Cheap E46 beater

Car is looking great and came a long way. 

Those clips are a bitch to glue. I tried everything and they kept coming off after a few months. I finally used JB Weld and they have not come off in the Florida heat for 2 years. Keep in mind if you need to redo them. 

Also, there are two plastic clips on each seat that hold the backs on at the bottom. They look like little pine trees and are a bitch to remove. Cut them off and buy new ones if you need, they are cheap. The part number is:

I used a jbweld epoxy, I also didn't let it cure for very long, so they might fall off. 

Those bottom pins did give me hell. My trim tool wouldn't pull them, so I stuck it under the head, then jammed a pair of needle nose pliers between the trim tool and the seat, then hit it with a hammer. They came right out and seemed to be okay, I was able to reused all of them

I hate those clips lol. 

Cars been driving well. The lean codes came back so I figured I should probably spend a little time checking it out. First thing I noticed was fuel trims looks great at idle, this makes me believe maybe I did get all my vacuum leaks fixed. I had a Yukon to go look at so I hooked up the scanner and monitored different PIDs while driving. I noticed under load the fuel trims were skewed positive in a pretty big way.

MAF seemed to be reading fine and was responsive. This leads me to believe I have a fuel delivery problem and its happening on both banks, so Im thinking pump and filter. I was going to hook a fuel pressure gauge to it and go drive it to verify my diagnosis, but Id rather throw parts at it. My rational is Im still in common failure items with a ton of mileage on them. If replacing them doesnt fix the problem, hopefully it will prevent a future breakdown.

We will see parts will be here tomorrow.

  With your scanner, check the live data, smooth running values.  If I recall correctly, a Zero is perfect, much above a 3 is going to be a issue.   Smooth running values are affected by plug coils and injectors, if everything else is good.

    Coils are easy to move around, you can move the coil from the weakest to one of the smoother cylinders and see if the problem moves with the coil.  But you will probably need some injectors, if you replace the 3 worst the problem might go away.

   The smooth running value is more sensitive at idle, but if a injector is weak at idle it won't be better while running.

      Also if it was leaking oil, check the crank sensor wiring and plug, mine was fouled with oil, sensor was fine, but the connection was weak.

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

I looked at them a few days ago. at idle they were all at 0 except for 6 which was at 1.5. Yesterday when driving they were all at about 1.5

I have a soft spot for these, that 330i combo w/those wheels look good and you've made quick progress in making it right.  Congrats'

FYI, the E46 steptronic transmissions are notorious for having plastic internals fail and grenade the transmission.  I'm not sure if there are retrofit kits to replace the plastic internals or not...worth looking into if you have issues with this one.  Pretty sure losing reverse or slow-to-engage gearing are the first signs.  This was a hot-button issue when these cars were new and a regular topic of discussion in the BMW CCA Roundel magazine (before it became overstuffed with puff pieces and ads).

   With good smooth running values, the injectors should be OK.

     With my X3 I found it to be a very sensitive system and there are no adjustments.   The  air flow sensor could be off just a tiny bit, but no adjustment.  I went thru several air flow sensors, finally found a used one that worked, that was kind of odd.

    You could still have a tiny air leak, hard to say.

    I also had a new set of O2 sensors that the car didn't like, another odd thing.

     After fixing a bunch of stuff you might just drive it some, maybe it will re-learn and clear up......

    It can store a minor code, without getting a CEL, so for a while you might have to check the scanner often.  Or you will think it is good and it might not be....

In reply to Hoondavan :

I only researched tranny failures for a few minutes before deciding to just throw a used one it. The stuff I saw was the GM trans lose reverse and I assume are related to the plastic pieces you are talking about and the ZFs most common problem is pump failure (which happened to mine)

If this thing dies I like the car enough Id want to do a manual swap

I went ahead and put the filter on

After datalogging I saw a slight improvement in fuel trims. Was still showing lean but a few points better than before. When the pump showed up I put it in also. It was raining and super cold so I didnt want to do it but it really only took a few minutes.

This also improved fuel trims a little. I was still slightly lean at idle, and still lean under throttle but with a small improvement.

Next I wanted to give the car a quick detail and get some wax on it to protect the paint, and maybe hid a few scratches. I washed, claybared and waxed it. Car actually cleaned up really well I think

I went back and did some more checking. I smoked the intake and found a small leak were a rubber hose meets a plastic pipe. In the picture you cant see the smoke but you can see a green tinge which is the dye in the smoke. I found the clamp loose and after tightening it, it did  not leak anymore.

I had also noticed the oil filter housing gasket was still leaking oil, so I thought it was probably causing a vacuum leak also. While watching fuel trims I sprayed some brake clean behind the housing and the trims immediately responded. So I ordered a Fel pro OFHG and took it back apart. I didnt see anything wrong with the gasket when I took it off.

I have also been getting an evap code and when I smoked the system I did find a leak at the leak detection pump so I ordered a Bosch one and installed it.

