Hello all, I have been looking thu the forums for a while and they have been really helpful so far. However me and my mate have been having a go over a second hand 440i L 1996 1.6l. We have done a few things generally such as tighten the throttle cable and the hand break. All four disks look ok with no pitting on the disk breaks themselves.

However I have found a few problems that I cant seems to find out about.

1. The catalitic converter seams to be held by an elastic/rubber band, is this a normal freature? If so its easliy fixed.


2. The gear linkage (ball and socket joint) seems to be lacking a cover on the top. Do they usualy have a cover of the 'ball' section. There is alot of white grease on the area and it looks like there was a cover there previously.

3. The gasket seems to leak oil when run for a bit (this car was sat for about 2 months before we got our hands on it), the oil leak is very short lived and i am not sure if its something to do with a slow seap of oil thru what ever filter then pushed out when run or a problem you guys may know about.



Id would really love to have any other feadback from people, it looks like a good car, the 1.6 runs really smoothly and the rust (as with all 440's) on the wheel arches is only cosmetic and there is no chasi damange.

If anyone has any other tips for DIY before I get MOT etc, anything to look at then let me know. The forum has been really helpful so far!.

Hey Darcey its 3 am here in the UK an your up worrying about your car :)

1 the rubbers that hold these on are really chunky, with rubber about 1/2" (12mm) thick
2 dont know, I've never had that part off mine to look at it
3 oil leak, check all the hoses for blockages that can pressurise the crankcase, mind you I have a slight oil leak that has been commented on at the last 2 MOT,s and I put a litre in every few\ months, so dont worry - I guess at 160,000 miles I expect a few little leaks.
Anyway I wish you all the best with your project, these cars are great runners and economical too when running right.
Grendel