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Song, did you replace your heater fan motor? After replacing these transistors multiple times I suspect that the real culprit is the old fan motors which either stick or are slow to start up and pull too much current. I replaced the heater and AC fan transistors and they both failed within a year. I even added a larger heatsink. I then replaced the AC fan motor and have not had a problem going on 2 years.

You can also use this higher power transistor which may help too: 2n5302. It's rated at 30A and 200W. But seeing how many people on the forums have the replacement transistors go out again so quickly makes me think there's more to it. The motor was about $65 and well worth it.

I was going to suggest an additional heatsink, too. This one works at the original mounting position with a little modification.

Good to see you posting again, Song. I'd thought you were gone for good.

masonjones wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 2:24 pm Song, did you replace your heater fan motor? After replacing these transistors multiple times I suspect that the real culprit is the old fan motors which either stick or are slow to start up and pull too much current. I replaced the heater and AC fan transistors and they both failed within a year. I even added a larger heatsink. I then replaced the AC fan motor and have not had a problem going on 2 years.

You can also use this higher power transistor which may help too: 2n5302. It's rated at 30A and 200W. But seeing how many people on the forums have the replacement transistors go out again so quickly makes me think there's more to it. The motor was about $65 and well worth it.

I only replaced the transistor. I had thought about the motor. Each time I do this, I check my motor to make sure it spins freely and sometimes I grease it up a bit. Given the cost, I can't see the harm in changing this out. I also like the idea of an upgraded transistor as well. Thanks for the specs as I just didn't know what to choose.

hornhospital wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 5:01 pm I was going to suggest an additional heatsink, too. This one works at the original mounting position with a little modification.

Good to see you posting again, Song. I'd thought you were gone for good.

I'm still here! I've been super busy at work and then jetted off for 2 weeks on a 25th anniversary trip in Europe. I just got back last week. So slowly, I am getting back into action.

25 year anniversary trumps working on the car, congrats!

I bought the higher powered transistor but never had to put it in after I replaced the motor. I still have I believe an original spec 2N3055 on the AC fan and have run it a lot over the last 2 years without problem. I guess you could say the transistor is functioning as a fuse in a way and if it keeps frying there's something else wrong!

$65 was just for the motor so if you decide to do that you'll need to reuse the old plastic fins. This was much easier on the heater fan as the plastic fins were much sturdier than on the AC fan. You can basically grab one end in each hand and twist them (carefully) until one side comes off. Then grip that shaft with vice grips and twist (carefully) the other plastic cage off.

I marked where they were on the old shaft and tried to line them up as closely as possible on the new motor shafts but it still took quite a bit of adjustment to get them to not rub on the surround. There's not much extra space in there!

hornhospital wrote: ↑Thu May 31, 2018 5:01 pm I was going to suggest an additional heatsink, too. This one works at the original mounting position with a little modification.

Hey Ken,
What is the source and stock number of this heat sink?

Thanks!

Grabbed the picture from eBay. Here's the listing:

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 3703037461

You have to saw a corner off to get it to fit the OEM heatsink/mount, but it definitely helps. I've always thought the original mount was a pretty poor heatsink.

My front tires wear on the outside and my rear tires wear on the inside. So I decided to swap the front and rear tires today to even out the wear. In the process, I also noticed that my front outer tie rod on the passenger side has about 1/16" of play. Perhaps this was a result of my incident with the rockslide that took out my wheel? It was the front passenger side affected. I have a new wheel on there now. Anyhow this will be a nice opportunity to see if FCP's lifetime warranty applies.

OK, my car just topped 170K miles! I bought this car as. no-op with 142K on the odometer. It's getting near 3 years now and it has served me well as a daily driver. I still enjoy tinkering and learning on this car with the help of the folks on the forum. This car will be on the road for a whole lot longer. Later in July, I'll be finally getting my front spoiler (if Ralph makes the trip north) and then I'll upgrade the front sway bar (or at least put in poly bushings) and then think about paint. The roof is a mess and the front spoiler will need a coat. Anyhow, much fun. My convertible is getting lonely just sitting in the garage.

Song,
I haven't done the poly bushings, but you might want to inquire about the effect on ride quality. Here in the Northeast, we don't have smooth roads.
--Ken

My replacement part came in for my damaged tie rod. True to their word, FCP allowed me to return my loose toe rod and replaced it with a nice new Meyle. Only issue was the Meyle cost twice as much, but the warranty credited me the original part price. So I got an unintended upgrade I guess.

