E30 325i Rag-Top

Ahh, I got it. Doh!

I have one in the race car that is only going to get cut up to take some gauges, can give it to Oli to bring down to you on Sunday. How much you thinking of?

Saw the topic and thought you were selling drugs Foxy !! What ratios you got?

Depends on the colour of the crap coming from the exhaust - if it's sat for a while and not been run then it could probably do with a bit of a blow out. Let it idle for 10-15mins then see what is coming out, give it a rev to about 2 - 2,500 rpm and have a look. If there's a lot of smoke & crap take a picture and post it up so we can "analyse" the smoke signals.

How much would you be after for one or two, you can keep the tyres?

Soooooo last season, pffft! Just jealous because Ollie hasn't given me one.Glad to see you are doing the important jobs first Says he who is currently painting the inside of the car to avoid thinking about the engine replacement !

Mine was an old english white Mark III back in the UK, I suspect it was a common fault on Spitfires as the chassis used to rust away in several common places. It was a great way to scare passengers though - I'll bet your old man did it on purpose a few times like I did!

Have found quite a few annoying repairs on cars that I have owned over the years, none so far on either of the BMWs though - both from good homes! Worst one had to be the previous owner of my Triumph Spitfire who had carried out some chassis repairs with a coke can, some bog and lots of underseal. When this inevitably failed it provided some very interesting three-wheel steering suspension movement, it also caused the passenger door to open on sharp right hand bends, causing some very worried looks on un-suspecting passenger. Most of the rest are no worse than some of the things I have done to cars when I know i am going to flick them off soon

A very interesting site and some great photos thanks for posting up the link, I wish my race car was prepared in the same way! Shame about the computer generated translations, they detract from the photos a little. My favourite quote "Two persons attach together."??

I have got some steelies with decent tyres on them going gash if you want them Oli? Think there may only be 3 though!

325i Vert Needs: Tappets adjusting wheel wobble curing (bearing?) seats cleaned front of engine oil leak fixed Wants: all the small nicks and dents fixing to be driven more!

Some seriously awful colour schemes in those photos - goes to show money is no substitute for taste. From when I lived and worked in London most of those types of cars were driven by very young rich foreign students with egos and attitudes to match the size of their wallets. It's noticeable in the pics many of the cars are parked illegally - they just don't care about parking tickets as they either don't pay or it's chump change. It is very funny when they get taken away on the back of a tow truck though espcially as the towies take extra care with such expensive machinery . I remember one cock yelling at the towie as he was lifting his Lambo onto the back "my cars worth more than you'll earn in your life so look after it" I bet that car was VERY carefully lowered into the pound

As Foxy says leave that bit blank for now. Eventually all the paperwork will tie in together, but you have to start somewhere.Once you have your logbook all sorted out you need to apply for an Authority Card from MSNZ which basically is a low volume certificate for the cage, seats, etc. only once you have the Authority Card can you get a WoF. A MSNZ certifier will have to come and have a look at your car before they will issue the card, just to check your cage, seats, belts, etc. they are usually pretty good and can give some useful advice, but book them well in advance as they do it in their spare time and can be pretty busy people (details of who to contact again are on the MSNZ web-site). To get an Authority Card you will need to have a race licence of some sort, easy enough to get a clubsport, just fill in the form on the MSNZ web-site and then send them some money, upgrade to a National later I don't think you can do it at the same time. The cards are only for "proper" race cars which can be driven on the road so you have to show you are a proper racing driver - license, log book, etc. It sounds complicated but once you get it worked out in your mind it all falls in to place.

From my personal viewpoint the strength of the dollar has a lot to do with it, cars from the UK or US are a lot cheaper than the $35k+ that people are asking for the NZ cars. Plus there is a lot more to choose from, and are original LHD not converted to RHD.Plus the fact that times are still pretty hard at the moment for most people with a lot of uncertainty, not many people with that kind of money lying around to spend on what would most likely be a second or third car.

Just a question - has your car got a seperate air-con unit or are you talking about the standard heater and blower unit? You can remove the "air-con" if it is fitted, but you must retain the heater and blower unit for the E30 series(heater can be disconnected from the engine though) to de-mist the screen if required.Heat gun works pretty well on the sound deadening, just wait until it starts to get soft and then move the gun along just in front of the scraper at a steady speed - comes off in big chunks that way. IPA works well on the glue that is left behind afterwards if you are really fussy.

Thanks for linking those Paul, epic stuff.I had just got my car license in those days so I was heavily into the touring cars - the start of my love affair with the E30 M3 (one day.... one day....) after seeing them in the British and European champs. Any word on the potential video to DVD / torrent / file transfers?

An interesting project here... http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2010/06/1...ade-from-stone/ Just one question.. why?

How good is your German, mine is pretty rusty as it's been a few years since I left school. There have been a couple of cars I have found on the web for sale that I have been unable to communicate with the owner properly! Wuld you be a good translator, if I need to know if a kaputten dupplepuffen flippenflappenmuckenspreaden is a big problem? Oh, and if you happen to see any ext-DTM E30 M3s going cheap drop me a PM !

Interesting, I never knew that, how can you tell which is which?

Cage looks good from what I can see in the photos, lots of good side impact protection - PITA to get in and out but useful in an accident! Pre-f/l chrome bumpers ftw! +1 On the blue!

Are you talking about the exact same version of the Focus though Oli? There's only 500 in the world of the ones in the original post - it would seem stange that one dealer NZ would be able to get hold of 5 of them.

Have a good day fella!

It's got a hell of a long way to go before it even comes close to being regarded like the Sierra RS500, you are comparing a limited edition stripes and wheels edition with a Group A homologation race car. The older, proper RS's will always be much more highly regarded than any of the modern RS versions as there is a new one along every 5 minutes. Not a bad car though, as it goes, but for that sort of coin it has got some serious competition...

Loving this definition of "cheap", it obviously varies a lot between a E30 drivers definition and an X5 / CSL driver (no offence chaps) !

Wrong offset mate, otherwise these babies would have been snapped up long ago!As Andy (BMW3) says, check through the regs until you know them inside out otherwise you can get caught out. Right size wheels, 15 x7, but offset must be between ET15 - 25 these are outside that, so a 205/50/15 tyre wouldn't fit either.