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Thought I’d update this, car is pretty much how I want it now so no real need to change much, especially with having picked up an e30 as a new project (there’s a thread for it on here too if you’re interested). car drives great, works perfectly, couldn’t be happier with it, feels special to drive. Took it out for a summers evening drive and got some photos.

Car is now sold 😭 Was claimed within a couple days of listing it and buyer picked it up today. Went to a good home. I'll still hang around, even though my new car is not a BMW 🙃 I've got a bunch of 130i and associated platforms new in box parts to sell, will start listing below, feel free to pm if interested OE Full sump gasket replacement kit, Manual car. not just the gasket, but bolts and other things you may break while doing it like oil pick up and steering shaft bolt $200 OE Engine mounts and bolts $300 Steering wheel insert OEM BMW $150 😅 Used original interior parts - handbrake and gear shifter handless and gaiters plus knob - $100? Used Original air intake tube $20 Can work out shipping and happy to bundle stuff.

Hi all, I have the following E30 parts for sale: 1) Pair of OEM factory fog lamps for facelift car, genuine glass units complete with brackets. $140 pair 2) 5 headlamps- one smilie passenger side lens, 4 various inner lights. $120 3) Smoked side repeaters and facelift smoked front indicators lenses $140 4) MHW smoked tail lights. These are high quality E3 marked units made to OEM quality back in the day. They are very rare and hard to find in good condition. A pair recently sold on eBay UK for 1000 GBpounds. I will attach a screenshot of the auction sale price for reference. I am looking offers around $1400

Sounds good David - I am not in any hurry! Cheers Mate

Did you get what you wanted for it? Ill grab the chain tensioner if its still available, have nearly everything else NIB anyway 😪

Interested in the tail lights. Now's not the right time for me though. I'll hit you up at some point and see if you still have them for sale.

Kiwiplates have 15% off til end of this month

Had a decent go at cutting and polishing. Lots of trial and error along the way but getting the hang of it… Test area to see how hardy the paint is. On to cutting the fr guard. Then the sides and the roof, which I never thought would come up well, lots of deep scratches. Gave it a wet sand first. After cutting the sides and roof I expected this sh*t to appear under bright lighting.. Up until now i’d been using a rotary polisher so i switched to a DA and got rid of most of it. Happy how it turned out Got the hatch and bumpers to do. Won’t bother with the bonnet until i can find a straight one with saveable black sapphire metallic paint.

they might have been seeking your quarter glass, stopped when they realised they'd f@#ked it.

Had a great weekend working on the car. On Saturday morning Dad and I got the car up on stands and exhaust and driveshaft out. Unbolted the exhaust at the headers and dropped the whole thing, then the same with the driveshaft. So much faster than last time given we're just removing and reinstalling rather than taking it all apart to clean. I'm super happy with how everything under the car is holding up, it's 8 years since we did the underbody refresh and everything is looking really good under there. I did the new gear position sensor first, access is a bit of a mission but the mutilated allen key approach does work. The old sensor was extremely notchy and rough after 20 years of service. Worth noting that we ran the first part of the SMG adaption (up to the point it wants the car started) to make sure it was happy with the new GPS. After that we moved on to lowering the rear subframe to facilitate the installation of the Yurkan Cages 6 point brace. We took off the brake calipers and rear trailing arm pockets and lowered the entire thing about 100mm on a couple of jacks (to give us more control over forward/rearward weight distribution). That gave us enough access to unbolt the front RACP studs and get them out. We then jacked the subframe back into place and loosely bolted it, which gave us a better safety factor while working under it. At this point we drained the diff, swapped out the rear diff cover for a new one and reinstalled with new bolts and drain plugs. I've mentioned previously that I'd long experienced some clunkiness when shifting/loading/unloading the drivetrain. This was vastly improved by adapting the SMG. I wasn't sure whether what remained was the diff getting a bit tired or whether the rear bushes needed replacing but I was pleased on checking the diff that there is no detectable lash in the diff at all, likewise with the driveshaft. I was therefore pretty hopeful that it was just the rear diff bushes that were the culprit. The rest of the process was pretty straightforward, we unbolted one point at a time and using a threaded drill guide that dad turned on his lathe and an extra long 6mm drill bit we went up through each of the 4 points in turn. Then it was simply a case of come down from the top with a 10.5mm bit before running a tap on a long extension up from underneath to complete the thread the whole way through. With that done it was then a case of bolting in each of the 4 points and torquing to spec. The rest of the reassembly took a couple of hours and we had the car on the ground again. The install of the brace was super quick - fitment of the brace was absolutely perfect - Marin's fabrication is spot on. Then it was just a case of running the complete adaption on the SMG and going for a test drive. Today I drove the car on a route I'm very familiar with and I'm extremely pleased with the end result! The last of the clunkiness when shifting is now resolved. Even under heavy acceleration in S5/S6 all you get is the sound and surge of power. I'm super stoked. And the brace. Well, I know others have reported a big improvement, but I wasn't completely sure if I'd find the same. Suffice to say the improvement is not subtle! For me the rear has always felt slightly less co-ordinated than the front (not to say it's not objectively excellent to begin with, but it's always stood out to me that the car is just a little bit more put together in the front). Now with the brace it's the other way around! The change in stiffness is hugely noticeable even just driving around town. As soon as you get to a roundabout or uneven tarmac it becomes very apparent how much more rigidity there is. The car really feels glued together in the back now. I love it and am excited to go for a decent spirited drive.

Sadly, i am now dismantling this car at E3x Ltd! Was just doing some reasearch on the differences with the SA engines and found this thread! sizeable dent on left rear door and quarter panel and was written off. A shame to see these ones go but parts help to allow others to live on!