Convertiblau! My 1996 BMW 328iC

[ScottyB]

absolutely top-shelf Macgyver-ing on that hose :lol:

[Jake]

Mileage: 111,800

Got a few things done to Blau on Sunday.

First up, basic wash, but with liberal use of Plastic-X on the back window. I forgot how good this stuff was - I last used it with my Miata's back window. Cleaned things up nicely and while there are still scratches that you can see, it removed a lot of haze that was bothering me.



Then, Tom and I rolled the rear fenders. Pretty easy, even though we didn't know what we were doing. My roommate has a heat gun so Tom held that steady as I rolled. Only cracked the paint a teeny bit on the driver's side, just a little. I went from having maybe an index card of space between fender lip and tire, to more than a finger of gap.

Nice to know that I likely won't ever rub with any wheel/tire setup again, even though I'm stepping the tire width down to some 225's next weekend (and changing up the wheels, because cheap BBS are best BBS).

Oh, and I finally figured out the proper way to close the roof and side windows so that everything lines up and seals. Definitely not the procedure that BMW intended, but for a 20-year-old beater 'vert, the fact that I can spray a hose right at the side windows/top and not have it leak is all that matters.

[Jake]

New rimzz!



BBS RX, 17x8", with some Sumitomo all-season tires on 'em.

Going to leave these on the 'vert and use the DSII's (with still-good Hankook RS3's) for rain/backup track tires on the M3.

[Beej]

RX's were my first BBS' on an e30 back in the day. :thumbup:

[Jake]

I'm working from home today so naturally I had to take a few minutes to appreciate the weather while fiddling in the driveway. Did a few little things.

Installed a BMW keyless entry/security system. The cars all came pre-wired so you just pull the glovebox out, plug the "brain" you now have into a harness under the dash, and re-assemble. Takes 10 minutes. I decided to leave the siren un-installed as the "woop!" and "woopwoop!" when you lock/unlock the car would be 1) annoying and 2) identical to my roommate's 318ti.

The main benefit of the keyless system is that the driver's door lock cylinder is a little fiddly, so if I can avoid putting a key in it several times a day, I'd prefer not to.

Also replaced the HID bulbs I got from Rob with the stock 9006 halogens. The HIDs were nice and bright, but the "error eliminator" things didn't work, so I got huge voltage drops when I turned them on. Not a fan of all the gauges going to zero and "LOW BEAM FAILURE" coming on the OBC. I need new "eliminator" thingies (it's just a big capacitor, I think) and then I can put them back in. Ideally with some Depo glass headlights with the proper cutoff pattern.

Oh, and I removed the 12mm spacers. Not a fan of the "Pontiac wide track" look with the BBS wheels, and the offset is such that the spacer isn't needed vs. the DSII's. A smaller tire helps as well (225 vs 245).

Going to try and fix the front bumper tomorrow...

[SlimKlim]

As far as I know the Depo lights all still have halogen projectors in them, so anything to the right of center is going to get blinded by the HIDs, you'd probably have to crack them open like I did and add a couple pieces of metal to make the cutoffs go straight across. Not difficult at all, just kind of time consuming.

[Sully]

As far as I know the Depo lights all still have halogen projectors in them, so anything to the right of center is going to get blinded by the HIDs, you'd probably have to crack them open like I did and add a couple pieces of metal to make the cutoffs go straight across. Not difficult at all, just kind of time consuming.

Are they supposed to go straight across? Any factory hid projector I've seen has a step in it.

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[SlimKlim]

Yeah but the halogen projectors cut up at like a 45° angle, my fix isn't quite like an OEM hid projector but it's close enough and doesn't blind anyone

[Jake]

Fixed front bumper (enough to make me satisfied), installed foglights, removed spacers:



Also picked up a replacement (used) brake pedal travel sensor on Saturday. Mine had failed and that was tripping the ABS/ASC lights. It's just a plunger assembly that clips into the brake booster. Pretty easy (~10 minutes) install that only requires removing the air intake and ASC throttle body to allow enough room for your hand and a pick, to release the circlip holding it in.

[WRXtranceformed]

Gotta love easy fixes! :thumbup:

[Jake]

Nabbed a 4-spoke M3 steering wheel and airbag from a friend last week, on the cheap. Much better than the thin, spindly stock wheel and bolts right on with no modifications :thumbup:

[Jake]

Mileage: 113,500

So the 'vert made it through winter with no real issues to report. I did an oil change about 1k miles ago and otherwise it's been largely "drive it and ignore it" lately. Cool.

Went out in DC on Saturday evening and as I approached the car to drive home, saw what first appeared to be a parking ticket under the wiper blade. Turns out, it was a note left by a nice passerby who watched as the dickbag in this orange Eclipse parallel parked it by feel and crunched into the bumper:



Thanks for the note and the photos, Sara.

Fortunately (?) it was hit in the same spot as before, and only knocked the bumper off the side clip and cracked more of the paint on it. I have two good friends moving up this way (to Fort Meade) next week, and he's got a pretty clean M3 bumper for me (for free). So, my reaction on Saturday was essentially to laugh it off. Matthew gave me some good bumper shocks so I'll replace those while I have it all pulled off, as I think the driver's side shock is bent from the first impact.

