A new little cheap toy - BMW 130i

[Gaygle]

Next job on list was the Valvetronic motor gasket. It looked as though it was weeping a bit, with remnants of oil around the spark plug tubes on the valve cover. It seemed plausible that it was leaking given it's age and mileage, and with the replacement Elring gasket only £12 on Amazon - seemed like a no brainer. OEM gasket from BMW costs around £40 so another decent saving.

Fairly easy job, plenty of DIY's online and because I've got a good scan tool, I could set the limit points of the Valvetronic motor afterwards properly.

 

[Gaygle]

Ok a bit of an update!

The mission of tidying up the car continues - and it's a bit of a pleasure to do. For a car on 154,000 miles it looks and drives like it's done half or a 1/3rd of that. Firstly, as I've had my head under the bonnet a bit I've noticed that the gas springs were getting weak. So for a whole £6.70 each from Amazon DE I got the original OEM Stabilus ones.The Genuine BMW ones (which are Stablius) are about £55 each - it really is mad to think of the markup on parts. I also took the liberty of doing the boot ones as they were also getting weak - think they were about £8 each.

Spot the difference!

Next up - like I said, I've had the bonnet up quite a lot and kept noticing the bonnet release was quite stiff, which was confirmed in the history when the last owner snapped the cable just before he sold it and had to have the cable replaced at £120. Unfortunately, they didn't replacing the latch at the same time, so the new cable was liable to snap again at some point. The cable only snaps as a result of the bonnet latch being rusted/stiff so it makes no sense to only replace the cable. When the latches get rusted, you can try and lube them, but they really don't last, they almost always need replacing. So I managed to get the bonnet latch from eBay for £15. It looks like some kind of decent OEM one with the markings scratched off so not sure exactly what brand. It's only a very simple thing and when I got it it felt every bit the same as the Genuine BMW one. The BMW one is around £30. Had to remove the intake snorkel, then the two Torx screws and carefully wiggled it out. New one went in, gave it some extra lube so it stays rust free and it's now lovely and smooth/easy to open the bonnet again.

 

[Gaygle]

Next up was a mod I've been wanting to do since before I even got the car. The 340mm 4 pot brakes from F20 M140i cars fit the old E8x cars (this never happens on BMWs!) and they are just a straight plug and play fit. I'd had a couple of advisories on the MOT history for the front brake hoses perishing over the years so thought I'd do them at the same time.

I bought the full setup from Quarry Motors BMW breakers who did the front and rear calipers, plus brake discs and pads for £550 delivered. Now, I didn't need the rears because they don't fit without modification - so I chucked these back on eBay and sold them for £370. This means the front 340mm M140i brake system cost me £180. And then I'm going to sell my old 130i front brake system for about £200 so it'll mean that switching to four pot calipers will have hopefully netted me a £20 profit, which is one hell of a bargain for a lite-BBK!

They came like this, with the white M logo half worn off which is very common...

With a bit of a 5 minute polish the M logo was completely gone. I bought new heat resistant M logos from eBay for about £10 - however when they arrived, they are bigger than the originals...

...being an OEM whore, I couldn't have that so I cut them down to the correct size. And this is how they looked afterwards...

Next - onto fitting!

 

[Gaygle]

Fitting was fairly straight forward. I had to do the front hoses though, which means releasing the original flexi hoses from the rigid brake pipes. These were put on at factory 15 years ago and 154k miles ago so I knew they'd be seized. I'd watched several videos online as to how to release them etc and most people said you had to cut the pipe and do all sorts, which I didn't want to do. I tried soaking them in WD40/Plusgas but nothing.

As you can see, both brake hoses and the brackets seemed to have embraced the rust-life.

