There have been a few things that I have been meaning to fix on my car but just haven't had the time, until last week. I have had a request to include more pictures in my posts, so I shall try my best to give the people what the people want.First up, cosmetic issues. I am not quite sure what happened, but the glue holding the mirror in the passenger side sun visor had completely failed and left the mirror flapping around when ever the sun visor was in use.
Here is exhibit A. It was really tacky and I wanted to improve the aesthetic view of my interior. I was able to find a pair of lightly used sun visors on eBaymotors for just $9.90, including shipping. A real bargain I thought, so I played the eBay game and ended up winning, as the only bidder. Maybe I am the only one with this problem.
So I was able to quickly replace both sun visors and I think they turned out rather well. The next cosmetic project I had to work on was a result with an entanglement with a wild, crazed six-foot tumbleweed. Yes... it's true. I was driving home from work when all-of-a-sudden this ginormous tumbleweed ambushes me from the roadside ditch. Before I could do anything the tumbleweed attacks the front of my Bimmer and comfortably lodges itself in my center grille; after doing a number on my paint as well. The tumbleweed wouldn't come out. I had to pull over and force it out, which was no easy task. There was tumbleweed remnants everywhere in the front of my car. It must have exploded somewhat upon impact. I was too angry to take a picture at the time, however I did get a picture of the results. I guess the grille did what it was supposed to, protect the fan and radiator.
Finding a quality replacement grille was much more difficult than obtaining the sun visors. I found some on eBaymotors, but after a little research, it seemed that these were cheap imitations of the real thing made somewhere in Asia. I wanted the real thing from Germany. A brand new one from my favorite parts store Bavarian Autosport would set me back $75. Since that equates a few hours at work, I decided to explore other options. I found a used one on eBaymotors, but the auction went up to $45 pre-shipping total. I finally called a European car junk yard, and they said they had a few, for $35 a piece. They gave me a deal on one, only $30 because the chrome had been chipped. That meant I had to pull the chrome off of my car and transfer it to the new grille. With my Dad's help, we made the switch. I installed thew new grille and you could never tell it wasn't the original piece.
I think they turned out pretty well.
Here is a list of a few of the modificiations/repairs to date:
New fuel filter
New fuel lines
New fuel pump and auxilliary pump
New water pump
New timing belt
New V-belts
New shift knob
New M style steering wheel emblem
New sun visors
New grille
