What did you do for your M3 today?

[Nate047]

Drove my car for the first time in 2.5 months today. I had it parked outside on the street by my friend’s house in an attempt to drive property values down in his neighborhood. My wife and I are finally in our own new place after an incredibly stupid and maddening experience with mold at our last house. Now, all of the cars are home, and I can come up with new excuses to not fix them.

[Avedis]

Finally got the interior setup:
Recaro carbon PP ABE
Karb CSL center console
Karb CSL door cards
OEM titan shadow trim

Still waiting for the oem CSL e-brake boot to get delivered. I adjusted the seat belts to use the pass through holes. lol

Looking really good. That’s a serious project to take on all at once. What’s the plan for the back seats?

Hopefully you were able to utilize my CSL tutorial

[Projecte46m3]

Looking really good. That’s a serious project to take on all at once. What’s the plan for the back seats?

Hopefully you were able to utilize my CSL tutorial

Thanks! It was definitely a lot but, I took my time. It was more so a waiting game for the oem CSL parts to be delivered and the wiring extension harness. Not to mention trips to multiple Home Depot stores to find the specialty bolts, washers, and screws in stock.

As far as the back seats, I think I’m going to customize the center sections in alcantara or maybe another fabric to match the front recaro seat cushions. Still deciding if I want a clean look or add some color pop to the interior. I’ve been eyeing all the fabric options on https://p1designs.com/shop/ for a while now.

[mr pete]

Took delivery today. Man I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Such a fun car!

[SQ13]

Took delivery today. Man I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Such a fun car!

Pics next to the GT3 pls! You’re living my dream lol.

[mr pete]

Pics next to the GT3 pls! You’re living my dream lol.

After the car comes back from ppf, I’ll grab a shot! Thanks!!

[mtpktz]

Pics next to the GT3 pls! You’re living my dream lol.

+1 - congrats on the purchase mr pete and welcome to the forum

[mr pete]

+1 - congrats on the purchase mr pete and welcome to the forum

Thank you!

[maupineda]

Not e46 related, but I am sure this can be useful for any BMW with Hella headlights.

while aiming my lights I cross threaded the gearbox for the side-side adjustment. To make adjustment from the engine bay BMW designed in a Bowden cable that is twisted by the adjustment gear to finally spin the adjustment screw.

Years of debris cause the gears to jam and those plastic gears cannot take much torque. To fix my car I got a free spare from a nice person in FB marketplace and started to look how to remove the adjuster gears. There is very little info on this online so I thought it worth sharing what I did.

On the Z4, the up-down adjustment is done by the adjuster gear that provides with a hex-Philips head, this directly spins the black gear which is press fitted to the adjuster screw.



The side-side adjustment has a gear box, a Bowden cable, and a similar gear and screw. the gears inside the box in my case broke as the mechanism was jammed.







To remove the adjustment mechanism, you need to first remove the adjuster levers from inside the headlamp (no photos), this is necessary to disconnect the adjustment screws from the headlamp projector/bulb carrier. then you need to punch out the screws, I used a T25 bit and a hammer for this. This allows to remove the adjuster black gear as shown below, the adjuster white gear just slides out.







Here are the bits taken out. you can see the screw has a rubber grommet, and a circular flat seat so it cannot pull out the headlight, the end on which the black gear presses in is knurled to bind onto the black gear. there is no glue, so just friction makes this joint, I will put very little glue when putting it back together if I ever need to use these bits. these are the up-down adjusters



The next items are for the side-side adjustment, the screw is shorter, has the Bowden cable, and the adjuster white gear is different. the black gear are the same on both adjusters.

[mtpktz]

Some fresh air with a friend.

[Hammerfang]

Need to grab some more photos when I have time, but got the car back from the detailer and it’s looking pretty nice.

[ramzM3]

Cleaning out the condenser / oil cooler from the front, and the radiator from the back with a hose (not a pressure washer) or compressed air only costs time.

I used AC coil foam on both for extra cleaning power, but with this route you absolutely must remove the front end to fully expose the condenser / oil cooler, so that you can thoroughly rinse every nook and cranny to make sure no residual product remains. Definitely helped with temps, as evident from the car taking much longer to warm up even at 90+ ambient we've been having.

Thanks dukeofchen! I'm seriously considering pulling off the front end to get good access to clean with the AC coil foam. The coils do look like they have a coating of old dirt (it has no aluminum shine to it at all). I just need the time and the weather to cooperate!

[bagger]

Pulled off the FCABs in anticipation of the new ones coming tomorrow. I'm chasing down a "drifts to the right" issue. Visually, they don't look too bad, but the right side one just slid right off. The driver side one I had to use a 3 jaw puller on. I'm hopeful that the since the right one slid right off it will be the reason for what I'm chasing down.

[siamkazi]

Felt a hard thumping in first gear up to 20mph, felt like a super bent rim but rims were fine...looks like it's center support bearing failure:

[JokerElite]

Felt a hard thumping in first gear up to 20mph, felt like a super bent rim but rims were fine...looks like it's center support bearing failure:

It's a bummer you can only get these genuine BMW. When I did my subframe reinforcement the OEM options were all out of stock or no longer available. They seemed to be quite a bit cheaper too.