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Pleasant surprise this morning - look what arrived! The box it arrived in was a bit beaten up, but when opening up you can see that the sharp corners are well-wrapped in bubble wrap to protect whatever else it comes into contact with 😂 Marin offers powder-coating as well, but after discussing with him I opted to get it unfinished and powder-coat locally, as a painted item requires much more packaging to protect it and pushes it into a more expensive shipping category. I was a bit surprised when I first opened it to see that the brace doesn't have the extra cross member between the strut towers, but looking back on my comms with Marin when I actually placed the order I was not clear on the matter. Secondly, now that I've seen this in person I can say that that additional cross member would be entirely unnecessary anyway. The photos (especially the ones online) really do not give a good sense of just how solid this thing is. I'm glad that it turned out this way as not having that cross member means more available boot space for any odd-shaped objects. I'm very happy with the build quality of this and just how solid it is in person. I'm looking forward to getting it powder coated and ordering the other bits and pieces I need to get this installed.

It is still doable. But a shed takes a bit more work to get it up to a comfortable room you can use for sleeping. I see you are in Otago. Insulate the roof of your shed. And seal all gaps. Install a decent sized heat pump. Nothing worse than your dream shed that you don't want to be in because it is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. I have airgaps where my roller doors meet the roof. This is normal. But absolutely useless when it comes to keeping bugs out and heat/cool in. I am in the process of finding a product to seal this up. Have your PA door open outwards. Mine is inwards and takes up precious space when open. When wiring the place up use only 15A plugs. They are not much more expensive. And then you can install single phase hoists. Good opportunity to install some automation. E.g. I walk in and the motion sensor that is part of the alarm turns my lights on. If there is no motion after a few hours it turns everything off. Grarage doors can be connected to these systems too. Meaning if you forgot to close it you can just hit a button on your phone. The motion sensors also alert me to when I have locked the bloody cat in there too. I run Home Assist on my server. But other systems like Smartthings are very easy to setup. Smoke and CO alarms should be installed. You can get smart ones of these too. That way you can be notified of smoke if you are not on site. Edit: Figure out where your hoists legs will be. Have them make the concrete thicker in those areas. Mine was another 75-100mm thicker where the legs of my hoist sits.

The Field days sales have started. 15% off for the month of June from Totalspan so far.

I originally bought this car with my son in mind as he was lining up his learner test. I thought it would be a good safe car for him to learn in and how often do manual e39's show up? I was hoping he'd like it and I'd pass it on but he wanted something smaller and pulled the trigger on a z3 yesterday. So it's for sale as I hate having to park it outside. I've owned it for a little over a year. Think it arrived in NZ as an immigrant import from the UK. It was based in Wellington and I have various but incomplete receipts etc from then up until it was bought by the young man I purchased it from. He went down with his dad and brought it to Auckland. It's not perfect but still in very nice shape for a 26 year old. My project thread is here - Work. Booked in with my mechanic this week to check the coolant temp sensor etc. I'm based in Browns bay and am looking at $7k. Open to offers.

Make sure they put mesh in the concrete! (some didn't up here!) Get recommendations from people about who they've used and check out the work. My extra garage (6 x 7.2, plus roof extension etc) was over $50k (although that included extras, and concreting my barn floor too), and it's Brilliant (Skyline Whangarei). One of the competitors wanted an extra $5K for mesh(!), and another $5k to put a half-assed lean to between the garage and house, instead of extending the roofline, like I have now. These guys integrated into the existing roofline perfectly, were super helpful and charged less. They actually made all the frames manually offsite after pouring the floor, so the roof is mm perfect. They were really into doing everything "right". Which was awesome. It's not tall enough for a hoist or anything, but it does have 3 phase power (it was only about 5 metres of cable required).

At this point the car will go to Eurotech, but that will happen after the oil temp issue is sorted. I have less than 6 weeks of warranty left unless I can get it extended and want to get to the bottom of what is causing that.

Doesn't this give the game away when popping out for a snooze under the guise of 'working on the car'?

i used a z4 3L twin pipe muffler got one if you need

Good points from Driftit re: future proofing and automation. You can never have too many 15A sockets, and cat-6 would be nice too. I'd also suggest plumbing hot water in for car washing during winter.

It's now in my garage. Happy son. Does mean I will need to sell the e39 though...

Full on build. Yeah my E46 does have a slight on center numbness to it even with all new bits. Im not sure why they used a rubber disc when most other BMW didnt have one, my E39 had better on center precision. With all this talk I may have to try i think before my upcoming alignment. I had a look at this steering column bush because i replaced my entire assembly with low k M3 one (play in upper bush which isnt practically replaceable from what i could tell). I dont recognize the updated black part that he has replaced though. He did the shaft at the same time though so im sure that was most of it. I also noticed he switched back to rubber RTAB's and is using poly subframe bushings. I do agree with him on them being harsh over sharp edges and for a daily wagon it make more sense if roads are also poor. Handling benefits though i rate them at the top for the money. What the navigation like?. Probably not an issue now but some of the older android units seem to take ages to connect to satellites. Do you have OE reverse sensors and\or camera setup on it?

Good luck with a sale at that price. The global market is saturated with special interest cars for sale, a quick look at Bring a Trailer, and Collecting Cars auction sees a mounting list of brands going RNM. The cars for sale to willing buyers ratio is well adrift, and a good time to buy if something takes your fancy. And most seem to have been acquired when the market was strong, on the back of the Covid surge. "Buy a classic car it's an investment........." the listings read, Yes, right 😮 This writer believes the market is far from reaching the bottom of the bell curve, so hold on for a stormy ride.