It's been a bit of a week with the Zed.
She's been on a mission to tip me over the edge into insanity.....
Yet, it all started so well.
A simple mission to refurbish the steering wheel. What could be more mundane?
After taking suitable precautions to avoid being murdered by the airbag, the wheel came off just fine. The plastic spokes were even kind enough to not crack or disintegrate. There followed much hard work with wet and dry sandpaper to remove the festering remains of that weird covering BMW sprayed on the spokes all those years ago. Then a couple of hours trying to get the black dye from the weird stuff off my hands.
A couple of coats of etch primer, a couple of matt enamel black and a few of lacquer turned the embarrassingly awful wheel into a thing of beauty. Well, I thought so anyway. It looked great when refitted. Pretty chuffed at this point.
During this course of this process a parcel had arrived containing a couple of replacement Vanos solenoid valves. Preventative maintenance, you see. It makes sense apparently. Although I'm now wondering about that.
Fitting the valves is easy as many will know. Low maintenance. Requiring little skill and, I would suggest, with minimal disaster potential. They popped in just fine.
Time to give them a try, I thought. Turned the key. Nothing. Zilch. There's more life on Mars than in the engine.
Doh! The battery is still disconnected to avoid becoming the victim of 'homicide by airbag'.
10mm socket pops on the two terminals.
Nervously and from outside the car, I turned the ignition key. The airbag didn't try to murder me by decapitation but the engine nearly gave me a heart attack. To describe the sound coming from under the bonnet as 'bogging' does a disservice to bogs across the world. The idle was all over the place. Various pops and groans emanated from the pit of despair that used to be a sweet engine.
Oh my God, I thought. I've broken the Zed. Life will no longer be worth living. The shame. The heartache. The feeling of having hurt the one you love.
And then some common sense kicked in.
It's just an engine. There must be some simple reason for this. There followed a close inspection of every vacuum hose. Nothing amiss. The intake hoses came off. All good. Checked the CCV pipes, just in case. All fine. Cleaned the MAF despite the fact it was shinier than Kojak's head on a bright sunny day. Pulled the coils and checked the connections. No problems visible there. Injectors seemed fine too.
Then convinced myself I'd swapped the connectors to the solenoids. Until I realised that's almost impossible on the N46.
My code reader is flashing up every code under the sun (not the one shining on Kojak's bonce. Just the regular sun).
And it's still running as though someone had tipped a bag of rock cakes in cylinders 1-4.
In turmoil, I come to the conclusion that I've broken the beautiful girl for good.
A sleepless night follows. And then another one. As the poor car languishes never to move under her own steam again.
And then, out of the blue, I remembered a wise saying from a guru dwelling in the mysterious and magical East (no, not Norwich. Further east than that) which I once heard: 'If it's broken, it's probably something you did to it, you complete plonker'.
And I thought carefully about how plonker'ish I might have been. I'd been concentrating on the solenoid valves as the cause of the engine problems.
But what if it were in fact the steering wheel that was causing the issues. Don't scoff. It's rude. Stick with me on this.
Refurbing the wheel had meant the battery was disconnected for a goodly while. And I figured that this might have something to do with my situation of woe. Uncle Google offered some support. Engine ECUs use adaptive learning, apparently, to iron out all the glitches and make your motor run sweeter than sugar syrup.
So, in polishing up my steering wheel I'd possibly caused the Zed to develop dementia. The old girl's memory had gone. 'Drive the car' said the internet. She'll relearn how to do things. Sounded pretty unlikely to me. But, what to lose? So, I did.
And, do you know what? The old girl has come out of the dementia haze. She's recovering her poise and balance. She is, to sum up, no longer 'bogging'.
The ECU seems to be adapting to its second coming and the car is drivable once more.
So, the lesson is: Even if you think you've terminally broken you beloved Zed, don't despair. The old girl might just surprise you yet.
Meanwhile, I'm off to bed to catch up on two nights of lost sleep. And I've vowed to never do two jobs on the car at the same time. The possibilities for disaster are just too great!
Ian.
