The Family Tractor

[Vass 1023]

Dug into the starter extraction first thing Saturday morning. Quite an easy job all in all, with no messy fuel lines to disconnect the intake manifold came off in around half an hour giving decent enough access to the starter/bell housing bolts from up top. Still quite a tight squeeze but not as hard up against the firewall/transmission tunnel than you'd have on an E46 and such. Cracked the bolts loose using a swivel head ratchet and then used a 10mm ratchet spanner to back them out the rest of the way. The intake itself was still nice and clean, just slightly oily, which was good to see.

Took the starter to my mate who split it open and to discover brushes that were very much perished, leaving behind an impressive pile of carbon. From what he saw he reckoned it should be back in business with a good clean, regrease and new brushes. That would be a relief as new ones of these chunky starters are $500+.

Left it with him to sort out during the week and scooted back home. Still had plenty of daylight left so tinkered on fixing an annoyance I had with the car ever since purchasing it - when pressing the button to fold in the side mirrors, they would fold in and go straight back out again, refusing to remain tucked in. Did a bit of digging and landed on this video which looked worth a shot. Popped off the mirror covers to inspect - the passenger side was fine but sure enough, on the driver's side the little metal lever had fallen off the sensor mechanism and was just sitting there. Gave the area a good clean, bent the tabs in slightly, reseated the lever and fixed she was.

Also noticed the power steering reservoir had gotten wet again. I gave the area a good clean when doing the first batch of work on the engine so this was fairly new. The O-ring in the cap didn't look too bad but I managed to find a slightly chunkier one in my stash and threw that on. Hopefully that was the culprit of the leak all along. 

[Vass 1023]

X5 is back up and running but the wallet did take a bit of a hit. Turns out those Denso units are quite uncommon and my mate struggled to find the correct brushes to suit. Had a few options but some weren't tall enough and others were too loose in the casing. Could have continued with the trial and error but was keen to get the thing back up and running ASAP so opted for a new unit instead. Denso units look to be discontinued, I was tossing up a Bosch one off Spareto which would have worked out to $480 shipped and an extra week of waiting but the same mate got me a trade price on a SparkShop unit which worked out slightly cheaper and I got my hands on it the same day. Bit of an unknown of a brand but looks decent quality, comes with a local warranty and a test sheet, plus it's 2.2kW compared to the 2.0kW of the original. Winning. Turns out the car is also sporting a SparkShop alternator, courtesy of the previous owner, and that's working well enough.

Everything went back together quickly and without issues. Loving how easy the intake manifold is to remove and reinstall on these. Started up effortlessly on the first go. Job's a good 'un.