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So turns out I’m a blind idiot! after what I thought was testing the exhaust cam sensor to be faulty, and swapping it into a running car, or still ran. And swapping the good one into mine still no go. But after poking around testing relays and power to things I noticed I had missed the earth tucked under the loom into the computer cubbyhole. Put that back on and boom! Way she goes.

Hey, I've lost touch with car-painters but I'd like a recommendation to respray a e23 7 series. Its a dead straight original car so doesn't need jambs etc, just a few nics and scrapes to be sorted and the usual clear coat peel on the roof. I'm based in Tauranga but i'm happy to deliver anywhere. (see photo below - looks mint from 20 ft but I'm a fussy bugger) Cheers

I've had my E34 540i exactly one year. Thought I would put a few photos up showing the before and after on the car and how it's changed over the last 365 days. At some point I might make a proper thread for the car detailing everything I've done, I'm the iPad generation so Forums were a bit of foreign territory for me so I've got a messy collection of discussions instead of one big one. Anyway here is the before and after from the day I picked it up (17/11/20) to today (17/11/21), Before: After: Before: After:

Since I'm on holiday, I finally have a bit of time to do an update on my E34 540i. To be honest, in 2022, I didn't do much to the car. It took 3 months for it to get a new windscreen so sat around until April. By that point I was occupied with my W8. It passed it's WOF first try in September! - the first time it had done that, and then almost caught fire that night when the alternator regulator failed and charged the battery at 19V. As you can imagine, the battery didn't fare well. So with an alternator rebuild plus a new battery (alternator got so hot it melted itself so had to be rewound), my wallet was quite a bit lighter so didn't drive it a tone, especially as I soon bought the Porsche. However, just before New Years, some parts I wanted came my way so the motivation to get some things done has returned. I went for a routine trip to Pick-A-Part to get a stock exhaust off an NZ New 540i they had just got in. Out of habit I spun the rear wheels to check if it had an LSD... to my surprise, it did! So that was coming home with me! (2.93 Ratio) I also scored some 95' spec leather door cards, and a few other bits and bobs I needed. A pair of manual grey sports seats came up - just what I wanted as seat twist is just painful, AND I got some E34 skirts - off an M5 even! Need to have them colour matched, although its quite cool that they are still the two tone M5 colour. Gave the E34 Sports Seats a decent tidy up: So anyway, I've started dealing with my interior. Wet Vac'd the carpets and installed the new seats. Carpet was pretty grotty but have it looking relatively good. Found a couple 5 cent coins - 1 from the early 80s! Will have the driver's sports seat re-upholstered at some point. Didn't plug anything in because I don't trust the seat heaters on the 30 year old seats, and to my understanding E34s don't have seat occupancy sensors... I then noticed that the electric mirrors wouldn't work, so I realised I had to pull the memory module off my original electric drivers seat and now they work just fine. I also got to the bottom of my weird climate control issues - a connector retainer clip meant one of the module connectors wasn't in properly which caused AC to not work, rear defrost to not work, and the driver to get no air blown at them. Very annoying issues. Also have swapped a couple door cards but still lots to do. Next on the list is: - Exhaust - LSD installed - Need to find M-Tech front springs (if anyone has some PLEASE sell me them!!!) - Side skirts painted and installed - Blower Motor Change - Change Head-Unit to OEM BMW one. - Put some more Ks on it! Hope to have all these done this year. In terms of driving the car, in the last ~6 months its done a trip to Taupo and I also organised an E34 meet in January this year, so it has had a few long runs. E34 day was a great day out, a few forum members attended. I even had the pleasure of driving @Simca's 535iS and @e46v12's BEASTLY E34 "546" Touring.

I think I have another Mtech E34 wheel on my race car. I will take a look. Might need some love and a new badge though. I think it is the bigger one though.

Have a full conversion and can freight to you. PM if interested

Yeah suspect it may of given the roof and front end and roof are slightly different shade of Estoril

Thats Toyota Corolla's level of clear coat failure. Maybe it has had a respray in the past?

This one's going straight to the pool room... I'd say you'll have your hand in the air for a considerable amount of time...

IRP solid subframe mounts installed. Froze them over night and they went in very easy. While i had to had the subframe mount i decided to check some spot welds in areas that CMP mentioned. Found a couple of failed ones i had missed as they are covered in seam sealer. Also got messy with a wire wheel and angle grinder to shave my mess i had previous made with the seam sealer. Much tidier now. Left the car out in the rain for 24hrs during that wild weather we had a couple of weeks ago and it did not like it. It had previously had a very small strip of clear coat failure near the front of the bonnet but now its really fubar. Can only assume water has got under into it combined with the heavy rain\ wind caused it to sh*t itself. Never seen anything like it and to fail so quick. I regret not leaving it in the garage now as it makes the stone chips look pleasant. I predict at least a front end respray in my very near future.

