B10 V8, No. 388

[KennyP]

Happy Easter everyone, well thanks to some rain during the week the last of the road salt had finally washed away here so it was B10 time!

It was somewhat grumpy with what felt like bit of a misfire, or even a leak from one of the downpipes joins. Put in some fresh fuel (99 Ron) but still didn't seem happy. Remembered that these cars must have good strong battery (it had been on the Ctek on and off over winter) and a quick check showed it was a little lower than ideal. My fault as I'd been messing around re-fitting the original radio cassette over the week. Plugged it back into the charger overnight and fired it up yesterday, much better with all 8 cylinders joining in and the gremlins gone

Into the attic, found box of old tapes (Right Said Fred anyone....!!! ) and off we went with MrsP and son no. 3. Nice little round trip into Fife, through St Andrews and the B10 got back to its usual self. I do love the subtle exhaust backfires (very muted) on the over run. You can only hear it if the sunroof is tilted and Fred could easily drown it out....

M135i has also gone replaced by a very low miles (47K) e39 525i Touring. Not special against the B10, but a lovely old thing on it's 16" wheels!

Cheers

[KennyP]

After a few days I still wasn't convinced about the battery, it was an old-ish Exide lump so I bit the bullet and ordered up a new Varta from Tayna. Not cheap at just over £100 delivered but 100AH, good cold cranking and a 5 year warranty. Late last year I reported buying couple of Delphi TPS for the throttle body. The doc light came back on last week and the car had become little grumpy on very light on/off throttle at 20/30 mph. After speaking with the indy (he reported not very good results on Delphi stuff himself) I bit the bullet and ordered the last 2 TPS in the country from Grassicks BMW at nearly 4x the cost each of the Delphi stuff.

The car is night and day, the idle and 'creep' are far better and stronger, throttle on off much smoother and starting after a few days much improved too so all in all, worth the expense in my view.

Purely out of curiosity whilst doing jobs on both e39's I swapped a front wheel across between the touring with 16" wheels and the Alpina 18" ones. The Alpina wheels despite the size difference are substantially lighter, the tops of the 16" tyres disappeared into the Alpina arches and the touring looked ridiculous with about 6" between the top of the tyre and the arch Laughed out loud in embarrassment and quickly swapped them back again! Alpina suspension is substantially lower no doubt.

[KennyP]

A quick bid on eBay (my first ever..) for a business in dash CD player for the B10. £13 quid later it was mine The tuner side of mine wasn't great with some of the buttons mis behaving and the volume control potentiometer playing up, so an offer of £75 yielded a warranted one. Both arrived today, installed and working a treat. Right Said Fred once again banished to the box in the attic

Its good to have working computer again even if the av mpg is 'horrible!

[KennyP]

Had a run through to Bridge of Allan for the classics meet last Sunday (didn't see any other Alpina unfortunately) and was still able to detect a slight hesitation on light/part throttle despite the new TPS. They have improved matters no doubt but through 2nd, 3rd , 4th and 5th there is still this occasional hesitation at light load and maybe 1/4 throttle that can be felt very briefly. As soon as the accelerator is moved even slightly it disappears and the B10 is off up the road.

Have done lots of homework online this week and whilst nothing concrete has come up regards throttle body (cable operated), throttle pedal (cable), maf, plugs (recent), coils (recent), air filter (new), I have been doing some digging. Idle Control Valve was cleaned and made no difference. I checked for vacuum leaks and couldn't find any for the favourite culprits (inlet manifold gaskets, front rear and into the head), if the car was going to have a 'miss' it would surely be felt over broader range if down to plugs, coils etc and wouldn't pull as well as it does on a WOT. This got me thinking around the 'ADS2" (traction control) device which is located next to the cruise control module. It operates a second butterfly on the alloy elbow going into the actual throttle body butterfly intake. It works by an electric motor drawing in a thin cable which attaches to said secondary butterfly (pic below) and can also be responsible for giving 'dsc' warning lights too.

