Whistle-Stop

Ever since I bought the car there has been a whistle at the top of the driver's door. Kind of embarrassing when I take people for a ride in the NK, only to have the thing sound like a demented tea kettle. Last year I determined that the noise was likely due to the deterioration of the small door seal that is mounted on the body of the car inside the door frame.

I was pleased to learn also that a new replacement costed much much less than all the other door seals that are still available. I ordered one during the winter from Germany but never got around to installing it since the weather was too cold in Seattle for glue to set properly. Today we finally had a summer day, April notwithstanding. It only took a couple of minutes to pry out the remains of the old seal from the door.

I laid the new seal on the ground beside the old one and proceeded to scour the now-empty door frame with denatured alcohol to clean the surface.

I mixed a small quantity of automotive epoxy, played with a piece of the old seal, and discovered that it would be easiest to apply the glue to the door frame rather than the seal itself. So I mixed more and went to work. After several frantic minutes of wishing I had four hands to hold the seal in place the glue dried and I was done.

I will wait until tomorrow to go for a drive and see if the whistling in the door has departed. The only problem left for the evening is to figure out why Blogspot no longer allows me to create spacing between paragraphs, a new issue since they changed their web pages and "improved" the blogging site. POSTSCRIPT: I drove the car and the whistling noise has nearly disappeared but not entirely. My new theory is that the radio antenna may be causing the sound and that the seal's marvelous dampening effect on exterior noise from the door may have lessened the annoyance. But it is still there, now much less loud. (Yet I am still unable to create a new paragraph with Blogspot.)

The Oil Filter Journey Continues

I recently was unable to resist the purchase of a complete oil filter housing to replace the one that had been leaking. I paid very little for the unit and it still boasts a cool BMW logo on the surface. I wonder if I will regret eventually not switching to the 2002 version.

1) New but old

However when I opened it up I saw that the housing does not use the standard inside o-ring but rather seems to incorporate a replacable rubber gasket. Hmm. I am still a few months away from another oil change so the suspense will build until I attempt installation.