What have you done to your car today?

mrk said:
Interesting, just did a search and it sounds the same:


So I should replace both idler and tensioner pulley I guess. According to the comments the OEM is good for 65k, makes sense since I've had the car from 42k.

Edit*

These two are what I'd need yup?
http://www.gsfcarparts.com/parts/engine-parts/belt-drive/auxillary-drive-belt-tensioner
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I don't know about the 4 pot, but the M54 has 2 different types of tensioners and of course I ordered the wrong tensioner pulley so I still have the squeak squeak :(

It's a pretty easy DIY if you don't want to pay the indy, took me about 10 mins.
 
10 minutes on the 6 means less on the 4? :D
If that's the case then I'll do it myself, will research into that ta.

As for the correct pulley, sure I've ordered the right one! GSF site states what parts are driven by what you're buying which is useful.

I also don't have a torque wrench though :/
 
mrk said:
10 minutes on the 6 means less on the 4? :D
If that's the case then I'll do it myself, will research into that ta.

As for the correct pulley, sure I've ordered the right one! GSF site states what parts are driven by what you're buying which is useful.

I also don't have a torque wrench though :/
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Quite possibly the easiest job to do on the E46 Mrk, I managed to get mine done in the best part of 20 minutes - 10 of which were spent finding the mahoosive spanner to get the viscous fan off, and another 5 making a cuppa as I figured I'd be there for a while :p


Voxination said:
For how cheap the labor would be due to being relatively quick, would rather have that piece of mind that someone who knew what they were doing had done it all, although would feel very very satisfied if I managed it myself...


Have a few good indy's around so will ask them for quotes and go from there :)
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I'm pretty sure Simon from BWChiptune does it and he's apparently pretty good at what he does - though it may be worth giving him a call. I think he's based in Harrow though I may be wrong. I've seen a few forum posts where people have said he charges £250 inc parts for the job.
 
mrk said:
As for the correct pulley, sure I've ordered the right one! GSF site states what parts are driven by what you're buying which is useful.
Click to expand...
Yeah and I ordered mine using a similar system, finding out later that they discontinued the tensioner design and therfore the pulley that I require meaning that my options are replace tensioner or order pulley elsewhere. My tensioner is fine and I can't be bothered with the hassle so I will be ordering a new Dayco 89133 pulley soon.

I left the fan etc in place, just removed the airbox and did it from the side.
 
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Ah ok, there's lots of room just removing the plastic top cover which routes air into the airbox so I reckon I won't even need to remove the entire airbox.

The engine goes quite deep into the car so with the missing 2 cylinders worth of length helps I guess :p
 
Well, almost 4 weeks after ordering a pair of rear springs and shocks from ECP they have finally turned up. What a nightmare it's been. Ordered with their premium delivery service (yeah right) it took them almost a week to dispatch even though they were all in stock. Then the useless courier only came with one box. Why they split the order into two boxes is beyond me!! I have been fighting two different couriers plus ECP to get the second box delivered for the last two weeks and it finally turned up at 13.25 this afternoon. It then took me just over a hour to change the shocks and springs on both sides of my Astra G. I was chuffed to bits with that as it's the first time a job has gone smoothly. Usually some unforeseen problem appears.
 
My piano black trim arrived for my E46 this morning, started fitting them but some of the clips broke in the process. Quite impressed with the change, though I need to get used to the reflections off them as the old ones were of a matte finish.
 
mrk said:
10 minutes on the 6 means less on the 4? :D
If that's the case then I'll do it myself, will research into that ta.

As for the correct pulley, sure I've ordered the right one! GSF site states what parts are driven by what you're buying which is useful.

I also don't have a torque wrench though :/
Click to expand...

Could be an utter pile of garbage but Aldi have one cheap starting tomorrow ;)
 
With pleasure, Sir

Before



During (remove additional metal from the wings, fit new bumper, reconstruct original mounting points in lamp housing, new OEM lights, wiring, bulbs)



After

 
They did a great job on that.

What I did..
20131019_151935.jpg~original


Night and day difference, the front end grips up now. The push was so bad before I thought this wouldn't work and the tyres had given up the ghost. Shame the rear left cam seized up .
 
You are right. it must have been a lot of work needed to get those in.

I am not quite sure why anyone would go to that much effort on an otherwise standard car, and then export it for sale. The work was done in the US I believe, and was of pretty decent quality (not considering the aesthetics!) - I couldnt see where the wings had been extended unless I compared it against a standard car with no lights in; and the bumper had had steel plate bonded to it to close the light housing gap, but it had started to crack, so I binned that.

It was also using the wrong bulbs and I had a hyper flash issue, which is now resolved.
 
Not great, this is the last lot of fronts I took off.
20131008_131006.jpg~original

I'll make that compromise though, car is easy to drive this way and feels comfortable. With -1'10, the front would start getting away from you easily, almost immediately after turn-in. If you cornered in a sensible slow in, fast out kind of way, the front end would massively let go and try to put you into a ditch as soon as you got into the throttle. I found you could overcome the initial push by turning in violently while on the brakes then immediately punching the throttle all the way. This is no way to drive sensibly though!
With -2 (even I wouldn't have thought 1deg would make so much difference), you turn it in and immeditaly feel the tyre load up and give you grip, the more you lean on it the better it feels until you reach a mild understeering, get on the gas at this point and the front will tuck in more and you can unwind the lock a bit and ride it out.

I tried running less camber because the wear was annoying, and as much as I hate to admit it, Simon on here vehemently opposing what I had been doing made me second guess myself.
 
I found a chunk of paint (2p sized) missing on the leading edge of the sill on the Punto during the summer then forgot all about it until washing a couple of weeks ago. Today I finally got round to painting it. :o
 
New fan switch installed and then re-bled the coolant, AC being on now seems to over cool the engine so I'll have to look into that :(

While I waited I used some Megiure Ultimate Compound on the headlights, brought them up a treat but the plastic seems so soft I do think they'll ever really look new again :(
 
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