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So yesterday I dropped round to @Cement's house to pick up the CD stacker he kindly offered me. @Michael. was there as well, so was great to meet them both and talk BMWs and see their amazing cars 😍 And today is the final day of my summer holiday before I head back to work. This morning before it got too hot I finally got around to doing the work on the rear seat. First up I removed the black leather seats and bolsters, and then I was able to install the rear seat sound mat that arrived a couple of months ago. It fits really well and was no problem to install, at less than half the weight of the rubber/butyl one and not likely to disintegrate like the original I'm very happy with this: You can see there are a couple of cut outs that aren't needed on the M3, presumably they are for the E46 compact or similar, but aside from that it all fits in very nicely. I was then able to install the G7AT interior (which I've been cleaning and drying over the last week) from @M3_Power and now finally have an (almost) matching interior. I took the covers off the headrests and put them through the washing machine (gentle cycle, no spin) and wet vac'd the bolsters, seat bench and backs. The bolsters needed new clips at the tops, as they seem to ALL break. I ordered new ones in one of my orders last year, so had these on the shelf ready to go. Originals were black, these new ones are white, maybe they're also stronger 🤣 Then it was just a case of putting everything in, and soon it was all done! (apologies for the terrible photos and dusty car, am rebuilding a retaining wall at the moment and the clay dust gets into everything). I also got to take the car for a drive today. With the work I've done on the drivers door, and the cloth rear upholstery, a good 90% of the rattles and such that were present in the car seem to be gone! I thought there were going to be a bunch still to hunt down, but appears I have one in the dash by the drivers door, and aside from that any other noises were pretty infrequent! Now I just need to give the car a good wash!

09 Jan 2024. 188500kms Having got through Xmas, it was time to get back to this car. On saturday morning I pulled it from the garage (started first time, settled into a beautiful idle. 1. Went to BMW Car Club cars and coffee meet. This car is a superb camera platform. Park on side of road, get out and shoot pictures 😀. Easy access to the cavernous trunk to select weapon of choice. Always great variety at a BMWCCNZ meet-up! unwashed e60 in it's natural habitat, yesterday 2. Washed and photographed for Sale Listing. AutoGlym shampoo. Wash, rinse. Wheels with AutoGlym Clean Wheels and AutoGlym Wheel Brush. Rinse, dry with speed towel. Easy. Oh, and disgusting Meguiars Trye stuff that refuses to finish. The Auto Glym stuff is much nicer, though this needs to be used up first. It's probably an envionmental disaster in a plastic bottle, makes the tyres look spangly though. I did some running around in it during the afternoon, collecting daughter's friends and generally performing 'Dad Taxi' duties. It's using less fuel and idles better, moves off from the traffic lights more smoothly since that actuator was replaced. Waited for sun to get low enough for soft light. Shot images, edited. Looking good eh? Scrubs up nicely with minimal effort. Now time to compose ad copy, and list.

Yeah I got all paranoid about threads pulling out of the block reading all the forum posts on the topic but from personal, anecdotal experience, the issue might be a bit overblown. The engine I rebuilt turned out to be overheated at some point, to the extent that the head had gone too soft to use. Even still, the replacement head torqued down just fine and all seems to be ticking over alright a year or so on. I even asked the machine shop whether it's worth timeserting the block preventatively just to play it safe, to which the machinist told me to stop being silly. From what I gather, the safer and less involved preventative solution to the issue would be to use head studs instead of timeserting anyway, but there aren't any budget options out there on that front, M54-specific kits seem to be $400+ US. I guess when the threads pull then the person is more likely to go on a forum to talk about it and look for a solution, whereas for every one time that happens there's 10 that torque down fine and go unreported so you end up with a skewed perception going by the number of forum posts alone. There's always a risk though so I do get your logic, these sorts of projects do have a tendency of snowballing out of control as it is. To add to the anecdotes, I pulled the pistons out of the old B25 block the other week out of curiosity. The engine had 227k km's on it and was known to burn oil with the yellow oil light popping up every few months. Wasn't a pretty sight.

I have reliably demonstrated I can hear the difference between FLAC and WAV on many home systems. So I use WAV. People argue that FLAC is best "because tagging and artwork". When I ask if they've bothered to listen to the differences, the room goes quiet. I tag and put artwork on my WAV rips, so the usability difference is NIL. I agree - the car is a sh*t place to listen to music. However, Neal has gone to extraordinary lengths to make his car a great place to listen to music. I'd venture that you'd easily hear the difference between 320k MP3 and FLAC, and probably difference to WAV in his car. Hell, in my X3 stock factory system I can hear the difference between Bluetooth from my phone - 320k Spotify and 'uncompressed' Tidal, then compared the compressed crap BMW stores on the HDD (yecch, unlistenable), and WAV from a USB stick (unquestionably better). I don't think my X3 will cope with FLAC.. If the source is downsampled rips, it's a case of garbage in, garbage out. No end of optimisation, amplification, manipulation of the file, or speaker technology can make up for a poor input signal, whether in a home, venue, or car. I'm in my 50's, taken good care of my hearing, and it's starting to decline - it's still easy to hear where the music is slaughtered by the tech, on simple equipment. You need only open your ears. This has nothing to do with which DAC to choose.

Not BMW's but i still get paranoid about this happening on other brands even though ive never had an issue yet. Complete agree about the rest though, not many people removing the head for preventative reasons.

Probably, from what I hear from others that rebuild M54s often it's pretty much a given that the block will need to be time-serted but maybe it's different in the states where the advice is coming from. And I don't like the idea of going that deep and not machining all the surfaces, I know some people slap it back together but it feels wrong to me. Agreed I tend to change oil 7.5-10k km, I don't do that much mileage and almost none of it motorway driving so if it gets that far I'm happy. I'll report back on it's oil usage once it's on the road, I'm hoping in the next couple months.

