BMW

Grote E30.be meeting

Posted by Martyn on September 21, 2015
Posted in: BMW, Meetings. Leave a Comment

Another invite from the E30 guys. This time to the Grote E30.be meeting at Sint Niklaas in Belgium. A nice little drive for me, just over an hour across the border to our southern neighbours. Just went for the crack to be honest and on driving onto the town square I was directed to one side where all the non E30’s were standing. Opening the hood generated the usual interest and then I was asked if I’d take part in the concours. I got a form thrust into my hand with the request to put the top half, filled in with the car’s details, on the windscreen and the bottom half should be filled in with my choice in each category. I managed to get away to look around the other cars and dutifully filled in the form and handed it in. Went back to the car and continued talking with interested folks and never thought any more about it until somebody came over to tell me that I’d won a prize, “Best Non E30”. The presentation took place in front of the town hall and I was really pleased to accept one of the nicest trophies I’d seen for years. Much better than the usual silver plastic cups it’s a little piece of auto art, various engine parts tack welded together on a solid wooden base. Best part is that the choice was made by your peers and not the usual team of judges who generally choose the car with the most money thrown at it – and usually not even done by the owner himself.

ESM 2015

Posted by Martyn on August 30, 2015
Posted in: BMW, Meetings. Leave a Comment

Some of the E30 guys I know invited me to the E30 Summer Meet at Gemert, The Netherlands on 22-23 August 2015. I think there’s a bit of a click because they’re mostly modders like me. I don’t hold quite the same views as the typical restorers who tend to be traditional E24 owners. But anyway I decided to go and packed the tent and a bottle of Raki brought back from Greece with a few shot glasses and hit the road for the east of the country. Didn’t actually take a lot of photo’s but shot a little bit of video too which was edited into this:

Winter Work Pt 2. Alarm and WAR Chip installation

Posted by Martyn on May 24, 2015
Posted in: BMW, Cars. Leave a Comment

Probably a bit late as it’s almost summer but I just didn’t find the time to write up the rest of the winter work. At the moment I’m waiting to get the car back from the spray shop (De Staart Autoschade, Dordrecht) where the nose is having a small scratch and stone chips put right. They’ve had the car since Monday morning but still haven’t phoned to say it’s finished – it’s Thursday evening. Disappointing but at least I’ve now time to update the site.

The second part of the winter work was more electricals, new alarm and replacing the Miller GENIII with their WAR programmable chip. I couldn’t decide what to tackle next but seeing as how the loom needed opening up to remove the old alarm stuff and put in the new, plus I had to connect the gauges with the senders, I started on the alarm first. I bought a Toad A101CL alarm on eBay last year from Southern Car Security and got it delivered to friends in England. I picked it up when we went over to visit. I chose the Toad as it was reasonably priced and seemed popular on various forums. Strangely enough I couldn’t find much in the way of reviews for stuff like this here in the Netherlands although I did find a couple of sites offering diy alarms reasonably priced. Miguel the owner of Southern Security was really helpful with the installation although he is really busy and a reply to the mail is sometimes the same day but sometimes a day or two later. I’ve not taken any pictures of the alarm installation as it would give the game away a bit if you see what I mean. Everything is neatly taped up in the loom or routed tidily under and in the dash. The installation itself went reasonably but finding the correct connections even with the BMW ETM (Electrical Troubleshooting Manual). If you don’t know of this Google it – you’ll need one for your exact model and year anyway. When I finished connecting it all up I got the necessary chirps from it but it kept giving me 3 when arming thereby informing me that either the doors, bonnet or boot were still open. I disconnected the bonnet and boot and found that the doors were working correctly but it took me a couple of evenings testing and tracing to work out what was wrong. Both bonnet and boot switches work, as with the doors, by grounding the switch connection, so that’s how I’d wired it up. However when closed (switch open) I was still getting a signal to ground. Eventually I found that the positive feed to the lamp itself was showing me a connection to ground except when the lights were on when it gave me 12v. I think BMW must use some sort of relay system which I haven’t bothered to delve into but I solved it by putting a 5A diode in both feeds. Problem 1 was now solved. Secondly the central door locking was not working and I eventually found the answer on a blogsite from another BMW owner. As I understood the ETM it was using positive switching but again due to the complexity of the BMW wiring system this was again wrong and after connecting the two alarm wires to earth, instead of the 12v feed, problem 2 was solved. Lastly I needed to adjust the ultrasonic sensor and so needed to get into the service mode, that took me a while to get right. Once in service mode you need to be pretty quick switching the ignition on and off to get it to work but eventually I got it to chirp and then proceeded to check everything including the ultrasonic sensor. That is now adjusted so that if the window is open it doesn’t go off until you stick your arm right in.

