Something about my favorite BMW has been bothering me for a while. The sword of Damocles was hanging over us. It seemed like a small thing, but it foreshadowed big trouble. Anyone who has ever done even a little bit of car work can smell the hot antifreeze – who likes it? If the car's coolant boils and we didn't fill it with water, you can smell this characteristic smell in the engine compartment.
But in the passenger compartment too? Unfortunately, this also happens. But it certainly means something bad. Namely, that some part of the heating system is leaking. The heating radiator, the pipes, or one of the sealing rings. The parts are not that expensive, but accessing them… Alas!
Also, the coolant was running low. So something had to be done. I just tried to drive the car very gently and topped up the antifreeze, luckily it only ran out a little.
But it was winter, and I couldn't find anywhere that would allow me to do such a large, multi-day repair. And the mechanics I knew wouldn't take on this pleasant task.
In the meantime, I bought the heating radiator, which also came with the sealing rings. And I also made a decision. As soon as the weather warms up to around 10 degrees, I will start the big operation.
I found a good video on Youtube, although it was about a right-hand drive E36. Anyway, it'll be good! – I thought.
So I started on a beautiful Wednesday. I was a little nervous. On the advice of my friend Elek, I took pictures of every step, which I later found very useful.
So I took apart the shifter, opened the bottom of the dashboard, took out the glove box and drove along nicely.
I took the steering wheel apart – I disconnected the power to the car – then I took out the airbag – but that was the exciting part. They scared me so much that at this step the balloon had already burst. So the steering wheel was off, the passenger airbag was off and the dashboard was off. Here the blue cable was not connected, although it has a safety connector, so in principle it couldn't have slipped off during disassembly, so it certainly doesn't need to be connected. That was the first half day.
I couldn't deal with it on Thursday, but on Friday I took to the plane again to fix the 320i.
I struggled with the bracing, but I finally reached a point where the video of the right-hand drive car no longer matched my car, and I couldn't transpose it. It became obvious that I would have to remove the entire dashboard. I couldn't find a very good video of this, but I somehow managed.
I dismantled the heater cover, the plastic baffles and the radiator was revealed.
I didn't find a big leak, but there was a little moisture in the drain and a leak was visible on the lower left corner of the radiator. I removed the pipes connecting to the left side and unscrewed the radiator.
So I had the old radiator in my hands, I saw the fault, although I expected a more serious leak. Anyway! Let's put it together!
What I did from the good video is to make a small cut on the left side of the plastic housing, where the pipes come in, for easier installation.
I glued the sponge around the new radiator and then pushed it into place. But it wouldn't fit. I stretched it out again - it didn't sound very encouraging - adjusted it on the sponge and back. The second time it worked. Of course, first I applied the old rings to the three pipes - soaping the pipes - and so, let's put the pipes in place. The first one went into place pretty quickly. But the other two didn't want to do it right. Unfortunately, you couldn't really see what I was doing, I was just going by feel.
I struggled, I tried. I left it, I had a coffee. With renewed strength and new ideas, I started again, but they didn't work. It crossed my mind: if this keeps up, I'll have a worthless pile of metal. Oh no!
And then I adopted a custom that is not very common in car circles. I have seen many times that the professional doctor destroys the starry sky when something really goes wrong. I tried the opposite: I prayed. And lo and behold, the two pipes fell into place. I still don't understand how, but I was very happy.
I even wanted to replace the pollen filter, but the new one wouldn't fit. I compared the old one with the new one again, and then I saw that the new one was longer. I quickly went to the nearby car shop. Luckily, it was on the shelf. So I was able to replace the pollen filter too. I had to, because when I pulled out the old one, Jurassic artifacts were also found.
A new day dawned, and the assembly could begin. Here Elek's advice was of great importance, because during the assembly I only followed the photos back. Here too there were a couple of serious setbacks, but I was making relatively good progress.
The biggest adventure was putting the dashboard back together. I remembered it and wrote down that the blue connector was probably not needed. I looked at its connection point on the dashboard and saw, for example, a glow plug sign. Well, I really don't need that. I called two BMW specialists just to be safe, but I couldn't reach them. Anyway, it'll be fine! I put the dashboard back together, the steering wheel on, the airbags on, everything is ready. The battery terminal is back. I start it... The car starts fine, but the dashboard? It doesn't show anything! Oh my! I should have had the blue cable after all. Now should I take the steering wheel and airbags off again? I don't want that. It occurred to me that I would disassemble the lower part of the dashboard and try to reach in from there. I also added to this by using the previously proven prayer method. I reached up from below, flipped the dashboard, grabbed the cable I thought was right, fitted it into place, clicked the safety lock, put the dashboard back in and started the engine.
Fortunately, it worked now.
The next day – it was four days because I only had a few hours to work on it – I put the remaining bits together and bled the system. The leak stopped and the car has been running fine ever since!
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