Captain Obvious

That spring is a rotational "clutch" that engages when the motor rotates in the reverse direction to "park" the arms. You might ask... Rotates in reverse? Park? WTF is that all about? Z Trivia - An almost long forgotten feature of the wipers is the "park" function. When you turn the wipers off, the motor spins one extra final rotation in reverse and that spring clutch engages (like a Chinese finger torture grabber) and "parks" the wiper blades in a lower position than they normally wipe in. However, at this time, everybody's springs look like your do and have the little tab has rusted and snapped off, and the park feature no longer works. At this point, I believe just about 100% of Z owners has had his wiper arms off for some reason over the years and they all have just repositioned their wiper arms so the at rest position is where they want it, and never even ever knew there ever was a park function. Why and how do I know? Because a buddy of mine and I went through the same thing a couple months ago and he dug into it and turned up the existence of this long lost function. He re-formed the broken off tab on his spring and I bet at this point, his park function is the only one on the planet that works. There are a coupe old threads on-line on one of the forums (don't remember which) that talks about the park function. Might be someone who changed over to the Honda wiper motor and was wondering what all the wires were. There is also some talk about it in the FSM.

Haha! Yeah, that works, but the one I was thinking of was: Have you ever noticed how anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWPCE2tTLZQ Long live the Carlin.

Haha! Have label maker. Must use it! Just kidding. I feel that you can't have too much explanation. I've opened things up sometimes and seen scrawled writing inside things like that relay. And the scary part is... it's my handwriting, but I don't ever remember being in there before. At least with a label maker, you have plausible deniability! So if the relay is clicking when you turn the key to ACC, now I'm almost ready to condemn the relay. I suspect the contacts inside are burned up or so dirty they can't supply the motor with the necessary current. You can probably open it up. Most of the relays of that era have little bent in tabs on the underside that you can easily unbend to pull the shell off. But before you do that... Are the contacts on the other mating half of the relay connector as clean as the side in the pic? If so, they look fine.

I'm considering a throttle cable upgrade and I'm soliciting input. I searched around a little and the ones I've seen attached to the throttle linkage in the engine compartment. That works fine, but has anyone gone whole hog all the way to the pedal? Has anyone connected the cable directly to the gas pedal and completely eliminated the stock linkage? (PS - I know this is a fuel related question and I put it in general. I didn't want to put it in the carbs or FI sub-forum, because what I'm looking into could pertain to either.

A fresh set of eyes often brings new insights. The best solution would be for ramsesosirus to knock out a bunch of OEM shaped shims with the laser table (even though he is out of the woods with his squeal gone). Then offer them to members. I can bend the tabs myself.

OK. Just checking. It's my calling.

Captain Obvious wants to know if you remembered to put oil in the trans after you were done with the install.

Yes, to you and all the others in the path of this upcoming storm. Stay safe, and I hope everything is OK. Now is when you are glad you didn't buy that place right on the beach, huh?

Yeah, a little creative license there. I was guessing from the on-line pics that the shims went all the way to the bottom of the pads. Give 'em a try! Might be enough coverage! Can you tell (from memory?) if they are thicker than the originals? They look thicker in the pics although it might just be a burr from the cutting process. Or the paint?

Oh, and don't worry. We'll get you into late fall! In fact, you already have a workaround. Just keep that L to G jumper in place and make the promise that you will never ever ever forget to turn the fan switch to OFF when you park the car so you don't drain your battery.

First off, just a point of clarification... You said that when you jumper L & G wires "the fan runs at full speed". Do you mean that 1) the fan runs at top (full) speed all the time, regardless of the position of the fan speed lever? Or do you mean 2) the fan runs at the correct speed (depending on the position of the speed lever) and by "full" you mean "not sluggish". I'm assuming "2", and I will move ahead based on that assumption, but I just wanted to check. So assuming the fan behaves "correct" with the jumper in place, that's good, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the relay is the problem. There are still other things that could be causing the issue, although the relay is suspect. So with the relay connected as designed, you should be able to hear (or feel) it click when you turn the key from OFF to ACC or ON. You should also be able to measure the voltage on the other L wire (not the diagonal one, but the other one) go from zero to battery voltage when you turn the key to ACC. This other L wire is the actuation control wire and it should have 12V on it any time the key is in ACC or ON. When this happens, the relay should click closed. Can you snap a picture of the relay? I'm still unclear how it makes it's connection to ground, and that could be a problem area as well. It appears to be internally connected to it's metal shell and that shell is then screwed to the body where it mounts? I'm not yet ready to condemn the relay, but if you do get to that point, I don't see anything special about it. I think it would be easy to replace it with something generic.

That's what I do as well. After getting a couple speeding tickets in my past, I now pretty much lock my speed right at six miles an hour over the limit. Unfortunately that isn't enough for some drivers behind me. If the guy behind me is really being a dikk, I slow down to exactly the limit. They usually get the message and accept six over. Another facet that drives me nuts is the guy who rides your butt even when there's another car in front of you. It's not like the guy behind you would be going any faster even if I wasn't there. They would still be limited by the next guy. And the next. And the next. A-holes... all of them. I hate everyone. Remember what George Carlin says?

Nick, That device is part of the air conditioning system and is known as the FICD, or "Fast Idle Control Device". It's purpose is to pull on the throttle linkage a little bit when the air conditioning system is turned on to account for the load of the A/C compressor.

That white wire should have a strong healthy 12V on it any time the key is in ACC or beyond, regardless if the fan switch is turned on or not. So there's clearly a problem on the power delivery side of things. You have "some" power at that white wire, but it's not a good strong connection. First, I would make sure the fuses are good. I think heater is powered by either the third or forth one down on the left column of the fuse box, but while your under there, you may as well take a good look at every fuse. Take them out, look at them in good light, and gently clean up the brass fingers of the fuse block. If all the fuses are proven to be good, I would take a look at the "power relay". (The device in the lower right of the diagram you posted.) If that relay is having a problem like a bad ground connection, or dirty contacts, then the fan won't get strong power. Is that relay screwed to the body? If so, that's how it makes ground connection. Make sure that isn't dirty. For testing the power relay you could jumper it out of the circuit by connecting the L wire to the G that diagonal from the L. If you do that, it shouldn't matter whether the key is ON or not, and the fan should get power. Good luck with the troubleshooting, and let us know what happens.

I'm assuming the fender liners are high density polyethylene, or polypropylene. ABS would not be a good choice there because it's probably too brittle.

Got it. I did a little digging and found people on BMW forums talking about installing different thickness shims or multiples to adjust the tension. Really seems like an un-German "afterthought" design. Looks like they included a tensioning device in later years, but the early ones used shims? And to design the system without interlocks or locating pins or something such that you can easily do exactly what you did. Just surprising. Could they at least have put the shims on other feet that don't have oil holes or do all the feet port oil? Certainly not poka-yoke. Haha! It's always easier to second-guess someone else's design decisions. Anyway, glad you found a smoking gun. I would have never been comfortable with the engine ever again if I hadn't found something definitive. The guy with the Viper will be happy to see your rear again.

Wow. Glad you found something! It always makes me nervous not to have what I believe is the smoking gun. So that shim is supposed to just stay in place with no locator pin or pressed in boss or anything? Just pinched by the bolt nearby? I don't like it. What's that shim's purpose? That's a gasket between the block and the oil pump?

Once you write the program to do the cutting on the table, knocking these things out will be a piece of cake. Good luck with the project! Once you get to the point where you have the outline perfected, let me know and I'll pull one of my originals off and do a more thorough material analysis if you are interested.

Neat! Here's my impressions after reviewing the dots: The general price seems to have gone up from roughly centered around 15K to roughly centered around 20K. There are a bunch of people out there that think their hunk-o-junk is worth around 10K (7 to 13), but the market clearly disagrees. There is one guy out there with deep pockets who hopefully got a fantastic car for his $40K!

LOL. Or cardboard painted with wrinkle finish paint...

Zed Head, Don't remember exactly how, but I found the Beck/Arnley part number first and started digging into the "used on" applications list. That's how I turned up the Wagner number. One bread crumb that leads to another and hopefully eventually leads to something (hopefully) usable. Cross referencing from other vehicles, and all that. Thanks for guinea pigging for us. Hope they work! PS - If they work and aren't made out of cut up black jeans, can I have your old rusty dented originals?

225's on a inch wide wheel? Looks nice, but I can feel that sidewall roll from here!!

For the energetic experimenter, there may be options. A little digging turned up what some people consider replacements for the factory shim. And cross referencing has turned up a couple part numbers. There may be others as well, but I didn't dig too deep. Here's some numbers to start with: Beck/Arnley 084-2008 WAGNER SH14025 The look a little different than stock, but the differences appear to be in areas that shouldn't really matter. Mainly... They are cut straight across the piston instead of having a circular cut out in the middle. Since the piston doesn't contact there anyway, I'm thinking it shouldn't matter. And I don't know if the coating would help or hurt, but I think they would be worth a try if you're desperate. Here's a pic: And here's a couple pages with more info: http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=156573&cc=1274745&jsn=10619 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Disc-Brake-Pad-Shim-Front-Beck-Arnley-084-2008-/232361458677?epid=75309807&hash=item3619d27bf5:g:sA4AAOSwhvFZNeBE&vxp=mtr

Your temp sensor readings look well within tolerance: I agree with the crowd however and say that your fuel pressure looks high. Also, are you running aftermarket injectors? I'm convinced that some of the supposed "correct" replacements put out more fuel than stock.

Haha!! I'm disappointed! It's solid state and not tubes!! Hope none of your neighbors are listening to the radio or they're gonna hear you testing your injectors.