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I then took a detour and decided to try and hunt down the annoying rattle coming somewhere from the passenger door region that had been eating away at me for months. Having taken the door card off I was greeted with this. Guess that's a quicker way of replacing a window regulator. I've of course had the door cards off before but somehow it hadn't registered. It would have been prior to the engine swap so the priorities would have been elsewhere. I then reached into the door and discovered a handful of glass shards. Would never have noticed it otherwise but the window was of some random brand and not stamped with a BMW logo like the rest of them. Only then I discovered that it was also the only side window to not have window tints. To top it off it also had a row of little gashes on the inside in one place from something rubbing against it. Not enough to notice on its own, but enough to annoy me having discovered it. I'm planning on redoing the window tints all round before next summer so figured I might as well have a set of original windows and not lock in some random, slightly damaged one. So, being the lunatic that I am, I set off to Pick-A-Part for a replacement original window and vapour barrier. Having carefully peeled away the vapour barrier and taken out the glass, I discovered that the car I'd been scavenging was pre-wired for heated seats. Score! The seats themselves were already taken, which made access to the wiring that much easier. Naturally I turned a quick half-hour trip for a new window glass into a 5-hour mission of extracting the heated seat wiring all in one piece... Got to satisfy my curiosity in knowing exactly how it was done from factory and have the full kit ready for when I eventually get around to ripping my interior apart again. What started off as trying to chase down a rattle had well and truly snowballed out of control. With the window out, I figured why stop there - I might as well remove the door handle and give the whole door a good cut and polish as well. It definitely needed it. From there on, the window regulator also came out, as did the whole door lock mechanism and everything else along with it until all that remained was the wiring. "But hey, since you've got it all apart, why not install some sound deadening", said my stupid brain. The door panel got the same treatment as the hood, minus the wet sanding. Came out pretty sweet. The door cavity got a proper cleanout with a vacuum and blown out with compressed air. The door lock mechanism, door handle and window regulator got cleaned and lubed up with some white lithium grease. All internals reassembled, I sealed it by taking a heat gun to the butyl tape attached to the new vapour barrier and sticking it on nice and snug. All the door and window rubbers also got some Gummi Pfledge treatment whilst I was at it. Not that there was anything noticeably wrong with it prior but the door handle and window regulator now seem to operate slightly smoother, and the door sounds that wee bit less tinny when slamming it shut. Took it for a quick test drive around the block and... ...the damn rattle is still there. Looks like it might have been the seat belt trim inside the B-pilar all along. Cars are pain.

Have barely driven the car of late, instead choosing to stumble down all manner of wormholes. First was an easy one. The typical cluster clock adjustment arms finally gave out so one of these 3D printed replacements got ordered in and installed. Quick and easy fix, 10/10 product. Then made a start on a task I've been putting off for the longest time - addressing the aesthetics, namely the shoddy state of the paintwork. Having zero prior experience in any sort of cutting & polishing it wasn't a task I'd been too confident in taking on, on a black car no less, but having pretty much resigned to eventually needing a full respray anyway I figured I might as well try my hand at it. Worst comes to worst it would just bring the timeline forward. Armed with some hands-on knowledge through a detailing clinic with United Car Care and a hodgepodge assortment of products I kicked off the journey. I started off on the hood as it looked in the most desperate need for a tidy up. Having done several passes with a heavy cut compound on a wool pad and seemingly not making any progress I went with the nuclear option and jumped head first into wet sanding. Not sure if I was doing it right, and it did look pretty scary at times, but somehow I seem to have gotten away with it. The sequence was as follows: Wash & clay bar. 2000-grit sandpaper on the heavier scratches & imperfections. Several passes with a Koch Chemie H9.01 heavy cut compound on wool pads with a 150mm DA & 75mm polisher for tighter spots. Fill in rock chips, remaining deep scratches and bird dropping etchings with touch-up paint. Menzerna 3 in 1 polish on medium foam pads. Clean down with a quick detailer. Protect with Fireball Pirouette. Still left with plenty of imperfections with some deep scratches going nowhere and touch-up paint making the inherited damage from the etched in bird sh*t only ever so slightly less apparent. Never going to win any awards but still heaps better than the swirly, scratched up mess that it was before. Will make turning up to club meets that wee bit less embarrassing anyway so have to be happy with the effort.