I didn't want to start cutting brake pipes and I found one video who showed you just have to apply a bit of heat and they'll release right off. And he was right! One the first one, I took the blowtorch to it for less than 5 seconds and it came straight off without any hesitation. The blowtorch is a bit unwieldy and liable to melt other bits of plastic/rubber nearby so for the second on I used a BBQ lighter which uses lighter fluid to produce a mini bunsen burner flame. It's a lot smaller and precise and after 20 seconds or so pointed at the nut, again it released off with no issues!

I wanted to get new brackets as well but once again BMW were being silly with their prices. For both of these metal brackets it was £70! I wasn't paying that, so I got one from a scrapped car for £20 for the pair and cleaned them up...

Then after a few coats of Hammerite to protect them...

Then the brakes fitted...out with the old cast iron calipers and 330mm discs:

In with the new aluminium 4 pot calipers and 340mm discs

Nice unsprung weight saving too, not counting the lighter discs also

Andddd with the wheels back on, they look pretty good!

Next up was the saga of bleeding them...

 

[Diddums]

love it mate, keep at it! I wish i had the time / space to do something like this!

I don't even have kids either, might have to sell someone else's kids to make time

 

[Uncle_Gravy]

that Disa is shocking, you'd think they'd have learned from the M54 engines which also have the same issue.

Great work you're doing with the car mate, it looks awesome.

 

[Gaygle]

So it's been a couple of weeks and I've done a few more bits to the 130i! It's now on 155,000 miles and I'm using it a lot more now.

First up - the front undertray had been broken at some point, along with the passenger side brake ducts being missing. So I had to remove the front bumper to fit the new brake duct, which I could only get from BMW as there were no used ones anywhere. It was only about £35 so not the end of the world. I forgot to take some photos unfortunately, and what was meant to be a 20 minute job, turned into a 2 hour job as several of the bolts that hold the bumper on (behind the plastic mesh trim) had seized solid, which caused me some hassle. I managed to cut them off in the end and replaced them with new ones. I also got a new undertray from a breakers yard with the brake brackets above for £20 and gave it a clean up to be looking as good as new:

Old and busted undertray:

New hotness:

The old undertray had some screw missing and some of the little fixings seized/missing so they were replaced with new ones and greased to stop them corroding again.

Next up was the rear propshaft donut which had come up in a couple of MOT's for being cracked and perished. As you can see it was passed it's best.

New one was £54 and came with new bolts/fixings. It was Febi part number 43520 and was the original BMW part as you can see where they have scratched off the BMW logo and the BMW part number on the new Febi part. BMW charge a whopping £140 for this exact same part.

Not a horrendous job to do, but not nice especially on your back trying to undo bolts which have been there for 15 years. The worst bit was trying to force the propshaft forward enough to get the old donut out and over the little bit that comes out of the diff. I ended up using a big fricking pry bar but my arms hurt afterwards. Looked a lot easier in Youtube videos!

The next thing I did was replace the gearknob. The previous owner had put the BMW Performance gear shifter in which was alright, but didn't feel particularly good in your hand as it's too stumpy, small and sharp. It's got nothing on the classic E46 ZHP gear knob which appears to still be selling well! Cost £65 from BMW, and hopefully I can sell the BMWP for about £55 so only a tenner to change it.

Andddd finally in this weeks episode, a little something to make the front end look fresher - headlight restoration! I got the 3M headlight restoration kit initially which was horrendously ****, which I was surprised about. The sandpaper went smooth almost instantly, the velcro on the foam polishing pad came away after no time etc etc. So I had to ditch that and dig out some wet and dry sand paper from the shed, which worked a treat. Started with 360 grit, then 450, then 600, then 1000, then 1500, then 2000 then polished it with plastic polish. It worked really well, but I just want to give it another going over at some point to remove a few remaining very light scratches.

How it started:

Midway through:

How it finished:

And that's it for this week....next up is some infotainment upgrades inside the car....

This should make it obvious:

 

[mjt]

Lovely little project!

