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Hello, Thought id start a thread to keep track of the progress on my 2008 bmw 135i. A bit of background, before this car, I had a 2004 e46 330ci m sport that I bought for $1000 with a crash damaged front end. That was my first project car and taught me most of what I know about cars, I fixed the front end, stripped and restored the entire interior after finding water ingress, rebuilt the cooling system and replaced a few gaskets. Once finished, I felt that it was time to sell it as it wasn't a car I felt like should be modified being somewhat of a classic, I sold it to an e46 collector and began the search for my next project, it had to be small, fun and fast, preferably n54 powered for easy performance gains, decided on a 135i. I bought my sapphire black metallic, black leather interior, 135i in late October, 127,000km bone stock leaking oil, overdue a service, cracked 3rd brake light and broken LED in RHS taillight and a dirty interior, and on the drive home it went into limp mode. Great introduction to N54 life. Not really a surprise when you got it at price that makes it the cheapest low(ish) km 135i for sale. However it wasn't all bad, it had extensive service history, used to be under auto sure mechanical insurance, had the water pump and thermostat replaced, and a transmission service done as well as regular oil changes at 10k intervals, that is until the owner I bought it from got it, who only owned it for a few months. Catching up on things ive done so far: First thing I did was address the issues, scanned codes, limp mode was for exhaust Vanos mechanism, most likely just needed a clean from the old oil. Did an oil change, cleaned the Vanos solenoids and that fixed the limp mode. However I found the following issues; leaking sump, valve cover gasket, OFHG, oil cooler gasket, wrong coolant. Time for an FCP euro order, added PCV valve, top radiator hose, expansion tank hose, coolant flange and also a new drive belt to the list. I worked my way through all of the hoses, gaskets one by one, learning as I went and eventually had everything except for sump done. Valve cover took 2 attempts because I couldn't find a tool for the ground lead studs anywhere, eventually I contacted Ray from HellBM who ended up giving me one for free o massive thanks to him. Filled the cooling system with correct bmw coolant and bled it, so easy with the electric water pump. No more leaks. Gave the car a good clean, cleaned the interior, rewired the paddle-shifters for left down right up, and installed silver interior trim in the place of the woodgrain. Now the sump wasn't a job I wanted to do myself, I don't have access to a garage, nor a car lift so dropping the subframe didn't seem like a fun task, decided to let Michael from Euromotive handle this and got him to install catless downpipes and larger high flowing silicone turbo inlets too while he had the subframe out of the way. Next was coils and plugs as it had started to misfire on the way to the workshop, one of the coils in the car was a Chinese one and ripped in half, leaving rubber stuck on the spark plug after removing it, spent an hour in the car park with needle nose pliers puling bits of rubber out. Eventually got the new coils and plugs in and car ran smooth. Next step after fixing all the oil leaks and misfire was replacing the drive belt that had oil all over it from the OFHG leak. Did that, easier than I thought with the inlet in the way. Also installed pcv valve and oil catch can. At this point car was running smooth and no issues, decided it was time to make some more power, bought a bigger intercooler, metal charge pipe and installed them. Angle grinder came in very useful in making room for the intercooler. Flashed MHD stage 2+ and car felt ridiculously quick. And sounded good with the hatless downpipe and inlets. Then installed some dual cone intakes and blanked off inlets so that DV vent to atmosphere for more noise. Decided exhaust wasn't loud enough to match intake noise, so cut off muffler and welded in 2.5inch steel pipe with thin stainless exhaust tips, sounds better now but will go back and change this slightly. Decided that power was more than enough (for now) and time to move on to some handling and aesthetic changes. Bought a set of 18x8 et38 CSL style wheels (in white which is a unique look) from an e46 and they fit rather well. A little bit of rub on the front guards, but nothing a wheel alignment shouldn't fix. Also bought a set of second hand aragosta coilovers with adjustable front camber plates so that I can fit some wider tires and dial in the ride height as well as firm up the suspension. Got 6 well used dunlop direzza 03g 245/40/18 semi slick tires for free so will see if I can get them to fit to gain some traction. White wheels and a nice clean engine bay: That is where the project currently is at, waiting for a new 3rd brake light as it cracked again so I can take it for a WOF and then install my coilovers and try fit the 245 tires and hopefully get the wheels repainted soon, thinking either shadow chrome, gunmetal, or gloss black... More things coming soon

Few pages back and a few months since posting, Sold 3 of my other vehicles past month and knocked a few other projects over. None the less this thing will be getting more attention moving forward

Ohh mate, if that's your jam... I give you - Chromatic. Dude mostly does bimmers and damn, the production quality of this guy is insane. Have really enjoyed Frank Stephensons stuff out of all the suggestions so far, been binging all morning. Eye-opening to know the rationale behind some of the styling choices. And M539 is of course the absolute favourite.