Once again, I was so happy to have the ball joint separation tool. It makes easy work of an otherwise annoying job. Here's the old (top) and the new (bottom). As you can see, I have painted a guide so that I know which way to turn my tie rod to lengthen or shorten them. I don't know why, but I always gets confused and I find that taking the time to paint a guide is a huge time saver! Once I got the length correct, it was a pretty simple installation. Here's the whole thing in the car. Finally, I also order a pair of new rubber bushings for my 19mm front anti-sway bar. Honestly, the old ones I took out didn't seem so bad. They were crusty at the edges, but the main part was not completely hardened. Oh well, I put them in any way. I purchased OEM bushing at the absurd price of $13.50 each! I mean, they are just rubber. Getting them in was a bit of a trick. I used some lithium grease to prevent any unwanted noises. I found that a large Visegrip is your friend in this exercise. After all this I was hoping that my groaning sound would be solved. You guessed it, nope. I couldn't figure out what was making the groaning sound. I kept spraying WD-40 into various moving areas trying to make it go away. No luck. It's a head scratcher. I was running out of time so I'll have to leave this for another day.

WOW just read from first post to finish nicely written, pictures and informative and enjoyable as well. I hate to be a grave digger but what about your rough idle? I am fighting this as well, new vacuum lines, new NGK plugs and gapped at .032, rebuilt and cleaned the AFM(moved the 2 swipers to new substrate) and cleaned contacts with paper not eraser, new breather hose from BMW $35 last one available.... SCORE!, cleaned IACV, changed all fuses in fuse box, adjusted throttle cable(to take out any extra play), cleaned the whole throttle body 3 times now, new Mahle air filter, running 20-50 Castrol after recent oil change. Still rough idle here I am in the same BMW boat you're in bro. Keep up the great thread thanks very much Song.

Jono B good wrote: ↑Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:40 am WOW just read from first post to finish nicely written, pictures and informative and enjoyable as well. I hate to be a grave digger but what about your rough idle? I am fighting this as well, new vacuum lines, new NGK plugs and gapped at .032, rebuilt and cleaned the AFM(moved the 2 swipers to new substrate) and cleaned contacts with paper not eraser, new breather hose from BMW $35 last one available.... SCORE!, cleaned IACV, changed all fuses in fuse box, adjusted throttle cable(to take out any extra play), cleaned the whole throttle body 3 times now, new Mahle air filter, running 20-50 Castrol after recent oil change. Still rough idle here I am in the same BMW boat you're in bro. Keep up the great thread thanks very much Song.

Ah, thanks for the moral support. I am moving on to other things and will take the car to a local shop for them to track down the idle issue. It's lumpy but it hasn't died on me ... yet.

Well, if you have been following along, you know I've mentioned multiple times that I need paintwork. So what am I talking about? Well, before I acquired the car about 3 years ago, the car had a repaint. It's one of those paint jobs that I would consider a 20 footer. It looks awesome at 20 feet, but much closer, you see defects. Still, I thought that this is a driver so it will be ok.

Fast forward and I started to see the paint separating on the roof. It was small at first, but then it started coming off in chunks. Then I started picking on it - first with my finger and then a pocketknife. I realized that whoever painted the car did NOT use any primer. It's true what they say. If you skip the primer, it's not going to stick. I give you exhibit "A".
As you can see, under the big flakes of paint is the old paint! It's still on the roof, but just dull and with no clearcoat. Still I keep peeling it off because I know I don't have to worry about rust since the old paint is still protecting it.

I am going to be getting a replacement front air dam next week and then it'll be time to refinish the roof, sunroof and the front air dam.
The way I figure it, if I wait long enough all the paint will flake off itself and save a lot of time doing paint removal. LOL.
Now you know.

just a couple of comments

- they don't appear to have keyed the old paint (eg using 800 grit paper) which may be part of the reason the new paint didn't stick

- if you have to use a lubricant on the ARB bushings, a silicone grease (which is inert) would be better; some lithium greases may degrade the rubber.

cheers

Brucey wrote: ↑Fri Jul 13, 2018 9:01 am just a couple of comments

- they don't appear to have keyed the old paint (eg using 800 grit paper) which may be part of the reason the new paint didn't stick

- if you have to use a lubricant on the ARB bushings, a silicone grease (which is inert) would be better; some lithium greases may degrade the rubber.

cheers

Thanks Brucey. It seems like such a simple step to ensure good paint adhesion. It's annoying that they cut the corner there. I guess it takes time and that adds cost. I am sure that it's just a matter of time before other parts of paint start to flake off. I take the attitude that it'll just give me more "patina" on the car and I'll continue to make it better as it appears.

