2002 BMW E46 330i Touring - Not your average daily

gorgeous, I have two E46s myself so have a fondness for them! What the eagle sticker on the front wings?

That E46 looks superb 👍 I so regret buying a brand new Volvo V50 instead of a slightly used E46 back in 2007. Got my priorities straight after and have had a E91LCI 325d and now a Tanzanite blau F31LCI 340i. In truth the build quality of the E91 felt better than the F31. My ultimate car would be an Alpina B3 allrad touring in Alpina green. Looking forward to your updates!

Alright, so spent a good 5 hours or so prepping / cleaning and checking the car over for next week.
Insides got cleaned, car got jacked up and a full deep clean and polish including the wheels.

There's a few minor marks and scratches but she still shines up pretty well.












Also got my show plates through and drilled to fit nicely.

Any pictures or footage would be welcome,

www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxF2owsxhCzOOoKs6K2PhkB9YbjGDPTQsq

Finally found some footage and she sounds / goes well from the line.

Well then, it's been an eventful few weeks for me here.

Firstly back at the start of June, I prepped the car for a trip to the south of France to that 24 hour race many of us enjoy watching, and for some like my self had the oppitunity to work at in the past, and this year certainly didn't disappoint. The on track action being absolutely epic as well as getting my car on the PH stand at the Great British Welcome at the 2nd year i've visited as a spectator.

Spent a few days prepping the car for the trip, including an oil change, new brake pads and a fluid flush on the brake system as i had a trackday the day after i got back from Le Mans to attend. This plus my rear washer pump deciding to fail and a quick trip to Euro's to get a replacement





Day before the trip, car was all stickered up at a friend's place with another friend's chariot, a Jaguar XFR Le Mans edition if i recall? Aka 5.0 V8 and supercharged . which made my 261bhp 330i look sluggish. Still both cars were loaded and driven out and back again with only one issue being the jag's washer pump decided to forgo living anymore.



Once back from Le Mans, off i went to Donnington for a trackday there as I'd been invited for a well known Youtuber's birthday bash at the trackday which proved pretty fun.



Morning went well, got some good time in the car and was getting faster as the day wore on till right before lunch when i took someone out for a passenger ride when.. this happened. I caused a red flag for the first time ever in my time doing track days and had to suffer the tow back to the pits as I couldn't select any gears.







This meant no more running for me that day and the slight issue of getting home from Donnington, easily a 70mile drive and no means to select gears.
however, a suggestion of "This your tool box? got a big screwdriver handy?" resulted in some drilling of the remains (hence the hole) and this was the result :rofl:



Amazingly it worked reasonably well, and i got home without any further drama, though also made me think of it as a perfect anti theft device.. how can you drive a manual car if there's no gearstick?

Still i needed to replace it and thankfully I'd kept ahold of my old shifter setup, which after a little tweeking and 2 hours rolling around under the car to wrestle it in means i've got at least something that's looking back to stock for now. I'm already talking to the vendors about a possible discount on a replacement as when I asked about it, turns out they'd had a design change post when i brought my kit likely due to failures of this nature.





Least that's gonna work for now till i can look at a replacement, as I'm having to currently start over with my house hunting as I had to recind on an offer due to issuses and a vendor that refused to budge on price.

So the last week or so has been a bit of fun in trying to refresh the brake calipers. What started out as hopefully a routine refresh ended up being a complete replacement.

When stripping the caliper off the car, unfortunately one bleed nipple decided to sheer off despite my efforts.
After this, it ended up being a removeal job which proved quite difficult with the caliper seized on the mounting which got complicated when getting the brake line removed. I ended up stripping that too as well as the banjo :censored:



So i was left with the delema of how to resolve this. Some investigation into options involoveed the following, either getting a pair of 2nd hand replacements and waiting 2 weeks to get them referbished by Big Red, or given it was just the front right caliper being faulty purchasing a new one from a Porsche parts specialist which had a lead time of 3-5 days. It was either £850 or £1010 and no chance of return if i got it wrong.
Some double checking of the part numbers before I made the choice.

Given I needed the car back pronto.. and £200 difference I opted for the latter and got a new replacement, which turned up last Tuesday. Thankfully the research paid off and I was able to get the correct replacement.







I do plan to get another replacement for the left side and pull the old one off when i can afford to and rebuild that one. However this will have to wait till I've got the final pieces of paperwork for the house move as this is due to happen in the next few weeks, and I've got 2 weeks off work to move myself up to my new place. Once I've had some time to settle in, this should mean i can start a project i've had in the wings for a while and plan to do a youtube diary on it.

Update time.. kinda?

Been gathering some parts for some work in April , specifically wheel bearings all need doing and a general service and MOT.
So sorting that next month as I'll be getting it to Carpetsoiler for him to work his magic.

As for lately, the car's been to Caffine and Machine a few times at the Bowl near Ampthill as it's not that far away for me. Been to the German night which is growing in popularity, and this tuesday just gone was a good one. Even had Taylor Hetherington of Taylor made cars and AutoAlex fame, drop by with his Z3 Supercharged 1.8.

Had a good chaff about cars, good food, and found out Taylor was a fan of my Touring. There was a brand new M3 Touring in a deep green (maybe a colour choice for the manta.. hmm) there as well and the owner admited my E46 sounded better than his car :hehe:

Ok update time finally, MOT all done but man.. it was a rough one this year.

The car went up for a major service which included new wheel bearings all round, which started badly as I'd inadvently got the wrong bearings.. not a good start, but a deal was struck with Sam and he got ahold of SKF replacements in the correct size.



Arms were removed, old ones pressed out and new bearings pressed in, before they were put back on with a rebuild of the handbrake mech on both sides and sliders greased.





The camber arms were seized but did come loose with not much persuasion and re-greased ready for alignment with the front tie rods.

Before that though.. we found rust.. seems E46's have a habit of the floor bungs in the rear foot wheels holding water and results in the floor pan rusting out... So Sam had to get his fabrication guy in for some work. I've since painted and undersealed the areas up, so hopefully no issues for a few years. We also discovered someone's tried lifting the car on the floor pan putting some dents in it! I know it's not me or Sam, though that's annoying.













The car's since been string boxed and aligned. though one of the damper adjusters was found to be missing, and the other's stuck.
Given the KW's have been on the car since 2017, the adjuster knobs have just begun to disolve, but the dampers are fine.

A few calls to KW and parts were dispatched. So far 1's been replaced, the other side needs replacing but my wallet was decidedly well beaten up by the work so far.





I've also had to do a few jobs once the car came back including the painting of the welded parts and underselaing them. The front drop links were looking decidedly second hand , and the missing adjuster was replaced. Also picked up some new bungs for the missing one in the floor under the seat.







Only need to wait on the paint to cure then putting the interior back together once it cures. Also need to get new front brake sheilds and get those changed out those are looking very 2nd hand, get a new adjuster for the front left damper and change that out and then it should be good for my holiday out to Germany end of May.

I'd admit this car's been testing me lately and I had considered maybe getting it sorted out and then putting it up for sale, but it gives me a smile everytime I fire it up and I don't know what I'd replace it with or if it'd sell given it's quite a unique build and wouldn't appeal to most people.