Rekpoint

M12 3/8 stubby impact is a beast, ratchet is still on my list. Nice work! People always dismiss the factory tools as silly or expensive but you end up saving so much time because that’s what they were designed for lol. 

Today was my 2 year anniversary with this car and the weather turned out nice tonight so I ripped the drivers seat out and got go work. What a disgusting mess.

The rain left a slew of mold, coins molded into the carpet and some pretty heavy staining. I knew the grey carpet wasnt going to look perfect given the amount of time I had to do this job and the lack of proper tools I had but I tried my best to get it clean and looking slightly better.

Not perfect, but substancially better. I cleaned up the rest of the interior following the carpets and I couldnt be happier with the car now.

Been a while again. Been messing around with a few projects the last couple months and finally got around to getting the E46 back in action for the year.

After a hard winter of this thing sitting outside the whole time (my now ex-fiancée talked me into storing her car last winter instead of mine) upon everything melting and the super cold and rainy spring we had here, I discovered a major water leak on the driver side of the car. There was a roughly 1 inch deep puddle front and back, which pushed me to start vacuuming and drying. Vacuumed it out semi regularly over the last few weeks and left it in the garage with the windows open for over a month and worked on other stuff in the meantime. Once it was plenty dry I got it over to my work and had the guys start looking at it. One of the techs let me know that one of the sunroof drains got unplugged and was leaking water from the A-pillar pretty good. Got that fixed and now she's bone dry!

Another issue that I finally got around to dealing with was the suspension. When I had the car in the garage I pulled the front wheels off to get a better look at everything underneath and put together a parts list of what I might need. Started looking at my coilovers and realized that there was literally no pre-load at all and the shock collar was able to move freely with just my hand. Likely due to my negligence when throwing the car together in the garage last winter, I properly set the preload, raised the front suspension to a nicer height, and tightened up the collar adjustments. Since then the vehicle rides a lot nicer and is a lot more confident in the corners than it used to be.

Going forward I have a lot of work to do on the interior of the car due to some mold that showed up in the carpet from the flooding, and I plan on taking some time and ripping the seats out to really clean everything properly. The seats also very badly need a lot of love so I am going to try to condition and save them, but we will see.

In the meantime though, enjoy this picture of my 2 main projects right now.

T handle ratchet goes crazy

Starter update, Started the job on Saturday. It took 2 hours to disassemble and remove the starter. (1 of those hours was just fucking with the intake manifold clamps) Finished the job up today as I had to wait for the proper intake manifold clamp tool. Took an hour to put everything back together and 3 minutes to re-install the manifold clamps with the proper tool. Way better then struggling for an hour.
While the intake manifold was off I took time to remove the ICV and spray it out with some carb cleaner so the flap could move freely. Wasn't an issue more just a while I was in there type deal. I did the same by also cleaning the throttle bodies. They weren't too dirty but now they are fresh and clean. I also lubed up the throttle body springs + long metal thing with white lithium grease spray.

AFE calls to re-oil your filter every 30k miles. The filter was no longer blue. So while it was out sitting I cleaned it with the supplied cleaner. Hosed it out, waited for it to dry and re-oiled the filter.

 
I 100% credit how fast I did this to the new tools I purchased. Got an awesome deal on a Milwaukee fuel mini impact, ratchet and impact drill. The proper tool to remove and install the manifold clamps. And this crazy harbor freight T handle ratchet so I could reach the starter from on top of the engine bay.

Besides looking like crap there was no visible failure on the old starter. Even the gear was solid, Just inconsistent. But took it on a test run today and the car started right up 90 degrees out and engine hot like it wouldn't have in the past.



Muffler brackets will be here tomorrow. Will tackle that and my X pipe when I get back from San Diego.

Side story - I sold the Imola parts car that the cinnamon interior came from. Ended up getting the full interior, an Eisenmann exhaust, tons of interior parts I was missing and made a pretty nice profit. Sure I’ll regret not keeping a spare S54 some day

No big update, but now that I’m in my own house and no longer a tiny apartment I was able to bust out the pressure washer again! M3 and E90 both got a much needed deep cleaning. M3 also developed an interesting issue with one of the brake pressure sensors, so that looks fun.
 
