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236,600km Gave the garage a good reshuffle and cleared out enough space to roll the car in for some wrenching. Was nearly due an oil change so used it as a chance to knock out a few bigger and smaller jobs. Last I changed oil was only in October but already managed to clock up 7k km's so figured it was time. Had tried doing some data logging a while ago and noticed the long term fuel trims sitting at 8.5%. Not enough to cause any noticeable rough running or trigger engine codes but did seem a tad high. Followed @Harper's lead and got myself a little smoke tester. Was tossing up getting one of the higher end models with pressure gauges and other bells and whistles but in the end figured it's a tool that would only ever get occasional use so went with the cheapest one. Also got the inflatable bladder adapter to go with the kit that plugs into the intake boot. Nifty little setup, the tin can solution felt almost humorous but works well enough. The device produces a decent amount of smoke but didn't reveal any vacuum leaks so the issue must lie elsewhere. Will clear adaptations and continue keeping an eye on data logs. At some point I was also getting codes claiming the ICV to be stuck open so tried switching that out as well. Picked up a spare one from Pick-A-Part, gave it a good clean with throttle body cleaner spray, compressed air and lubed up the internals with a bit of oil. The unit that came out still seemed to move freely enough but will see if the codes come back. Drained the oil which didn't look too bad but there was quite a bit of metallic sludge stuck to the magnetic drain plug. Still only 9k km since the engine rebuild but already the 4th oil change so not entirely sure at what point it becomes something to be seriously concerned about. Will do another oil change in 4-5k km's time and reassess. Video The biggest mission I decided to tackle this time around was replacing the oil non-return valve that sits in the oil filter housing. First saw it done in one of M539's videos and with the vendor seemingly not shipping to New Zealand, I took the chance to pick up a couple of those valves whilst over in Europe last year. Finally gathered enough motivation to install it after stumbling upon a thread on E46 Fanatics of it supposedly fixing the guy's startup engine tick and low oil pressure issue. Was mentally prepared for oil to start splashing out all over the place when removing the housing but the mess ended up being almost underwhelming. The valve is press fit into the housing and its extraction needed some tedious prying out with a screwdriver. I used an old plastic trim removal tool as a sacrificial layer to protect the surrounding edges. Worked pretty well and managed to get the old valve out with little to no damage. The old valve didn't look too bad, the groove was barely worn into the side but the plug did seem to move quite freely in there. Poured a bit of oil over top and it drained right through. Tested the new one with brake cleaner and none leaked past. One weird thing with the new valve was that it just dropped into the opening without the need to hammer it in. Still snug enough in there that it didn't move around but loose enough that you could lift back out with just your fingers. Measured the diameter of the two with a digital vernier - the old valve was 25.07mm whilst the new one 25.01mm. Not a huge difference but still. Not like it has any space to fall out and I guess it'll properly mate itself to the surrounding housing after a few heat cycles. Jumping forward a bit, unfortunately it wasn't the culprit of my niggling startup rattle and the issue still persists. I'm beginning to think it not to be engine-related entirely but something to do with the gearbox/flywheel. Very hard to tell by the sound alone, near on impossible to capture it on video/audio and the list of potential suspects is ever decreasing. Regardless, still glad I replaced the valve. To finish up under the hood, I did a compression test just to check the general health of the engine. First time doing it since the engine rebuild so was a bit nervous but the results were pretty satisfying with all cylinders sitting at 200-208 PSI. Couldn't be happier with that. Finally, after hitting my head a few too many times on the boot door that wouldn't raise itself all the way up anymore, I got around to replacing the crusty old boot struts that were starting to become audibly annoying as well. Otherwise, she's sitting fairly pretty. The next bigger undertaking will be to finally wire up the reversing camera (thanks to @adro for the motivation), along with the boot elephant trunk repair and fixing all the broken tabs on the boot trims.