M539 Restorations on YouTube - must watch!

😍😍😍

Fuel filter is a lot easier on the E30 than E46 as it’s not as far under. Definitely want to replace the rubber hose on each end of it as well, but guessing you were already going to do that.

On TM right now...

NZ New Dakar Yellow - $40,000 firm. Full details in the TM auction but please feel free to ask any questions here or over there. Reluctant Sale - Viewing around West Auckland. https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/auction-3382298426.htm

Virtually identical

Style 193s are a great fit on the e46 and looks awesome imo

got one of these in my 530i - lovely wheel

Congrats on the new job, and an early welcome to Otago! Hope you get a decent price for this!

Yeah wouldn't worry about the diff, looks all surface rust to me so wire wheel would clean up that no sweat. I agree about the 6 speed, comment was more aimed at running a 3.38 diff. Will PM you about the flywheel\clutch

Yeah would probably been around $400 cheaper without the diff. I checked with BMWorld, Weitz and a few other places and none had 2.93's in stock so felt it was worth it. Probably nothing to worry about with the diff as it is but the rust is an eye sore, and a bit concerning with the rust all over the flanges as well. Would ideally like to address somehow but might just see how far a scrub would take me. Could be keen on the flywheel-clutch combo aye. I'm just having a mate price one up this coming week as well but haven't sorted anything yet. Shoot me a message with what sort of money you'd be after. Cheers Seller sorted the shipping but I believe it went through a few carriers along the way, DHL taking it the last step. From what I've gathered, it renders the first gear practically useless and shoots the cruising RPM's up way too high. Looking to have this car mainly as a weekend road trip cruiser rather than a drag racer 😄 Sticking with a stock gearbox-diff combo should also save me from having to recalibrate the speedo I'm hoping? I did consider it but reckon it would have demolished the budget completely. The higher cost of the box itself, likely difficulty sorting suitable gearbox cross member, likely having to modify the prop, that leading to needing driveshaft hoops, plus a myriad of other potential compatibility issues, figured it just wasn't worth it for what I'm going for. Took the missus out for a wee cruise to Arthur's Pass yesterday. Been a while since I'd wandered out onto the open road so definitely enjoyed the drive, even if it meant the engine light decided to wake up from its slumber... So lucky to have these awesome roads right on the doorstep. Also, picked up a set of relatively tidy style 193's the other day. Been meaning to get either these or style 135's for a while now as I'm not awfully keen on the current 194's. Absolutely love these wheels, fit them on earlier today and love how they sit. Exactly the same offset as the current ones so shouldn't have any fitment issues having rolled the rear guards already. The front tyres are near new (even if they are Vitora's) but the rears are absolutely shagged with wires poking out so will need new rubber before they can go on. Open to suggestions as to what to go with. Had Potenzas on my old coupe and was pretty happy with them but open to options. Will probably just get the rears at the moment but might do the whole set if I get a decent deal.

Been there, done that - Olive oil definitely belongs in the kitchen 🤣

Not to start an oil debate but manual says you can use 'special oils' too

Did an oil and filter change this weekend - put in some Penrite 20w60 (mineral) which I got on special. Not to start an oil debate, and I'm not sure what it was run on previously but the manual says 20w50 and I will probably be changing it every 6 months anyway. Might just grab some Castrol or Valvoline 20w50 next time. 10-12c likely as cold as this car will ever endure. Started to do the fuel filter but decided it would be a shitty little job on jackstands being an inch from my nose and of negligible benefit - maybe next time its in a proper shop. Tested out my new 42kg 3000kg jack - as expected picks up the e30 like a feather, gets nice and high and drops it really slow and steady. Also have a little 16kg alloy 'racing jack' rated at 1500kg which does the job but does not get very high - deciding wether to keep it for jacking control arms / transmission for other jobs as its much smaller and easier to manoeuvre.

Pod Casts - Donut Media - Past Gas - Lighthearted look at interesting stories and characters from Automotive History. Youtube, the typical: Carfection Hoonigan Carwow Hagerty Donut Media M539 Ammo NYC Hoovies Garage sometimes Jay Lenos Garage Restore It Enthusiast Auto Group Regular Car Reviews Any 30 minute video of some dude detailing a car haha Maybe I should stump up and pay for Youtube red

Bump - updated the TM auction. Car is running fantastic, in fact I think probably the best it has in my ownership! I’ll still let this go to Bimmersport members for 2k less than the TM auction so 40k. Also happy to consider reasonable offers.

