Third time's the charm: 1989 Lachs/Cardinal

[mlytle]

Thanks for sharing. If it proves to be irritating I'll consider that option. Are you still able to reach the stalks comfortably?

yes.

the spacers are available in different thicknesses. mine is an 25mm, but depending on how tall you are (torso), a 12mm one may do the trick for you.

[Konig]

I pulled my gauge cluster to address an erratic coolant gauge and a flickering brake lining light. I've not done this on an M3 before and it was very easy.



I was impressed when I bought the car that the "Check" warning light wasn't illuminated. Go figure, there was no bulb. The check panel doesn't throw any warnings though so I'm not sure why this was pulled out.



I can't harp on whoever did that too hard though, because I decided to follow suit for my brake lining light. I needed a bulb for the Check light, I was tired of the flickering lining light, two birds one stone. Easier to do it this way and just check the brake pads during normal maintenance. Pot, kettle.



While I was in the neighborhood I saw a warranty sticker on the SI board, with the phone number matching Bavarian Restorations, so it seems the board has been serviced already - nice.



Following a YouTube guide, I scuffed up the coolant gauge posts and put everything back together. The posts 'seemed' clean enough, but you can see that there was a big difference before (right) and after (left). I test drove the car this evening and the coolant gauge seems to be back in business. Not a gauge you want working intermittently.

One other related thing I wanted to share: late last year my dad started talking about getting another BMW to complement his '71 2002. He's retired and doesn't really have to worry about 'commute' driving anymore, so we were looking for something to replace his E90 328i that could be a bit more fun. He was wandering all over the map with different car ideas so I prodded him a bit to figure out exactly what he was going for. He settled on: an M car; new enough to be reliable, quick, and comfortable; not so new that it's complex to maintain and stuffed with electronics; good value; manual. My dad doesn't attack the canyons or plan to hit the track, but he does like to drive up to the north Georgia mountains with my mom on weekend trips.

I pretty quickly honed in on an E46 M3 convertible, and he took to the idea. To me it checked all the boxes, and the convertibles in particular are a great value right now in my eyes. The best E46 variants (for the US: Interlagos blue 05/06 ZCP car, manual) have already taken off in pricing, but the convertibles can still be had for very reasonable money. He test drove one near him, I test drove one near me, and we both liked it, so I started looking around to see what was out there. In October I found a Phoenix Yellow '05 for him in Michigan. In January they reduced the price significantly (I have to imagine it's tough to a move a convertible in Michigan in the dead of winter), and when they gave my dad a good trade offer on his E90 it was a done deal. About a month ago he drove 12 hours in the E90, dropped it off, and drove 12 hours straight back home with the new car, barely getting out of town before a snowstorm blew in.

So here's the car: 2005 M3 convertible, phoenix yellow over black leather, manual, no navigation, 50k miles, VANOS repair done. I was in town this past weekend for a wedding and he let me borrow it for a couple of days. Dad's first M car, which is hard to believe since he's the guy who got me into BMWs! (and I'm on my 4th M3...)







His car feels really solid, and I enjoyed driving it. The induction sound is excellent with the top down. He's very happy with it, and has already done a full shakedown run up to North GA with my mom in tow to visit a winery. He reports that even in 50F weather at highway speed they were comfortable with the top down, windows and wind deflector up, and seat heaters on. He'd like to make a couple adjustments, namely more exhaust noise and a short shifter, so I'm diving into E46 world to see if I can point him in the right direction. The color is love-or-hate-it but I'm solidly in the former camp. Dad claims that only 208 convertibles came to North America in this color, so it's nice to have something special and different from the usual silvers and greys.

[mlytle]

maybe it is just the lighting, but the edge of your SI board looks like it has been a victim of corrosion or SI battery acid leak.

with the "check" bulb missing, does your overhead check panel work at all?

do i see a Kirkland yellow towel under your cluster? the official towel of cluster repairs!

[Konig]

maybe it is just the lighting, but the edge of your SI board looks like it has been a victim of corrosion or SI battery acid leak.

with the "check" bulb missing, does your overhead check panel work at all?

do i see a Kirkland yellow towel under your cluster? the official towel of cluster repairs!

Hm, troubling about the SI board. Perhaps it was refurbed and has had an issue again? My coolant gauge is working intermittently once more, though it behaves "more correctly" now than it did before I went in there. Otherwise everything functions as it should. The upper check panel has worked since I've had the car, the only issue now is that the Check light flashes with the key in ACC, I assume because it detects that the brake lining bulb is gone? It doesn't flash once I start the car. I will consider sending the whole thing out for refurb.

Obviously life around the world has screeched to a halt due to COVID-19. A week and a half ago I was sent home and have been working remotely. We are doing fine and I am using the stay-at-home time to catch up on car projects across the fleet. Here are the recent happenings before the lockdown arrived.



The days got longer, the weather a bit nicer, and I was adding miles nicely with friends.



I visited the Driving While Awesome morning meet in Santa Cruz - great gathering and variety of cars. The M3 was a big hit, people love the red interior. Me too!

















