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fyi, and for posterity

Make her pay the difference... then she'll start to appreciate the real value of a dad-mechanic!

Guess my estimation was about…. Right 🤷‍♀️

$22,900 for a written off M325i - seems pretty crazy!

Takapuna Panel beaters. Marty and Michelle are big BMW fans. Marty is a wicked driver and currently runs an M2 race car. Done a lot of work for BMW series drivers over the decade.

Yeah already gone, dropped it off at Pick-A-Part on Wednesday. Hardly anything useful left on it, managed to keep hold of the wheels as well. Rims were well kerbed up and tyres were shot but will try my hand at restoring those at some point.

Had a lovely festive season away. Very impressed with this vehicle. It is absolutely incredible on fuel. I was getting around 4.6 litres per hundred ks open road and it felt so refined and comfortable on the drives. I clocked up around 2000ks of driving which was beautiful!

Never buy it when it's not on special. Take the Briscoes approach. It will be on sale sometime soon. I just keep buying it when it hits 50-60% off.

that is correct, but i will be installing a catch can which reduces carbon build up, and it will be quite some time before the car does enough kms to require another walnut blast, as it is not daily driven, so probably wont be required for a few years yet. Been offered enough money for the tools that i could buy/make them again for less anyway. In the meantime with all the parts im needing/wanting to purchase it makes more sense to put the money towards that.

In other news! Sold the 335i, bought a momo wheel, hub adapter and a set of xyz’s coil overs for the compact, so spent a couple days fitting all that up, pumping the rear guards to fit the 17x9.5 arc-8’s, as well as getting the intercooler system plumbed up and working

This is an BMW document relating to the tightening torques requires for BMW's It is a deisgn guide line for various bolt sizes and pitchs for general fixtures as well as specific information relation to engine bolts, suspension, etc for particular configurations. IE M42 main bearing cap torque and degreeing. Basically if there is a bolt on your beemer this tells you how tight it should be. bmw_torque_setting.pdf

Started this project almost two years ago after I sold the 850i and finally got the car road legal yesterday (cert, WOF and rego). The goal was to build a very fast, comfortable tourer that I can use for daily driving, which meant retaining the automatic gearbox, ASC and AC - which all turned out to be pretty complicated!! Had a lot of help from a bunch of people but a big shout at to Brendon (Assault) and Westy as this would just be a paperweight without them! Car has an M62b44 (non-vanos) drivetrain with custom sump mounted to a modified front subframe. Gearbox is a 5hp24 tiptronic slushbox from the same donor car as the engine (97 E39 540i) with modified driveshaft. It has a bunch of other interesting mods and, at some point, I'll document everything we did to get this thing working. As far as I know, it's the only RHD M62-powered E36 in the world with auto, ASC and AC!!

Before I post up pics and a bit more detail, here's a summary of what we've done so far... M62B44 engine from donor E39 540i 5hp24 gearbox from donor E39 540i E36 oil cooler and E39 hoses DME and EGS from donor E39 540i ASC from 99 B 318ti Front brake calipers E46 330i Rear calipers E46 328i Coilovers E36 M3 steering rack M62 power steering pump + reservoir Frankenstein E36/39 PS hoses E9x M3 steering wheel Steering shaft - PG Hydraulics Driveshaft- Driveshaft Specialists Custom driveshaft hoops Sump and subframe - Cybul E30 sway bar custom mounts Strut-mounted tie rods E28 OEM engine mounts Modified E38 headers Stock exhaust E38 alloy wheels E36 M3 alloy radiator 320d viscous fan (E39 clutch) E38 AC compressor, E36 condensor, E36 and custom hoses DME 5.2 (pre-97 E39) EGS 8.55 (96-97 E39) Nissan Dualis expansion tank Interior swap (beige to black) with microsuede headlining Started out with this lump. 135K kms on the clock and ran really well. Had been used as a farm vehicle then sat for a while so I got it for a song. Spent the first couple of months stripping everything I would need and getting the motor ready. It's a dirty job... The motor turned out to be in really good nick so really only needed a good clean. I replaced the valley pan, coolant hose o-rings, valve cover gaskets etc whilst the engine was out and stripped and powdercoated the typically sh*t valve covers. After a bit of research I settled on a sump kit from a Polish company called Cybul. Build quality is great and came with modified sub-frame, engine mounts, custom sump (to fit over the steering rack) and a modified oil pump - though the latter is relatively straightforward to do yourself - though it's not quite the plug and play solution promised in a RHD car. Turns out this swap is a great deal easier LHD which is why BMW never did a production V8 and Alpina only did a LHD B8. Anyway, more on that later. The sump was super easy to swap and the subframe and engine mounts all bolt up with no problems. Subsequently had to modify the driver's side mount to accommodate the A/C compressor - and I now understand the Adamat kit is a better fit if you intend to keep A/C, although I don't think the build quality is quite as good. It was about this point that Josh (hybrid) came to see how it was progressing so I pretended I wasn't going to clean it anymore. Since he can't stand things not being clean he attacked it with a bottle of degreaser and a toothbrush. The results were very satisfying (to be fair, I didn't leave him to do it alone!!). < More to come...