 

[Gaygle]

Ok so it's been a bit of a while since I've updated this - first up, the infotainment update. I was originally looking into one of the Android screens with android auto. They look really good quality and have great functionality but they're just too fricking big. They're 10.25" and obstruct a decent portion of your N/S view, which I just didn't want. So I thought about doing a CIC upgrade. I knew nothing of how to do this but with a bit of reading, found out it wasn't that hard at all. As luck would have it, I found a bloke on FB marketplace who was selling an E8X iDrive kit complete with screen, controller and CIC unit, along with the USB 6NR connectors and another couple of cables that would be of use. Paid £300 for it including delivery which I thought was a bit of a bargain!

Here are some fitting pictures - everything is really pretty straightforward to physically remove and replace - only took a couple of hours...

Old CCC system:

New system going in:

The new CIC controller and trim didn't slot in like I thought it was meant to, which meant I had to get the dremel out and take a few millimetres off a couple of places. Nothing much at all and then it clipped in nice and snug.

It pretty much started working straight away, but just for thoroughness I just had to do a little bit of coding which meant firing up NCSexpert and trying to remember how to use it, changing the build date of car to 2009 onwards to get the option to code CIC into the NFRM and DME, then code the CIC unit itself. If you knew what you were doing this would take you all of about 5 minutes.

 

[Gaygle]

Now, my plan was that I was going to get an Android Auto box to work with the screen and my primary reason for this was to get bluetooth audio streaming. These boxes are like £300 and can be a pain to get to fit in the dash. So, as I only cared about bluetooth streaming, I decided to look into the Combox retrofit. There's a few really decent guides online but from what I could see, I just needed a Combox BN2000 (doesn't matter if it's telematics or media one anymore) which I bought for £50 on eBay, needed a couple of cables which I had in the kit that were included in the CIC kit i bought, needed a MOST passthrough connector from eBay for £5 (there are two modules in the boot for the CCC, and the combox replaces both of them so you have an open MOST loop if you don't get the passthrough), and then just needed two new connector blocks which I got from BMW for about £15.

Then, after that all it was was getting a pick, popping the individual wires out of the old connector block, and putting them into the new connector block (all wires are numbered on the connector block, so with the online guides telling you which number's to remove, then where to put them on the new connector block, it was really very easy).

The overall cost of the project was £300 for the CIC kit, plus £50 for the Combox and £20 for misc items - so £370. I managed to sell my old CCC controller for £70, and the old CCC screen for £120 so I'm only £180 into it and still have the CCC unit to sell which I'm hoping to get around £160 for - so that will mean the grand total for the CIC+Combox swap cost £20! Bargain!

Old stuff:

New stuff:

Combox needed a software update which i downloaded from BMW's website. This makes the Combox work with modern phones and fixes a few small things. It was a bit of a pain as BMW make you type in your VIN to give you the right update - which I obviously didn't have. I managed to get it eventually though

Then a bit more coding in NCSExpert

Et Voila!

 

[mdixson]

God I miss my M140i - this thread is good medicine... either that or im going to buy a car haha

 

[Gaygle]

Couple of other little bits. The Xenon lights were sucking badly - it was like driving with candles on. They were just old, factory original bulbs that were well passed their best. As a drive quite a lot at night, I needed some decent lights so I got some Osram Xenarc Cool Blue Intense bulbs. Got a decent deal on them - £50 each from Amazon DE and they are night and day (pun intended ) difference from the old ones. Really good bulbs these are. They're a very subtle bluey which is perfect - I was originally worried they'd be stupidly blue but this definitely is not the case. Look very OEM and original

 

[Gaygle]

Managed to book a trackday too! The car did brilliantly on track - however, the brakes gave me a bit of hassle as they had quite a bit of vibration and no matter how many times I bled them, I still had the dead spot for 2cm at the top of the pedal sometimes, but not others. When you're looking for braking points, that is a bit unsettling! More on that in a minute.

