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Thanks Eagle for the tip. I found the immobilizer, it was fine 😞 The problem was the ‘start detection relay’. A small relay in the fuse box. The documentation is a bid sketchy. There are actually 2 relays, one for the fuel pump and one for the starter, the documentation only shows one relay. I figured out which was which with a volt meter and I put the fuel pump one in place of the starter one. The starter then worked but wouldn’t start... no fuel. I took the relay out of the my 523i ‘rear window’ (thanks REALOEM for the location help), put it in for the fuel pump and wa-la, starts and runs. 🙂 Something to get on my next run to Pick-a-part.

Another rainy day here so retaining wall is again on hold. I took the opportunity this morning to finally redo the matte screen overlay on the Xtrons head unit. I got the Xtrons about 16 months ago and have had a much better experience with it than I was expecting. I'm well decided that I'll be keeping it. one of the downsides of it, and many head units is the glossy screen. About a year ago I purchased a matte screen overlay to see if I liked it better. I did my best to line it up nicely but because I had to cut it to size the edges were visible and annoying to me. I've long intended to take the head unit out and disassemble it so that I could replace the overlay over the entire LCD screen so that the edges would be hidden by the bezel if that makes sense. Today was that day. Head unit out: Rear case off: Disconnect the two big ribbon cables between the chassis and the display and remove the 4x screws holding the display shield on. Then the display and shield pop out of the bezel: The screen with the old matte overlay on it: Old matte overlay removed: I didn't get any photos of applying the new overlay as both my wife and I were employed in getting it on and keeping the screen completely free of dust. We succeeded and the overlay went down perfectly: The new overlay with the protection layer removed: Then it was just a case of reinstalling back into the bezel: And reconnecting the ribbon cables and putting it all back together: I'm super happy with how this has turned out - we got the overlay to go down perfectly and it looks fantastic: While I had the unit out I took the opportunity to plug in the USB extension and install the latest firmware to address the issue with a greater than expected difference between volume levels 4 and 5. This was straightforward and did indeed fix the issue. Now that it's reinstalled I'll give the screen and the head unit a clean to get the fingerprints from install off. Good, quick rainy day project 🙂

Finally got things moving with the e30. Fixed the touareg last week, so hired a trailer, rolled the e30 out the garage and down the driveway, loaded it up and took it to the panelbeater. It’ll be there for 2-3 weeks getting the rust hole fixed, the engine bay resprayed and the boot lip area rust will be sorted as well. picked up an engine crane off my mate, and made a start on the m52 refresh. Did the vanos rebuild last night, took a couple attempts to get the bearing preload right but not too bad. Reinstalled that hopefully it all works nicely. so far plan is to replace rear main and it’s housing gasket, sump gasket, valve cover gasket, oil filter housing gasket. Wire tie oil pump nut, delete the oil level sensor from the e34 oil pan, and do fresh oem pcv System. Anything else that’s work doing? Do the front timing covers ever leak? Seems like a bit of a pain to do with it being jammed up under the head gasket.

240,200km Just returned from a school holiday trip down to Nelson. Ticked over 240k on the way and averaged around 10L/100km although it's not exactly a huge amount of km's from Wellington to Nelson but a nice open road drive with some hills and some twisties. Had terrible weather on the way down but lovely on the way home.

As soon as I read this I thought I bet it is NZ new. NZ new cars have some of the most odd decisions for specs. They always seem to be missing something they would have anywhere else. no heated seats, no cruise control, no electric seats, poverty seats in a MSport... it is so common.

Today I also finished up the repainting of the v brace and rear sway bar brackets project. I top coated them a week and a half ago and they've been resting while the enamel fully cured. Today I reinstalled them along with new hardware to match.

Now, is this mod #9, or just an aesthetic "fix"? I don't know but I hate these obnoxious labels... So, some research determined that I have the necessary elements in my garage (and kitchen) already, and some time on my hands, so let's get into it... Rear as well... And after about 90 mins (that included a lot of waiting) I'm happy with the result. I could easily do it in 40 mins or less now, I wasted much time by using IPA that too much alcohol had evaporated from, and I spent too much time fruitlessly trying to get rid of the resulting ghosting/shadows. I don't think you can get rid of the residual shadows, even acetone makes no difference. But it's hardly noticeable, and far less obnoxious, than the bright stickers... and a lot less expensive than buying new ones without stickers! You need IPA that's a least 91%, mine is 100% but I used the residual I had in a spray bottle and that had evaporated to the extent that it did nothing and I was about to walk away from the effort until I tried it straight from the original bottle and that worked fine. The key is to leave it on long enough to dissolve the adhesive without dissolving the actual label (or you'll spend hours picking off the tiny bits).

Hey man, sorry been flat out. I grabbed the set off the white one, they are pretty good condition. The passenger side on the grey one is broken, I'll check the drivers side tomorrow in the light and see what condition that's in, whatever I've got is yours. PM me your address details, I'll get them off to you next week.

I believe this to be the owner, genuine bmw enthusiast and builds cars to a high standard. The s65 swap 1m clone he has built speaks for itself. https://www.instagram.com/_restowen_?igsh=MWI4YmV0d2hkYWd2Yw==