Arma

Ya. The dent on the door is very subtle - so not a major on that side, but will defo need a repaint. Cheap option would be to get new black trim, do quick dent repair to straighten out the small door dent, and fill paint scratches with filler paint. But when it comes to panel/paint I don't tend to take the cheap option :<

Wow. Not a good start to the day... Tried dodging a van inside a parking lot and skimmed a pole. Guess I need a new left rear door trim, and a repaint. :-( If anyone knows where I might be able to get just a single trim let me know!

Looking specifically for wire that goes to the angel eyes / angel eye connector (unless the whole thing has to go at once). Something seems to be loose or messed up in the wire and, depending on how it moves, my passenger side angel eyes lose power. The wire coming out of the angel eye bulb works fine, but that wire connects to the wire harness via another wire - I think that's where it's messing up. It's probably something DIY'able by opening up the wires and fixing it somewhere but haven't tried.

Some [crappy] pics of the headunit. Currently set the color of it to amber / similar to the rest of the BMW interior lights, but these are changeable to any colour (can make up your rgb values i believe).

Plan to get some up tonight (crappy pics from phone probably). Yeah definitely - can organize a catch up or if I manage to show up to the sunday meet can listen there. Or just come to the damn shisha restaurant/bar in chancery since I'm pretty much there every evening

Haha small world! I do recall seeing an e30 that stood out on the way back, not too far from Ohakune.

Just keeping it for now, in case I put it back in the future for whatever reason. Don't even know what they are worth.

Will try to snap some photos soon. The head unit was about $350 and fitting mould/kit was $60. Had to get about $50 worth of wiring (rca's etc.) on top of that and interface for steering wheel controls ($100).

Awesome!

Finished doing the head unit installation on Friday... and holy hell the sound quality improvement blew me away. Will miss the 16:9 screen but I get too many benefits with this new system to miss the old too much apart from appearance. Installed an Alpine CDE-164EBT unit. Bluetooth pairing with phone and all works awesome - had to dish out my old ipod classic and tested music playback with that and it works very well. Steering wheel controls etc. have all been set up to browse through music, control volume, answer calls. e.g. I can run spotify on the phone and control it with steering wheel. Tested it all during my drive to Ohakune on Fri and back on Sunday - the sound improvements make a big difference on the noisier roads. And I can finally control my soundstream sub levels properly (previous stock setup did not let me do so). An e39 fitting kit was put in so the headunit looks fairly flush with the rest of the console - will put up a photo or two soon.

Due to me wanting to do a manual conversion later on next year, I've decided to swap my current trans out with one from a 2004 330i, with 97000kms. It was more cost effective for the [somewhat] short term. My current trans was pretty much stuffed, rather than the torque converter. Have taken it for a long drive and the new box seems to run well. Only difference I've noticed is it takes maybe 0.5 seconds longer to switch from reverse to gear, or gear to reverse. Let's hope this lasts me a year or preferably longer. :-) I have been thinking of changing the diff in the car, with a higher ratio, but not sure of the downsides of this - need to get some advice. I believe it currently has a 3.46. Other things being done: I got fed up of the CD changer constantly skipping (I've changed it 3 times now with used ones) and the sound quality out of the stock sound system so have decided to have a high quality alpine head-unit installed. Will make sure this is reversible so that I can put the stock system back in if I want to sell the car in the future. The new unit will provide all the usual and then some: USB, ipod, bluetooth, android/iphone integration, works with pandora, can relay facebook notifications etc., and about 100% better sound quality, especially with my current dual subwoofer/amp setup. Hoping to complete that by tomorrow.

Agreed! Would be a goldmine of experience. *jealous*

v. nice for the price. Would be tempting if it were in aucks!

Looks hella clean! The S62's don't really suffer from the same timing chain issues as the 540s do they?

Dibs!

If it costs over $400 (including shipping) then it will be subject to customs tax + duties I believe.