OK so the last part of the work was actually the easiest, installing the new WAR chip. Now the WAR chip is not actually a simple eprom like the oem chip or the GENIII, its a small printed circuit board with a set of pins through it to fit in the IC socket. It has a couple of larger chips and other components on it for the engine management, ram storage and the usb connection I presume.

So the first job was to open up the DME casing and fold the hinged boards open to reveal the old GENIII chip top left, the silver one.

Once removed you can see the 28 pin eprom socket I installed when I did the original MAF conversion

The WAR chip plugs in just like the old one. Here you can see the two supplied cables attached, the USB from the horizontal socket on the right and the cable for the tune selector switch from the vertical socket. Top left is a grommet round the cables to stop the casing chafing the cables.

Here a shot of the casing with slot cut in it with the Dremel. Grommet takes on an oval shape in the slot to accommodate both cables snugly.

Once reassembled it looks like this ready to be refitted in the car.

The last job was installing Windows XP on an old laptop to use for the interface to the chip. The present WAR software won’t run on Windows 7 or later.

Winter Work Part 1: New Instrument Panel

Posted by Martyn on February 8, 2015
Posted in: BMW, Cars. Leave a Comment

Well winters here again, well it’s been here for a while actually. Under Dutch Oldtimer reduced tax laws I’m not allowed to drive the Beamer on the roads in December, January and February. Not a big problem as I haven’t used it in the winter for donkey’s years. It also gives me some time to get some jobs done. Last year I did the rear axle and the brake upgrade, this year I have some lighter work – a new alarm installation, an updated Miller chip and set of gauges to check on things modern cars don’t do any more.

Before Christmas I was busy doing some online shopping to get hold of the gauges and the Miller WAR programmable chip. The Toad Alarm system I bought last year when we were in England. The set of gauges included an oil pressure gauge, oil temperature gauge and a volt meter but after the WAR chip arrived I decided to get an AEM Wide Band UEGO O2 sensor and gauge to help me with the chip programming (it measures the fuel/air ratio), So after everything arrived I first set about stripping out the old alarm and the wiring behind the centre console for the radio which was also in a bit of a state from previous owners. I had been thinking for a while about a design to fit the gauges in the lower part of the centre console where the original cassette holders were situated. I also decided to replace the ashtray and lighter which are situated in the horizontal section in front of the cassette holder. After removing these sections I made templates from some cardboard packaging.

From the two templates I created a single section from MDF to fit in the space.

After a certain amount of adjustment and trial and error I got it to fit reasonably but not quite as I wanted it. The two holes were just to put my finger and thumb through to pull it into place. Not being completely happy I decided to remove the centre console completely, making access from the rear much easier than the turn and twist from the front.

The next step was the the fitting of the gauges. It would have been simple to just cut some holes in the panel and job done but I had earlier realised that the visibility wouldn’t have been brilliant as they sit so low. They needed to be turned slightly upward and to the left and I first thought about making square box like sections to attach to the front. After playing around with a cardboard mockup I decided that it looked bit naff and decided to try and do something like the windscreen post pods which are available. What I needed was an MDF tube but nothing like that is available so I had to make my own. Step 1 glue some pieces of MDF together and let it dry overnight (sorry, too busy, forgot the photo’s again). Step 2 find the centres at the two ends and mount it in the lathe. Step 3 turn it into a solid cylinder. Step 4 divide it into four sections and using a fine blade as it turns in the lathe cut partly through each of the three cuts, finish the cuts off the lathe. Step 5 hollow out each section to the diameter necessary to allow the rear attachment, and here’s a photo (the duct tape is just to protect the surface a bit from the chuck jaws).

