What have you done to your car today?

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That's them properly on then! :D Next - cutting loads of car away.

Spoke to the supercharger place this morning, too. They might be able to sort something out. Apparently runs very reliably at 120hp which would make this an absolute go kart. That also goes WAAAAAATOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!
 
The coolant tank is a known issue on aging Minis. The plastic changes to a yellow colour, and then they tend to fail at the seam in the tank.
I wasn't sure if mine was failing, or the cap was..

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For what it cost, just replaced the tank and cap. To remove it, it's easier to remove the coil pack so I upgraded that and the the HT leads as the same time because red ones are faster.

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I've already changed all the speakers in the car last month, the rear ones was.. involved

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Despite doing this, the sound was still poor and it's because the stock HU isn't great so the dash came apart

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and out that came.

Fitted this in it's place. Not perfect, but at least it's not covered in silly lights and chrome / tat. I'd prefer if it wasn't piano black, but meh

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Had a quick play with the settings to attemtp to match the screen colour to the rest of the dash

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Not bad for a preset, but there is full RGB control of the screen and buttons so I'll spend some time to get it to match.

It sounds so much better, and as it has a 4 x 45W RMS amp it can drive the speakers well.
 
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Cleaned up the underside of the E46, applied some rust converter on the slightly more 'interesting' looking areas and then undersealed it. Also fitted new handbrake shoes/kit. Next up are a couple of easy things (re-fitting the discs and calipers) before attempting something I haven't done before which is installing new brake lines - the hard line that runs from offside rear to the nearside rear and then over the fuel tank and also the hard line from the nearside rear over the fuel tank. I also have new flexi hoses for the rear, but I think they'll be easy in comparison to the hard lines. After that it should be ready to go for the MOT it was meant to have back in January.

Finally, because one old BMW isn't doing well enough to empty my wallet (/s) I've bought a second one today to sit alongside the E46 in the form of an E92. I will have had the E46 ten years in January 2024 and I've done over 100,000 miles in it. Until earlier this year it hadn't really put a foot wrong which is why I'm spending money on something that isn't worth anything to anyone else, especially with over 200k on the clock, but I'll be running it as a second car and only when there isn't any salt on the roads from now on as she's earned her keep.
 
I unplugged the cars synthetic sound generator yesterday....or rather, I dusted off my secondary school level electronic engineering skills to knock up a switch for it so I could turn it on and off at will and experiment with how it sounds.

However, it will be staying off; at first I wasn't that offended by it, but now it's off, the car sounds much better (albeit a lot quieter). Didn't realise that it was actually quite intrusive. I've also ordered an HKS system to replace the almost silent stock exhaust.
 
Replaced the heater blower fan on my mums 2013 F10 520d. It had been sporadically coming on at full speed and then stopping for the last few weeks, it hadn't been clearing the windscreen and then finally just stopped completely and the fan wouldn't run no matter what you did. Scanned the codes and found code 801207 (using my new Anyscan A30M scanner which is verrrry good!):

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As it can either be the resistor or the fan, I took an educated guess (it's 90% of the time the fan) and was right. Not a difficult job and one of those ones which you don't mind doing because of how straightforward it is. If I was doing it quickly I could have done it in about 30-40 minutes? But took me about 1hr30 just because I was cleaning stuff up as I went/hoovering out leaf's from under the box etc. Replaced the fan with a Nissens one (good quality OEM supplier) part number 87242 which cost £71 delivered from eBay.

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It certainly pays dividends to be able to work on your own car and know where to find part numbers etc. The part from BMW was £320 and the labour they quote is about 2 hours which would mean the total bill would be about £600 for what I was able to fix for £70. Even from a small independent garage it would have been £300

The F10 has been really reliable until about 6 months ago when it has suddenly been hit by every F10 common problem out there. In the last 6 months, I've done the driver's side door lock (£50 for Genuine BMW part from eBay BMW main dealer!), the blower motor (£70), the boot return spring (Genuine BMW from Rybrook BMW £50), I've got to do the rear light tomorrow as the LEDs within the inner rear light have failed (good used item for £20) and the headlight lenses have cracked (£800 a headlight which i haven't done). In fairness all of them have been pretty easy jobs, which is why I love working on BMW's. And all of them I've been able to get Genuine parts or good OEM parts for not much. However if i wasn't able to source the parts like I can for a good price, and do the work for my mum - this would have cost circa ~£1200 from a main dealer or ~£800 from an independent garage in the last 6 months.
 
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It's MJF nylon then shot peened which I found really helps the final look of it. Looks much better than some other prints I've had in the past!
how do you deal with shot peen modification of the swivel ball diameter - you didn't need a lock ring on the ball too.
(recently had to fix a worn dashboard ball swivel mount with rubber glove finger, but a new mount would be good )
 
how do you deal with shot peen modification of the swivel ball diameter - you didn't need a lock ring on the ball too.
(recently had to fix a worn dashboard ball swivel mount with rubber glove finger, but a new mount would be good )

The ball was 17mm but I've not measured it on the shot peened version, if I can find my veneers I shall! The lock ring still fits and tightens so any material it has taken off has been minimal and not impacted being able to get the mount tight enough to stay in position.
 
I'm still sure cars know when you've spent money on them, and then they throw up another issue.

I was driving to a dentist appointment (where I found out I need specialist root canal work done, yay..) and I heard a loud 'twang!' from the rear OS area and my dashboard went into Christmas tree mode;

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Well that's not looking good...

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I don't remember lowering this car, but why is the dash lit up?

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oh, that's why

I tried to get a good photo of why the light was on but failed

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but in that picture you can kind of see that spring isn't correctly seated, what you can see is that it's seated now on the speed sensor wiring, handbrake cable and looks like it's on the brake line too. Not ideal.

I wasn't too far away from the Mini place that looks after my car (GSR53), so I very carefully limped the car there.

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They're always very busy, but took a quick look and told me to back it in as they weren't happy with me driving it in that condition.

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and within 2 hours of it breaking, I had a new (old) spring fitted I was safely back on the road.

I know this isn't strictly something I did on the car today.. but thought some might find it interesting.

The reason for fitting an old spring is that they have a lot of them kicking about from having fitted lowering springs to cars, so the parts were there. The plan has always been to refresh the suspension as it's all original still - but just not quite yet. It'll be getting done in the next few months with new shocks, springs, rear arms and brakes all round.
 
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