A few weeks of hard slog and we're getting there. Most of the faults in the first post have been rectified. Took both front seats out to really give the car a good clean and now all the seats work electrically. I can't believe these things have electric headrests 😂. Tailgate now opens by using the drivers footwell button, but not the exterior handle/button. The last major thing to tidy up is the roof which in reality isn't the end of the world. BUT it looks as though I have to sell the black beast prematurely. A job offer in the Central Otago region means we'll likely be moving on from Auckland. I'm not keen on driving 4 cars and a house removal truck, so something has to go. New job has free electric car charging so I'll be converting to the dark side once down there. Big question is, what to list for? Hard to find a comparison. If I was a gambling man I could go $1 reserve 🤔

Hi all, Bought this ballast to fix my headlight but turned out to be a bulb. Has been plugged in to test but other than that pretty much brand new. Photo from the website I got it from. I'm guessing it will fit all 1 series xenon headlights but best to check for yourself. BMW part number: 63117180050 This is NOT an oem part. Paid $170 shipped, just looking to move it on so will take anything above $130. Located Auckland Central but happy to ship. Thanks.

Project Binky. That is all.

I have really enjoyed Frank Stephensons channel on YouTube, more of a design perspective than just a practical car review. https://youtube.com/c/FrankStephensondesign

This is a great watch, very soothing but only 3 episodes so far https://youtu.be/lo3tSswZV7Q Asa far as regular YouTube channels go I really only watch Sarah-n-Tuned and Skid Factory now as my tolerance for over commercialised click bait lessens. Or folks who's only goal seems to be to use their channel to fund a collection of super cars etc.

Few little bits ticked off over the last few weeks. I finally wrapped my steering wheel. Thanks @Sammo for the heads up on Mewant, and @Vass for sharing his version as this motivated me. Added this German Engineering expansion cap. Some heated debate on the forums about this product but my take on it was it's just going to vent some pressure before the 2 bar stock cap would...maybe saving some cooling pipes....pipes are new so also not too sure I'm too worried either way...was more a magpie purchase of a guy in the bimmer club...shiney engine bay thing for M54....take my money...and yes, I need a new power steering reservoir, or cap or something as it's leaking. This modlite module turned up from Bulgaria yesterday. I had one of these in the E39 to give me key fob folding mirrors and I really like it.They have since come down in price so I got one for the E46. https://modbmw.com I'm in no way affiliated with them, but i do think its a cool product. You can do the functions with a newer LCM but i couldn't find any. This gives you welcome/follow me home lights, 3 click courtesy indicators and fold/unfold electric mirrors (providing you have the powerfold function to begin with). There's some other options but these are the ones i care about. I spliced it into where a cd stacker once lived in the back of the touring (ground, 12V and Kbus). Real easy spot and cable ties neatly to a bracket with some foam so it doesn't rattle. These little features make the car feel a touch more modern...and it’s nicer to use the fob to fold the mirrors than having to karate chop them manually.

Don't know what Charisma cars are like now but when I had them get the factory Alfa scan tool and set the clutch clearance after replacing the pump assy they didn't tighten the locknut. I had to involve the National Alfa importer to get Carisma to cover their workmanship. Not long after that they lost the Alfa dealership.

That doesn't sound good. It should run on 95 without a problem. What fault codes are you getting when the engine light comes on?

Speaking of future projects, I still have the 'donor' car. Bronzit Beige 1988 E30 325i Complete car, rust in typical areas. New Zealand new, factory manual. Starts first time, runs well and brakes work. 248,380 kilometres, drives well but overdue for a replacement cambelt (previously done on 16.03.2009 at 225,800 kilometres) and a service. Service history from new until 26.05.2010 at 238,676 kilometres. Factory apart from lowered springs, but have a set of factory springs. Registration is on hold and last WoF expired 18.08.2018 so is in need of a bit of a birthday. Our renovation had thrown up a potential spanner in works, but after meeting with the engineer today, the house doesn't rquire the E30 piggy bank. I've had a look underneath and the plan for the forseeable future is: Tackle rust Replace cambelt etc Service WoF and rego Drive it Improve it

I have bought various BMW parts for my Z4, original BMW or OEM from ECS, Pelican and Turner Motorsport at a cheaper rate than here without any problem. USA BMW dealers will not send anything from the US to NZ as it would break their BMW agreement.

