Leaderboard

Blew a head gasket (cyls 1-4) so spent the past six months sorting that and coming up with a better expansion tank solution (from a Merc A180). Did chain guides and OSV at the same time and now it runs perfectly and not a drop of fluid leaking anywhere (probably for the first time since either the donor or the wagon left the factory!!). Gave it a wash to celebrate.

Started getting the shocks and brakes off today, also test fitted the f8x brakes while I still had the chance. Next time this car rolls under it own power it going to be a completely different car. Its going to take a while but it will be worth the wait.

F'ing love those wheels.

Got a little bit more work done recently, been busy making a plan for all the suspension stuff and figuring out which direction to go for the clutch/flywheel. Decided to keep it oem and stick with a dual mass flywheel and oem 240mm luk clutch kit. Got all the underside parts taken apart and sandblasted, in the process of getting painted at the moment. gearbox is back from kayne Barrie now with fresh detents. More or less just need to order the clutch kit now and then can put the engine and gearbox into the car. picked up a e90 325i auto front half driveshaft and a e36 medium case rear half from @Toast which so far seem to work together, will see if they end up the right length. Paid $80 for the front half instead of the $700 people charge for zf 5 Speed Front halves nowadays. will need to swap the carrier bearing over to an e30 one as well. Fuel pump is back in the car too now ready to start replacing subframe, trailing arm bushings etc now and reassembling the rear end.

Before the next few months of overhauling the car this is some previous stuff to catch up on. IMG_20250308_104937_536.webp

I demand a 130i duel between @Driftit and @Jacko

Sorry if the sarcasim of the post has been missed. Let me try again… slapping a M5 badge on a 520i/525i/530d/535d (add your own model here) does not make it an M5 😝… same applies to all ‘M’ variants and model series 🤪 Chur!

I’d pick a 535/530d over a 525 any day of the week, m57s are fantastic

Got back to tinkering on this little nugget this past weekend. Since it was still misfiring, I decided to do a compression test to make sure the issue isn't with any of the valves getting jammed. Shockingly, the result was 225-230 PSI on all cylinders. I was a bit taken aback by such high numbers. I then noticed that I had disconnected the valvetronic motor and the eccentric shaft sensor plugs when removing the coils. Wasn't sure if it'd influence the results I reconnected them and redid the test, this time around getting 175-185 PSI on all cylinders. That ruled out compression being the issue. I then moved onto the smoke tester to check for vacuum leaks. Having removed the airbox and throttle body to insert the smoke tester adapter, I discovered a major f**kup, which turned out to be the cause of the backfiring - a vacuum hose from the EVAP valve was left dangling loose, unconnected from the intake manifold. It took a fair bit of force for it to clip in properly, not sure if I had missed it completely or hadn't seated it properly when reinstalling the intake. The throttle body and airbox obscure it pretty well so would have been easy to overlook but silly mistake on my part none the less. I went ahead and did a smoke test anyway, which didn't reveal anything obvious. I then took off the valve cover and rechecked the timing - all perfectly in time still. Got everything reassembled last night and did a quick test start this morning before running off for work - she now idles buttery smooth. Then took her for a quick test run after work - far from a pleasant driving experience as things stand, but at least she's back up and running! The tyres are barely holding air, the brakes are garbage, the steering is vague, the shifter sloppy and the AC compressor will likely grenade itself as soon as I press the button but felt a nice sense of achievement clocking up some 10km along some backroads for the first time in years. Will need a fair bit of love to be put back on the road but hopefully this means she's not destined for the scrapyard just yet. Happy days. It'll definitely need new tyres, and probably the rotors machined at the very least to pass but will book her in for a WoF to see what all she needs to be made roadworthy before throwing any money at it. Hopefully it's nothing major. I'm growing quite fond of this quirky little thing.

Hey Everyone, I'm looking to do a paddle shifter retrofit on my E90. i've had a look at my local pick-a-part and sadly nothing there. Does anyone have a steering wheel for sale? i think only the m-sport style wheels have the paddle-shifters for this car but happy to look at any good condition wheel with paddles that will work! Cheers

“Rip off” is a bit of a strong and emotional term, especially when you are not comparing all the facts (one example out of how many millions of part numbers?) nor comparing apples with apples. It all comes down to economies of scale, and how costs are spread across the supply chain. FCP Euro would probably have a bigger parts turnover than BMW NZ, let alone BMW North America who would be the equivalent point. As mentioned above NZ parts can be reasonable for fast moving volume medium cost items. If it’s a larger, low volume item that has to be ordered in especially then unfortunately the costs won’t be comparable with the US who is still probably buying exponentially more per year. This then gets into a “chicken and egg” situation as more people buy on line from the bigger vendors. The issue then is supporting the local businesses in terms of time scales, yes most things can be sent over-night, but this then gets tricky for larger parts like bumpers for crashed cars, wheels, Lithium batteries (dangerous goods), etc. If the significantly increased freight costs (post Covid) are then passed on insurance companies will soon up the premiums to recover and more cars will get written off. Would that it was possible for FCP to be a supplier. However, you might want to ask Toyota Aussie and Toyota NZ how they ended up with fake parts in their supply chain and the $$$s it cost to sort that mess. Is there room for improvement..? Always. Will systems evolve over time..? Most definitely. Will people still claim “dealers charge 100% mark up” .? We shall wait and see. *Purely my personal opinions as an innocent bystander, any resemblance to persons dead or alive are purely coincidental.

