Bear's bangers: Insight gets GAZ'd for spring. Well, shocks. Bonus blue content.

[Bear]

Tinkering:

A box arrives

Containing

For this

A battery keeps going flat

You can see why working on the inner wings scares me more than a standard Range Rover would

Want to explore

But haven't wired leisure battery back in.

Fix driver's window?

Ah. Winder mech is fine

But it sticks here

Time for a bench vice I think.

Also gave PT Cruiser roof a clean...

Looks much better for it. No dye, just Autoglym soft top cleaning kit.

[Bear]

The van loves to fight

Can't get the channel off, so needle file deployed

Then blow rust out

Both sides done

Clamps!

Fixed, but then drove five hours and found thick fog rather than clear skies. Ugh.

[Bear]

Dampers have a bolt at the top and a bolt at the bottom. Should be easy.

"First, remove the boot side covers. By removing all the other trim that is in the way..."

[2flags]

I hope you are right, remember, men make plans, the gods laugh!

[Bear]

I think BMW have a special department of fuckwittery to make simple jobs infuriating.

Not only do you have to remove almost all the boot trim to do the dampers...

Fixing the central locking motor for the fuel flap means two screws that are behind crumbling sound deadening /and/ a thick wiring loom held on with clips. And trying to align the pin through a hole near the rear light.

This car is hell-bent on annoying me to the point of smashing bits, but I refuse. I am going to fix it regardless.

Annoyed about the sound deadening being made of frozen pastry though.

[2flags]

Does the soundproofing fall apart if you even look at it, never mind actually touch it? Would ripping it all out and replacing it with aftermarket silver stuff work?

[Bear]

Fuck Autodoc in the arse with a hedgehog.

Remove all this:

Remove old damper (easy):

Get the parts I ordered - look, right number:

Wait, doesn't fit.

Now I have to deal with Autodoc returns. And order the right parts. Probably for more money.

I wish that company would just vanish back into whatever spam-filled shithole it crawled out of.

[2flags]

I bet you wish you could get hold of the parts person and insert those where the sun does not shine to help them remember to send the right bits in future!!

[Bear]

  On 20/05/2024 at 14:07, 2flags said:

Does the soundproofing fall apart if you even look at it, never mind actually touch it? Would ripping it all out and replacing it with aftermarket silver stuff work?

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Silver stuff would be fine for boom, but it's shaped like a cocoon to hold all the wires and trim away from bits they could rattle on, so it wouldn't work for a quiet interior. I'm just accepting that it's crumbling and it'd do that eventually behind the trim anyway.

If a new piece were available and sensibly priced I'd replace it!

BMW progress:

Autodoc sent wrong parts, but Autodoc is also the only place with affordable, in-stock Bilstein B4 dampers so I ordered the direct equivalent ones (cheaper than sport ones) and am returning the others.

Removing the dampers, trim aside, was stupidly easy - the 18mm bottom bolt coming off without jacking the car up or anything silly, just a normal 1/2" ratchet and 18mm impact socket. Upper bolts and mounts removed with 16mm ring spanner and adjustable to hold the shock.

Dropped the mounts in the ultrasonic cleaner and have applied waxoyl to the body mount and shock mount plate, also deploying clear waxoyl in the rear inner wings.

Since the interior is mostly removed I'm cleaning each part, and replacing the fuel flap locking motor with a new VDO one as it doesn't seem to be working. Retrieved the screw I dropped using a borescope with magnetic end...

Also decided that cold oil or not, I'm changing the oil and filter while it's stuck in the garage with no rear dampers.

This is what most of the interior (other than the boot floor/carpet - @Robson3022 isn't a monster and anything you could normally see was clean) looked like:

Same part on the other side, now cleaned:

It's an amazingly solid and straight car - the original damper being the ORIGINAL for example, yet coming off as easily as a new car - it makes me think BMW has gone for reliability by making cars out of good bits, then gone for "selling new ones" by making replacing said bits an absolute ballache guaranteed to result in broken trim etc.

And what the hell is wrong with British drivers that they will run a £50K (in 2006) high-performance small 4x4 on the same fucking dampers for 135,000 miles/17 years?!? Why do people hate maintaining their expensive, advanced cars so much?

If I get brave, I might remove the headliner and fix the sunroof guides. At this rate it'll still be occupying the garage when I have some money again, so I might do the front shock absorbers as well.

Shame it needs a chunky puller to do the centre prop bearing!

As if that weren't already enough planned work, I ordered two Moog front control arms for the PT Cruiser to deal with the separating rubber bush. Should handle better on those and Moog has a good reputation for Chrysler bits, though it's equally likely Autodoc will send me one dozen starving crazed weasels.

[Bear]

Business end:

Mystery business:

This box was hanging loose in the engine bay and has clearly been getting friendly with the aux belt...

I may actually be defeated by the idea of cleaning the vacuum/breather/turbo/PCV sort of system...