Wee progress update. The engine is now fully dismantled and dropped off at the machine shop to get some love from people that actually know what they're doing. Decided to go with Car Aid. Not the cheapest shop in town but have heard good things about them both from some mates as well as Eurocare recommending them. They've got a bit of a backlog so will only get to it in a few weeks, which is fine as I've got plenty of other bits needing tinkering to keep me occupied. From what I could see, all components seemed in fine nick and perfectly serviceable. Besides the heavy carbon buildup on the exhaust valves, all seemed straight and no visible scoring. After looking into the topic, I decided that valves were something I will leave to the professionals to refurb, test and seat properly. Apparently, it's best not to lap valves on these engines as that would increase the contact surface beyond what would be optimal. They come with 3 surfaces cut at different angles from factory so the shop will re-cut those if need be. Dropped off a new set of stem seals along with everything and will have them do a full valve job. Tested the clearances on a couple of journals taking off the crank, all fell at the 0.05mm mark, which is within tolerance (0.020-0.058mm). The journals seemed in decent shape overall, no visible scoring on any of them so was pretty happy with that. Left it at the machine shop just for looking over and a wee polish. Rod bearings look a bit worn so I'm definitely replacing those. The main bearings looked less bad but I thought I might as well replace those too, at just about $150 a set it seemed reasonable to do but interestingly, the shop guys said they'd just need a wee going over with a scotch brite and they'd be good to live on. Instead they recommended I spend the money on new valve springs, which was an interesting take. Naturally, brand new springs would have more compressive strength than ones with 160k km on them but I hadn't come across any info of that being a troublesome component on these engines. I considered it, but at $17 (USD) a piece, I'm not sure what the ROI should be to justify that. Think I'm going to stick with the current ones. Another thing of note whilst pulling it all apart, I kept on finding this black rubbery goo all over the place, likely RTV from somewhere. One bit was even stuck right inside one of the oil squirters, which couldn't have done much good. Doesn't pay going overboard on that sh*t, folks. But yeah, this is where it's currently at. Along with the block and head, I also dropped off the oil pan, rear main seal and timing chain cover to go for a nice acid bath to have everything equally fresh and shiny for when the time comes to put everything back together again. In the meantime, I'm ripping into redoing the subframe bushes and compiling a list of parts to order. Received a first small batch including the head and lower gasket sets, along with a few other bits earlier this week. First time ordering from RockAuto and must say, I'm mightily impressed. I usually swear by FCPEuro and whilst their inventory is more extensive, I found the prices for some of the identical OE items on RockAuto to be 1/2 - 2/3 of those on FCP. Having put the order in on Friday, the package was already at my door by Tuesday morning. Rapid.

This should be compulsory for all Akl drivers! I miss driving in London, where the vast majority of drivers are considerate of others - that was before the electric scooter knobs arrived though, they seem to be a different breed the world over. Wish I could be that chill when driving nowadays!

sounds like they added VO and recoded your CIC which may have wiped out some settings.. hopefully they took a backup of your settings and can reload it

Yeah 2nd hand dealer approach is usually pure greed. Minimal effort and maximum reward. I understand they are a business, but buying a car, putting a huge margin on it, then not even bothering to address even minor issues nets them no respect from me.

After four weeks installing all the parts plus another order from the states I’ve updated my auction so bumping this thread. I’ve upped the price to cover some of my parts and zero of my time…… Will still knock 2k off the listed price for Bimmersport members $42k. Added some parts pictures because well who doesn’t like shiny car parts right?

Just a few minor things to report on. Have mostly been busy with dismantling the donor engine, which I've been documenting in a separate thread here, so the bulk of the progress was made on that front. With the car itself, all I've done is clean up and swap over the rear door cards as well. The new ones do have a few marks and dings themselves but do look tidier with the leather inserts instead of the sagging fabric. The leather rear seats are still sitting around, biding their time to go it. Still hoping to find some tidy Msport black leather front seats to match them up with. If anyone's got any leads, shoot them my way. Not looking beyond the South Island at the moment as shipping would take it beyond what I'm reasonably willing to pay. Annoyingly, whilst I was at it, I discovered a patch of rust peeking out from beneath the rear right door sill. Not really sure how to deal with it as I'm always hesitant to mess with paintwork but probably worth cleaning up and addressing somehow. Just don't trust myself to do a tidy enough job with it. Product recommendations very welcome. Also, the window tints are really starting to annoy me now. I do like having tints, but the current ones have way too many defects that let the car down. Will probably ponder an action plan for those for after the new engine and transmission is all up and running. Otherwise yeah, she's still kicking on, seen here pretending to be a grasshopper.

