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Haven't updated this in a while. So a while back the car got stuck in 1st gear which prompted me to have to take it off the road until I healed up. I got it towed to the shop and ended up swapping the gearbox with a UK 325is one, clutch, slave, diff and other bits and bobs. Also took part in the Brit and Euro Classic 2025 and shot a wee music video at my workshop with some DJs that I know. Pics will explain all better.

Oh man, hard disagree there. Old man green with a tan interior (caramel would be better though) is a great combo on the E39. The wheels can get in the bin though, they belong on a commy.

Being the hoarder that I am, I had managed to acquire a couple of spare sets of black cube trims over the years and finally got around to doing something with them. All of the pieces, including the ones installed in the car, had varying degrees of wear and scratches so I've been meaning to do a mini-restoration for a while. Could always just redo it in semi-gloss black but fancied a bit of a colour change and went for a silver tone to sort of emulate the clubsport silver trims. Went to Spraystore, showed them what I was after and instead of custom-mixing something they recommended the off-the-shelf silver wheel paint, which was pretty close to the tone I wanted. Gave the pieced a light sand with 600/2000 grit, masked off the inner edges on a few pieces, wiped down with alcohol and gave them 3-4 light coats (10 minutes between coats), followed by 2 coats of matte clear for a bit of protection. The coats were light enough to retain the cube texture and not look too dull. Might have turned out a tad brighter than I would have liked but on the whole I do quite like it. Will see how I feel about it in a few months' time but so far I'm pleased with the outcome. The wife said she liked it better all black. I guess haters gonna hate.

Chipping away at re-assembly while waiting for parts. An old coil must’ve been arc’ing on cyl 6 as the Mg has blown out turned in to dust. Had to clean alot of crap out of the spark plug well. Cleaned up the corrosion out of all 6 holes then brushed 2 coats of epoxy enamel to give it a seal. Giving some high heat jb-weld a jam on the blown out damage.. Vanos oil strainers had no sludge but a couple of small bits of swarf on them. Gave everything in the engine bay a good clean to help with future traces of oil and coolant leaks. 😄

@Financial_Ruins needs a price for Bimmersporters please as per forum rules. I know there is a price on the TradeMe listing, but should also have the “Bimmersport” price in the thread.

Hello Bimmersporters, There has been a rash of personal messages sent to users who have posted in the Want To Buy section. They are all of the same type, from a new user suggesting to contact an email address for the part requested. Looks very much like scammer behaviour, so user has been blocked, and putting this up as a warning in case we get any more. Be vigilant, stay safe. Cheers.

Cheaper 4.8is just been listed https://www.trademe.co.nz/5224698504

Much better on Alpina rims. From memory that particular E39 was being sold as spares or repair.

That looks superb. Very individual. I’m finding myself in the very unusual position of being envious of your stick 😎

That was me, because I love CC and every luxury car should have it*. It's shocking to me the lack of CC on 'classic luxury BMWs' in NZ. I'm not from NZ. In Canada every E39 sold would have had CC as standard. I use CC on every 'out of the city' trip I take, which is all trips, since I live rurally. *every car should have it, and people should use it! (also, I have a 523iT, manual, with working CC (imported from UK))

Car is looking great!

Installed a Gauge S by Sorek (as seen on M539 restorations awhile back). Originally for the E30 and E36 instrument cluster but he progressed to E46\E39 and now E9X chassis. Pretty handy device which is quite capable of many things like data logging and is very customizable. Best of all it still has the OEM look, doesn't get it the way of anything and is reasonably priced. Pretty quick and easy to install as it just taps into instrument cluster wiring, only complaint was the supplied wires were too short which was a bit annoying and i had to lengthen them (RHD thing maybe). Also Installed and wired in Bosch PST oil pressure\temperature sensor using a modified M14x1.5 banjo bolt. This was much more involved as i had to have factory looking install into existing looms, no wiring cut using home made tee adaptors and all crimped OE terminals\plugs. Wasted a bit time\money finding out how i wanted to do it. but shouldnt even have to touch it again. Sorek has the tables\coded done for this sensor using the extra analog connector so its just a matter of copy pasting some code into the memory. Very cheap way to get this data compared to analog gauges. Thanks to @Vass for sending me a OBD port cover which is required to display K-line data when closed. Im sure he will do a proper write up one day as forgot to take detailed photos of most of it. Pretty straight forward regardless.

Nothing better than a red M52 swap Hopefully yours is a quicker turn around than mine with my other life "priorities"

Few pages back and a few months since posting, Sold 3 of my other vehicles past month and knocked a few other projects over. None the less this thing will be getting more attention moving forward

TBH my initial comment was based on three things I don't like. Old Man Green BMW's Old Man tan interiors Simmons wheels Sounds like a lot of work has been done though. Most of us would prefer to spend that money on OEM+ restoration like Sreten these days.