Generally SaltyWelp, turns out the new battery fits just fine once I reseated it in the dark pit of doom in the way-back that is its home. Took the core back, got my $15.
Oh nothing, just another Saturday night in the life of a BMW E53 owner… #OldCarLife #OldBMWLife
Oh goody the scabs formed on the many cuts and gouges I got on my hands/arms last week working on The Beast are starting to fall off.
Whee. #OldCarLife #OldBMWLife
Oh BTW the oddball E36 I snapped a pic of on Sunday with what looked like a custom hardtop? It's a factory convertible with an aftermarket hardtop. No rare thang… but looks really nice! This car is immaculate.
Damn I sure did tear up my arms and hands taking that stupid IAC valve out of the beast-wagon. It was sticking a little so a few blasts of MAF cleaner unstuck it.
If I ever find the BMW person who decided to wedge it under the intake manifold… I’m going to make him take it out and put it back fifty times and every time he drops a bolt into the belly pan he gets a shock.
It idles more smoothly now and so far no more “fuel trim high” codes that are so hard to diagnose as it could be about 49 different things. #OldCarLife #OldBMWLife
So, on Sunday I opened the windows on the old X5 to let the hot out as it'd been parked in the sun for hours. Once on the road, I put the right-side windows up. Heard a loud KRUNCH of old brittle plastic shattering as the rear window went up. Oh shit, yeah I know what that... BAMMGG the window glass falls into the door. At 70mph. Oh fuck me, not again (the driver's door glass did the same thing not long after I bought it).
OK, I know what's wrong and I even have the parts, I thought, buying them in case it happened again. These were less than $10. Took the door panel off and half the panel mounts that were glued on snapped off because the glue they used in 2001 had failed. Fine, I hot-glued them back on earlier tonight.
The spare parts I have are for the right FRONT door, not the right rear door. Le sigh, typical German over-engineering… why???!?!!?
Found a repair kit on ebay for $13, so there went half my Facebook privacy settlement. Now I'm driving around with a suction cup stuck to the glass to keep it from falling back down and the guts of the door are hanging out, and I'm going to Salt Lake City on Sunday for two weeks so I guess it will all have to wait until I get back.
Oh and the idle air control valve is either dying or needs cleaning. I hope it's the latter because a new OEM Bosch part is $300–500+ (Chinesium copies are like $25 but those are at best temporary if it even works at all). Obvs I will pull the old one and clean it first.
Still beats car payments. Knowing how to wrench on cars is definitely a useful skill to have in your quiver. It's not hard, at least on older ones that aren't crammed full of electronics.
It's another cold day, and my plans to address the water leak* in the X5 are foiled because I hate hate hate working on stuff in the cold. It will be much warmer tomorrow.
*either it's a blocked or detached sunroof drain, or torn/missing water barrier in the back door(s). The former is a lengthly but not terribly difficult fix; the latter is the same but a new barrier is like $80. I gotta pull that door panel anyway to replace the door lock actuator... but not today. In the meantime gonna throw some DampRid back there.
Got the driver's door lock thing replaced but it was a fight. Gonna re-hang the door panel in the morning to let the mounts I had to glue back on cure overnight.
Too hot to tackle the back door tonight... 🥵🥵 not critical. But I can reliably lock/unlock the driver’s door now with the remote!
More parts arrived today. Stupid BMW door lock actuator was 3x a Chinesium part but I am so sick of ripping that door card off that it’s worth the cost to not have to do it once a year.
I can lock all the doors with the remote once I finish the job; I have a good junkyard part for the back door that I'll replace at the same time. In the stinky Georgia summer heat!
Well shit. The door lock part from the junkyard that works is for the REAR door. FFFFUUUU… put the old n busted one back in and gonna order a new one. The junkyard part for the front door just spazzes and grinds. Trash.
At least I have a good part for the rear door! It kinda works, it locks, but does not unlock with the remote so I have to reach in and open it from inside.
#OldCarLife #OldBMWLife hey beats car payments!
Ugh maybe I’ll tackle Frau Blücher’s power door lock actuators next week… I hate pulling the door panels because they’re old and brittle and something will very likely break.
One will lock the door, but will not unlock it. Another will not lock the door nor unlock it if I used the key to lock it.
These things are one of several common failure parts on old E53 X5s. New ones aren’t terribly expensive but replacing them is a huge pain in the ass. I have a couple of junkyard ones to try before buying new.