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222,500km Car has been undertaking it's daily duties nicely. Jammed it full of family stuff (and the family) over to the Wairarapa for school holidays recently. On a whim i decided to get some roofracks for either roofbox, bikerack, ladder carrying duties. Went with Thule Aero EVO bars and the roofrack mount. I'm impressed with the design, they fit nicely and the T bar system is quick and easy. Can't comment on the wind noise (i'm sure it exists) as haven't been on the motorway since fitting.

I find it extremely heartening when you (I'm guessing) younger guys refer to us older guys as "gentlemen". Shows a nice bit of respect, and I really do like it. However - just to let y'all know. Not all of us old fella's (me included) are worthy of the title. In fact - happily unworthy in some cases! Apropos of nothing really, just sayin..........

Wish I'd done this on the plug i have already wired up ... maybe I'll de-pin the whole thing at some point and deal to it. Anyhow, here is what i will be doing for the 'secondary' plug for the remainder of the ECU wiring. Cost effective solution for tidy wiring labels !! Sheet of laser print stickers plus clear heat shrink

You fellas need a beer. Atleast it's not the vintage British car community, they're all dead, except me😉

surprisingly not bad. ride is hard like a countryman, but otherwise not a bad place to be in.

There’s always two sides to every story, and that’s one side. The other side of the story reads quite differently, but no point re-hashing that now. And as the saying goes “the truth is somewhere in the middle”. As someone said above there are no winners in all off this.

I'd expect a permanent ban for that sort of behavior, but I've had worse for saying a decision (by a pom) was sh.. It's not who you are, but who you blow around here.

Got some shiny bits finally !! Seems like they shall fit ok which is a relief also as buying sight unseen. Pretty awesome looking product from a kiwi company no less !! Awaiting the other Chase Bays parts still which should be here in July.

Yeah mine's most likely shot as well. Didn't manage to dig that far into it. Unfortunately ran out of time on Sunday as I... had to attend to the pressing matter of... going to the cinema to see the... new Downton Abbey film... Shut up.

https://www.caranddriver.com/photos/g15328317/orange-juiced-bmws-first-ev-paved-the-way-for-the-i8-amid-an-olympic-tragedy-gallery/ It featured a front charging socket!

Followed this beauty all the way to work yesterday. See the older gentleman driving it past my place on a regular basis, have to stare every time. Nice clean example and great to see it still properly used.

Made a bit more progress, been very busy with uni assignments recently, redid a part of the exhaust, my welding isn't particularly good, and this thin walled steel with flux core isn't the nicest thing to weld either, but looks a bit better than before, painted it so it doesn't rust as quickly. Also decided to take matters into my own hands and bought a guard rolling tool, will give the rear guards a go tomorrow and see how flat I can get them, and then maybe bit more negative camber when I go for a wheel alignment after adjusting ride heights and they 245s may just fit. Also acquired a pair of 235/40/18 fallen rt615k+ tires for the front, the 245s maybe be a bit too hard to make work on the front, don't want them to rub in corners. Will take a fair bit of rolling to work...

Hi Team Long time no post, just been a bit slack with the updates but still trucking along with the projects. So bit of a big change in plans with the oil pump. When i bolted the X5 pump for a test fit the pick up was going to be way to low and clearance was going to be a massive issue. So back to plan A which is to use the n62 pump which im pretty much 80% through. Lucky for me the headers just needed one runner slightly hammered in. The sump itself had to be machined 3-4mm Bolt hole had to be slotted 5mm inwards to line up the hole. Found that 4 connecting rod bolts were fouling on the oil pump. got the angle grinder out and took off about 2mm of material. Exhaust painted Rolled the guards to fit the 18x8.5 square set hamann wheels Really can wait to get this car going. Thanks Team

Actually got to do some work on the race car today, for the first time in ages! Have cleared a number of other jobs off the to-do list, so the race car is back to the (near) top. First jobs were to move the pile of bits off the top of it, so I could actually get to work on it, and then too vacuum all the dust and sh*t off - it’s amazing how much crap gets under the bonnet, even with it down!

Not a BMW but thought it'd be worthy of this thread. 992 GT3 aka my dream car just parked right outside my place haha, absolutely stunning. Also a GR Yaris in front of it

Spotted an E21 in the wild, spoke to the owner who had it since new and its done half a million ks and a phoenix yellow m3!

