New owner, BMW 325iX Touring

[D.Martijn]

Your touring is looking great! Are you using a new camera?

Just to echo with jeenyus said, excellent job tracking down the wiper components and finding a suitable replacement. It's nice when you can actually get in touch with a knowledgable person at a company.

Thanks man, Not sure how to explain it, but washing the E30 made me more excited again? (Than having to look at a "dusty old car") Hopefully this covid thing goes away soon so we start driving around again in our classic cars..
Still using my Google Pixel 3 :)

[mike.bmw]

Your touring is looking great! Are you using a new camera?

Just to echo with jeenyus said, excellent job tracking down the wiper components and finding a suitable replacement. It's nice when you can actually get in touch with a knowledgable person at a company.

[D.Martijn]

In the meantime, I gave the E30 a well deserved bath after sitting under a layer of workshop dust for far too long


It's amazing what a difference it made :p

[D.Martijn]

Awesome man. This is great detective work.

Thanks man, Although I'm still not 100% sure it's the right part.. lol
Very hard to find modern equivalent electronic parts for this old stuff

[jeenyus]

Awesome man. This is great detective work.

[D.Martijn]

So a little update as it's been pretty quiet on the Touring since the start of the covid virus.
I was home for one week from work in which I decided to disassemble the wiper motors to clean the old grease out and inspect the shafts for rust as on of the motors just turned very slowly.

When I opened up the motors, I noticed that there was some kind of round disc, to protect the electric motor) was broken in half. That can't be good..
The other motor had a small square component instead of the disc. After some more reading/searching on forums, also going over the Saab and Merc forums which also use these very same Bosch motors.
It looked like some motors had the square and others had the disc type. However I couldn't find any replacement parts for this component.


So I tried figuring it out myself. I got lucky and found a electronic website and was able to figure out which company made this component, Murata Electronics.


After contacting them, the person who answered told me that this no longer made this type of component but it should be a PTC overheat protector However he was able to tell me the resistance at 25°C should be 0.2R and the curie temp of 93°C
I was able to find a component with the same resistance at 16V (a little higher than the 12V but I think it should work)
https://www.murata.com/en-eu/product...12AR0R2M1B51B0

So after ordering it from Mouser, it arrived this week. I made a small spacer to keep the copper conductors apart and squished the PTCs wires between the copper and the case as I didn't want to solder them in yet.
After testing the motors with a powersupply they turn again, previously one of them would just slowy die after connecting power.


So I'll now reinstall them in the Touring and test the whole system again. Hopefully I can install them for good..

[D.Martijn]

Last few parts for the headlight cleaning system that needed some paint.


Only thing left was routing the wiring loom and tubes for the washer fluid nd fitting the pumps.
And of course also the wiper stalk
I'm not using the intensive cleaner pump (and container as is NLA and pretty much unobtainable)


It's pretty tight with the ABS pump and headlight aim control but I got it all fitted






So since I don't have the intensive cleaner container where the relais would mount onto, I decided to make a little bracket.
I wanted to use the stud and nut from the front strut bearing, after some CAD drawing and some 3D printing, I came up with this little bracket




The washer is there so the nut doesn't break the plastic when tightening it down.








However, It's not fully working yet.
I can sometimes get the whole system working but other times only one motor turns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYi8ZcosukA&t=1s

Accoring to the manual from BMW for retrofitting this system., when pushing the stalk in or pulling on it, both times the pumps and wipers + headlight wiper should work.
However, I can only get them to work when pulling. I'm not sure where the problem could be.

I did find a couple US forums suggesting to add 2 wires to the wiper relay. But the BMW manual doesn't list this. Could it be this is only mandatory for US cars and Euro car came equipped with this "mod"?

[D.Martijn]

if only you were closer man! I'd come and help take some of those parts off your hands. Great work on the wheels!

Haha yeah, there aren't many people that I know of that have an iX over here.
And thanks!

[jeenyus]

if only you were closer man! I'd come and help take some of those parts off your hands. Great work on the wheels!

[D.Martijn]

Previous weekend I went through my iX spare parts and looked what I could sell together with the extra parts I bought with the front subframe for the quick ratio conversion.
(Anyone in need of an oilpan, rear swabar, H&R iX lowering springs and a front TC-diff axle?)
While I was busy, I also sorted some of the parts I'm still holding on to, nice little collection so far :)


This weekend I also finally put my uncles iX basketweaves in paint. He managed to bend a rim, we decided to refinish the wheel while we were at it.
I had him let a company chemicaly strip the wheels as they were powdercoated and it was too big of a hassle to sandblast them myself
Pretty pleased with the results, I went with a high gloos RAL9006 paint.

On this picture they look a bit more grey than the OEM color, although I think it has to do with the lighting




Also centercap rings and 'nuts' got painted

[D.Martijn]

This is just awesome topic, cool stories, pics, info...Thanks for sharing with us and keep it working

Thank you!

[litu]

This is just awesome topic, cool stories, pics, info...Thanks for sharing with us and keep it working

[D.Martijn]

Noice! Excited to see how it turns out

Thanks man! It'll take some time to get it right though.


Today I went to the technical inspection to get it inspected as a classic car before registering it as a classic car.
The inspection was a walk in the park, no remarks what so ever. At one point, there were 4-5 guys surrounding my Touring, checking it out and complimenting me
Also the Alpina gauge is working beautifly

[jeenyus]

Noice! Excited to see how it turns out

[D.Martijn]

Very interesting. What's the donor rack out of? How much faster is it?

Is this the x3 rack steering conversion I've seen? https://bavallrad.com/2020/01/28/fin...st-e30-of-all/ This one?

Jeenyus is right, it's an X3 steering rack. This should get it down to 2.8 turns lock to lock.

Let me be clear, full credits go to Kent from Bavallrad for figuring this all out.
I've contacted him as I was interested in buying a kit from him but since I'm in the EU shipping would have been very expensive.
That's why I'm trying to copy his work as I have acces to a full machine shop at work + there's a hydraulic shop next to us for the lines etc.