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Given the company’s history that’s hardly surprising. The only two airbox I would ever recommend are OE and Karbonius nothing else.

I just gather a whole heap of old crap from work to chuck on my ride on. It will now provide live data and map my mow pattern. Using my race cars old 10hz GPS for accurate location. Talk about waste of time. But I bet if I live streamed me mowing the lawn on twitch people would watch.

Prepped and painted the underside now ... can finally start to get some lines reinstalled and the fuel tank / subframe etc in !!

Cheers, still a long road ahead to get mobile !! Maybe some Nissan emblem bars sticking out of the side of the BMW one Big milestone today, getting the first item reinstalled on the car !!! (even if it was just fuel and brake lines hah)

Hey team i got half way through this retrofit before i thought of posting so bear with me lol. the story: Ive done this retrofit before with my old e92 and when i did i fitted the amp before the speakers and the amp alone made a huge difference to audio quality and the 535d was in dire need of better audio. Unlike the hifi option in the e92 the e61 hifi system doesnt have a amp so the only difference between standard and "hifi" is the addition of subs and a small sub only amp. L7 amp VS hifi sub amp: L7 option ($677) consist of a DSP amp, front 2x door speakers , center dash, rear 2x door speakers, 2x boot roof speakers and finally 2x subs under seats Id already swapped 4x L7 speakers i had in front doors and rear roof. Ive yet to pull the rest of the subs, speakers and tweeters from the donor car. I used the non L7 speaker for the center so ill swap all the rest at a later date what i did: front left and right: Because having amp in the e92 meant that all the speaker wires ran back to the boot this was not the case with the e61 but lucky for me the sub amp meant there was a power supply and the sub wiring already run. On top of that 2 line level input pairs looped off the quadlock connector for the iDrive supplied audio to the amp. This provided the front left and right channels. I cut the speaker outputs from the quadlock and joined the front speakers to the 2 pairs that ran to the old sub amp. Then joined to the L7 amp. Center: After that i still needed to add the center dash channel so i needed another pair to the front. The amp is mounted on the rear left of the boot and the rear left speaker ran right past the amp so i cut the pair and the speaker end joined to amp and the other end ran to idrive this was to be the center channel. Boot roof speakers: as mentioned above the left speaker is joined to amp. For the right speaker i ran speaker wire from the left side and under boot floor following factory wiring threading through existing bundles to the right side where it was joined to the speaker wire just below the C pillar you'd never know it wasn't factory just the way i like it. Leaving the other end disconnected. Yellow wire wasnt me lol i cut it and ran it in loom after the install 😅. Rear door speakers: unfortunately the hifi option doesn't include rear door speakers and thus no wiring for any. I have left these 2 channels disconnected for now as its a big job to replace door wiring and connections via door plug. I may do this at a later date as ill get the parts to do so but it the mean time is more than acceptable. Coding: removing option 676 and adding 677 to VO i also removed tv option as i used the MOST connection for the amp. While i was there i updated the usb screen to the nicer newer UI with album art. So i already like the system but what a difference it made no more does the sound distort at high volume even with the missing rear doors and not all the L7 speakers etc. And with the equalizer im able to fine tune the sound to almost perfection. Hopefully this helps someone or at least makes for an interesting read.

Chipseal on high traffic roads seems like a false economy (especially when you need to redo it in 12 months) but even tarmac is hard to get right judging by the Kapiti expressway...

Welcome 🙋‍♂️

We've been giving contracts to lowest price tenders for decades now, its so broken. We get sh*t products that arent on time, companies go under trying to meet contracts that are impossible to do (but they got the job) and people lose their jobs. $50 a couple of the big contractors in NZ collapse in the next 6 months, or withdraw from NZ completely.. in 10 years time the only ones available to do it will be Chinese.

Bump updated, now looking for all bog standard items to swap

I just updated mate after your comment realising I wasn’t explaining myself well enough. 😎 yeah I’m not sure about other switches and will need to do some research. I’ll also reach out to my local mechanic once he is back at work. I think he is a couple of e39s in his wrecking lot. cheers in the seat compliment. I had the driver lower out bolster recovered and went over the rest of the seats with a razor to de fluff them. They look pretty great now for their age.

Welcome mate!

Its not even nicely done 3D printing.. even bolting that on is a bit silly...

I went on the new CHCH Northern Motorway twice when I was down there last week. Once two days after it opened... fresh seal but all well stuck down, and a nice smooth surface. The second time about 5 days later, and the tar was starting to bleed, stones were already flying around (apparently broken windscreens are on the rise in that area now) and it wasn't looking good. I still cannot understand how after all these years of making roads, and the advancement in technology, we still suck so much at building them. We have got to stop paying the lowest bidder, it makes no sense.

Such a wicked build - need to slap on a Nismo sticker somewhere once done and blow some minds 🤣

my lawnmower will be 10 years old this year so I decided to give it a birthday, usual annual oil, spark plug and air filter change, plus removed the handle and had it sandblasted and zinc sprayed, then powdercoated, also replaced all the bolts with stainless ones. Then decided to fit a rev counter / hour meter, made an aluminium bracket and fitted it, wire just wraps around the spark plug lead and it has a battery in it, set the service interval at 50 hours and tested it...because why not...

So good - have a wireless carplay dongle for my E46 with its Android unit and installed a unit similar to this (plug in box to stock system) in my wife's A5 - really brings the cars up to date and wireless is great

The pfl ones are pretty tricky to get. You can get lenses new (or repro) relatively easy, but the housings etc are rare if your car never had them. I would have happily (well...) paid 300 a couple of years ago when I was looking. They are different between the pre-85 and later pfl e30s too, helpfully enough.

Starting to make some visible progress again !! Got the seam sealer on (3M polyurethane) all of the welded areas along with some aerosol rubberised underseal ... should have gone with a more hard core 2k product or just used more seam sealer but oh well. Next up I decided I wanted to water blast the under body and wheel arches before cleaning and painting. I made a dam around the car with some left over PEF rod, timber and a bunch of heavy things so water would be contained and eventually flow out the door. Also adapted the water blaster lance to be a 'sawn off' so it shot straight from the trigger Worked well enough all things considered. FINALLY could get some paint on the underbody and make things look a little tidier !! Two coats of 2k grey for the under body and black for the arches. Its basically full gloss and not satin as it should have been due to rolling it instead of spraying, easy to clean I guess 👍 The 2k paint was a solvent for the rubberised undercoat so didn't roll over it too much ... time will tell if its ultimately a good combination.

Sorted the broken drivers seat plastic surround today. Broken either by previous owner or upholstery guys, needless to say the latter didn’t help matters as it seriously deteriorated after they had their hands in it. I ordered a set from Schmeidmann they only come as a pair but the price was reasonable even from Germany. install took about 40 mins including removing the old one and transferring all the switches etc. am now looks super fresh and has all clips and bolts in their rightful place. I noted the thigh support switch was missing a component and was incorrectly assembled (the switch cover itself can only go one way). But the small gold coloured metal pieces can fall out easily if not assembled properly. so I robbed a part from the passenger seat. if anyone has a thigh support switch lying around let me know.

For those that want High quality Bluetooth audio (and phone kit) with decent integration to the standard audio systems in Ibus cars.. Check this out: Bluebus I’ve just installed this to my E46 and it’s everything the forums and reviews are harping on about! let me know if you have any questions..

Have to thin the fleet so time to move Tim on. An E46 compact motor transplant, exterior and interior work. Have a search well documented on here. Asking 5,990