The mole wrench attached to the bed is just a quick fix to create a stop for the carriage so that I left the correct lip thickness to mount the gauge in place. The next photo shows a couple of the pods after completing this step. You can see the material left on what would be the front.

Step 6 is to put the pods back in the lathe and finish off the front so that the gauge fits. Round off the edge with some sandpaper to create the correct shape and the lathe work was finished.

Step 7: Create the correct angle to the back of the pod plus the shape to fit them together on the belt sander (again no photo’s, too much mess). Step 8: place the pods together on the front of the replacement lower panel and draw round them with a fine tip marker. Step 9: I machined around the inside of the marked lines on the milling machine to about half the thickness of the panel. All done slowly by hand as it’s not a CNC. This was done to create a better bond between the pod and the panel. After glueing and holding in place with some duct tape to dry overnight it looked like this.

Just a question of finishing now. After cleaning the glue off it started to look like it might be something and I made a start at getting it into shape with some polyester filler.

The back needed some extras to help mount the cigarette lighter (on the left) which I decided to keep rather than build in just a USB adapter. Also the control for the sub woofer and the rotary switch for the WAR chip tune selection. I needed to sink the knobs because the shafts wouldn’t fit on the 5mm thickness of the panel. Best solution seemed to be the aluminium strip which doubled as extra support for the sub control.

After priming plus liberal coats of spray filler and much sanding we were getting there.

A last trial fitting before some colour was applied and it was beginning to look like what I’d seen in my mind’s eye.

The initial result after spraying with matt black just didn’t look right, for one thing the paint wasn’t matt it had a slight shine which just didn’t look right with the rest of the dashboard. I ended up creating a textured finish by blowing some of the sawdust I’d created onto the wet paint and as it dried brushing off the excess.

After a bit of judicial work with some Scotchbrite it eventually seemed to be part of the interior. This is what it will look like when it gets replaced in the car although the console will need a bit of a polish of course.

After all that the workshop needed a lot of clearing up so I spent one evening with the vacuum cleaner, broom and dustpan and brush so I could begin with the electrics. Below you can see that I’ve been busy making a mini wiring loom which will attach to the rest of the electrics under the dash with the multi-plug. A few more wires to attach but it’s as good as finished and I can move on to the next job. Haven’t made up my mind if that’s going to be the alarm or the WAR chip upgrade.

Post Script: Wasn’t very satisfied with the Equus gauges I initially bought – cheap doesn’t cut it. So I bought a set of VDO and sold the Equus set.

Classic Park Festival 2014

Posted by Martyn on June 12, 2014
Posted in: BMW, Meetings. Leave a Comment

Sunday the 6th of July saw us at Classic Park Festivals BMW Tradition meeting in Boxtel. Arriving fairly early I was parked near the front of the parking area and as it was again good weather I, of course, opened the hood. I was immediately approached by one of the organisers to ask if I would like to participate in the Concours d’Elegance they were holding. I told him that I didn’t usually take part because a true Concours is only really interested in total originality and even good restorations can lose points compared to an original car with a little ‘patina’. He told me they weren’t planning to go to those extremes and managed to talk me into it. There were some quite nice cars there and the following slide show should show what I mean.

After spending some time talking about the car with some old and some new faces I managed to get away and look round the museum which they also have there. Most cars are actually for sale so I don’t think it truly qualifies as a museum, but still a great place to look round.