January '22 223,XXX km To take a break from the demolition job, I got onto installing the trunk trim bits I'd scavenged earlier. Not that it made an astronomical difference, but pretty satisfying none the less. Also helped get rid of a couple pesky squeaks & rattles as well as properly securing the side bit that the cargo cover latches onto, where the bolt hole had been ripped out. Afraid to put anything in the trunk now... The donor also came with some decent leather door cards, so those got a good clean and went straight onto the wagon. They looked tidier than the current ones, where the cloth part had gone all saggy, plus the numerous scuffs had been a real eye sore, most notably on the passenger door. The new door cards came with the added bonus of additional smaller speakers that I'll need to figure out how to wire in further down the line. No clue how that will work, but I'm sure future me will figure it out. The trim inserts will need a little going over with some fine sandpaper and a coat or two of paint to finish the look off. The wagon also got the front indicators off the donor that don't seem to be prone to moisture infiltration. Another little annoyance ticked off the list. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the donor car was becoming an increasingly sorry sight. More and more bits were coming off and getting sold or put away in storage, all engine cables getting tagged, all nuts and bolts going into separate sandwich bags and being labelled. Out came the subframe, and with the help of a mate, the engine soon followed. Love that green coolant, yum yum yum. Stripped the very last parts off the shell. Tried not to let anything go to waste, so kept everything from the windshield washer motor down to the brake booster and anything else I could lay my eyes on. Now all that was left was to figure out how to get the body out of the garage without any wheels on it... Ended up lifting the rear with an engine crane and rested the front rails onto a pole poked through a couple of spare wheels, creating a magnificent wee Batmobile. In the final couple of days, the last bunch of salvageable body panels went off to new homes, leaving the formerly glorious machine cutting a rather sad figure. Never nice seeing one of these get taken off the road, but at least the heart will live on in a new shell. R.I.P. 2002-2021 So, finally caught up, this is where things currently stand. The rear subframe is sitting on the floor, ready to be torn apart and put back together. The engine is up on the stand, awaiting the same treatment. The manual parts are in England, being loaded onto a pallet and going in for freight in the next couple of days. Can't wait. As for Barbara herself, she's still happily chugging along. Despite being a bit capricious at times, she's never left me fully stranded, to her great credit (knock on wood). With every bit of work going into it, she's feeling more and more my own and will be a whole different beast of a car by the end of year at the latest. Hopefully much sooner though. This has grown into a bigger project than anything I've ever undertaken before, by several orders of magnitude, and I'd be very keen to hear any sort of advice and guidance all you more knowledgeable folk might care to share. If you notice me going something dodgy or spouting some utter nonsense, by all means pull me up on it. I'm humble enough to admit I'm barely informed at best of times, and desperately clueless at others, so am very open to learning from people that have been there and done it before. I'm doing my best to research every step of the process before embarking on it, but if you do see me asking silly questions that have been addressed numerous times before, point me in the right direction and I'll eagerly do the due diligence. The goal with this process is to do as much as possible with my own two hands, and hopefully by the end of it, be left with a solid and reliable car to enjoy for years to come. Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement! Will do my best to keep it entertaining.

