So here's the car as it sits today. Drove it about 30 miles and it was mostly good. Mostly*. Check out my cool E90 wheels, courtesy of our very own PCA executive director and fellow crappy E46 owner.
While I was waiting on parts to sort out the rusty brake piston problem, I tackled some cosmetic stuff. First, the grilles were loose. Super common problem - the plastic clips age, become brittle and break off. The grilles then rattle around in the hood. The proper solution is to buy new grilles, $60 each from BMW. But this is a 220k mile 17 yr old BMW for a 16 yr old kid, so it gets the improper solution - a $3 tube of black silicone RTV and it's fixed. Yeah, I feel a little dirty about this, but not that much.
Next, the Homelink Garage Door opener. This car didn't come with one. It was a several hundred dollar option at the time. This is one of the things I love about old BMWs - expensive add on features can be bought for almost nothing on eBay. This transmitter is actually from a newer car so it compatible with my opener. I paid $20 shipped from eBay. It snapped right in to the panel, plugged into the wiring harness and *voila* like it came from the factory.
Anyone who owns a BMW should recognize what I'm doing here:
Ah, BMW and their craptastic window regulators. My E90 has had both rear ones replaced, and this car needed 3 of 4. I'm guessing that the only reason that it didn't need 4 of 4 is because the only one I didn't replace, the driver's, had already been done.
Cool thing about changing the window regulators? You get to see how many dead stinkbugs you can find stuck to the butyl tape of the vapor barrier. I think I got 20 or so over the course of three doors.
New windshield installed. Finally resolved the screw-up around the Chinese windshield. They came back the next day with a German made Sekurit. Everything is installed and the rain sensor is even working properly. I had to replace the cowling at the bottom of the windshield as well, as the old one just fell apart when you touched it.
Finally, the stereo sounds like absolute crap. A little bass, but not much. Problem number 1 - the woofer in the driver's door is not working. I need to pull the door panel and look into that. I'm guessing that when they replaced the driver's door window regulator, they forgot to reconnect. Problem two, no bass when the fader in in the rear. I wonder if the speakers are blown? Let's see...
Looks like someone couldn't bear to part with their bitchin' set of Kenwoods, so they pulled them
. It certainly explains the lack of bass. Funny when I think of the number of 5 1/4" speakers I've tossed over the years simply due to no space to store them. This is why I tell my wife I need to save shit. "I can't throw away this set of JBL Power Pros from 1991! I might buy a crappy E46 one day that has had it's rear speakers removed - and then what? I'll be ready is what".
* Mostly. Turns out there are TWO boots between the MAF and the throttle body. I replaced the upper boot that was torn. The lower boot is torn as well - just discovered that tonight after the CEL came back on.