Karter16

It’s that time of year again! Cert seems to have expired!

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.

Could be worth checking MAF sensor. I had one go bad years ago, no codes, but played havoc with performance and fuel consumption.

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.

RIP to the E30 pouring out blue smoke on Onewa Rd this morning 😭 doesn’t look like she has long to go 😞

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.

2 hours ago, Eagle said:

Is it really a bargain though? Fixing all the cosmetic issues, do all the guaranteed deferred maintenance and mechanical work, then maybe do preventative subframe repairs and rod bearings, easy 10k+ right off the bat .

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.

I don't have answers, but likewise keen to know if anyone knows any tricks.

1 hour ago, Vass said:

Lucky you. I'm waiting an extra month because of one item out of 50

Oh man! They were really good keeping me updated, and they checked to make sure I didn't want to ship the rest of the stuff out before their vacation, and then the last couple of items arrived and they got it out the door in time. 

I wasn't in a rush so was happy to wait, none of this stuff is going on the car yet anyway haha

A package finally arrived from Schmiedmann today. Some of the parts probably aren't very high volume and there was a bit of a wait on some of them being available, but Schmiedmann got everything in last week and managed to get it shipped out before their summer vacation.

• Mouldings for rear side windows
• Front door channel seals
• Inner window channels
• inside entrance covering panels
• Entrance covers
• A pillar airbag cover inserts
• couple of trim pieces around the doors
• Washer nozzle for headlight washer to replace the one that bailed on me during a drive 😫

Funny, drove past a few weeks ago and thought to myself "man BMW have been there a long time!"

1 minute ago, Cement said:

I like the ciggie packet on the floor in the back 😂

haha great minds...

Nice of them to leave the pack of smokes in the car so you know without looking at it in person how it's going to smell.

Edit: just noticed the tow hook still attached in the second photo - guess that's why carjam shows it hasn't done any km's in the last 3 years 😛

Competing tonight for the most trivial of complaints…

bought a pack of digestive biscuits. Seeming unassailed pack, but the individual biscuits, which appear whole when you look at them, disintegrate as soon as you touch them. The entire pack is like this.

end result still the same, just messier getting there.

My M3 had a tower fitted by the original owner 😭 fortunately long gone by the time I bought it, although I had to remove all of the trailer light wiring from the boot.

On 5/5/2022 at 4:27 AM, aja540i said:

I feel more sorry for the car than the owner, it didn't deserve that!

Yeah I mean if you didn't know how to drive stick, then wouldn't ya practice in a Yaris first lol.

Although from the damage and the report of what happened I suspect that maybe we're not hearing the whole truth...

So last night I got round to doing something I’ve been meaning to for a long time - flashed the GDSMG2 module with the ‘255’ CSL binary using WinKFP. I also flashed the DME with the CSL SMG shifting and rev matching parameters and the clutch inertia parameters using BMW Flash and the ECUWorx MSS5X Binary Modification Tool.

To provide stable supply to the battery I hooked the car up to our Subaru with jumper leads during the flashing process to minimise the bricking risk.

I then flashed the GDSMG2 module first with WinKFP:

Followed by taking a partial copy of the DME user data area, modifying it with the ECUWorx tool, and then flashing the modified binary back to the DME:

The MSS5X Binary Modification Tool is great. So easy to use and such a time saver. I am completely confident in my ability to modify the binary by hand, but I spend a fair chunk of my time in the depths of software, so when it comes to extra-curricular car activities I was more than happy to spend $40 to save the time and mental effort that would be required.

The flashing process went flawlessly for me, and I was all done in about 45 mins. For anyone doing it my advice is as follows:

1: Ensure that your programming platform is stable and working. I gave my hardware, OS cable, etc a good work out with INPA and ISTA first to get as much confidence as I could that the connection to the car seemed reliable.

2: Make sure you have a stable power supply. Either jumper to another (running) car, Or fork out for a supply mode charger.

3: Read up carefully on the process, make sure you know the steps and that you have everything in place, you don’t want to be messing around figuring stuff out when you’re in the middle of doing it.

4: Make sure you understand that flashing modules over OBDII is inherently risky, and that you can’t eliminate all risk. Make sure you can live with it going bad, and that you have a plan for how to resolve if you end up with a bricked module.

So onto the CSL binary and DME updates themselves…

Everyone says how much better the CSL binary is. I’ve heard lots about how it’s faster. To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. The standard SMG software has always seemed pretty decent to me, and it’s plenty fast to begin with, so I wasn’t sure I wanted more speed and harshness.

Oh how wrong I was. The CSL flash is a bit faster, but the real benefits are how much smoother it is shifting under acceleration, and how wonderful the rev matching is on downshifting. It’s a revelation. It significantly improves the SMG function, without taking away any of the character that makes the SMG special to begin with. Suffice to say this change will be sticking round on my car!

Made a bit of progress this weekend. A couple of weeks ago I took the car for its WOF, which it failed for the first time in my ownership, due to the weeping high pressure power steering line. This was annoying but not unsurprising given it’s been weeping since 2017 and I’ve been intentionally avoiding it for as long as possible (given the new ones start to weep again fairly quickly anyway).

Anyhow, needs must, so I placed an order with Schmiedmann for the power steering line and associated bits and new wiper blades (which also needed doing) as well as a bunch of other stuff that fit in the box without increasing shipping cost.

