My E46 in the USA

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Oh deer....

I ran into a deer last night on the the way home. It came from the right side of the road out of nowhere and I braked hard but still hit it. Thankfully it was at a relatively low speed, so the deer tumbled and ran away and the damage to my car was minimal for a deer impact. I'll be getting estimates on repairs to decide if I should make an insurance claim. I have a $500 deductible, but any claim will be on my car's records which will devalue the car and make it harder to sell in the future, with a small chance that my insurance premium may go up.

For now the damage seems to be a headlight lens (easy fix), hood, headlight trim and bumper trim. No visible damage under the hood.

 

[seanskye]

My E46 in the USA

Hope the deer is ok.

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Yeah I didnt see it anywhere, so it must have ran away... Good thing it wasnt a human!

 

[seanskye]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Yeah I didnt see it anywhere, so it must have ran away... Good thing it wasnt a human!

Good thing it wasn't a monkey or dog that got smashed to bits...

 

[Forbes]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Top ten cars for Gay men from WWW.forbes/Gay/TopTen.com

1. Acura TL
2. Toyota Camry
3. Toyota Prius
4. Volkswagen CC
5. Subaru Outback
6. Pontiac G6
7. Toyota Yaris
8. Volkswagen Jetta
9. Chevy Spark
10. Dodge Dart

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Got my M-tech 2 bumper from ECS tuning and will take it to a shop next week. There's a small scratch at the bottom lip though. Hopefully that wont affect the painting...

e46/4ftmtech - M-Tech 2 Sedan Replica Bumper Conversion - Front - ES#1905415

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

So my car's still in the shop but should be ready soon. Last week I had an i3 over 3 days for an extended test drive. It looks like a toaster on wheels, handles like a zippy golf cart and makes you feel like you're sitting in a minivan. I talked about the regenerative braking in one of my earlier posts, so I'll skip to the pictures:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Just got my car back today! Total cost was a whopping USD 5118 and my deductible is USD 500. Thank goodness my insurance company didnt total it. Here are some photos:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Replaced my windshield cowl today! Here's what I did:

Marked the wiper blade positions with duct tape and a marker. You can see that the cowl is in terrible condition:


Popped the cover off and removed that 15mm nut:


Raised the wiper arm with a battery terminal puller to avoid cracking the windshield. There's a limit to how high I could pull it, so I ended up pulling the wiper arm by wiggling it too.


Removed cabin filter housing:


Old vs. new cowl. Had to transfer the rubber gasket over to the new cowl too.


Cleaned up the base of the windshield:


New cowl installed!

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

At the Cabbage Patch Kids Hospital in Cleveland, GA:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Haven't posted in a while cos I've been busy, but today I went for the BMW Ultimate Driving Experience. It's basically a short autocross experience to get people to test drive their cars to increase sales.
Here are some pics:








15-min lecture on driving before the autocross:


And here's the short track:



The instructor first gave us a slow, familiarization lap and then a hot lap, after which I did 3 practice laps in a 428i GC. Then 3 hot laps in a 328d, which was a little less responsive than the 428i, after which there was one timed lap in the 428i. In between, there were changeovers of drivers, so there's plenty of waiting time in the tent. I got the quickest lap time in the group and got a souvenir cone as a prize. It was pretty fun and free too!




Also took this picture on the way back:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Haven't posted here in a while, but since then, two things have happened.
1. My auxiliary fan cooling fan came on one day and wouldn't switch off even when after I parked and locked the car, so I've been driving with the aux fan disconnected. I tried replacing the aux fan switch at the lower radiator hose but that didn't fix it, so the likely problem was a damaged fan relay located on the aux fan. It's not sold separately, which means that I have to replace the fan.

2. While sitting in heavy traffic, my red oil light flickered. I hope it's a dying sensor and not something more serious like a failing oil pump, so replacing the oil pressure switch would be the cheapest and easiest thing to try.

Here are the pics for the aux fan replacement:

First step involves removing the 8mm nuts and plastic rivets that hold the trims around the bumper:



Then remove the E-12 torx bolts behind the bumper and slide it out.


Disconnect fog lights and horn wires to remove the bumper


Remove rivets holding the trim in front of the fan:



Disconnect aux fan:


Unbolt aux fan and remove



New fan installed and tested:



Installation is reverse of removal.

Also here are some pics of the oil pressure switch DIY:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Did some work to the car again to fix a slow leak from the oil pan and to refresh the remaining front suspension components:

Oil pan gasket including oil pump nut and oil pan bolts
engine mounts
front control arms
polyurethane FCABs and front sway bar bushings
end links
steering coupler
tie rods
steering boots

Took about 12 hours with the help of my friend! Also got an alignment done today. Rear camber is out of spec due to worn bushings on the rear camber arm, so I guess I have to refresh the rear end sometime....

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Went for a car meet today called Caffeine and Exotics, and took some pics:

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Installed a dashcam and hardwired it to the homelink connector in the sunroof motor area. I'm still waiting for the micro-sd card to arrive, so I can't test the video quality yet.

 

[mercuryz]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Great pics and DIY keep up the pics & updates !

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Great pics and DIY keep up the pics & updates !

Thanks

Anyway here's a test video from my dashcam:
[video=youtube;s_PdVnoMJ6Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_PdVnoMJ6Q[/video]

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

Almost got hit by an Audi going against traffic
[video=youtube;HJGbDjFFMLE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJGbDjFFMLE&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[inferno nexus]

Re: My E46 in the USA

So I went for the same car show/meet as last month and other than the usual exotics and fast cars, saw this:

 

[inferno nexus]

Here are some updates over the past few months:

Replaced the transmission mounts, flex disc and center support bearing on the drive shaft


Was tired of cleaning the brake dust off my front wheels so I got Akebono ceramic pads paired with Meyle blank rotors, and replaced the original brake lines with stainless steel lines from ECS Tuning:



Replaced fuel pump and filter:



I also recently bought a used M3 steering wheel which was pretty worn out especially at the 12 and 8 o'clock positions on the wheel:



I refurbished the bottom trim by sanding off the paint and putting a vinyl wrap over:




A local website (Coby Wheel) offers a re-wrap of the wheel with alcantara for USD200 but that's out of my budget, so after looking around on eBay I found a guy in China that sells steering wheel covers, so I got him to customize one for me (leather on sides + suede top and bottom) by sending him the pictures and dimensions. The cover I received was a little too wide and the leather didnt fit well around the spokes, so I got him to send me a revised version which he said he could do in one material only. I went with leather since it would be easier to clean than suede.

The cover arrived today, and I spent about 5-6 hours stitching it.
After sticking double-sided tape and stretching the cover over the wheel:


Bottom right corner done:




About half the time was spent untangling the super-coiled thread which coils up every time it passes through a stitch:


Done. The leather near the hand grips are a little narrow so there's a little gap there.





I don't know how to refurbish the buttons on the steering wheel, so I'll just transfer the buttons on my current steering wheel when I install it.