I’m annoyed that I forgot the camera tonight. I’d picked up an OE clutch slave from ECP for £24.56 yesterday, and fitting it takes about 45 minutes from start to finish tonight. I don’t even need to bleed it at its valve – a few pumps of the pedal and some manipulation of the blue tube shown below sees some air bubbles emerge and produce a nice firm pedal.

I take it for a test drive and that goes fine, so upon my return I have another look for this fuel leak. There’s certainly a strong smell of fuel, and a bit more cleaning and tube squeezing reveals that the large breather tubes from both the main (under the rear seats) tank and the long range (in the boot) tank have expired and need replacing.

Each hose is about 20mm in overall diameter, looking at the ETK a hose that’s 14×20 sounds right (14mm internal diameter). Thing is, I think I need two of them and they’re about £20 each – I wonder where else I can source some…

Finally while rooting around in the boot I find some water under the battery tray and there’s obviously been some bodgery going on around there. Further investigation required at the weekend.

In conclusion then, not really back on the road due to those fuel hoses being perished, but I’m confident I’ve found the problem at least.

I rolled my sleeves up and set about investigating the clutch issues tonight. First of all I took the driver’s seat out and the under-dash panelling, and got in the footwell for a good gander at the pedal and master cylinder. All appeared to be in order there.

Under the bonnet I noted that the brake and clutch fluid level had fallen to just below ‘min’ – but more importantly the tube that runs down to the clutch master cylinder (at the top of the clutch pedal) is slightly higher than the ‘min’ level.

I topped that up and with a bit of pedal pumping and squeezing of that blue tube above I managed to bleed the system and get the clutch working again. There was also a small puddle of brake fluid forming on the garage floor under the gearbox – I was on to something! Time to get the car up in the air…

It certainly looked like the clutch slave cylinder was leaking. I removed it from the gearbox for further inspection.

The seals certainly look knackered. ECP list an OE clutch slave for under £25, so I’ll order one tomorrow and try my luck. If that sorts it, I’ll be well pleased.

While the car was out I hand a gander under the rear seat in search of the fuel leak.

All looked dry under there, and no smell of fuel. I then jacked up the rear right corner and removed the wheel arch liner.

All very grimy under there, with a faint smell of fuel. I gave it a clean.

Then no smell of fuel. I even ran the car for a few minutes, but no smell or evidence of a leak. Curious. By this point it was late, so I pushed the car back into the garage (I’ve left the old clutch slave cylinder dangling under the car!) and I’ll re-investigate the fuel scenario once I’ve tried to get the clutch going again.

Well, prior to this evening I’d had a good week using the M3 as my daily driver. The rear bearing is still a bit noisy but the car starts okay and is epic, epic fun.

However, I filled the car up tonight, and since then there has been a strong smell of fuel from the rear right wheel arch. There’s plenty on the internet about this: s14.net thread

So there’s one job for tomorrow. Secondly though, as coming through Bracknell I noted that the clutch didn’t feel right. The next time I changed gear the clutch felt very wrong – a huge dead zone had appeared, so much so that the clutch wouldn’t really disengage.

Somehow I managed to limp the ten miles or so home without using the clutch, as the pedal had sunk to the floor. By timing my changes correctly with engine speed and really allowing time and space for traffic lights to change I rolled up to the garage to swap into the 330d. Pretty pleased with myself for that!

Anyway, s14.net has provided a number of possible situations – from master/slave cylinder failures to the master bracket failing. I haven’t looked yet – I’ve slung it in the garage in disgrace and come home to watch Top Gear. At some point this week I’ll get the driver’s seat out and have a good gander – until then it’s off the road.

Having realised that I’d gone over 10 days without actually driving the M3, I thought I’d spend a few minutes on it this evening.

I’ve followed the simple instructions that came with the new immobiliser fob and coded it up – all went quite smoothly so I’m pleased about that.

