Top Secret

^^ This. Love it

Nice rims Tidy car mate, keep it that way

Sorry about the slack replies guys, I've only just managed to get some pics. These can easily be used as parts, as all the bolsters and rails still seem to be good. Or if you're baller enough, import a retrimming kit from the states. Note: You HAVE to take everything in the pic, including the ratty grey seat. It's taking up room. Cheers

I sold mine for $550 with ECU and oil cooler, which I thought was a pretty decent price. For $350 I don't think you'd be able to pick up much!

Jeez for $7500 I'd sell mine in a heartbeat! I shudder to think what mine is worth

In reality I should have, but hey, you get attached Went for a wof, failed for a few things including a wheel bearing, power steering leak, brake hose, exhaust leak etc. It should all be sorted by this Saturday and then I'll be cruising Hamilton streets. Thanks for all the comments. I think we should make a Hamilton mega meet? With a cruise somewhere

During the day, in residential and built up areas, I usually keep to the speed limits because a) you usually end up at the same place at the same time and I hate people who speed when there are children and pedestrians about. However, at night, on a long trip where I happen to be the only car on the road, I go at whatever speed I deem to be safe. If it's 120kmh on a long, flat road, then so be it. 120-130kmh when you are the only one on the road is safer than 100kmh on a congested motorway, with slow responding drivers. All other factors being equal, of course

TBH makes me glad I've gotten away with some of the sh*t I have. Sucks to hear. Oh well, Bus life

Pm'd re the carpet.

Need bigger photos, but I like where this is going

E60 M5 sitting at Tyre Master on Glasgow St Tauranga, aptly enough.

Wow. Very tidy! Period-correct BBSs float my boat

Have 1 driver's side blue fabric recaro sports seat, with ripped fabric but the mechanics work perfectly. Comes with rails. Have 1 passenger side leather recaro. It's a bit faded with ripped fabric, but once again the mechanics are still good (from memory). Comes with rails. Along with this, there are random parts like seat backs etc. Will take pics sometime soon to confirm what I have said above, but these would suit recovering or for parts for your broken recaros. Free, but if you were nice and wanted to donate a box of corona, I wouldn't say no. Pickup in Tauranga, or I can *possibly* bring to Hamilton

How long is a piece of string? Depends where you go, quality of workmanship, materials used etc. ~$4000

Thank you all so much for the kind words. It means a lot. Anyway, here is how we DIY refurbished my 3 piece Hartges. Here you can see the state that my Hartges were in. Maybe they were tainted by the primer paint job, who knows. Pitted and corroded, they didn't look good. First step, for three piece wheels anyhow, is to remove all the bolts. Because these were welded where the barrel meets the lip, there was no risk of leaking air. Then, jack up your carcass of a car, and bolt the wheel onto which ever side happens to be in the shade. We used 4th gear, sometimes 5th and just let it idle. Next, depending on how rough your lips were, get some heavy grit sandpaper on them. Mine were quite pitted, so we started with 220. This then goes to 400 wet and dry, then 800 wet and dry. Be careful! I constantly got my knuckles skinned on the spokes by pressing hard, and slipping haha. You then end up with something looking like this: You're not done yet! Get some autosol, put it on a rag, and get to work. 15 minutes per wheel got it looking like that, but you could spend even longer to get a mirror finish. I was happy with what it looked like above. Ok, so I then sanded the wheels with some 220 grit, then 320, and then primered them. After they were primed, give them another scuff up. For our centre colour, I wanted something relatively dark to hide brake dust, but not black as I think it's a bit of a cop out with wheel colours. We mixed together S15 Pewter Grey, random RX7 silver, and Lexus metallic grey and ended up with a pretty sweet colour. Here is the finished product: Word of warning, when you end up spraying the clear, it WILL run. I didn't mind too much, as they are only wheels. If you want to do this properly, get them powder coated.

I dig everything about that.

Ok, where to start. I bought an E30 325i with a blown auto from a Mangawai local who wore singlets and had a big rotor tattoo. That says it all really. Car looked like a piece, but we'd already made the drive up so figured we'd take it. Words can't express how rough it really was. Anyway, we towed it to my flat in Hamilton and left it til April 2010, when I converted it to manual. It got a wof easily enough (once I put in some legal springs, it couldn't even roll properly as it was above), and drove it around looking somewhat rugged. Here's a photo of it with my other E30s (at the time). By this stage I'd replaced so many parts, including an overhaul of the brakes and gradually taking parts from my donor e30. Come the end of the year, I took it to my good friend James's place, where we would strip it and promptly get it painted. Or so we thought. That primer you see ended up being the thickest, gunkiest sh*t ever, and any attempt to get rid of it with 80 grit would end up with clogged disks. So, paint stripper then. First step is to acquire yourself a properly attired helper. Paint stripper isn't a scent I want to smell (or feel) again in a hurry. You do get used to being burnt though. Then, start sploshing the paint stripper on the body, and let it sit for a minute until it started reacting. Now you can scrape off the remains. This pic shows the state of the body we had to work with. Repeat for every panel on the whole car. I didn't find as much bog as I expected. After, we went at the body with a 150mm DA sander with 220grit to get it to a workable surface. Then, we primed it and blocked it back with 320 grit. Almost ready to paint! This would be our paint booth. Lay down the tarps, and make sure to keep them wet in order to minimise the amount of dust that gets moved around. We would paint the door jams, boot jams, sills, and rear valance first. So, remove the doors and get prepping. This pic gives a little indication of the colour. The colour is Radiant Ebony Mica (28W) From a Mazda 6. In dark lighting, it looks almost black. When it gets a bit of sun on it, the gold pearl really shows and it is a deep purple. When I saw the colour I had to have it. Next, the inside of the doors. Acquire helper buddies to help sand and wax and grease remove the inside of the doors. We didn't primer these. Put the doors back on, make sure everything is straight, and into the paint booth it goes! To skip ahead a few steps, here is the semi finished product The tail lights were tinted by mixing in some black with clear, and doing 4 or 5 coats. If only things were as easy as the pics make them out to be. We had 250+ man hours in painting the E30, but much of it was in the small details. The valance, sills, and rear valance usually have a textured finish. We got it completely smooth. The bonnet was an absolute mission which I'm sure James hates me for. I wouldn't trade the learning experience, but my fingers were ruined after months of sanding ). For a ~$1000 paint job I'm very pleased. I'll make a post later showing how we DIY refurbished the pitted and corroded Hartges. It still needs the centres of the bumpers painted, the whole car buffed and polished, runs and orange peel removed etc, but this will happen in the mid year uni break. Hope you all enjoyed my project.

Wow. That's rough His Ronals!!

Are people getting away with the black plates? I'm not in Auckland, so I guess that increases my chances of going undetected.

I like the cut of your jib

Buy each parent a nice place, pay off all their debts. Pay off both sister's debts, buy them a house each as well. Help close friends. Due a huge trans continental European trip in a Aston Martin DBS. Live at Hampton Downs, become skilled, then go into whatever racing series I would qualify for. Then I'd do the usual charity work thing, but I'd want to see the benefits of my work myself. Ideally I'd like to do some micro finance in an impoverished nation. To be honest $34m is beyond my comprehension, I can't even think of how I'd feel.

My old E36 325i was absolutely horrible on gas. As a 17yo, I couldn't afford to drive something that did 14.2L/100km around the city no matter how gently I drove it. My Legacy GT did better!

Haha damn, I did let mine go for a box of Corona last night. Oh well

Can vouch for these. These made my lips so damn shiny.