E36 325i manual

[Kevin3 0]

Here is my new car, BMW E36 325i coupe manual

I'm learning as I go with these but I think tha's an M Tech 2 steering wheel and I'm still trying to find what the spoiler is.

It's fairly respectable as is but is a little bit of a project at the same time, nothing like a 580 mile drive home to give you time to spot what you want to fix/change! I'll keep this updated as I go anyway.

[Kevin3 0]

Not a very exciting update but at least I'm making a start on it. You can see in the third last photo above that someone had painted the grab handles silver, that is starting to chip and also they never painted the back of the handle so I took it off and sanded it down with wet and dry sandpaper grit 350, 800 and 1200. Much happier with it now.

The passenger side mirror electric wasn't working either but the drivers side was. I opened it up, cleaned out all the grit around the motor and sprayed some wd40 and it's working now fine.

Also this little cubby hole pocket thing, the cover only opened about one in ten times,

Took it apart and turned out to be the pin was bent and so jumping the track, simple as straighten the pin and put back together

I'm waiting on a few parts to come in the post and will have more updates then, enjoying it in the mean time though

[Kevin3 0]

Another thing off the list, the window of the passenger door wasn't dropping the 5mm it should to pass under the door seal when the door was being opened. It was very annoying have to go in and open the window a bit before I could open the passenger door, I researched it a bit and learned it's a common enough problem with these, just a microswitch inside the door lock that goes.

I took some photos but it's all been covered before really, for taking off the door card I used the first half of this guide http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f92/e3...o-doors-t19986/ (except I didn't need to twist the door pin to remove it) and for changing the microswitch I used this guide http://www.frankies-bmw.com/3series/diy/mi...microswitch.php

For refitting the doorlock, I found it a lot easier to attach the door lock motor last, that wasy you have a lot more room to attach the pull rods for the door lock pin and the internal handle.

It all went quite smoothly anyway and turns out it was also the reason the internal centre light wasn't coming on when it should with doors opening and after removing key from ignition, so they are working now too.

One photo anyway, old and new microswitches

[hodray 0]

You've got your self a good honest car there...plus manual BMWs are the ducks nuts. Good luck to you

[Neal 544]

Nice car.Looks almost identical to my old one. Rear spoiler is a BMW motorsport item. Great to see that your taking time to fix up those wear and tear items, the car is in good hands.

[Kevin3 0]

Thanks for the encouragement.

I'm currently fitting heated mirrors but can't get them to work. I've spliced into the constant live (blue) and the earth (brown) from the wires going to the mirror motor but the mirrors still aren't heating. I got them second hand so maybe they are faulty, can't think of anything else.

[hotwire 352]

As with above comments - well done with sorting the little issues.

Mirrors - if you have power & earth to the element & it doesn't go - it is faulty

Warning though - you don't want them connected to permanent power

[Kevin3 0]

Ya I'm putting a switch in too so I'll be able to only have them on when I need them.

Will try the mirrors with different glass.

[Kevin3 0]

One other thing that was quite annoying from when I got the car was the passenger seat never folded. I thought it would be the bowden cable as they seem to go but it turned out to the one of the simplest fixes I've ever done, just a pity I went off and bought a new bowden cable from Pelican Parts before I had a proper look at the seat, hopefully they take returns or else if anyone else wants it let me know.

Anyway without taking any of the seat apart I was met with this, the problem:

Looking at the drivers side it was missing this metal retaining clip

The solution:

Also, does anyone know what this socket in the fron glove box is for?

[Kevin3 0]

I have the heated mirrors install done too, write up to follow soon

[Andre3000 55]

Socket in glovebox is for a little rechargable BMW torch!

[Kevin3 0]

Thanks Andre, I found a few of the torches on ebay, pricey enough little things!

Here is the story with the heated mirrors install anyway.

I have had them in a previous car and found them quite useful, I researched them on the e36 and found they came with the optional extra winter pack and they were never switched. I decided to retrofit them and put in a switch. I wanted the switch to look OEM and my first choice was in the blank cirlce button here (picture from google - not my car)

However after I took out the heater control unit and had a look at the back I realised there just wasn't enough room to get anything in there. In the end I found a nice little flat rocker switch in an electrical shop which I am happy with. I put it just infront of the handbrake

To get it there I had to trim the console a little bit and spread the contacts of the switch to avoid this metal bar, all worked out in the end though.

For the wiring itself, I found the wiring diagram from this webiste

I haven't drawn electrical diagrams in a while but here was my original plan for wiring them. The diagram shows the wires having colour tracers but on my car at least they were straight brown, black, white and blue. I firstly spliced into the white as my permanent live but that was wrong, blue is permanent live and brown is earth.

To do this option you must run an additional wire through the mirror casing which means taking off the back case which is held on by 4 number 1 philips screws which I rounded the heads of 3 of them and didn't want to go buying a left hand extractor set so went back to the drawing board and came up with this

With this arragement though, the switch controls the adjustment of the mirror aswell as the heating of them which was not my original plan but it's not that much hardship either to flick the switch before adjusting the mirrors.

Work in progress...

For splicing in I just wrapped the wires and put on some heat shrink. This photo is the first time I did it so the white wire is spliced but I later rejoined that and spliced into the blue. You can also see three of those little philips screws holding on the mirror casing

With it all back together

After all that I have a switched live and an earth female connector at each mirror, all I'm short now is the actual heated mirror glass and I'll be sorted, now that it's into summer though I'm a bit reluctant to get them because they are a little expensive.

So that's how I did it anyway, comments welcomed and thanks for reading

[Kevin3 0]

Next update, I saw that the pickapart scarpyard here in Christchurch were scrapping a saloon 318 so I was able to get a few handy parts off that. One thing it had was heated mirrors, only the left one was there so I took the whole thing because the car conincedintally was the same colour as my own.

