Tepper

The non-opening tailgate glass is probably a fault with the flexible sections of loom between the glass/tailgate/body if the switch replacement hasn't fixed it. Not a horrific repair if you don't mind wires.

There's a Bulgarian guy on YouTube called Crank that seems to repair a lot of M57 engines, and he's done a few on his channel now - it seems like these later M57s CAN snap the chains without warning at higher milages, but it's nowhere near as common as on the N47/N57. I probably still won't bother unless it gets noisy!

As the others have said, that's lovely work - I'd be more than happy with that. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

Probably a bit late now but when I was messing around with these bushes a heat gun made a good bit of difference, you can't use a blow torch on the ally but a hot air gun was enough to get things moving.

Top work man, I hope you're enjoying seeing it start to come together as much as the rest of us are.

3 minutes ago, DaveDorson said:

I try and rebuild everything where possible as I think we're hugely wasteful in this country and it absolutely pisses me off.

Amen! The amount of stuff e.g. washing machines that get binned for needing a set of brushes or something else simple is outrageous.

200k on my 2007 BMW 535d estate. Not sure if I should do the timing chain or continue to hope that everything will be OK - seems pretty happy at the moment.

2 minutes ago, grogee said:

Oh sure, everyone's saying you've got big balls and all, but if that were true, you wouldn't be travelling with the Code Reader of Shame in the driver's door pocket.

That comes from the factory, it's how you know you've got a good one. It's like having the umbrella still present in the door of a Rolls-Royce.

Glad to see you're back at it! If it's still not playing ball, one trick that has worked for me on stubborn beads is a ratchet strap around the circumference of the tyre - might be worth a go?

Oil filter pedestal gasket is a favourite on the M52, not sure if these have a similar setup but if so, that seems a likely candidate.

16 hours ago, sutty2006 said:

I recon one of them is repairable but I’ve never stripped one down. 

See how you get on and drop me a message if you want me to look at one 👍

Should be able to, yeah. Or another option is to use a broken Philips, gut it and put a whole new amplifier/BT board in the casing. You'd lose the display and a few other features though so probably best to start with a working one if possible.

I can probably modify the broken Sharp unit to have Bluetooth if you're interested - might take me a little while though!

1 hour ago, grogee said:

Should I hard ignore the supplied software and stick with the Bimmergeeks supplied stuff? - Yes, but you might still have to turn your antivirus off. Generally best to use disposable laptops for this kind of thing with no personal details on and keep it offline as much as possible.

Also I have a (very large) folder called E60 which presumably contains the vehicle specific info relevant to my car. Do you know which folder this should be extracted into? - These files are called Datens and you're right, it's got all the info INPA, ISTA etc needs to deal with your car. Use a program called BMW Coding Tool (should be included in the Bimmergeeks stuff) to automatically put it where it's needed.

Finally - what does the switch do on the CAN cable? Looks important. - It is important! If you connect it wrong you'll irreversibly brick your car. Just kidding - it shorts pin 7&8 on the connector which is required for older cars. Yours will need pin 7&8 disconnected. If it's labelled then great, if not then just try it both ways, you won't do any damage.

21 hours ago, grogee said:

From memory the bit I struggled with was ISTA because one of the links was dead.

Try here: https://www.bimmerscene.com/showthread.php?tid=5132 or torrent files here: https://www.bimmerfest.com/threads/ista-4-39-2x-standalone-sdp-full-4-42-1-torrent.1411305/

You don't need ISTA for aux in anyway, programming on an E61 is done using NCSExpert. Drop me a PM if you get stuck!

For messing about with this including coding, you ideally want a laptop set up with BMW Tools (INPA, ISTA, NCSExpert, WinKFP etc). This is paired with a K+DCAN cable to give you (almost) all the capability you could ever want. A simpler (but not free) way is using this app: https://bimmercode.app/ - I haven't used it myself but it's supposed to be good. If you have an Android phone you can still use a K+DCAN cable with a USB OTG adapter to plug it into your phone - you don't have to buy the expensive WiFi/Bluetooth dongles.