December '21 222,XXX km One evening I took a drive down to Ashburton to have a look at a potential side project, a deregistered E91 320i going for cheap. Looked tidy enough but luckily it ended up selling to someone else before I had time to make the dumb plunge into the 4-cylinder world. Barbara here must have gotten jealous as on the way back she threw an engine code, the sassy bitch. P0174. Classic. To my knowledge, the DISA hadn't been refurbished, but then again could have been a whole handful of other culprits. The prospect of going on a wild goose chase for vacuum leaks didn't really appeal to me. Nor did chasing down the persistent clunk from the rear end. Then one day I discovered a line of coolant running down the crank and it just threw me over the edge. Everything else had been replaced by that point so it must have been one of the hard plastic lines under the intake manifold. Nope, not keen. So I did what any rational idiot would do when faced with another minor annoyance... ... I went out and bought a bloody parts car. Jokes aside, it had been a while in the making and not at all an impulsive decision. I'm sort of a 'demolish and rebuild' type of person, would much rather start from scratch and tackle everything in one go instead of playing whack-a-mole chasing down persistent issues. I settled on doing a full on assault on the engine, but if I was going to go down the full refurb rabbit hole, I figured it might as well be a 3L instead of a 2.5. I saw a few M54b30's listed on TradeMe for around $1,700, which seemed silly money for just the engine, so I started keeping an eye on Turners and Manheim damaged car auctions. Auckland had a few 330's come up, but quotes for transporting them down south came in at $2k and over so was a no go. Then when this fine specimen popped up locally, I knew it was the one. A 2002 330i with 160,XXX km on the clock, all up cost me a touch less than the asking price on the aforementioned engines alone, written off with side impact damage. The two doors took the brunt of the damage, with just a small dent in the B-pillar behind the door, which is what did it. Doesn't take much nowadays. Funnily enough, the previous owner reached out when he came across my part-out listing, so I got a nice insight into the car's backstory. The repair quote had apparently come in at $8k. Yikes! Luckily, we'd managed to get our own modest little place earlier in the year, so I now had my own decent-sized garage to mess around in where I wouldn't be driving any housemates up the wall with my lunacy. Getting a whole car meant that I could go for a full 330 conversion - engine, brakes, drivetrain, whole rear subframe with trailing arms and all. The plan is as follows: Rebuild engine with new seals, gaskets, new auxiliaries, rebuild DISA, VANOS, the works. Was tossing up whether to pull the head off or not but probably might as well. Have it checked for cracks and hardness, get it machined and honed. Probably change the piston rings, likely retrofit the M52TU ones. Still figuring out the full scope, but don't want to leave much to chance. The main thing I'm concerned about is the head bolts pulling the threads when reinstalling the head, which I've read might happen. Installing timeserts seems like a whole heap of mucking about that I'd rather avoid at all costs. I'll probably start a separate thread for the engine build itself as that's the biggest part of the project that I'm going to need tonnes of advice on, which would probably make this thread too convoluted with everything else that'll be happening. Refurb the whole rear subframe - already have a full kit of rear subframe bushes sitting in a box waiting to go on. Will probably clean everything up and spray paint to fight off rust and for general visual satisfaction. The one question I have is whether it's worth upgrading to poly or any other sort of aftermarket bushes even if for some individual components. The kit I already have is all OEM Lemförder and Meyle. Obviously this isn't going to be a competitive track car, just a daily driver / road trip tourer. Seeing how I go, might try my hand at a track day or two just for fun, but won't be seeing too much abuse. Opinions more than welcome. Was going to drop the auto box from the donor car to hopefully cure my limp mode disease, but after staring at it for a while, I went f**k it and shelled out for a ZF 5-speed manual from a fella in England as there's currently bugger all of them available in the country. Might as well make it a full on money pit. Getting a full conversion with full driveshaft and manual diff. Hoping it all comes through without any hiccups in the next few weeks/months. Refurb, paint the 330 brake callipers. Ideally want to rebuild the pistons with new rubber seals - if anyone knows the best place to get those, would be very much appreciated. I think I saw some on ECS a while ago go for something stupid like $50 USD each! Probably refurb the front running gear as well, control arms and such are still factory so long overdue a replacement. Still tossing up whether I need to do the rear subframe reinforcing plates or not. Would be sensible but I'm not sure how to make the logistics work. Would I need to take the car to a shop and pay the extra labour to remove and reinstall the subframe? Do I get a welder to come to me and f**k around with the car on jack stands? And how does this affect certification? Do I even need to get it reinforced if I won't be tracking the car? Whatever else will inevitably crop up, will tackle it as it comes. With the engine still in the car, I went ahead and did a compression and leak down test. The results were a bit all over the shop, sometimes retesting the same cylinder would give radically different results. Probably down to cheap-ish test equipment, but got some sort of gauge anyway. Cylinder 4 seemed the dodgiest one, but retesting the leak down on it the second time came out to 14% which fell in line with the rest of them. So heck knows. The engine still held compression fine, car was driveable, but not the freshest. From the outside too, the engine was in a bit of a state, leaking oil like a sieve. Not sure how that happened, but the oil return hose from the CCV to the dipstick had completely split and was pissing all over the place, drenching everything in the vicinity. Anyway, the slow dismantling continued whilst selling off bits to recoup some of the costs. The holiday break ended up being a staycation with me spending a better part of 2 weeks doing 12+ hour days in the garage. Bloody love it! Also, after being on the lookout ever since I'd gotten the car, I finally came across a tidy looking wagon being parted out at a local wrecker's, so I jumped on it and scavenged it for all sorts of boot trim bits that had been so hard to come by up to now, as well as nabbing some real tidy leather rear seats that are of course touring-specific. For just $100 I couldn't pass up. Those, along with leather door cards off the donor car, and I'm two seats shy of a full interior leather upgrade. By no means a priority but something I'm looking to do somewhere down the line. As a little treat, I bought myself a crappy wee Ford Laser as a cheap runaround, in anticipation for when the wagon will be out of action getting a heart transplant. Ugly little duckling with barely any clear coat left on it, but cheap on fuel and being a manual, I almost enjoy driving it more than the wagon itself hahah. Maybe this whole endeavour was a massive waste of time and money from the get go...

