325ix BAUR

[Baur]

From front to back bumper the car was stripped and got new lacquer from the rubber strips downwards. Only one little sign of rust near the number-plate light was observed and rectified.

Within 2 weeks all this was done.

Back to the BMW dealer
Engine oil change including timing belt, checking valve clearances (it is not a M40)
Transmission oil change
Rear axle drive oil change
New to me was a change of oils in the front axle drive and Transfer Case
Exchange of all other belts
Exchange of fuel pipes
Repair to the adjustable headlights/washer
Conversion to EUR2 because of taxing expenses
Brand new front strut mounts, new Bilstein HD-dampers and springs
New power steering pump
New starter motor

The other meachnics including the clutch were ok.

But this was only the beginning There were still some improvement to be made:

Originally I handed the car over to the BMW daeler with the comment, that I do have some time and that they should do a good job.

They had to accomplish some tasks like the installation of a soundsystem, a Becker Mexico radio, the on board computer BC2, cruise control and air-conditioning.

The meeting with the Baur TC Club in Moers//Germany in May 2003 came nearer and the car was not ready! On the other hand there was still the 316i TC2 Baur.

The big problem was the air-condition unit. The whole dash was dismantled, the air-condition cooler already in place when the service dpt. told me: “this air-condition unit is for a series2 car and does not fit in a car built before because of changed electrics”.

I told them that this primitive air-condition unit (compared to the BMW 850) has only very little electric connections and it should be possible to adapt these.

Because they had no electric details how to do this, they decided to take all air-condition parts out of the car again. As an apology, the head of Service was on training in this time.

First time on tour to the Moers Baur TC meeting in 2003 which was a very hot summer without A/C.

Travel to Moers was nearly without problems, however in traffic jam the car overheated.

The reason was detected later as a bad fan clutch. Travel back without any problem because there was no traffic-jam. Even at top speed (225 km/h) no change from the normal coolant temperature. The problem only occured when driving slowly.

Gas consumption was pretty low for such a car with a travel speed of 140 – 150 km/h.

The high compression ratio of the engine (10,2) does help in this aerea.

It was a big mistake by BMW that they lowered the compression ratio so much in order to use no-lead gas of 91 octance.

So back to the Service Department:

The head of Service was back and I told him, that I will not pay for this unsuccessful trial of the A/C installation. But in the end he took it sporty and developed ambition and he offered to install an A/C unit from an older car in the backyard which was parted out.

In December 2003 the task was completed (took some 2 weeks of interrupted work).

Now I am again in the position that I can go to my car every month and put the A/C to work (works only above 5 degress centigrade),

I have nothing to do otherwise.


Here you can see the dashboard after successful A/C installation. Because of the changed camshaft the idle speed is now around 1000 rpms, which is substantially higher than with a standard engine.