Manual greenhouse for sale https://www.turners.co.nz/Damaged-Vehicles/Damaged-Cars-for-Sale/bmw/130i/23499758

I thought I'd do a quick shout out - backstory is I wanted shift paddles for the E61 and I managed to get my hands on a M-Sport steering wheel from an E60 but it was in rough shape. Before I spent any money on repairing the wheel I got the shift paddles working which was easier said than done (the factory wiring diagrams were wrong and I had to spend a fair bit of time reading up on the right way to go about it.) I'm a massive fan of the shift paddles and I'm really happy with them now they work! I don't drive the car in manual mode but I do like to shift gears now and then - e.g. going up or down a hill the transmission doesn't always drive the car the way I want it to. Anyway I struggled to find someone in the Wellington region that could do a steering wheel. I was initially looking for someone to re cover it as I thought it was too far gone, but I ended up reaching out to Erika @ The Leather Doctor https://www.myleatherdoctor.co.nz who said she could fix it up without re covering. I offered to remove the wheel from the car which made the job a lot easier for her. The Leather Doctor is a mobile service so they came to my house meaning I didn't have to faff around dropping the car off somewhere for the day etc. I'm really happy with the result, it looks a million times better now! Here's a before and after photo. Apologies in advance for the background, I took the photo on the front steps and in hindsight that wasn't a good spot, but you can still see the difference , it's night and day.

Building several M20s at the moment Standard builds, Stroker motors and blueprint builds 2.5 ,2.8 and 3 litre m20 motors Cheers Jon 021651591

It took about that many oil changes on my S54 before there was no material in the oil. Just as I was starting to get worried that there was still glimmering stuff in the oil, the next oil change was clear.

We’re headed overseas for an extended period and leaving it stored wouldn’t be great for it so.. Extensive restomod Fully certified & recent WOF Professional repower ex E34 2.5L manual from 320i 16” Alpina 7J front 8J rear ex Germany Willwood big brake kit Bilstein springs & shocks front & rear with adjustable top hats front New bushes & links throughout Genuine Alpina steering wheel Genuine Alpina front spoiler Genuine Alpina headers w HPC ceramic coating Medium diff Tidy interior with some cracks in dash (comes with spare dash) Lots of spares Comes w B52 crank & M20 conrods should you want to stroke it. No items for sale separately No trades $33,500 obo price reduced

Brake booster is another possibility. I heard mine but you could try to smoke test it if you remove the one way valve or make a test hose.

after seeing the ‘no signal’ everytime I went into reverse I felt motivated to get this reverse camera in. Quite a bit more involved that I would have liked but overall just fiddly. Few learnings, even if the ad says it’s HD, if it’s going through an RCA you can guarantee its actually only going to be 720p. I got the number plate light and camera and it’s quite fiddly to put together, if I were to do it again I would opt for a camera that screws into the trim, and save mucking round tapping into the number plate lights. I had to do quite a bit of dremelling to get my camera to fit. my camera points down to much. I can live with it as I have a rear window to look out but I would like it tilted up a bit more. the cool thing was the RCA had a little positive pig tail on it which connected straight to the head unit so didn’t have to tap into the reverse lights. I did have to cut the RCA plug off though in order to feed it through the elephant trunk and then attach it again. I routed the USB‘s under the cup holders, it didn't really fit, but once the phone cable is attached it can pop out the coin bit quite nicely. I went through the elephant trunk and taped it to the existing loom running down the outside of the window, then in through the grommet at the bottom (tell me your car is a central Otago car without telling me it’s a central Otago car) a lot of gravel dust to clean up here. Once that was all working and made into a bit of loom with some soft tape I replaced the battery ground cable that I broke ages ago. still working on getting the splash screen working, at the moment the unit won’t recognise the files on my usb stick. Other than that, it’s working awesome. I suspect the encroachment on the number plate might be an issue at some point, I think the plate will just have to be lowered though. quick clean and jobs a goodin.

SOLD. Gone to a good home that will look after it I'm sure.