ILC's E46 wagon

i_love_cars

Well with my E30 gone I got rid of my truck despite originally thinking I'd keep it. I learned that I could write off the lease buyout of $4k so I said fuck it, I'll get something cheaper that is practical. So I was on the hunt for a new DD. Spent some time looking at 335s, went down to Chicago with TJ to look at one and got pissed about misrepresentation, and decided then and there that I was done trying to source a car predominately owned by dude-bro shitfuck-face-fucking-fucks. I may sound bitter and that's because I am. 8-month old photos looking mint and then having a car roll up with multiple concrete scrapes on bumpers, peeling clear, marred hood from shitty wetsanding, etc. that was not disclosed after driving 1.5 hours left a sour taste in my mouth. Shitfucks.

Maybe some of you saw this already but a 2003 e46 wagon popped up on CL a few days ago at a local dealer that, interestingly enough, TJ knows pretty well and connected me with the lady who runs it. I walked in with cash today expecting to buy the car and it was clean enough so we did a thing and after some repairs, I will pick up the car early next week.

the long and short of it is - no rust, car spent half its life in California and then was clearly well-taken care of in Wisconsin afterwards. Literally 0 rust on fenders anywhere, and undercarriage is very clean. They had it up on the lift for me when I came in today to look at it. 155k miles, AWD, sport package, cold weather, and the interior is in really really nice shape. Leather is probably 8/10, trim a 9/10 with no visible scratching or scuffing anywhere. I ended up paying $4700 for it

The shop is replacing the windshield (cracked), rear wiper motor, steering intermediate shaft, and a busted front swaybar endlink.

Orders of business will be:

Some different wheels on the cheap courtesy of TJ
Replace sideview mirror glass
Replace trans fluid, diff fluid, reseal diff bolt which has a small leak - nothing special here all just things you would do on any used car you buy
Replace front bumper shroud for sure, and maybe driver fender which has a small dent but I need to find out if the dent can just be popped out or not. There's no broken paint so I'm not in a huge rush there
Bi-xenons
iPod integration and likely some sort of upgraded sound system (speakers and head unit). I've done 0 research on this for E46's though. No I'm not putting subs in and I don't vape.
Tint

Here's a couple pics from the lot, I will post more once the car is cleaned up and I get some new wheels on.

straight6pwr

great car, cool story...then...automatic!

i'm hoping an s54/6 is in the works, or something.

B C

Sometimes its nice to not row your own gears

YoungCR

TJ is a e46 wagon whisperer. Congrats on the purchase!

i_love_cars

straight6pwr said:

great car, cool story...then...automatic!

i'm hoping an s54/6 is in the works, or something.

dude i know, no stick was like ehhhhhhh but the car was so clean for what it is and it's so hard to find AWD wagons with no rust and sport package. For sub-5k i couldn't say no.

plus...i mean....6MT in the M3 at least

straight6pwr

i_love_cars said:

dude i know, no stick was like ehhhhhhh but the car was so clean for what it is and it's so hard to find AWD wagons with no rust and sport package. For sub-5k i couldn't say no.

plus...i mean....6MT in the M3 at least

you pretty much just told the story of when I bought my e34 touring. just planting the seed in your head that you will get a 5 speed at some point.

suspenceful

Interesting - did not expect this. Makes me miss my 2005 325xiT.

i_love_cars

suspenceful said:

Interesting - did not expect this. Makes me miss my 2005 325xiT.

you and I both! I really was thinking I'd land in a 335xi but for the 3-4k miles of driving a year I need to use a car like this for, I'm happier that I was able to stumble across this instead of paying a lot more money for a 335. And most of the miles I need it for are to Neenah and back occasionally, and taking my kids to soccer. An E46 AWD in decent shape was my top pick to start with but I just assumed I'd never find something worth buying in the short term so resigned myself to shifting focus to 335.

Between this, the Miata, and my 1ers, we have a nearly identical shared car ownership history lolol

i_love_cars

Picked up the car last week and it was a top driving it off the lot. Made it home, drove it around some more, and when I left for soccer that evening, CEL came on for exhaust side vanos, lol. Idle shot up to 800 rpm, loss of power, etc. I had to laugh because I literally had my E46 for all of 6 hours before a fucking vanos issue popped up. I don't know how more cliche it can get.

There was oil in the sensor housing for the exhaust side cam position sensor, and the entire sensor assembly was caked in it. I'm sure that fried it and is why I got the CEL. The oring must have failed. Despite that, in addition to replacing the sensor, I'm redoing the vanos seals with the Beisan replacement kit, and I'm glad for it because popping the valve cover off revealed the VCG had completely baked around the spark plug cylinders. Cylinder 3 plug was nearly submerged in oil. So I got new spark plugs, and new VCG as well.

Still waiting on a couple parts from Turner but everything is out and ready to be re-installed once the rest of my replacement washers and orings arrive.

IMG_0651

IMG_0646

IMG_0645

Blaine0002

i_love_cars said:

looks good to me

i_love_cars

Blaine0002 said:

looks good to me

EDIT: Dammit Snapsby

patsbimmer1

i_love_cars said:

DUDE LOL

That looks like an S54 I tore down once that had a lifetime of the BMW-recommended 20k miles/oil change intervals. Although I think they changed the official interval now to be lower, it's still asinine.

Was this photo one of your cars?

I don't know who's fucking with you (SNAP) but that was the last photo you posted yesterday. I assumed it was slipped in as a joke but that was definitely in your post yesterday.

i_love_cars

patsbimmer1 said:

I don't know who's fucking with you (SNAP) but that was the last photo you posted yesterday. I assumed it was slipped in as a joke but that was definitely in your post yesterday.