Then I turned to the Philips Vision Plus bulbs (picture in the previous project entry here). Installation is easy – no tools required. Measuring the light output is hard without actually going into the deepest darkest forest, so I popped out to give them a trial.

I returned 90 minutes later! The light results are good – nothing amazing, just a bit better, both on dipped and high beam.

What are amazing though are the brakes – they’ve taken a beating tonight that would’ve convinced the brakes on both of my previous E36 M3s to throw in the towel – so I’m very, very pleased about that.

It’s a great feeling to return home and feel that all four wheels are hot! The car is excellent in the dry – tonight has been fantastic fun.

A recent lack of progress is due to a bout of man ‘flu, and a bit of home decorating. Still, I now have in my possession a new immobiliser fob to be coded to the car, and a set of four Philips Vision Plus bulbs to fit to the dipped and main beam units. I’ll attempt to do all this just as soon as my epic disease subsides…

I may have mentioned before that the car only came with one immobiliser key. I’ve contacted Toad and they’re sending another unit out to me that I can reprogramme. £45 – a nice tidy profit there for them I suspect.

Also a quick note to say that the project has slowed down due to time and funding restraints – I’m decorating the house, Valentine’s day this week, the 330d needs £195 worth of road tax yawn yawn.

Finally, I went to see a rally in the snow in Wales on Saturday, more here. I suspect the M3 would be quite good at this given a few modifications…!

I’ve had the new keys cut by a chap in Woking market for £10 the pair. I’m pleased to report that both keys work fine in all the locks both ways up.

Finally got a chance to give the car a good run down some dark snowy lanes last night. It behaves really well, 10/10 to it for handling given patchy surface traction.

The headlamps aren’t bright enough though. Even with high beam and fogs, it’s still just not good enough. Following some advice from BMW Car Forum, I’ve ordered two pairs of Philips H1 Vision Plus bulbs, for just under £22 delivered. Here’s hoping that they’ll help…

It’s taken an embarrassing amount of time, but five hours later I have remote central locking working. The kit was £34.45 including delivery, and was in hindsight easy to install.

I started by installing the new central locking control unit. In comparison with the old board, the new unit is in far better condition.

At this stage the car’s locking worked perfectly from the key – all good news. I then set about installing the remote controller, and I managed to muddle up a couple of wires, which I fear has resulted in the death of the deadlock control element of the new central locking unit. That said, it is of course feasible that it was already bust as I didn’t specifically check.

This left me in a position where I couldn’t unlock the passenger door by any means all at – the E30 uses a deadlocking system in addition to the normal locks, and when these are engaged it’s impossible to open the doors even from the inside. Again Ian Haynes came to the rescue and talked me through manually jumping the electrical connectors to release the door.

At this point I had remote central locking working, but wires everywhere and most importantly, I wanted to wire the indicators to flash as the car locked / unlocked. Fortunately Robin popped in to say hello at this stage, and he set about finding the right wires…

Once we’d tapped into the right wires it was just a case of tidying up the mess. A few cable ties and a mile of insulation tape later, and the job was done.

So, I’m now really chuffed to have remote central locking working, indicators flashing and all – just like the E46. The boot and fuel flap work correctly. It all makes such a difference to how friendly the car feels – I’m really, really pleased.

To top it off, the keys are replicas of the E46 key, and tomorrow I’ll have their blades cut.

I’ve just returned home from a gigantic curry to find a present from the postman – a replacement Central Locking Control Unit.

Yet more thanks to Mr Ian Haynes for sourcing and sending on this unit. It looks in good condition: no signs of water ingress on the board which is promising.

It’s late and cold now so I won’t get a chance to install and test it until tomorrow evening. Over the weekend I ordered a universal remote central locking kit from eBay which will hopefully also arrive tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting this lot sorted…

Other than a giving the car a quick wash, the only other progress this weekend has been to attack the rust I discovered in the sun roof tray on Friday.

I have put more primer on since that photo was taken, but I haven’t taken any more pictures. I’ll try to get a touch up pen from a dealer at some point and finish the job.