Figured my greetings thread was getting a bit long in the tooth so we had better switch over here.


you can go back and read our story from the start here

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...greetings.html


in short, saw a 6 speed manual JCW exactly a week ago on FB marketplace 4 hours away, so we all went up there, struck a deal, amd drove it home.

today is our first day working on it, so we went and got bulbs for the ones that were burned out at auto zone, new cabin filter, and just got back from junkyard where we managed to find a really good condition, nearly new set of taillights to replace the broken drivers one and the not good passenger side. They need a good polish before we put them in but that will be one item of the list needed before inspection and registration.

 

My son did his first ever working on a car today.
We did the tail light install together, and he did the cabin filter himself with his pelicanparts book that came with the car.
(btw what you see to his right shoulder isn’t missing paint… that’s hardened dirt over a 1/4” deep, the hatch hinges were closer to 3/8s thick with dirt.)

We also finally got all the blown bulbs replaced, except the ones in the arch guards/ bumper ends, which I can’t figure out how to get off.

The leather on the **** was so badly worn out it was missing in places, so for a quick fix I literally just pulled all the leather off leaving the black plastic underneath. Feels much better and less heebie jeebie in my hand now…


had to scrub the hell out of the license light lenses. they were filled with sediment and very yellowed, but polished up to an acceptable DD level after a 5 -10 minutes of washing and polishing with Chemical guys headlight restorer. We also polished out the tails before we installed them and I did the xenon headlight lenses. Then I used it on the mirror bases, wiper arms, amd the plastic arches to get rid of the grey ish oxidized layer. I expected changing bulbs and tails to be a couple hours work. Instead it turned into a multi hour nearly all afternoon ordeal, most of which was spent going in search of more bulbs, and trying to get the broken originals out.
It took me only 20 minutes with the open ended wrench from the tool kit to take both the “new ones” out of the wreck, including the time moving parts out of the car to access the hatch release under the seat and learning how to do it via YouTube.
But removing the ones from Alex’s car was closer to 30-40 minutes PER side. I wound up breaking the broken left one out so I could reshape the opening as the PO spun out and tagged a guardrail(damage movement of metal on the left tail opening area is horizontal not forwards) had to *ahem* massage a bit of the opening back into shape with my plastic deadblow hammer to get the new tails to slide in correctly. The right side the lower clip was grabbing sheetmetal even fully inserted and eventually I had to Superman it out and to hell with the old clip. I also relieved the offending piece back into line on that side.

We also took my daughter (age 5) with us this morning when we went parts shopping the first time, and then the third time we had to go back for more bulbs, my wife asked to go all together since she hadn’t ever gotten to ride in it yet. Was a bit cramped but doable.

since I pulled out the broken aux jack completely during my exploratory investigation into the iPod issue, I am thinking of doing one of the newer china “aux to BT receiver” for $12 instead of $3-5 after shipping on a 3.5 jack to solder back in and still needing the $9 dongle. Doing so would allow streaming and would also let you charge simultaneously on a lightning iPhone. Especially thinking of the one that allows for an external mic connection but don’t know if anyone has tried one yet?

oh and I realized today the rear bumper is stock, not aero bumper like I thought at first glance., and confirmed it has a 16% pulley from wmw on it. Hoping we can get under it and figure out the exhaust situation tomorrow.

a couple pics from today.

 

Day two report: here is where we started the weekend as far as errors:


A slew of errors in DIS.


we pulled the IC and JCW box out & that’s a pita. , had to pull ecu to get it out because I was SURE I had seen an unplugged vacuum hose some where this last week but couldn’t for the life of me find it again and I was feeling sure that was the cause of the vacuum leak code.

so in we delved into the mysteries of the W11 engine bay together and started figuring out how to take it apart. It’s tight but very cleverly packaged.

While doing so we discovered it has the Alta foam filter and JCW box was already de-flapped. And it was really oily and grimy so it got washed (both filter and lower box) also cleaned up the IC and ic “horns” outside with some purple power and an old vibrating toothbrush. The combo works great and then a rinse with simple green and a wipe down leaves it looking much cleaner. Didn’t find any unplugged vacuum hose but the JCW mech had to be getting it from somewhere, right? then my son found it again. Apparently JCWs use a T off the CBV unlike the normal r53 I had gotten the tails off yesterday and whose super charger as off and easily inspectable (so I did). (And no the only ones with rear fog had them removed. I looked!) I remembered it being simple short rubber line and here was one with an OEM looking Angled T and one end going nowhere.
once I knew what to google, and old thread here confirmed my suspicion.
the line from the t’d on 4” length of hose to the air box top was completely gone. That was the air leak. I don’t play golf to do a golf T mod, but had a few of those freebie short Allens, that come from flat pack furniture in my tool box, so we grabbed one that fit real tight and my son stuck it about an inch into the open end of the exempts useless hose as a fix for now to seal it.
Then we figured out how to out everything back (and some PO/prior mechanic had lost the bolt that retains the rad hose to the intake so I need one of those, so headed to realOEM after this post to find PN.)
got out the computer and cleared the codes with pasoft 1.4 (it’s faster than DIS for this) and then did it in INPA too.


