The gas struts have been replaced at some point with aftermarket (they seem very similar to the cheapies on Amazon), however they are juuuust a little shorter than the OEM which in my case puts the hood right about upper forehead level resulting in :banghead:

After several reminders I have now learned how to approach her

I'm used to door seals and windows freezing shut but haven't experienced anything like this before.

I have several vehicles that sit outside all winter and none have turned into icebergs quite like this

My end goal has been to give it the more aggressive off-road treatment along the Fluid Motor Union e53 lines but I didn't want to spend too much money and shortly after Swampy came into my life I bought another e53 so that pretty much took most of whatever was left in the fun budget

Lucky for me while Swampy has been frozen there was a great post started by thstone https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...and-build.html

There's a budget friendly version of a lift kit that was posted which definitely was the price range I'm familiar with :D aaaaaaaand it happened to be on sale aaaaaand it was my birthday last week so needless to say...

Swampy will now be joining the cool kids club


https://i.imgur.com/TMyjVqF.jpg


I decided to go with a 265/70/17 tire. While we wait for the lift kit I'm hoping to find some used tires that look cool. Maybe something a little more along the lines of an aggressive mud tire than the BF KO2 style but I'm pretty flexible depending on the price.

I really like the FMU Dick Cepek Crushers with the skulls but I don't think I could spend that kind of money on tires when there's so many more shitboxes you could buy :D

WOOOT WOOOT!!!!

Mail call!!!!

The ebay "lift kit" is here!


https://i.imgur.com/KwEqdKN.jpg


For anyone interested in took about 30 days to get here to Canada (Ontario). Not too bad coming from Russia.


https://i.imgur.com/2ZeAkkm.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/ywyJKPS.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/LbrwMYn.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/T7N0MIf.jpg


https://i.imgur.com/l3O8c7b.jpg

I haven't done much with Swampy because it looks like whatever has been draining the battery finally sucked all the life out of it.

Even if I charge it up fully overnight it will be flat DEAD by the next day which is super annoying trying to get anything done. By the time I get enough of a charge on the battery it's dark and cold again so "I'll just do it in the morning" and by then it's dead. Rinse and Repeat

Also it seems our early spring has been postponed for the next few weeks because they're calling for snow tonight or tomorrow. :rolleyes:

All we really need is a brake bleed and Swampy is road worthy again. The rear wheel bearing isn't loud enough yet to make me worry :D

Pull the fuses for your nav if you have it, radio, telematic (blue tooth) and dsp if you have it. Those are known to cause parasitic drain. Charge the battery and if it doesn't drain, you've identified possible culprits and you can do the other work you want to do.

No NAV, bluetooth or DSP on this one...but either way yes you're right. I'm just being lazy for some reason

Maybe this lift kit will be enough of a kick in the ass to get going again.

It's hard when it's cold and it doesn't get cold here anything like it does there.

your cold is our drop top weather :D

But seriously I've just been lazy and focused on other non car projects.

time for some long overdue updates:

For any new spectators joining us from this point I'll do a super quick rundown of the story.

- Bought beat down 3.0 because my lowball offer was accepted :dunno:

- Vehicle spent time in Florida and had a couple inches of standing water in the floor because the sunroof drains were pinched = mold and rust

- Grinding noise was heard from the rear of vehicle and during a visual inspection I noticed the brake lines had the consistency of deep fried bacon....mmmmmm bacon

- After replacing bacon brake lines some idiot introduced what appears to be a never ending supply of air into the system while trying to bleed it.

- Brake bleeding procedure failed many times due to the fact there is a parasitic draw that for some reason I refuse to address so every time I try to initiate the bleeding procedure with ISTA there's juuuuuust enough current to cycle the ABS pump for a couple seconds then it starts spazzing out clicking rapidly because there really isn't enough voltage but it will totally fake you out each time just enough to give you hope that today is the day we'll have a solid brake pedal but NO..NO IT ISN'T THE DAY and even though I have a battery charger on it, it's one of these stupid intelligent chargers that doesn't quite seem to get the job done...not so goddam smart now are you charger?!?!?!?

- Winter

- Brand new battery when I bought the car is now as useful as an ashtray on an airplane

- Ordered Russian lift kit...low key hoping that I could use it as an excuse for not getting shit done since it will take months to come from Russia right? 5/6 weeks later lift kit shows up and well....still nothing

- At one point I had to steal the speaker from the passenger side for the Wife's car so that door panel came off, then I stole something from the driver's side, so that door panel came off

- Miscellaneous non essential things were addressed (we'll come back to this)

- Then one day I decided that I wanted to do something...like a real something. We got new belts, pulleys water pump etc, why not replace the OFHG ?(we'll come back to this too)

- Finally decided to give this brake bleeding another try. (we'll come back to this also)

Ok so now we're kind of sort of caught up...but I need to address something real quick and we'll get back to all of this, but for real this time.

Chapter OFHG

I finally decided to get off my ass and do some real work on Swampy. Since the day I brought it home it's been leaking oil proudly as all BMWs tend to do.

I bought an oil pan gasket a while back and was slowly gathering parts to redo axles etc since the boots are torn but seeing as I haven't done jack shit in a year let's be a little more realistic. We're going at the gaskets from the top down so Oil filter housing gasket it is!!

One of the German parts places I use was having some kind of sale and I was going into the big city the next day so I used this opportunity and ordered the OFHG, some coolant and I forget what else for pickup at a location close to my buddy's place. This way I can pick up the stuff the next day and the shipping cost will cover most of my gas back...sweet!! (wait for it...)

The next day I get an email blah blah order delayed was the gist of it so my plan went to shit. Not only do I not have my stuff early but now I have to pick it up next time I'm in the city. Booooo!!!

Not to worry. Since I admitted defeat and I'll be waiting at least a week (or so I thought) before I'm back in the city I might as well order them from Rockauto together with some other stuff. So I bought 3 sets

sidenote:

The original order arrived days later and my buddy picked it up for me. It was 3 months before I finally picked it up from him and this is what I got...

It's been a long day for me and it's time for bed but more to come