If you're ever passing Reading you're welcome to make use of my BMW laptop. Or if it's of interest, I'm actually putting a Volvo VIDA setup together for another member at the moment, so I could do a BMW one for you if you like.

Could you lap it flat on a pane of glass with some wet & dry? Shouldn't take too long on a part like that so long as it's not mega warped.

22 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

Sorry to hear that mate. 

Police rarely lift a finger to look for them, was probably just a coincidence that someone from that car park reported it dumped.

 

Honestly I wasn't expecting anything from the police, I only reported it to get it logged as stolen on the PNC - even that took them 3 days to do.  They did the usual, said there were no leads and nothing they could do. Then the other day a call comes in from the car park, the police pass the info to me and say that I can just collect it as the elements will have gotten rid of any forensics. A fully desk-based exercise by the sound of things.

Don't get me wrong, if I was in charge of the police with the budget they have I don't think I'd be prioritising low-ish value motorbike theft, but I wish they had the resources to actually deal with stuff like this. I PAY MY TAXES LIKE EVER1 ELSE M8 etc

My Pan European got stolen last week, it's parked on the street and I came out one morning to find the chain had been cut and the bike was gone. Yesterday the police called me and said someone had reported it dumped... about 30 metres from where it had been parked. It was behind a high wall in a private car park, somewhere I didn't really think to have a poke around. The scrotes had obviously pushed it there out of view to try to hotwire it. They've smashed some of the panels trying to get it going, which is annoying, but it should all be pretty fixable.

A few months ago I found the ignition switch was melted and the wires were in a total mess, I assumed the switch had shorted out but I wonder if that was a previous attempt to hotwire the poor thing? Anyway this time I should'nt have to replace the ignition switch, hopefully I can just solder the wires back together and be back on the road. After that it's getting stuck in my lock up, I'm fed up of shit like this.

9 hours ago, Barry Cade said:

Want to see the Nazi holiday camp on Rügen, the glass factory in Dresden, maybe pop past family in Visselhovede, the eagles nest in berechtsgaden, ride the roads in the Vosges.. who knows. 

I did a bike trip in that neck of the woods a few years ago. You can camp on the lawn of the Nazi holiday gaff, when I went they did a deal that included dinner and breakfast which was pretty cheap all in. Grub wasn't anything to write home about, but what can you do! Depending on your route, I quite liked Gdansk - might be worth a stop while you're in that vague neck of the woods.

Great buy! I reckon warm hatches like this are some of the most fun driving you can have in real world conditions.

9 hours ago, dome said:

I'd read about the gearbox map but was a bit wary of messing about with it when it's about to get its first fluid change in 160k miles!

If it ain't broke... map it until it is.

Would recommend farming the gearbox job out - I did it on a 2 poster and it was alright, if a bit fiddly, but doing on the deck would be a PITA. Not sure if you've already got these in the service kit but it's worth changing the mechatronics seals, D bridge seal and mechatronics connector sleeve while you're in there. Also, if you've got the standard (i.e. not sport) gearbox, the XHP gearbox map is worth doing. It's DIY through an app, although I haven't had the spuds to try out Drag Race Mode yet.

Welding can be tricky to pick up, but it boils down to practice. The best thing you can do is practice welding a rusty car that doesn't matter to you, but still try to do the best job you can. Could you pick up a scrap car to play with? Or anything that uses car bodywork thickness steel really. Once you've done a few jobs, it starts to get easier and you'll feel more comfortable tackling the Mercedes.

1 hour ago, sutty2006 said:

It’s a good idea but on the wrong sender. This one has a very small circuit board type of thing with a printed on track. I think it’s a tenth of the size of that guys windings. Nice idea though. 

Hmm, a little bit more tricky then. Have you got a picture of the guts of your sender? Depending on how creative/bodgy you want to get, it might still be possible to insulate the old track then wrap a wire of the correct resistance over the top of it.