Those seats look comfy as. Wouldn't mind a pair in the lounge in front of the telly

Yeah its a bit of a story actually. I passed WOF first try which I was rather happy about as it was the first time the car wasn't going to cost me any money getting a WOF. Literally on the way home from the WOF place my ABS light came on and my radio switched off for around 5 seconds. I thought a fuse or something must not be happy so I checked everything, made sure all the fuses were pressed in properly and then took the car to work that night. Car performed flawlessly. After work I decided I'd take the car for a motorway loop to see if it would play-up because if it did, I'd book it in with my mechanic. Anyway, I started on the shore and went out West. When I got to Avondale I could smell an eggy smell, similar to Rotorua. My stuck-up North Shore self initially thought that was just how Avondale smelt. 😂 However, by the Greenhithe bridge I realised it was definitely my car. I pulled over and smelt literally everything. I thought maybe some of my mates had hidden some food in it as a prank, and with the doors and windows open the smell quickly dissipated. Started driving again and the smell came back even worse, I pulled over again on Constellation Drive because I knew there was something properly wrong with the car. It was at that moment it clicked in my brain - battery in my E34 is under the back seats. As soon as that crossed my mind it all made sense in my brain. I'd been wondering why my plug in FM transmitter had become really interferency! I touch my rear seat cushion and its really warm. F***, my car isn't spec'd with heated rear seats... Pull the seat cushion off with my fire extinguisher ready (not that it would really help an electrical fire), and my battery is hissing and fizzing, with acid coming out the top. At that point, given it was also a Tuesday morning at roughly 1AM, I called the fire department because I didn't really feel like touching battery acid trying to disconnect my battery. It's funny actually - one of the fire men I'm sure a few forum members will know. I think his name was Jerry, and his BMW collection at the time was an: - E46 M3 CSL - 635 CSI - X4M Competition - M235i And he said he owned many, many other BMWs prior to those, which was neat. He also knew my mechanic well as my mechanic had race prepped one of his previous track cars. So to conclude: It's very lucky the battery is under the back seat otherwise I wouldn't have smelt my battery turning inside out, and it could have ended in my E34 becoming a very hot E34 which would have been quite bad.

The interior is UBER nice

Took car in to get my clutch / driveline vibration looked at properly - has been bothering me a bit for a while and seems to be getting worse (or me becoming more OCD about it). Was assuming a clutch related issue as its mostly through the pedal and goes away as soon as pedal is depressed. Shop reckons it is actually the gearbox - an input shaft bearing? (think thats what they said - there has also been a light rattle at idle in neutral with the clutch out). Still there overnight (safely inside) awaiting the view of an expert who rebuilds a lot of these boxes... Does not sound like a cheap issue 🙁 At least the interior is nice!

Time for a bit of an update... The OxfordG 525 turned out very nice and has now been sold to a lucky recipient, excluding my labour I even turned a very rare $299 profit lol... If it weren't for the fact that the X3 is the ideal daily for my work/play at the moment it would not have gone anywhere... Being rather time poor I farmed out the painting of the Topaz 540 to a mate of a mate who did come well regarded... the result was OK, but there is a bit of orange peel correction to be done at some point. It has been assembled, a replacement windscreen fitted, WOF'd and the a/c regassed. Lots of other stuff has been done when assembling such as rear parcel tray re-dye and interior clean, rear windscreen trim, side trims, M5 mirrors. Things to do include repairing an assembly scratch on the rear bumper I just can't unsee, perhaps alloy wheel refresh and new tyres maybe. I can't make up my mind which 540 msport to sell so I just may advertise both and see which one goes first... As a refresher this 2002 topaz one has had a fair bit done, just review this thread... timing chain guides and all stuff in there is the main feature (as is with the Biarritz too), and now the paint and interior. If anyone is interested now in either the 99 Biarittz Individual 540 or the 02 Topaz 540 then please message me. Prices negotiable and will depend on how much more I throw at these cars.... and I can fully expand on the extensive work done... The dark M5 style 65 wheels on Biarittz will not be sold, which ever car sells will come with style 66's as pictured. Oh yeah.. in other news, a 2000 e38 740i Msport has found its way here... much to be done in the e39/8 rescue centre... although my business model /community service of "buy cheap / spend heaps / sell for a massive loss" I realise is unsustainable... just ask the missus... 😂