The E36 Garage

My name is Rick and I own an E36.  I can't help it, it is an addiction.   I do love my car.  After all it is almost 15 years old and it still gets about 27 mpgs... and it still looks good!  Here is a picture of my baby:

 Another thing that I love about this car is the following that they have.  There are several internet sites that document problems/fixes with these cars.  I am not a trained mechanic, but I love to work on this car.  These sites help guide me in the right direction and suggest troubleshooting methods and tools (full list of sites I use at the end of this post).  I have already done several things to her. For instance, I just replaced the front struts.  After scouring on the internet for the best deal, I found the struts for under $200.  This also gave me an excuse to buy a new cordless impact wrench to do the job with.  So all in all, I had $300 in the strut replacement.  A friend of mine said she took hers in to get an estimate to have the front struts replaced and they quoted her $1500!!!!   Glad I could do this one myself.  It was even kind of fun.  I have also changed rear wheel bearings (not recommended), changed brakes (easy), replaced alternator, and many other things.

Stay tuned for more E36 projects.  I plan to document a few more projects with pictures and reference the guide or website I use.  Hopefully, I can help out some other E36 owners.



Links are below.  Save some money and stay geeky....


E36 links:

blog.bavauto.com
www.bimmerforums.com 
www.dvatp.com/bmw/diy/ 
www.bavauto.com --this is where I buy most of my parts. 



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This Wednesday's Project--Clean DSLR Sensor

OK, first of all, to all you other geeks out there, do this at your own risk.  I am not responsible for your work...With that said, let's get geeky!

I love photography.  I love capturing moments that would otherwise slip away forgotten forever.  It is a passion of mine.  One thing that I don't like is sensor dust.  Sensor dust shows up as those noticeable dots when you shoot a beautiful clear blue sky.  Nothing can ruin your picture faster than dust on your sensor.  Sure, you could fix this in post processing with Photoshop's healing brush, but time is money, and we are all about saving money and time, and whatever...let's get to it!!!


First, here is a "save the date" picture I took for this stunning young lady I know.  Great theme right?  They are getting married on 5/29, so the two football junkies line up posed in front of the field goal, perfect shot and BAM!!!!!!   Sensor dust!@!@!@!@!   WHAT???? More post processing!?!

Sensor dust shows up as dots in the sky!

One way to fix it is to push your Bleached Bypass version of another photo.

Isn't beautiful, no sensor dust. Fixed with Photoshop....too much work!

Well, the lovely bride to be really wants the Lucas Art sculpted version.  Well to prevent this form happening again, you are going to have to get your sensor cleaned.

I use a Nikon D40 DLSR for most of my shooting.  I use a lot of really old manual lenses and change them out often.  So I am going to be getting lots of dust in there.  I could take it and get it cleaned several times a year, but that gets expensive and I don't like to be without my camera. So I went out and purchased some sensor cleaning tools.  I purchased these at Amazon.com.  They are very reasonable.

Sensor cleaning tools

First, let's try to blow out the dust with the Rocket Blaster!  You need to go into your settings on your camera and set the mode to mirror lockup or sensor clean.  After you push the shutter, the mirror will stay up and the shutter will stay open until you turn the camera off.  It is very important that you have a fully charged battery, you don't want your shutter closing on your tools, it will ruin your shutter and that will be costly in time and money.

The mirror is in the lockup position.  That funky looking thing in the middle
is the camera sensor.  The flash makes it look like that.   It really just looks kind of blue.
That can't be me that dripped pizza sauce to the left.  DO NOT EAT PIZZA WHILE CLEANING YOUR
SENSOR!.....lol

With the mirror and shutter out of the way, send some blast of air over the sensor.  Now the instructions state to hold your camera body upside down to be sure that any loose dust is handled by gravity and falls out of the camera.

Holding the camera body upside down and blowing out with the
Rocket tool.  Calm down ladies!!!  Those manly hands are taken!

