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Carried a bit more than pictured, but you get the idea. Good cruise to Tokaanu, though National park, Ohakune then Hamilton. Over 2 days.

@GorGasm I’d previously used generic product from Repcacheap, and they seemed kinda citrus. And I had to do it more than once. The Auto Glym, by contrast, seems to have sorted it with just one application, strictly following the instructions. Ive changed over to Auto Glym from Meguiars, it’s better in value (goes further), and looks better. The two cars I washed yesterday were *filthy*. After Auto Glym shampoo, rinse, and Rapid Dry towel they looked nearly as good as last time I waxed them. And in today’s heavy rain, they're beading beautifully. @Young Thrash Driver product is fairly neutral, and airing the car out for ten minutes after the procedure it’s largely gone. Drove it yesterday arvo. This morning, no smell before or after aircon use. Result!

Friday it was decided that the time had come for the long awaited heart transplant. So we began stripping the 2.8 out of the ute and marking all the bits and bobs. I then began striping the 4.4 and marking it's bits and bobs for match up to the ute. Was easiest to drop the entire subframe from both cars as to just swap them over ? the plan for this week is to get the M62 stripped, cleaned and rebuilt, as well as giving the utes engine bay a good clean and tidy up.

This one Handsome Sapphire Black wagon, Factory Msport on staggered style 66's. Falken Azenis FK453s all round, in good shape. Black leather sport interior. Bought it last November, done a bit over 15,000kms since. It's up to 251,000, but the engine certainly shouldn't be an issue... Sunroof, wing mirrors and all manner of bushes and coolant components replaced by a fastidious previous owner. It was listed for 9k when it caught my eye, I'll put it up for 7.5k. Personalized Plates not included. Work done during my ownership All done by Jon at Auto38 New OEM Sachs struts - I bought new air springs too but they weren't installed because the ones in there (replacements themselves) looked fine. Uninstalled air springs will come with the car. Vanos rebuild New tailgate gas struts Engine replacement - sprightly young m54b30 from this unfortunate 330ci - I have done less than 1000kms since it was swapped in, so call it 25,000kms on the engine. It's running very nicely indeed. What's next? The car is in great mechanical order. It doesn't 'need' anything (as of time of writing!). I like the "what would your next wee project be?" question looking at cars though, and for this one it would be: The Giubo is apparently looking a bit dry - just dry, no worse Brake lines at the rear are starting to show their age. Nothing unsafe, just visibly 16 years old Gearbox - hasn't been serviced in my time, nothing in the folder that indicates a recent service. Irritants The sports seats are tidy and work well - except the 'raise' function, which has fallen victim to cable twist. The other functions all work fine. It's a 16 year old car. It presents well, and is in good condition, but there are minor stone marks on the bonnet and brow of the roof, the original windscreen looks as you'd expect, the headlights could do with another polish up. Three of the wheels have some degree of curbing/brake dust tattoo. Driver's airbag replaced as part of the Takata recall. Thanks for looking CJ

Genuine E39 M5 titanline interior trim all round with black vinyl wrapped gear lever over standard wood trim. Also has the ultimate nice fat 3 spoke m sport steering wheel - best version by far.

Not to hand. Started taking pics of the interior then couldn't get the baby seat out, lost my cool and ran out of time - I'll do better when the weather clears. Anything in particular you want a picture of? No interior rattles or squeaks to speak of - the seat belt receivers used to squeak when they were buckled and pulling against the leather bolster of the seat cushion, but I put some adhesive felt on the receivers and it's blissfully silent now. Air con is blissfully and reliably cold. One stripe of the rear window demister is dead, the rest is good.

I'd say if that's a pulley then it's in very bad shape and I wouldn't drive the car until it was replaced least you lose a belt. Pulleys normally give a telltale high-pitched whine long before the bearings fail. Also a pulley noise will change with the revs, does that happen? You can test them yourself by slacking off the belt and spinning them with your fingers to listen for noise and feel smoothness. if you're going to do that you might as well loop the belt off the accessories also (keep a track of routing) and check the alternator, water pump and power steering pump by feel also. If it's not something belt related then I'm sorry but I can't offer any other suggestions.

yep, serpentine belt tensioner most likely suspect!