After the DWA meet, I looped down to Laguna Seca to support a friend running his refurbished Chevron for the first time.









[post broken up due to image limit]

[Konig]

I installed a few small bits and bobs here and there. First was the e30ig (innovative goods) one-touch window module. This slick component goes in-line between the vehicle harness and your window switches, and converts them to 1-touch function. It took nearly 2 months for them to arrive from Eastern Europe but it was worth the wait. They work perfectly and while it's a small thing, I love the convenience. Apparently I didn't take any photos showing them fitted but you can check the website.



The next thing, another small one, was the passenger side mirror glass. The magnification was strong, too strong, so I bought a $14 wider angle piece from Latvia via eBay. You can see the difference in field of view in these images. Way better.









The new mirror glass is TYC part number 303-0071-1. It says it doesn't fit M3, but it does. I'm not sure if it's getting hung up on a heated mirror option or something but it fits the same as any E30.

My car's got a fair few rock chips on the front end and the wipers have not been spared. I pulled them off to refinish them, that is still work in progress. It's rainy so I can't paint them, it's rainy so I need to use them on the car. Lose-lose.





So it's just been maintenance and projects at home over the past couple of weeks. I haven't been crazy about the feel of my brake pedal - good stopping power when you get there, but too much pedal travel required to get to it - so I bled the brakes. Side note, I am really enjoying my new QuickJack setup I bought earlier this year, I was on the fence for 3 years about spending the money but it's so great.



In fact, I like it so much I used it on my Focus to do the brakes...



...and on my wife's car to rotate the tires.



Speaking of invaluable tools: pressure brake bleeder. If you do brakes with any frequency, get one. I'm lucky that the same cap fits my E30 reservoir and my Focus RS. Makes flushing the fluid an absolute breeze.



My car runs quite a bit of rear camber with the H&R spring setup and I found that my right-rear was shot. Oof. Outboard channel of the tire was at 6/32", inboard at 2/32", and you can see that they need to be replaced pronto. After this post I'm off to shop for 16" tires, I suspect it will be slim pickings. It has been my master plan to have the wheels refurbished in Sport Evo style with Nogaro centers when new tires were needed, but I'm not sure now is a great time to do that. The good news is that I have a set of stock 15s with good tires that can swap in to keep the car on the road. Do I have any options to adjust the camber in the rear to not keep destroying tires?



In any case, the brake bleed produced some tired-looking fluid and I've got a better pedal feel now. Previously it was so low that I couldn't heel-toe and that's no good... that ability has been restored. I am doing my best to avoid human contact but every now and then I slip out for a little Point-A-to-Point-A drive and enjoy the empty roads. Stay safe everybody!

[mlytle]

easiest way to fix rear camber is to use thicker rubber spring pad to raise the rear of the car up a touch. stock pad is 7mm ish. i have 15mm pads in mine which raised the rear 0.5in and reduced rear camber by about 0.75 deg.

[Konig]

Good tip and easy to do. Thanks, I'll try it out.

[mlytle]

link to spring pads...
https://www.bimmerworld.com/E30-E36-...pring-Pad.html

[iliad]

Nice work, beautiful M3!

Thanks for sharing the parts number for the headlight connectors. I plan on doing the same job soon and that saved me a lot of time.

[Westopher]

I think the wear is going to be exaggerated by the toe. Have you had the car aligned? When I was a VW stancyboi my gti had 5 degrees camber in the rear and they wore more even than that.
I need to get motivated to start doing some real work on mine and this thread is really making me want to. Really enjoying it.

[Konig]

I think the wear is going to be exaggerated by the toe. Have you had the car aligned? When I was a VW stancyboi my gti had 5 degrees camber in the rear and they wore more even than that.
I need to get motivated to start doing some real work on mine and this thread is really making me want to. Really enjoying it.

I've got the 15mm spring pads in the mail. Since that tweaks ride height, and I have no idea where the alignment on this car is, I will have it aligned when I get new tires fitted.

When I took the Model 3 to the tire shop for new rubber I took my 16s and had the tires pulled off so the wheels can be refinished. I thought wheel refurb was a pretty easy thing but apparently there aren't tons of places in the area that can be trusted to do a good job. It seems like every place has 9 good reviews and 1 horror show review, and that's enough to give me pause. This reminds me of my ordeal trying to find someone to do the bodywork on my last Lachs car, a search I eventually abandoned. With all of the automotive shops out there these days, it amazes me that it is nigh impossible to find someone who does good work, stands behind it, communicates well, and charges fairly. To me that is the most basic of operating requirements to run a business. In the Bay Area it is the exception, and those few shops suffer from their own popularity and you need to wait months for an appointment. Or they charge $175 an hour. Sorry, went off on a tangent there.

I called up one that seems to be of good repute and the guy shot me down immediately when I described painting the wheels two-tone with Nogaro centers. "We only spray one color, we don't do any masking or anything like that. I think you want a body shop!" Well... to me it's not supremely difficult - one tape line, and there is physical step in the lip to guide you, not on the basketweave part, OEM colors. I did get in touch with one local paint shop and he's mulling it over.