That arrived this Friday just been:

So on Saturday I took the car round to Dad’s to swap it over (Dad’s driveway is a more advantageous angle than mine, so with that as the excuse I snaffled a few hours of his time as well).

I was thankful for a second pair of hands as although swapping the line is very straightforward, it was super annoying getting tools in to undo the vibration dampening brackets and put the new ones on.

The offending item:

It was good to actually do something on the car. Last time I really did any work on it was in 2019 before my son’s operation. It was pretty cool this time to have him helping me as well 😍

With the power steering fluid topped up and new wiper blades fitted the car is ready to pass it’s WOF recheck this coming week. The other items will remain on the shelf for now (except perhaps for the rear boot lid struts because the honking noise annoys me).

The other thing I’ve been doing this week is setting up an old MacBook as my workshop PC (this involved barbaric things such as using a flash drive to install Windows 10 on it, manually installing drivers, and other such horrors that I thought belonged in the 2000’s). Anyway it’s all setup nicely now. Currently using it with my K+D CAN cable but will probably purchase an ICOM interface at some point so that I can hopefully retire my DIS VM for good!

Will be making another order from Schmiedmann this week - I have a fairly lengthy list of parts to get through, so biting the list off in chunks for now.

Till next time!

On 4/20/2022 at 7:10 PM, m325i said:

Sorry if it's raw / too early, but the insurance scenario would be something I am sure a lot of other owners would be interested in given the recent value changes. Hope it works out OK for you.

This is exactly why I switched over Classic Cover with an agreed value a while back. Value going up up up and major insurance company treating it like any other car wanting to reduce the insured value each year.

Welcome to bimmersport! The car looks good! BMW's are a great platform to learn, lots of great information and resources out there to learn as you go.

Just now, Harper said:

No worries. I assume you've seen the set of nogaros that someone had trimmed in CSL materials. They look very OE when done that way.

The manual sliders are a very basic mechanism so I'm sure the release handle would be an easy thing to fabricate. Hopefully the gap between the pillar is passable. I look forward to seeing what route you go.

Yes I have thank you! Running across those photos were what started me looking down the Nogaro route. I hadn't previously considered them really, but upholstered like that they look pretty close.

Hopefully I can figure something out that keeps everyone happy. Am in the middle of sorting out fabrics, etc. and finding out what can be done, so hopefully something in this space in the not too distant future!

Thanks again for letting me hijack your thread 🙂

Thank you very much for your reply and for taking photos for me! Gee it’s very close to 300mm!

Yeah I’m thinking of maybe going the Nogaro route to retain the OE seatbelt routing (likely with custom upholstery to make them look more like the CSL seats). I would love to go with the Recaros being the manufacturer of the CSL seats, but I’m planning to keep my car otherwise stock, so I’m looking to avoid the need to cert. Assuming I do manage to get 300mm, I’d then just need to look to solve a lever to slide the seat forward that is accessible from the rear. My car is a weekend car and I never have anyone in the back seat, but obviously need to keep things legal and keep the WOF man happy.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and share your knowledge - much appreciated!

On 11/22/2021 at 5:25 PM, Harper said:

Some cool stuff to add here. New alcantara wheel. Went with royal steering wheels from the UK over someone like Cobywheel cause I don't like the way they just wrap over an original. I wanted to retain OEM thickness etc. The other option was one of the European guys on ebay but half of them can't use the stock grey 9002 alcantara and use 9040 which is much darker. I already have 9002 on the gear/handbrake levers and boots, so matching was important. Not to mention the ebay guys are significantly more expensive. Went with black stitching instead of the tri-colour. Not my thing, and I have black stitching everywhere else. Overall fairly impressed given the price. There is some slight bunching at 9 and 3 on the wheel but pretty good. 

This section in particularly is rough on the cobywheel and was the reason I was looking elsewhere. The cobywheels have loose material hanging off here because they are just wraps. 

 

Other than that over the last few weeks I have rebuilt some sedan sliders and mounted the recaros on those instead of coupe sliders. Significantly more travel on the passenger side and makes rear seat access better. Unfortunately I fried my phone and lost the photos but I just cleaned them down and painted them gloss black. I also decided I would have a go regluing my A and C pillars which were sagging (again lost the before photos). I had seen people suggest using a glue stick. I was sceptical but figured if it didn't work I would just replace them anyway. To my surprise, it worked super well and they are still holding pretty firm a few weeks later. We will see if they survive the summer. 

Replaced the headlight lenses and removed the angel eyes. Photos don't do justice how much of a difference fresh lenses make. 

Before:

After:

Replaced all the window seals for fresh ones since the old ones were dry and disintegrated, and a fresh center hood grill as well (lost the before shots but they were knackered).

 

In a happy place with the car for now. Time for a breather. 

The seats look awesome! How much more travel do you get with the sedan sliders. Is it enough to give you 300mm of access to the rear seat? Am trying to plan options to keep the WOF people happy 🙃

EBay?

https://www.ebay.com/p/1326270728

Some “pieces of plastic” in my wife’s words arrived today. She’s right, they are pieces of plastic, but they’re special in that, unlike my current ones, these ones don’t have any scratches on them.

Was struggling to find them in stock anywhere so jumped on a pair I found being sold out of Lithuania. 

they arrived and they have a manufacture date of end of Jan this year, so they can’t be THAT out of stock haha.