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This weekend I made a start on preparation for installing the 6 point rear brace. The plan is to get as much pre-work done as possible so that the process of dropping the subframe and bolting through can be as straightforward as possible. I got this done in a few hours here and there across Saturday and Sunday in between adventures with Mr 7, Mr 3 and Mrs Karter16. First up is to remove the interior: I need to get the isopropyl alcohol out and clean up the rear seat and prep it for repainting some rust spots, but I won't do that until the heavier prep-work is done. Before I got started with drilling I wanted to place the brace in the car just to see, with my own eyes, the placement of the mounting points etc. I had all the measurements from Marin at Yurkan Cages, but figured seeing it with my own eyes would help avoid any mistakes. I wanted to make sure though that I didn't damage the paint on the brace, so spent some time first taping up all of the contact surfaces: I carefully dropped the brace into place (obviously sitting higher than it will eventually with the floor sheet metal in the way. But this meant I could sight the approximate locations and reassure myself about the approach. Note: You don't see it in the photos because I removed some of it to get better lighting for photographs, but I was very careful to ensure that interior surfaces were covered and protected when drilling, cutting, sanding, etc. It's really worth taking the time to protect everything well. First up to prepare for cutting the top layer of sheet metal is removing the two little brackets that sit atop the locations where the front mounts will go. The diameter of the hole for the spot weld is about 6mm, and I found a 7mm bit was necessary to drill out the weld entirely. Note that the brackets are stuck on as well (presumable to hold them in place before being spot welded). I needed to carefully encourage them to lift off with a flathead screwdriver (which I taped with masking tape to protect the metal surfaces). With these out of the way I then moved on to cutting the holes for the rear two mounts. I carefully measured and remeasured several times to make sure I was in exactly the right spot. I used a centre punch (always use a centre punch) to mark the point and then drilled out with a 3mm bit. I had some old, unused, BMW M TwinPower Turbo 10W60 which I used for lubricating on the drill bits and hole saw (only ever 10W60 for my car 😂). Note: With things like this it's worth taking the time to clean your drill bits after each cut, that way they're clean for the next cut and aren't flinging more mess around than necessary. I then drilled out to 6mm before making the final cut with the 44mm hole saw. You can see in this photo that there was some overspill from when the BMW RACP "foam" resin procedure was done. I've only just realised I didn't take a photo, but the way I cleaned this up was to carefully down down as far as I dared with the hole saw (not wanting to damage the next layer of sheet metal) and then use a chisel to very careful chip away at the resin bit by bit. By carefully doing this I was able to completely clear it from the vicinity of the hole without causing any damage to anything else. Side note: calling this stuff "foam" does a disservice to people's understanding of it. The stuff is much better described a plastic-like resin - It's absolutely solid stuff. I then did the other side (the resin had only just domed up from underneath so didn't need to clean it up like on the left hand side. Pretty soon I had the rear points taken care of: \ Then it was on to the front points, which are certainly the harder pair to do. I realised, as I went to write this, that I didn't take any photos of this in progress, probably because I was cramped in the back of the car and carefully concentrating on what I was doing. Essentially though it's a case of carefully measuring in from the sides and then siting the pilot hole in the right place. In order to do this correctly I used a flat edge on the top of the RACP and measured out and down to find the bottom edge of the pocket. I then split the distance in two horizontally and dropped down to get the centre point at which to drill the pilot hole. I then drilled this out to 6mm and "verticalized" it to guide the hole saw. I then cut down vertically from the top using the hole saw, and then cut out the bottom of the pocket with a cutting disk on the Dremel (highly recommend having/getting a Dremel if you're taking this job on). Working carefully resulted in this (wife's beauty product as a conveniently sized stand in for 40mm tube steel): After some careful work on both sides (including removing burrs with the sanding attachment on the Dremel) I then took the time to use a magnet to remove all trace of the cutting, including from inside the cavities. Handy tip - if you use a medical disposable rubber glove as a cover for your magnet it makes cleaning up easy. Each time the magnet is "full" just invert the finger of the glove and move on to the next finger, after 5 goes throw the glove away and grab the next one. The front now looked like this: I then dropped the brace back in to check the fit. Fitted into place first time! (obviously still sitting higher as it's resting on top of the rear shock mount nuts). Having reached this point and confirming the fit I then took the brace back out and cleaned up the cuts and area around them (inside and out) with isopropyl alcohol, before applying a coat of kill rust undercoat to the exposed edges of the cuts. I have an enamel top coat in the same colour as the e-coat BMW used which I will apply as well, but only after confirming the fit once the new extended subframe bolts are in and I can check the fitment exactly. Until then the undercoat will protect the edges from rust. I'm glad that I decided to tackle this part of the project separately, as it took a number of hours to do and means the top side is ready to go when we drop the subframe. Oh, and in an entirely expected and predictable turn of events, the top side of the front right RACP mount has cracks in it. I'm unsurprised given the cracks that we welded on the bottom side when Dad and I did the reinforcement plates. We'll stop drill the cracks and weld prior to dropping the subframe. I wish it hadn't been quite so long between doing the plates and getting to the top side, but such have been the realities of dealing with medical kids. On the plus side the car has done very few km's since the plates were done!

Just picked up a 2007 530i with 137000km on the clock, loving it so far, has a few minor issues that need solving but runs and drives as you’d expect

@Bennyboy aside from being on TM for $20K not two weeks ago you mean? Yet another car that Brad has bought and listed for double the asking price about 5 mins after purchasing. Alpina's add $8K don't you know...

Thank you @Jacko, @BM WORLD and @Eagle. I'lll stick with NA engine, still niffy enough for daliy duties 🙂

What did you find in the interior with the blacklight 🤔

Worked for Eroad in it's early days. Some heavy trucks would do that in a month. Also depends on how often that breach is logged. Usually every 1 min over is a new incident. By law you must be below the speed limit where the sign post is mounted. E.g. from a 80 zone to a 50 zone you must be below 50 before the sign post. Nobody does that. Most companies only cared about the top 10 to 20 % of beaches. Catching the drivers who a well over. I had the high score for Eroad staff for a while. Shame it was the poor kid from Firestone test driving my car. Got a free alignment though after I advised them. I would want to see his speed report. And if it is not a calibrated government approved device like Eroad then the data is irrelevant. I spent hours every day updating GIS data to set the correct speed limits. Only had to be 50m off and it would generate a speeding log.

A bit out of place amongst all the Americana at the Howick Hop but still getting lots of attention!

buy a 135i or m135i or swap in a n54 to your 130i

If you want to check out a repair option I'd start here: https://www.carbotec.co.nz/ Have had some friends go there with foiling gear and have been very satisfied, really nice guy etc apparently.

Looked at it as I undertook cutting the grass. Upgraded the rear sway bar to a 19mm Ultra racing one on Friday and it's made a massive difference. The old one looked very tiny in comparison. So I now have the full Ultra Racing front and rear sway bars plus the strut brace up front.

Got my ITB's for my stroker build. Pretty excited 😊

Did some late night Italian tuning - quick run out to Arrowtown and back. Got absolutely DUSTED on the Dalefield back roads by an Alfa GTV. The 1.6 was well above 7K and spitting flames as it rocketed past me 😁 God they're an achingly gorgeous car. 1299691.jpg

Or buy my Merc 190E manual for sale, open to offers Way more uncommon than an E30 https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/mercedes-benz/190-e/listing/4906738493

Kerbed the crap out of a rear wheel on the B3 today, very disappointed with myself!