I'll avoid turning this thread into a mental health journal, but I have not had a good time recently! The missus convinced me to go to hospital last week, a place I stubbornly avoid. I ended up staying for a while... Long story short, I had to have surgery to remove my gallbladder, and I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I've been feeling less than well for years, but recently it really ramped up with severe pain in my side. I'd been to my doctor, had all sorts of scans and tests, and it was chalked down to chronic back pain. I was always pumped full of painkillers and sent home, not good for the physical or mental health once they wear off. I'd actually quit my job as a builder, stopped playing sport, stopped surfing, and was worried I'd have to stop working on cars because everything was just getting too painful to do. It basically felt like I couldn't do any of the things I'd worked hard towards and the things I loved doing anymore. The diabetes thing, well, the doctor said I'd put up a hell of a fight and done well to avoid a coma with the blood sugar level I came in with, but my body had just given up, but it can all be managed well now. I'm actually relieved to have a diagnosis, and since the surgery my back pain has all but gone. It's honestly gave me so much hope. It's a six week recovery, with the first two doing very little, something I'm not great at. While I was laid up in bed I came across SOUP Classic Motoring on Youtube: Might be of interest to folk. It's really kept me going, and I'm looking forward to getting back in the shed when I can. The reason I've posted this here is that I've had a lot of support from communities of like-minded folk like Bimmersport, and I just want to thank the people that have reached out, offered to help and everything else. Hopefully I can get Mo on the road for Summer, not much left to do there, and then turn my attention to saving the 325i. Bit to do on that one! Josh

More parts keep on arriving for this but nothing too exciting. Have been chipping away and currently part way through wiring to mount the ecu up behind the glove box. Lockdown inspired I wired in a E36 business cd headunit to replace the Sony exploder, in the cd input I wired in a Bluetooth receiver so can Bluetooth a phone to it for spotify etc. Will upload a photo once the headunit is fully mounted. Looks factory though! Am currently waiting on a fcp order which is stuck in Aussie which contains nuts and bolts literally to do some final bolt ups Here's a couple photos when I rolled out on a sunny day. Tyres on the style 32s need to be dropped a profile but this got it rolling as such. Also a photo of when I first got it was picking up deck materials

Survived the south coast storm last night. Parked the E46 on higher ground as iv spent double what it’s insured for so with a clear driveway I took the E30 out for an errand run today. Shot this on some old glass mounted via multiple adapters to a new mirrorless body. The mirrorless body has focus peaking making the old manual focus lenses more accurate and actually usable. This is the 80mm in the photo but the photo was taken with a 150mm F4 Hasselblad C series lens. With the 35mm crop factor it turns a 150 into an 85mm. Is it better than the 85mm Nikon lens….probably not, but it has a nice softness to it which I think resonates with the romance of E30’s.

Remote locking fixed. I followed this thread https://www.bimmerforums.co.uk/threads/2003-e46-320d-se-tourer-remote-key-problem-fzv.73922/ and sure enough no 12V feed. Followed the cable, bit of tugging and found it was loose. Had to dissect the loom cover to access it as it had obviously broken right in the middle of it. Soldered and heat shrinked. Now 12V at the module, still no remote locking. Resynced the key and voila! Happy days.

Suspension upgrade Before the engine went bang I had just pulled the trigger on some Bilstein Touring shocks and Eibach Prokit springs from Demon Tweaks. I already had rear sachs shocks I purchased from @Eagle which were for the motorsport setup so went with the B4's which from the looks of realOEM are the factory motorsport package shocks. New bits Lemforder front shock mounts Bump stops and dust covers Bilstein B4 front shocks #BLS22-139948, BLS22-139931 Eibach Prokit springs #EIBE2067-140 Meyle HD rear shock mounts Sachs rear shocks #556 882 I got a shop to do the spring compressor part but i DIY'd the rest to try save on labour (the rear is pretty labour intensive) the rear shocks were completely dead. rear spring height comparison bit of trim removal Found 1 random Monroe up the front. New fronts After a few KM's they are settling in. So far I'm really impressed with the quality of the ride. Comfort vs handling I think it's a great combo for the daily driver.