She's been on a mission to tip me over the edge into insanity.....
Yet, it all started so well.
A simple mission to refurbish the steering wheel. What could be more mundane?
After taking suitable precautions to avoid being murdered by the airbag, the wheel came off just fine. The plastic spokes were even kind enough to not crack or disintegrate. There followed much hard work with wet and dry sandpaper to remove the festering remains of that weird covering BMW sprayed on the spokes all those years ago. Then a couple of hours trying to get the black dye from the weird stuff off my hands.
A couple of coats of etch primer, a couple of matt enamel black and a few of lacquer turned the embarrassingly awful wheel into a thing of beauty. Well, I thought so anyway. It looked great when refitted. Pretty chuffed at this point.
During this course of this process a parcel had arrived containing a couple of replacement Vanos solenoid valves. Preventative maintenance, you see. It makes sense apparently. Although I'm now wondering about that.
Fitting the valves is easy as many will know. Low maintenance. Requiring little skill and, I would suggest, with minimal disaster potential. They popped in just fine.
Time to give them a try, I thought. Turned the key. Nothing. Zilch. There's more life on Mars than in the engine.
Doh! The battery is still disconnected to avoid becoming the victim of 'homicide by airbag'.
10mm socket pops on the two terminals.
Nervously and from outside the car, I turned the ignition key. The airbag didn't try to murder me by decapitation but the engine nearly gave me a heart attack. To describe the sound coming from under the bonnet as 'bogging' does a disservice to bogs across the world. The idle was all over the place. Various pops and groans emanated from the pit of despair that used to be a sweet engine.
Oh my God, I thought. I've broken the Zed. Life will no longer be worth living. The shame. The heartache. The feeling of having hurt the one you love.
And then some common sense kicked in.
It's just an engine. There must be some simple reason for this. There followed a close inspection of every vacuum hose. Nothing amiss. The intake hoses came off. All good. Checked the CCV pipes, just in case. All fine. Cleaned the MAF despite the fact it was shinier than Kojak's head on a bright sunny day. Pulled the coils and checked the connections. No problems visible there. Injectors seemed fine too.
Then convinced myself I'd swapped the connectors to the solenoids. Until I realised that's almost impossible on the N46.
My code reader is flashing up every code under the sun (not the one shining on Kojak's bonce. Just the regular sun).
And it's still running as though someone had tipped a bag of rock cakes in cylinders 1-4.
In turmoil, I come to the conclusion that I've broken the beautiful girl for good.
A sleepless night follows. And then another one. As the poor car languishes never to move under her own steam again.
And then, out of the blue, I remembered a wise saying from a guru dwelling in the mysterious and magical East (no, not Norwich. Further east than that) which I once heard: 'If it's broken, it's probably something you did to it, you complete plonker'.
And I thought carefully about how plonker'ish I might have been. I'd been concentrating on the solenoid valves as the cause of the engine problems.
But what if it were in fact the steering wheel that was causing the issues. Don't scoff. It's rude. Stick with me on this.
Refurbing the wheel had meant the battery was disconnected for a goodly while. And I figured that this might have something to do with my situation of woe. Uncle Google offered some support. Engine ECUs use adaptive learning, apparently, to iron out all the glitches and make your motor run sweeter than sugar syrup.
So, in polishing up my steering wheel I'd possibly caused the Zed to develop dementia. The old girl's memory had gone. 'Drive the car' said the internet. She'll relearn how to do things. Sounded pretty unlikely to me. But, what to lose? So, I did.
And, do you know what? The old girl has come out of the dementia haze. She's recovering her poise and balance. She is, to sum up, no longer 'bogging'.
The ECU seems to be adapting to its second coming and the car is drivable once more.
So, the lesson is: Even if you think you've terminally broken you beloved Zed, don't despair. The old girl might just surprise you yet.
Meanwhile, I'm off to bed to catch up on two nights of lost sleep. And I've vowed to never do two jobs on the car at the same time. The possibilities for disaster are just too great!
Ian.
you should write a book, I’d buy it!
