My Deep Green Metalic Z4 project

W

Wa'ya

Active member
Growing up and living just north of Greer S.C. in Asheville N.C. when BMW first started producing the Z3 in 1995 I have wanted one since they made the headlines in our Sunday news paper.

Well January of this year I finally got my first one, My 2007 Deep Green Metalic Z4 3.0i.

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Now that I've been driving it for a couple months I've noticed a few problems I need to get straight before starting my modifcations.

First I had felt the steering pulling a little to one side then the other, and then I got the amber brake light and DTC light.

The code said my right rear wheel speed sensor was faulty, which I changed.
I also ordered poly wishbone bushings to sure up the steering. After changing the speed sensor and clearing the code my warning lights came back and the code tells me again it's the right rear sensor at fault.

Well today I got the bushings changed out.
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To these
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And tomorrow I'm secheduled for an alignment, and plan to recalibrate the steering angle sensor.
 
Nice. Iv yet to see a green one like yours but I did see a lowered matte green one once over here in the south! Looked great in my honest opinion! Keep us updated. :wink:
 
Well I have a theory about the brake light DTC combo warning. My thinking is that over time with the bushings being worn, the front end alignment has gotten out, this has enturn thrown the Steering Angle Sensor out of calibration,,, so the steering sensor is telling the computer that the car is making a left hand turn. At the same time the Rear Wheel Speed Sensors are registering the same speeds and telling the car it's going straight.

I'm thinking this could be throwing the speed sensor errror and causing the warning lights. I could be wrong but I've got my fingers crossed for it to be worked out tomorrow.
 
Thanks Vanilla, she's a bit dirty right now we've been dealing with snow for the past few weeks but it truned off nice today.... even drove with the top down this evening :driving: :thumbsup: :D
 
How's it going Inkey$, as soon as I get a day to give her a proper cleaning I most certainly will :D

Update on my theory:
Ok took her in this morning for the alignment at Precision Tune in Wilson, NC. Precision uses the Hawkeye alignment equipment manufactured by Hunter.

From front to back the alignment was in good shape, but the toe was out bad. Once the alignment was completed they had the toe dead even from side to side. Still as I drove off there was a bad left hand pull, I mean if I let go of the steering wheel the car would do an immediate left turn as if turning into someone's driveway and the amber brake light / DTC warning was still on.

So I went back to the shop to discuss this with them, the mechanic raised the car up on the lift and checked everything for any possible unreported damage to the and even rotated the tires for me free of charge. As we were talking about what might be causing this problem I mentioned that I knew the Steering Angle Sensor needed to be recalibrated. but I didn't have any idea that could make this much difference.

Well after our talk I came home and used the Bavarian Tech to do the recalibration, then reset the right rear speed sensor error I still had in memory, then took her for a test drive.

The recalibration seems to have done the trick along with new wishbone bushings, and an alignment. The Zed is running true with no pull to the left and the warning lights have not came back on! :thumbsup: :D
 
Ok it's official this car is going to drive me crazy.

LOL as per another post I have been battling my seatbelt warning light. Decided to add the resistor that was suggested on here to solve the problem, but popped the airbag warning undoing the seat before I got the resistor.

Then when I got the resistor put in it corrected the airbag light but the seatbelt light and warning bell still were on. For a few days now I have been driving with the radio blasting to drown out the bell and ignoring the light while waiting for something I ordered to silence it, then last night out of the blue just like it started the warning is gone..... I don't know fr sure what caused it to start and I don't know why it turned itself off. :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: LOL
 
Got another of my nagging problems sorted out this morning. Since I bought the Zed I have been battling little nagging bits. Just been trying to get them all sorted before taking on the growing list of mod's I want to do. The latest was a problem I've had with a slow air leak in one of my tires.

Every two to three days I have been getting a low pressure warning and had to add air so this morning I ran the Zed to the shop thinking I must have a bad valve stem or something. What amazed me was it was a nail and it had been in the tire long enough for the head of the nail to be worn completely off. I'm beginning to think the previous owner either got fed up or over whelmed with problems and just decided to get out of the car.

So far everything that I have had to deal with has been minor and been a simple fix, but I could see someone getting freaked out by a bunch of things happening at the same time.
 
I post on the forum some where I had found some metal polish I use to use on my show bike and planned to work on the wheels of the Zed. Don't know if anyone has heard of this stuff but it's a great polish "White Diamond". It works wonders on aluminum and chrome even used it to restore the shine to blued chrome motorcycle exhaust though I did have to use a buffing disk on an angle grinder along with the polish to do that.

