Jan 16 - under pressure or leaking ?

Hopefully the former rather than the latter ... I spent a good part of yesterday doing the final work on the pressure washer pump, getting it completely disassembled and replacing many of the o-rings. Unfortunately, I won't know whether it works or not until I get back up north and re-install on the pressure washer.

I got an email early in the from partsgeek.com that "a part was out of stock" on my order. Well, which part - I ordered three parts ! I tried calling them but this try was reminiscent of my last dealing with them, i.e. no answer, leave a customer service ticket on their website. Well, I did that and lo and behold, heard back from them a couple of hours later that all three parts were out of stock. Huh ? This is a commonly replaced part on these BMW's ... no matter. I had my answer.

I went to the pelicanparts.com website and ordered there. I think that they do a better job of tracking whether the parts are actually in-stock or not (partsgeek website said that they were in-stock). I decided to order the ball joints for those forward control arms as well because I cannot tell if they are worn and won't be able to until the arm is removed. It's alternately called "control arm", "thrust arm", "torsion arm" on various websites.

Removing these arms could be problematic. There's very little clearance to get a wrench in there but I managed to get one of the bolts and turn it slightly ... don't know whether both ends were turning or not. I'll have to get a combination wrench on the other end, since I only have one 21mm socket (and can't get a socket in there anyway !

I may end up going to a shop to get these control arms installed. The rear arm is the same as the one I replaced at the cottage -- that should be ok, using the pickle fork to remove the ball joint. The front arms, however, might be problematic without the car up on a hoist. We'll see.

Interestingly enough, the aftermarket parts that I ordered were $250. If I count the part that I installed in the fall, that would come to $325. On one of the websites / blogs a Canadian owner was complaining that his dealer wanted $2400 to replace these arms. Let's see -- $325 ... add 50% for the OEM version = $500, double that to put the OEM version in a BMW box = $1000 (this is true !) ... add 7 hours labor @ $200 per hour and you have $2400 ! There are economies of scale here but BMW would charge one hour per item installed @ 6 items, an extra hour to be in a BMW facility and wash your car ... yes, that accounts for it ! One mechanic told me that BMW = Break My Wallet.

I did go out yesterday, making the rounds of Advance Auto Parts (to check tool stocks in case I need something), Home Depot (needed to replace a 1/2" x 6" riser for the sprinkler system), the bank (deposit dental reimbursement), the UPS store (dropoff), the post office ... rats, closed for MLK day ! Later on I went over to ACE Hardware and picked up all those o-rings.

We had pork chops, zucchini and potatoes for dinner, all from the grill, after watching another X-Files episode on Netflix. Later on I fell asleep in front of a Torchwood episode ...

The weather is warming, expecting to hit mid 70's today. I'll be biking !

I also got online and reviewed the cue sheet for Saturday's ride, setting it up in bikeroutetoaster for my GPS. It follows some of the same route that Tim used for the 1000k in 2010.

Onward !