My Project Zed

[Faheem]

Hello all,

Quick question, I've got these fault codes on my project zed, a friend actually let me borrow his code reader, however I don't know what they mean.

I've also got a battery drain issue. Anyone know what these codes mean.

It's drinking fuel like nothing else, so assuming that's the camshaft position sensor as I had the same problem when I got my main zed.

It's also got an issue with the ABS but again, that could be a sensor.

Thoughts?

View attachment 42270

 

[littlefeller]

does the interior lights come on why you open the door?

 

[Faheem]

No the interior lights do not work at all - even if I place a bulb in - why would this be?

 

[Antm72]

The door switch looks to be at fault

 

[littlefeller]

its an open circuit for ALL the interior lighting, it would suggest a fuse, it would appear you have open circuits on both doors including the boot, this would suggest a problem with the interior lighting circuit (could simply be a fuse)

 

[littlefeller]

if you find a blown fuse for this circuit - check to make sure the boot light is not shorting as this particular problem can cause (and has done to members on this forum) a fire, the other area of concern is the boot loom of doom, this is the wire harness that comes out of the bottom of the boot lid then bends through a 90 degree bent, this causes all kinds of interior light issues.

 

[jonco]

The fault code list shows fuse faults - check these first. If they have all blown then it suggest you have a fairly serious short.

Central Locking fuses are 7 (5amp), 35 (25 amp) & 43 (5amp) - interior lights are Fuse 33 (10 amp)

Edit: They could be historical faults - have you tried clearing them and see if they re-appear

 

[littlefeller]

any joy with the fuses?

 

[Faheem]

Sorry folks, not had a chance to look at this, been very busy. Do apologise.

Unfortunately, I don't get the car back till a week on Friday. Hoping they've done a decent job on the dip now.

I've booked Friday and Monday off from work so I should hopefully get a chance to fix a few issues on the Project Z and update you guys too.

@littlefeller @jonco @Antm72 Thank you all for your help.

I've got lots of questions coming up soon.

Issues at Last MOT were:

I've fixed the license plate light, rear fog lamp (and front), I fit a new steering wheel to fix the horn (and without knowing what an M Steering wheel is worth, I sold it for very, very cheap -- all it needed was a new slipring)

I also changed the brake pads all round and adjusted the parking brake.

Obviously the clutch was a key issue - as the car wouldn't move when I bought it. I had the car towed from near Skegness to Leicester and then I fit a new clutch, pressure plate and flywheel a month or so after getting the car.

How hard is the brake hose to replace? That still needs doing - and how long of a job is it for a mechanic to do?

Also the car didn't have a fuel filter - someone had bypassed it and replaced it with a straight tube - so I fitted a fuel filter in. (Assuming that at some point in the car's past for whatever reason it has had starting issues.

I don't understand how the windscreen has damage - unless this also includes the rear plastic window (that has a massive crack in it).

Fixed the air bag light - this actually fixed itself after I fit the new steering wheel and reset the light using my tool.

 

[littlefeller]

looks like your going to be bizzy, good to see it not getting scapped, seen cars with much smaller lists going to the scrap yard.

is that definitely an ABS light, it could be the brake pad wear sensor light (be good if it was)

 

[Faheem]

So here's some more details - ideally this should be the first post in this thread.

I bought the car in February as a non runner, it was listed on Gumtree for £500 but I haggled my way down to £250.

It's fair to say the car looked nothing like the following pictures I was sent when I went to look at it. The below pictures were what I was given before going to see the car:

At some point, the car had been resprayed white BUT the paint job was HORRIBLE. In fact horrible would be an understatement.

There was probably one coat of paint that had been applied and the surface hadn't been keyed down before the paint job.

Because the surface wasn't prepped properly, this happened (in more than one place):

I've got several other scary pictures but I'll leave them out in order to compress this post down as much as possible.

MAKING THE CAR ROADWORTHY AGAIN:

The car had a completely worn out clutch disc, don't know how this is possible but the material on the plate was non existent. I got a 2nd had clutch disc and had it relined as well as a second hand flywheel and pressure plate for about £40

When I purchased this car I was selling a Civic for a friend and it just so happened that the buyer of this Civic was a mechanic, he agreed to let me use his garage to fit a new clutch in the car if I dropped the price by £50. So I did.

I followed this guide: http://webspace.ringling.edu/~dplassma/cj/cj.html and by some miracle only took me 8 hours to do, there were points during the job where I thought that the car would never see the road again.

Once I knew that the car was mechanically okay (i.e. it drove) I started focusing on the cosmetic bits.