After datalogging, it looks like my idle fuel trims are finally good. They were right at 0, but under any throttle they go lean. At idle te MAF seems to be reporting right at the lower range of nominal. I believe it is under reporting airflow causing the lean condition, it is a pretty common problem on E46s, there really isnt a great way to diagnos it so its really just an educated guess. I think the car was negelcted and had multiple soft failures, cause I have seen improvement on the data with all of my repairs, but hopefully the MAF was the big one. Ive ordered an OEM once since apparently all the aftermarket ones dont report right and cause all kinds of issues.

I also received my sunroof motor cover after waiting forever.

Yes the headliner looks like hell. I got a price from my upholstery guy the other day and its 400 to do all the pillars, the sunroof shade and cover, and the headliner. Will probably be the last thing I do with the window tint once I have it all sorted. Next I tried the sunroof. Expecting the worse since someone removed the buttons, and to my surprise it went all the way back nice and smooth with no weird noises. When I tried to close it, it stopped a few inches short and reversed. You can inch it forward the last few inches and it will close, but since I had no crunching I figured it was the shade guides binding it up.

I went ahead and pulled the glass to inspect the tracks and that is exactly what I found. This is the shade bracket.

They are all broken and I cant only find one of the slides. Its going to take some more research but I think that means I would have to replace the whole cassette if I wanted a working shade. I just took it out for now. I think if I remove the one remaining slide it should work fine, I just wont have a shade. I dont know what Im going to do yet.

My Leatherique came in so I figured Id give it a go. First you use a rejuvenator which will soften the leather and bring all the contaminants to the surface which you can then clean off with the cleaner. I rubbed the oil in yesterday and plan to clean it off late today. After about 12 hours there does seem to be a softening of the leather, but its pretty cold out and they recommend doing it in the heat so im no sure how well it will work,

In my e53 I got a mass air flow from Delphi.  Everyone said it was waste of time.  Worked flawlessly for 3 years and I think it was 1/3 of the price.  They seem to wanting to expand that part of their business.

In reply to cdowd (Forum Supporter) :

I asked on the FB groups, cause I really didn't feel like waiting on a part to show up to continue diagnosis, and everyone said they didn't work and a few anecdotes about them making drivability problems worse.

I ended up finding an VDO which is supposed to be OEM for 160 and just went with the known commodity

I read very quickly your post. Couple of things:

- The sunroof guide looks ok. The attachements are different side to side. You can buy replacement ones on Ebay. 

- Your headliner does not look to be factory. The sunroof shade material is too thick and when you close the sunroof the shade drags and cant "pull" it closed. 

  When I did the gasket on the oil filter assembly on my X3, I replaced the gasket and added a thin smear of silicone sealer to the matting surfaces, the old gasket seemed fine but it was leaking.   That oil leak fouled the crank sensor connection.

    I have found it to be a very sensitive system, once right it might be good for a long time, but anything can foul things up.  Tiny air leak, or some odd part slightly out of range, no adjustments.

   You have made great progress....

My MAF finally came in and I put it on. Took about 2 minutes in the 30 degree weather. Most stuff on this car is pretty easy to work on.

I also finally decided to clean off the leatherique oil.

Kinda hard to tell from the pictures because the cleaner hadnt completely dried yet, but the leather feels so much better. Some panels almost felt like cardboard, and although they dont feel new there has been huge improvement on most panels. Also the matte type finish is mostly restored, the leather isnt near as shiny as it was, it is especially noticeable on the less worn seats. It did some cleaning, which was very noticeable on the console. The huge wear spot it there, but it is smaller than I thought, apparently a bunch of it was grime, and lexol and adams didnt remove it. It didnt do anything for the cracking and worn leather, which I didnt expect it to, but I dont want people thinking it will fix everything. I left the oil on much longer than they asked, but it has been freezing cold the last couple weeks. Im willing to bet in the heat itd work even better. Overall Im very pleased.

I went out for a quick drive after the MAF and fuel trims seemed to be better, but it was late and I didnt care to spend much time verifying. This morning I drove it to work and monitored fuel trims. MAF readings are higher (which may indicate my theory it was underreporting), and on the 30 mile drive to work my LTFT dropped to 0 from 11.72. So there is a halfway decent chance its fixed.

This thing has been sitting mostly since I picked up the GMT400. The cluster died on me the other day which also took out the AC. Apparently its pretty common on these and can be repaired for about 200 dollars so it got removed and mailed off.

The new lenses have been sitting in my entryway for a month or two so I decided to throw those on.

They weren't terrible, but they were more fogged than the pictures show.

Before:

After

Only took like 20 minutes. One of the bolts was missing and some of the shrouds need replaced, but for like 30 bucks it made a big improvement.

My knock off center caps also came in so I put those on. Washed it and posted it for sale. I didnt get many takers, understandably on a car with unverifiable mileage and no ac in TX, so thats when I decided to go ahead and sent the cluster off for repairs.

Cleaned up

Sprayed off. Shes for sale if any GRMers are interested. All the monitors are ran except for evap and I showed no codes. So I think I got them all taken care of. Should have the cluster back this weekend and she will be ready to go