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Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
Tinuva's facelifted Alpine White E46 330i
- Thread starter Tinuva
- Start date
Fordkoppie
///Member
Tinuva said:Xenon set, checking it out:
Unless I missed the part where you decided to facelift the car, this part is unfortunately not the correct item:sorry:
Correct you are. Decided to face-lift while at it.Fordkoppie said:Tinuva said:Xenon set, checking it out:
Unless I missed the part where you decided to facelift the car, this part is unfortunately not the correct item:sorry:
Sent from my MI 5 using Tapatalk
Ok picture heavy update incoming!
So not a showroom thread anymore, but more of a, my attempt at repairing this accident damage myself (mostly).
Its been a long time coming, where I have been mostly coming up with excuses why I don't want to get to it, but being inspired by a few random episodes of Full Custom Garage on Ignitionlive I got around to most of the visual fixes the past few weeks.
Back in April I started removing the bumper and headlight units. Nice and dirty behind it.
Bumper damage doesn't look too bad. But I found a broken hooter :rage:
Then the real work for me started. Removing the radiator/headlight support frame and all the plastics around it:
New radiator/headlight support frame, and cleaning started on the plastics:
Hmm, something looks off here: :skit:
Dusting off the plastics still on the car:
Trying to remember how this was on. Oh and here I didn't realize it yet, but that plastic on the left will not work on a facelift headlight unit :rage:
Ok so back to this, yup its bent:
Fixed:
Radiator/headlight support back on:
Need to start looking at this:
And I think I didn't take photos of this being repaired, but it was mostly done with a plastic hammer and cloth and lots of beer.
Moved on looking at the bumper, mostly so that I can test the fitting while fixing the above:
Now we are in the month of June, and well this is where I haven't done much, mostly blaming the cold. So in the meantime, I got another set of Xenons for my other E46, second hand from Johannesburg. Lets just say, I was amazed at how dirty headlights can get! :dunnoanymore:
Wait, what is this. It looks different than the one I had on my pre-LCI E46. Will have to clean this up properly, I now know I need it! :hammerhead:
Another pic of this:
Ok so now we are in July, and I am asking myself why I took on this project at all. Its a lot more work and I actually just want to enjoy the car again.
Anyway, testing out the new headlights. Front right lights nothing want to turn on, except for some reason the leveling unit. Confused for a few hours, I figured, I never put back the earth and bam all the lights work. :hammerhead:
Can see the LCI lights and pre-LCI bonnet looks...odd
Ok lets take it off.
New one on:
Right, another surprise I should have known. :hammerhead:
Bonnet and fenders on. Also some of the plastics and test corner lights. Actually have the clear corners in the boot, they brand new so lets use these while I work out things...
Don't look to closely at the photos now, but none of the panels or lights are properly aligned. I am impressed with the german engineering, the things are pulling together quite nicely, even with me not trying at all. Something is up with the left side headlight unit, its not as tight as the right unit, quite strange since that side didn't get damaged.
Still waiting on one expanding nut for the inner liner, probably lost in the accident. Then I will take the car to get painted, after which I will have to redo all the panels and lights to get them properly aligned. After which I will then work on all the plastics you don't see, because none of them are on the car right now.
Painting will be done by Alfa Bodyworks, everyone I talk to here in Cape Town recommends them, and I also had a pleasant experience there in February.
So not a showroom thread anymore, but more of a, my attempt at repairing this accident damage myself (mostly).
Its been a long time coming, where I have been mostly coming up with excuses why I don't want to get to it, but being inspired by a few random episodes of Full Custom Garage on Ignitionlive I got around to most of the visual fixes the past few weeks.
Back in April I started removing the bumper and headlight units. Nice and dirty behind it.
Bumper damage doesn't look too bad. But I found a broken hooter :rage:
Then the real work for me started. Removing the radiator/headlight support frame and all the plastics around it:
New radiator/headlight support frame, and cleaning started on the plastics:
Hmm, something looks off here: :skit:
Dusting off the plastics still on the car:
Trying to remember how this was on. Oh and here I didn't realize it yet, but that plastic on the left will not work on a facelift headlight unit :rage:
Ok so back to this, yup its bent:
Fixed:
Radiator/headlight support back on:
Need to start looking at this:
And I think I didn't take photos of this being repaired, but it was mostly done with a plastic hammer and cloth and lots of beer.