Other things I want to get done on this... hmm. It needs pulleys soon, one of them is starting to get more chirpy. So, I'll do pulleys and drive belts, that's a quick/cheap/easy thing. It's kind of wandery on the highway so I'm wondering if the RTABs are shot (probably so). I may wait to do the RTABs until I have the time and money to do those, the front control arms, and tie rods - that way I only do one alignment.

It's a creaky rattletrap of a car with the roof up, but with the roof down, goddamn it's just perfect.

[Jake]

Mileage: 113,800

My giant order (two boxes!) from FCP Euro showed up so I started thinking about actually, you know, working on the car yesterday as I left work. "Ehh I could do those pulleys but I dunnoooo it's a little breezy and maybe I should do it and the cooling hoses all at once hmmm" was kind of my train of thought. Of course, I started the car to drive home and was greeted by the tensioner pulley playing me the song of its people as I left Rosslyn. That was enough of a sign to do the work last night.

Replaced the main drive belt, which was cracking badly, as well as the tensioner and water pump pulleys. I have a new alternator pulley but it appears I have to remove the alternator to replace it. Given it's just a piece of metal, and not bearings/grease/magic like the tensioner pulley, I elected to leave it for now and do that job later.

And yay, it's quiet again!

I also took a few minutes (daylight had not escaped me yet at this point) to rip the front bumper off and see if just replacing the driver's side bumper shock would fix the sag issue. My suspicion was that the old bumper shock had been bent when the pickup truck tried to run over the car late last year, and that's why nothing would quite line up. Thankfully, Matt Walker gave me the bumper shocks off of that blue M3 he parted out, so I had a good spare on hand.

And behold, it worked!



It's not perfect - and the paint on the bumper is still kinda shitty - but hey, my beater looks a bit less beater-y.

[Senor_Taylor]

I said it on Facebook and I'll say it here. That is a nice looking car. The fact that I've never seen a white e36 vert makes it even cooler. One of few convertibles I'd ever not mind owning.

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[Gordonovski]

If you want to put this and the racekor in the car show, I'd be happy to drive it down for you. :thumbup:

[fiveoh2go]

Don't know where I've been, but I just stumbled upon this build thread a couple days back. Nice work so far on the car! Also, thanks for helping take about 6 years of haze off the rear window of my TJ...totally forgot I had some Plastic-X and your post reminded me of that fact! It's the simple things...like being able to see out of your vehicle! :lol: :thumbup:

[Jake]

Mileage: 114,770

It's had a bit of a stumble for a thousand miles or so, but very very slight. The CEL has been lit since I bought it for P1188 which is a generic emissions code. My drive to work today was a-okay, but starting the car when leaving work revealed a huge misfire. I limped it home (8 miles) and pulled the codes - misfire on cylinder 2 and injector circuit malfunction, cylinder 2.

My first thought is always plugs, coils, valve cover gasket. I know the previous owner replaced the VCG but he also did some other really shoddy work, so I trust nothing I've heard. Anyway. Pulled the coils and plugs. All coils were dry with no sign of an oil leak into the plug well. I replaced the plugs with known good NGK's (spares from a DJ's old racecar) since I had them out.

Cleared the codes, revved it a bit, the only one that came back was P0202 for the injector on cyl. 2.

OK, pull the fuel rail. The injector for cyl. 2 was not really secured by the black metal clip very well. I pulled the injector and re-seated it firmly, made sure the metal clip was in place and also reseated the electrical connection at that injector.

Same code is still there. It seems to idle better (less shaky/stumbly) but when you rev it, it's clearly misfiring.

I can check the wiring inside the plastic tube on top of the fuel rail, but didn't know if this could also be the sign of a dead injector or something else.

I think my next course of action is going to be swapping injectors 1 and 2 to see if the code follows the injector or stays at #2.

[BLINGMW]

swapping injectors 1 and 2 to see if the code follows the injector or stays at #2.

Makes sense :thumbup:

[Jake]

So I totally blew off my great diagnostic plans. A friend ended up having a complete set of injectors (fun fact: S52 and M52 use the same part number) so I bought those from him. Got home, threw one of those injectors on cylinder 2, and decided while I had it apart to check the wiring inside the plastic casing, "just in case, although what would go wrong inside this casing anyway."



What the hell is this.

I guess at some point, someone decided that the ground wire to injector #2 and to the main plug (at the front of the wiring rail) both needed some fixing and crimping. The one wire to #2 had a teeny spot of insulation rubbed funny, so I cut out both crimped pieces and replaced them with new wire.

Car runs great (mostly) now although it will occasionally stumble either away from a stoplight or under low-rpm-high-load (i.e. 1200 rpm in 2nd gear, then add lots of throttle). Revs strong to redline though. I ran the codes and got this:



It's had P1188 and P0170 since I bought it (likely a small vacuum leak) but the cam position sensor code is new. It's come back after clearing it and driving ~10 miles so I ordered a new one this morning. I think my M3 behaved similarly when its CPS was on the way out. Hoping this fixes the issue.

[Jake]

Convertisaga continues. I threw the new cam position sensor in it tonight and things got a little better. It still stumbles when leaving a stoplight if you sit there idling for a while.

Wondering if the new old injector I put in is messing with things. The one I pulled out looked really good whereas the spares from Austin are ancient (if they're original, they are from a 98 M3 with 226k miles). So, I may swap the better-looking one back in.

If not that, maybe a vacuum leak somewhere... I should smoke test it.

It's good enough to drive around, just sucks pulling away from every 4th traffic light or so.