Almost a month later, finally an update
Ordered the fuel pump and the fuel pressure regulator, got the VDO pump this week, so the weekend's job was to fit it.
Have to give credit to the thread I found on another forum for fitting the pump >
http://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/forum/f92 ... mp-t26375/
I thought I would take a couple of pics myself while doing it, so it might help others...
You can buy the pump separate from the assembly, but I bought it complete, so this is what I got - the complete pump, the rubber o-ring and the bottom filter:
So to change the pump, first of all, you'll need to remove the rear bench, simply by pulling it upwards from the front on both sides, then just slide it forward.
Move the carpet away on the driver's side and you'll see the cover that hides the pump. There are 4 phillips screws holding it - on mine, one screw was missing, meaning someone's been there before me lol
Remove the cover and put it away. Now you're going to see this:
You've got 2 plugs here, one is for the pump itself and one is for the fuel sender. They simply pull out, so remove them both and try to keep them away from fuel.
Next I undid the jubilee clip of the hose that attaches to the metal fuel pipe and pulled out the hose.
BE CAREFUL at this point, as some fuel is going to spill out, so put a rag under the hose, so you won't make a mess there.
Now remove the four 8mm nuts that hold the fuel sender in. Careful, as they have washers as well. Then just pull up the sender from the assembly - same thing here, do it carefully, otherwise you'll have fuel pissing everywhere.
Finally, you can now remove the pump assembly. First twist it anti-clockwise to loosen it from its locked position and then start to slowly wiggle it/twist it left-right to remove it from the tank.
It will have to come out on an angle, because of the bottom filter, which is of a horizontal shape. DON'T FORCE the pump up, as the bottom filter could pop out and drop into the tank, so take your time here.
It's useful to remember the angle of how you took it out, so then re-fitting will be easy.
When you get it out, compare it to the new one and make sure they're identical - in my case, they were an exact match.
Now transfer the fuel hose from the old assembly to the new one and make sure to put it the same way or you'll have trouble re-connecting it with the fuel pipe.
Fit the bottom filter to the new assembly, making sure it's fully in, slip the o-ring from the bottom and bring it all the way to the top, as it sits between the tank and the assembly.
Now you're ready to put everything back in. By holding the assembly with the ring from the top, slowly put the pump back in, until it slides fully in. Then put the fuel sender back in as well, so you'll no longer need to worry about dropping anything into the tank...
The difficult part for me was to twist the assembly clockwise, so it would lock into place and allow me to re-connect the plugs. I tried doing it by hand until my fingers said "enough", so I put a flat screwdriver on the protruding edge of the assembly and with a slight tap of the hammer, I kept pushing it until it twisted perfectly to where it should be.
NOTE: While you're doing all this, put all the nuts/bolts away, so you don't accidentally drop anything into the tank. Pretty obvious, but I thought I would mention
Now tighten the nuts back on the sender, re-connect the fuel hose and the plugs, but before putting the cover back on, start the car and check for any leaks.
Once you've verified everything's ok and the car's running good, then put the black cover back on, pull the carpet in and re-fit the bench.
Still hasn't properly test-driven the car, but pretty sure this will solve all the random cut-outs and long cranking issues.
Went to BMW yesterday and ordered the vacuum hose for the FPR and some jubilee clips for the PAS pipes.
Already got the Bosch FPR from ECP, so once I get the hose, will replace the FPR and see what happens.
By the way, took the car to my local guy to replace the outer boot on the driveshaft and got told the grease is actually leaking from the joint itself, rather than the boot, so might end up replacing the whole driveshaft...Does this normally happen? Anyway, not good news.
OEM steering rack is still on the cards, so once all of the above is sorted, this is the next job.
Thanks for following
It's quite a task keeping up with maintainance and correcting years of neglect but the efforts are definetely worth it. Keep up the good work.
