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Without wanting to drag on with the ex UK rust thing. As Dave alludes to earlier. It is horses for courses thing. Some vehicles probably don't see the salt due to hybination, others may come from areas that roads are not salted. As with Japan - I have seen many vehicles (4WD's particularly) that are ex Japan & are rusty underfloor on bolts,suspension components etc, even seat mounting bolts. Vehicles that have obviously come from northern Japan (having a dual battery setup for cold climate) where the roads are salted. There is no doubt - if a vehicle is continually subjected to salt - it will corrode. Doesn't mean ALL cars are going to be subjected to this.

Imma just leave it in the capable hands of Ray.. Moving on?

http://www.turners.co.nz/Cars/Search/BMW/M/13927466/ i would rather this

It is if you don't have 70k. But yes. Tell em they'r dreamin.

Unfortunately the 'budget car' scenario only gets worse with these. Initial price for the amount of car you get is very good I think. 1, Then you have to buy parts for it, and being the heavy car it is, it hard on everything, so basically overhaul everything.. 2, But wait, you cant buy crap stuff, you have to get the BEST stuff, because these things eat crap for supper 3, But wait, even the BEST OEM stuff has its limits, and when you are driving it like you rented it.. 4, The aftermarket stuff, has now made your car where you wanted it to be when you bought it, but now 'budget car' it is not. 5, Anything that was connected to anything that was passable, is now going to be mud soon too because everything is now harder and firmer than before...so they need replacing (see note1 and start again) ha. But mate, I have my car exactly where I want it now after spending a bit of money (cough cough) and I would drive it ahead of anything else I can think of, only because, its fairly rare, it looks awesome, its not super refined, or fast, but it gets the westie nod of approval everywhere I go, and that means as much to me as anything.ha.

nice body work is a testamaent for how the rest of the car is likely to have been looked after IMHO....if you find a e34 with nice body work and nice interior nowadays you have probably found a car that is up to date with other maintenance.

But then one wouldn't have a classic looking BMW E34 with the iconic lights and grille in their most majestic form!

Yeah im not fussed. Cos look who got her shoes back

When I got the head off I could see that the damage was worse than I had hoped, but luckily not as bad as I had feared. As expected four of the exhaust valves were bent (sprocket on exhaust cam came off) but also all eight of the inlet valves were also bent, losing the sprocket meant the timing chain wasn't under tension and was able to jump a number of cogs on the cam, but still turned it, damn. The good news was that the pistons had only kissed the leading edge of the valves, and no heads had come off completely. The engine was only at low revs when it let go, thankfully not going full chat down the front straight! so there was only very minimal marks on the tops of the pistons and no damage to the rods, phew! The head checked out ok, and there were no issues with the guides or the valve seats which was another big relief. Another member of the Race Series then came to the rescue with a full set of very good condition valve gear which had come out of his 635CSi engine and are the same parts in the S14 - so a huge thank you to Ian Brown for those, and to Kayne Barrie for knowing about them.

Mums sv6 commonwhore f**ked a timing chain in under 80k

Here are a few pics from mine when I had this work done back in 2010. The item circled in red is a piece of one of the guides that made it's way up there, causing a nasty rattle sound. Deflection rail worn from chain contact Pretty clean looking for 250k's on the clock Had this sprocket replaced while it was all apart :

Got rebuilt head, new seals, crack tested, ported $$$ wahoo can start assembling soon.

The oily cooling reservoir, oil leak down the exhaust side of the block and branding on the exhaust heat shields all made me suspicious that a victor reinz head gasket kit had been used during the head replacement. Each to their own, the rest of their gaskets may be fine but issues with the vr head gasket on the m20 are reasonably well documented. So head gasket replacement it was... Despite a bit of sludge reappearing in the reservoir the coolant drained from the motor was clean. Bubbles are from a detergent. There is a chance the oil in the reservoir was just excess from in the lines, who knows, decided to press on. Check out the split that was on the underside of the fuel supply hose ... Bores still had cross hatching on them Took the opportunity to clean everything up a bit. Degreased the engine bay, flushed out all the cooling lines, also painted the headers and valve cover... Cleaned up the surfaces, head checked fine with a straight edge and couldn't see any signs of cracking. Never had temp problems in the time i've owned it. Fairly sure my hunch on the vr head gasket was right, so far so good. New Goetze head gasket.. Cam seal replacement.. To do the camshaft seal I sat the bolt hole parts of the holder on the two bots of wood then carefully tapped it out. Then used the old seal to carefully tap the new one in. Reassembly... All nice and clean...

dash it your making me want to keep mine now

Indeed. It was personally the price that attracted the attention. On that note remind me to never list the M3 on here, it's only a rust bucket after all

Do we really have to go through this same sh*t EVERY time a car is listed that has come from the UK? It is getting so, so tedious and repetitive. Let's just discuss the car in the original post and stop with the ooh it'll be rusty arguments.