Later in the afternoon they called everybody together for the Concours prize giving. Nobody was more surprised than me to be called forward as the 3rd prize winner. The chief judge commented before mentioning my name that although not strictly a typical Concours vehicle they were impressed from the minute I arrived with the attention to detail of the work done on the car and my meticulous polishing to get it looking in tip-top condition. The prize? A box of chocolate cars :-). The winner? The red Z1. Unfortunately no Photo’s of the presentation.

Bimmerfest, Venlo 2014

Posted by Martyn on June 1, 2014
Posted in: BMW, Meetings. Leave a Comment

Bimmerfest 2014 was held, as the previous year, at the Trafficport in Venlo. Weather was good but to be honest the announced “6 Gathering” at the centre of the paddock was a disappointment. There were very few e24’s, certainly a lot less than last year. The space reserved was slowly eaten away by the arrival of loads of newer models and the general atmosphere was nothing like the Sharknose Meeting from the previous week. Nothing really wrong with it, just a different sort of visitor. As such the photo’s are a bit limited. I did see a couple of nice e31 coupe’s, the proposed successor to the e24, and an e24 custom pick-up. I still don’t know what to make of that. Don’t know whether I’ll be going next year.

Sharknose Meeting, Arnhem 2014

Posted by Martyn on May 24, 2014
Posted in: BMW, Meetings. Leave a Comment

Photo’s taken during a visit to the Sharknose Meeting in Arnhem on 24th May 2014. The meeting was much better than the previous year with a large contingent of excellent e24’s (Old 6 Series), many of the owners had travelled from Germany. My car was parked in front of the Schmiedmann BMW stand to help promote the parts available for the model, it looks almost black under the indoor lighting.

 

The slideshow below gives a fair impression of the quality of the cars attending. There were a number of e30 models which are not strictly speaking shark nose but still nice to see some of the custom work done. The e28 painted like a riveted airplane was also amusing.

Greek Road Trip 2013 Day 4

Posted by Martyn on August 14, 2013
Posted in: BMW, Travel. Leave a Comment

Day 4, Tuesday 13th August

Karpathos from the ferry

After leaving the previous evening at 1800 we called at Santorini at around 0200, Anafi around 0400, Kasos around 0930 and I drove off the boat in Karpathos at about 1130. Elly, Denise and grandson Nick were waiting on the dock but being one of the first on the boat, I was one of the last off so they had a long wait. The whole harbour area was full of vehicles waiting to get on the ferry and progress along the promenade was slow. I pulled up at a restaurant belonging to some friends of ours to ask if one of the guys was around but he wasn’t, so I drove on up to the hotel where the rest of the party were waiting and we unloaded the car. Time for a beer at the pool I think.  :-).

Greek Road Trip 2013 Days 2 & 3

Posted by Martyn on August 13, 2013
Posted in: BMW, Travel. Leave a Comment

Day 2, Sunday 11th August

The second day of the trip started calmly enough with a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. The trip from Verona to Ancona was about 360km so I thought I had time enough to spare before the ferry left at 1330, it was Sunday after all. Was I in for a surprise! Horrendous traffic around Modena and Bologna meant that I was standing still or crawling for what seemed like hours. The ETA on TomTom was getting later and later. I had not bothered to take any photo’s or shoot any video over this stretch as it is not a particularly scenic part of the country and when we eventually got some kind of movement in the traffic I just hadn’t got the time. The traffic in the left hand lane of the autostrada was solid and I found that I could make more time by driving on the right and weaving in between traffic where necessary. I was still running behind schedule when I got closer to the coast just past Imola but a lot of the traffic was leaving the autostrada for the coastal areas. This gave me the space to floor it where I could but was still sitting behind slower cars because I’m not not the type to tailgate. I noticed a set of headlights pull up behind me at a rate of knots and saw an Audi emblem right on my back bumper. Best thing to do with people like this is let them go so I pulled over and let him go. He wasn’t intending to hang around behind the two cars I was following either and I saw them start to pull over. I had to catch that ferry so I thought “What the F*#k – if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” and I quickly tagged on behind him. It was an Audi R8 with a Liechtenstein license plate, you know the type – money no object. This arrangement worked out pretty well as I started to see the ETA come down to put me in the window again. We were travelling between 160 – 180 kph more or less all the way to the Ancona exit and I guess he was approaching 200 at times as he pulled away before being slowed down by traffic again and then me catching him again. As I turned off the autostrada to drive the last few k’s into Ancona I flashed my headlights as a bit a nod towards a thank-you, but I don’t suppose he’d even noticed me. Shame there was no video actually, it would have been quite interesting.

