My Murple

[Ronin]

are these rivets same kind that hold on the wheel arch liners? mine have been snapped by someone.. would be nice to replace them

[J i m s t e r]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

I will probably make a plastic plug, bond it in with epoxy, and then cover it with seam sealer.

I mean, if it was good enough for the gearbox...

[MikkiJayne]

They're a repair process for those studs yes, if you can make them work. An expensive experiment though. Numbers below, all £10-15 each.



I filled in the hole - forgot to take a pic, but I cut a piece of aluminium plate to fit inside the hole, epoxied that in place, and then epoxied over all of it so its a 1/4" thick composite now. Once this has dried I'll sand it flat and seam seal over it.



I managed to get the broken PS pipe support out by trimming all the rubber off it and then grabbing it with the vise grips.



The crusty servotronic solenoid



Amazingly, the bolts came loose without too much of a fight



There's a tiny gauze filter in here. NLA, as are all the o-rings and the solenoid itself



The filter has collected some detritus



Cleaned very carefully!



This is a BMW solenoid - its a straight fit as both are made by ZF, but this one has a connector on it rather than trailing wires. I'll make up a simple adapter cable so it plugs in like the original.



I put something back on the car at last!



I extracted the scrivet and replaced it with a rivnut, since there was already a hole in the sheet metal anyway. This extra 15-20mm of clearance makes removing and fitting the rack 1000000% easier! It just drops in to place now, instead of 20 minutes of wiggling it about to get it past the stud. If doing the rack with the engine in the car this simple mod would make a significant difference to the job.

[David's8]

Another elegant, well engineered solution.

[RICKY D]

The crud on the servotronic solenoid

Coming together very nicely.

Out of interest if the guaze was damaged, would you have a back-up work around solution for that?

[MikkiJayne]

Originally Posted by RICKY D

The crud on the servotronic solenoid

Coming together very nicely.

Out of interest if the guaze was damaged, would you have a back-up work around solution for that?

That's actually the aluminium top cover which has been destroyed by galvanic corrosion. It sits on the rubber sound deadening pad behind the rack, and when I removed the rack, half the aluminium stayed put in white powdery oxide form I've given the new one a good coat of Waxoyl to hopefully preserve it a bit and stop the moisture eating it.

If the gauze was damaged I would have acquired some new material and likely printed a new surround for it in TPU. It would have taken a little experimenting, but by pausing the printer at the right point, the gauze could be inserted mid-print and embedded in the material.

Luckily it was intact though

[Stromaluski]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

This is a BMW solenoid - its a straight fit as both are made by ZF, but this one has a connector on it rather than trailing wires. I'll make up a simple adapter cable so it plugs in like the original.

What BMWs did that solenoid come on?

[MikkiJayne]

E38 and E39 I think. I have the part number written down somewhere...

[strummagnet]

Hi MJ, What size and type of rivnuts are you using? I assume aluminium for the aluminium body

[MikkiJayne]

M5 or M6 depending on the application - the ones I've shown so far are M6. I mostly use steel, as almost all the originals are also steel. I seat them in JBweld epoxy when they are in an area likely to experience moisture as that'll hopeully cut down any galvanic corrosion.