What did you do to your F10, F11 or F07 today?

[Andrew]

And then set about the old headlight removing the Xenon unit

and then the LED modules from the angel eyes and indicator 

 

I’ve left the old Xenon bulb where it is at the moment and transfer it at the last moment to the new headlight.

[Munzy]

I’ve never been a fan of stickers, wraps or non oem on my cars, difficult to not look cheap or nasty but for £10 I thought I’d give these carbon effect decals a go after getting my wheels powder coated dark. 
 

Very pleased with the results - fresh and not too in your face and in my opinion fits the look of the car nicely. 
 

Decals have a carbon texture to them and felt of good quality whilst putting them on. As always it will be how they look after a few months, if they start peeling, wether they stay on but, for £10 I’m pretty chuffed the old girl has a fresh look. 
 

(car needs a good wash and some chips sorted. Tempted to paint the callipers red as the red of the pads does look good against the dark wheels..)

Edited March 26, 2023 by Munzy

[Andrew]

Who refurbed your wheels @Munzy?

Mine could do with a re-fresh 6 years after the first one.

[Munzy]

@Andrew  I used Dust Powder and Paint in Tradeston Glasgow. Saw them on Facebook a couple of years ago and they quoted me £280 for all four so went for it.

The guy I dealt with was super nice and patient with me as I umm and ahhed about the colour and finish.

Seems a good job but today I noticed that at least one has lots of little cracks on the paint under the lacquer, only really noticeable with I shine my powerful headtorch on it. Will have a proper look in the daylight after a wash but as long as they don't get worse I'm ok with it as it's hardly noticeable and at £280 I'll probably get them done every two years as a treat 😀 

[mullinsj08]

My stepdad and I took advantage of the warm weather in Surrey on Saturday to tackle a few outstanding jobs.

Firstly, we did a gearbox service. The gearbox was heavily overfilled and oil gushed out when the fill plug was undone. Apart from all the faffing about trying to get it up on the ramps without them sliding along the driveway and getting the car level it went fine and gear changes are much smoother. The car also moves much more freely.

Next up was loosening and re-tightening the front lower control arms with the car on the ground. That's mostly resolved my issue with the ride height at the front, added some weight to the steering and lessened the shuddering when braking. I think new front discs are needed at some point as it still does it from 60-70mph like the other thread mentions.

Finally, the engine light came on the other day and ISTA showed a fault for EGR controller position sensor open circuit. Cleared the faults, the engine light went out but that message stayed. We removed and cleaned the EGR valve which was already fairly clean as it had been done with the walnut blasting but the message still persists.

Will probably replace the EGR valve but at the moment the car works fine and I want to get on with sorting the various bits of damage to the bodywork which my neighbours have kindly made over the last few months.

[Andrew]

Auto or manual 'box service @mullinsj08?

[Percha]

It will be an auto, only gearbox option with the N57 3.0 D engine!

[Andrew]

No stick shift on a 6 pot diesel? Didn’t know that. So the only manual diesels were the 2.0d? 
 

You could get the N55 with a clutch pedal if you really wanted, it only came as sports auto if you went for auto version. 

[Andrew]

Being the geek, I checked back my books, pre facelift 530d was still manual as standard, auto was extra £££. 

[Steve84N]

@mullinsj08was your car sitting high before you loosened/retightened your control arms and now it's dropped down? 

 

 

[Percha]

10 hours ago, Andrew said:

Being the geek, I checked back my books, pre facelift 530d was still manual as standard, auto was extra £££. 

Interesting, never seen or heard of one in the flesh though...

[Andrew]

@mullinsj08was your car sitting high before you loosened/retightened your control arms and now it's dropped down? @Steve84N

 

With the suspension at it max drop the control arm balljoint should sit 20mm above the top of it's housing on the steering knuckle 

Or measure 90mm from the upper wishbone to U/S of the wheel arch

with the suspension compressed.

That's how I did mine, bushes looked in good condition when I was under it on Sunday.

[Steve84N]

@AndrewI replaced all the control and wishbone arms. When we did it the wishbone was set at 90mm with nothing else connected as per the manual. The damper eye bolt and two subframe bolts for the control arms we tightened with the wheel jacked up to ride height. I couldn't quite figure out what the manual was saying about the 20mm gap so the ball joint was done up tight first and then the other end with the wheel compressed. 

I'm wondering if something is amiss as my ride height is about 650mm instead of 630mm from the arch to the bottom of the alloy. However, I'd have thought the weight of the car could overcome a twisting bush and we set them at ride height. The only thing I did notice is that jacking the wheel up I couldn't get it to 630mm as it started lifting the car off the ramp. We got to about 640-650mm when tightening the subframe bolts. Didn't have a four post unfortunately. I believe I have the right springs as I looked up the code on them, got the right dampers/bump stops and the spring pads are all the same so far as I can tell. 

Here's how mine sits. 

[Steve84N]

Managed to pick these up last night for a bargain price and they're in very good condition.

I can also use the door cards and rear seat base but not the upper rear seats as I have an F11. Going to dye my existing black rear seats to match. Currently got all black electric sports seats. 

