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Sounds like you have smoked a cone

Rant? I should coco. Here we go. NZTA f^ckwittery at it's best. 2pm on a Friday afternoon... First: SH1, looking from Dragway Road towards Hampton Downs: Absolutely no sign of anyone doing any work, or even the presence of a work-type vehicle, anywhere. Next, from the corner at the end of that straight bit, we can see the vehicle Chris ( @Jacko ) referred to: Yes - it was ablaze with orange flashing lights and arrows. It was also the only vehicle on the road. No sign of a single working person. Finally, the southbound straight that goes past the Hampton Downs exit: Further complete and utter absence of any sign of anyone doing any work during the prolonged drive along that stretch. Just over 4km of traffic cone storage. Which will be there all weekend. Then there is the subsequent 6.3km of further single carriageway... OK. Now factor in an overloaded whanau wagon never exceeding 45km/h along the entire trip. Stereotyping? I would be if it hadn't broken down about 50m short of Paddy Road, in the single carriageway section. I was 5 or 6 vehicles back, and we sat there... After several minutes I, and a couple of other drivers got out to see what was going on and all we could see was a silver Toyota Estima apparently parked in the carriageway ahead. Walking up, another guy knocked on the drivers window. The door opened and then reality ceased to exist. I kid you not. This is the stuff parallel universes are made of. "What's going on?" "It stopped. I don't know why," says the Estima driver. "So you've broken down?" "Yes." "And you're going to sit here?" "We've called for a friend to come and help us. He's on his way from Papakura." {Bear in mind that there is no way on this earth anyone from Papkura is going to get to Hampton Downs when the traffic isn't moving.] We get the bonnet open. Probably the first time in a very, very long time. It stinks of burnt toast. There's no visible water or coolant, no oil showing on the dipstick. "Have you thought of pushing your car to the junction ahead?" "Oh. Could you do that? I'd be ever so grateful." [Complete and utter disbelief from me and other people.] "You have some passengers. Could they help?" "I couldn't ask them to do that. It's raining." [Anyone know how to drive an excavator? There's a few up ahead... I think someone had to be restrained at this stage.] Eventually we persuaded the passengers to leave the vehicle. 7 of them. All huge, overweight and of.... Well, I'll let you guess the origin. I swear the Toyota breathed a sigh of relief and lifted about 5" from it's bump stops. We had to tell the driver to take the vehicle out of gear so we could push it. We didn't have much help from the passengers. The driver of the ute in front of me apologised to the rest of us for not being to get to the Estima, or he (apparently) would have used the bars on the front and shoved it firmly into the excavation trench, driver and all. Not a good start to the weekend.

Slight overdue update! actually not much changed till recently until the clutch started playing up. Couple of correct re-adaptations and resets and it'd be better for a short while then it'd thump away. I knew something mechanical wasn't right with the clutch mechanism, suspected a broken plastic pivot pin. Low and behold it was and a seized flywheel which I didn't plan for!! Just wanted to show how good SMG is on the clutch. Sorry for the crap photo! But in person next to a new clutch plate it was almost as good as new except for the outer wear from uneven release due to the broken pivot pin. Original clutch 177,000km+ never changed! And people don't like smg : P Stupid plastic pivot pin got to love NZ new rust free cars!!

159590kms. Changed cabin filters. Easier than I expected. The iDrive had said they were due to be changed. I picked up Meyle charcoal filter sets as they were cheap. Pretty good, though noted a couple less pleats than the OEM Mann filters that I removed. Now I need to reset the iDrive to tell it I'd done that oil change and cabin filter change. Brake fluid is due.

I was part of that industry for quite a while so I fail to see why you are taking offence. As to just charging labour to fit supplied parts what else would you charge? A few ancillaries like some grease, zip ties etc might be appropriate but if there is no parts costs and its pure fitting then what else? As it stands you have made it quite clear you are not keen on fitting parts other people supply, So I have suggested the OP go somewhere where they dont have this policy. You dont want to do it so that's fine someone else will and as it's not really a BMW specialist job most performance shops will likely have no issues. Oh and the reason I get other people to work on my car sometimes is simple, opportunity cost, what I pay them to do the job is a lot less than I get remunerated to do mine.

