Today I replaced the 330d’s oil separator – here’s a quick ‘how to’. Parts:

B11.12.7.793.164 – about £11 + VAT. Comes with a couple of seals you’ll need too.

Begin, perhaps bizarrely, by removing the cabin filter and assembly tray from the back of the engine below the windscreen. You’ll need to pull all the rubber seals and whizz out 4 star bolts. Don’t drop one of them down onto the belly tray – it’ll cost you a lot of time and make you miss the rugby match you wanted to see.

Remove the air filter cover, and then the larger cover on this side of the engine (temporarily remove oil filler cap). You’ll need a hex attachment and a long extension bar. Note the condition of my air-filter. I would thoroughly recommend changing that item at the same time – I wish I had one in stock!

Next, remove the star capped bolts shown in the photo below. I used an E8 attachment – I think ideally I needed an E6 attachment, but I didn’t have one and the E8 one just about did the job. For clarity: one bolt is under the extension bar that’s in my left hand, the other is silver and in the bottom right corner of the photo.

Here is perhaps a more clear view of proceedings:

The oil separator lives under the circular black casing shown above. Remove more hex bolts, and waggle the assembly out. You’ll need to pull the wiring channel out of the way – it just fits – that’s why those small star headed bolts were removed. Once out you’ll see something like the below – you should recognise the seals that can be replaced with those that came in the separator kit – pull them out using those lovely little lugs and give it all a clean up.

Replace the seals. Engine bay should look something like this (hopefully cleaner).

Prepare shiny new oil separator. Be amazed at how blue the new one is compared with the soggy black outgoing item.

Swap them over.

Inspect giant mess. Put it all together. Marvel at smoke free acceleration!

I’ve mentioned on and off that the 330d’s boot glass has been misbehaving. The first symptom was that the button under the rear wiper stopped working. I could live with that. However, then the lid starting popping open at random times of its own accord. Rather irritating when you’re driving along; extremely worrying when it does so when parked at night – boot lights alerting any would-be criminal that it’s open.

A couple of weeks back I dismantled the assembly and cleaned it up. This brought the switch back to life, and I thought it had stopped the boot from opening of its own accord, but recently it started playing up again. I’ve therefore invested in a replacement unit, and have installed it today. Here follows a step by step procedure for anyone else who is suffering the same.

Parts:

B61.31.9.218.995 – key button
B61.31.9.218.995 – gasket

Before any discount but including VAT these cost £30. The ‘key button’ was in stock but the gasket wasn’t, so I had to return to collect that later. Annoyingly, when I came to do this job I discovered the ‘key button’ came with a new gasket so that part wasn’t required at all. I’m not certain if this is supposed to be the case or not, but certainly worth checking, and if you don’t need to order the gasket separately, it’ll be more like a £25 job.

So, the procedure. Open the boot glass. Remove the two plastic covers, and unleash a 10mm socket to free the plastic housing.

Undo the newly visible 10mm nut.

Next lower the glass lid and attack the outside. The rear wiper’s plastic hinge cover should come off with a bit of persuasion to reveal a 13mm nut. Whip that off.

That will allow you to remove the wiper arm – you may need a spot of leverage with a flat head screwdriver to pop it off the splines.

Then get a 24mm socket on the exposed nut. Once that’s off, the switch needs disconnecting from the car on the inside, and all parts can be removed. This should leave you with a pile of goodies that looks something like this:

Clean everything up “good and proper”.

Reassemble with new switch and gasket.

So far everything it good: the switch works and the lid has remained shut. Only time will tell how permanent this fix is!

Having suffered some criticism last weekend for daring to permit my topic to stray from cars, here’s a long overdue update on the M5. It has had relatively little use over winter – a notable exception being a trip to Wales for the Wyedean rally.

I actually forgot to blog about that. Fortunately, Brenden did so. Anyway, the M5 still had the Michelin Pilot Sports on the front that were fairly worn when I got it.

Legal, but tired, if you’ll forgive the pun. I therefore nipped out and got a pair of Good Year Eagle F1s – a quick £270 for 245/40R18s.

After a brief pit-stop at Vines BMW to pick up some bits for the tractor (more on that next weekend I imagine), I decided to pay to have the car cleaned.

With a new set of boots and a bath, the super saloon was once again restored to its former glory!

There were a couple of other niggles I resolved too. Firstly, as ever, it needed a dash of oil (E39 M5s use oil at a rate comparable to petrol it seems). Also, regular readers may recall I mentioned the windscreen washer jets were broken. I bought the replacements before Christmas, and this weekend I finally got around to fitting them!

In the above photo the old ones are on the left – note that one of the inputs is completely missing!

The new items were really easy to fit, and now they’re aligned I’m pleased to once again be able to say that everything works on my M5 – not bad for a 10 year old car with all the bells and whistles! Next weekend: tractor time. Until then, I shall admire my lovely new boots.