So, before the rain came on, out came the spanners and after some swearing it all came off. The gear wheel in the traction control module does move freely when turned by hand but I need to check the motor itself. The TB butterfly was quite dirty so that's had good clean and it was good to see the valley pan area under the inlet manifold was all nice and dry. I might try to drive it without the ADS 2 connected to see if any difference but it is favourite at the moment due to it being able to 'choke' the inlet briefly. Luckily, the default position of the ads controlled butterfly is wide open so if it isn't connected, it can't move!

[KennyP]

Thought it time for a little update. 388 passed it's MOT yesterday with just couple of daft things getting in the way; the offside headlight decided it didn't want to despite being absolutely fine before dropping it off at the indy and working fine for him too....a wee waggle later and all working Possibly connected (no pun intended....) to me dismantling the headlights to polish the lens' last summer and something not being fully seated. The offside handbrake was slightly out of balance and a quick wheel off tweak sorted that. Tester was reportedly very impressed with the car and how good it all was. He was particulate impressed with the emissions and the power of the front brakes which apparently gave an exceptionally high reading on the rollers. It seems that the Brembo discs with ATE ceramic pads is good combo.

In other news , I bought a scanner as driving the car without the ADS 11 (mentioned in the previous) connected post really upset everything. The scanner was around £133 off amazon and seems to be a good match for the car. You can reset adaptives, steering angle sensor, read codes for most things. Long story short, I was able to reset the dsc light that decided to stay on after my fiddling to keep the mot tester happy.

Just to keep me on my toes, a few weeks back the 'skooshers' decided to fall apart with BMW's special brittle plastic hoses losing the will and the under bonnet pump giving up too. BMW wanted £110 for bits, amazon saw silicone hose, lots of joiner pieces and a new Febi pump for £16.49....Intensive wash now restored!

[KennyP]

After the mot, parts eventually arrived to continue my renewal of old bits. The car would still occasionally slightly hesitate or self increase it's idle so in no particular order a new (genuine) idle valve, maf, cam sensor, O2 sensors and air temp sensor. A new Pierburg fuel pump was sourced (£19 !!!!) I had already tried cleaning the ICV and had checked for vacuum leaks but couldn't find anything. Myles at HPC had already done the coils before I bought it (proper Bosch/made in Slovakia/not Chinese rubbish....) and the plugs are fairly new too. Frustratingly nothing much changed after fitting all of these (one at a time/codes checked etc). What was noted was that the car seemed to reset itself once it fully warmed up despite me resetting any adaptations. This would cause the car to revert back to hesitation and fluctuating idle after being fine for 10-15 mins. Grrr etc...

Decided to call a local Italian specialist whom I know to be very good (if you can sort Italian electrics...) and an all round good guy. We talked through the issues and he knew 'a man' that he would call in. 'The man', had all sorts of specialist diagnosis kit and smoke testers for sneaky vac leaks etc.

Dropped last thing Wednesday night and went along early Thursday afternoon. Turned out the throttle settings were all out (despite being cable actuated), at 'idle' the car thought it was being driven on throttle and on throttle it was all over the place too. No vac leaks found either. They said to take it away and try it for a few days and so far what huge difference! Cold or hot, far smoother, no hesitation, steady idle and just feels far more together. I didn't get a chance to speak with 'the man' but he has found 1 repeating code that insisted on not going away so he is investigating that one and will get in touch with the answer. As I haven't paid anyone yet I'm sure this will happen!

Car has now completed 3 separate trips from stone cold to typically hot Alpina V8 in slow moving traffic, dual carriageways and country roads all without issue so hopefully this is now solved! Might even treat it to an oil change if it keeps behaving...

[ScooBeeFive]

Always enjoy your updates - this is such a nice car. Glad to hear you might be getting to the bottom of these niggles. I know how frustrating an intermittent issue can be, but how satisfying it is when it's finally diagnosed and resolved!

