nick496

While doing the vanos, my valve cover which I'd painted in crinkle black hadn't held up. Got it blasted Casting is pretty crap Ground back the worst bits Got it powder coated. You can see the imperfections, but its a lot better than what it was. While doing that, figured I should get the front subframe done too. Had that blasted, reinforcement plates welded in, and then powdercoated. While doing all that, found that some moisture got around the rubber that holds the front sway bar. Some interesting corrosion there Sway bar was powder coated, and replacement mounts were ordered.

Got a dog. We fit in the touring, and everyone is happy about it Got tailed one night by a random. Pull into a car park and he followed me. Had a good yarn. Turns out he only lives a few blocks away. Decided to do the vanos seals at the start of last year, so ordered all the bits from Beisan Systems, and some cheap timing locking kit from Ebay. Guides all say to set everything to top dead center and lock it in place. Well... that's fine on a stock system, but turns out I couldn't use the crankshaft lock due to my different combo. Having a look online on this, several people said it shouldn't move. So pulled it all apart, couldn't undo the nut and rounded it off. Got a unit from Kerry, and he kindly rattle gunned the nut off. Replaced the seals, and then went to put it all back in.... and what do you know, the crank had moved while doing the work. Not wanting to risk anything, I pulled the motor and did it on the stand. Mmm delicious oil in my intake Back on the stand Cleaning up the parts of burnt on oil. This was done while the wife was out. Boil a pot of water. Place part inside. Add laundry power. When you stop seeing bubbles on the surface, add more. As per the vanos unit above, it cleans parts up really well While taking it apart, broke one of the guides All back together. Built a garden shed (No car parts allowed says the wife)

Tidied things up enough, and went out for a track day at Hampton downs on the Club Circuit Sadly no videos or photos of it in action as I went by myself. Learnt a few things -My 3-4 year old tyres aren't really up to the job -You get thrown around a lot in the stock sports seats -Power isn't everything on the small track. The little 1.8l MX5 fell behind me on the small straights, but was right up my behind every corner. -Brakes weren't up to the challenge Found that after a few runs by brake pedal was feeling a bit spongy, so called it a day. So with that under my belt, I was keen for some more track time. I went along to the E30 Race Series scholarship day to see what racing was all about. Ended up starting the day in a hot lap in an E30, which within a few minutes of the track opening had managed to flip itself in the sand. Fortunately everyone was alright. Cages are there for a reason. After that lovely incident I hopped into an E46 M3 for a hot lap, and tried not to sh*t myself in a car with double the HP. At the end of the day, had a new appreciation for racing, as the guys race very closely. Then the rest of the year was pretty uneventful. Wof guy noted that my exhaust was rubbing on my rear subframe. Tried to tweak the angle a bit, but it's still an issue. My central locking unit decided that it didn't want to talk to my remotes. I found that during this, someone had replaced the drivers door lock with another one, and didn't swap over the tumblers. So meant I had to lock/unlock passengers side until the lock rebuild kit arrived. Had to take out the passengers lock to get the initial key combo (and I took the ignition barrel out for good measure) So with the first 8? (I've forgotten) tumblers matched up to the passenger door lock, I just made up 3 remaining tumblers for the rest of the drivers door lock, as they are used for the deadlock function. Got a key cut to the tumbler codes, and everything worked smoothly (including glovebox), so pretty happy with that.

At the same time as doing the heater core, I thought I might as well do an electric sunroof conversion. I ended up cocking this up quite substantially. I drilled through the holes in not quite the right places, so the motor would only be held in with 2 bolts. I'll be doing this properly later on, but for now you can review my cock ups. So you need the electric motor mount. These are riveted into the copper bracket that houses the wires. I just drilled out the rivet heads. Electric on left, manual on right. I found pretty quickly that the electric motor needs a bit more space, so cut a section out of the copper to match. Now in theory, you are supposed to be able to just bolt the black mount back onto the copper plate, and then just screw in the motor. For whatever reason, this didn't quite work for me. But I thought I had done rather well considering I had the front of the touring headlining hanging down so far during all the work. Ended up just dropping the headlining and removing it. It now lives on my back wall I continued to struggle with this. Ended up rounding out the electric motor gears as I didn't disengage them properly when manually winding it to test the sunroof opened and closed. This is the unit mostly apart And of course some classic sunroof rust. After this I just left the sunroof in place, and there is nothing connected to move it currently. Will come back to this hopefully later this year.