Just realized I have some brand new black e84 grills sitting around, back from when I mistakenly ordered them last year. I should look for people who want to pimp out their X1.

Haven't posted here in a while! Got a few things planned for the near future: Replacing the gearbox this week (previous one's torque converter is stuffed / internal wear - 5th gear slips and sometimes puts car into limp mode). Considered a manual conversion, but decided against that for now and sticking to slushbox! My current trans has brand new filter and gasket, so hopefully can re-use that with some new oil in the replacement box. Who knows.. maybe I'll change my mind in the next couple of days and decide to go manual again. The plan is to take the car in for the gearbox job this Wednesday, hopefully will get sorted in a couple days. I've got a new guibo sitting at home, so might chuck that in for the job as well - been meaning to put that in for a while. Need to replace my handbrake shoes - was too scared to DIY last time and just did the rotors and pads. I already got the new shoes sitting at home gathering dust My pulleys might need to be replaced - at least the idler pulley, the others seem to be ok but I wanna refresh the pulley system anyway (my belts have already been replaced with new ones few months ago). I'd like to repair all curb marks from the wheels - not sure how much this costs per wheel? I just want to machine the lips for each wheel and get rid of curb marks - don't really want repainting for now.

It's around the mileage bracket where the timing chain job is due isn't it? Otherwise, looks pretty tidy

Cool thanks. Just waiting on relevant parties to get back to me so I know that all the parts are available. Will just keep driving with my 4 gears for now until then.. let's hope the trans doesn't fall out while I'm driving. Would it be stupid to put in a used clutch/flywheel?

It must be Dead Slushbox month. Your symptoms are somewhat similar to mine (http://bimmersport.co.nz/topic/53826-e39-trans-failsafe/ ) . And your ambitions are also very similar to mine! But too bad I cant do a 6spd like you can on the 540

Yeah I bet. Ray hasn't got any boxes at the moment, but I think Brent has one. Would need to get new clutch/flywheel though - don't think I want to put in used ones for these. Any idea what common failures of the manual boxes are; there must be some? Do I need an LVV cert for a manual conversion? And is insurance likely to go up a fair bit because of it too? Still making a decision over the course of the week.

Took it to Glenn's (Botany Motorworxx) today - awesome service as usual; explained the ins and outs of what might be wrong. So the fault codes are 049 - Symptom gear check, and 055 - Gear check 5. Haven't encountered any errors since the first time it happened, but those were the codes saved in the system. There weren't any engine fault codes so nothing causing it from that end. Think the torque converter is gone and probably other stuff. Inevitable trans rebuild. Gears still work, i'm just using 1 to 4 and avoiding 5 for now until I get this fixed. Will get it done one way or another, just torn between a manual conversion or rebuild of current trans. The plus side of manual conversion is of course having a manual 530i and all.. but plus side of rebuild is pretty much [almost] a brand new trans with warranty and worry free motoring. Just worried about putting another used gearbox in (for manual conversion) and having it sh*t on me after a few months; and of course any potential electronic headaches that I might encounter after a manual conversion. Decisions decisions...

It's looking awesome Ray!

I certainly hope it's just a matter of low oil level! Yeah this car does have trans oil coolers as far as I know, right behind the radiator / fan shroud. I've had mine taken out when my frontal crash was getting fixed, but not sure whether it's been cleaned. The cooling system has been fully replaced over the last year (except for maybe 1 or 2 hoses that go under/behind the block). If I tried to explain what happens when shifting from 4th to 5th gear in another way: it almost feels like it's shifted all the way down to 1st gear (heavy engine braking) for a second and then shifts to 5th. Downshifts from 5 to 4 feels fine. I'm hoping an error code is saved in the system somewhere - going to go get it scanned and checked out tomorrow. I've had to rebuild the trans for my other e39 around the same mileage as well - not a cheap job. If that's the verdict, I'd have to opt for manual conversion.