When you are satisfied you blasted enough, turn the camera off and put the lens back on.  Now go out and take a picture of the sky.  Do you see any dust?  Well, I do....

Still see some sensor dust

Next, let's try the lens pen. Now this is scary!!!  You actually have to touch the pen to the sensor to clean it.  Go through the mirror lockup we just discussed again.  Now with your sensor exposed, swipe the sensor with the lens pen.  I gave mine a blast with the rocket blaster a few more times too.

Using the Lens Pen

Now turn your camera off and put it all back together.  Take another picture of the sky.  Is that any better?   Some, but still a little dust.

Still a little bit of dust

So I used the Lens Pen a second time.  This time paying attention making sure I covered the whole sensor with the Lens Pen.  Then I blew it out one more time and put it all back together.  The directions to say to blow it out after using the Lens Pen. Finally, most of the sensor dust seems to be gone!

Most of the dust is gone...

I have to say that I am very pleased with this purchase.  Major amounts of dust removed in my opinion. I think a combination of these two tools will help you keep your sensor dust at bay.  The best part of it is that they are reusable.  The Lens Pen claims you get up to 500 uses out of it. So for about $20 for both tools, I am able to clean my sensor approximately 500 times. Remember, be very careful doing this.  One slip up and it will be a very costly mistake.  Keep your battery fully charged while doing this....If you feel like for any reason you can't do this, please respect your camera and take it in to get cleaned at your local camera shop.

Remember, save money and stay geeky!

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Yet Another Unexpected Weekend Project

I promise this blog will be more about tech and geek stuff rather than all automotive stuff, but it seems I have had a streak of bad luck with my Expy lately...  Driving it on my rather long commute to work, I have been experiencing a massively irritating shudder.

Shudder, that is an interesting work.  I actually felt at times the vibration was going to rattle my teeth out!  I pulled the Expedition into the Geek's Garage to have a look.  I crawled underneath, jacked it up, poked and prodded, but found nothing that really could be the cause.

So to the interweb I went!  I went over to the Ford Trucks forum and did some searching. It seems this is a common problem with the Expedition.  The fine boys over there explained to be that my Expedition has what is called a limited slip differential.  There are clutches in there that keep the gears engaged and do other things that I don't understand.  I guess when they get tired of the gear oil in that is in there, they start to "shudder"...And I though my truck was just allergic to my workplace.  I guess I will keep my job.

OK, so, the mighty interweb says to change out the gear oil in the differential with 75/140 gear oil and add some friction modifier to it.  Actually it says to add the friction modifier and then add the gear oil, but more on that later.  The friction modifier (also called limited slip additive) comes in a toothpaste like tube near the gear oil.

Limited Slip Additive

As a warning, this is one messy and nasty job,  I suggest you have lots of towels hand that you can throw away after you are done.  Also, put some cardboard down to protect your floor, and by all means wear gloves.  Gear oil is some of the nasty stuff and smells a bit the dead monkeys.  Last time I checked, women were not impressed by dead monkey smell, so try your best to keep this stuff off of you and every thing else!

Gear Oil

First you need to remove your old nasty gear oil from your diff. There are a couple of ways to do this.  You can remove the back cover by taking off all of the bolts and then having to reseal it or you get yourself a suction pump and remove it from the fill hole.  Since I wanted to do this as quickly as possible without the risk of leaks, I chose the suction pump route.  Here is a picture of my hand powered suction pump.

Fluid Suction Pump

It is a pretty basic tool.  Stick the hose end in the fluid and pull back on the handle.


Next you will have to locate the fill plug on the differential.  This is a small plug that has a square hole in it that your socket wrench will fit into.  You need to be a little careful when removing so you don't break it or strip it, but my came off easily.  Just in case, spray it with some lubricant, such as PB Blaster, the day before you try to take it off.  That always helps speed it up.  Here is a shot of my diff fill plug...