fired it up and NO SES light!

called my son to come see! Fired it up again! No SES! Idled for a few minutes, NO SES.

And then sadly our time was over and had to take him home to his mom’s for the school week.


the SES did come back when I got home and took it out of the garage for my wife’s Atlas to come back in, but now down to only one single code.



Down to just 1!


just the 1239, which is probably from what I read that same map sensor the PO replaced with off brand.

interestingly when I tested it seems to read fine off, amd low (255 ish instead of 300 plus) when at idle… but idle is at 1k, not 850. I’m wondering if someone dicked with the mechanical tb stop I saw amd it is a little more open than it should be.
but since it says tmap it’s testing tmap for map issue code? As I understand from loads of reading, 1239 low is MAP by t stat/ airbox, not TMAP.










while looking at it, I discovered the map sensor the PO recently had replaced is not OEM so that’s where I’m thinking the fault still lies.


but for 5 or so minutes I got to finally see what a mini with no error codes and warning lights looks like.






next weekend will be discovering wth is up with this exhaust leak and possibly trying to get that fixed.

 

That is awesome! My son is 6 and has no desire to work on or be out with me when I work on my Minis. Hopefully one day he will come around.

 

ChiefM, my 19yo son I gave my modded e46 wagon to last year as a first car is the same way. To himcars are appliances.
Alex has more wrench time on his brothers wagon than his brother does and goes to cars n coffee with me and his 5 yo sister.
Which is why he gets a cool MINI.

that and I refuse to pay JDM/Drift tax for ragged old Miata’s and 240sx and e30s.

 

Looks like a fun project. I wish my daughter, who is 16, would finally get it. Asked her if she wanted to work on the clubby and spend sometime with me, nope not a chance. Copilot on the dragon she loves, but the prep to get there not so much.

 

if her choices were either help you fix up a car to have one to drive or not have a car at all… it helps. Lol.

 

I’m doing the other option of making her work and buy a car.

 

They are all different and special in their own way. Pretty sure both her big brothers have never opened the hoods on their cars. So out of three, the girl is a gear head. Your son will never drive a boring car. He gets it. That's awesome. *Dear Alice is much cleaner than this these days*.

 

Will I be seeing you guys again in October on the Dragon? If so, you’ll definitely hear me coming now 😉

 

Until I figure out where this exhaust break in the factory manifold is and solve it, my entire neighborhood amd the adjoining ones can hear me coming (and going).

if you’ve ever heard an unmuffled tractor, like a ford 8N… yep.
except this one revs to near 7k.

 

It’s probably a broken weld at the pre-cat. It’s not that un-common and is most likely caused by excessive engine movement when the passenger side motor mount fails. Here’s a pic from another thread.

 

I couldn’t get under it, but I did find my long mechanics mirror and went out with a light to shine down there and yep… I can see the cats white guts thru a rip on the bottom weld.

added both upper mounts and also the drivers side mount to my ecs big order, along with new OEM wires, correct ngk plugs and both OEM tmap and map sensors, OEM wipers and off brand hatch struts. And some white driving light covers and new OEM stripes.

I ordered a rubber wheel off Amazon to see if I can get the old crumbling stripes off.

let’s see if I can find a friendly muffler shop to weld that back up for now.

 

I would add some alignment marks with a sharpie or paint pen before loosening anything as if it’s not already in two pieces, it might end up that way by the time it gets to the shop.

 

This is great that a family member is learning to work on cars. This is a life skill that can save them $$$$ down the road. I have saved so much doing things myself.

 

Love your R53! It's awesome to see both of you guys working on a car together - as well as other posters on this thread! My son is only 19 months old right now, but I hope that he's at least a little into cars so that we can spend some time together in the future.

Also love your F31! I did a double take when I saw the 666M wheels on it and thought for a second you had a M3 wagon! I've got a F80 ZCP as my daily and wish I had the added room of the wagon!