Right, where are we up to... Still waiting on the engine back from the machine shop. Instead of the 3 weeks originally promised, it's now been two months and as far as I know, they still wouldn't have touched it either. Last I called them, was told they're still a couple of weeks away from getting to it, claiming covid sweeping through the shop as a justification/excuse. Not overly bothered by it though as I haven't made as much progress with any of the other missions as I'd hoped. Keep getting distracted and jumping from one thing to the next without addressing things in an orderly fashion. Luckily with tomorrow off, I'll sit down and make a proper priority list. First thing will be to finalise the list of needed parts and put a few orders in. Did tick off a couple of other items though with the help of some fellow Bimmersporters. Got a new clutch kit and flywheel, courtesy of @Eagle and a set of coils from @Kodachrome. Top guys, everything was as described and arrived quickly and securely. Also, got the first set of 193's sold and the other one wrapped in fresh new rubber. Still sitting in the garage, waiting to go onto the car at the moment. Got some Carpro DLUX (as well as some other goodies from Detail Depot) and want to try my hand at ceramic coating them before I subject them to road grime, will hopefully preserve the near-new look for a while longer. Apart from the flash stuff, the rusty old diff is cleaning up pretty nicely. Will still have a few more stabs at it with some brass brushes but looking noticeably less crusty already. Stripped the trailing arms down to the bare shell, will also get some brass brush treatment, a couple coats of black paint and then brand new bushes and bearings. Liberating the wheel hubs of all the bearing bits was a bit of a mission but got to try out the wee rotary tool I'd picked up from SCA. With help from @adro managed to figure out one of the reasons why my rear wipers don't work. The extended list of PO's botch jobs got another addition. He'd changed out the clock spring for some reason and of course replaced it with one off a sedan/coupe, the wiper lever on which you can only pull towards you to activate the front washers, but doesn't have the backwards push function that activates the rears. What it is vs. what it should be Turns out the trusty wee ti's also have a rear wiper (who'd have known) and have the same washer lever. Luckily there was one at the local Pick-A-Part so went an nabbed this crusty old thing. Gave it a good ol' clean, fitted it on, powered up aaaaand... a big fat nothing, with the added bonus of the front washers now also not working anymore 😄 Beautiful. I suspect it's still the sheared ground wire at the rear hatch. Really need to get that sorted already. But instead of doing that, I went out and bought this bloody thing... Shoot me.

More good progress on the electrical side: Getting the cable made for the starter / alternator and power feed to my PDM at MSEL which should be ready tomorrow Cabin power / earth distribution complete along with the Arduino mounting Arduino is plugged into both the BMW and Nissan CAN buses and validated it can diddle with the gauge cluster New fuel pump relay changed to actually work (ECU grounds the coil instead of powering it as I had wired it) 🙄 So electrically speaking it should be possible to start it at this point !! 😲 Did a few other bits for fun: Installed the front bumper temporarily to start thinking about a radiator ... might try and get the Chase Bays tucked item as the E46 items all seem to have freaky end tanks which won't allow easy moving of the inlet / outlets. Completed most of the fuel system plumbing bar the return line So I think I'm looking to take care of the dry sump plumbing now !!! I'd better start a GoFundMe to get that ball rolling a bit faster 😅 Oh also still need to get a clutch line made up so it stops pissing fluid on the floor ... and finish the trans mount / cross member ... oh and the header secondaries and springs / loops ... and probably a bunch of other stuff !!

That connector is wiring porn, great work.

To be honest, having been on here for a while, this forum has gradually turned into a cesspool of highly opinionated "senior" members who have become far too comfortable and happily spread their drivel. Im guilty of it at times, but im mostly guilty of calling people out for their rubbish (and have been disciplined accordingly). I can understand why Michael left in that case, and I would too, if there were any better local BMW forums.

@Kees Having been an admin for years on another car forum I learnt that you can't please everyone all the time and everyone has an opinion. Like others I ended up on here as I was looking for a great local community before I committed to buying the dad wagon, I can see merit in both sides of this story. I would hasten to add that we shouldn't point fingers here, Mike while obviously very experienced had quite staunch views that would on occasion be released like a 2x4 to the head. One of the things that gave me the confidence to move into BMW ownership was the supportive environment offered by Bimmersport members, we don't have to agree on everything but there is a basic level of respect we have for others that shouldn't result in admin being put into a position like this and a long time member leaving. Guaranteed that no one has won out of this, the community has lost a valuable resource and like everything that becomes political people start to question the leadership - don't forget that the majority of car forums / clubs are run by people volunteering their time and resources - it can be a thankless job.

@SRacin @KwS @Twistee Seeing as Mike and I both have E34 540s, we would often talk so I know the reason for Mike's departure from Bimmersport, and he does not plan to return, so it is most likely the end of this thread for good. Thought I would outline what happened just to clear any theories, confusion, speculation etc as to his departure from the forum. This is how Mike explained what happened to me: Mike found his once thought of friend Martin aka "breakmywindow" for ~10 years was stealth deleting Mike's personal opinion posts he didn't like on the forum, after this realisation Mike decided it was time to finally stop posting on bimmersport after being tired of the "soft" direction he felt it was going. He called Martin out on his pretty abuse of admin privileges to which Martin responded with personal insults and then proceeded to tell Mike to "go f**k himself". Martin then blocked Mike on Facebook before he could even reply. So that's Mike's reasoning for leaving Bimmersport.