INTERIOR IMPROVEMENTS

The car needed a replacement interior as everything was ruined, the seats were torn, centre console was disgusting as was the rear storage box, fortunately for some reason things were selling for cheap on eBay.

((I purchased a centre console for £30 which came with the clock that had the S/R button, I followed by selling the clock for £40 on eBay. ))

Even the door-cards were ruined, the tweeters on the door had no cloth in them - so I purchased some 'speaker cloth' on eBay and fit that (was a pain to do).

Below Pictures are of the old interior parts.

I also purchased a set of seats from a bloke in Rochdale, drove all the way from Leicester to Rochdale for seats. They were fabric seats from his zed but they were in absolutely immaculate condition.

Here is a photo of his zed (1.9):

I'll post a picture of the updated interior once everything is correctly fitted and put back together.

COSMETIC IMPROVEMENTS

As the paint had started to come off and there were blotches of filler everywhere I wanted to get a respray.

Nobody wanted to respray that car, every body shop I took it to either quoted me a ridiculous amount for a partial respray -- £2000 at one place - or they simply didn't want to touch the car as it had been bodged up so many times.

I found this one place who agreed to plasti-dip the car, I wanted a matt grey finish, when applied the dip wouldn't stick in several places and it looked awful, like primer, I refused to pay for a job so poorly done, caused massive drama and in the end we reached an agreement where they dipped it in matt black.

The New Matt Black Finish:

Current Problems

So that's the car as it is right now. There is still several bits left to do before it goes in for its MOT, mainly getting a pair of new headlights, hopefully sourcing a pair of fabric door cards for cheap (original seats were leather but could not source cheap leather seats so got fabric ones instead).

- The current headlights have a burnt surface, so if it's possible I may replace the lens as opposed to the entire unit.

- The locks don't work, When I put the key in the drivers door lock it won't turn, it only turns at a very specific angle, same with the passenger locks, but the key turns fine in the ignition barrel. -- has this been an issue for anyone else? -- instead of replacing all the locks I was thinking of fitting a remote entry device as this may be more cost effective, I purchased one from eBay but I don't know how difficult it would be to install. Problem is the car has already had a remote entry system fitted at least twice, once from factory as it had the original BMW Alarm Module and then it has sensors on the A-Pillar for an alarm unit.

- The ABS light is on -- what sensors are related to the ABS light coming on? Is it just the brake pad sensor -- @littlefeller -- if it is a brake pad wear sensor then wouldn't it throw two lights on the dash, one for the pads and the other for the ABS?

- Roof lets in massive amounts of water, I'm going to try and adjust the pressure on the roof latches.

- Brake Hose will need changing, anyone provide me with a guide for this?


Thanks for reading, hope you're not too bored at this point.

 

[Poprin]

Wow... All I can say is fair play to you for persevering and rescuing this poor unloved car.

 

[Brian H]

Wow, certainly a project, not sure I would have the bottle to refuse to pay for spray job nobody else would touch on a car that had been bodged so many times.

Good luck with your project.

 

[Faheem]

@Brian H What happened was that they wanted to charge me the full amount for the dip despite how it looked which obviously isn't justifiable, they took on the job after having a look at the car and I told them to either restore the car to the condition I gave it to them in or fix the issue, once they re-dipped the car I paid them and got the car back -- this process took three months.

 

[andyglym]

So here's some more details - ideally this should be the first post in this thread.

I bought the car in February as a non runner, it was listed on Gumtree for £500 but I haggled my way down to £250.

It's fair to say the car looked nothing like the following pictures I was sent when I went to look at it. The below pictures were what I was given before going to see the car:

View attachment 44924

View attachment 44925
View attachment 44926

At some point, the car had been resprayed white BUT the paint job was HORRIBLE. In fact horrible would be an understatement.

There was probably one coat of paint that had been applied and the surface hadn't been keyed down before the paint job.

Because the surface wasn't prepped properly, this happened (in more than one place):

View attachment 44928

I've got several other scary pictures but I'll leave them out in order to compress this post down as much as possible.

MAKING THE CAR ROADWORTHY AGAIN:

The car had a completely worn out clutch disc, don't know how this is possible but the material on the plate was non existent. I got a 2nd had clutch disc and had it relined as well as a second hand flywheel and pressure plate for about £40

When I purchased this car I was selling a Civic for a friend and it just so happened that the buyer of this Civic was a mechanic, he agreed to let me use his garage to fit a new clutch in the car if I dropped the price by £50. So I did.

I followed this guide: http://webspace.ringling.edu/~dplassma/cj/cj.html and by some miracle only took me 8 hours to do, there were points during the job where I thought that the car would never see the road again.

Once I knew that the car was mechanically okay (i.e. it drove) I started focusing on the cosmetic bits.


