My Fun 130i (E87 LCI Motorsport Auto)

[M3AN 4015]

So, coolant hose arrived, later than expected but I haven't had a lot of time recently so no real loss, I wasn't expecting Saturday delivery.

Does anyone know how much (more) coolant I'm liable to lose when I remove the existing one? To my surprise it's still dripping nearly 4 weeks after it started. I was going to jack up the left side of the car only when replacing it in the hope of making that hose the highest part of the system, but am unsure if that's a futile exercise?

[M3AN 4015]

Oft, this "hose" is really poorly designed, I'm not sure if it could be dumber. 40 mins in and one end is a few mm off but still stuck hard, the other end I haven't touched yet (and that's the largely inaccessible end). Two different types of plastic mating, in a coupling exposed to thermal expansion, nothing to leverage against because it's all plastic, mated to a plastic extension on the radiator that, if it breaks, requires a whole new radiator, and, because of "unnecessary" design features (locating lugs for installation only), you can't twist it off. Something like a twist lock coupling would seem much more sensible (there's an inner seal, the coupling itself doesn't need to provide the seal, just the clamping force). It's BMW branded so probably 130k kms old, but still.

Oh, and a chemist from Honeywell that apparently provide the liquid compound used in the plastic fitting on the hose claims it's incompatible with the coolant BMW specify. Neat.

So my 1 hour refit and top-up is evolving into a multi-day exercise. Ace. 🙄😐

I do like the electric water pump and the ability to get it to purge coolant, does anybody know how much remains in the block after the electric pump finishes its process (it cycles on and off for about 12 minutes)?

[Eagle 1514]

I'll usually take the metal ring off and blast penetrating fluid into them before hand if they haven't been off in ages, seems to help. Wiggling forward and back they usually come off without too much issue, and i can't say ive ever damaged one.

Edited June 18, 2022 by Eagle

[M3AN 4015]

14 hours ago, Eagle said:

I'll usually take the metal ring off and blast penetrating fluid into them before hand if they haven't been off in ages, seems to help. Wiggling forward and back they usually come off without too much issue, and i can't say ive ever damaged one.

Yes, that's exactly what I've done, thanks. They were left soaking last night, will be starting up again soon, hopefully they're ready to budge.

[M3AN 4015]

Got the bugger off, had to use a Dremel (carefully), there was no way it was budging otherwise. New one slipped on easily indicating the polymer resin, probably the wrong type, on the old one had shrunk considerably. Took me all of 10 minutes, I should have resorted to that at the beginning.

New hose on, system bled, running her up to temp now.

 

Edited June 19, 2022 by M3AN

[M3AN 4015]

Further to this, I didn't know how much the electric pump got out so I drained and filled her 3 times, 2 fills with de-mineralised water, then finally a fill with 50:50 G48 (Penrite concentrate). Each drain included the electric pump procedure and running the car with the heater on, I reckon about 2.5 litres is left in the system each time, you'd need to drain that via the block. Regardless, after my 3 cycles, whatever remained would be sufficiently diluted to be of no concern.

I still want to do the water pump etc as I have no records on that. This hose was OE so it may be that nothing else has been touched. Car's at about 130k.

Edited June 19, 2022 by M3AN

[Jacko 2076]

Waterpumps are weird beasts, some die at 30,000km, some at 300,000km. Its entirely possible to pull out a working 300,000km golden version waterpump, and bolt in a hand grenade. Normally imminent failure has warning signs first (like intermittent can communication faults). 

Best bet, rather than fix something that isnt broken, I think is to keep a waterpump and thermostat in the garage shelf, so if the warnings start popping up it can be changed quickly. 

[M3AN 4015]

I've not needed to do much with the car recently other than drive it, which I don't do all that much now anyway because I normally bus to work and back. Having said that I've had to spend some time on it recently, including today.

A few weeks back I had a problem with the right front indicator, after faffing around for a while, which included removing the airbox and then the front bumper, it turned out to be the bulb holder so I sanded the contacts and bent them out a bit, did the trick but it's an unnecessarily complex task.

Then, just the other day, my right front Xenon died, literally straight after the new WoF sticker went on (whew)! Long story short - the ballast flooded whilst it was waiting in the yard for it to be collected... how? Shitty BMW engineering. 😠

If this hasn't already happened to your E8x then read on because it will happen eventually...

I confirmed the HID light itself wasn't faulty by swapping it to the other side (terrible design, requires removing the entire airbox). I knew from prior research that the ballasts can flood, unfortunately this is a headlight removal exercise which requires removing the bumper (again, terrible design). With the bumper removed I pulled out the RHS headlight and it was sloshing with water... which had all drained to the housing that contains the (high voltage) HID ballast (terrible, terrible, dangerous design)...

I mean seriously BMW, do you not saturation test your vehicles? (No, they don't). The entire ballast was submerged.

Pulled the ballast, filled it with a ton of RP7 and left it to dry whilst I removed the other headlight to check that. The LHS was dry as a bone which aligns with many internet anecdotes, it's typically a RHS problem.

The permanent fix is simple, some 10mm drainage holes, I did both sides, as BMW should have done from the factory...

Tested, reinstalled, and ~4 hours later fixed. What a faff caused by a bunch of poor design decisions.

As I say above, if it hasn't happened it will if your car sees much water, including washing. I was lucky, my ballast was salvageable but many report they're not so fortunate so be warned.

Edit: my car is very rarely parked in the rain, garaged at home, inside carpark if I drive to work, it normally only gets driven on the weekends. Auckland's summer of rain hasn't helped of course and the day it was at the mechanics was Tuesday just gone, so a little bit wet!

Edited May 13, 2023 by M3AN