Well I made the ferry with about half  an hour to spare eventually and here are a few photo’s taken on the ferry as we left.

Day 3, Monday 12th August

We arrived in Igoumenitsa on a hazy Monday morning at around 06:30. As I was one of the last vehicles to board, I was one of the first to drive off. There were a few (mostly Italian) cars, caravans and large campers in front of me as I followed the procession out of the harbour area. The main road out of Igoumenitsa (A2, E90) is a fairly new dual carriageway cut through the hills and begins with a fairly steep climb before levelling out a little higher up in the hills. I passed all of these vehicles in the climb and by the time I reached the top I had the road to myself. As it happens it was only about 5 km before I turned off to head south on a smaller local road to join the A18 which runs down the coast towards Preveza. Just before Preveza the route took me east for a while on the A21 to run around Arta before heading south again on the A5. I followed the A5 until reaching the Rio-Antirion Bridge which was about half way on the route to Athens. A lot of this road was really good but there was also a lot where the road surface was really poor and I had to take avoiding action around tarmac that was breaking up and creating potholes. Traffic was extremely light for a Monday morning and not what I was expecting after my experience in Italy the day before. I only held up briefly once on the whole stretch and that was behind an Albanian truck that obviously had some problem. After a few kilometres of crawling along he pulled in to a parking area on the right and the traffic got past and got back to a normal speed. I thought that another Greek truck behind him would have also held us up but this was not the case and we were soon travelling at 80-90kph, fast enough on this piece of road. Somewhere along this road (I can’t remember exactly) I had stopped to fill up and get a coffee, the breakfast on the ferry meant that I didn’t need much more. I like the old fashioned service you find in fuel stations in Greece, especially those outside of the big centres like Athens. There was no self service and when I pulled up, got out and grabbed the pump hose a guy came dashing out remonstrating with me that he was going to do it. I told him to fill it up and opened the hood to let him check the oil. I asked him if I could get a coffee and he told me to see his colleague inside. I ordered a double espresso and sat in the shade outside at a small aluminium bistro table and waited for him to bring it out. I seem to remember that it was around 0930 and the sound of crickets was already filling the air. The coffee was good as I watched the guy at the pump cleaning my screen before telling me that it was finished. No oil was needed – of course not, I had rebuilt the engine well 😉 . After paying the bill I set off again and reached the bridge about an hour later. The bridge and a number of sections of the road beyond that are toll although it is only a couple of euro each time. The first part of this road from the bridge to Korinthos (A8a, E65) runs along the southern coast of the Gulf of Corinth and although being designated as a highway it is for most of it’s length a 3-lane road with a narrow hard shoulder on both sides. The lane in the middle is officially for overtaking but what happens in practice is that slower moving vehicles tend to drive half on the shoulder and faster moving traffic passes both ways using half of the centre lane. A bit scary 😐 . Road surface wasn’t too bad, although there were a lot of road works where they were obviously building a new dual carriageway. To be honest I was glad to get off it and once we reached the next major junction at Korinthos we joined the A8 (E94) which was a real six lane highway running all the way to Athens. By now it was getting on for lunch time so I pulled in to a service area and got a sandwich and something to drink, this was however the same sort of place you’d find anywhere else on European motorways. Reaching Athens some time before two I had about four hours to wait before the ferry left at 1800. By now the August temperatures had soared so I parked the car near the ferry and took a walk to find a bar and a cold beer. When I got back a little later I opened the car door which was like opening the oven door in our kitchen. I had to wait a couple of minutes with the doors open before I could get in. About four o’clock they decided to start loading some of the waiting vehicles, that in itself is a bit of a puzzle as they call at a number of destinations en route and have to load and unload at each port. I was getting off at Karpathos the last but one major island before reaching Rhodes where they turn around and return to Athens the same way.