Moved on looking at the bumper, mostly so that I can test the fitting while fixing the above:
Now we are in the month of June, and well this is where I haven't done much, mostly blaming the cold. So in the meantime, I got another set of Xenons for my other E46, second hand from Johannesburg. Lets just say, I was amazed at how dirty headlights can get! :dunnoanymore:
Wait, what is this. It looks different than the one I had on my pre-LCI E46. Will have to clean this up properly, I now know I need it! :hammerhead:
Another pic of this:
Ok so now we are in July, and I am asking myself why I took on this project at all. Its a lot more work and I actually just want to enjoy the car again.
Anyway, testing out the new headlights. Front right lights nothing want to turn on, except for some reason the leveling unit. Confused for a few hours, I figured, I never put back the earth and bam all the lights work. :hammerhead:
Can see the LCI lights and pre-LCI bonnet looks...odd
Ok lets take it off.
New one on:
Right, another surprise I should have known. :hammerhead:
Bonnet and fenders on. Also some of the plastics and test corner lights. Actually have the clear corners in the boot, they brand new so lets use these while I work out things...
Don't look to closely at the photos now, but none of the panels or lights are properly aligned. I am impressed with the german engineering, the things are pulling together quite nicely, even with me not trying at all. Something is up with the left side headlight unit, its not as tight as the right unit, quite strange since that side didn't get damaged.
Still waiting on one expanding nut for the inner liner, probably lost in the accident. Then I will take the car to get painted, after which I will have to redo all the panels and lights to get them properly aligned. After which I will then work on all the plastics you don't see, because none of them are on the car right now.
Painting will be done by Alfa Bodyworks, everyone I talk to here in Cape Town recommends them, and I also had a pleasant experience there in February.
KPM_330 said:
Right now, I want to focus on only finishing the front, and get the car back on to insurance, which means it needs to pass the full Dekra test. Its not that the insurance is a requirement for me, more a confirmation I fixed everything that should be.
Secondary, after I don't need to focus on the repair, when its complete, I have the following on the list:
1. Facelift the rear lights. I already know the cable that I need. Part# 61120140220 - so easy.
2. Enable the bi-xenon part of the headlights. This only came out for the facelifts, so my car, while set up for Xenons, is not set up for bi-xenon. From what I can tell, there is no wire kit for this from BMW, so I have to make up my own cables and also add in a relay. And some minor coding changes. At least thats the little research I have done so far.
Definitely agree with you, when all the lights are facelifted, will look great. :smilebounce:
AdiS
Well-known member
Tinuva said:
The simplest way to do this is just to tap into the halogen highbeams, and wire that into the bi-xenon socket on the ballast. It removes the necessity for coding. All you need is the plug that fits into the socket (its the same as the one that goes into the open-bonnet sensor). I think i got them for free from a scrap yard.
Otherwise good work, and let's see this project through!
I have the plugs for 1 set of bi-xenons. The seller was nice enough to cut on the cable about 5cm away from the plugs.AdiS said:
Doing it the way you describe here though, means the the shutter opens for flash to pass and normal brights. That means the xenon must already be on to use flash to pass right?
I know the factory settings, flash to pass turns on the regular high beams, but normal brights instead opens the shutter.
Talking about moving the stalk forward for normal brights and backwards for flash to pass.
AdiS
Well-known member
Tinuva said:
Yes - when it comes to "Flash-to-pass" you will have both the halogen high beam and the xenon shutter activated. It's a small trade-off in my opinion.
So basically, in all situations where the halogen highbeam is activated, the bixenon shutter will also be actuated.
EDIT: The main reason I suggest this route is because its a ballache to wire the bixenons into the LCM.
Update time.
After reviewing the 2x fenders that came off the car, I realized this car was in an accident before I bought it. The left fender still looks like the original that left the BMW factory, it has the primer color which I also see on other places on the car.
The right fender however, completely painted inside, which tells me its not the original.
In the meantime, before getting the car painted, I had an Android 8 radio waiting to be installed, so did this also.
Have look at where you can find rust in these cars:
Radio installed:
My favorite part is having A2DP and Google Maps. Still need to add the USB to allow a sim card, but for now using hotspot on the phone.
Then for the exciting part. Received the car back yesterday from Alpha Bodyworks. The guy I was originally dealing with for some reason never came back to me, so I decided on Monday I have had enough and just drove with the car there hoping they will have time available to start working on it. Turns out that guy left the company which explains the "not coming back to me".
