Using wildcards with UDF that uses Replace

Hello, my first post so I hope I am doing this correctly

I have the Function below that finds the nth occurrence of a substring in a string and it works great, but I will not take wildcards

And I desperately need to use it with wildcards

Can anyone see how to alter the function or the way I am using it that will permit me to use it using wildcards?

I have tried but have been no luck

Thanks for considering my question

Function

Function ReplaceN(ByVal str1 As Variant, strFind As String, strReplace As String, N As Long, Optional Count As Long) As String
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim strM As String

  strM = str1
  If Count <= 0 Then Count = 1
    For i = 1 To N - 1
      j = InStr(1, strM, strFind)
      strM = Mid(strM, j + Len(strFind), Len(strM))
    Next i
  If N <= 0 Then
    ReplaceN = str1
  Else
    ReplaceN = Mid(str1, 1, Len(str1) - Len(strM)) & Replace(strM, strFind, strReplace, Start:=1, Count:=Count)
  End If
  
End Function

How I am calling it

Sub ReplaceNthInstance()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim outArray As Variant
Dim i As Long, LR As Long

Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Z")

With ws.Range("E:E")
    With Range(.Cells(1, 1), .Cells(.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp))
        outArray = .value
        For i = 1 To .Rows.Count
            outArray(i, 1) = ReplaceN(.Cells(i, 1).value, "[*]", vbNullString, 1)
        Next i
        .value = outArray
    End With
End With
End Sub

Welcome to the forum
Something happened when you pasted your function - it is not complete
Please find the rest of it, test it, and then replace the VBA above with complete, working function - thanks

should be on 2 lines:

Dim ws As WorksheetDim i As Long, j As Long, LR As Long

where is the start of this loop ?

Next r