136,852 miles

Fastest interior swap after buying a car I’ve ever seen (love the natty brown). Silver looks great by the way, classy, shows off the body lines, hides dirt etc.
My E90 was also a factory halogen car and now has LEDs in aftermarket projectors. It looks pretty close to the real deal at a fraction of the cost… great light output too. I’ll have to try and dig up the link. Here’s a pic for reference!

Parts and things starting to pile up.
Some basic maintenance items that clearly needed to be attended to. Cabin air filter and air filter, done at 99,873.

Old filter.

New filter in housing.
As I had said in my OP, if it isn't a fun car, it has to look good and be enjoyable to be in. I think this accomplishes both, but will have to see how it comes together.

I picked up a full saddle brown interior for dirt cheap. Not sport seats unfortunately, but I actually like the comfort seats in the car currently. Can always try to find some in the future. Came out of a 2011 335i. It's in pretty great condition minus a few small imperfections.
I had originally bought this Colourlock leather cleaner kit to do my current interior, but ended up using on this.
\
Brush is not included but is required if you have dirty leather.
High traffic areas looked like this. Brown, but clearly in need of some attention.

I don't plan on using the center arm rest for the time being because you have to replace the entire center console, so I used it as a test piece.

This was just couple back and forths with the brush and the leather cleaner.
Then got to work on doing the whole thing.


Bottom is clean, top is untouched. Definitely needed it.
Here is a side by side of the cleaned driver seat, and the uncleaned passenger.
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Driver left, passenger right.
I'm assuming the passenger seat got less use as it wasn't as dirty, but still, different shades of brown.
I will have to do some further cleaning once the seats are back in the car and I can recline the seats all the way back.
The top of the driver seat came back pretty decently, but doesn't have as rich of brown color as the bottom half. I'm guessing due to some sun fading.
Now that it's clean, I plan to do a full rejuvenation of the leather using Leatherique. Some spots are pretty dried out, liked the rear headrest on the side facing the rear windshield. But it really could use it everywhere. I also need to get some liquid leather and some color matched dye from Colourlock. Some high traffic areas like drivers door card arm rest and some spots on the driver seat has the leather kind of worn away.
All in all, for how much I paid, it should be a fun project and I'm excited to see how it works in the car. 
Not going in the car yet as I have a few other things that go with this to really set the interior off that I am waiting to receive still.

Was pretty sweet lining up all 3 M3s in the driveway for that shot. What a crazy flip on that Imola car, my god. Good job on the valve cover work! Was interesting to see your high mileage cam lobes looking 2x better than mine with 50k less miles lol

Quick little update, Returned from the Badger BMWs Spring picnic with an M3 loaded with 4 printer paper boxes full of 80s-2010s Roundel magazines and I also picked up a set of BBS RC300/301s from @i_love_cars off his new E39. Playing some Tetris we were able to fit everything into the car for the 4 hour drive home. Thank god for moving blankets. Now I need to find a daily they will fit on once the E36 gets cleaned up and sold. 


This weekend I decided to visit @pynacl have a ton of beer and work on a few projects. First on the agenda was to replace the valve cover gasket on the M3. When blasting heat you could smell a bit of oil though the vents. So glad to have that done finally, We also ended up installing fog lights. But an update on that will have to wait. Due to the connectors having junk in them. I need to pull them apart and clean them. Or just replace the contacts and reassemble. Also have OEM fog surrounds on order as my nice amazon once didn't seem to want to click in (They clicked in the imola parts car so they stayed on it). Enjoy some rare pictures of me ACTUALLY working on this car as its usually just me fucking around.

The second major project I wanted to complete was to help wash & detail @pynacls Imola red parts car. He had never washed the car since he bought it and it was time to go to fund some house projects... Or another car, I know how it is.. Anyway, Id say it came out fantastic. We had a little argument on how much to sell it for. He was happy with 7k. I said list it for $8500 and accept 8k. After 150 messages at 8500 someone from Wausau came and bought it yesterday. Less then 24 hours after posting. Nice come up on a parts car @pynaclthe E46 m3 gods were looking out for you.