Since I had the car back together, there was no better time to take it apart pretty much the following weekend. I figured coming into winter (2017), I should probably have a heater again. I pulled the dash, and swapped the HVAC system for an AC one in preparation for an AC retrofit, and replaced the heater core with a new unit. I had a PFL and a FL AC HVAC cores. The PFL had a different connector loom, but I was able to use it for spares. Old system looking pretty grotty Took everything apart and gave it a clean Found a few of the flaps had had their tabs broken off. Apparently this is rather common. But fortunately I had some spares Used some draft stopper stuff to replace the old foam. This has actually held up very poorly, so if anyone has some recommendations that would be awesome. Looking nice and clean And back in the car with a new seal

Gosh, it's been 2 years since I last updated this, so there will be a few updates coming in. Since no one ever chimed in to my previous post, I ended up doing a lot of my own guesswork and have made some assumptions since, which will come through in updates over the rest of the year.I finished swapping in the 2nd engine, and vanos was definitely not kicking in properly, as I felt I had lost low down torque, and when holding the accelerator steady, I could feel the car surging just while cruising at 50km/hTo celebrate the car being back together, I put some weaves on and took some photos.

No, mine popped in directly into my chassis, and the rad sat nicely. Maybe I don't have an E36 radiator (It's been a while). Hopefully the car will be in a more assembled state by the end of next weekend and I can get some photos.

I can confirm a second one of those is what you're after for an e36 radiator. I've done that in mine.

After an E36 M3 in Christchurch to test fit some wheels over the E36 M3 brakes. (Or if you have an E30 with the brakes even better) Wheels in question: https://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=2028330607 Looking to go 5 stud on my touring in the near future, and given I currently have ACS wheels, these tickled my fancy. Information on the net is a bit iffy on 16in wheels over E36 M3 brakes, some wheels do fit, but others don't. So looking to test fit before purchasing and getting them up here. I've had a chat to Paul, and as per the comments on TM he's on here to, so hopefully can sort some bimmersport magic and I'll pay for a box of beers to share

Most similar cars are listing around the $18-20k mark. (And is around what I'm insuring my touring for) I'd wager they'd be selling around the $12-15k. What wheels are you certed for?

I'd say hit up your certified and ask. Or you could email lvvta directly, which I have done in the past also.

I'd suggest a Mazda 323 like this https://www.trademe.co.nz/1906062000 Nice and zippy in a 2l manual. Plenty enough fun to drive around, and still practical. Doesn't quite meet the cool criteria. But that one I've linked is yellow, which adds some points for being different.

Is this out of a pre or face-lift? Was it working prior to removal? What conditions are the lines in?

And another update. Looks like someone was keen on the $100

I left mine to gravity bleed for 30 minutes into a tray. Then finished it off with a 2 person bleed. This was after replacing master, slave, line.

I believe the mysterious third line is a breather line that runs from the tank, through the line, to a charcoal canister, into the intake.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm also after a kit in case there is an abundance of them.

I already have enough on my hands... But does it still start with a push? Do you know when the clutch was replaced?

From memory Ray sold his tastefully modified one recently for around 18k (I'm sure someone else has a better memory) which was stroked. That was on there for only a few days.

If they're not sold within a week. I'll be in touch.

I'm not sure if it's the correct spot, but I had mine meet in the middle at the rear.

I believe either is possible. My old 318i was a 1990 and had rear disk brakes though. Surely it's not a hard question to ask?

It will depend on if you have a plastic cap or metal cap on your oil filter housing. I'm not 100%, but I think the plastic housing is the larger internal diameter.

I take it you're wanting to sell complete as opposed to parting?

Right, so I ended up getting around to comparing these with e30 15in basketweaves. In short they don't fit. E30 waffle in Black. E34 waffle in silver. E30 waffle on E34 rim, larger than the hole E34 waffle on E30 rim, center bore of E34 waffle larger, and won't press in. See differences here: E30 on Left with twist to lock, E34 on Right with just a push in See difference in centre widths here