold me better. I looked into many options for seats, and fairly quickly zeroed in on the Cobra Nogaros. I was keen though to keep the look of the seats as in keeping and period correct as possible so I reached out early last year to Cobra to enquire about custom upholstery with Alcantara and laser fabric to replicate the genuine CSL seats. I was pretty excited to hear that they were working on the Munich Edition Nogaros (which were released later that year). Unfortunately the other key requirement I had is that I didn't want to have to go through the process of getting a cert. I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out whether there was a path to that using OE sliders, Brey-Krauss (or similar) mounts and Cobra Nogaros. Slid all the way forward you get very close to a 300mm gap, but the other key requirement that the sliding mechanism be accessible to the rear passenger was going to be hard to achieve (and pretty much impossible without going down the cert path). As a result, when the Munich Edition Nogaros were released I ultimately didn't pull the trigger (although I still think they're a cool option) There was of course one other possible option which met all of my exacting requirements... I'm now the proud owner of a pair of genuine CSL seats 😍 These particular seats came out of a low mileage car and have sat in storage for the last 10 years, so as a result are in amazing condition considering they are 20 years old. I only picked them up last night, and probably won't have time until the weekend to get them into the car, but I'll certainly be updating here when I do!
  13. Relocation frame for the climate control arrived today - glad I didn’t pay for express shipping as it came super quick anyway. brand new - manufactured in 2007. Not sure if this is old stock, or they haven’t been manufactured since, but anyway, I now have one!
  14. Mmm looking at the photos I’m not sure I’d want the rear end from that one 😛
  15. That Blaupunkt unit is gorgeous! Yeah it's a challenge to find something that fits with the car. the likes of the Dynavin and the Avin are closeish, but the buttons aren't quite right on the Dynavin, and the Avin sounds like a reliability nightmare - which was why I ultimately decided to go for something that I know will be out of place, but will at least work properly. I'll post up here for sure to document the install and show the end result. The relocation unit probably won't be here for another 6 weeks or so, so will be a while before I get it all setup I imagine.
  16. I haven't bought it yet but am planning to get the Pioneer DMHZF9350BT. It's single DIN with adjustable float - I've seen some photos of installation in an E46 and it looks to be acceptable. Obviously a floating touchscreen is going to look a bit out of place in the E46 cabin, but the alternatives that look fairly OE just don't meet my bar for user experience/reliability. So decided that I would suck it up and get something clearly not OE that works properly. In terms of CarPlay - it's just having something I can interact with safely while driving. I use maps all the time (to keep me updated on fastest route, not to know where to go) and I prefer having music/call/etc controls I can touch. I've got a bluetooth interface at the moment, but it's not ideal for me, hence deciding to go this route.
  17. It’s that time of year again! Cert seems to have expired!
  18. So the car has always had a fair amount of clunk when shifting load onto the drivetrain (particularly when upshifting under power). It persisted after the full drivetrain rebuild I did a few years ago, and I was beginning to wonder if the diff was knackered. As I was doing research around this issue I came across this thread: https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/main-forum/e46-2001-2006/46469-7-year-review-of-my-smg-from-clunk-to-no-clunk which reported what sounded like similar symptoms and noted great improvement with doing a full factory reset, bleed and relearning of the SMG system using INPA (as opposed to the soft reset which can be done by pulling back on the paddles). This afternoon I decided to give this a go (with a helping of trepidation as if your SMG is weak in any way the factory reset has a tendency to point this out during the bleeding and shifting process). This led to the first win of the afternoon: Green for good. The SMG reset ran no problems. Second win for the afternoon was my son and I took the car for a test drive and the clunk is completely resolved. Can shift up down through the rev range both on and off the power and the clunk is gone. Would have done this long ago had I realised 🙄 - learn something every day! Second thing I did was something I've been meaning to for ages. After I did the VANOS rebuild some years ago I ran the VANOS test in DIS, and was noting the intake times were longer than ideal - indeed they were above 400ms. Made a note to test again once things had bedded in, but life got in the way and I never did it. Ran it today and everything looks good. Intake times around 250ms and Exhaust times around 200ms. Not ideal, but within range so I'm happy for now. In new parts news I've ordered the climate control relocation kit as I can't stand not having CarPlay any longer. After much to and fro I've decided I can accept the non-OE look of a modern unit fro the improved day-to-day usability. I'll box all the original stuff so it can be returned to original as/when needed.
  19. Could be worth checking MAF sensor. I had one go bad years ago, no codes, but played havoc with performance and fuel consumption.
  20. The concern is that Singapore is a high-humidity environment which generally cars, and electronics in particular, don't like. Having said that not all cars from Singapore will exhibit problems (I had a Singapore import for many years with no issues), however you should be prepared for a higher likelihood of issues with a Singapore import.
  21. RIP to the E30 pouring out blue smoke on Onewa Rd this morning 😭 doesn’t look like she has long to go 😞
  22. I had my non-functional 318 picked up, bear in mind this was 7 years ago now, but I believe the company I used was https://a1carremoval.co.nz I filled in their web form on a Sunday morning, got a phone call from them about 45 minutes later. Asked a few questions and gave me an indicative cash figure over the phone. They arrived an hour later, looked the car over and confirmed they'd pay slightly more than they said on the phone. Took the license plates off, loaded the car on the truck, gave me the cash and all done. As I said, 7 years ago, so who knows if it's the same now, but was a great experience from my perspective.
  23. Yeah agreed. I'd say, given the recent pull-back in prices, that it seems about bang-on to me given the mileage, condition and big 3 needing to be addressed.
  24. I don't have answers, but likewise keen to know if anyone knows any tricks.
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