I got one of them adapters when doing mine, can't remember where I got it from but looks identical. Paired it up with some ancient, fairly low profile trolley jack I borrowed off a mate, but that's not the point. The whole thing ended up being too damn fiddly to use... Trouble I ran into was, even with the car raised to the max height allowable by the jack stands, the combined height of the trolley jack and the adapter was such that even lowered all the way, the transmission was left wedged in the transmission tunnel with no way of wheeling it out. It then became a whole new mission lifting up the transmission while trying to slide out the trolley jack from underneath. In hindsight, would have been much easier without that adapter, either resting the rear of the transmission directly on the saddle or a wider block of timber and manhandling the bellhousing end. Unless you've got some extra tall jack stands, I honestly wouldn't bother. Only ever "used" that adapter once and now it's essentially scrap metal on the shelf somewhere.

Hi Peter. We have replacements @ Hellbm. Can code to the car easily.

It’s the small details that make the difference..

Nice work on the headlights. Look forward to hearing this new exhaust on cold startup.

The driver's side headlight had fully deteriorated to the point where it wouldn't light up at all anymore, wet or dry, so it was time to properly address it. I picked up a rather rough, but fully operational spare xenon headlight from Pick-A-Part a few months back used it as a donor to repair the existing one. The donor had unfortunately had a rough life with a bunch of clips broken and bulbs held together with some RTV-like goo so it was just too beat up to throw straight in. The headlight disassembly task turned out not to be as daunting as I had feared. Was good being able to practice on the spare unit before moving onto the original one. I made several marks on the casing and adjustment dials to make sure it all went back together in the same way. Ideally, I would have swapped over the main wiring casing where the ballast plugs into but it was in a rather shoddy state with the casing cracked, bits broken off and goo holding it to the headlight housing instead of screws. The brown wire had also been pinched on the seal and cracked in exactly the same place as on the original headlight. Third unit I'm seeing it happen on now so looks to be a very common thing, weirdly enough. I decided to leave the wiring birds nest alone and start by swapping over the igniter unit, which seems to have turned out to be the fix. The original igniter unit was visibly "swollen" with the top & bottom edges bowed out, I'm assuming from absorbing all the moisture making its way into the headlight housing. On the moisture front itself, the lens seal had somehow begun to rot and was in an absolute horrid state. Almost impressive how bad it had gotten. Luckily, the one from the donor was in pretty good nick so I used that for now. Will order a pair of new seals at some point and replace both to future proof it. Unfortunately, it's one of those items that Spareto doesn't stock for some weird reason so will have to be a Schmiedmann order or a trip to the dealership. All put back together and reinstalled in the car, both headlights now fire up instantly so looks to be a successful fix, although she's yet to venture outside and face the rain. Hopefully it'll hold up just fine tho.

Dream big, baby https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/740il/listing/5360049790

Pagid, Hawk or Endless in that order. Avoid EBC at all costs. Utter trash on the track. Had material fall off the backing plates and material crumble like pie crust. A number of others also experienced this in the BMW race series. EBC ignored my concerns so I actively tell people to avoid them.

Greg was always good to us when we were in the area. E46, E36, F30 - all went through his workshop at one time or another. He was our go-to.

I have just been researching this as I want to change the oil in my diff and you need the right kind depending on the diff type. I have found that early Z3s had clutch diffs ands sometime in mid-late 99 they changed to torsen. This seems like reliable information to me, people saying the only way to tell what you have is to take the back off and look, but that the early ones definitely came with clutch diffs. What do you say to this? What is your statement based on? Also, IMHO the ABS can take care of locked wheels...I'd rather have a torsen, it doesn't wear out.

If your's was for sale a year ago when I bought my car I definitely would have. Your car would have been a much better starting point. I keep a spreadsheet of how much I have spent on my car and it hard to believe how quickly things add up.

Comparison of the f8x M2 380/370 rotors and the dba 370/345 F-series M-performance rotors. Both use the same pads and same calipers just different ways of mounting to hubs.

I'm running 18 inch OZ racing ultraleggeras, you can't use m2 brakes with 340mm rotors. I will be running 370f/345r rotors as the F series M performance set up. I have the 380f/370r rotors which came with the calipers but these no way to mount the 370mm rears to the 130i rear hubs and I'm not converting to e82 hubs as my OZ wheels already have a very aggressive offset.

Wait... so this IS an M5, but Pick-a-part are trying to convince us it's a 525i????? There's a change from the norm!

I think the only way with this one, went and saw it twice. cage is just too nice to cut and its fully resprayed inside. Front strut tower welds are also beast and would not be DIY job. I'm pretty sure it is an M52B28 as it has a dyno for 180whp.

No, degreased the block about 5 times with a brush to make sure there was no oils and then hit it with a blow torch briefly to burn off any left over. POR-15 didn't seem to say anything about primer so just went straight on with that. Meant to run the engine for 15 min to full cure.

Friends got tyres direct from importer last year. A set of 4 was about 20% more than 1 from a (cheap) retailer. So somewhere between the importers margin and the retailers margin is a healthy number.

OP Here lies within one reason why workshops reject owner supplied parts 1) insurance, If the workshop should make a claim for total loss on your car for failure due to a service provided .. it will be inevitably rejected on the premise of owner supplied parts

TunerPro have a bunch of xdf's (definition files for tunes) for the Motronics as well as binary reads of the tunes - might be worth poking in to: https://www.tunerpro.net/downloadBinDefs.htm#BMW

you can always spot a 4 pot E9x in traffic. When it pulls away from a stop it'll leave a nice blue cloud of oil smoke. Avoid like the plague.

Sure is. I went to the Wellington launch of these. I remember the presenter saying “and representing outstanding value, the 740il at $214,000.” or $224k. Had just paid $131k for a 3 bed, 2 bath townhouse in Hataitai. That car looks lovely.

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/z4/listing/5373975389 $32k Worth about $18-20k imo ”Great all round car and a reluctant sale due too many tows” surely he’s not saying it beaks down all the time??

Yeah this is what makes me suspicious of his claims. Nothing he is doing there is any form of manipulation. Jaycar use to do a kit that you could build that allowed you to intercept the A/F input and output whatever you like (lying to the ECU). I had one of these kits back in the early 2000's. Without a wide band A/F sensor you are risking your motor. I found out the hard way. The unit failed and ran my motor lean while at the track. Piston melted. I have a piggy back MAP ECU2 in my E34. It is probably going to be replaced as I develop the car. But it has been good for what I am doing. https://map-ecu.com/

Have you checked Costco? They can order in all sorts.

Haha very cool!

This car is gonna be so clean. Injecting new life into it. Love seeing the progress.

$478 for full set from Race Brakes so I'm real happy with that. $404 saving on full price 😜 😁

Sold my nice blue 130i. Will actually miss it. I didn't drive it much but it changed gear so smoothly compared to the horrible LCI GM box in my white one. Not a lot of interest in the manual car down this way. Everyone seems to be in Auckland and they are all so flakey. I think maybe I am giving too much info in the ad and should be targeting the clueless BMW owner. Might just hold onto it as it is so good to drive. Clean it up further.

Not as crazy as some of the others in this thread 🤣

Labouring? Ha! You should try life with an M54B25 🤣

Don't want to give the game away too much, as it sounds like we're hunting for the same things, but saving searches with misspelled words also produces gems.

Laughable asking price. A low mileage 740i no reserve auction sold for $3500 a few months back. The asking price on these is super inflated at the moment compared to what I think most people would actually pay.

Haha wow. Needs a full respray and he wants $30K... Also the valve cover gaskets are leaking so you can bet this thing has had next to no recent maintenance.

As little as possible 😁 depends on ratio and condition, $500-1000 at a guess? Yep - has been the hardest part of this build to track down by far.

I think it's much easier to get across the line if you have a prior relationship with the mechanic, and are fully willing to take responsibility for your ordering snafu's if you get it wrong. It's probably also easier if they're "not" a specialist marque workshop and are willing to work on all sorts of cars - if you can supply parts / diagrams / torque specs its going to make their life a lot easier, as they might not have the same access to parts discounts when ordering from the dealer or OE supplier.

$22500 Excellent condition. 70000km Lowered on Eibach Springs Near new Rotors & Pads LED light upgrade (OEM) NBT 3D Design genuine front lip M Performance Carbon fibre interior trim kit,pedal covers, & rear difuser. FTP Charge pipe kit included.

For starters the 3rd photo shows a missing torx screw on the LHS, don't know where that is gone, are you sure there is nothing stuck on the in between the horn plate? Failing id re-seat all the connections and the ground, then there should be a connector under the lower steering wheel shroud the goes to the clock spring, if you disconnect that and it stops then its clock spring, wheel or wiring issue in the steering wheel area.

A CSL can go for quite a bit. More if Paul Walker farted in it mid race.

240,200km Just returned from a school holiday trip down to Nelson. Ticked over 240k on the way and averaged around 10L/100km although it's not exactly a huge amount of km's from Wellington to Nelson but a nice open road drive with some hills and some twisties. Had terrible weather on the way down but lovely on the way home.