One thing I need help on: the inside of the Sport Evo rim is Nogaro, which is BMW paint code 243. I am not sure of the paint code for the 'normal' silver bit that goes on the lip. Google tells me it is BMW code 144 "wheel silver" but it seems that color is applied on E46, E90, etc. If anyone can offer paint code insight, or wheel refinishing guidance, it is greatly appreciated. The FB crowd already told me to just buy Sport Evo wheels, but from where I'm sitting they're backordered, the center caps who knows, and they're $2500 anyway. I can pay a fair amount on this refinishing and still come out ahead.

When it comes times for tires - it's well-known that there is not much at all in 225/45R16. It's funny to search the forums and see that it's been dire for a decade at least... there are 2010 threads where people are complaining about the same. So if you're searching this in the future, hello! Did we recover from COVID? Did we solve automotive autonomy? Is this the point where China overtook the US as the world's leading superpower? Did we send humans to Mars? Do the 2022 F1 cars ACTUALLY solve the dirty air problems and improve passing? Sorry, shelter-in-place is getting to me.

For posterity, these are the 225/45/16 tire choices as of 3/28/20 in the US from TireRack:
Dunlop Direzza ZIII - $160.36
Toyo Proxes R1R - $150.36
Yokohama Advan A052 - $210.74
Toyo Proxes R888R - $148.99

I know that opinions will vary on this, but I am disappointed that all of the options are high-grip, high-performance tires. On my last car I went from the Kumho all-season whatevers that came on the stock 15s to Dunlop Direzza Z2 Star Specs on 17s and it really changed the feel of the car. Ultimate grip is cool but with this low-power RWD configuration it's sad when you can't chuck the back end out now and then. Too much grip is a real thing. If you've been on high performance tires for a long time with your car, throw your neglected 15s back on for an afternoon and you might be surprised at how different the whole car feels.

But beggars can't be choosers, and I am set on the 16s, so at this stage I believe I will go with the Toyo R1Rs. From the reading I've done it seems that they perform well in the wet. I don't go out for fun drives in the wet, but I do go on fun drives up on Skyline boulevard, which is misty and foggy most mornings and there can be a fair amount of water on the road.

[Westopher]

I feel you on the tangent. I've looked for 3 years to have some minor details taken care of on my otherwise mint techno e36. With my lack of trust for bodyshops, I've stuck with leaving the details unfinished for fear of it being turned into complete shit.
I was forced into a refinish of my wheels, due to hitting a lost load from some idiot with a landscaping truck on the highway, but unfortunately being as far away as I am, that refinishing option does you no good. My advice is just ask your local friends, and just roll the dice with a shop that's done well by someone you trust. There's no sure things in that market, thats for sure.
I ran down into the underground and did some work on the e30 thanks to you today, so I certainly appreciate this thread as I have already told you!

[jwbavalon]

Hi, I have 16" Sport Evo rims with the 2 tone paint job. Honestly, I've only had one person who knew they were M3 wheels (ET27) and not the M5 version (ET20). Most people don't even realize they are 16" although compared to the 15" version it is night and day. As far a colour goes, I doubt anyone would know if the silver was slightly off. If you want perfection, go with your FB friends.

For the record, I have Dunlop Direzza ZIIIs.

[Konig]

Hi, I have 16" Sport Evo rims with the 2 tone paint job. Honestly, I've only had one person who knew they were M3 wheels (ET27) and not the M5 version (ET20). Most people don't even realize they are 16" although compared to the 15" version it is night and day. As far a colour goes, I doubt anyone would know if the silver was slightly off. If you want perfection, go with your FB friends.

For the record, I have Dunlop Direzza ZIIIs.

How do you like those tires? Thanks for the insight.

I would like to get the Nogaro accurate, but I'm not going to be parked on the lawn at Pebble Beach so my main priority is just to find someone who will do a good job. A slightly incorrect shade of silver, that will only ever be noticed 5 times in the life of the car, is much less frustrating to me than a poor paint job, which will drive me crazy every time I walk up to the car!

[Kevin///m3]

I'm running the Dunlops on OEM Sport Evo wheels. I too think it's too much grip (and my engine is not stock, 226rwhp). They pick up every stone and fling it around the wheel well.

They do glue the car to the road, but I'm not aggressive enough on the street to ever reach the grip threshold of these tires. I will go with something harder next time, but that me.

[L James]

I would like to get the Nogaro accurate, but I'm not going to be parked on the lawn at Pebble Beach so my main priority is just to find someone who will do a good job.

The correct color code for Nogaro is 243 or at least that what it is on my Nogaro E30 M3 Cabrio If you decide to have them refinished, make sure the shop paints both the wheels and caps at the same time. There was a batch of Nogaro Caps that came from BMW that did not match the wheels. It was quite noticeable.

Also, have the shop do a couple of spray-outs for the color when you do it. It took my body shop several visits and spray-outs to match the color of Nogaro when I had my new Euro bumpers painted.
I've had the 16" Toyo R1Rs and it's predecessors on my E30 M3's for the last 15 years. Great sticky compliant tire for the road in both cruising and spirited driving conditions.

Best of luck with whatever tire you choose.