I don't keep track of E60 sales but given the maintenance performed and condition it seems very good buying at ~6k. I dont think ive seen an E60 for sale that appear to say 'only spent the bare minimum on it'.

I might regret not going that extra step if I put it back in and it starts the typical M54 oil burning but ultimately it becomes a full rebuild once you take the pistons out and this project is already way over budget. Motor wasn't burning oil when removed so I'm hopeful given its low mileage, O2 pilot mod, new ccv parts, should be alright.

A bunch of parts have arrived, the entire ECS tuning order of all the gaskets and one time use bolts, as well as the rod bearings. Condorspeedshop engine and transmission mounts showed up too, as well as some oe braided vacuum line. Also got the aftermarket oil pressure sensor and wiring i will be hooking up to the ECU as from factory there is only a pressure switch. Pulled the sump back off again, oil pump back out, and began replacing the rod bearings. Pretty straight froward job just have to pay attention and be careful, and make sure to work in a clean environment. Did rod bearings one at a time, cap off, push rod off crank, remove both bearing shells, clean surfaces, install new rod bearings, clean crank shaft, install dry with plastiguage, torque back down with old bolts, remove cap, check clearance, clean up plastigauge residue, lubricate bearing surfaces and crank, bolt back together with new OEM rod bolts and torque to 20nm + 2x 70* as prescribed by bmw NEWtis. Just got to do it 6 times. Then put the oil pump and tray back on, all new bolts once again, torqued and stretched to spec. Then placed sump back on, not putting on new gasket/bolts just yet as I am still waiting for VAC motorsport to ship my baffle, they are being extremely slow. In the meantime, trying to organize turbo rebuild, also need to order 6x new injector seals and decoupling elements from bmw as well as a coolant temp sensor. Will also need new oil coolers... but getting there. Been seeing lots of interesting videos of turbolamik 8hp swaps which have me intrigued, the shift times look pretty damn quick...

It's getting the pistons back in through the underside that'd be the issue. No even surface to seat the piston ring compressor onto so you'd likely end up doing damage to the rings. Easy enough to mess it up even seating them from the topside.

Surprised you didnt put in updated oil control rings after tearing it down to that extent

Lossless audio? Disc space is now very cheap, stick with uncompressed WAV - still the best sounding file format (and - coincidentally - lowest processing overhead) for people that listen to music!

Must really hate the N42 eh. I remember having to put 91 in a M54B30 once because no premium, turned it into a B25.

Bummer about the axles. Luckily my 330 ones came out alright with a bit of bashing. Wanted to separate the 325 ones from the trailing arms for easier storage but both are absolutely seized in there. Might just end up scrapping them altogether. Good stuff on the driveshaft CV joint. The rear end of mine that I got with the manual conversion was pissing out grease so looked to do the same but upon closer look, the rubber boot had completely crumbled and cracked so no good to reuse. Bummer that you have to get the whole joint as a replacement, pretty spendy one that. You're probably all over it, but just to point out a few uncommon manual bits that often get left out of conversion kits: 223001222894 - 2 of the 4 E14 torx head bolts that connect the gearbox to the engine (the bottom 2) are longer on a manual gearbox than on automatic. My conversion didn't come with those so I had to order a couple off Schmiedmann. People have still used the shorted bolts and they probably work just fine but you don't get full thread engagement. 21521163894 - The rubber grommet for where the clutch hardline goes through the firewall into the engine bay. There's one grommet/sleeve that is attached to the hardline itself but then there's another one that sits in the chassis. 07147140849 - I think that's the right number, can check and confirm later on if needed - the blind plug that blocks out the hole for the old automatic gearshift cable. Can probably make due with whatever but in case you wanted to stick to genuine. 11141734019 - The backing plate that goes between the engine and gearbox. Manual one doesn't have an opening for the torque converter bolts, and another one just under the starter for some unknown purpose. You can just keep the automatic one with the rubber plug but it bugged me for whatever reason. Annoyingly, you can't seem to get these new from anywhere anymore. I got mine used from a fella called Paulo Tavares in Auckland recently. 17111436250 - Plastic plate for the radiator without the openings for the auto box oil cooler. Without it you'd have to crimp off some hoses and make a bit of a mess. 17111437359 - In addition to the previous point, a plug screw to the bottom of the radiator. Auto and manual ones are different length so a passage gets blocked further up on whichever one of them. 17117561757 - Electronic radiator fan to get rid of the clutch fan. Some might be pretty obvious but a few of those I got caught out on myself.

Some progress today Calipers painted, not perfect but looks good enough for some brakes Hubs and old wheel bearings pressed out of the trailing arms. I wasn't planning on doing this but one of the bearings was knackered so I might as well put fresh ones in. Gave all the handbrake shoe parts a good scrub while everything is apart. Hardest part of the whole job was getting the axles out, had to take them to my local shop to get them out with their press. Destroyed an axle pusher tool and banana'd every bit of metal I have on my press trying to get them out. Shop said it took 15 tonnes to get them out. From all the hammering the end of one of the axles was pretty mushroomed so I had to taper down the end. Still can't get the nut on though, think I'm going to need to find a M27x1.5 thread die and chase it... Or find a new axle Driveshaft CV joint cleaned out and repacked with new grease. Miserable job, but the joint does feel a lot better.

Wiper delete for looks? Some situations i wish all cars had rear wipers.

There again today, about 1-2km south of Bombays.