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Hey, I've driven this car through a creek in Northern California. I'm practically an over-lander at this point.

Turns out the mounting hardware that came with the Thule box wasn't close to fitting on the OEM bars and didn't look like they'll fit well on an aero bar either. I searched a bunch and could not find anything off-the-shelf that would work well. Finally, I found someone with an E46 M3 that had the OEM bars and my box. It looked like they used U-bolts so I went that route. The original hardware was 1/4". When specing out the U-bolts on McMaster Carr, I bumped up to 5/16". The whole mounting solution bottom-up is: 1.5" U-bolts with epoxy lined shrink tubing at the contact area, the small plate that came with the bolts , the box floor, a plate that came with the original mounting hardware (see both plates on the box in the first pic), some washers and a lock nut. The floor and plates had to be re-drilled for the 1.5" U-bolt spacing. We (son and I) were able to re-use 4 of the original holes and placed the reminder using the small plate that came with the bolt.

So a rabbit hole and $225 later, I have more cargo space. Luckily it fits under the bottom of the garage door on the way out too.







I haven't taken the car out for a test drive just yet due to my voltage regulator getting lazy. It takes a handful of seconds now to kick on and I was seeing low 13.x volts charging. I was clued into it going out when I killed the battery troubleshooting the radio with the trunk open a while and added a few start ups. I charged the battery apparently just enough to start it and noticed the low charging volts by monitoring a cig lighter voltage gauge. The Bosch Alt is just over 4 years old and has 20k on it. These unfortunately have been documented as problematic and I'm not very surprised. I have a BERU regulator OTW from Lithuania and tracking is showing just over a week now. From what I've read, BERU parts are now manufactured in China, which isn't ideal but I'm hoping it's the best flavor of chinesium.

Great solution.

Thanks. Speed tests yielded positive results too. I actually ended up dropping it off with my painter buddy to color match the top.

The noise with the roof box isn't that bad and it's quieter than just the bars.


TLDR: The voltage issue might be resolved at this point.

When I went to drive the car to drop off the roof box the battery was dead-dead. I have a JNC660 with a brand new lead acid battery and I didn't even get a crank out of that. I've been able to jump multiple cars with that on one charge in the past. I was able to jump it with the battery out of my Cobalt and the system voltage eventually got up to 14v but it took two long highway stints.

I put the battery on a low amp charger overnight so I can properly diag it the next day. (Stuff I should have done before) I checked current draw and it was less than 3 mA. Then I tested the battery with a carbon pile tester and it failed. This battery, while a BMW AGM, is probably 7 years old. Way past due but it actually passed a carbon pile test 5-6 months ago. I picked up a Costco Interstate AGM the next day. With the new battery installed, base voltage was 12v. After turning it over, it still took a minute for the regulator to kick on and it was charging at 12.8v. Worried that the regulator still might be an issue, I installed the (made in China) BERU regulator. I was hoping I didn't have to R&R the alt but it only took me an hour 15 to do the regulator job.

With the new regulator installed, the voltage did begin to slowly creep up much sooner after start up but the charging volts only made it up to 13v. I'm used to an alternator going up to 14.5 or more on a dead battery then settling in at 13.5ish after it's as far as it can charge. It might just be the way this car or the alternator is but charging voltage seems to be 0.8ish volts higher than the non-running battery base voltage. So, the car won't see 14v unless the battery is charged to a 13.2ish base.

I drove the car around a bit to run errands with some highway, stop and go and a couple start ups. By the time I was heading home, charging voltage was 14-14.1 at 1000+ RPM and 13.6v at idle. The car is on a tender to make sure its fully charged and I'm planning on leaving it off after I drive it next. I think I'm good to go here but I guess I'll see.






I also tried to diag my radio issue more. None of the left hand side buttons on the head unit work and I can't get the amber light to turn on by pressing the bottom left knob in. All fuses were good. DSP wasn't showing up on the head unit so I shot gunned an amp to try and fix it since that's what the internet says to do. That got DSP to show up again but the rest of the symptoms remained. I had another known good head unit body so I swapped that in with my good screen and no change. At this point I'm down to the radio module which resides in the trunk. I previously it took apart but there wasn't anything visibly burnt out. I did notice some minor corrosion on the connector pins this time. I cleaned them with CRC QD but there was no change. So now I'm waiting for a used radio module to come in with matching p/ns.

I need to check my Silverado. I think it has a parasitic drain on the battery 'cause when I let it sit for several weeks it complains and I have to hook up the charger. For the time being I keep it on a tender.

