The 318i Touring was up for MOT this week and failed only on the O/S front anti roll-bar link. Normally I would replace these as a pair, which would have been more cost effective as you can get a set of two from eBay for under £15. Time was an issue and I wanted to get it back for a re-test so had to buy one from Euro Car Parts for the same price, around £15. Annoyingly, the eBay pair were Lemforder and the single piece from ECP is Starline, but needs must.
The car has only just passed 104k miles, so this could well have been the original anti-roll bar linkage and boy was it seized on. I only got a couple of turns on the top nut before the 5mm Allen-key in the stud stripped and rounded, so had to cut the rubber boot off to get a 17mm spanner on to the flats at the back. Even so, progress was painstakingly slow. Couldn’t even get a grinder in there as things are surprisingly tightly packed on E46. This made an otherwise quick and easy job last a bit longer, but it is nearly 20 years old.
So, quite an eventful couple of months... first I rectified the hi-beam headlight issues on the F10, only for it to then fail the MOT on emissions due to a blocked DPF and new regulations. Work on my house meant that I had no time to sort it and needed a car, so ended up buying an E46 318i Touring for the princely sum of £400. It's got 102k miles, MOT until October and is purple... enough said.
F10 DPF / Emissions woes...
New UK emissions rules [info here] for diesel cars are extremely choking [excuse the pun]. The law states that diesel cars made after 2008 must no longer adhere to a generic CO2 value, previously 3.0 m-1, but instead must produce emissions lower than the manufacturers plate value... in BMWs case this is 0.5 m-1. Therefore, to pass a UK MOT test on emissions the car must now produce 1/6th of what used to be considered acceptable! There is still a generic value to test to, only halved at 1.5 m-1 and easier to pass, but this only applies when there is no 'manufacturer plate-value' and sadly the F10 has one.
To make matters worse, any emission of black smoke from the exhaust pipe on a post-2008 vehicle fitted with a DPF is an instant fail!
My first emissions test produced just shy of 1.8 m-1. In past years this has been well within the acceptable limits, my Dad's 2004 Audi A4 diesel producing nearly 2.8 m-1 and passing for instance, but since April 2018 the limit is 0.5 and my 1.8 is well over. I ran a bottle of CataClean through and gave the car a good 20 mile run up and down the motorway, then returned to the test-station for another go. This time I rolled just under 1.5 m-1 of CO2, an improvement but still well above the permitted 0.5. Besides, it was pointed out to me that the car was emitting a puff or two of black smoke during the tests, so it didn't really matter and this only pointed to one thing... a blocked DPF.
After trying a re-gen through software, I realised that the DPF would need to come off the car to be cleaned out / replaced before this was going to happen. A new DPF from BMW is £1596 +VAT... so lets not even go there. Used or reconditioned DPFs.. hmm, I decided to give those a pass too, along with cheap spurious models that I've heard nothing but bad things about. No, instead I will have to clean out the heavily clogged one I have now, so watch this space as I will post results soon.
Yeah, a lot going on and you can see why I needed a cheap runaround!
Jack car, remove wheel. REAR ONLY - ensure handbrake is off.
Remove plastic caps and 7mm Allen-head bolts.
Remove caliper and hang it from the spring.
*On front-N/S and rear-O/S ONLY* - Remove pad wear-sensor by gently working it up out of the slot with a small flat-screwdriver. Part of the green plastic may brake off but it's very unlikely the sensor will stop working, so provided you are careful to retain the metal clip it will fit back on tight enough.
Remove 18mm bolts from caliper bracket and lift out of the way.
Remove the stud holding the disc to the hub using a 5mm Allen-key socket.
Wobble the brake disc off. REAR ONLY - It may need whacking from behind with a hammer as it will bind to the handbrake shoes.
** If you are replacing the inboard handbrake shoes, then do this now.
Fit the new brake-disc to the hub. The hand-brake may need adjusting for the drum to slide over the shoes as it self-adjusts to stay against the worn drum on the old brake-disc. It will likely need adjusting to the new drum anyway.
Reverse steps 5 to 1.
Pad wear-sensors are a pain to remove.
I wangled all 4 discs and pads for £140 from LVW who supply where I work.
Belaco are a budget make, but we fit them to vans at work and they seem OK.
Mintex pads do the job.