[KennyP]

Cheers Paul! So far, so good Hell, it's even *slightly* better on the juice.....









*.....man maths/placebo effect.....*

[Bob]

Looking lovely Kenny

[KennyP]

Cheers Bob! Finally got around to ordering an extension for my stirrup pump. It's only a cheap amazon job but it didn't half make sorting the tyre pressures much easier! A pack of 2 was around £7, so one in the boot and one for the garage. Job done. A little more feedback on the ATE ceramic pads; far less dust and the dust that is produced seems to be lighter in colour. They work fine when cold and are really good when hot! Tempted to do the rears too, maybe next year...

[BarryM]

Agreed, ceramic pads are a great move, also kinder on your discs - I went with Carbotech Bobcat pads because it's a great name

Car looks immaculate as always

[KennyP]

Hah! Cheers Barry, I had to google your Bobcats... Had something similar to them on the Cerbera (Carbon Lorraine) a few years back. I was advised not to use the car during winter as they would rust...!

It was aircon time yesterday as the Scottish Riviera is fairly heating up just now, I mean it must have been nearly 18c...Either way the a/c was requiring a top-up as it had clearly lost some gas sitting all winter in the garage. I wasn't prepared to pay another £183 as per last year and whilst the kwik fit lot say £60 the thought of letting them anywhere near my car makes my teeth itch.....

The old e39 touring also required a top up as although it was already blowing slightly cooler than the Alpina it wasn't by much. A bit of googling revealed 'aircon topup' cans from a company called Thomsons and they were available through Amazon. 2 x tins of gas and one tin of gas/sealer and the connection hose with pressure gauge for around £92 seemed worth a try (pic below) and plenty of install vids on YT.

Arrived yesterday, initial pressure test on the touring showed it was just below what it needs at 30%. Ix tin of gas and 10 mins later ice cold a/c with pressure reading of 45%. Onto the B10, pressure test showed just 10% confirming why it was slightly warmer than the touring. Tin of sealer gas (its supposed to lube the O rings/seals) and we were upto 30%. Ran it for 10 mins and added the other tin of gas and we ended at 35%. The B10 is still not quite as cold but good enough to keep things comfortable in the car. I'm tempted to try 1 more tin as I know from last year that it takes an enormous amount of gas in it's system but I'll see how things go first.

Sorry for the long-winded post but if you've made it this far.....many haven't.....2 cars sorted for £92 is not bad value and all done in less than an hour on the drive.

[Bob]

I had no idea there was a diy service/top up kit for air conditioning. Interesting

[KennyP]

Spotted some of these products a few years back but with no real feedback on them I stayed away. Halfords are advertising a tin at £100 quid which surely defeats the object of doing it cheaply yourself!

It was insurance time and have remained with A plan after quick haggle on the phone with them. They were around £20 dearer than mainstream offers but with a very low excess, salvage rights and guaranteed value. It was the envelope however that sold it to me.....

[KennyP]

It was back to black time for the B10 and the touring. The touring is mostly chrome being an SE but the Alpina is black everything from rubbing strips, window surrounds and so on. Now we' ve all tried the various remedies but it was when reading the big thread on the B6 3.2 touring between Simon and Shaziman (Fab stuff by the way) Nanolex was mentioned as a trim restorer. I did google as you do and then ventured onto another product with really good feedback called Solution Finish trim restorer. Now £20 for a bottle about the same size as a nail varnish bottle had better be good!!

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Turned up today, so quick degrease of all the black stuff on both cars with some IPA and on it went. A little does go along way but it is messy in a black oily chemical type way. Apply wearing gloves and a microfibre cloth you are happy to throw away...

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So, some phots of IPA'd surfaces; a bit dark grey rather than black,

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Now product applied; much darker in a matt satin not cheap looking shiny way,

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And anyone with an old touring will know how grey the rear wiper block likes to turn..

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Only time will tell and various magic potions have fallen short over the years so we shall see and report back in time . Even managed to gliptone all the leather surfaces in both cars.