E46 330i Touring

[adro 1124]

237,800km

New fuel cap that was in the parts stash installed.

Think it's an amazon job but seems to fit fine. 

Copied @Vass and got one of these air scoops.

Was logging a trip I had done previously to compare intake temps but got side tracked by one of the 02 sensors reading higher than the other?

Is this normal? 

Also got a final stage resistor as my fan pulses sometimes when its cranked up, but man it's a pain to install. I aborted the first try as i couldnt locate the top screw and ran out of time. Will try again tonight.

 

[adro 1124]

Gave this final stage resistor another shot. Think I need a neck massage now. Got it done though. 

Old one dated 02 was quite different to the new one and it was a bit of a mission to get the new one in. So much so i was double checking part numbers to make sure this was the correct one. 

This is the top screw that is perpendicular to the steering column requiring (in my case) a cut down T20 driver

Also replaced the rear glass switch and put the fuse back in. So far it's been behaving but I'm not holding my breath. 

 

[adro 1124]

239,000km

glad to say no more pulsing for the HVAC. 
Over the hill this weekend getting filthy. I’ve taken out the exhaust flap switch as it wasn’t working and the car was a bit loud for my liking at the lower revs. Iv plugged the vac lines together and now the butterfly is closed shut. Have ordered a new switch but in the meantime it’s nice having it a bit quieter. I’m not sure when it failed but I felt it was louder than usual ages ago but didn’t realise there’s actually a solenoid that operates the exhaust flap, not just vacuum.

Post gravel road wash I clay’d the entire car and applied a ceramic coating. A mate had sent me the last of a bottle of this hydro G9 to try out. 

 

Looking forward to seeing how this performs over winter. 
 

Got a new exhaust flap solenoid. Hooked it up and it’s working! Really happy with how it sounds now. Nice and quiet at low revs but sounds hearty after 3000rpm. 

in case anyone else is looking for it. It’s just below the tail light on the exhaust side. 

Edited April 9 by adro

[adro 1124]

239600km 

Diff oil service. 

 

Edited April 14 by adro

[adro 1124]

240,200km

Just returned from a school holiday trip down to Nelson. Ticked over 240k on the way and averaged around 10L/100km although it's not exactly a huge amount of km's from Wellington to Nelson but a nice open road drive with some hills and some twisties. Had terrible weather on the way down but lovely on the way home. 

 

[adro 1124]

240,500km

installed some new headlight lenses. Went with Magneti Marelli from FCP. Pretty happy with them, however they look like they scratch extremely easily so haven’t thrown away the old ones just yet. 

They are so clear they make the corner lights look old now! 

[KwS 2445]

worth getting some clear PPF or something on the new lenses to protect them?

[E28E30 336]

Such a lovely clean car @adro

[adro 1124]

On 5/27/2025 at 10:09 AM, E28E30 said:

Such a lovely clean car @adro

Thanks, it’s definitely not perfect but it’s wearing its age well. 

[adro 1124]

241,000km 

Had noticed an intermittent fuel smell after giving it some jandel over the last month. Had taken the beauty cover off to expose the fuel rail to keep and eye on the injectors to see if they were the culprit but there was nothing obvious. Then I had a misfire the other morning on cold start which went away pretty quickly but it was enough to motivate me to look abit harder. 
 

When it came time to wrestle the fuel rail off it just came right out, I didn’t even touch the quick release connector…thought that was a bit odd. Anyway while I was there I swapped the injectors out for some second hand ones I had blasted some carb cleaner though using an AliExpress ghetto setup and an old 12 Volt battery. I might get my original ones cleaned at some point and put them back in but will see how these other ones go for a while first. Pretty sure my issue was the fuel rail feed line somehow being loose, not the injectors. 

got a very audible click from the fuel line when I plugged it back in. I did have a rogue vac line that I couldn’t figure out where it had popped off from as it went from the vacuume resovoir into the manifold but the only uncapped port was the little top one and this hose was quite big. Can’t see anything at the back of the manifold so I ended up swapping a few of the hoses over that seemed to fit the hole diameters better, not sure if I’m wreaking havoc here but it all seems to be working ok. The O2 pilot mod is now taking vacuum from the top port and the bottom capped off port is now supplying vac to the resovoir which feeds to the exhaust flap. 

I didn’t realise but OBD fusion hooks up to the vepeak scanner giving me some live PIDs which is pretty cool. Be even cooler if they were within spec. 

I also got a bike rack this week which is an older legit BMW one. It’s the same as the Thule 591 models but has this little fin at the back. Had to drive to Eastbourne to pick it up but it was a good chance to do some motorway pulls and check for any fuel leaks, trigger any misfires etc. 

looking forward to getting out on the bike with the kids now I can take mine too. 

Might need to trim this tree, although might alert me that i have a bike on the roof and to not try drive into the garage. 

[Palazzo 496]

I scored the same bike rack for $47 off FB. “Impossible to replace the missing key…..”

[Olaf 3408]

I spy with my little eye, something that hemorrhages money:”scaffolding”

[adro 1124]

1 hour ago, Palazzo said:

I scored the same bike rack for $47 off FB. “Impossible to replace the missing key…..”

Nice, I thought this was sale of century for $100 also off FB.