Plenty of meat left on the old discs, but the MOT fail showed brake imbalance.
The old pads looked alright too, but no imbalance reported on the retest.
After my disastrous few weeks I managed to get hold of a Bilstein strut-insert and get it onto the car along with the longer springs, meaning it was finally back on the road and in an state worthy of the MOT test. I cautiously rolled down to the test-station on Saturday and am glad to say the E21 passed with flying colours!
Bilstein damper is strong, but will be a pain with the short springs.
This was a relief considering the slightly dodgy seat-frames I made bolted through the floor-pan, which stuck out like a sore thumb when it was up on the ramps, along with the scuff marks where I've grounded the underside, but with the car at a more standard height off the ground this didn't see to bother them and there was no problem with the chassis at all.
Oddly, the guy told me that the split-pins were missing from the castle-nuts on my steering track-rod ends and this would actually be a fail under normal circumstances, but they could see I'd been working on it and decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. This was true, I'd had them off swapping the springs and hadn't bothered to replace the split-pins as they would be coming straight off again to put the short springs back. That was decent of them to let it go, as it would have been beyond frustrating to lose another week to something so trivial and shows just what a pain the UK MOT test is.
Folded up and with a 1/4 inch thick layer of pallet-wrap to send as a parcel.
Spending on the E21 has been a bit out of control since buying the E30 seats and it is still in desperate need of the wheel-arches finishing off. By this point, I'm past what I can recoup if I sell the car. I'm still using my E39 as my daily, the E21 has had no use for nearly a month with no MOT and finally, due to a planned move, it's looking like I will have to let her go anyway, unless I can find somewhere cheap enough to store it. I had hoped to have the arches skimmed off and painted by the guy who did the respray, but money is tight so I will be buying a rattle-can and doing the best I can with them.
Thankfully, I've managed to generate a bit of extra cash to pay for the strut-debacle [this post], by selling some bits on eBay, like a battered old set of alloys, an E36 nose-cone and other bits I had lying around, as well as the original beige passenger seat from the E21 - I think I have enough seats for the car now. I hope the seat arrives to the buyer OK, as I had to practically shrink-wrap it to be able to send it Parcelforce [£27], pictured, as the original method of courier was just over £60!
Well my MOT, the UK roadworthiness test, has come round and the E21 is just too low to get into my local testing station, let alone up onto the ramps. This is where height-adjustble coilovers would be worth their £650, as even if I can get the car onto the ramps, an attempt to raise the wheels off the ground will cause the short springs to become loose in the pans. The solution to this problem is still cheaper than coilovers - shortened strut-inserts from this post at ~£400, but I'll still have to find somewhere with ramps low enough to take her.
Seems to me the easiest and cheapest overall solution is to just swap longer springs in for the test and put the chopped ones back on later. Seems like quite a lot of effort just for a 30-minute inspection, but that's motoring in the UK, we're at the mercy of the MOT and it sees more cool cars off our overcrowded roads than insurance write-offs ever would.
Slight length difference. The red SPAX was a -40mm too.
A nice set of yellow APEX -40mm springs set me back just £80 from eBay. They are a lot longer than I remember though, which heralded me finally buying some spring-compressors, £17.99 and bringing the grand total of this years test to a ton before I've even had it inspected... not good.
Fitting the rear springs was a doddle, but the fronts threw up a few problems. Getting the cut spring off was easy enough, but even under compression the longer one was never going to fit in the space available. After damaging my newly filled wheel-arch and bursting one of my strut-inserts - nightmare - I started looking for a better guide on replacing springs and find out if it can ever be done with the strut and brake-line still attached, but one doesn't seem to exist - a good validation for this and other blogs! I did, however, find a Youtube video of some guys fitting H&R springs without removing the shock, which did give some clues from about 3min30 onwards:
PROCESS:
Rear Springs -
1. Follow the steps in THIS POST to remove and re-fit the rear shock-absorbers, swapping the cut-spring for the new ones, obviously.
Front Springs [without removing strut, steering or brake-line] -
1. Raise the car and remove the corresponding front wheel. [It makes life easier to drop the front on axle-stands and remove both wheels, doing both springs together.]
2. Undo the top-nut from the shock-absorber, located on the suspension turret under the bonnet, using a 19mm wrench and 8mm open-end spanner at the top of the strut-insert to stop it from rotating.