Here is a short film of edited highlights:

Greek Road Trip 2013 Day 1

Posted by Martyn on August 10, 2013
Posted in: BMW, Travel. Leave a Comment

Day 1, Saturday 10th August

In August 2013 my daughter Denise got married and wanted to use the BMW as the wedding car and of course I was more than happy to do that. On the day I drove her to the town hall in Dordrecht myself and the car was used afterwards for a photo-shoot around the area. Both my daughter (and her husband) and me (and my wife) have friends in Karpathos, Greece, so having the wedding in August meant that they could not come.  We therefore decided to take the wedding to them one week later. Now as I absolutely hate flying (not the flying itself but the hassle at the airports) and I had always wanted to drive to Greece, this presented the perfect opportunity. I would drive there in the BMW and the rest of the extended party would fly, I couldn’t talk anyone into coming with me. Not being restricted with baggage issues I had the room to carry the wedding dress and the suits which we wanted to use for a photo-shoot and party there. My son-in-law is a keen diver and asked me if I’d take his diving equipment with me so the car ended up being quite full.

I didn’t really get to take too many photo’s on the move but here are a few.

I had done some analysis of routes and costs by using a spread sheet and decided on the best route, not necessarily the absolute cheapest but the route which seemed the most efficient. I left home at 6 am. on the Saturday morning and headed to the south west of the Netherlands where I crossed the border at Venlo into Germany and followed the E31(A61) south. The weather was glorious, passing Koblenz and Mannheim I followed the road before turning onto the E35(A5) just past the Hockenheim circuit towards Karlsruhe. Most of this route was well known to me from my years working in transport and apart from some minor delays due to road works it passed uneventfully with a couple of stops for fuel and refreshment. Before Karlsruhe I sat in some long queues and then heading towards Stuttgart on the E52(A8) I ran into a lot more traffic before getting to Ulm. Leaving the route heading south to pick up the E43(A7) I got further delayed in Ulm due to some serious road works and road closures with detours where TomTom got into a bit of a tiz and let me down. Once past Ulm the traffic situation seemed to improve and after turning onto the E532 at Memmingham we reached the Austrian border with no further delays. Once across the border through the tunnel at Füssen I stopped for fuel in Reutte and then headed up into the Fern Pass, something I had been looking forward to.

The pass itself didn’t disappoint although it would have been better without the traffic :-). Going south was not too bad but the traffic coming towards me heading for Germany seemed like an endless queue, standing still at times. There were passing lanes in a few places so when I reached one I pulled out and gunned it passed the offending caravan or camper. Over the top down the other side I soon reached Imst (the pass is only just over 60km) and the E60(A12) autobahn towards Innsbruck. This was another short blast of 60km and from Innsbruck I took the E45 south over the Brenner pass. Once in Italy the Autostrada di Brennero is a great piece of road winding down from the Alps to the plains of central Italy cutting through tunnels where you just have to wind down the window, change back a gear or two and floor it – brilliant, I’ll probably never grow up :-). The home stretch from the border at Vipiteno, passing by Bolzano and Trento, to Verona where I was stopping for the night is about 235 km, a little under 2 hours. By this time it was very late in the afternoon and the long day was beginning to get to me. I had to pull in to one of the rest stations about half way and grab a double espresso and stretch my legs for a bit. The last leg found me eventually arriving at Hotel Antichi Cortili at around quarter to eight. Extremely warm with the sound of the crickets echoing around the courtyard and parking area, I grabbed some stuff out of the car, checked in, deposited my stuff in the room and took a  quick shower. About an hour later I was sitting at the restaurant outside the hotel with a glass of wine looking at the menu. The first day was done and dusted – 1163km.

Here is some video of the first leg of the trip.