I was actually happy I didn't have to isolate a current draw. I can do electrical but man I'd rather be doing something else.

The charging system seem pretty happy now with the new regulator and a new fully charged battery. If the car is sitting at about 12.8v cold, the regulator will immediately ramp the voltage up to 14.2 after start up.

95naSTA wrote:I was actually happy I didn't have to isolate a current draw. I can do electrical but man I'd rather be doing something else.

Agreed. With all the electronics on cars anymore you can get wrapped up in spark chasing for days. It's unbelievable what a sketchy ground somewhere in a system will do, for instance.

^^Facts.

The radio module ended up being the issue with the left side of the head unit not working. Last year I had this issue, shot gunned an amp at it and it worked again for another year. I did the same thing here and it didn't work, as mentioned, but I left the newly acquired used amp in the car. With the radio working again I went back and tested my original amp and the one I went to replace it with last year and they both work. So, now I have 2 spare amps.. lol. I'm guessing the radio module has some sort of corrosion issue.





I broke one of the trunk light lenses removing the lights when I did tested for a current draw.

I'm surprised you didn't figure out some way to run those two amps in series...

LOL^^

I got the box back from paint today along with a fuel door and an OEM front bumper.

I didn't snap a pic of the bumper yet. I'll get pic after I mount it which is depends on when I get a PPF appointment. I cracked mine late winter/spring unfortunately and decided to go new BMW.

My original fuel door I messed up by installing the spring wrong and it got those 2 common high spots from that. PDR would fix it but I don't have a good contact for that. What was on the car until now is a door I found on ebay. It was damaged in Colorado on my CA-PA trip in 2021. Although it wasn't terribly noticeable it's been bothering me. I found a Japanrot (different Red) E39 in the junkyard a while back and the plan was to have the outside re-sprayed Imola red whenever I had more paintwork done.

For the Thule Box, when I told my painter buddy about picking it up he actually told me I needed to color match it.. he also said it would look better if the texture was taken down with some light DA sanding.. I wasn't in any position to disagree and I'm very happy with how it turned out. We thought keeping the edge and bottom black would match the bumper trim and it would also give it a guilt free surfaces to set it down.








One other bad/good thing that happened with the car is I got a flat spot on the inside lip of one of my front wheels. I got a good rec for a local wheel repair (and powedercoat) spot, Vibrant Finish. It only took $150 and 3 hours to get it true and tire re-mounted/balanced. They did a great job preserving the outer finish and for not having the wheel re-finished, the inside lip area that was bent wasn't rough looking at all.

She's a beaut!

Thanks guys!

I took my kids to a smaller tourist cave site today called the Lost River Caverns.



On the way back when I was in a turning lane at a light and the car started to run rough, my wideband went lean and then the car shut off. Then a couple of kids yelled over from my right saying that gas was leaking from my car (from the right). The light turned green and there was just enough grade to get my car halfway through the intersection. Then I jumped out and pushed it through to the shoulder. Knowing that all the hard lines run up the left side of the car, I figured it had to be an issue with the left sending unit or supply line at the tank. I transferred the kids to the front seats, popped the rear seat bottom, and used the Gerber multitool I keep in the tool tray to remove the access cover. Somehow the supply line popped up and off. I was able to push it back on, feel the click and couldn't pull it back off. I ran the car without the cover on just to confirm there was no leak and it was good. Thankfully I think the whole ordeal only set me back about 20 mins. I checked the last time I messed with the fuel tank at all and it was 4 years and 18k miles ago. If I didn't fully seat the line back then, that's a pretty impressive run for it to last like that. Hopefully that was the case. When I got home I ran a foam cannon up around the tank and behind so there wasn't any residual fuel lingering on any surfaces.

I have been getting a check gas cap message on fill-ups for a while that I've been too lazy to check into and I actually got an EVAP leak code just before I left to head home. I guess I'll see if the loose line resolves those issues.



One other update is I dropped the freshly painted front bumper off for PPF and hope to have it back next week or so.

Well that's just strange. Bad karma that day, I guess.

Shortly after the last post I started prepping the car to take the wife and kids to the Outer Banks in early October. Unfortunately, the driveshaft developed an intermittent ticking noise.. The center shaft support bearing was new, guibo (driveshaft coupling) was low mile, and CV tight. I came across a few posts suggesting all those items and a couple that mentioned lose the e-brake cables. I tested it by pulling up on the e-brake handle when the noise was present and sure enough it went away. A free.99 adjustment later and it was gone. I did find a YT vid of the exact noise I had but nothing confirming it was the cables.

On the way down to Outer Banks we hit up a sit-down Pizza Hut for nostalgia's sake.


Traveling to OBX during hurricane season is a gamble. There was a hurricane that hit pretty hard before we went down and distant one or two that bought rain after we got there. Our house in Avon was just over the double dune from the beach, had great views and was well equipped for inclement weather. We were able to get the kids on the beach a couple times, ate good, and were out in ponchos when it was raining. Not ideal but we weren't going to drive 7+ hours and not have fun. At one point we were technically trapped since NC-12, the main road, was washed out north of us and the ferry to the south of us was OOS due to the weather. The road opened back up the day before we left so no issue there.


We visited a bakery in Buxton and checked out one of the areas that was losing houses to the beach erosion. It was a sad sight to see. We rented a bungalow nearby in 2024 and there were definitely houses missing at the end of the street where we stayed.



I'm fairly certain the two houses in the water are now gone now too..

On the way back, I got denied entry to the 13 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel due to high winds and my car having the roof box. I've been over/under that route dozens of times in all kinds of weather but never with a roof box. Re-routing added about an hour and a half but we made it back in one piece.

My newly sprayed front bumper was PPF'd before the trip but there were issues with delamination so it got re-done when I got back.. then it got re-done again.. and there were a couple minor issues on the third try that I more or less corrected with a heat gun. I guess I was spoiled with my Cali PPF experience where the mobile installer came to my house and nailed the front bumper first try.

I've been trying to figure out an EVAP leak the past couple months in a separate post without luck. I'm hoping to get more than a few hours together and spend some more time diaging that.

I was able to knock out one of my winter maintenance items at the end of November - replacing the 23 year old/140k soft brake lines. I used an alignment brake pedal depressor during the line swap, sucked out the reservoir, 2-person bled all 4 corners, then the clutch. I was kind of rushing the bleed due to time constraints and didn't do the ABS bleed. I made it a point to activate the ABS on the test drive and the pedal feel went from better than before to slightly softer then before. I'll have to do a proper ABS bleed but it's not bad for now.








The calipers could use some paint but that quickly turns into rebuilds and why not upgrade so I'll leave them as-is for now.

When the weather started getting cooler in November I noticed my thermostat was opening around 75C and temps would dip to 76C on the highway. Since the BMW thermostat only lasted 4 years and 25k, I decided to not pay BMW mark up and try the 79C Mahle/Behr replacement. I opted to replace the 25k thermostat housing sealing ring again too.

Along with this job, I also swapped in my original 130k EVAP purge valve to continue trying to diagnose B5/4 codes.The used BMW branded valve that worked when pulled does not leak when attempting to blow through, The 10k BMW boxed valve that didn't come BMW branded I had installed leaks inlet to outlet as well as at the electrical pins. The replacement BMW boxed/not branded valve I got as a lifetime part replacement actually leaks air at the electrical pins too..
Everything went about as smooth as I expected. The EVAP purge valve took the longest to disconnect. Needle nose pliers helps on the tank side connector and working dielectric grease under the hose helped on the engine side. Having the plenum off for the purge valve makes the thermostat a little easier since you can eyeball the coolant pipe alignment better. For the thermostat housing ring removal, I put a nut in the housing for leverage and used knipex channel locks to pull up on the seal lip. It mangled the seal but worked. I tapped the new one into place with a 46mm socket I have for my Ducati's rear axle nut.
I got this knocked out in the December. Generally it'll maintain 78C on the highway once warmed up, occasionally hitting 77C for a second or two but never 76C. 78C indicated is what you want to see for the 79C thermostat. It's hard to compare performance from when I did the thermostat last time since that was in Cali but it's better that what it was. I cleared the codes and I'm still waiting to see if the EVAP codes come back.



(I cleaned up the thermostat sealing surfaces a bit after this pic)



I can't wait for the salt to get washed away so I can take this for a spin. Usually snow melts quickly and the salt is gone shortly after. It's been a few weeks now, probably the longest outside of when I did the timing chain/rod bearing job that I haven't driven the car.

My son introduced me to knipex pliers while we were working on his Audi A7 a couple weeks ago. Now I have to get me some.

Oh, they're good. Definitely a tool to have in a junkyard or post-apocalyptic environment.

I kept an eye out for a deal on bike racks this winter and ended up picking up some OEM racks. I got a chance to test them out Sunday for a 150+ miles and they worked great. It sure beats taking the bikes apart and play trunk tetris.



Otherwise, I'm procrastinating doing a clutch with all the extras.

Just don't forget they're up there before you go tooling into the garage...