3. Disconnect the brake-pad sensor wire by simply pulling it apart at the join behind the disc and sliding the rubber-mount free of the bracket.
4. Remove the earth-lead from the strut by undoing the bolt with a 10mm wrench.
5. Remove the bracket holding the brake-line to the strut using a 10mm wrench and open-end spanner. [This is essential to free the brake-line enough for it to tilt forward without having to remove the hose and drain the brakes. Without freeing the bracket, the brake-line will be stretched to breaking.]
** If the spring is still under compression without the weight of the car on it, use spring-compressors to hold it short enough to loosen the top spring-pan away from the turret.
*** The strut can be tilted out far easier with the track-rods unbolted, using a 17mm wrench and moved out of the way, but mine wasn't budging easily and there is enough room if you can push the steering-arm down enough.
6. Remove the four nuts holding the anti-roll bar brackets to the sub-frame using a 17mm wrench and open-end spanner. The anti-roll bar should drop down and remove tension from the two struts.
7. Tilt the shock-absorber strut out of the wheel-arch, remove the top spring-pan and spring.
8. Drop the new spring onto the bottom pan and reverse the above steps, using spring compressors if necessary.
Wheel-arch gap a little more prominent. Was it really that much before?!
MJNewbs from eBay got back in touch and we finally negotiated a low enough price for the seats. The fronts are in great nick, only a slight fray to the driver's back-rest, but the rear seat back-rest has a few tear that I'll address in a later post.
Thankfully, the E30 seat bases fit onto the inner stock mount, next to the trans. tunnel, on the E21 so they are already sited neatly in the centre and only require the outer mount to be lowered. Here's how I finally got them to an equal height.
The outer seat-mount was cut away about 1.5 inches height from the lowest point of the floor-pan and the top half completely removed from the sill. This leaves a large flat T-piece section onto which a length of '2by4' style wood-beam was placed that sits at the same height as the inner seat-mount, give or take 2mm.
To strengthen the edge of the wood where the seat sits a piece of 2mm-thick angle-steel was screwed in place, clamping the wood to the remaining edge of the cut seat-mount. The M10 seat bolts run through the wood and are bolted to the floor-pan, so the wood only acts as a riser, not an anchor and the angle-steel helps to distribute any downward force on the wood, or twisting motion as the seat is adjusted.
I chose to bolt my seats directly through the floor-pan for strength and this leaves a gap under the base of the wood at the inside corners, which I stacked out with a nut and large washers. This gives the added benefit of the seats being bolted first to the wood, then through the floor-pan with the same bolt. The downside is the sealed floor-pan nuts will need removing should the seat need to come out in future. The alternative method, used by HSVTurbo in his build here, is to bolt the seats to a thicker metal bracket, then bolt the bracket through the wood and floor-pan. This way the seat can be removed from inside the car leaving the wood fixed in place, but I just don't feel this setup will be strong enough, even with the thicker metal bracket.
I used M10 nyloc-nuts with a dab of stud-lock inside and large-diameter [40mm] 'bumper' washers. A good blob of silicone-sealant was put between the washer and body, then round the outside of the seated nut. Finally, I coated them in a thick layer of Finnegan's WAXOYL Underbody Sealant, for protection obviously, but also to blend the shiny nuts and washers into the car's underside.
I still have the rear-seats, including the folding arm-rest, along with the door-cards/handles and rear trim-panels, so we'll have to see how much will fit after the MOT.
Saw these absolutely divine Recaro sports-seats from an early E30 Baur cabriolet on eBay. They're all but identical to the Recaro/sports-seats from the E21, but have different subframes for the E30, not that it would make any difference now I've started cutting out the stock mounts and the inner side of the E30 base fits perfectly to the inner-mount anyway, so would be a bit neater/stronger than my all-custom base. Only snag is, the price is a little more than I'm willing to pay as the rear seat and door-cards are included. I've got them down a bit, but I'm sticking to my upper limit and they're having none of it.