Next on the list of things to do include a new starter, as I have started to have some issues in MKE. I bet @wasnt m3was ecstatic pushing my ass in the Walmart parking lot LOL. Order more headliner material + better glue to redo my butchered A+c pillar job, Finish up the fog install with new connectors, contact RADAR mirror to see what the ETA is on having my rear view mirror glass replaced, Source a full set of clear corners, sides and tails. (I know the ambers did not last long. But the car will look better with clears with what I have planned this next season) and last but not least buy some base and clear coat for a piece I have been sitting on for 3 months.
Still no update from IND when my fucking Eisenmann muffler brackets will get here to repair my muffler. But once those are here I can start digging into making this a tiny bit louder. 

After selling my F30, I bought an F150.  Drove my parents for a little bit and loved it, so I bought my own. Well after 8 months, I decided to move on from the truck and sell it. Loved the vehicle, just didn't love paying for it(economic crisis on the door step as well). MPG wasn't actually too bad, averaged like 17ish even with the bigger tires. On top of that, I wasn't doing anything to justify having a truck and just felt wasteful. 

Day before it sold.
2 weeks before the truck sold, I made a trip down to Chicago to pick up my brothers 2011 328xi. The car was having starting issues and he was unsure what to do with the vehicle. We figured it would be best if we brought it back to the Appleton area for further diagnosis and repair. Car made the 3 hour straight drive back to Wisconsin with out a hitch. It was around this time that I was looking for other vehicle options. I wanted to reduce my payment significantly or not have one at all, so I was looking at E46's, E70 X5's and E90s. My brother decided he wanted to find something newer so would be selling the E90. So I bought it.
2011 328xi Titanium Silver, Black Dakota leather, and Burlwood with 99,863 miles. No iDrive.
Car was running lean on both banks. After some research found it likely to be the valve cover with the built in CCV. VCG was leaking anyway so it was time for it to come off regardless. I also had the OFHG replaced along with the power steering fluid reservoir to address any immediate concern areas. Next will be cabin and intake filter, along with wiper blades.
The car is in very good condition minus a few minor things. Was a 1 owner vehicle up to 72k miles when my family bought it. Has always been garaged kept. 
Silver wasn't my first choice, but the color has really grown on me. I also can't say enough about how much I am enjoying the E90 platform.
Only two things this doesn't have which I want; Xenon projectors and comfort access. Comfort access is nightmare to add, so passing on that dream. I have been reading about being able to use the Euro Bi Xenon projectors and having to make only a few modifications to the harness for them to work as opposed to US which have leveling units.


My brother hit a construction barrel. I am going to do my best to get this looking presentable, but I plan to replace the bumper next year with an M Tech/M Sport one.


(Ignore my dinner)
 
If it's not going to be the weekend car, it has to look good and be enjoyable to be in. I have a fair number of things on the way to address both of those. But will remain largely stock( I say that now).
To start, the steering wheel. The stock one is fine, but we can do better.
Purchased this heated Sport wheel that I have some plans for. But first to clean it. I used Griot's leather 3 in 1 and leather conditioner in conjunction with a Colourlock leather brush, short hair detail brush, and a tooth brush.


You can see how much dirt is caked into the grain.

This was after one pass with the first brush.

This was after the whole wheel. Clean your steering wheels.


Grain clean, nice semi gloss matte finish.
More updates to follow.

This was great. glad to catch up with most of you. Hopefully we set up a cruise again sometime this year too!

Thanks again to everyone who made it out. Weather was perfect! As usual, I had no chance to take pics but there was an amazing and very wide assortment of cars that showed up.

I am. I was a little worried by the identical car ending two days after mine, but it seems like that didn't impact my auction much at all. I watched that one end today and none of the bidders were the same individuals that were bidding on my auction, which I found odd.
 
The winner is actually a local guy, so Im sure we will see the car around.

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Bump on this, This weekend.
Saturday, May 28th, 2022 10am-3pm
Kiwanis Village Park 
Pewaukee, WI 53072

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Thanks @wasnt m3 and @Rekpoint for organizing this! I think I actually looked at maybe 6 cars as usual spending more time catching up with you guys. That euro bumper 635csi was the coolest imo. 