Managed to knock out the tedious task of repairing the boot harness over the past few weeks. Wasn't as straight-forward a process as I'd have liked but got there in the end. Also installed the reversing camera that had been sitting on the shelf for a good few years. Went with one that slots in instead of one of the number plate lights. Despite it being advertised specifically for an E46, turned out it didn't quite fit. Namely, it back cover was too large to fit into the housing and would hit the inside wall before reaching the seating surface. Had to take out the dremel and hack off quite a good chunk out of it until it clipped in, so much so that it left a few gaping holes in the thing that I sealed up with hot glue. Turned out quite ghetto, but as long as it works, it ain't stupid. The grommet for the boot wiring had been badly torn ever since I got the car so was long overdue being addressed. The plastic trims around the tailgate were also all busted up and were held in place with some disgusting goo that took quite a bit of effort to clean up. I already knew the black wire to be broken but also discovered the brown ground wire to be on its way out after cutting up the boot/grommet. The black wire was going up to the module under the hatch spoiler/brake light panel which turned out to be radio antenna amplifier. A few wires going in and out from either side so not exactly sure what that particular wire was supposedly powering. Never noticed issues with getting radio signal but good to have it repaired regardless. There was a lot of splicing involved. In total, there was 24 wires - 21 going to the main hatch and 3 to the glass window, all routed through the 3-legged "elephant trunk" harness. I went with this kit from Schmiedmann that included replacement wires, crimp connections and of course new boots/grommets. Weirdly, half of the crimp connectors were good quality ones with incorporated glued heatshrink sleeves and half were the shitty rigid plastic casing ones with no heatshrink. I wasn't a big fan of the latter so went out and bought some more to match the former, in sizes that I could find anyway. The kit looked like the perfect solution for the issue but unfortunately packed a major flaw, one that I only discovered having already hooked up the 3 wires going to the glass window. For some stupid reason the replacement grommet that goes to the body of the car was way too big to fit into the opening. The difference wasn't minor either but was a good 15-20mm longer than the original grommet. I tried ever which way to cram it in there but it just would not budge, the thing was just way too oversized. The process of reporting the issue to Schmiedmann turned out to be comically difficult. Must have gone back and forth with their representative a good 10+ times. Sent them the photos and the description of the issue, to which they said I must not have done it right, that the grommet is very flexible and should fit without issue, then demanded precise measurements of the grommets and the opening, photos of both grommets next to the opening, then claimed my car must not be standard as they've sold heaps of these and I'm the first one to complain so it's my fault somehow... All a bit silly as the photos really speak for themselves. The original grommet was already a tight fit into the opening and with the replacement one being proportionally longer by a good quarter there was just no way it would fit, without issue no less. The openings for the wires were the same size but the Schmiedmann grommet had about a cm of extra material either side of it compared to the original. Why they didn't just make it to match the genuine grommet I have no idea. In the end managed to claw out a partial 50% refund. Was going to use it on a new genuine grommet (part #61136900190) but unfortunately the lead times on those are 3-4 weeks and keeping the car out of action for that long wasn't an appealing option so I tried to make this one work by chopping it up. I cut away at the extra material either side of the opening and cut a new sealing groove with a razor, giving my fingers a good few cuts and bleeding all over the place in the process. Unfortunately, didn't take any photos of the end result as I didn't fancy taking it back out again after the first successful test-fitting, it didn't look pretty though. Luckily looks to have sealed up fine in the end. I'm a bit concerned about the angle the rubber folds at which makes me doubtful of its longevity, so I'm still putting an order in for a genuine grommet to have on hand as a backup. The most time consuming part was of course reconnecting the wires. Took my time numbering and labelling every wire to make sure nothing got crossed up. 48 crimps in total as well as soldering in the reversing camera connections and the new number plate light. Got quite repetitive in the end. In the end tidied up quite nicely. All the lights, boot latches and of course the reverse camera all fully functional without any hiccups, which was a great relief. I'm mindful of this solution introducing new potential failure points but the connection points should be far enough away from any moving parts that or pinch points that I'm fairly confident it won't be an issue. The shifty grommet is the main point of concern for me so will be something I keep my eye on.

Except the last 5 k of the Remarks road would likely be the end of your front splitter 😬

M3T going through Kawarau Gorge this morning, great 4wd for winter down here!

Made a spray booth in the workshop, when will I learn not to do all in-house!! Anyway, extraction and heated... Alpine White. Have a design for the rollcage. Quick patchup on rear guards. Will spray the exterior after the cert. Much more tidy platform to start on. Getting pipes and plates ready for mounting on the rotisserie.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bmw+2002+n54+swap

Wonder if the drivetrain would fit into a 70s 2002....?