 

Thanks! This one’s my 3rd BMW wagon (92 e34 and 04 e46) but first diesel. It’s lots of fun and a great road trip car but unless you want a cruiser you’d like the petrol 328i version a lot more as those can be surprisingly fast with mods.
basically bought a 2015 so I could borrow all the best interior bits of facelift and f80 in my OEM+ build as I prefer bulbs and active xenon’s over LED.
No one here seems to realize what the D in 320d means and it blows their minds BMW made a diesel msport wagon.
We made it the 4 hours to ABQ and 4hours back on less than a tank running 77 the whole way up and 72 on the way back… while the mini used 3/4 tank coming back only… f31d gets about 45 on cruise at 77-80, I can get 2-3 better manually, my wife 2-3 worse, lol.

Since actual 20” 666m won’t fit correctly on f31due to poke (especially at this static ride height with tires tucked) and leave too little side wall they are actually 19”x 8.5 Alzor from @ECS Tuning . Seem to be a very very close replica of 19 fronts from the CS with backspacing adjusted and narrower. and I’ve been very happy with them… except the need to clean them every 50-100 miles aka weekly with my dusty but grippy msport2/m3 pads… just like the real thing.

 

that’s why I had to learn how to do it myself as a teen with a Haynes manual. Couldn’t afford to hire someone to do brakes or clutch or change plugs or wiper blades and bulbs!

 

These are great and inspiring threads. The R53 is a great platform to learn and have fun with. My son and I did the same with an ‘05 R53 back in 2016.

I wasn’t about to let him drive my E46 touring so we hunted for a project.

Your son will learn a ton and will likely bond with the car so he’ll end up not abusing it since he knows how much effort went into it to get it to a reliable state.

Supercharger and water pump replacement project.

 

Nice on the diesel! That's a definite unicorn, especially in F31 guise! The F series is prettiest 3 series in modern times, at least in my eyes, so OEM+ only makes it look better. 45mpg is pretty good! I think the best I ever did in the M3 was 30mpg cruising, not touching the accelerator.

Makes sense that they're not the original 666M as you'd need some serious fender massaging to get them to fit. I actually ceramic coated them, and it makes cleaning them so much easier. I end up just hosing them down to get off the OEM brake dust weekly, and then monthly use the brushes to get off the stubborn dust. You could try the Akebono pads that many M3 guys use to cut down on dust; they have almost the same initial bite, and about 50% less dust! Again, beautiful R53 and F31!

 

@Onizukachan Cool thread and a great project for you and your son!

My sons didn't catch the gearhead bug, but I do have them help me a bit (not as much as I should make them) when I'm working on their cars.

My daughter really loves her Mini, and she does help me with it, too. Not a gearhead, either, but she does appreciate the stick-shift and how much more engaging her R52S is to drive vs. other cars. Here are a couple of enthusiastic pics of her helping with tire swaps this past Winter and Spring



We picked her R52S up in June-2021 (and made a road trip together to get it - about 5hrs each way). Like you, we had to go through all the bulbs and get them working correctly. In our case, a number of the bulbs had been replaced with LED versions that just didn't work right or had failed due to the weather. On the corner marker lights, I wound up having to buy new ones for a couple of them - at least they're not that expensive.

 

The interior (except for carpets) is finally clean! It’s no longer hued brownish anymore from dirt and tar residue.
It no longer looks like a field car inside nor smells like willie Nelson owned it.

DGs nonsense interior cleaner and brushes were able to get all the gunk off finally. Highly recommended when you have funk and gunk to clean, it really works. Edit, to clarify, When we bought it, there were no finger recesses on the back of the wheel… THATS how gunked it was. The back of the wheel was smooth and so was the front.

this is the third time I’ve cleaned it, but the rest were wipe downs and get me bye, this was a one on one class on interior detailing with Alex.
We Applied protectant to dash top and to door panels but need to do the rest of the car tomorrow.


earlier this week I did one of the car scent bombs and that helped. the trunk still smelt, so I sprayed it down heavily with a household odor eliminator spray (they’re $4 instead of $8 because they don’t have the word “car” in the name) before we started cleaning and between the two that seems to have done the trick.

hard. Evenings work, I was drenched in sweat by the end but so very worth it. Alex worked really hard to get years of hand gunk build up off the wheel. We went thru 3-4 microfibers just caked in the stuff before we finally got it fully clean. I got some mothers chrome polish to use on the JCW tips and handles to get those shined up again.

tomorrow we have to get a couple lugs from the junkers to replace the missing ones and see about getting the down pipe welded back into one piece for now.

sadly Amazon dropped the ball and my rubber decal eraser wheel did NOT arrive today so we could get the stripes gone and wash and polish the car this weekend to be ready to reapply them next weekend. And the eBay seller for the used replacement iPod kit put labels on wrong packages so I got some kind of BMW switch and the other person is getting a mini iPod kit. Let’s see if the seller gets it back to resend it to me.

it’s getting nearer to done though and I hope to have it ready for cars n coffee the last Sunday of the month.

pics tomorrow.

