:lmao: :lmao:The HACK said:
Good write up Dan:thumb:
Half of the latest HACK project completed
I've been wanting to paint my lower mesh grills BLACK ever since I got the bodykit installed. Originally the mesh was BLACK but the bodyshop painted EVERYTHING topaz blue. Oh well, another thing for me to fix. Also, they failed to attach the brake cooling behind the bumpers so I had to do that as well. And the rear bumper is sticking out about 1/4 of an inch.
Anyway, woke up at 7:30 a.m this morning trying to decide between hockey and working on my car...Still suffering from the cold that I caught last week. Of course, I decided to work on my car.:tsk: Anyway, bumper removal is simple, there are 4 screws underneath the car that holds the bumper onto the wheel well. Remove those with a 8mm wrench. Then there are 3 screws of the same size in the wheel well area that holds the bottom half of the wheel well onto the top half. You don't need to remove those but I did it anyway, it makes it easier to bend the wheel well out of the way. Then while the car is up on the jackstand I realized I did not have the right size torx screw driver to remove the giant bolt that holds down the bumper to the impact absorbers and did not know how big they are. Ran down to the local Pepboys (those guys love me now...Every weekend I am running down there to buy some more tools I'm missing for a particular project) and just bought an entire set of torx drivers. FORTUNATELY one of them fit. In case you're EVER wondering what size the torx screw is on the front bumper, it's a #50.
Once the two torx screws are removed, the bumper will slide out quite easily. In my sick and weakened state, the bumper felt quite heavy and I dropped it on the floor. In case you're thinking of upgrading to a louder horn, there are located on the bumper bracket underneath the bumper cover, right above the foglights on the E46 coupe. Now that I got the bumper off, it's time to bring it inside to remove the foglight housing and the mesh grill. The foglight housing on the coupe comes off easily, just remove the two screws from the front of the bumper and it comes right off. The mesh (at least on the aerokit) are held in by about three dozen of these little square clips that has two metal tabs facing the center of an opening. I managed to remove all of them and only broke 4-5. The HACK FORCE is with me this time. Got the grill off and proceeded to paint it with MATTE BLACK industrial paint bought from home depot. It dries to a nice, even, satin-y dull black, so under direct sunlight lights won't reflect off the grill and it'll have a nice, deep black hole look and it'll be harder to spot the grill from a distance. Quickly re-assembled the bumper back together and attached it back onto the bumper support. Amazingly nothing went wrong except for 2 extra clips I found laying around and a small cut on my left hand from yanking one of the clips off too hard and a corner of the clip nicked my left hand.
It seems fairly easy to add foglights to 323's and 325's that didn't come with it, or for people who wanted to add the "titanium" lower grill trim to their coupes or sedans. Probably an 1 hour job for a qualified technician, an entire afternoon for the DIY HACKs. The front airdam looks a lot more defined right now, without the painted glare of the mesh grill.
Anyway, woke up at 7:30 a.m this morning trying to decide between hockey and working on my car...Still suffering from the cold that I caught last week. Of course, I decided to work on my car.:tsk: Anyway, bumper removal is simple, there are 4 screws underneath the car that holds the bumper onto the wheel well. Remove those with a 8mm wrench. Then there are 3 screws of the same size in the wheel well area that holds the bottom half of the wheel well onto the top half. You don't need to remove those but I did it anyway, it makes it easier to bend the wheel well out of the way. Then while the car is up on the jackstand I realized I did not have the right size torx screw driver to remove the giant bolt that holds down the bumper to the impact absorbers and did not know how big they are. Ran down to the local Pepboys (those guys love me now...Every weekend I am running down there to buy some more tools I'm missing for a particular project) and just bought an entire set of torx drivers. FORTUNATELY one of them fit. In case you're EVER wondering what size the torx screw is on the front bumper, it's a #50.
Once the two torx screws are removed, the bumper will slide out quite easily. In my sick and weakened state, the bumper felt quite heavy and I dropped it on the floor. In case you're thinking of upgrading to a louder horn, there are located on the bumper bracket underneath the bumper cover, right above the foglights on the E46 coupe. Now that I got the bumper off, it's time to bring it inside to remove the foglight housing and the mesh grill. The foglight housing on the coupe comes off easily, just remove the two screws from the front of the bumper and it comes right off. The mesh (at least on the aerokit) are held in by about three dozen of these little square clips that has two metal tabs facing the center of an opening. I managed to remove all of them and only broke 4-5. The HACK FORCE is with me this time. Got the grill off and proceeded to paint it with MATTE BLACK industrial paint bought from home depot. It dries to a nice, even, satin-y dull black, so under direct sunlight lights won't reflect off the grill and it'll have a nice, deep black hole look and it'll be harder to spot the grill from a distance. Quickly re-assembled the bumper back together and attached it back onto the bumper support. Amazingly nothing went wrong except for 2 extra clips I found laying around and a small cut on my left hand from yanking one of the clips off too hard and a corner of the clip nicked my left hand.
It seems fairly easy to add foglights to 323's and 325's that didn't come with it, or for people who wanted to add the "titanium" lower grill trim to their coupes or sedans. Probably an 1 hour job for a qualified technician, an entire afternoon for the DIY HACKs. The front airdam looks a lot more defined right now, without the painted glare of the mesh grill.
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Thanks for the write up. I've got the titanium lower mesh grill from a Canadian 330i in my trunk waiting for me to install them. Your instructions should come in handy!
Poseur (j/k) :lmao:JPinTO said:Thanks for the write up. I've got the titanium lower mesh grill from a Canadian 330i in my trunk waiting for me to install them. Your instructions should come in handy!
I think Alee also has done something like it but his is a coupe...If you run into any problems, snap some pictures and post it here, maybe someone here can figure it out. But taking the bumper off was a piece of cake.
And THIS is why I've said nothing of it.The HACK said:
I'm so sick of my plain-jane clone silver grocery getter car that I'm grasping at straws to do anything to distinguish it from the masses.In fact I'm so sick of it that I'm seriously thinking of swapping it for the 330CIC with M-sport pkg that I drove a few weeks ago (silver albeit).
Silver sucks--it's too darn popular.... but I refuse to buy a non-silver one!
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