BMW 3 Series E30

since 1983-1994 release

Repair and operation of the car

The most widespread malfunction in electromotors – breakdown of isolation in windings. Let's say you parked the car on the parking, and "janitors" forgot to switch off. Three-four hours are enough that the winding burned through. Or left a rag in a podkapotny niche where drafts of screen wipers move. The motor gets jammed with the same result for its windings.

Sometimes isolation manages to be restored, having sustained an anchor in bank with engine oil. Slightly warmed up drying oil gives much bigger effect if to sustain in it an anchor in several stages, doing daily breaks for drying.

The same trouble – breakdown of a winding – overtakes also a windshield washer electric motor. There is it often from a carelessness of the car owner, ever the tank with water is empty, or liquid froze, or jets-raspryskivateli or the filter of the pump are "tightly" hammered, and in the block of safety locks in a chain of an electric motor there is "bug".

In general with safety locks it is better not to joke. It will allow to avoid not only the short circuit terminating sometimes in the fire but also it is easier to find malfunctions.

For the beginning motorist has to be gold governed: searches of the reasons of malfunctions of electric equipment need to be begun with the block of safety locks.

I remember when I bought the first in the life car, in shop paid attention that the control lamp of a charge of the accumulator burns. Then the assumption was born that, has to be, or generator brushes did not get used yet, or "makes a fool" tension regulator (at that time cars were completed with mechanical relays regulators of the Bulgarian production. Sometimes, they worked on "recharge", and the bulb lit up). Replacement of the relay regulator did not yield results: the generator just did not develop energy. Replacement of brush knot was useless too.

It was necessary to remove the generator, previously discharge from system cooling liquid and having dismantled the thermostat. Check of windings of the generator and "bridge" of diodes showed that everything is all right. Only then, having done all this unnecessary work on absolutely new car, I guessed to glance in the block of safety locks. Certainly. the corresponding safety lock in a chain of excitement of a winding of the generator just was not.

So if at you the generator failed, begin check with a safety lock. Even if it is whole, be not too lazy to smooth out zones of its contact. Only after that undertake directly the generator.

However you do not hurry with its dismantling and dismantle. At first check brush knot. Existence of large chips on brushes, their considerable wear or oiling can already serve as a generator cause of failure.

Pay attention to a condition of contact rings of an anchor which are visible in a window into which the brush knot is inserted. Scratches and grooves are removed by a grinding skin, then are polished. If these operations do not yield result, it will be necessary to undertake the vypryamitelny block, previously having disconnected wires from the rechargeable battery and the generator. Check of the block is made by means of a control lamp. The negative pole of the battery is brought to the generator case, positive – through a bulb – to a conclusion "30".

If the bulb lights up, so the vypryamitelny block is punched and it needs to be changed. Happens, however, that prbivat either positive, or negative gates of the block. But, perhaps, it is better not to press in these subtleties especially as separate replacement of gates does not practice.

At last, about a starter. It is, perhaps, one of the most durable knots of the car, though it "works" in the most severe conditions. Even when the engine, in a starter capitally is under repair, happens, change only brushes and smooth out contact rings.

The weakest point of a starter – the obgonny coupling, or "бендикс": in it, sometimes, persistent rollers scatter or lie. And then at launch of the engine only hum is heard: the starter rotates, but does not turn a motor flywheel. Sometimes washing of "bendiks" helps with kerosene or acetone. But handymen, as a rule, razvaltsovyvat a holder with rollers and or change all details of a holder, or carefully wash out them.

Other widespread malfunction is more connected not with a starter, and with oxidation or break of tips of the special wattled tire connecting the engine with a body, that is "weight" (the tire is located under the engine). In this case the starter publishes characteristic clicks or in general "is silent" if, of course, "silence" is not caused by other reason – a detachment plus conducting of the relay of a starter. Check is anyway necessary. If conductings of the relay on the place – undertake the tire. But if conductings nevertheless jumped out, do not try to insert it, without removing a starter – you will waste in vain time. The starter should be dismantled.