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Took a drive to Wanganui on the weekend to pick up some interior bits from @kulgan and hopefully soon I'll have the rest of the interior from a certain parts man here ? Will start getting the door cards and dark components installed this weekend

A couple of panoramas from the trip.

Just passed by the Auckland museum so thought I'd get a quick iPhone pic. Next challenge: Your BMW in front of the ocean.

And lining up before heading along for an excellent lunch .... with a nice contrasting hedge

A smoke tester is used to find vacuum leaks. I decided to make my own from stuff I had lying around. I got an old steamed pudding pot, but any pot and lid will do. I then drilled two holes in the lid with a step drill. Use a long bolt to connect the base of the pot to the lid and tighten it so its airtight. I used some rtv here to be sure. Then I got some old hose and I connected it from one hole in the pot to the brake booster vacuum pipe. The vacuum pipe just pulls straight out of the brake booster on the e46. I got a second shorter piece of hose and connected it to the nozzle on my vacuum cleaner (I just used duct tape so no air would escape) and set the vacuum cleaner to the 'blow' function. Now we need to block the inlet on the engine so we get a proper airtight seal. I removed the airbox and maf and put a rubber glove over the inlet pipe wrapped with a rubber band. Then its just a case of dropping something inside the pot that will smoke, turning on the vacuum cleaner and putting the vacuum cleaner hose in the second hole of the pot. If you don't have a vacuum cleaner with a blow function you can just blow into the hose with your mouth. I tried many different things as a source for smoke, from tightly balled newspaper coated in citronella, to engine oil, to transmission oil. In the end the thing that worked best was incense sticks. I bought a whole box from the dairy for $1 (which was also the total cost of this project). Then just start looking for where the smoke escapes from. I found it easier to see with the pollen filter compartment removed (just 4 torx screws), but with real tough to find leaks you might want to take off a few more covers. This homemade smoke tester setup discovered the vacuum leaks on both my cars - neither of which I knew for sure had vacuum leaks. I hope this is useful for the community

And another stop on Gentle Annie - what a view!

And on the Gentle Annie itself ... what an amazing road!! This was stop #1 ... not that easy to find places for 13 cars to pull over!!! E39 goodness .... 3 generations of 3-series ...

Here's the first batch - early morning at Mana and then the big meet at famous Rangitikei Junction

And finishing up at the very good Thirsty Whale in Port Napier .... what a day!

Next stop - the historic Springvale bridge!

Whats up everyone. Names Adrian! Thought id finaly join up to bimmersport, have had my e30 for about 5 years now but have only recently started doing any real work to it. I will start up a bit of a build thread, for anyone whos interested, mostly track use and drift abuse but still aimed at being road legal. Cheers!

I would strongly suggest you get a PPI carried out by either the Dealer or an independent BMW specialist

I know the E30 tax is on the rise, and this is a coupe, but unless I'm missing something I can't see that kind of value here. Maybe list more of the work done and what's included, rebuilt suspension maybe? Diff? Interior pics?? Engine bay??

Nope I'm shooting noob.

This is on the money! I bought mine just under 2 months ago. It's an 01 jap import and had 198400kms when purchased. It is now at 199700. Admittedly it has spent more time than I would like back at the dealer to get sorted. Got it back last Friday, have used it as a daily to work (@50km return) and has been good so far. Issue was an engine light - dealer has replaced 02 sensor, a catalytic converter twice as first one was faulty and spark plugs. Reason I bought one - after selling my E60 M5 I was looking at an interim wagon until I get into a position to purchase an E39 M5 and 8 series. As I do regular trips to the BoP, which is usually done in my HSV Avalanche wagon (which is awesome for this purpose BTW), I thought an X5 would be great to have as an alternative. My mind was made up after having a drive of @TermiPeteNZ X5. Shortly after one came up at a local dealership for a really good price - I got it and a 3year MBI for under $10 - it was a no brainer. Looking at keeping mine for at least a couple of years and it will be used as an everyday hack and long run hauler so I'm not going to get too precious about it Fully expect that some maintenance will be required as these are now getting up to 17+ years old now. I'm budgeting for replacing gaskets, hoses, suspension and little niggly things to be done in the short while. I like - the high riding driving position, comfortable seating for 5 adequate luggage space (not has good as the Avalanche but that thing has a HUGE boot) , it has enough up and go when required, great euro build quality. I've found it not too bad economy wise as it seems to be averaging 13.5l at the moment (which is way better than the 17-20l for the HSV). My advice - if you find one that ticks most of your boxes, is in your budget (incl MBI), and that you're expecting to spend extra on maintenance items in the first year get a PPI and then go for it! Oh and purchase from a dealer if at all possible for a bit of extra consumer protection. Every time I drive it I ask myself why didn't I buy one earlier .

Unfortunately Babara has a two pack a day addiction now.

Nice work, Pete!