212 xxx km. I ran into a bit of a problem when I dropped the disa pin into the intake and it found it's way to cylinder 6. No compression in cylinder 6, Jon at auto38 advised that an engine swap would be his preferred option. Plug in cyl 6 off to Auto38 Old piston cyl 6 Head off old engine. Bought an engine before Christmas, organized a mate to put it in. He didn't get to it till the new year where he found 8.5L of milkshake in the sump instead of 6.5L of oil. So the vendor kindly refunded and i got one off Nick Weitz. Nick compression tested it before sending and it was algood. Came out of a running car so confidence was high. This engine was the older coil style so the manifold and valve cover from my original engine was swapped over (since CCV had just recently been repalced meant it didn't need to be pulled apart), along with the loom and headers. New parts that went in while engine was out Engine mounts Sump gasket Plastic coolant hoses under intake manifold x 2 upper and lower radiator hoses water pump (graf metal impeller) Thermostat Valve cover Gasket Oil filter housing gasket Vanos seals Spark Plugs Electric Fan from @zero upper intake boot oil filter Penrite 5W-40 rebuilt Disa Valve Car was running rough and was throwing lean codes for bank 1 and bank 2. Turns out the 02 sensors weren't plugged into their corresponding bank. Car is now running very smooth and I'm waiting for the vanos seals to break in. I replaced the seals in my old vanos unit to make it quicker to install. Also my solenoids were cosmetically in much nicer condition. New engine looks really clean. No idea of the mileage as it had been swapped into the car it came out of. Up at mt Vic watching the hill climb today. The list of things still to do: Gearbox filter and oil - have parts. Fuel filter - have parts and have replaced the vac line. Xenon - have parts but need to code LCM and there are still some wiring to do. Bilstein touring shocks and Eibach prokit springs. (these were in the post when the engine went bang) Remote key still isn't working despite changing the FTZ module Tints soundsystem/handsfree bluetooth. So been a bit of a mission, I was completely stumped by the lean codes and was pretty stressed out that the engine was toast. I'm really enjoying having it back on the road.

123,000km Car had been in with Jon @auto38 because it started bucking and lurching at 2000rpm, it had always had quite bad drivetrain lash but this bucking/lurching made it very unpleasant to drive. Jon diagnosed play in the U-Joints as probably the main culprit. I dropped the exhaust and heatshields (not that fun on your garage floor) and took the driveshaft out to Bryan Howatt of Howatt engineering in lower hutt for a rebuild and balance. This manual swap came out of a members black convertible 325i that was stolen and then recovered....so the drive shaft is high mileage Found the hanger bearing's rubber casing to be broken. Also found my mysterious exhaust leak. Bryan worked his magic and a week later the drive shaft was ready to be picked up replaced the hanger bearing, both U joints, the little vibration damper, 1 exhaust stud (the bolt stayed on and I screwed out the stud) and new copper nuts. Car was running much better, no clonks from the drivetrain when the clutch engaged and disengaged but the bucking/lurching was still there @2000rpm in each gear. I thought it must be the diff as there was still rotational play there when I put the driveshaft back in. Called @beemwr who I sold my original diff too and had a good yarn. Then called Kayne Barrie who had rebuilt the current LSD in it and he said it sounded like the engine was running lean and to check my tune. So I chucked the Turner Motorsport chip back in (I had taken it out to trouble shoot the bad fuel economy) and the lurch is gone. Car is pulling nice and healthy and drivetrain is smooth, and no mysterious exhaust smell in the cabin. Happy days.

With respect to them - Most of BMW NZ know bugger all on these things. Most still don't believe that Jap nav can be properly converted, or often even retrofitted to a NZ car. I have proven them wrong on both counts - even quoted them the part numbers then bought the retrofit wiring looms off them for a plug/play retrofit Firstly Dynavin - yes with having existing monitor - you need an adapter loom to run from front (monitor) to rear (radio tuner in the boot) where the Dynavin links to the car. They are primarily aimed at replacing in dash radio - for which they are "play play". I assumed you had a 16:9 monitor rather than 4:3:- Secondly - You CAN buy a DVD changer (will also play CD & MP3 etc) - it connects via AV input into the video module (TV). Cost is about 1k though You can also get DIN sized DVD players (a cheaper option) which connect the same way. Both options give remote control.

Yeah it ain't great. It was also clogging the non-return valve and the pickup tube was full of it. Glad I'm ripping it all apart instead of just dropping the engine in.