Well i must have fallen and hit my head cause ive decided to do this again. I bought a cheap E36 325i coupe that someone had let the rego lapse and had been parked doing nothing for three years so i trailered it home from the Manawatu and got stuck in. When i got the car home found that it had a dead fuel pump. Got it running with a new one and found the vanos to be rattliung away so thats on the to do list. Checked over the car for the re-vin check all that was needed was new brakes all round, two tyres and the wing mirror i collect the garage door with. $300 later it was back in the sytem. Now that its got its WOF, the work continues. Replaced the rear brakes with a vented rear disc setup, and had a 330 brake setup left over from my e30 build with some slotted rotors so they went on. Also still have a Z3 rack left lying around so thatll go in soon. Auto box got the boot and got a Getrag swap with an LSD diff swap. Quite a noticable size and weight difference The plan is to cage it and give it some track day abuse so the interior got the bin. Ill need to remove the airbags and abs as i wont be needing those. Was sitting too high so coilovers will get in sitting where id like it. Before After Painted the tail lights to hide the ugly cracks that where starting to show. Not a big fan of the wheels bit small and offsets a bit high so decided some 5 or 7 series wheels would do the trick. Decided on some style 94s off an E65 735i which are 18x8 in a 24p front and rear. Guard clearance is a bit... well there's none so they'll need a small bit of work to avoid rubbing. Bumpers will get swapped for motorsports when i get around to painting them. I have a T3/T4 turbo setup that i cant decide if i should put on, as the original plan was to go down the V8 route. So until i can decide which way to go ill leave it. Will update when i can be bothered doing anymore work

I've used those I joints and double d shafts on my e30. Saves a lot of room for exhaust

Interested as to why mine is good then. It was imported at 37miles. More than half its mileage life over there. Was under the impression some areas of the UK aren't salted?? Fortunate my car doesn't have rust, but I know a few others which don't either...

Import Corrosion is bullshit. My UK M3, Registered 2002, Landed her in 2010 (oh sh*t yeah, 8 years on that salt!) isn't dying of rust (actually it's mint) Absolute mythical crap to brush all cars as the same. I know AA Rust reports don't mean jack in the term of things, but it still flew through that. And a HellBM check, and a Bellars Motor Works check. Sure a few screwed on tight bolts.. but nothing more than what's on my Schnitzer - which never set foot on a salted road.

For your missus I hope..

Yes but the m20 is old and uses rockers. With later cam on bucket type setups there is no room for adjusters and so they use shims.

Badge in the wrong place! Rawr!

Not too bad I suppose for the damage!

See if the suspect part number is the same as the 325tds, you're welcome to come and try see if swapping the map sensor over fixes your issue before splashing out to buy a new one and find its not the problem.

NZ New SE Facelift, 15" weaves, Manual? The E30 has its own proximity functionality, anyone who walks past it want to jump in!

70k is a bit much isn't it?

Bloody BMW drivers! Get a dashcam

The bodies hold up really well, its all the suspension stuff that I would want to know about, I don't think many on here spend a lot on E34 body work, because it's mostly solid, but the coin that goes on the suspension...have big pockets is all I want to say.

Spotted some guys in an E30 318 with BBS wheels parked in the obvious 'getting stoned' spot on top of Mega Mitre 10 last night. Also some wanker in a Red 05 M6 driving like a total piece of sh*t on the Northern Motorway. Had a go at the Mrs for hitting the horn when he cut her off due to him being in the wrong lane and suddenly changing without indicating. Rego: GAF703 And a nice E30 M3 I have not seen before. Silver and Stock. Driving along Oteha Valley road.

Got these back today. Good as new

Sold. These will be heading southwards in a couple of weeks.

Yes. But how do you do that? Lifters on an S54 are solid so I don't follow how you 'reset' then. I've always been under the impression the only way to 'adjust' valves is to replace the shims to the correct factory thickness.

Welcome Vince, I had 2 factory towbars for both of my E34's, to the dump they both went. Pity. Nice looking wagon. TDS, cant be many of those around?

Hit the 100,000 km mark of the E46 M3 SMG over the past week. It's been 52,000 kms of great motoring over the past 3 years. Have only had to sort rear view mirror and power steering hose. Quite good really for a 13 y/o

could be worse audi with there rubber band powered V8 stuck in the front bumper

Indeed, not a good design at all compared to the M60 Great way to limit the life of the engine before an M62 major service is required. Ideal for the accountants?

I hear you Graham... Why would you consider driving a car you have to unlock yourself with a remote button? Imagine, over the car's lifetime that probably costs you 9 or 10 minutes. Nightmare!!!!! Imagine if you had to unlock it with the key!! F*ck that... Only idiots use keys. SO.MUCH.TIME.WASTED.

Love Tom`s handiwork mainly because I get to test it. Super impressed with everything to date. Big thanks from HELLBM

More track days and less show and shine - that stuffs boring.