Ugh, I didn't know about the Lithium grease effect on rubber. When it does go bad (maybe a few years?), I'll take the opportunity to upgrade to 22mm anti-sway bars with poly bushings. Maybe I won't even wait a few years as this is such an easy upgrade compared to other stuff.

So a few new things have appeared for my 6'er.
First is my long awaited Air Dam! This is from a 1985 M6 I believe. There are a few cracks that I need to repair and then I'll have to refinish it. As you can see, it's not a perfect match right now.
Given my current schedule, it may be a long time before I can piece this together. A new development is the oil service light on my dashboard. I've never seen this light before in my 3 years of ownership. It appeared as I was commuting on the highway today. I think I know what it means, but the display is rather odd. Why is there just one yellow led lit up? Is this right? Question, does anyone know a good auto-paint dealer in northern California that I can purchase paint to spray at home?

Nice airdam! if your service indicator lights have never come on before, it could be leaky NI cad batteries. As the SI board used NI cad batteries, unless it truly is working, it seems kinda random after long term ownership they all of sudden work. You may want to pull the cluster and make sure the batteries are not leaking.

Looks like your number plate has claimed a few road kills. If it's legal in Cal I would ditch it completely and replace with vinyl numbers on your new spoiler lip.

Jono B good wrote: ↑Wed Jul 25, 2018 3:03 am Nice airdam! if your service indicator lights have never come on before, it could be leaky NI cad batteries. As the SI board used NI cad batteries, unless it truly is working, it seems kinda random after long term ownership they all of sudden work. You may want to pull the cluster and make sure the batteries are not leaking.

I replaced the SI board with a factory BMW unit (at great cost) in the first year of ownership. So I don't think it's a leaky Ni-Cad issue. It does seem so random to me, I never really quite understood how the colored LEDs were supposed to work. The mystery continues.

jps635 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 25, 2018 6:33 am Looks like your number plate has claimed a few road kills. If it's legal in Cal I would ditch it completely and replace with vinyl numbers on your new spoiler lip.

Yea, that plate has seen better days, but it's the ORIGINAL plate that came on the car when new. I kinda like that it's true to the history of the car.It was bent up even worse when I got it. I tried to straighten it a bit. A "bit" being the operative word here.
I haven't heard anything about the vinyl numbers. I'll have to look into that more.

So, today I thought I would reset the "Oil Service" light with one yellow LED. I read in the forum that I simply had to ground pin 7 for 3 seconds while the key is turned to position 2. Easy enough! I reset the light and now here's what I see.
Green makes sense, but why isn't the far left green light on? What's so special about that one?
One day I will understand.

One day I'll rewire those service lights to the radio as a VU meter. Then I'll have to get a Mr. Microphone.

Song, that air dam is from an '85 US 635, the M6 version, which was not an available model till '87, would have horizontal openings in the center for oil cooler access

First is my long awaited Air Dam! This is from a 1985 M6 I believe

Nice find though

Ralph to the rescue, yet again

This weekend I snuck some time away to begin to prepare the front spoiler. First order of business was to repair the 2 cracks in the spoiler. I used a 3M bumper epoxy. It was a kit I got off Amazon for $6.00. That was super cheap.
Next, I needed paint to match it up with my car. I went to a paint shop that was recommended by a very trusted body shop owner. I went to the shop and they used an interesting device to color match the paint. It all seemed very scientific and I hope it nails it. Trying to blend metallic paint is really hard if the paint isn't perfect. The picture of the paint mix formula for my car is in the picture below. Now, I was not prepared for the cost! Remember I purchase 1 pint of color paint. Of course I needed primer, clear and the activators for both.
This paint is for the spoiler and the roof that's flaking off.
Another grim realization is that my air compressor is in no way up to the task to spray this paint. I'd hate to waste expensive paint with bad equipment. Now what?

Anyone have a large portable compressor I can borrow?

That's some nice work (which is typical for you!).

The cost of that paint reminds me of years ago when I painted a trailer my boss tows behind his Honda Goldwing. It was a one-year-only color of very intense pearlescent yellow. The paint by itself, direct from Honda (no primer, no clear, no hardners, which was a couple hundred more) was $1600 a QUART. You talk about sweating bullets while spraying that stuff!!!