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Holy Thread Revival... Went for a spirited drive out to Omana Park.

Tackled the thermostat job again (slightly stuck open thermostat) and also the lower oil separator hoses. Made a vacuum leak tester using an air compressor, some hose fittings and soapy water in a spray bottle. Found some bubbles coming from the T junction of the vac hose which goes from the rear throttle bodies and on to the Brake Booster. Ordered the replacement through Clayton's. Should explain the intermittent lumpy idle, and intermittent softer brake pedal feeling.

Hello. Stunned and amazed someone pulled over! Doesn't happen often with the old gits and horsefloats round here. Also, what you thought was silver is road dust.

Or is it just me or do they look like a Prado on the front as well? http://www.autoblog.com/2014/10/23/autobild-blows-up-fake-bmw-x5-china/

You're upgrading to a.... 135i? Eh?

Looks great again. Watch out for those concrete barriers aye

Sorry guys, maybe ask Lucan to order them in for you, he seems to know what hes doing and has nominated himself. Cheers Lucan, I am in on your deal

You must be stoked. nice restoration!

Looks great. Blacked out duct areas would be sweet

looking good well done

Have an extra M3 here that we converted from smg to manual if you want first option Tom. Will be on the market soon.

Quote: "As the BMW Car Club or no other BMW affiliated business would not sponsor this event the Playday organizers have opened the day to all comers..." In other words, this event is not exclusive to BMW Car Club members - all are welcome to attend both days. Just follow the instructions above to register.

Yup, it's being entered in the next FWD drift champs, only I have to do them in reverse.

Ok, So I went on holiday to Europe for 5 weeks and other stuff happened. So where was I...oh yes car started and ran well, but there was a coolant leak somewhere, and it looked to be coming from the valley pan area. Under the manifold at least. Weeks alter I bought a Uro valley pan with membrane attached. 2 weeks later I cleaned it up o-ringed everything and tightened it down...yippee 2 Weeks later its leaking, from what looks like the same area. I borrowed a pressure tester from work. Flash alright, it showed me what I already knew. It was leaking at the valley pan gasket. 2 weeks later I pull it apart. The membrane is split in two going all around. It's mustard. I clean up the original, with some 60 grit sandpaper or whatever was closest to me and did some good ole fashion googling. After a time I buy some permetex 'the right stuff', it is supposed to be pretty good in areas like this, i.e. crap areas that like to leak all the time. So I clean it up, clean all the bolts on a wire machine thing, Loctite them nicely, I even bought a nice 1/4" torque wrench. I noticed one of the bolts wouldn't go in straight so got a shorter one and that was better. It must have been one of the three that I had to drill out that must have had some dregs left. As you can imagine I have m6 and m8 bolts of many sizes due to the swap over, so I used a shorter one. I used the permetex on the valley pan, nice and square, torqued to spec and prayed to god, using many swear words as possible. Apparently it works straight away, the skeptic in me won me over and I left it overnight then some. No need to re-torque apparently. I put it altogether and... well it ran, and it didn't leak, but the idle kept hunting like a real mongrel. I swapped some stuff over... There was a coil soaked in oil and was running on 7, so swapped that out. No leaks anywhere... I used crc, and it is still hunting and going up and down sporadically it was here when I went googling and I thought, I am stuffed without a diagnostic thing (whatever they are called), and I cant be bothered swapping everything over, only to find it is something I cant find.. I swapped in the old (cant remember which one actually, but the other one), the other TPS and coil looking thing. It ran, it stopped hunting, I also changed a temp sensor from the rear accumulator, could have been any one of them, but I don't care. It runs like a dream, before today, it never ran under 750rpm. Now its between 650-700 and its the best it's ever run. So the swap is complete, well complete and running like it should. I have parts for Africa, and I hope I never have to use them, but it's fair to say, they are there when I will need them. Going to throw the 3l to the recycle guys. The clutch feels different, better? Don't know but it can handle the power for now, it should be run-in by now, and I have taken it for a good blast. Best ever mod for a 530i 5 speed by miles. Next on my list is to go to 17" alloys as my 18x8.5 Hamanns are probably a tad too big for the HD billies and stiffer springs and spherical this and that. Then there is the glovebox to fix...

Trialed a MSS54HP with all the usual goodies plus Superchip tune yesterday. Felt good though will need dyno to see what its putting out. Will organise for a dyno run to compare the MSS54 to the MSS54HP. `8M3` loved the flash to the MSS52 DME. Will be handy having them all with `dyno mode` permanently on to give an easy more accurate reading. Awesome work Tom. Hellbm loves your skills.

I got to drive this today... It's simply awesome!!!!

Quality tools last forever.

worked on the 635csi today swapped the electric seats out to working and sleightly less stuffed manual ones, fixed the non returning wipers , new wiper motor fitted fog lights back in cleaned the wheel arches out ,looked like 29 years of crap in there put the staggered style 32's back on 235/45-17" fronts and 255/40-17" rears took the silly mudflaps off cut the stupid turned down exhaust tips off

This is gona be off the hook

Dont want to be a smartarse mate & I feel for you, but my suggestion would be to take the damn thing to Glenn - at Botany Motor Works - and stop bleating. Just my opinion