Anyways, had a really great experience at Alpha Bodyworks. My original deal was to only get painted and I would have to align panels ect. myself. They painted, put everything back on and aligned it all properly. My only gripe is, I should have considered repainting the whole car, but even without that, it turned out pretty good, I am very happy with the end result.
There still some problems that I need to sort out.
1. Looks like the 1x bolt that holds the bumper went missing between my house and taking the car to Alpha. Can't find stock in SA at BMW, Goldwagen and BruceSpares haven't come back to me yet. Its from the highlighted item #5 in this diagram: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sh..._2001_E46_BMW_330i&diagId=51_3229#51118229318
2. Water is leaking out at the waterbottle for the windscreen and headlight cleaning system. I actually replaced the rubbers for both pipes (before the pumps) on the water bottle.
Looking at it last night, it looks like its now leaking after the pump.
May just need to double check I clipped it on properly.
3. The indicators on the fenders are currently disconnected. I completely forgot to double check if the cables would be long enough! :hammerhead:
Anyways, this is what it looks like, if I stick my phone inside the fender through the indicator hole:
4. Still need to add the strips on the bumper, forgot them at home, but found them last night.
5. Need to take the headlights off to replace the rubber between the clear plastic and the black plastic. I noticed water getting into the one. I did replace the rubber that goes over.
Actually also need to take out the black inserts inside, and replace them with the silver ones I have lying at home, which will finish the chrome look. I do wonder though if I should have gone with black in the corner lights and left the inserts black in the headlights. But there so many of these around, that the silver will be slightly more unique.
With that all said and done, here are the photos quickly taken when I went to pick up the car:
The bumper looks a bit misaligned under the driver side headlight, thats because of the missing bolt on that side:
After reviewing the 2x fenders that came off the car, I realized this car was in an accident before I bought it. The left fender still looks like the original that left the BMW factory, it has the primer color which I also see on other places on the car.
The right fender however, completely painted inside, which tells me its not the original.
In the meantime, before getting the car painted, I had an Android 8 radio waiting to be installed, so did this also.
Have look at where you can find rust in these cars:
Radio installed:
My favorite part is having A2DP and Google Maps. Still need to add the USB to allow a sim card, but for now using hotspot on the phone.
Then for the exciting part. Received the car back yesterday from Alpha Bodyworks. The guy I was originally dealing with for some reason never came back to me, so I decided on Monday I have had enough and just drove with the car there hoping they will have time available to start working on it. Turns out that guy left the company which explains the "not coming back to me".
Anyways, had a really great experience at Alpha Bodyworks. My original deal was to only get painted and I would have to align panels ect. myself. They painted, put everything back on and aligned it all properly. My only gripe is, I should have considered repainting the whole car, but even without that, it turned out pretty good, I am very happy with the end result.
There still some problems that I need to sort out.
1. Looks like the 1x bolt that holds the bumper went missing between my house and taking the car to Alpha. Can't find stock in SA at BMW, Goldwagen and BruceSpares haven't come back to me yet. Its from the highlighted item #5 in this diagram: https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/sh..._2001_E46_BMW_330i&diagId=51_3229#51118229318
2. Water is leaking out at the waterbottle for the windscreen and headlight cleaning system. I actually replaced the rubbers for both pipes (before the pumps) on the water bottle.
Looking at it last night, it looks like its now leaking after the pump.
May just need to double check I clipped it on properly.
3. The indicators on the fenders are currently disconnected. I completely forgot to double check if the cables would be long enough! :hammerhead:
Anyways, this is what it looks like, if I stick my phone inside the fender through the indicator hole:
4. Still need to add the strips on the bumper, forgot them at home, but found them last night.
5. Need to take the headlights off to replace the rubber between the clear plastic and the black plastic. I noticed water getting into the one. I did replace the rubber that goes over.
Actually also need to take out the black inserts inside, and replace them with the silver ones I have lying at home, which will finish the chrome look. I do wonder though if I should have gone with black in the corner lights and left the inserts black in the headlights. But there so many of these around, that the silver will be slightly more unique.
With that all said and done, here are the photos quickly taken when I went to pick up the car:
The bumper looks a bit misaligned under the driver side headlight, thats because of the missing bolt on that side:
