Hey everyone! How goes it!?
Thanks to working at a body shop this happens every now and then... We had a 2012 BMW X3 get towed in about a month or so with a really hard hit in the front. So hard that the frame rails need to be fixed. The engine needs to come out to have enough room cut and weld etc. I'm pretty well versed in Honda's, Acura's, Toyota's, and Lexus' but never really messed with BMW's. Never really liked the Euro engineering. But I figured i'll give this a shot at work. I'm one of the Mechanics at the body shop. So here goes! Here's what has been done so far!
BTW ANY ONE WHO CAN HELP OR HAS POINTERS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!
SORRY FOR SOME OF THE CRAPPY CELL PHONE PICTURES!!!
1. Here's the X3 shortly after they tore it down for the estimate.
2. We needed to get into the front of the car a little more so we started to take the hood and cowl off, powered down the car and got some of the harness in the engine out of the way. Also removed the air box. BTW the cowl comes apart in about 5 different places. :thumbdwn:
3. Now that we had gotten this far it was time to evacuate the Air Conditioning system and get the X3 ready to move over to the body shop where the frame rack is. I was wondering how the heck we were going to move this thing sense it the paddle PRNDL all electric... How do we get it into Neutral? Well after a lot of Google searches and calls to the local BMW dealer I finally figured out how to put the trans into Neutral!
1. Remove trans shield (Cloth one in the middle)
2. There's an allen head bolt on the drivers side of the trans you must turn till it stops.
3. Pictures below
-The allen bolt you need to tighten is the one to the left (strait across to the left) of the "90" written on drive shaft.
4. The interior got rocked too with many of the air bags going off inside. Requiring the dash, center console, and seats to be removed. The dash will be replaced a log with the headliner.
5. I'm trying to stay organized with the build/rebuild having bolts and parts like crazy!
That's the furthest i've gotten on the X3 for now. We will be moving it to the body shop in the next couple days to get it on the frame rack! I'll have more pictures as soon as we get to move it! Thanks for reading!! :thumbup:
Thanks to working at a body shop this happens every now and then... We had a 2012 BMW X3 get towed in about a month or so with a really hard hit in the front. So hard that the frame rails need to be fixed. The engine needs to come out to have enough room cut and weld etc. I'm pretty well versed in Honda's, Acura's, Toyota's, and Lexus' but never really messed with BMW's. Never really liked the Euro engineering. But I figured i'll give this a shot at work. I'm one of the Mechanics at the body shop. So here goes! Here's what has been done so far!
BTW ANY ONE WHO CAN HELP OR HAS POINTERS PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!!
SORRY FOR SOME OF THE CRAPPY CELL PHONE PICTURES!!!
1. Here's the X3 shortly after they tore it down for the estimate.
2. We needed to get into the front of the car a little more so we started to take the hood and cowl off, powered down the car and got some of the harness in the engine out of the way. Also removed the air box. BTW the cowl comes apart in about 5 different places. :thumbdwn:
3. Now that we had gotten this far it was time to evacuate the Air Conditioning system and get the X3 ready to move over to the body shop where the frame rack is. I was wondering how the heck we were going to move this thing sense it the paddle PRNDL all electric... How do we get it into Neutral? Well after a lot of Google searches and calls to the local BMW dealer I finally figured out how to put the trans into Neutral!
1. Remove trans shield (Cloth one in the middle)
2. There's an allen head bolt on the drivers side of the trans you must turn till it stops.
3. Pictures below
-The allen bolt you need to tighten is the one to the left (strait across to the left) of the "90" written on drive shaft.
4. The interior got rocked too with many of the air bags going off inside. Requiring the dash, center console, and seats to be removed. The dash will be replaced a log with the headliner.
5. I'm trying to stay organized with the build/rebuild having bolts and parts like crazy!
That's the furthest i've gotten on the X3 for now. We will be moving it to the body shop in the next couple days to get it on the frame rack! I'll have more pictures as soon as we get to move it! Thanks for reading!! :thumbup: