I’ve been busy with other things (more of which later), but back to the Aircon retrofit………
The Final Stage
(?)
I had hoped the final stage was to be like the Tour de France , proceeding triumphant and unchallenged onto the Champs-Élysées in Paris and onto the victory rostrum.
Unfortunately it was anything but!
After waiting a couple of months to finally meet up with a fellow Z3 enthusiast, it turned out the Aircon fan from his scrap Z3 was not a match for my Z3. So, having made a healthy profit from my donor Z3, I felt flush enough to buy s new Aircon fan.
BMW want an extortionate (read criminal) £945.00 for one of their own!
I researched after market ones for several hours cross checking RealOEM part numbers and their superseded current parts. I finally ordered an NRF 74025, stated as suitable for a Z3 2.8: cost £136.00.
(How in all conscience can BMW ask £945.00 for the same thing?!)
I received it from our Post lady yesterday like a kid at Christmas. Excitedly I thought “ All buttoned by lunchtime”. And it should have been.
But how wrong I was!
A quick comparison with my existing shroud began the alarm bells ringing.
Whilst there were broad similarities, there were some obvious differences, the main being a duct in the to right hand corner. When offered up to the car this duct was never going to allow it to move up and across into position.
Having done so much research I did not want to give up on fitting it without more thought.
After checking the locating positions and holes it seemed to be broadly the same as my existing shroud. My conclusion was I had three options:
1. Send it back - but that would still leave me looking for an alternative, with no certainty it would fit.
2. Try swapping the motor onto my shroud - but there was no guarantee it would fit
3. Commit, and chop the offending duct off and hope I could make the shroud fit.
I chose 3!
Cutting the duct off was easy, and had no detrimental effect on the shroud or fan.
“Great”, I thought: it will now be straightforward.
3 hours later I packed up, tired, dejected and thoroughly p****d off with pattern parts that don’t fit.
After sleeping on it, the thought struck me that it might be the brackets on the Nissen after market condenser that were wrong. But a quick check this morning showed they were OK for my old shroud: so back to the NRF being the issue.
The main problems were that the fan attaches to the Aircon condenser but sandwiches the Z3 front brace between them.
To do this there are cut outs in the shroud. These could be lined up and located, but then the mounting holes for attaching to the condenser brackets were way off.
To cut a longer story short, I had to cut a further 10mm from the shrouds top flange, remove some material from one of the lower condenser brackets and more from the shroud where it still fouled: then undo the condenser mounts to the slam panel, and fix the fan shroud to a “floating” condenser. Finally I used some judicious encouragement - ie brute force! - to push the shroud up to reach the slam panel fixings.
So tonight at 7.10pm after 2 days of my “unchallenged ride onto the Champs Elysees” I have emerged victorious: my Aircon system is finally completely installed.
Or is it?…..
Before I can raise a glass to success, I will go to Kwikfit for a vacuum out, pressure test, and if all is good, get it charged with R134 gas.
Only once it is pressurised will I be able to check that the fan actually switches on and kicks in when required, and zi get cold d as it on a hot drive.
Fingers crossed
…….
(To be continued……)
)
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