Differential Plug Location

OK, there are no more pictures from here on out because as I said, this is a really messy job.  I am a geek at heart, so my camera will not get near this dead monkey smelling stuff!

So next, remove your fill plug.  Feed your hose end of your fluid suction pump into your diff.  You will probably have to bend it and coax it in past the gears, but it will eventually go in.  Once you get the hose in to near the bottom of the diff, slowly pull back on the handle of the fluid suction pump.  It will fill up with gear oil.  I had my oil pan nearby and dispensed with the old oil from the pump to the oil pan.  This took several times until I could not get any more gear oil out.  Now the diff is mostly empty.

Next I added my Limited Slip additive to the diff.  It is hard to maneuver under there, but you will get it.  Remember, be careful not to get this on you.  It is nasty stuff.  Your date will thank you later...

OK, now that you have put in the additive, it is time to put in the gear oil.  Again, it is hard to maneuver under here, so take your time, you will get it.  First I tried adding hoses to the end of the gear bottle, but I found it was easier and faster if I maneuvered the bottle into place and then placed my gloved finger over the end till I got to the fill hole and then released my finger and squeezed the oil in.

That is it.  Don't forget to replace your fill plug and clean up the dead monkey smell off of everything.  Take your Expy out for drive and make some turns or find a spot to do some figure eights to get your gear oil mixed good.

So far the shudder is gone.  I will come back and update after a couple of weeks to see if that is still the case.


Remember, save money and stay geeky!

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Unexpected Weekend Project: Sunroof Leak

With all the needed rain we had this weekend,  it also brought me a lot of trouble.  While my car is getting fixed from the rear end collision I suffered, I was driving my backup.  The beautiful Ford Expedition.  It was raining so hard that I had a large leak that sprang from my sunroof when I was driving.  I am not talking a few small drops, I am talking streams of water!  Major streams of water!

After I got it home and started to dry myself off, I could hear water sloshing around in the sunroof area.  I am not an extreme genuis by any means, but I know this is not good.  I opened the sunroof and could see that water was pooling all around the sunroof opening.  A quick internet search told me that there were drain tubes in the sunroof opening that are supposed to carry this water away.  It appears they are plugged up!  Here is a picture I snapped with the headliner slightly removed so you could see them.

Gray tubes that carry water out of the sunroof

See those gray tubes at the upper left of the photo?  Those are the beauties that are clogged. Now how to unclog them?  If you open your sunroof and look at the corners, you will see some holes.  These are the drainage holes that lead to these tubes.  I tried to get a picture of mine but it did not turn out very well.

Drain hole in the upper right area of this photo

On the top right of this photo you can see a hole.  Sorry, there are other things in the way, but they are right there in the corner of the sunroof. Mine were in the front corners, towards the front of the car.  I have heard that others have them at all four corners.  Mine only had the two front holes.  

Now I had to figure out how to unclog the tubes.  My tubes were made of a rubber so I was trying to be very gentle and not puncture them.  First, I started to clean up the interior part of the sunroof.  I mean the part that the glass covers from up above.  I cleaned and scrubbed all of the dirt out really well.  This I am sure is what caused my tubes to clog.  I will now get up there and clean that out often to prevent this problem from happening in the future.  Now to unclog the drain, I started with a small piece of  copper wire.  I stuffed it in the drainage hole trying to clear the clog.  This did not work because the water was not disappearing.  So I tried this several times with no luck

I went on the hunt for something rigid, yet more flexible than my copper wire.  I finally stumbled across this:

Cable tie, the best sunroof drain unclogger!

The ever multi-useful cable tie!.  It was perfect.  I was able to insert it into the drainage hole and clear the clog.  I did this several times to make sure it was all cleaned out.  I then grabbed a large cup if water and poured it into the sunroof area to make sure the drain was functioning.  All was well.

So there you have it.  About 2.5 hours of my life that I will never get back.  Hopefully this will help someone else out there with a leaky sunroof....

Remember, save money and stay geeky!

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