But it's a bit grubby.

I dislike diesels.

But at least the leaking oil and gunk will be fresh

[Robson3022]

[Robson3022]

Wheels sir? 
 

he would like £150 for them. Sorry for the excellent photos detailing all the wheels!! 

[Bear]

Ah!

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

Draining cold oil takes ages...

[Bear]

The mystery leak source possibly?

This looks broken...

But can't see how it would break!

[EyesWeldedShut]

  On 21/05/2024 at 13:34, RichardK said:

The mystery leak source possibly?

This looks broken...

But can't see how it would break!

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Like me - brittle with age?

If it's old and brittle then would it be possible for the locating pin in the rounded end to crack out the rounded end of the 'stat? Say the piston starts snagging in the sleeve and sets up vibration or a harsh open/close? 

[Bear]

 

May as well lift the seat and clean more...

Worth it!

£3.56 scavenged - the hoover got a hidden £2

[Bear]

  On 21/05/2024 at 14:14, EyesWeldedShut said:

Like me - brittle with age?

If it's old and brittle then would it be possible for the locating pin in the rounded end to crack out the rounded end of the 'stat? Say the piston starts snagging in the sleeve and sets up vibration or a harsh open/close? 

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I wondered if it was a safety pressure overload feature but looking at that it seems like a stuck thermostat binding to the housing at the outlet could push piece 1 the wrong way...

Either way, ordered a pair of thermostats as a bundle for the price of just the main one from a main dealer - Mahle/Behr OEM ones so exactly the same part. Dealer had chance, dealer lost out.

[Bear]

  On 21/05/2024 at 11:51, Robson3022 said:

Wheels sir? 
 

he would like £150 for them. Sorry for the excellent photos detailing all the wheels!! 

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If all four are like that or those are the worst, yes please - that's a price I can justify for core wheels to refurbish before getting new tyres

It'll need to be next month - partly because the X3 is currently without rear dampers so probably hilarious to drive for two seconds before guaranteed death.

[Robson3022]

I’ll check them all out and see if they are all like that. 
 

if they are I’ll buy them and keep hold of them for you 

[Bear]

  On 22/05/2024 at 07:46, Robson3022 said:

I’ll check them all out and see if they are all like that. 
 

if they are I’ll buy them and keep hold of them for you 

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Thankyou, that is very much appreciated! You can see I'm into the X3 for the long haul I think, hopefully won't waste too much money on stupid things but I'm trying to get all the preventative maintenance done and servicing, rather than just fix problems.

Cannot believe that a previous owner of this thing - 286hp, 580Nm, £45K and clearly looked after and cared for in some regards, given I could undo the shock bolts left-handed while lying on the ground and the underside is so clean - had never replaced the suspension. It definitely needs the front shocks doing as well, which of course opens the gateway of "well I'll just do the springs at the same time etc" - but 17 years and 135,000 miles of high-performance car, worn out suspension for must be 7 years of that at least? Even that's being generous IMO, dampers never used to last a decade.

[Bear]

Small change:

[Bear]

Worth the effort...

[Minimad5]

Never knew X3s came with this engine !

👏 Top repair skills

[Bear]

  On 24/05/2024 at 23:44, Minimad5 said:

Never knew X3s came with this engine !

👏 Top repair skills

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This is just faffing - I'm going to do waterpump and thermostats soon but continuing the curse of "messed up parts delivery" Amazon have /damaged/ the parcel for the Febi pump that was supposed to arrive today.

I'll probably get the intake pipes out of the way then decide "oh I'll just do the turbo vacuum pipes as well" and by the time I'm done will have refurbed everything 😂

Running totals:

Secondhand tail light: £24.95 posted (yeah, I missed one at £43 and was annoyed then that one popped up - arrived next day on Fedex!).

Central locking solenoid for fuel filler: £33 but not here yet

Both EGR and main thermostats: £76 (Behr - OEM with BMW number ground off) - was £130 from dealer but they messed up first time so I never picked them up.

Oil filter, oil, air filter - irrelevant consumables but about £100 using proper oil.

Rear dampers £120 Bilstein B4 plus £17 for bump stop kit

Parts needed, in order of "ease of sorting"

Upper air cleaner housing - a whole box is £25-35 on eBay so not worried

Wheel arch liner NSF - £40 secondhand typically but I need one with an extra cooler vent - only one I've see  so far has damage. £700 new so that's not happening!

Front dampers: Bilstein B4 look to be around £250 for the pair, plus any useful things like upper bearings. They aren't stiff or noisy, so might be okay.

Front suspension R&R. It clonks a bit, and has a little wander, so like the dampers is probably all original. There are kits of all the links for around £200-250 but I don't trust the quality, and a polybush kit is eye-wateringly expensive and hard to fit without a press.

Prop centre bearing: ££ - who knows. Part is cheap, but fitting involves getting the old bearing off, plus it's wise to replace the guibo/flex disc and those are expensive for good ones. Say £100-500 depending on what I end up doing.

