TomSc
03-18-2019, 07:29 AM
Alright here we go. Just posted my intro thread in the new member section, but wanted to get this going as well.
The Short:
I'm about a week into owning a lovely Orientblau ZHP. It has ~130k on the odometer, but overall is in great shape. Got a few maintenance items take care of before I took ownership, but now the fun work begins.
Things I know:
So the car is not stock, there are few changes from previous owner(s) that I know up front, probably a few that I'll learn about on the way. I know that it has a swapped rear diff with a shorter final drive (love it). The headlights may or may not be aftermarket (more on that later), I know they have been swapped at some point. It has a Euro LCM with working rear fogs, but the headlight level dial doesn't do anything. Also, the auto level sensor seems to be disconnected. It could stand tires an an alignment, but that's minor.
So that brings us to...
Phase I - restoring former glory
For starters I'll just be dealing with the little things that will get this car back to acting like new. This will take a while as I'm sure I'll figure out what it needs as I go along.
The first issue to come up, was lighting:
Shortly after getting the car, the driver side headlight goes out and I get a headlight indicator on my dash. The light would come back after cycling the switch, but it was short lived, especially if I hit a bump. When starting the car, the driver side clearly struggled to come on, but usually would before going back out. So this became priority number one last weekend. The car has BiXenons and as mentioned has a Euro LCM that doesn't seem to fully work. While investigating the LCM I learned about the auto-level sensor, looked at my suspension and saw that it is disconnected. During the week I also noticed that the headlights only had 2 of the 4 screws holding them in, so I'm clearly not the first to tamper with this.
First order of business was find a junkyard with an e46 on hand and get screws, which was easy enough. Next was the task of getting the lights off and try swapping parts. With a little help we made that happen, and after taking the driver side light off saw a few things. The backing behind the xenon was loose, and when that came off the ignitor came too with no effort. Looking in the ignitor (pics to follow) I saw that it was black and burned, not at all like the pretty ignitor on the passenger side. We had found a likely culprit. I still thought it was worth swapping bulbs, but as we looked more at the light we saw that the plastic border inside the light was broken and after going back and forth thinking I just need a new headlight, decided to assemble it as is and put it back on. Sure enough, just seating the ignitor on firmly has the light working perfectly. New headlights are still on the menu, but now I have time to shop around.
Some other questions that came up: the lights will go up and down to calibrate when the car is on (but the engine off), however the Euro LCM aiming dial still does nothing. Is this a coding issue? I would have assumed that if the rear fogs work then it had been coded... but why not code the whole thing?
Second, my lights are aimed pretty low. Going to try tonight to raise them, but given the state of the plastic insert I'm not sure if that will go well on the driver side.
Third, when shopping for replacements, all of them had vertical plug attachments in the back of the light. Mine are all horizontal (parallel to the light). Can I use the headlights with vertical connectors, or will that not fit in my car? Is it a problem if the driver and passenger side are different? I meant to grab a part number, but I'll have to get that this evening to hopefully clarify what I'm asking.
Finally, before I did this the passenger light was set back pretty far from the front of the hood. I managed to get it much more flush when screwing it back into place.
All in all, not a bad weekend. I have two working headlights and the front end is more flush than before. We called it a victory and had a beer. Definitely raised more questions though. This is going to be fun.
Thanks for any input you have, and glad to be part of this little corner of the world.
The Short:
I'm about a week into owning a lovely Orientblau ZHP. It has ~130k on the odometer, but overall is in great shape. Got a few maintenance items take care of before I took ownership, but now the fun work begins.
Things I know:
So the car is not stock, there are few changes from previous owner(s) that I know up front, probably a few that I'll learn about on the way. I know that it has a swapped rear diff with a shorter final drive (love it). The headlights may or may not be aftermarket (more on that later), I know they have been swapped at some point. It has a Euro LCM with working rear fogs, but the headlight level dial doesn't do anything. Also, the auto level sensor seems to be disconnected. It could stand tires an an alignment, but that's minor.
So that brings us to...
Phase I - restoring former glory
For starters I'll just be dealing with the little things that will get this car back to acting like new. This will take a while as I'm sure I'll figure out what it needs as I go along.
The first issue to come up, was lighting:
Shortly after getting the car, the driver side headlight goes out and I get a headlight indicator on my dash. The light would come back after cycling the switch, but it was short lived, especially if I hit a bump. When starting the car, the driver side clearly struggled to come on, but usually would before going back out. So this became priority number one last weekend. The car has BiXenons and as mentioned has a Euro LCM that doesn't seem to fully work. While investigating the LCM I learned about the auto-level sensor, looked at my suspension and saw that it is disconnected. During the week I also noticed that the headlights only had 2 of the 4 screws holding them in, so I'm clearly not the first to tamper with this.
First order of business was find a junkyard with an e46 on hand and get screws, which was easy enough. Next was the task of getting the lights off and try swapping parts. With a little help we made that happen, and after taking the driver side light off saw a few things. The backing behind the xenon was loose, and when that came off the ignitor came too with no effort. Looking in the ignitor (pics to follow) I saw that it was black and burned, not at all like the pretty ignitor on the passenger side. We had found a likely culprit. I still thought it was worth swapping bulbs, but as we looked more at the light we saw that the plastic border inside the light was broken and after going back and forth thinking I just need a new headlight, decided to assemble it as is and put it back on. Sure enough, just seating the ignitor on firmly has the light working perfectly. New headlights are still on the menu, but now I have time to shop around.
Some other questions that came up: the lights will go up and down to calibrate when the car is on (but the engine off), however the Euro LCM aiming dial still does nothing. Is this a coding issue? I would have assumed that if the rear fogs work then it had been coded... but why not code the whole thing?
Second, my lights are aimed pretty low. Going to try tonight to raise them, but given the state of the plastic insert I'm not sure if that will go well on the driver side.
Third, when shopping for replacements, all of them had vertical plug attachments in the back of the light. Mine are all horizontal (parallel to the light). Can I use the headlights with vertical connectors, or will that not fit in my car? Is it a problem if the driver and passenger side are different? I meant to grab a part number, but I'll have to get that this evening to hopefully clarify what I'm asking.
Finally, before I did this the passenger light was set back pretty far from the front of the hood. I managed to get it much more flush when screwing it back into place.
All in all, not a bad weekend. I have two working headlights and the front end is more flush than before. We called it a victory and had a beer. Definitely raised more questions though. This is going to be fun.
Thanks for any input you have, and glad to be part of this little corner of the world.