4 consecutive generations of 3 series* if I'd taken my e28 we would have have 4 consecutive generations of 5 series. Interestingly only 1 generation of 7 series, though admittedly the e38 is hard to beat.

Pretty new to all of this so i figure i will dive right in, do my best to make this half interesting to read! I brought this e30 from a work mate about 5 years ago, was tidy enough for a project base and id always had a soft spot for a e30 coupe. In its factory form its a 320 auto full of all the good faults from a poor service history and plenty of abuse. I daily drove it for about a year before I signed up for a summer in the usa working at a camp, a job that i did for another 2 years ( saw plenty of the usa while there) Getting on with the car, as is the case more often then not the poor old m20 was tired and noisey, the trans fluid was black with sparkles so i started shopping around for engine swaps. A friend of mine had purchased a 4 door e30 by this time with pure track use in mind so we ordered bc gold ajustibles at the same time knocking some $ off the list plus i got in and tig welded his cage so he chipped in a bit more towards my set of suspention. Thats about all I did to the old girl for a while, I will post up more soon (have to find some photos i have somewhere) cheers

Thought i'd update this. Noticed a slight weep from the trans pan so thought i'd get the whole lot done. Did the service which included a new transmission pan with the built in gasket, the suction filter and cartridge filter and 8 litres of fluid. Price wasn't too bad considering genuine parts were used, ended up going with Auto Trans ltd in Eden Terrace. They had the job done in 2 hours. Overall the car shifts much smoother around town and the very slight shudder it had on take off previously is completely gone. Really happy with it.

nah man, you can't use existing images. it's in the rules (above). "historic photos are cheating".

M sport badges 330s are bait for 335i's that didn't come with them.

I just got home from a road trip to drive the Gentle Annie. Huge thanks to @TermiPeteNZ for organizing this. Met everyone in bulls for a coffee and chat then we headed of to Taihape for breakfast then it was off across the Gentle Annie towards Napier for lunch. Was real nice to meet those of you I hadn't already and nice to see those of you I met previously. Standouts for me were the 2 M5's and the red 535i M Sport. Oh, cant forget Eli in the drivers seat of a very nice 330i. What a fantastic road to drive and I'm thinking more than a few of you had some real fun in your cars. Unfortunately my passenger suffered from a queasy stomach so it was just a nice cruise for me..lol Heres the few pics I took. Feel free to add your own. :-)

M badges do not belong on grilles. Please don't support raw evil

You can buy portable stage smoke machines for about 40-60bux which do the trick as well when combined with some suitable piping.

Nice work, but how will you make steam pudding now?

So as not to hi-jack this thread Ive made a new one for the diy smoke tester;

Fixed now..

Totally agree with Brent. My rules with buying Euros are - always get an MBI policy (Autosure/Vero) to cover big ticket risks and expect you might need to drop $5K in the first year on 'whatever' depending on how handy you are/how much time you have After buying mine for $10K (without sufficient pre-purchase caution - duh) I've spent more than i wanted getting mine sorted mechanically and cosmetically but i thoroughly enjoy it as my daily - and intend to keep it for a few more years. Watch for oil leaks, pixel loss in LCD. @treone just picked up a beaut blue V8 Sportpac and is getting the dealer to sort stuff out. Frustrating but the end result will be good. My gut feel is that if you ONLY have $10K and don't have a fund set aside for sorting stuff then don't do it.

yeah there's a support thread open at the moment about images uploading. I was successful uploading to flickr and then linking, by using the "insert other media" option. flickr is free, good quality, and unlimited storage. Hope that helps. From the images I've seen, a great assemblage of steel and allow, biology, camaraderie. Well done all. PS - Shiny shiny! (this is one of Eliongater's images from above...

My photos will be awhile since I was shooting film! I took a bit of GoPro footage but honestly it's very underwhelming, felt like we were going a lot quicker than the videos suggest! Here's a short clip of an exciting hairpin. Good thing I didn't lift off the gas/brake or it I may have been the victim of lift-off snap-oversteer

looks like a bloody brilliant day out! awesome. love the pics too, Dave! I paricularly like the elevated shot above. Really sorry I missed this one.

Hi all My name is Peter Just moved back from Aussie, sold my company Advan Performance Centre Sydney, BMW / Euro tuning etc. During my 16 years in Australia we owned many cars, one of my favorites was a BMW E92 335, over time it became our shop car and was highly modified. Its great to be back in Kiwi land and explorer our fantastic roads, its just the weather that we are still getting used to lol.. Now we are settled i have purchased a Keeper and one of my favorite cars. Its a M3 E92 2012 Edition 500 done just 22,000km, it was imported by a BMW M3 enthusiast in 2013 with only 53km on the clock effectively a new car. So happy to find something different. I raced cars in NZ for many years prior to moving to Aussie, so looking forward to having a play in the M3. My knowledge is extensive with BMW from 06 - 2016 M and non M, Very happy to help out members where i can. The wife and i are looking forward to meeting some of you at future events. Cheers Peter