The "Today I did something to my car" thread

Sounds like a day well spent .

BDJW wrote: »

Spent 8 hours on the car today :eek:

- Washed
- Clayed
- Polished
- Waxed
- Tyres dressed
- Black plastics dressed
- Fixed a loose wind deflector
- Fitted fog light protectors
- Checked oil
- Put air in the tyres
- Topped up wiper fluid
- Hoovered the interior
- Polished interior plastics
- Shampooed the front 2 mats
- Oh and filled up with petrol :P

Worth it when you get in and the car actually feels more responsive and tighter

ha ha .. thats some lough .... not mine car but work mates car.
havent seen him for long time ... , but today met him, he got old ish diesel citroen berlingo van. i asked how he find it, he said , it is very good, no problems, very good mpg ,when i asked about mileage, he said, he cant tell, as service warning on all time, but it was serviced, and his mechanic couldnt reset, but no bothers.
it was strange to me , that some mechanics cant look on youtube , how to reset service light, ... as i had one citroen for service couple weeks ago, i found it, and did, so i said him, just before ignition on, press dash button, keep press, while switch on ignition, then dash will count from 10 to 0 , and the switch off ignition, release button. he did , and was very surprised, , he found out also, that mileage is way lower than he thought.

Hopefully it will not affect NCT. Modifying cars should be allowed IMO. I'd say you could inform the tax office or something and get them to change the details about the car, and then it should have no problems passing the NCT.

The doors will still be there, I'm just getting rid of the door handles that are on the outside.

Here's a 'before' pic.

GvidoR wrote: »

The doors will still be there, I'm just getting rid of the door handles that are on the outside.
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Yeah but the manufacturer put seats for 5 there. With 4/5 doors to access those 5 seats

Even if you remove the rear seats, its still a 5 door model with 5 seats, unless you get that somehow changed they will fail you for missing seats and seat belts.

Open to correction though

Cheensbo wrote: »

Ill correct you so

You don't need rear seats to be fitted to pass the nct..

Fair enough, was told before that it did.

Cheensbo wrote: »

Ill correct you so

You don't need rear seats to be fitted to pass the nct..

and what you think about door handles ?

how tester will access car rear to test a seat belts ?

i think op will be fine, if declare that car as a van . no rear seats, no rear belts, and rear door windows blanked/painted , not sure what is correct way to do them though.

Cheensbo wrote: »

As far as i can figure out, all the lad is doing is removing the rear door handles..

I dont think he's welding them shut or anything.. I dont know if it needs external door handles on the rear for the test, but,

Cars can pass without rear seats & belts, i.e. if they are not there, they cannot be tested.

Nice tip , so if one of my rear seatbelts not working right, i just remove, to avoid nct fail ? would that apply to any seatbelt in car ?

Mar4ix wrote: »

Nice tip , so if one of my rear seatbelts not working right, i just remove, to avoid nct fail ? would that apply to any seatbelt in car ?

Yea, remove them all sure.

challengemaster wrote: »

Only if the log book is changed so it corresponds with the max people the vehicle can carry. If the log book says it can carry 5 people, and Theres no rear seats it'll fail.

It won't, i'm sure 'nct tester' can clarify it if he comes along, but it will pass without them.

But if the seats are present, and the belts are not, it will fail (providing the car wasn't originally sold without them)

Mars Bar wrote: »

I put a new stereo into my 02 Toyota Yaris. Down to €80 from €160 and the adapter was also 50% off at a tenner.



Does everything I want (MP3, Bluetooth for phone) but my Xperia Ray doesn't have feckin' speed dial (€300 phone and no speed dial :rolleyes:) so I'd still have to pull in to make a call if I needed to.

There's an app for that

Mars Bar wrote: »

Mind PM'ing me which one? I downloaded an app but nothing showed up on the stereo.

Nothing will show up on the stereo I doubt the steoreo is meant to actually sent a call command. Its the other way around. Generally your car can trigger the voice activation by pressing the call button and holding it, or double tapping it.

At least every hands-free kit I ever tried has done that anyway. Xperia Ray doesnt have proper voice commands from Sony but you should be able to install Google Voice Search once triggered you should be able to call out the contact name without looking at your phone :P

Looking at speed dial apps, you could probably just search them on the marketplace and see what suits you the most. Set the screen to stay always on when driving and get yourself a good windscreen phone holder.