Here's what it did for my wheels with just a little rubbing. Not the worst I'v ever seen but the before picture:

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And the after:

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Ok I'm going to say this very quietly and knock on wood, but I think I have chased the gremlins out of the Zed. You know the one's that have been popping error codes at me left and right, so I've started my first mod LOL.

It's not a big one, and it's one that many have done before, but it's my first one, and I'm going at it a little different.

Working 2nd Shift and coming home at midnight or later and having to get out of the warm car to raise the garage door is really getting old, then when I got locked out of the car by my dog while I walked around to raise the door the other morning was the last straw.

My Dodge Ram pickup has a built in opener on it but the Zed doesn't and I hate dealing with remotes (LOL I misplace them on a regular basis) so I've decided to add one to it.

I don't have the Sports package on my Z4, and since the pushbutton location for this feature is a spot that is so natural to reach for, I located and ordered a flush mounting monetary button with an orange LED ring. (Keeping with the indicator colors of the interior) Which I plan to mount in the location of the Sports feature button.
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Next, yeah it took some digging and searching, but I did find one of the old remotes that came with my garage door when I bought it. And I did luck out, the remote was powered by a 12VDC battery, so I gutted the control board out of the remote.
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With the luck of being powered by 12 Volts I decided to remove the existing pushbutton from the remote and solder wires to connect the new pushbutton I have ordered as well as wires soldered to the battery contacts of the remote. With plans to supply voltage to the remote from the car battery through a fused connection.
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Once my soldering was completed I applied silicon to anchor the wires to the control board to prevent vibration and handling of the board breaking the connection, and placed the board back into the remote case.
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So that's where I'm at so far on this mod and waiting for my pushbutton delivery.... LOL can't wait to raise the door sitting in the Z the first time :D
 
That is going to be so cool. I hate having to find the remote, open it up etc as I get home
 
LOL yeah no doubt, right now I'm having to pull in the yard and get out go over to the truck and open the garage door... can't wait to be able to from the Zed.

Guess I could have just clipped the remote to the visor but I know me, I'd find some way to lose it lol
 
I want an automatic garage door :x Asked about it when I had mine replaced was another £500 :(

Very cool mod, love it :thumbsup:
 
Thanks Bing, yeah I know how $ amounts can change your mind lol, built my house about 12 years ago and really wanted to put a metal roof on it but at $8000 more than shingles the budget wouldn't allow it. D_mn still want that roof thou lol.
 
Ok so I noticed I have the same problem as many others on here with a broken 3rd Brake Light. So I ordered me a new red lens brake light. When it came in I was looking at the design and as I'm sure you all know it's piss poor, the back housing is weak, in two parts and has a large section cut out dead center where mine was broken.

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I could see the plastic flexing by simple pressure of me pulling on the bolt while holding the lens. My idea was to bridge the gap which was designed to allow the bolt to be placed into the fixture.

I decided to epoxy 3 - 5/16 washers to the housing and then epoxy them back to the bolt as well.

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Not sure how this will hold up but it has got to be better.

After everything set up and cured I replaced the Brake Light using the DYI in the following link.

http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=623996
 
Some time back I started a mod to add a garage door opener to my Zed, though it has been a long road I finally have it completed and although I ran into some problems along the way it works like a champ now.

Everything went pretty smooth until I started actually installing the the button. As I didn't have the sport button in my 07 I had planned to mount an orange LED lite pushbutton in its place to raise the garage door. It was my hopes to layout the location and drill the mounting hole without removing the center console then secure the button with it's nut by only removing the ashtray/cigar lighter assembly.

I'm going to say right now there is no way to reach anything under the center console without removing 90% of the Z4's interior!

I'm sorry I don't have pictures of this right now but trying to figure out the order in which to remove parts was quite taxing.

Once I did have the button installed I made my connections to the garage door opener leads which I had soldiered before and located it under the center console.

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All and all everything worked out real well even though it ended up being a lot more work than I had planned on. And the range is very good, I can easily open the door as I enter the drive way and pull straight into the garage without having to stop and wait on the door to open.
 
Wa'ya - that looks fantastic mate; really top drawer stuff. Love the orange glow too; really suits the car.

Hope all your gremlins are sorted now too. Time to start enjoying the Mean Green Machine!
 
Thanks Inkey$, most of them seems to be sorted, I'm planning to clean the vanos but the car's running great and I'm loving it.
 
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