The track has been down for the past 1.5 months (COVID lock down) but reopened for its first event this past weekend. An E36 in the garage next to mine suddenly started experiencing wheel lockup for the first time. The owner had his mechanic with him, and guess what the mechanic found? Answer: The ASC actuator motor, which was loosely secured in his S54-swapped engine bay, had pulled itself loose from the factory connector - a slightly different version of the same problem I experienced! Only in my case it took 1.5 years to isolate :-(

While the track was down and I was looking for track-related projects to keep myself busy, I decided to cut open my old ACS actuator motor. The pic below shows the plastic housing cut in two and the bottom section with plastic gears crudely cut off with a chop saw.

Motor & cut housing by F birch, on Flickr

Mostly because I was bored, I though it might be clean to use the factory connector off the top of this housing to wire in the resistor and cleanly plug it into the factory connector. Then I thought it would be even cleaner to install the resistor in the old housing and use the original connector as well as bolting it in it's original location. So I trimmed the housing a bit shorter and soldered in the resistor. I also drilled some holes top and bottom so air could flow through the housing if the resistor gets warm.

Housing w resistor 1 by F birch, on Flickr

I glued the two housing pieces back together and glued a piece of tie wrap across the bottom to protect the free end of the resistor from vibration.

ABS resistor assembly 1 by F birch, on Flickr

ABS resistor assembly 2 by F birch, on Flickr

This is the insanity that happens when track guys get locked inside during pandemics.