It got me thinking, the shape isn't too different from the RS Turbo Recaros I have, it's just the colourful Ford fabric that doesn't suit, but there may be a way to create some ultra-cheap 'replicas'. I figure the stock E21 seats aren't worth much at all, so there may be enough decent fabric left on the two to re-cover the centre-sections of the Recaros in beige cloth. This leaves the bolsters/head-rest grey alcantara, which is where fabric spray-paint comes in, about a tenner a can off eBay, to make them dark-brown. I whipped the cover off one of my E21 seat to weigh it up and it does look possible. On the other hand it has the potential to mess up a great pair of Recaros that are worth quite a lot more still than I previously thought, as well as condemn a tatty but useable pair of E21 comfort-seats, which I could at the very least donate to someone. At the risk of the end product looking naff, I don't think it's worth the sacrifice.
** UPDATE - Another pair came up on eBay yesterday and guess what, the guy emailed back about the original set accepting my offer. The second pair are a bit dirtier and the back seat is wrecked, but the seller will come to about half the other offer, only thing is he wants collection and they're in Cardiff. It will cost me the difference to drive down there, plus a day spent sat in the car. To be worthwhile I'd have to get this second set for buttons, so I called up the original guy and bought the set above - they'll come Monday and I can use the rear bench. I'm glad this seat problem is finally put to bed as the MOT is a week on Saturday and I need perma-fixed seats!
This is my third MOT since buying the car and the first time it has even come up with an advisory item, let alone a fail, but I guess it had to happen eventually. I took it back to Walsh Autos in Birkenhead who know me and are usually very fair, but I think the problem was the 5-series hadn't been washed in about 12 months and was absolutely caked with bird muck and grime. It looked like it had been standing under a tree for that time and the fresh tax-disc didn't help, so I guess the tester thought I was dragging her out to sell and was a bit harsh on the checks. The moral of the story here would be to always give the car a wash prior to an MOT so the car appears cherished.
The fail items were:
Both N/S Tyres tread too low - I went for top-of-the-range Nexen nBlue through work with our trade discount, which worked out at £50 each for 225/55/16. This was still slightly cheaper than the low-range Pirelli and Continental and had a much better spec - extra-load, higher-speed, quieter and with an eco-rating, so I let my usual tyre-snobbey slip and plumped for good budget ones. If cash had been tighter though, lower-range Nexen and the worringly named Achilles budgets could be had for as little as £32. Still, £100 for 2 tyres is still good, considering the price for one entry-level Pirelli at Kwik Fit is £124.50!
O/S Anti-Roll Bar Drop-Link rubber boot perished - It was the original and had begun to let dirt in, so I figured the N/S one wouldn't be far behind and replaced both. The N/S one appeared to have been replace a few years ago and was in good nick, but when it's a matched pair of something - shocks or top-mounts - it's best to renew both at the same time. This is a problem that would have been avoided had the previous owner replaced both, but I guess this is easy to say when doing the work myself and not leaving it at BMW after the MOT. The drop-links were £9 each, again through work, but can be bought for a similar price on eBay.
O/S Parking-Brake efficiency little or no effort - I tightened up the handbrake last year, but it soon started to loosen off again. It's a heavy car, so the cables or inner brake-shoes will likely need replacing at some point. To get it through the test, I cranked the cables up a bit and adjusted the shoes as far as they would go, using the method in this older post - . That was a week ago,
O/S No. Plate Light not working - Turned out to be a 5W festoon type bulb, which I had a few of lying around, so didn't cost anything. Be careful when popping the lens out, it does not press in from the side with the recess, as that would be too obvious - it presses in from the opposite side!
The overall cost for the MOT repairs was £120, so not bad at all really. It was the tyres that cost the lion's share and without them this would have been very cheap indeed, but they had to come round eventually. Even so, the money I saved by doing the work at home speaks for itself - throwing the car into a dealership I estimate to have come to £400+
Took the car in for MOT last week expecting to come home with a great long list of costly repairs, like split bushes or the back being too low and fouling the tyres, so I was hugely relieved to find out it had failed only on a wiper-blade and one brake hose was swelling under pressure!
To celebrate the victory I treated the car to a full set of Goodridge stainless-steel brake-hoses, front and rear, as I figured if one is beginning to swell then they could all do with replacing. The set cost me £93 from CAM Motorsport on eBay, which was slightly dearer than average, but they were the only stockist who could guarantee them in time for my re-test. For the price you also get two 1L cans of Super Blue Racing Brake-Fluid, worth about £30, which has a higher boiling-point than normal, though I doubt I'll ever get to try that out, but hey at least I had some fluid.
Oh, and I also bought the best dang Bosch wiper-blades I could find!