Transfer box: £700 if it needs it. I'm not convinced and suspect the right wheels and tyres, a fluid change, and recalibration may be all that is needed.

Differentials: oil changes for sure. If I drop the centre bearing and it's not worn, the rear diff may be the source of the noise but I think @Robson3022 mentioned that the previous owner had had something done with the diff.

Again,  unsure, as I don't see much sign of anything being done major maintenance-wise with the car bar the freaking obvious stainless noisy exhaust system. It does have a history of investigating a turbo issue that was down to vacuum hoses.

Turbos/oil/crap: it chucks out reek when the second turbo kicks in, only momentarily, and sometimes feels off-boost despite hearing the small one spin up right away. Lots going on with these engines, but worst case seems to be a core exchange on the turbos, at around £200.

However, it's not a new car and the breather/intake system looks like a pacific island disaster movie after an oil tanker crash. My gut feeling is that if I can find the mojo to strip and clean the intake manifold, breathers, anything related and change the cam cover gasket carefully to try and eradicate leaks, the car will be cleaner overall and more economical. The discouraging aspect is how grim and filthy the engine bay is around the engine. Typical diesel things, but I wonder if steam cleaning an engine bay is still a thing and if it's a monumentally stupid idea on a modern car. Cleaning the inlet manifold (I don't know if this has swirl flaps, but that area usually gets really coked up) would be a bigger win than chasing down the weakness in the rocker cover seal that drips oil near the EGR, but also I take a holistic view - breather systems are important on low compression, clean-running petrol cars, so on a high compression soot-filled derv burner I suspect they are really important to the original design's performance.

While I'm repairing it, I have a dream* car to drive. There are some remarkably cheap ones for sale and I suspect I'll buy one when the Range Rover finds a new home...

I had the current Musso Sports and always wanted to try the Korando Sports, which had its own racing season for a while. On Pirelli Scorpions this one does handle very well, though you can feel the SsangYong wobble from the light steering.

Some BMW content. You can't smell or feel what the trim in the boot was like before but I can assure you it is now fluffier and softer than I thought possible - when I can put this all back together it'll be lovely.

Well, mostly. I don't like to wish ill on people but I hope the inventor of late-90s to early 2000s "soft touch plastic coatings" has a corner of the afterlife waiting for them where they suffer from eternal, skin-peeling sunburn that also goes sticky and claggy to touch.

[Bear]

My partner thinks I'm mad doing all this stuff on the BMW but likes it, apart from it being too noisy. I don't know how to explain the difference between noisy like the 208D which is toddler smashing a tin toy on an apparently never-ending bannister while repeating NONONO and walking on pistachio shells in clogs, and noisy like the X3 3.0sd with a stainless de-DPF setup which is a TOOL gig performed on a platform pulled by a Deltic and why the latter is acceptable, even desirable.

The only bit I don't like about the X3 exhaust/DPF removal, other than legality/breaking my own moral code of "make it right like the manufacturer intended and make it work properly, don't bodge or bypass", is that it makes the garage into something resembling an early 1990s Scottish Borders Transport bus garage full of green-at-the-gills students adding NOx and asthma to their hangovers. And that's just reversing 20ft.

On the other hand, I'm definitely getting my money's worth from the high VED.

[yes oui si]

X3 strut replacement access looks a ballache... I still have slight ptsd from doing it on an e39, which involves removing the rear seats. 

[Bear]

  On 25/05/2024 at 12:30, yes oui si said:

X3 strut replacement access looks a ballache... I still have slight ptsd from doing it on an e39, which involves removing the rear seats. 

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I mean, it is a ballache - but at the same time it's not difficult except you know every half-trained, under-pressure independent garage will want a shortcut and that shortcut will be cracked and rattling until the car dies...

As it is the car needed a deep clean and it got it. But I wouldn't like to be a mechanic explaining the 18mm bolt was easy but the 16mm involved at least an hour, really two, of painstaking trim removal and reassembly.

today: water pumps, or at least, getting to the bits involved. Air cleaner out, radiator fan out...

Plenty of room! Luxury!

Mission objective

Mission objectionable. The intake is predictably full of oil and I cannot overstate how grim I think modern turbo diesels are to work on.

However, I have identified some missing clips and bits, traced the vacuum lines, and have a plan of attack.

And it's a sunny day

Note to self: don't pick up the trim right after working on the engine...

[Bear]

Internet:

3 series intercooler easy, two screws, drops out

X3: LOL no.

I shall replace all the missing undertray pieces, but the intercooler will have to remain as an oil retaining device for now 😕 I really CBA removing the bumper and removing the radiator gets the ATF cooler involved.

[Bear]

Though I dare say the small forest of leaves /filling/ the space between radiator and intercooler like a carpet probably didn't do either system any favours...

[Jazoli]

Re the dpf removal and exhaust how are you planning to get it through its next mot?