Confirmation that it's just an extra wire onto the blue and brown from factory

I then put the glass from that mirror into my own driver side mirror and it heats on the switch so I'm very happy with that.

I also took the cubby hole from under the radio because my own had an extra hole at the back of it which I wasn't really too happy with. I never really like the red bulb that wasn't connected to anything so I replaced it with a blank which I think looks cleaner.

When washing the car I noticed some of the rubstrips a bit faded and also had some broken clips so I took some clips from the scrapyard and then gave all the exterior black trim a coat of a 'back to black' product

When I got the car, although it locked ok, the petrol cap was held closed by a lump of blu-tac when the car was unlocked

I took out the spring and rebent it a little and put it back upside down and it is closing nicely now. As it's held in this photo I bent the top anti-clockwise slightly

That's all for now, I have more work in progress so will update that soon

[Kevin3 0]

When I got the car it had the common sagging headliner problem and the material had been pulled off

The original covering was a grey/beige colour so I also wanted to change the A and C pillar trims, the top boot panel piece, and all of the plastic bits holding up the headliner, to black. I sprayed the plastics first.

Lights masked off

and painted

plastics washed and primed

and done

I then painted the pillar trims which looked ok but up close the paint had stuck in clumps to the fabric and I wasn't happy with it so I pulled it off and recovered them in the same fabric as I'm doing the headliner. The material I got has a slight stretch to it so worked very well

I then scraped off the glue from the headliner and washed it to have it ready for recovering

More tomorrow.

Edited December 8, 2012 by Kevin3

[euroriffic 609]

youve been a busy lad, should look great once its all done

[Kevin3 0]

Good point Michael.

I finally finished off all of the re-covering anyway, the headliner:

The interior sunroof panel got stuck back the first time I opened it and since then the sunroof only slid back halfways, when I had the headliner out I took out the whole sunroof unit and found what I think was the problem, this angle piece at back had broken the plastic and seemed to have gotten stuck. I also think the sunroof motor may have been put on out of cycle with the sunroof.

I did a bit of research then and discovered that when it's all working corectly with the sunroof open to tilt, the interior panel only slides back a few inches. I didn't like that so I took out the interior panel completely and covered the sunroof itself. I'm not sure if I'll have any issues with the adhesive not being up to the temperature changes since it is straight onto a metal external panel but I'll worry about that if it happens. It was quite hard to get the fabric smooth with all the ridges and infact I wasn't able to but I don't plan on looking up at it all that often.

back together

I then did the rear parcel shelf, like all of them it had turned nearly white in the sun

Fabric pulled off and washed, the material that had changed colour came off very easily but the original black parts were suprisingly well stuck

And done, I used a bit too much glue in places but it's ok overall

That's it for the interior for a while except for a panel for the sunroof switch which I'll probably make because second hand ones are quite expensive.

I'm moving to the outside next, particulary the front end, I've collected a few bits but it will be into next year before I get anything done with them

[Etwenty1 45]

Good work on re-colouring the upper interior trims and sorting out the headlining!

For the parcel tray I used a thicker vinyl material for mine so the glue didn't show through.

Although I kinda stuffed it up when applying it so had to pull if up and re-lay it so it ended up being a bit 'bumpy' looking, but it actually made it look more interesting than just being completely smooth. I bought another parcel tray and material to do it again but 2 years later I still haven't bothered!

Never the less, it looks a a lot better than the faded rear tray, it's stuff that like that makes the cars look older than they really are!

an upholstery guy showed me the best way to remove the perished foam backing from roof liners etc, rub it with a piece of foam rubber - same as seat foam. It takes the residue right off without damaging that cellulose moulding.

[Kevin3 0]

Another few bits done, I picked up a sunroof switch panel and took off the covering and recovered it to match my headliner

Also painted the front kidney grille black

[Kevin3 0]

Next on the list for this was the front door cards, they had been slowly falling apart for a while, the bottom used to catch on the door sill and then one day the inside grab handle came off. So without much effort I took them off and apart completely to redo them both

This may seem like sacrilege to some but the upholstery was too tight around the curves of the arm rest part of the door card and I wasn't confident any adhesive would hold it, so I did a bit of chopping and then stuck down the free edges.

I then got new white clips for putting them back on. The photo of it all back together doesn't show much but it's nice to open and close the doors without them catching on the sill

[Kevin3 0]

After that I went back to the front end and put Lamin-x 6% subtle tint on the foglights, here is one done and then both done and back on.

One of them had a broken lens and the other a broken housing but I picked up second hand ones eventually

I also went off and bought new clear indicators, split them then painted the inside black then resealed them, only to find I had bought a set for a saloon which are different to the coupe ones, so bit of a disaster there.

I only bought the clear ones because I read they match in better with the headlights when painted than the tinted ones you can buy, but I think I'll just buy the tinted ones now and be done with it

[Gaz 1061]

Nice work.

I think I was following you the other day as it looks very silimar to my Dad's old 328.

Do you still have the foglight brackets? My drivers side one has broken

[Kevin3 0]

Thanks, no the pin that goes into the bumper had broken off so I threw it out, sorry about that

[MilesP 13]

That is such a good project you have there. If you ever want to meet up and take me for a drive I will shout you a beer

Edited April 10, 2013 by MilesP

[Kevin3 0]

Thanks Miles, ya I'l probably head along to the next Christchurch meet alright.

A small update this time, the mats in my car are the wrong colour and have a hole in the drivers one so I saw pickapart had an e36 coupe in and I got these off it, the set for $16!

I cleaned them up a bit and they are a perfect match with the carpet

[Gaz 1061]

Is there much left on that coupe at Pickapart? I have been tempted to head down there and grab the lights and other bits from it.