I rate gramsci's like stray voltage from the early 2000's, for some reason band seemed to fade away, was a really good album though (particularly turned up to 11)

buy it >> swap out the tiny 3.5l and swap in a 4.4L , job done

Factory E46 M3 suspension- As per the photo. Worked fine , no leaks when removed from car for coilover install. Came out of car around the 115-120 k mark. Central Auckland, pick ups only. $200 ono

I have just ordered some more parts for the 335i. The goal was to get springs with a firmer rate than the stock sport springs and as I have Koni yellows I should be able to match the damping to the spring rate. The springs I went with in the end are made by Tein. I could have gone with H&R sport or Eibach pro's but they have the same rate as the sport springs but with a lower ride height, the Tein's are about 8% stiffer than m3 springs so it's a noticeable increase. Reports are that with good dampers the stiffness is quite liveable. I didn't want to drop the car much lower than it is already and the Tein's would have done that so I was going to bypass them until I did a bit of research and found a way to add some ride height back. At the front I will swap in E30 spring perches and thicker 9mm spring perch pads. this will give me up to 19mm more ride height and overall should be 5-10mm lower than the current sport height, which will be about spot on. It should theoretically give me a little more shock travel as well. At the rear 10mm e30 upper spring pads will keep the rear drop in check. I dont mind a low car but I like to be able to get up driveways, get over speed humps and not smack into gutters all the time so a small decrease was acceptable but I just didn't want the slammed and tucked look. Plus I want the car to handle. As I have been mulling over how to get to this solution I thought I would share this information in case anyone else wants a stiffer setup that maintains a useable ride height. These parts will go in when I do the M3 front arms and hopefully a bigger rear sway bar.

From Euroland's $1 reserve selection Sitting at $2K currently 152KMs Oxford green with tan leather interior NZ New, 2 owners looks very tidy indeed http://www.trademe.co.nz/a.aspx?id=1380802469

Could be a number of things, does the frequency of the tapping increase with the revs? Direct injection injectors tend to be a little noisy if you're not used to it. Could also be the famous wastegate rattle

Looked at it yesterday. Tidy but the 3.5 V8 puts me off. Would almost be better as a 6. I don't like the steering feel in the V8 E39s, the rack and pinion setup in the 6 cyl cars is definitely better. Might have drive of it today.

Haven't driven a 3.5L manual but the couple of autos ive driven were lackbuster, only difference i felt compared to the M54 3L was reduced torque availability. 4.4L would be mandatory unless you dropping in something special.

Remember this band anyone ? Quite dark lyrics in the album but always liked the bass lines.

Got to see them in 2005 in London. Was on my bucket list and I throughly enjoyed it. Have the albums and most of the 12" long plays. "Up on the catwalk "is a regular play in the car Great band from my pov .

If it's so straight forward and you have a video on how to do it. Why can't you then do it your self ?? I find your statement of a professional just charging labour to fit supplied parts at a labour cost only insulting to the professional repairers in our industry.

nice work , yea my nz new m3 smg , 137ks , clutch starting to show its age . have to get onto that at some stage yes agreed on the NZ new cars ,

Agreed! I drive that route every day, the traffic management clowns running that project are hilariously inept, its amazing. When you do see anyone working, its an attenuator truck with its flashing arrow telling you to drive into the river.... I made a formal complaint to NZTA after playing 6am thick fog chicane one morning, Im sure they were having a laugh.

Nothing like a set of considered well thought out replies.

Found this while trawling the internet, not sure if you've seen it, or it's of any value, but it's a pretty thorough detailing of an M70 rebuild, http://bmwe32.masscom.net/sean750/engineRebuildM70/M70rebuild_1.htm

SH1. Pretty much single carriageway from Rangiriri to Pokeno. Roadworks for the expressway... OK. Blocking off one carriageway for a fortnight so they can install metal barriers alongside the carriageway further down (so if you doze off at the wheel, you can bounce back into the traffic, and if you break down, you can't get very far off the road) - ridiculous. Many kms of cones with no sign of anyone working, or even a works vehicle. And then... When you come to the end of the cones (with their 70km speed limit), the speed limit lifts to 100km about 200m further on. So, 2 clear carriageways, a 70km temporary speed limit, and a f^&**G "safety" camera van just before the limit goes up to 100km/h.

It very well could be but I will be getting them certed once i install some coilovers towards the end of the year/early next year before the summer track days i'll be attending. Saying that though, I have done my research to make sure they are of the correct material, are hubcentric and have also used longer wheel bolts to accomodate them. So from a safety point of view, they are 100% safe

there was plenty of great aus bands in that era but most would be too well known to appear on this list Midnight Oil, Icehouse/Flowers, ACDC, Cold Chisel, Inxs, The Angels, Hoodoo Gurus, Noiseworks but maybe these guys

Yeah It was late and they didn't sync to my iPad off my phone. Ive almost finished shimming the cams, every intake and exhaust are exactly the same .22 intake and .33 exhaust

I've found this post very useful on this topic: https://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=561237

You'll need an old (90s) 4:3 laptop with Windows 95, ADS interface and OBD I (20 pin) plug. Best software seems to be INPA/DIS/Carsoft. Lots of info here - just search E31 and/or INPA - https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?233-Diagnostic-Software