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5 minute(s) of a 81 minute read
5-30-2016
Whats up folks,
Somehow its been almost a year since the last update. The wagon has run admirably, not at 100% but it hasn't left me stranded. Had a lot happen in the past year, moved to a new house, built a garage that is just now usable, and launched this website. Now that I can work on things indoors away from the elements I can catch up on all the deferred maintenance I've been slacking on.
Here has been the "fun" stuff in the order of appearance.
Idle Control Valve Cleaning 11/15/15
I was (and still am) having problems with the idle dipping while the car is warming up. One of the many potential solutions is to clean the idle control valve which can get full of carbon deposits, inhibiting it from controlling the idle and throttle response during a cold start.
Thankfully removing it is pretty easy. It sits underneath the intake manifold behind the intake tubing. I pulled the airbox and unplugged the MAF to get more room to reach under there. The large part of the tube below connects to the throttle body, the smaller upper tube to the ICV, but it was really stuck on there.
Remove the intake manifold adjuster valve (black rectangle). I then unbolted the bracket that it is attached to. Some people say to slide it out of the rubber bushing it is mounted in but this seemed a lot easier as it didn't want to slide.
Looks really dirty.
Not as much now.
I put it back together and it made a slightly positive improvement in throttle response but didn't fix the idle problem. It could be bad, I may replace this at some point.
Here is a shot with the new bumper while it was still somewhat in-tact.
I noticed the car wasn't handling great so over the winter we replaced almost all of the links in the front suspension. If you don't buy OEM BMW parts its actually not terribly expensive. Some of the control arm bushings were getting ratty so it firmed things up a bit. Don't have any pics of that procedure unfortunately. It was pretty straightforward.
3/6/2016 - Sun-visor Replacement
The next fun thing that happened is my sun-visor broke at the elbow while I was driving. It was swinging in front of me from the vanity mirror wire so I pulled it off in a rage. This turned on the vanity mirror light. I thought I could take it with it shining right in my eyes but after a couple blocks I popped the light out of the headliner and unplugged it from the harness. Adventures!
While picking up some parts from the junkyard for a brake upgrade I snagged a new visor. Replacing it was pretty easy. Just a few screws.
The offending visor stalk and the new hole in my headliner where the light used to be.
The photos aren't super interesting but here are a few. These plastic interior pry bars are super handy.
Old one dangling.
And viola, new sunvisor! Driving to work doesn't suck as bad.
3/30/2016 V8 Brake Upgrade
The car developed a little shimmy under braking on the front passenger side, I originally thought it was a warped rotor. It turned out the bolt for one of the front control arms loosened enough to allow it to shift around, but the disks were pretty grooved. I figured it was time to go over the brakes, I just rolled over 222,222 miles and didn't know the last time they were done.
