APRIL 2019 79to be a trip to BM Sport to
have the tailgate hinge wiring
attended to... again.
A search on eBay revealed
several sellers fl ogging
microswitches for a smidgen
under 50 quid, so I ordered
one from Ocean, in Plymouth,
and it arrived a couple of
days later. So far so good.
Amazingly, I discovered I had a
Saturday morning free of any
household chores, so I set to
the Touring with enthusiasm.
Best laid plans and all that...
Once you’ve removed the
wiper arm and the retaining
nut that holds the microswitch
assembly on to the wiper arm,
in a similar predicament, and
also that the approved method
of removal involved the careful
use of a Dremel. But I don’t
have one of those.
Eventually, careful use of a
drill and copious swearing at
the idiot who had designed
the off ending item, saw the
microswitch cut away from
the wiper spindle and, in the
best Haynes manual tradition,
reassembly was the reverse
of the disassembly process.
By this time, it was completely
dark, so I’m afraid there are
no pictures of my handiwork.
Lesson learned... just take it
to someone who knows what
they’re doing.
The E3, on the other
hand, has been a very happycompanion this month. I
haven’t had a chance to take
it out for a decent run, but
it’s been very happy smoking
(literally) around locally, with
the added bonus that everyone
in the family seems to love
going in it. No doubt the
novelty will eventually wear off
(probably when we’re stuck on
the hard shoulder on a dark
and rainy night) but, for the
time being, it’s all good. I even
had a long conversation with a
UPS driver who was delivering
a package the other day. He
enquired whether that was my
BMW outside, declared that he
was in love with it and couldn’t
believe its condition.
One thing I don’t think
I’ve mentioned is the stereothe next step as described
in the YouTube videos is
something along the lines
of ‘slide the microswitch
away from the wiper spindle’.
Ummm, no such luck – the
one on my car was fi rmly
attached, and no amount of
(moderate) brute force and
ignorance would shift it. As it’s
attached to the tailgate glass, I
had to leave my ‘special tool’
that usually fi xes these things
(a large hammer) inside the
house and unused.
Generous amounts of
WD40 or penetrating oil
wouldn’t have helped, either,
because the problem is that
the microswitch has a metal
sleeve at its heart that had
basically welded itself to the
wiper spindle. Examination of
the new part showed that the
original design had been found
to be a stupid one for the
reasons outlined above, and it’s
now made entirely of plastic.
Typically, it then started to
rain, so I ended up using Duct
tape to hold the glass shut (but
without actually engaging the
lock as I wasn’t sure I would get
it open again!) while I indulged
in some more frantic Googling.
I found plenty of other ownersI’m delighted with the
performance and look
of the replacement radio
I had fi tted in the E3.
It’s a Classic 200 DAB
unit that came from
classiccarstereo.co.ukYEAR: 2006
MILEAGE THIS MONTH: 121
TOTAL MILEAGE: 61,378
MPG THIS MONTH: 21.2
COST THIS MONTH: £49.95
(microswitch)E61 530i SE Touring
original design had been foundreasons outlined above, and it’sYEAR: 1976
MILEAGE THIS MONTH: 22
TOTAL MILEAGE: 10,695
MPG THIS MONTH: n/a
COST THIS MONTH: NilE3 3.0LE3 3.0L