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Bought my first E46 325i touring a few weeks ago. Previous owner had been chasing what he suspected was a "vacuum leak", causing a slight miss at cold start but otherwise drove well. I got under yesterday to do the fuel filter and trans mounts. Took the cover off the fuel filter and sre enough the vacuum line is perished at the regulator. Take the filter off, replace the fuel lines and vacuum line while I'm there and finish up. Had the old fuel filter on my bench with black fuel and sediment coming out of it and that's when I realized the date on it was the build date of the e46. 22 years / 160000kms later.. yikes!

I went and bought a new unit. It uses Linux instead of android. It still allows you to use android Auto or Apple Carplay. It allows a connection to the original BMW software so you can use this set the temp, playe the radio, check the oil etc. It hasn't arrived yet but I will do a review when it does.

Hi Team long time no post. Sorry been busy with business move, other side projects and abit lazy in the posting. So plans have changed a bit, The v10 will be saved for a nice oldschool bimmer, not sure which one yet. E46 M3 will be getting a N73 v12 motor from this beast. I will be on selling the m73 stuff to fund this swap. Also in the pipe line have this e46 330ci coupe. Looking at dropping my last 4.6 motor into it. Have an Elate supercharger adapter plate, water to air cooled. Modified AMG supercharger and 420g 6 speed box with my spare M3 rear end. Rear subframe plates and driveshaft hoops welded in. Stainless headers, engine mounts and gearbox x member. Just sorting out the oiling by modifying the x5 one. Cant wait to get this thing running. Thanks

As a finishing touch, I finally got all the boot trims repaired and reinstalled. The plastic tabs holding the trim bits in place are notorious for breaking upon removal, no matter how careful you approach the task. Mine were of course already busted and creatively held in place with double-sided tape and sticky goo courtesy of the previous owner/s. Fortuitously, a while ago I'd come across a clever solution by one ///Mark_D on the E46 Fanatics forum who came up with a set of replacement steel tabs that can be glued in place of the broken plastic ones. Naturally, I snapped up a bunch and finally put them to good use. Between the bits that came on the car, a set that @Hazzy dropped off on his way through town and a few various bits I'd collected off a few parts cars, I put together a tidy looking set and got onto fitting replacement tabs. I first marked out the exact footprint of the new tabs, cut off and filed down the remnants of the old ones, used a dremel to roughen up the mating surface for better adhesion and then glued the tabs in place using some high strength clear epoxy. Every trim bit needed at least one new tab with the total number coming out to 17. With most of the boot taken apart, I took up the chance to give everything a good clean treat the plastics with some Aerospace 303. Also swapped out a few remaining cracked and busted bits that I finally managed to find good replacements for. All the interior trims are now looking as good as they ever will, pretty happy with the state of it on a 20+ year old car. All the goo cleaned off and trim bits installed. Awesome seeing everything nicely buttoned up for the first time in 3+ years. Reverse camera fully functional. No adjustment possible but good enough angle to avoid backing into stuff. The headunit Android system still takes about 20 seconds to boot up but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the reverse camera functions straight away after startup without any wait time. Good stuff. The towball is also in full view when installed. One of the main missions I've been putting off is getting that all wired in. Will need to get my hands on a towing module (part #61356955253) that the E46 shares the the E53 X5 & E83 X3. If anyone has any leads on one, please do shout out. One funny thing I discovered when making my latest parts order is that the "aero" windshield wipers are RHD & LHD-specific. LHD Bosch ones are pretty cheap from Schmiedmann but of course nobody carries RHD ones. No surprise that my car came with LHD ones with the fin facing the wrong way... Not that it makes a massive, if any, noticeable difference but just another thing that triggered my OCD. They were due a replacement anyway so ordered a set of correct ones from Wipertech - seems to be all the rage lately. Love that new wiper feel.

Hey Team Another long break between post, so managed to sell the black 330ci to a nice gentlemen who drove all the way from te puke to pick it up. Short vid made by my friend and exhaust sound near the end. So have also managed to get the n62 oil pump stuff sorted for the m62tub46 motor. I had a few hiccups with the sump pan fitting correctly but we got there in the end. Also had to modify the cross member which the certifier was happy with. This was the 1st change to the n62 sump Shorten tubes and oil pump shaft Had to make 6 new 10mm spacers to raise the pump up and slot the oil pump bolt holes to accommodate taller spacers. The final Sump pan we ended up cutting the front off the n62 pan and reusing the X5 front 1/4 due to needing the power steering and air con pump tensioner brackets. All bolted in on the motor now i reused the m62tu oil pump chain and sprocket. Bolted the Flywheel and clutch it on Tested fitted into the engine bay due to me needing to find if the n62 dip stick cleared which it does but needs to be shortened by 120mm Plenty of clearance underneath too. Not long to go. Thanks Team