Wanting to sell My E30 M325I MTech 1. Not being used and needs to go to a good Home . Fully documented Original Car I am the second owner featured in Autocar and winner this year in survivor class at the Ellerslie Concourse. txt or ring me . This is the best car in New Zealand if you want to own probably the Best original condition MTech 1 in the world this would be it. 0221976166 . More picture available on request. Will take the best offer but won’t reply to low balls or txt asking how much if you are serious then you will ring and look at the car . Won’t be advised on Trademe . I have been reminded on some items I need to add to the post the car is in Pukekohe (Auckland) and anybody who can pay over $80k then they will be able to add it to there collection. Serviced by the same dealer since new and fully documented history.

doesnt look to be a lot of interest in keeping this thread alive, never the less, it serves as a good build diary for me in the future, and prehaps the next own if it is ever sold ! had a quiet afternoon around march or so. had some black leather seats from an E53 parts car. The bolt pattern is identical across E38/E39/E46/E53 so spent the afternoon getting these installed. This 320d had poverty pack seats, was surprised to find it wasnt even prewired for electric or heated seats which they usually are. Not too fused about the heated seats, but had to run some wires to make the move/recline etc work, and also swap the seat buckles and pretensioners over I also got an E39 540i motorsport parts car in recently, which had a set of 18" M Parallels which were quickly pinched. The photos make them look tidier than they are, could do with a professional refurb, but look the business! Fitted brand new tyres to make them work (as the E39 tyres were much too big) as well as hubcentric spacers, due to the E39 center bore being slightly larger than all other Exx BMWs for some strange reason! The front work perfectly as is. The rear i had to roll the inner lips of the gaurds in, trim the wheel well liners a but, and delete the front most of the side brackets for the bumper. the rear shocks had visible corosion around the top near the upper mounts, so also replaced those. Sorry to the purists that only fit Bilstein etc, off the shelf items at BNT will do for this car. lowered back down and gave it a drive, no rubbing anywhere. over the past month has done a lot of miles loaded to the brim with gear for the shows Im doing for ACT, and no rubbing anywhere. Great result! forgot i had some BMW plates and found one day in the shed, so fitted those up as well. While it had a pitstop in Hastings last week, Greg at GH Automotive swapped the engine mounts for me. Left side easy peasy, right hand side a bit of a pain with a turbo tucked in there so you need to drop the frame to do it. Also discovered the vaccum hose to the wastegate was disconnected, and hooked that up. turbo whistle instantly sounded WAY better. as the EGR and DPF has been deleted many moons ago, its only the back box doing the heavy lifting. However, with that hooked up, the car would no longer go over 2500rpm. just to test, re-disconnected (is that a word?) and worked perfectly again. freeboosting isnt as much of a concern in diesels as it is petrols, providing the engine is healthy, so thats a good sign! I have ordered a new boost solenoid for it which should solve!