Heater fan poor + pollen filter

[Marcusd]

Hi all,

I'm new to this board and fairly new to maintaining E34's so please don't shout if this is a silly question - Bently manuals are over £45 in the UK, but I may have to get one ;)

I have just put my car through a type II service with a few extras which I wanted sorting out. One problem which I have noticed lately, which the service mechanic could not fix due to lack of parts, was the amount of air coming out of the heating system - on full fan, which is moving fine, it is barely more than a breeze!

I have been told that the pollen filter needs replacing but have no idea where it is or how to replace it. Being a cheap part, I am keen to replace this myself rather than have a garage do the job.

Following the detailed procedure on BMWe34.net I have replaced the front brake disks (rotors) and pads, so am not afraid of a bit of DIY maintenance - I just have no idea where the heater system pollen filer is of how to replace it.

Any info would be greatly appreciated - thanks :)

P.S. What sort of mileages have your E34's reached? - mine is 140K and sweet. The E34 independant specialist who has just done the service has customers with well over 250K miles on their 6 cylender E34's and they are still running OK with regular oil changes! :)

Marcus

[Tiger]

Definitely the microfilter. You have to take off the glove box... then there is a cover on the center console... the one with the white level on it... take it out... It has been a while... maybe one screw to remove or two... cover out... pull out the old filter... use vac with long attachment to clean out the gunks in there... put new filter in... reverse everything. Very easy... just take a bit of time.

[Brian C.]

.....a new filter every time! For them to charge you what they probably did with no filter replacement is robbery! Tell them so.

Anyway, here's how to do it if you're so inclined to. Good Luck!

Micro filter R&R (http://216.97.77.38/HTMLFiles/Menu3/Menu38/MicrofilterR&R.htm)

Brian C.
'95 525ia

[jplacson]

I know this might be a dumb question, but my 1989 520i doesn't have a microfilter (BMW spec didn't come with one)... would it hurt any, if I placed one of those 3M microfilterette screens in the area where the microfilter could've been?

[jplacson]

Hmmm... and would anyone know where I could get a surplus carpet panel? The one shown here, under the duct cover? Mine is pretty beat up, and I'm just after the molded look (I can easily have it recarpeted)
http://216.97.77.38/Images/Menu3/Menu38/DuctCoverFasteners.jpg

[Marcusd]

Thanks for the info on that - the step by step instructions look useful.

Does anyone know if the access to the microfilter is on the same side in a right hand drive car - i.e on the drivers side not on the glovebox side?

Many thanks,

Marcus

[Max]

Definitely the microfilter. You have to take off the glove box... then there is a cover on the center console... the one with the white level on it... take it out... It has been a while... maybe one screw to remove or two... cover out... pull out the old filter... use vac with long attachment to clean out the gunks in there... put new filter in... reverse everything. Very easy... just take a bit of time.

Hi Tiger!
Do you have any idea about in what end to start when replacing the coupe heater fan? I have a 1992 BMW 525. A friend said it should be done through an opening in the firewall, from the engine side. I have loosened a lot of stuff from the firewall but it does not look the right way. Do I have to remove the center console, radio and stuff.
Cheers
Max

[gale]

Marcus,

Yours is most certainly a right-hand drive & changing the microfilter is going to be considerably more difficult. Reference this UK e32 post:


http://www.thee32register.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/topic_show.pl?tid=11209

[gale]

Here's a link for replacing the blower motor. It's for a 92 e32 but yours should be very similar. You're on the right track removing the firewall panel from the engine side:

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_15.htm

[Max]

Here's a link for replacing the blower motor. It's for a 92 e32 but yours should be very similar. You're on the right track removing the firewall panel from the engine side:

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_15.htm

Thanks! However, the link does not work. Can you check it, please?
Appriciate your help
Max

[gale]

Not sure what the problem is, works ok from this end. Try doing a refresh, could be a server problem or couldn't handle xx amount of simultaneous hits?

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_15.htm