I must've been too busy paying attention to other things to notice

Dammit it's not even April Fool's yet, shitfuckers!!

i_love_cars

So, updates on my autotragic shifting daily:

I finished replacing the vanos seals, slapped the new exhaust CPS on, new spark plugs/VCG, then started the car and still had the same CEL as before - P0014. So assuming the new sensor was good (I ponied up for OE, not the cheap China reps that fail immediately), and the fact that I didn't fuck up the vanos seal install (no new codes about anything being stuck open), the next thing was to check solenoids. I don't have the fancy schmancy 36mm specialty deep socket for the solenoids, and couldn't find my vicegrips so at this point I called TJ over. So we swapped the intake and exhaust side first obviously - same result, P0014 exhaust side. The car needed an oil change anyway so that was next to check as amazingly some people have resolved this code with an oil change which seems crazy to me but whatever. Well, somehow that actually did help. The code didn't come back right away but still persisted after a few more shut off/turn on cycles.

That was a clue though - so we took both solenoids off and tried to remove the pistons/spring assemblies that the solenoids compress. The intake side was springy and came right out. The exhaust side, however, was completely stuck for some reason. Couldn't compress it and had a bitch of a time pulling it out. Once they were both out, everything looked identical and nothing was broken, spring tension was good. Reseated everything and the exhaust side felt normal again. Buttoned things back up and the CEL was gone for good, car was idling normally, and so on. I have no idea how that piston got seized but that was the root of the problem all along it would seem.

It wasn't wasted effort as it certainly can't hurt that I put new vanos seals in a 155k mile E46.

Following that, I had Kummrow do the messy business of swapping the trans filter/fluid, transfer case fluid, and fluid in both diffs.

Moving on to suspension - the rear driver spring was cracked (no surprise), rear driver wheel bearing was worn, both half shafts were leaking (also no surprise), and front control arms needed replacing. So replacing all that including some H&R sport springs, the car feels like new again. I just need to clean up the undercarriage because there's still gear oil everywhere from the leaks and it fucking reeks of sulfur in the cabin while driving.

The coolant expansion tank is hissing at the neck and the place I bought the car from put non-BMW coolant in the car, so I figure that's a good excuse to replace the expansion tank anyway just to be safe. So I have a new one in the trunk that I will install sometime this week.

Last step is taking the car over to TJ's friends for body work estimate on repairing the crease in the front fender, and the crack in the bumper.

I'm so excited that I will soon be able to focus on the far more important things like bags, vape vents, and Minions stuffies.

B C

Lost it at Minions stuffies [emoji38]

You are taking care of a non-M E46 which is a refreshing change from the typical neglectarino

i_love_cars

Alright friends, the time has come to employ your assistance.

I listed my E46 for sale yesterday but I'm regretting that right now given that it's a rust-free sport wagon and I've already R&R'ed so much other stuff - all it really needs is a manual transmission to be 100% perfect as a year-round daily in Wisconsin.

So I think I'm gonna swap it and keep the car. I'm either gonna do it before winter, or first thing next Spring. I'm more inclined right now to just track down a decent transmission, harness and maybe pedal assembly. The rest is all off the shelf and can be bought at any time.

I have watched all the ShopLife vids that detail this swap end-to-end on a RWD which isn't terribly different. It's actually easier on the AWD models because you can reuse the entire driveshaft for AWD. If I can source a transmission from another touring AWD (unlikely) it would preserve the current diff of 3.46. If I get any other AWD manual, it's a 3.23 - oh well. The biggest difference between RWD and AWD swap is just how many more bolts you need to remove to get all the AWD crap off.

By my estimation, the parts needed are as follows:

- manual 5sp trans and transfer case from a 325xi (possibly 330xi? not sure if that fits yet but i've heard it does)
- new clutch/FW
- new guibo and probably center support bearing
- shifter assembly (uuc dssr probably absolutely)
- pedal assembly
- clutch lines
- transmission wiring harness
- new engine mounts and transmission mounts
- new rear main seal
- ZHP shift knob obviously

and I've got people to do the coding when it's all done.

So, if anyone has any beats on a 325xi manual transmission (and ideally a transfer case as well with mounting plate) - send it my way.

I'm currently looking at potentially buying the following assembly but I haven't done enough market research yet to know if it's a good deal or not: http://www.ebay.com/itm/142465262971

i_love_cars

ok spent more time researching it last night and while the swap itself isn't that bad, in order to do everything right, I think parts are gonna cost more than I originally had hoped. Probably around $2500. Factoring in that my time is worth a lot, it does really seem like my best bet is to cross off the AWD idea for my daily and just get a RWD wagon with stick and m-sport and put snow tires on it for winter.

One of my old tenants lives in Austin now and works for one of those supercar driving experience outfits. He is a wagon bigot like me and finds good shit all the time so I've sent him on a mission to find me a rust-free example (not hard down there obviously) and I'll just keep driving my current e46 in the meantime until it sells.

suspenceful

I ran across this if it's of any help or if you change your mind:

https://madison.craigslist.org/pts/d/03-bmw-330xi-manual/6274783392.html

YoungCR

suspenceful said:

I ran across this if it's of any help or if you change your mind:

https://madison.craigslist.org/pts/d/03-bmw-330xi-manual/6274783392.html

Come say hi when you grab this!

i_love_cars

suspenceful said:

I ran across this if it's of any help or if you change your mind:

https://madison.craigslist.org/pts/d/03-bmw-330xi-manual/6274783392.html

not gonna lie, i just texted the guy. That's a great price if everything is in working order, thanks

WIBIMMERS

ILC's E46 wagon