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Today I did something to my car (volume 2)
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Can't beat a nice big box from BMW.
New door sills for the 740. They have a rubberised coating on them so spray painting wasn't really an option and they worked out surprisingly cheap from the dealer.
Old ones were in a terrible state, a common problem on all E90/E60/E65 models.
Old and new:
These rear ones were a bastard to get in again. I think the reclining seats went in after the sills were installed but I still managed it in the end.
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The humble ashtray. A keeper of butts, a holder of coins, a keep safe for screws.
A simple design consisting of a liftable/removable tray to contain the contents and dispose of them at ease.
Automakers started to silently phase them out sometime in the mid 90′s. By the 2000′s, most cars only offered them as optional features. Today, many cars don’t even do that.
Eliminating lighters and ashtrays as standard equipment on millions of cars saved money for automakers, most who now sell optional “smoker’s packages” for $15 to $100 for items once included with every new car.
Or maybe it's subliminal? Some say it's more about subtle behavior modification. If there are no ashtrays in the car, maybe you’ll give up the habit?
Whatever the reason, I enjoy a good ashtray to hold coins. So naturally, when this came into the yard with a broken ashtray, I couldn't let it out without a functioning one!
Here is a full step by step procedure on replacing the ashtray
First step: Enter the vehicle. You need to be in he vehicle to change the ashtray, unless you're a giraffe with a special mouth
Next, put the car in gear
This is to ensure we can put the handbrake down safely, for more access to the ashtray
Next, we need to clear the passenger seat, seeing as this is such a big job, we will need all the room we can afford to have
As you can see, this sophisticated tool is required for this task
Now, we need to open the ashtray. To do this, we simply press on the part of the ashtray that says push. By the action of the spring on the bottom of the ashtray, it will open. But! There is a damper mechanism to restrict the speed in which the lid opens. So it opens gracefully
Since there are no instructions on the ashtray on how to release the actual tray, I shall now demonstrate how to release the tray from the ashtray. One must simply press the top cover of the ashtray further than the fully open position. This releases a catch, which allows a spring to operate the tray, which is also damped. Pampered with refinement!
Now, to remove the tray from the ashtray, simply grip the tray with the metal clasp kindly provided and withdraw the tray from the ashtray
Here is a view of the ashtray without the tray that sits into the ashtray. We can see the complexity of the device in it's entirety. The round circular fastner holding the ashtray to the car must be extracted with the special tool I depicted earlier in his very post
To remove the circular fastner, we insert the special tool into the top, thus lining the end of the tool with the top of the fastner. Then, we rotate the fastner in an anti-clockwise manner. Don't get confused with which way it turns, it will only either get tighter or looser
Once the circular fastner is sufficiently loosened, we can withdraw the ashtray from it's resting place
The very eagle eyed will have noted there appears to be a pair of cables affixed to the ashtray. These heavy duty cables provide sufficient power to a halogen bulb. This is to illuminate the tray, which when situated in the ashtray at night becomes illuminated. This is to provide sufficient lighting to allow the operator of the ashtray to see what he or she is doing.
To remove the complex lighting mechanism, special removing tools have been carefully crafted into the light itself to allow the technician working on the ashtray without the tray in the ashtray to withdraw the lighting device from the ashtray without the tray.
The ashtray without the tray is now sufficiently disconnected from the vehicle
It may now be carefully placed in a suitable location in order for the technician to take a break from this gruelling task
But wait! There's more to come.....0 -
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In my previous post, I discussed the technical and complex procedure to withdraw the ashtray from the vehicle. Now, I will depict how to install the ashtray.
First, here is the new ashtray. This time, I've carefully taken the photo so it clearly says where to push the lid in order to open the ashtray
Using the information just learned, the lid of the ashtray may now be opened
A key point to this step is removal of the tray from the ashtray, as we cannot install the ashtray with the tray still inserted in the ashtray, so the tray from the ashtray is removed from the ashtray and compared to the tray from the other ashtray, which is also removed from it's position from the ashtray. When it was deemed which tray was cleaner, it was set to one side. The other tray was then sent off to be professionally cleaned and detailed.
Now, to the ashtray. We start by inserting the halogen lighting device into it's carefully sculpted mounting bracket. This is to ensure the device does not fall free from it's resting position. It is sufficiently held in by 2 heavy duty clips, which clip in when sufficiently pressed into position
The ashtray can now be positioned into it's resting place
We then fetch the circular fastening device, then insert it into it's carefully positioned fastening mount. To tighten the circular fastner, we pick up the special tool, then insert the special tool into the grooves on top of the circular fastning device and rotate the tool in a clockwise manner.
Now, once we are sure the ashtray is sufficiently secured, we can insert the tray into the ashtray
We can then close the lid over, covering the tray concealed in the ashtray
Finally, we transport the special tool from the vehicle, vacate the vehicle and close the door
After that gruelling and challenging task, I have a headache and thus need medication. But at least I have an ashtray that works :cool:0 -
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Managed to do even less work than dgt today
Installed a passenger seat occupancy sensor bypass unit. Essentially what that boils down to is I unplugged one electrical plug, and plugged another one in :pac: Common problem on E46's (maybe all BMW's eventually), the sensor just breaks eventually. It happened to be gone on the new seats I put in, so as soon as I started the car I got an airbag light on the dash.
The occupancy sensor itself is there so in the event of a crash, if there's no passenger, the passenger airbags won't deploy to reduce the cost of repair. How the sensor works is on a threshold basis. The car performs a sensor check when you start it. Above threshold = passenger, below = no. When the sensor breaks it's as if there's no sensor there, so it fails the check when you switch on the car = warning light. The "bypass unit" is literally a resistor and diode set up in such a way that it tells the car there's always a passenger sitting there.
Best news of all - the light wasn't on long enough to require diagnostics use to turn it off. Back to no warning lights on the dash again, huzzah!0 -
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Always? So you need to have passenger's buckle up all the time to avoid "fasten the seat belt" alarm?
There is no fasten seatbelt alarm
not even for drivers belt.
The reason it has to be set so that it's always as if there's a passenger is so in the event of a crash the passenger airbags deploy. Remember, you're bypassing the system that tells the car if the passenger seat is occupied. If you get a bypass that tells the car the seat is always empty - you'll fix the warning light but the car will never deploy the passenger airbags even with a passenger sitting there.0 -
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The threshold is 12kg Challengemaster and it did not need to be reset because it was fitted while the key was in the ignition.
Yeah, I'd read the threshold was 12kg alright. Didn't know about the key in ignition thing though! that was just by chance
It was an intermittent fault with the sensor anyway, it had gone off/on a few times since installing the new seats, managed to get it to go off by placing a heavy weight on the seat too.0 -
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Cleveland Hot Pocket wrote: »Today I did something to my car, well, I stuck something to it.
https://scontent-a-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t1.0-9/10360550_10152495989544528_3378870165437887377_n.jpg
Errm.
Tax disc looks a bit odd 0 -
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