I had already bought F11 comfort seats in Veneto Beige so these will now get sold on as well as some nappa leather oyster door cards. 

[4aceman]

15 minutes ago, Steve84N said:

@AndrewI replaced all the control and wishbone arms. When we did it the wishbone was set at 90mm with nothing else connected as per the manual. The damper eye bolt and two subframe bolts for the control arms we tightened with the wheel jacked up to ride height. I couldn't quite figure out what the manual was saying about the 20mm gap so the ball joint was done up tight first and then the other end with the wheel compressed. 

I'm wondering if something is amiss as my ride height is about 650mm instead of 630mm from the arch to the bottom of the alloy. However, I'd have thought the weight of the car could overcome a twisting bush and we set them at ride height. The only thing I did notice is that jacking the wheel up I couldn't get it to 630mm as it started lifting the car off the ramp. We got to about 640-650mm when tightening the subframe bolts. Didn't have a four post unfortunately. I believe I have the right springs as I looked up the code on them, got the right dampers/bump stops and the spring pads are all the same so far as I can tell. 

Here's how mine sits. 

Not up to track on what you've done so far but the suspension should settle after driving a bit, especially fresh springs & spring mounts. Bushing preload will affect ride height a bit too, but it'll have to be way off for it to have much effect

[Steve84N]

@4acemanthe previous owner had new front springs and dampers. When I got the car one of those dampers had already blown so I replaced them and kept the springs/pads so they aren't new. I replaced the upper wishbone, both lower control arms and tie rods/inner arms. I don't think I've done anything wrong but it's riding high. It's been a couple of months and a few thousand miles so any settling will have happened by now.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Steve84N

[4aceman]

2 minutes ago, Steve84N said:

@4acemanthe previous owner had new front springs and dampers. When I got the car one of those dampers had already blown so I replaced them and kept the springs/pads so they aren't new. I replaced the upper wishbone, both lower control arms and tie rods/inner arms. I don't think I've done anything wrong but it's riding high.

Did you just take it off jack stands or have you driven it back and forth yet?

When you lift the car the wheels swing in, then on the way down the tires bind up against the floor so they can't push all the way out. That binds the suspension as the wheels have to move out when the suspension compresses. 

Don't know if that makes any sense ^ on my E46 when dropping it from jack stands the suspension ends up at least an inch higher

Edited March 28, 2023 by 4aceman

[Steve84N]

@4acemanI know what you mean, I always roll the car back and forwards after jacking to settle. To be clear I did the suspension work months ago. 

[Andrew]

58 minutes ago, 4aceman said:

Did you just take it off jack stands or have you driven it back and forth yet?

When you lift the car the wheels swing in, then on the way down the tires bind up against the floor so they can't push all the way out. That binds the suspension as the wheels have to move out when the suspension compresses. 

Don't know if that makes any sense ^ on my E46 when dropping it from jack stands the suspension ends up at least an inch higher

 

Very good advice, always settle the suspension to get it to the right ride height before tightening any bolts.

I did this before tightening the lower rear strut bolts.

[Andrew]

1 hour ago, Steve84N said:

 

Eeeeek 😱

Could you not have at least lined up the roundel with the ///M badge 🤓

[Steve84N]

31 minutes ago, Andrew said:

 

Very good advice, always settle the suspension to get it to the right ride height before tightening any bolts.

I did this before tightening the lower rear strut bolts.

Yep, did that too.

Must admit I missed the badge but I do normally align them.🧐

[mullinsj08]

On 27/03/2023 at 16:33, Andrew said:

Auto or manual 'box service @mullinsj08?

Auto box 🙂

[mullinsj08]

On 28/03/2023 at 01:02, Steve84N said:

@mullinsj08was your car sitting high before you loosened/retightened your control arms and now it's dropped down? 

 

 

Yep, it was sitting 3CM too high at the front after the front lower control arms were replaced at the garage.

I'll give it a few weeks to make sure its fully settled before going for another alignment to make sure that has also got rid of the positive camber.

[mullinsj08]

On 28/03/2023 at 09:10, Andrew said:

@mullinsj08was your car sitting high before you loosened/retightened your control arms and now it's dropped down? @Steve84N

@Andrew Yep, see reply above. 

Thank you for the steps to make sure it is set properly for next time. But I have standard suspension at the moment so the measurements may be slightly different I guess?

New shocks/springs all round is on the list of things to do as I can only see the rears have been done in the past and they were spray painted baby blue for some reason.

[Steve84N]

17 minutes ago, mullinsj08 said:

Yep, it was sitting 3CM too high at the front after the front lower control arms were replaced at the garage.

I'll give it a few weeks to make sure its fully settled before going for another alignment to make sure that has also got rid of the positive camber.

Interesting. Seems like they could have tightened the bolts with the suspension fully extended. I guess it means mine may not be properly tensioned and that could explain my ride height discrepancy.

They have close to zero camber as standard. I chose to use adjustable wishbone arms and set them for maximum negative camber, so I'm now at about 1 degree instead of 0.5.