BMW M328i, Small Fixes, Big Results

I’m still waiting on parts, which sucks, because I just want to go out and drive, but in the meantime I fixed a couple of small things.

One thing the car has been suffering from since I got it is lots of play in the pedals. It turns out the bushes on the clutch pedal were stuffed, so new ones are on their way, but worse than that, the whole pedal box moved a lot when pressing a pedal. If you pushed the brake pedal, even by hand with the engine off, you could watch as the master cylinder tilted up a couple of cm. Pressing one pedal also moved the other pedal, it was all over the show.

It looks like the reason for the pedal box moving is that when the car was manual converted by the previous owner, they didn’t fit number 4 in the diagram, so the pedal box isn’t braced. Sigh.

I just went out and got an M8x25 bolt, loosened off the other 4, and installed the new bolt. Tightened it all up, and now almost no movement in the pedal box or master cylinder. Huge difference. Just another lazy cockup the previous owner did.

As an aside, I managed to get the remote locking working too. I replaced the batteries in the key, and used this video to program it.

It’s a pretty simple process with the three button key. Get in, shut the door. Turn the ignition to 1 and then off again, remove key. Then immediately hold down the Unlock button (left small button) and press the Lock button three times. The car locks should cycle locked and unlocked by themselves. Repeat for any other key remotes. Now insert the key into the ignition, and turn it to 1 again, and then off. The key(s) should now be programmed to the car.

Oh yeah, this casually happened too. Off came the 20s.

And I went for a drive to Palmy to pick up a set of wheels that I had someone bring down from Auckland.

A set of five (four genuine and one fake) Style 24 7.5″ stock M3 wheels. The spare, which is the fake, is pretty rough, but the others are in decent shape, after a clean. The tires are shot (and all the wrong size), and it has semi-slicks on the front, so I’ll need to replace them all around.

It’s a huge improvement already though

Now I just need to offload the (Fake) 20″ wheels. Unfortunately I’m having issues finding a new home for them without basically giving them away. Despite what the seller advertised, and told me, they aren’t genuine Work wheels, they are actually Lenso Work wheels. A good copy, but they are single piece replicas, worth about 1/3 genuine wheels 🙁

So, back to waiting for parts…..