Today, well actually other weekend
Replaced the two front shocks on my daily run around...
Fcuk me one of them was a nightmare, the top threads were knackered and couldnt get the retaining nut off to remove the spring, ended up having to get the angle grinder out to cut the shock plate off to drop the spring off the bottom... The second one i left to next day, 45mins and tools and all were away.

Hoover & wash today, removal of ''punto'' sign on the back right of car, got yellow JDM style bulbs in too.

Went to red power on the Long Mile Rd yesterday for an induction kit but the air inlet is too small for the kit, not even any air filters would fit on it!! Getting a custom one during the week, couple of rubber bits for tube to slot in so hopefully ill have a nice humm by the weekend and can concentrate on whacking on the 17's and finding a nice exhaust backbox

Had a busy day yesterday, did the following jobs:

- Valve cover gasket
- Spark Plugs
- Interim oil & filter change
- Map Thermostat
- Coolant flush



Valve Cover Gasket
The Valve Cover gasket is probably the toughest job I've taken on, ever. I did the one in the e39 525i & that was a breeze in comparison. I was paranoid about the aluminium bolts (& the head). Between toque values & torque angles, Torx heads it was nerve wracking.
I used a combination of the BMW TIS guides & the DIY over on 5 Series.net:

http://forums.5series.net/diy-do-yourself-14/n52-e60-valve-cover-gasked-diy-pictures-115130/

So I won't repeat the whole process, suffice to say it was a fiddly job. The reason I did it was because there was a smell of burning oil after longer spins, it immediately reminded me of the e39 when the same thing happened. The rocker cover gaskets on the BMs have a habit of failing & allowing oil to drip on to the manifold, causing the smell. You have to replace all the bolts on the valve cover as they are single use aluminium bolts. It is impossible to re-torque them correctly after removing them. You also need to replacing the bolts & gasket on the variable valve timing servo motor too.
There was a lot of pre-stripping required to get to the stage where you can remove the valve cover, all the microfilter (cabin filter) & strut brace assembly has to come out.
Here's some "in progress" shots:

With the fancy plastic cover off (you have to remove the strut brace & all the microfilter housings before you get to this stage. A bit of work in it:


This one is the servo motor for the variable valve timing, you have to unwind this fella out in order to take it out:


The 20 bolts all undone, much frustration & jiggling of cables I finally got the rocker cover off:


The new gasket in place, the red thing!


Rocker cover back in place:


After the plastic cover went on, but no microfilter housing or strut in place:




Everything back in place:



Here's one showing where I first spotted the oil weep, it's all clean now:



I changed the plugs while the rocker cover was off. I used NGK plugs, they were €100. They are meant to be 60k mile/100k km items but I'm not so sure, two of the plugs didn't look so healthy on the porcelain. I also decided to change the oil & filter too, it was almost up to half way through the suggested BMW oil change interval. The crazy long interval that is (15k miles/25k kms), regardless of brand I would recommend a max interval of 7.5k miles if you intend keeping your car for the long term.

Thermostat

So on to the thermostat. The N52 engine has an external "map" thermostat, it is mounted underneath the car on to the external water pump, the water pump is an electric item. I decided to change the thermostat because I was getting the error code 2EF5, this fault apparently appears on most N52 engined cars, BMW dealers normally ignore them as there maybe be a faulty wiring harness behind the issue so they stay well away. It is related to the emissions somehow. I didn't get the full story, there's a sensor built in to the thermostat that routes warer to the cylinder head which somehow improves emissions. I was told that 9 times out of 10 a new thermostat will resolve the issue. I have also read that it is an early warning sign of an impending stat failure. Anyway, a good time to change it.
It is pretty easy to access, remove the splash guard underneath, 4 pipes in total, two with jubilee clips, two with the BMW spring lock clip. You need to drain the coolant first by opening the bleed screw on the radiator.
Here's a shot of the thermostat in situ:





Here's the old & new one:



Then I did a bit of a test drive while keeping an eye on the inlet & outlet coolant temperatures as well as oil temperature:



In total I would say I had to undo at least one hundred bolts, lots of clips & connectors, so lots of patience required, especially for the torquing up bit.
Next job......

kilianmanning wrote: »

Where did you get the bulbs if you don't mind me asking?

Hi, I got them in Red Power on the Long Mile Road! I see you're in Meath, if you're close to Kells you can get them in MCG!

I've got the oil temp on mine. Does it take a while for yours to reach full operating temp??

MetzgerMeister wrote: »

I've got the oil temp on mine. Does it take a while for yours to reach full operating temp??

Yes, it could take a good 25 minutes or more to get up to temperature.

Cleaned a bit of tar from my Xsara.