New project begins today...

[ekjdm14]

Hi all, haven't really posted as yet but we've had our E46 330d SE auto (2002 with M57D30) for about a week and a half now. We bought the car locally as spares/repair for £550 and thoroughly pleased so far. I'm not new to BMW but definitely new to the "newer" models, my previous ones being an E23 735iSE which I loved although it met an untimely end (long story, maybe another time!). After that, the bug was itching & I made a mistake that was an E32 730i... It was slower, bulkier and generally nowhere near as much fun as my old E23. Then a break of a few years, followed by an E30 318i manual which was just as slow, but at least handled decently and was fun to drive.

Anyhow, back to the point. The known issues with our new toy were rear window regulators (including one door card pre-ripped off and wiring for the window switch and Harmon/Kardon audio system cut! at least it came with the car!). Also it's managed to make it 19 years and 196k miles with the rear lights not modded & one connector is utterly melted. The main issues we saw though were on cold start it seems to be down a cylinder at idle/low load (No DDE lamp though, would imagine that'd indicate a current fault code much like an EML?) and the turbo appears to not do a whole lot until well up in the rev range.

Anyway, on inspection one thing that stands out as a possible cause is something well-known if not particularly dear to me from my E23. Rotten vacuum pipework... Ugh, anyway some nice fresh hose arrived today as well as one of the regulators and some more welding wire (ran out halfway through building a stainless straight pipe system) so I'm off out in the sun shortly to pull the airbox and inlet manifold to facilitate replacement of all the vac hoses I can see to be dying & to inspect the turbo to decide whether it needs to come off or be cleaned etc. Still in the process of deciding what level of diagnostic/coding software I want/need to use. Presently erring on the side of GT1 although will research more and decide if I'm qualified to use INPA without bricking the car lol (I've got on just fine with Lexia for Citroen and PP2K for Peugeot, which allow coding etc although from what I've read so far I think they're closer to GT1 interface-wise).

Will probably be posting back with what we find on inspection, hopefully just slightly sticky turbo and rotted off hoses...

[ekjdm14]

Well that escalated quickly! Inlet manifold off, noted it's thoroughly caked up in EGR spooge but more interestingly, still has swirl flaps intact. They're rather sticky and covered in flaky carbon also, so will be deleting them I think (probably weren't doing a thing anyway thanks to the vac. hose issues). Then to remove the airbox to have better access to the turbo & accumulator.... Bloody composite airbox/rocker gasket/part manifold abomination lol so that meant injectors numbered and pulled out (no bad thing, was thinking they might need a cleaning anyhow. Think Zyl.#4 had the beginnings of black death).

Rocker cover removed & it looks pretty damn good for it's miles, servicing must have been reasonable at least as no real sign of sludgy oil & the timing chain/guides looked great if they're original too! Finally being able to reach the turbo, and the nozzles are well gummed up (presumaby aggravated by no actuation for however long due to vac. line issues although there appeared to be no play in the bearings. Needless to say though, having seen how caked in carbon the rest of the system is I've pulled the turbo out and plan to give it a strip/proper clean tomorrow rather than just trying to work it loose as was the original plan of attack.

TL;DR- Stripdown to replace vacuum lines grows to turbo removal/clean up & "whilst I'm in there" jobs will be swirl flap delete, thorough clean of induction system, replace all intake gaskets, clean injectors & replace copper seals & also noticed the plastic coolant outlet in the centre of the head has been weeping so will attend to that as well.

May or may not test the GP's while it's apart, although I can't see me replacing them anyway as we don't live in Antarctica. The car felt pretty good to begin with so would imagine it'll be a nice little improvement with the VNT working properly and the inlet ports not choked down with spooge.

[ekjdm14]

Much too hot to get a lot of progress last few days, about all that's happened is I've dropped the undertrays and belly pan, dropped the first cat & fished the turbo out the bottom. Last night I stripped the turbo to give it a clean, bearing has some play so might replace that as I've a kit lying about for another project that hasn't happened yet. Vanes were well and truly solid with carbon and possibly may have been the beginnings of oil getting past the hot side.

