Replaced my shift shaft seal (GM trans). Replaced the o ring on the coolant temp sensor on the lower radiator hose. Messed with my leaking PS hose. Hopefully got it stopped. Put grade 12 bolts and nuts on the stiffening plate when I put it back on from doing the shift shaft seal. Was going to give her a bath, but rain coming tonight and tomorrow, so it will wait.

Spring mount (I switched to coils years ago)


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Today is my sunday and I didn’t feel like working on anything actually important, so I cleaned and lubed my window seals and tracks. The rag and credit card trick is fantastic, and the dry silicone spray seems to help a lot.

I also replaced the hedgehog, which I was hopeful would fix my IHKA issue. The car won’t blow over bar 3 in the auto mode, and the (main) dash vents never seem to blow as hard as they used to. However, with max ac, or manual fan selected all variations of fan speed work. Also, the center/dash vents blow fine when selected on the panel. This tells me it isn’t a switch or stepping motor, or the main blower, and the hedgehog didn’t seem to fix anything.

So I pulled the IHKA panel and saw a lot of dust and lint inside of it, thru the various vents and holes. The fan especially was clogged with a ton of lint. I wasn’t sure how to open it up, so I got out the compressor and blew it out from all angles, and then shot a bunch of contact cleaner into it. The fan seemed to turn well with the compressed air.

My 1 min test in the drive way after buttoning it up seemed promising. I’m headed out to run errands and will report back.

***Update***
So far so good. Drove the car for a while running errands and the dash vents were blowing fine again. I also got back in it after it sat in the sun for a bit and the blower came on at roughly 50% immediately. Before the cleaning it wouldn’t do more than 3 bars in Auto.

I don’t think the hedgehog did anything, but replacing a 22 year old resistor that had a few bent bits isn’t the end of the world. I didn’t spring for OEM, so hopefully it will last a while.

What I think is the blower as been squeaking in cold weather, but if I’m really lucky maybe it was the little fan I cleaned out in the IHKA controller.

Finally wired my E53 back up for trailer lights. When I bought my E70, I planned to sell my E53, so I sold the factory trailer hitch and wiring harness. Plans changed and I kept the E53 around, so I put a Curt hitch back on it so I could haul bikes at least. Then on occasion I really wished I had lights so I could pull a small trailer.

No coding is required, so all I had to do was buy a $60 module off Ebay, the plastic plug and the individual pins are available from FCP, and lastly a generic pigtail (I only made a 4-pin hookup for now). It's a really clean install doing it this way. The blank plastic plug and pins were about $10 and a Curt pigtail was about $6 on Amazon. I crimped on the pins to the individual wires and then soldered each for durability.

Plug the module in behind the battery, plug in my homemade, but good-as-factory harness, and I have lights!

AM.

Can you share the exact part #? I've been wanting to put a factory light control in my e70 and had no luck determining exactly what i needed so i have a 3rd party controller. It gets the job done but i have to deal with PDC alarm constant when reversing and i think three DSC program works differently to account for a trailer when you have factory trailer power

Edit: I just re-read your question and didn't catch that it was about your e70. I actually have an extra E70 module p/n 7160685049701. PM me your address and I'll send it to you. You've been very helpful to me over the years, so this is a small token of my appreciation.

Now back to the E53 for anyone interested: Here's the module I got, though I think there were a lot of different part numbers over the years and basically any of the E53-compatible ones will work:

Attachment 84562

Then from FCP:

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...ol-61131378138

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw...-2-61131376204

Then all you need is a generic trailer wire pigtail of your choice (7 wire or 4 wire).

AM.

Nice, I'm getting ready to install my hitch. Should be all plug and play, right? I read your has coding, is that correct?

Here's the post for a hitch.

Guess what I have to do this weekend... [emoji28]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...8dfd871c12.jpg

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I think I'm confusing it with my E70 install. The E70 definitely needs coded to work right, but I just looked at the original trailer hitch instructions for the E53, and they don't mention any coding needed. I think you'll be good to just plug and play.

AM.

Pollak 11898 is a nice universal 7-pin harness…I think the OEM harness was made by Pollak.


Connect the pins and connector plug mentioned in post 16946 above, add a trailer module and you’re in business.