2mAns Daily Driver Thread - who knows what it is today...

[2mAn]

After collecting a lot of dust recently, the car suddenly was thrust into action. I had an ambitious plan to get the BMW dropped off to Bullet Performance and also have him them do a PPI on my MR2, so when the MR2 wasn’t starting with its new ECU and I was given the opportunity to grab my old ECU back I jumped in the Wagon to go get it. I promised my wife I’d be back within an hour so I was hustling to get there. 60 miles round trip and on the way the fuel light turned on. Cluster said I had about 65 miles until empty so I thought I’d be fine. The trip took longer so I was really moving to get back and with 2 exits to go the MPG reading went flat. I got worried and took the next exit and when I made the right turn off the freeway off ramp, she gave up, with the Shell within walking distance... sigh... luckily AAA only took 15 minutes to get there once the dispatcher sent the call for help. Still went to Shell to fill er up.




With that adventure out of the way, I took both cars down this morning. It was fun seeing my MR2 driven, my buddy was enjoying himself and snapped this pic while we cruising.








However we did get bored and did some 5th gear pulls and needless to say the M54 pulled a lot harder than the little 2ZZ. My buddy wanted to rematch with the MR2 in 4th, while I stayed in 5th and that did it. Still a fun 2car combo to have. Hopefully Bullet Performance won’t take too long and doesn’t find much more “while we’re in there’s” haha


Currently the plan is to replace the detents, the clutch and maybe the shifter pieces, but we’ll wait and see...

[2mAn]

Well, lots of work done and money spent and no pics to show of it except a young kid washing the car...









Tranny was pulled and the following was done:

-Detents (~2 were completely stuck)

-Shifter Cup, joint, shift carrier was replaced

-New OEM clutch, old on wasnt bad, but the tranny was out soo.... $$$




Overall it feels much tighter. Next is installing some new parts I bought once the new windshield goes in

[roguetoaster]

Is that some sort of CA thing, washing a car on a collection area?

[2mAn]

Is that some sort of CA thing, washing a car on a collection area?

No idea, the Shop in question washes their clients cars there...

[2mAn]

It only took me a month to install this!.. Glad I did.



















One of these days I need to get this car detailed inside and out... one of these days. The windshield still needs to get done and Im lagging on that for no other reason than May has sucked for so many reasons. Its nearly over though

[2mAn]

Friday Morning I was off work and needed to take a drive. Since the MR2 is gone now and the BMW is the only car for a few more days, I decided to take the wagon out and see how she does on Angeles Crest Highway. It was pretty good until the heavy hitters showed up...

[DEV0 E30]

Like.

[Mike36]

Nice! For some reason I thought you got rid of the e46.

[2mAn]

Nice! For some reason I thought you got rid of the e46.

If you would've came to the gtg the other night you would've seen it... and also got your stuff back lol

[Mike36]

If you would've came to the gtg the other night you would've seen it... and also got your stuff back lol

So true

[2mAn]

I think I’m finally going to tackle some maintenance. Been trying to gameplan and it looks like I’m going to buy the Sports Sachs Struts (say that 3x fast), new brake pads and I should finally have a good driving and stopping wagon. Be nice to experience what this is really all about... Hopefully that’s not another 2 months, but it just might be... we’ll see.


Seat Update: I needed to go pick up a T50 torx to take a seatbelt off. Nothing else worked.Took the lower belt buckle part off. It’s now a 4 seater, or perhaps 3.5 since my baby isn’t even 1 yet haha








Also broke a lot of plastic bits lol...

[2mAn]

this is a good time to ask.


Ive been wanting to add some more “sport” to my Sport Wagon so I slowly started looking around for Sport Seats. My driver seat really wasn’t good so this was another motivation. Of course, this was easier said than done. The search wasn’t really pulling up anything, but I did find a pair, close by and for a great price. Problem? Driver seat sucked. Ultimately, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the crap seat, and it ended up in the trash.


One down, one to go.


Well... this proved harder than I hoped and ultimately it looked like I was going to have to buy another passenger seat and swap it over. Turns out I could’ve used that driver seat that I tossed, but luckily this guy had a crappy sport driver seat he would throw in.


Wagon doing wagon things...




The project begins




and halfway there.




I used this DIY I found on E46Fanatics. It wasn’t bad, definitely helped me

Tonight I finished tearing the pass seat and started assembling the new driver seat so that pretty much brings you up to date and why I decided to post this update. You see the other pass seat may or may not have heated elements, but this driver seat will... and I’d love to make it functional. I was going to swap over all the electrics but noticed that they aren’t identical. The memory function of the power driver seat has additional wiring that isn’t present on the passenger seat. Luckily, a little investigation revealed the following.


The yellow connector under seat were different and chasing the wiring revealed which plugs I needed to swap over. See for yourself.








Easily swapped over once you take the cover off.














So, now that I have the heated seat wiring all the way to the plug, does anyone know what needs to be done now to activate it? I have to believe BMW pre-wired the car for this option so I’m guessing I need the switch and maybe a harness to plug into ...?... this is where I’m “stuck” though I’m going to continue on and hopefully have a final pic to share next week with the pair of Sport Seats... and Sport steering wheel . And then I’ll fully have a Sport Wagon.

There’s more stuff in the works right now as I will need to start actually driving this car... a year later. October 17 2020 is when I went and picked up the car and I think I’ve done maybe 2500 miles in that time

[2mAn]

Well, didnt take long to do this but the actual time available to do it was scarce... hopefully I’ll have this bad boy in the car later today. Excited to get all that junk out of the garage. Anyone need anything before it gets trashed? Leather is basically trash, but anything else is available.









I have another ‘Sport’ addition to go in soon and the plan is to get the new ‘Sport’ Sachs installed next weekend. Should officially have the full Sport Wagon very soon... just in time to daily this thing for a month.


Edit: ...annnnd Installed!

[Northern]

pretty solid upgrade. Looks great

[2mAn]

Well, Ive been planning to do this a while ago but now that it’s a daily driver it moved way up the list...


Luckily my buddy Byron was willing to help me and he handled it so quickly.


He works quick so I had to rush the pics while he was out of the shot, and now I realize I didn’t even get a pic of the Bilsteins before he installed them...oh well.


Work done was Bilstein B4 Struts, Lemforder Strut Mounts, and Ate Brake pads all the way around as well as the sensors too.















Front went up about an inch lol


I also snagged a pic of my spotless tranny, Byron was the same guy who did all that work too