Meanwhile the swirl flap delete kit has arrived, if I get a chance when it cools off later then I may get blackened and spoogey doing that surgery or may just sit at the bench with a fan in my face & get the turbo all up together.

[ekjdm14]

Well, for all the interest this thread has got I thought I'd best update it... (lol not a dig at the forum, I know this area is mainly for those seeking help and I'm just posting sh!t I've been doing)

Anyhow, finally got everything back together yesterday & fired her up. Surprisingly fast to build fuel pressure and start if I'm honest. I thought with the injectors and lines being dry it'd take a while of cranking until it was able to bleed out, TBH I thought "well, it'll just make sure the turbo sees pressurised oil before it sees any rotation" (it was pre-lubed BTW). No such luck, it actually almost started within a couple of seconds & was running within 5 seconds of cranking.

Bled the coolant (well water for now, because I might be revisiting the water neck at some point) and ran up to temperature checking for leaks and listening for chuffing from the injectors. All seemed good so off we went for a test drive. What. A. Difference. It's like a different car, whereas before it was making decent power but laggy & only picking up boost around 3000+ RPM, now you roll into the pedal & it pushes you into the seat nice and firmly from a dig. Honestly, I think it's been remapped or something as it feels faster than 186bhp. Feels faster than 210 also, butt-dyno says it's pushing 230-250 but will have to see if we can get it on the rollers and find out.

One teething niggle we had was about 10 miles into the test drive, on a straight bit of road accelerating hard from 20 to "well over 20" mph about 3 seconds into the pull, there's a huge POP sound & a cloud of gray/black smoke behind us. The charge pipe between hard line and EGR blew off the hard pipe at the bottom, damaging the fan shroud. Fortunately most of the plastic is still there & it only broke where it's been previously repaired, so presuming this may have happened before! On inspection the hose clamp was OK but tight to turn so guessing I'd felt like it was tight enough when in reality it wasn't. Re-attached and "fully" tightened this time, we don't appear to have done any other damage fortunately & some better hose clamps and maybe new charge pipes are on the shopping list.

Very pleased so far though, honestly it felt pretty healthy even before the turbo was working properly & the swirl flaps were dirty but no sign of becoming loose. Will keep them aside just in case I go crazy one day and want them back in. So she's back in good health & will be changing oil and filter as soon as the latter shows up, just as a precaution seeing as the engine's been semi-open for a few days. Now to get on with the window regulators, put door cards back in & replace the nasty flickery LED lights inside and out.

EDIT-: New job has arisen this evening, coolant leak again but not from the water neck as expected... This one appears to be coming from the plastic hose union under the EGR cooler or thereabouts, not something I've touched as of yet so maybe that was also slightly contributing to the slow loss of coolant (there is some staining on the bolts to support the idea) & the extra pressure from fixing the other weep has pushed it over the edge. Hoping it's just an O-ring but I've a sneaking feeling it's going to be the same problem of plastic degrading and the inner "lip" that supports the seal has broken away allowing the seal to collapse into the coolant passage. All good though, at least I didn't waste any coolant just water, and the windows all work properly now.

[ekjdm14]

Leak fixed, the car appears to have had a new water pump & thermostat & one of the hoses was not clipped all the way home. Guessing my fix of the other weep caused more pressure in the system & it popped the hose out. If I'd known that it'd have saved pulling the thing apart again, but at least it didn't require any parts to fix. Always a good day when it's a free repair.

Rear window regulators also in, right side all back together but left side still need to repair the wires that were cut and see if the door card will go back on after being "carefully" removed by, presumably, an angry gorilla on steroids. (I'll give the p/o some credit and assume it was pouring down when the regulator popped & they just wanted to get the window back up fast to keep the interior dry lol)