Hitmo's BMW E46 330Ci Sport - Silver Grey

[Hitmo]

Hey guys,

As some of you may know I sold my beloved DC2 for something a bit more suited to my needs, having landed a new job which meant travelling more miles and between offices I felt like I needed something more professional. So here's it is, a 2004 BMW E46 Facelift 330Ci Sport in Silver Grey, the car came with the following spec;

- Auto Xenon lights with headlamp washers
- Folding Mirrors
- Fully Electric Memory Seats
- Sunroof
- Harmon Kardon Sound System
- Cruise Control
- Bluetooth
- Parking Sensors

Here she is the day I brought her home

Having now owned the car for 6 weeks I haven't done much except give it wash/wax, great German engineering did already let me down though, after just a few weeks the radiator shat itself :evil: So I picked up a new rad, some genuine BMW coolant and went about my first repair on a BMW, found an absolutely dummy proof guide here which helped out alot!

E46 Radiator,Expansion Bottle Removal/replace-picc heavy

Took me about 3 hours on my own to complete, check out the state of the old rad, it expanded into a U shape!

Initially I had planned to keep the car stock but old habbits die hard and the modifying itch has got me once again! Going forward, these are currently my plans;

- Andrive Built-in Sat Nav System (Currently in the post on its way to me)
- Eibach Sportline Springs
- DIY repair fog light glass
- DIY repair rear LED tail lights
- Some new wheels- possible BBS CHs

That's it so far, I'll update as I go along!

Thanks for reading

Hitmo

 

[Wazer]

Nice car indeed, Ive actually been looking at some of the E46 m3's and offt - I like! Either one of them or a Exige.

Man that radiator is so strange, looks to of gotten mega hot me thinks!

Look forward to some updates

 

[Willis]

Yeahh my e36 went through about 5 rads in the time i owned it!! I don't know about the 330s but you have to watch out when it/if it overheats as the head is alloy and the bottom end is cast. Very easy to warp heads . Saying that my 325 took an absolute pasting for years and was pretty reliable until i snapped it clean in half . Welded diffs and rusty 20 year old beemers tend to end up that way haha.

Really plush wagon you have there Hitmo! And CHs are my choice of wheel too for any German cruise mobile .

 

[Curtis.]

Nice car. I'm guessing its high mileage, the cooling system tends to let go after the 100k mark.

 

[Hitmo]

Nice car indeed, Ive actually been looking at some of the E46 m3's and offt - I like! Either one of them or a Exige.

Man that radiator is so strange, looks to of gotten mega hot me thinks!

Look forward to some updates

Cheers fella!

Yeahh my e36 went through about 5 rads in the time i owned it!! I don't know about the 330s but you have to watch out when it/if it overheats as the head is alloy and the bottom end is cast. Very easy to warp heads . Saying that my 325 took an absolute pasting for years and was pretty reliable until i snapped it clean in half . Welded diffs and rusty 20 year old beemers tend to end up that way haha.

Really plush wagon you have there Hitmo! And CHs are my choice of wheel too for any German cruise mobile .

Thanks dude! Don't worry I'm keeping a very close eye on the temp and I will be upgrading the other common failure components of the cooling system to prevent any chance of overheating

Nice car. I'm guessing its high mileage, the cooling system tends to let go after the 100k mark.

Thanks dude, no its only at 82k, I put up a thread on the radiator here, and apparently its very common for it to fail like this and can even happen at 65k!

Unusual Radiator Failure - Deformed! - Technical help (E46) - E46 Zone Forum

The Andrive unit turned up today, this is actually the earlier model of the Andrive but with all new wiring/fittings/accessories.

So many wires!

Still need to buy a heater controls relocation unit, if anyone has one for sale, hit me up!

 

[Hitmo]

Hey guys,

Bit of an update, first of all I bought a few bits and pieces I was needing. The wipers were recommended to me from a friend, they are awesome and only cost £6 of eBay!

I bought the acrylic to repair my fog lights using the great DIY I found here: Repair Foglight Lens - E46 DIY (Guides only) - E46 Zone Forum As you can see they were both cracked

So took them out and put them on my bench

Removed the glass and dremel'd out the inner lip

Cut out the acylic using this baby I had lying around

Tiger Sealed it in and here's the finished article (the lens needed a clean in this pic but they are nice and clean now!)

Also fitted my Andrive unit - still a few bugs to sort out but its awesome!

 

[Hitmo]

Few updates;

Bought some LED number plate bulbs, only £7 and look great at night 8)

Finally bought a centre console tray to route my cables for ipod/usb into

And also finally got round to giving her a detail. The process involved full clay with Meguiars clay kit, full paint correction using a DA polisher and Meguiars polish, followed by some Autoglym HD wax. Didn't get any before pics but here's a during and many afters

One thing I was really happy about was getting rid of that cloudy multicoloured imperfection on the window trims, looks good as new now!

Reflection 8)

Future plans;
- Respray front bumper
- New number plates
- New fog lights (sadly my DIY ones let in water )

 

[Lee s]

Lovely, I was about to buy an e92 m3 last week and found out on the inspection it had two buggered dampers....