Sounds like a worn tensioner pulley. Long screw driver placed on tensioner housing with ear attached should confirm. EDIT: Or idler pulley, forgot you have a TU

E34 "M5" with 540iA rego, on throwing stars with half red leather interior outside Takanini Mitre 10 today, had a few ACS goodies on it too. Members?

Hi all just got my 2007 335i wagon Looking forward to discussions re converting all to Eng

Go M52, purely as M50s are long in the tooth now, and I doubt there are that many nice ones lying around wreckers yards. In regards to wiring, there is a UK guy who made me a table of wiring to go between my old oddball E30 323 sport to an M50 for a paypal'd box of beers. Hit me up if you want his email addy, was very helpful with wiring Car X to engine Y.

How was the Auto Glym de-stinker? Noticeably less stinky? I am about to change all my cleaning product to Auto Glym after having decent success with their Ultra Deep Shine polish/wax.

After 3 tries to set the timing right and new spark plugs, i took it for a test drive today, and no problems. Troy came down tonight and put it on the computer and cleared most of the codes, only 2 codes left, passenger airbag and drivers side seatbelt tensioner, and now the cosmetic outside of the car to do. Should be all done by the time I get my licence back. Thanks Troy

The black leather sports seats on this e39 is far superior than “normal” ones. I duno what the difference is but the leather quality and comfort was much better than my old nz new e39 sedan which had the “same” black leather sports seats. So many good things to say about this car. Glws

cage is finished!!!! Homoligation paperwork goes away tomorrow. 330 brakes installed, just waiting on seals and pads to arrive to rebuild them. new suspension installed (xyz topsport) on track rack for its first hit out on the April 17th

sold to @WYZEUP pending payment and pickup

I put Dragon Sports on my Wifes Skoda and its hardly a performance car but the grip was pretty good better than the worn RE003's. They also seem to be hard wearing. BTW where is Ron these days kinda boring not being told what to do all the time.

Doubt it would be a brush issue If pump motor fails to build pressure it will go into neutral and fail to engage any gear usually. The symptoms sounds like it is getting pressure resistence so it does not go up or down (1 and 4) along the travel but it rotates fine. four possibilities by what you have described - gearbox readaptation required as it is struggling to find the correct gear so it is experiencing resistance beyond the maximum value for it to travel up or down (ie north south engagement) but not left or right or vice versa. temperature sensor issue on the smg pump unit - these fail like the rear subframe and if experiencing high temperature you will get temperamental issues with gear engagement. But the programming for this in the module is for it to drop into neutral so unlikely. Third possibility - broken indent spring in the gearbox (one of three but likely one only) - very possible as you described 1st gear and that’s the big indent spring on the top of the gearbox and that breaks all the time. Lastly clutch issue so the clutch isn’t disengaging completely for the gearbox to engage gears - most likely if the clutch is old - most likely failure is the cheap plastic pivot pin on the clutch release fork - when this fails the clutch does not diaengage 100% (more like 60%) with the clutch fully in ... this will result in pressure resistence in the system and cause it to not engage selected gear. My money is on the last one if old clutch. A scan and readaptation will tell you exactly what is wrong.

Very tidy and low kms but its a 335i that will only depreciate in value and get worse in condition as time passes. For me this is a pointless car but for you/your family member this may not be the case. The car itself is NZ new which is nice, a nice rare le mans blue colour, has some nice pretty bits, but also has the 19" wheels that are easily cracked over potholes etc, and because its low mileage probably hasnt had any plastic hoses/pipes replaced but still its 10 years old. You can pick up a reasonable condition 335i coupe for 15-20k these days and still have to spend a few thousand on maintenance etc but at the end of it you havent lost 10k on depreciation. But like I said, if you have the money, and want a tidy low kms exmaple to keep for a long time, then cant really go wrong. Also doesnt have iDrive which could be a good thing because the older ones are useless anyway and can break. just use a phone and a car mount. seriously though, 28k is a huge amount of money for a 10 year old car. You can pick up a F30 335i for not much more and it is heaps more advance in comfort and tech.