Leaderboard

I recently ordered $1000 worth from FCP and whilst I split it into sub-400 dollar lots (including shipping) and ordered over several days some items still arrived in country on the same day, even delivered to me in the same van, and I wasn't pinged. As it turns out, for that $1000 I ended up paying $120 more for shipping but saved over $500 in duty, taxes and administration fees. The new rules will mean I'll pay $120 less for shipping and about $200 more for duty and taxes, a net $80 extra, on $1000 worth of goods. The goods, if purchased from BMW NZ would have cost me $2286. No chance I'm going to start buying locally, it's just a tax grab by the Government, it's not going to help local companies at all.

Lots of interesting things on this Aussie channel

Date: 26 Sept 2019 Distance: 260348kms Time for some more remedial maintenance. Just over 60 days to e30 Mega Meet. 1. Cooling System Refresh Replaced thermostat housing, bolts, and bleed screw. Drained cooling system, replaced all hoses & clips (except the top and bottom main hoses. Flushed, filled with two bottles of fresh BMW Coolant & De-ionised water. All clips genuine, almost all hoses genuine BMW, with the exception of 2 or 3 by Vaico. I figured it was worthwhile to just go through and eliminate all of the 30-year old cooling hoses; why gamble my engine on a hose that could leave me stranded? For those of you wondering, the M40 has a shitload of hoses. And now all of mine - every single hose, clip, and O-ring - has been replaced, along with the thermostat and rad. Only the heater matrix remains. Fingers x'd. What a hoser. Yesterday. 2. Rocker Cover Gasket Replaced rocker cover gasket (Topran), including helicoil of one bolt hole in the head. Jon had found this stripped a year ago, marked it, and we added to the 'list of things to do'. New gasket will keep the engine cleaner. 3. Clutch Slave Cylinder Replaced clutch slave cylinder (Febi). Seemed like a good idea, I figured it was probably an original. Flushed and cleaned, refilled and bled. Jon said it was full of black sludge, needed plenty of flushing. Clutch action is now much smoother and lighter. Result! 4. Throttle Body While he had that out (access to cooling system), Jon cleaned throttle body, drilled a drain hole in throttle position sensor, reassembled. It was very gunky. Smoother idle. Can't wait for a trip in it! My thanks again to Jon & Keren at Auto38! M40 Cooling hoses, yesterday image borrowed from RealOEM

Decals are a few weeks away, and apparently I want to stick them on an hour after the paints on, so seals and pistons in and Ill remask it while waiting for the postman.

The owner has the original tail lights just FYI.

This and this if anyone’s keen on a Kiwi version.

Shanes colours in Papakura hooked me up with some colour matched high temp enamel, gave lots of good advice as well. All cleaned up, then etch primed. Have the new decals ordered, so once they turn up its time to paint them weird yellow

Been using it for years!

Prices have changed a bit since then, highly unlikely you'd get a manual 535i that sort of money these days unless it was in rough condition. You usually up spending 1000's to get cheap ones upto scratch anyway.

Hey Brad Found the rear rotors on ebay, they were custom ordered from Reyland Motorsport for a E46 cost $280gbp. But they recieve E36 ones. RM didn't want them back, so they were on EB for $140gbp + $20 for shipping. Still have to install

Side note, BMParts are often in the ballpark of FCP/Pelican + Freight for some items. Pays to check.

Only catch here, the $400 amount isn't a per consignment thing, its actually a daily thing, if you have multiple show up at the same time you're screwed.

Removed the AU falcon from the 130, came out pretty nice, pretty solid dent but luckily not sharp.

?

Mental motoring. At least the bodywork won't have rusted.

Graham, NZPost is government owned so complaints wont get you anywhere. If they perform badly (which they do) then they lose customers but they still have a job because they are funded from the taxpayer. If a private company performs badly then they lose customers and eventually close, so they are incentivised to perform better.