318 update

[tomstickland]

Well, I've owned the 318 for two weeks now and I still very much love the car.
There's been a bit of progress since it sailed through the MOT.

-I've removed the Alpina and other badges in the side windows. Sorry previous owners, but I don't like badges and stickers and it's not an Alpina car.
-I'm desperate to put some std, correct offset wheels onto it. The current 16s grip well with the Avon tyres, but they look ever so slightly chav. The 15" multi spokes from the 320 are going to be fitted soon.
-I'm buying a std cloth interior to go back into it. I'm hoping to sell the leather interior for the same money as the cloth one costs. I quite like the leather, but I'd prefer std cloth for personal peverse reasons.
-The PAS started making odd noises last night. I took a look today and found that the fluid had been leaking out of the end of the rack. So I've disconnected the PAS pump for now and I'm considering either a manual rack, or a Z3 rack.
-The wheel bearing noise continues and I'm going to have that sorted by the local BMW specialist soon.
-The clutch is going to be replaced too.
-We had a good look for the rattle source today and the consensus was that it was timing chain related. So I'm going to get the opinion of the BMW specialist and have a new tensioner fitted or whatever is necessary.
-I took it down to our garage today (recreational garage, we do a rent share). They loved the car, commenting that it was "really clean".
-A friend of mine who used to work for a BMW specialist took the car out for a drive tonight. He absolutely loved it. He noted the minor faults and the wheels tramilining, but he was hooked. He properly scared me by taking it sideways numerous times. The pace of the car is quite startling when pushed. His words were "you've got a good one here. The engine is really sweet. The handling is sooo much better than the 320." "are you sure it doesn't have an LSD?"
So we conducted a 5000rpm launch test and looked in the mirror at the skid marks. Looked like two equal marks to us. On the way back we had a look and there were two clear marks on the road. So we suspect that it has an LSD. Certainly I've been driving it and thinking that it's so much better in the wet that I could live with it how it was.
-I've slowly noticed more of the minor scratches and blemishes. It looks like the boot lid was cleaned using a Brillo pad! I'm not bothered though. It was bought "sold as seen" and is a really solid car. I wanted it as a cheap fun car and it is a cheap fun car. It looks clean enough for people to say "that's a really nice clean car" when they first look at it.

So, I'm really happy with the car. I love the combination of features it gives me.

[tomstickland]

Update!
Leather is staying in. I've found someone who will sew up the damaged piping.

I've just fitted the multi disc player and head unit. It was bit of an epic....

It all started at 8.00pm when I thought that I'd have a look at fitting the head unit and multi disc changer. I wasn't feeling veryt motivated, but I thought I'd have a quick inspection of it all.

I started by looking at all the wires on the head unit. Then I delved around with the wires in the hole. The Haynes manual diagrams are pretty shoddy for this car, so it took me a fair while to find a permanent and switched live, then an earth. I tested the electric aerial but it was having none of it.

In my quest to follow wires I lowered the glove box lid and removed all the trim inside the glove box. I took the glove box light switch out too because it wasn't working.

I temporarily connected the head unit up and it came to life. I then temporarily connected the speakers and they worked. Woo hoo. So I spent half an hour soldering the ends of wires and crimping bullet connectors on. Then I plugged it all in, connected the battery and....nothing. Bit of work with the circuit tester showed no voltage on the switched live. Odd. Tested head unit from permanent live and it worked fine. Checked fuse for switched live. It had blown. Tried another fuse and that blew straight away. So I measured the resistance across the fuse terminals and it was 0.

I then spent ages with the ciruit tester trying to locate the cause of the short. This lead me to remove the shrouding round the ignition key which means the wheel had to be removed. I tried various random things like unplugging all the alarm connections, the hazard warning switch and the indicator relay. Made no difference. Finally I found the multi pin connector down in the glove box and disconnected that and the short dissapeared. So the short was somewhere between that connector and the head unit connector. Odd. So I removed all of the ducting and unclipped the wiring loom to inspect it.

Then I found the glove box light wires touching the metal frame! Doh, maybe that's something to do with it. Sure enough.

It was about 11pm by now. I put all the bits back and tidied up. Then I connected the head unit up properly and shoved it into the hole. Tape player worked. Radio tried to work but no signal. So I pulled the aerial out. It was some shoddy cheap thing with no motor, so that was that mystery solved.

Finally at about 12.30am I fitted the multichanger and that worked too. So then I fixed the glove box light, put all the trim back in and tidied up.

This is just like the old days this. Staying up to 1.30am fixing the car.

[Jhonno]

- longest i've ever heard it take to fit a headunit!

what it like having sounds on the move now?

[tomstickland]

Well it was also an excuse to investigate the alarm wiring and generally delve around the dash. My knowledge of that part of the car is now pretty good.

I was hoping that tunes would stop be being so irritable when following people. It sort of works but only for a while. Tunes or no tunes it's still annoying following someone at 40mph down a straight national limit road.

[tomstickland]

This site needs an owner's diary section!
I'll move all of this over to my website when I can be bothered. So no apolgies if noone is reading it!

I went round to Gloucester BMW Specialists today. They were very helpful.
-Exhaust back box has cracked weld.
-Wheel bearings are fine. Diff is noisey.
-clutch is so-so, a bit worn maybe
-engine rattle, they said to replace the tensioner

They agreed to do gearbox oil change, fit the clutch and fit an LSD diff for a good price if I supplied the parts.

[Jhonno]

that not too bad then..

can make an owners diary out of the photo gallery.. i have kinda, you can see my car progressing as i get more time and Ԛ£Ã”šÃ‚£ to spend on it..