Anyway, the suspension was brilliant. The Bilstein B14's somehow found a way of being supple on the road, but taught on the track. Really impressive. Unfortunately, the tyres overheated pretty badly. I've had this was Goodyear Eagle F1A5's before - they really are not good on track and after a couple of lap they are really going off. I'm going to wear them down then get something a bit more track orientated, that won't kill me on the road.

 

[Gaygle]

Now... the brakes - ever since I fitted the M140i calipers, i've suffered with an inconsistent pedal feel. I originally thought it was air in the system, but I had pressure bled the ABS pump and brakes 20+ times and it hadn't really cured it. I didn't really know what it was and thought it might be a master cylinder issue or rubbish pads. After the trackday I thought i'd change them anyway. The pads upfront were some Apec thing (these are utterly turd from previous experience - never buy Apec brake pads) and had some Ferodo ones at the rear, which had melted away on the trackday. So I got some new ATE pads front and rear. I didn't realise that brake pads have to come with a friction rating on them if they are sold in the USA - the cheap pads are "EE" (first letter is friction coefficient at low temperatures, second letter is between like 400-650 degrees Fahrenheit). A lot of brake pads are FE ratings from Brembo and the like, with FF pads being what are normally found on BMW M4's and similar high performance vehicles.

The ATE pads however are GG rating which means they have incredibly good stopping power at both low temperatures and at high temps. Long story short, the pads didn't fix the issue. It was a bit better but still there. It was only when fitting the pads though that I noticed A) just how warped the discs were and B) how low they had gotten!!

So it was time for new discs. Got Textar 2 piece front discs for under £200 for the pair which was a bargain.

For those who say brake discs never warp!

This might be why I was having problems with the brakes also:

Starting thickness is 30mm, minimum thickness is 28.4mm - they were on 27.5mm when I measured them!! :/ I'll keep a better eye on them next time!

I can confirm with the new discs and pads on - the braking is *hugely* improved. The brakes are *so* strong and sharp - hopefully this continues as they get bedded in!

 

[kona786]

Great price on those discs. Are Textar still a BMW OEM for discs and pads?

 

[adam cool dude]

130i is a bit of a underappreciated bargain considering the prices of everything these days. Brakes, LSD and suspension and you have a solid fun car that can do everything.

 

[jpaul]

The overall cost of the project was £300 for the CIC kit

good stuff - that was (necessarily ?) new then ?

before next/first MOT do you plan to get emissions / CAT checked - the latter was my, not too expensive <£300 required fix.
I put some thicker oil in on last service too 10/40 valvoline maxlife versus,forever, 5/40 - for 'hydrocarbons'

 

[Gaygle]

Great price on those discs. Are Textar still a BMW OEM for discs and pads?

They are still the OEM provider for pads to BMW I believe. The Genuine BMW pads all say Textar on them. Genuine BMW discs are made by a company called VNE which are a French company. Still, any offering from Textar/ATE/TRW/Brembo are all OEM quality as all are OEM manufacturers for various car manufacturers. I wanted the two piece discs as these weigh some 1kg less each than the single piece discs which the cheaper manufacturers produce.

Managed to get them from Arnold Clark Autoparts with free next day del for £196 for the pair which is bargainous. I often find that Textar are the cheapest of the high quality OEM providers.

130i is a bit of a underappreciated bargain considering the prices of everything these days. Brakes, LSD and suspension and you have a solid fun car that can do everything.

Yeah I'd agree with that. There are plenty of 130i's that have been looked after for £5-6k with some ropey ones around £2.5-3.5k. And a lot of the £5-6k examples often already come with the M140i BBK, decent coilovers and M3 control arms as these are all very popular mods. And as you said, if you sort a couple of weak spots in the original car (suspension especially) you have a pretty compelling car for some fun. 265bhp, 3litre 6 cylinder engine and RWD. All in a German package which means you can get a decent bit of tech in the car, and decent build quality.