 

Today’s accomplishments.

1: took it to a “friendly” muffler shop to get exhaust welded back. As many had surmised, it was completely a split at the lower precat weld.






we are both really going to miss the 80sTransAm Audi level of burbles and pops on every deceleration of any amount in any gear at any rpm. On the other hand I could hear siri giving directions and talk to the passenger with out yelling and both leaning to the middle.

it ran like Shhhhhh when we left, lots of pogoing and down on power but one it got warmed up and run up the rpm range a couple of times again I’m guessing the trims adjusted or whatever crap was accumulated in there got blown out and the power returned, torque was improved below 2500, especially 1k-2k, amd we got to hear the supercharger for the first time. Not nearly as loud as YouTube videos had led me to believe it to be,

amd if I’m not mistaken, this is actually an S exhaust with JCW tips, not JCW cat back, correct?






im starting to feel like that robot chicken sketch of Lando Calrisian on cloud city… this deal is getting worse and worse all the time.


But hey, for $3850 it still was not a terrible deal for a relatively stock JCW. 6 speed. Just not as good a deal as I thought since no aero rear, no JCW suspension and now it looks to me like no JCW exhaust. At least it does have the brakes and power kit and the split leather wheel.


the wheels in my mind are already planning how to get the decat scorpion past the accountant. That’s how much we miss the Rice Krispies.

also picked up and two used lug bolts and an S CBV line to replace the JCW at the junkers. Bolts are on, line can wait till next weekend when we pull things apart to do mounts, tmap, map, plugs and wires.
Thinking I might replace the hose to the FPR with a solid one piece of vacuum line since that is one of the possible fixes for the 1477 reed switch error code. If anyone knows the recommended spark gap and the correct size vacuum line to look for, I’d appreciate the info very much.
The other thing I did was turn the gas cap upside down. I like it right side up but I got a gas cap warning in ABQ after fill up when I put it on right way up, and I filled up and put it right way up again the other day, so today after seeing the code I flipped it back upside down.


finally, between the Amazon $9 rubber wheel and the pink lil chisler (or whatever it is called) we were able to get the stripes off.
sadly not in time to save the paint. The cracks in the vinyl are literally deeply etched into the clear coat. So you have ghost striping AND ghost cracking. I did two steps of polishing which improved them before I called it quits, but it’s a good thing the stripes are going back on.



I left the old ppf on for now as it delineates where the stripes are and will make it easier on us when we reapply them.

still some hard work and scrubbing ahead but it is starting to look more like a nice vintage car and not a beater commuter every weekend.

 

That’s a facelift JCW catback exhaust with the flattened pipe at the Y to clear the stiffening brace on the cabrios. All JCW exhausts were manufactured like that after a certain date. Even the GP’s have it. The only thing that looks off is It looks like it has a separate resonated mid pipe. If your car is a Factory JCW it should have a one piece exhaust. The mid pipe was separate on the kit/parts version for ease of shipping. Also, there was only one header and not a different JCW header in case you were wondering. The Aisin auto S’s did have a different header though because the engine is about an inch further over towards the passenger side.

Can you post a close up pic of your front calipers to see if they’re genuine JCW’s and not the “poor man’s JCW” R56S mod?

Re-reading your last post, missing JCW suspension and rear aero bumper doesn’t mean anything regarding the originality of a Factory JCW. They never were available with JCW suspensions from the Factory and the aero kit wasn’t a JCW branded item. The JCW suspension was a Dealer accessory except on the GP and the various aero body parts could be purchased separately.

 

Yes, I’ve learned that, it’s factory and on the build sheet, calipers are red and have logo, kinda hard to see em thru the r98s. next weekend can get a pic to confirm when we have to take stuff apart anyway. thought the piping was full round on jcws so seeing a flat section made me think someone sold it off and put stock MCs back on or something.

I think the bulge you are seeing in the front is the main cat? No resonator can on it front to rear,and that was something I was expecting to see from kit parts pics so your explanation that factories are non res makes sense. I don’t know why but I expected the cans to be smaller on JCW so seeing these huge ones and how quiet it is (to us anyway) put that seed of doubt in my mind. Appreciate the expertise!