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

So a huge update as I am very behind with this thread. Eisenmann was removed from @pynacls parts car. Paid a shop down the road $300 to remove and re-install my welded section 2+muffler to the parts car. Only to find out the Eisenmann was sorta butchered up. Brackets were cut, rewelded to other places and was actually welded to the car on some places. Whoever "Rebuilt" that car was a total hack. I decided that I wasn't going to let such an expensive muffler go to waste. One email to Eisenmann and another to IND and I ordered a set of new stainless brackets that I will have my local machine shop weld to the muffler to make it usable again. at $90 shipped to my door. I couldn't say no still waiting on those.. 
In the meantime, @pynacllent me his stock muffler that I could pare up to the stock section 2. I installed both of those to prepare for the car to be pulled out on April 21st. Knowing I froze the 200TW Hankook RS4s, I was looking for a better option for more street driving then track driving. After consulting with @jgustyand @patsbimmer1I decided on a set of Michelin PS4s tires from non other then BLAINS FARM AND FLEET. Huge thanks to Pat as I got the set of new tires for $1003 installed utilizing their B3G1 sale. Name dropping Pat also included no fuck-ups to my wheels aswell, its hard to find good help around these parts as @KaiserRollsknows. Only problem with the new tires is that they rub on the fender liner when turning. I will let that self clearance.
Before pulling the car out I had to install my new Tanik wheel from Germany with no trim gap, a new steering wheel trim piece, the new rear view mirror, new floormats front and rear, new F10 m5 knob retrofitted to the E46 boot frame and finally a BLUEBUS. I scored 2 bluebusses, one for $300 and one on ebay for $200. Knowing they were still unavailable I was checking eBay one night to see how much the one I bought for $300 was going for. Only to find one listed for $200 that I purchased instantly. Ended up selling the $300 one for $420 on ebay. Scumbag decided to file a chargeback. So we will see what happens with that.
The BlueBus is fantastic, displays coolant temp, auto plays and displays music, tons of other options with it. LED displays RED when disconnected and GREEN when connected. Not to mention, it sounds fantastic. Truly an awesome open source device for the I-Bus equipped cars. Even plugged it in to my computer to rename it "M3" when connecting to it on Bluetooth. I still need to install the phone adaptor that goes to it as the M3 is factory equipped with the BMW Assist system and I couldn't find the plug. I did though install it with the USB wire connected and routed it for easy updates. So that's cool. I also purchased an OEM BMW sunshade for my birthday as a gift to myself as they came back in stock


 
Having not seen @pynaclsince my birthday weekend. We took a drive on the St. Croix river starting in Prescott Wisconsin ending in Durand just south of Menomonie for some Stone barn Pizza. When I woke up of course I had to start the day on the wrong foot. My new mirror already started leaking. Cant say it wasn't expected but didn't expect that so soon. Will send it out to Radar Mirror to redo it for me as I don't want to break any tabs. Mid way though the drive I got pulled over and got my first speeding ticket. Lets just say, I found a lawyer that will handle that one, as it wasn't one I could just let slide. 

On Thursday I did a full "Leatherique Treatment" to the interior of the car. I am happy to say the seats are softer then ever and cleaner then ever aswell. While I was doing that something cool showed up via UPS. I scored a Supersprint non-catted section 2 X pipe for $225 shipped to my door. After @pynacls experiment I really wanted a resonated X pipe. But at $225 I couldn't say no. If I don't like the sound I will add a resonator for not much more. 

Fast forward to this weekend the 15th I participated in the CVSCC (Chippewa Valley Sports Car Club) Auto-X at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair Grounds. I had a blast of a time. Fastest time being 52.73. Beating out a 2018 m3 in the Novice class and a bunch of other noobies. My twin brother got second place in his 128i and can no longer be in the novice class.. Shout out to Ethyn and Sam for the photos and video of my last run of the day. Also, 0 cones hit though the day, so I think I can go faster...
 

Next event will be the BMW spring Picnic on the 28th I am helping @wasnt m3put on. Cant wait to see my MKE friends again. 
Bonus pic of me leaving the UW-Stout Auto Club car show that my business sponsored. 


 

Bump on this, This weekend.
Saturday, May 28th, 2022 10am-3pm
Kiwanis Village Park 
Pewaukee, WI 53072