INTERIOR IMPROVEMENTS

The car needed a replacement interior as everything was ruined, the seats were torn, centre console was disgusting as was the rear storage box, fortunately for some reason things were selling for cheap on eBay.

((I purchased a centre console for £30 which came with the clock that had the S/R button, I followed by selling the clock for £40 on eBay. ))

Even the door-cards were ruined, the tweeters on the door had no cloth in them - so I purchased some 'speaker cloth' on eBay and fit that (was a pain to do).

Below Pictures are of the old interior parts.

View attachment 44930
View attachment 44931

View attachment 44932

View attachment 44933

I also purchased a set of seats from a bloke in Rochdale, drove all the way from Leicester to Rochdale for seats. They were fabric seats from his zed but they were in absolutely immaculate condition.

Here is a photo of his zed (1.9):
View attachment 44935

View attachment 44936


I'll post a picture of the updated interior once everything is correctly fitted and put back together.

COSMETIC IMPROVEMENTS

As the paint had started to come off and there were blotches of filler everywhere I wanted to get a respray.

Nobody wanted to respray that car, every body shop I took it to either quoted me a ridiculous amount for a partial respray -- £2000 at one place - or they simply didn't want to touch the car as it had been bodged up so many times.

I found this one place who agreed to plasti-dip the car, I wanted a matt grey finish, when applied the dip wouldn't stick in several places and it looked awful, like primer, I refused to pay for a job so poorly done, caused massive drama and in the end we reached an agreement where they dipped it in matt black.

View attachment 44942
View attachment 44943

The New Matt Black Finish:


View attachment 44944

View attachment 44946


Current Problems

So that's the car as it is right now. There is still several bits left to do before it goes in for its MOT, mainly getting a pair of new headlights, hopefully sourcing a pair of fabric door cards for cheap (original seats were leather but could not source cheap leather seats so got fabric ones instead).

- The current headlights have a burnt surface, so if it's possible I may replace the lens as opposed to the entire unit.

- The locks don't work, When I put the key in the drivers door lock it won't turn, it only turns at a very specific angle, same with the passenger locks, but the key turns fine in the ignition barrel. -- has this been an issue for anyone else? -- instead of replacing all the locks I was thinking of fitting a remote entry device as this may be more cost effective, I purchased one from eBay but I don't know how difficult it would be to install. Problem is the car has already had a remote entry system fitted at least twice, once from factory as it had the original BMW Alarm Module and then it has sensors on the A-Pillar for an alarm unit.

- The ABS light is on -- what sensors are related to the ABS light coming on? Is it just the brake pad sensor -- @littlefeller -- if it is a brake pad wear sensor then wouldn't it throw two lights on the dash, one for the pads and the other for the ABS?

- Roof lets in massive amounts of water, I'm going to try and adjust the pressure on the roof latches.

- Brake Hose will need changing, anyone provide me with a guide for this?


Thanks for reading, hope you're not too bored at this point.

This link may help mate?

http://www.pelicanparts.com/bmw/tec...6-Brake-Lines/101-Projects-56-Brake-Lines.htm

 

[littlefeller]

you will need to get the error codes read, it would be worth getting a fellow member around to read all modules, as it was in such a sorry state there is no telling what other codes are there, luckily there all easy to fix on the zed as the zed is fairly basic (this is one of its endearing features for me) anyone local to you with inpa?

looks quite cool in mat black maybe it would look even better with some contrasting chrome bling

 

[Faheem]

Thanks mate I live in leicester, I have no idea who would have inpa though or for that matter how it differs from normal diagnostic scanners (the ones used at garages etc).

A long while ago I took it to a friends garage who thought it was the module itself and tried tapping it gently with a hammer which sometimes frees the bushes or something? I don't know if that's even a thing or whether he was pulling my leg anyway that procedure didn't help.

 

[t-tony]

tapping it gently with a hammer

I think that's a bit like my old dad tried to tune in his TV, by giving a hearty thump on the top with his fist. Didn't really help, but made him feel better. Good luck with the project Bud.

Tony.

 

[Faheem]

@t-tony Thanks mate will undoubtedly need your help when it goes in for its mot and fails

 

[littlefeller]

to be honest if it is the module it is easier to replace than getting the sensors out of the hubs, and cleaner too. quite often they don't want to come out but the module is under the bonnet and a breeze to do no point in swapping it until you can get a defo diagnostic on a faulty module.
I suppose tapping it could have worked, mine failed at a solder joint, tapping it may temporally complete the circuit though unlikely unless you were quite lucky there are also a load of solenoids that may be stuck but again its unlikely but worth a try as its free. (I tried tapping mine before I swapped it)