Ultrarandom

Power steering fluid, sounds right with the mrs car.

With 15x8 you will need to roll the rear guards and possibly the front also. If the car is lowered you may need front camber plates and about -2.5 to -3 deg camber for the wheels to clear.

FL E30 rear guards are of course a little lower than PFL ones. I still had to roll my PFL ones.

This is my old car with 15x8 +0 wheels with 205/50/15 tyres. You could go stretch. But that's just weak.

Not meaning to go off topic but I swear that is the car I currently own. If it is that brings the total bimmersport owners I am aware of with this car to 6 including myself.

EDIT: Ok after some searching it definitely is the car I own haha.

I feel this speaks for itself.

Handing it off to my mate who works at Waikato engine re-conditioners now to plane the head.

Supercheap wanted to charge me $240 for one bloody bush though! Thought that was pathetic when you can get them imported for maybe $100ish for 2?

Working at supercheap this is moreso the suppliers fault for the same reason that Jason has mentioned in my quote below. Even on my discount for a distributor cap for an E30 it's $225 when I can get one from BMW for 90.

Being at work now I just had a look at our parts system as well and whoever you talked to quoted you the price for a whole control arm, we don't even have listings for the bushes -.- (another problem I've found with the 7 series here but that's another story all together)

I manage a retail car parts store and i am constantly disgusted at the attitudes from some major part suppliers in new zealand.

Most have absolutly no interest in stocking parts for euro cars.

These are wholesalers with staff numbers into the 50s+

They will either fob us off or if they stock parts will charge heaps as they dont sell many... cruel cycle there as they dont sell many due to high prices.

I can look at wholesale cost price excluding gst and already its still much more than importing, including freight.

Some are turning it around, many are expanding their range and lowering prices year after year.

still a while off competing with the big american and euro companies but local parts have the next day advantage on their side

Find the exact same thing here even at Supercheap. They almost don't want to know you. There are still some good suppliers who are keen to help out.

I use the demineralised water you can get from Supercheap or Repco along with a type of coolant from Penrite I ordered in from Supercheap which is BMW approved. It's the 4 year green stuff and has a BMW rating on it but costs a lot less than BMW stuff.

In addition to yesterdays antics I have made more progress onto getting the head ready for removal. Just need the timing belt off now then Ill be away.

Just wondering where people would recommend I go to get the inlet manifold and valve cover for the E30 powder coated? Preferably in or around Hamilton

Or even opinions on painting vs powder coating for both of these items.

EDIT: Would be preferring if they could do something like crinkle black too.

Just going to bed now. Been getting everything off the E30 to do the head gasket.

Down to the timing belt now, so far about 3 hours worth of work on the car. Found the tensioner plate on the power steering belt was stripped to the days also.

Thank you for the laughs. Maybe we should all get ///M badges for $20 off trademe then stick them on every E30 and sell them as M-Tech models.

I know up here we have Gull (Also do E85 here), Mobil (actually 97.5) and BP who all sell it. I find the places by driving around and looking for the blue/purple pump handles.

Swapped out the leaky shock from the Mrs E36 (VTNZ reckon it was a minor leak but that was massive), took about 3 hours to do and mustered up a custom tool to tighten the top nut.

Dietmar (Top Secret) on here works for them so you can flick him a message or give him a call for it.

From what I've heard they are quite a decent company, I however am too young to personally get insurance through them but they definitely have a good rep.

Pretty much everything I can find just mentions the lifetime fill.

Penrite usually do OE replacements for BMW but even they say "Filled for life" so looks mostly like only BMW do the proper stuff.

I feel the fact that the suspension was poorly done and panel damage shows their lack of workmanship, if they can't get some bolts on and avoid denting some panels how can they work on the inside of an engine O.o

personally with Nissans I would stick with STM, St Hi-Tec or one other I can't remember the name of in Auckland (I think it was torque motorsport or something along those lines. one of the guys I work with had an apprenticeship there for tuning and the guy has been doing cars mostly nissans for years)

Cheers for the heads up though and will be sure to let my mates know even though we're up in the tron.

Hope everything works out for you though and you end up with a beast of a car to show for the struggles.

Would've been interesting to see it in the 180sx that I'm guessing the other bidder would have put it in

My girlfriends dad has an Audi 90 which as far as I'm aware is quite similar. The 2.3 |5 for him. The water pump went a while back and he spent some time trying to get a new one for it, parts seem to be rather hard to find but he rarely actually has any problems with it and is overall a decent, solid car.

I personally find they look funny under the bonnet due to the radiator placement haha but don't think 80s have it in the same place.

I'm with Club Auto for the car at the moment (horrid insurance though and won't be with them much longer) which goes based of market price and NAC for the bike (much better than club auto) which also goes based of market value.

Will have a look at the swann as well personally since I have the motorbike as my daily.

same place that diagnosed it maybe?

They said they'd send it off to an engine re-conditioners anyway so was just asking where would be a decent place.

Was mostly wanting to go around and see what other places people thought were good otherwise I will just take it through SD European and let them send it off.

This will be the most likely scenario but as said just seeing where else people have been while I get the money together.

Took my car out to SD European, had Mark take a look at it, head gasket seems to be blown among another few dodgy things.

Where around Hamilton or possibly even Auckland would be the best place to go to get the head gasket replaced on my M20B25.

Here's some pics of them on my car

Someone needs this in an E30

looks like fun!! how do you find out about these events, just so i can keep my eye out for another one

Check the Hampton Downs website.

If people were curious there's another one on this coming Sunday and the next I can see at Hampton is the 28th of July.

Plus the cost of three engineers inspections and re-vin

Ah yes, didn't take note that the write offs get deregd.

Reasonably recent wof on it too though which should suggest the rest of the car is fine but some high mileage on it now I look again, so would say best as a parts car, still comes with an M-Tech 1 wheel, rest of the M-Tech kit and what looks to be a crack free dash.

The main way I've noticed are that on a facelift is the rear arches being inline with the front whereas PFL has a lower rear arch.

Will show my own mrs tonight and see if she'd be interested once she sells her E36 then keep you posed if it hasn't sold by then. would be good for her to have a newer car but there's a possibility she'll be set on a manual.