_ethrty-Andy_

Thanks Graham, i am doing a return trip WLG/AKL/WLG next week. Will have car transporter trailer with me too, and could fit a car on both ways (just using it for a few engines and panels etc at this stage) I dont come on the forum much any more, but feel to message me on (oh too sevin, 3079322) Koha appreciated, especially if i'm heading all over the place to pick stuff up!

Yep can do, oh too sevin 3079322. cheers.

Another four months gone by, done a bit to the old girl so thought I better make another post to update the thread! May have posted in here already that I sourced a minty black headliner for it. Any decent E46 headliner is a hard find these days, let alone a non-sunroof, black, Touring one! After sitting on top of my Tech2 E30 in the garage for at least a year, and the original one deciding to come away completely, I had a spare afternoon and got it installed into the car. I have to say, doing a headliner job on a touring is a breeze compared to a sedan, as it flys in and out of the tailgate! I also decided to service the transmission, new filter oil and pan gasket as no idea when those were last done! At the last Wof I got an advisory that the left front shock had very slight misting and to keep an eye one it. I forgot all about it, but the last month or two I have noticed the car a bit bouncy in the front. So I have ordered some Bilstein B4s, and of course tophats and bumpstops as makes sense to do those while in there. I have a set of M Sport springs here, so I think I will put those in place of the original 320d ones and see how that looks and feels. If memory serves correctly, when Graham owned the car, the front control arms and CABs were changed already, so shouldnt have to do anything more for many more miles! Other than that, just keeps going and going, starts first time every time, happy days!

i have a set or two here. oh too sevin 3079322. cheers

Im willing to part with my 320d, but wrong engine and 2.5x your upper km limit... My friend that lives with me has a 325i facelift, just under 200,000, is on E90 Motorsport wheels with good tyres. Black leather sport interior. shes been murmering about selling it, had the trans and radiator both give up which ive since replaced both, it is a good car but you know what some people are like when cars need money, they freak lol. if you want to go any further youll have the message me as i dont come on here much. oh too sevin 3079322. cheers

Recieved rear driveshaft back, both UJs replaced, looks schmiko. Fitted brand new center support bearing, and front half back on, taking note of the paint marks i put on it as it came out. guibo shows no signs of wear so no need to replace, and all back in. also replaced the transmission mounts with some 335i ones inhad lying about while in there. one was a bluetooth mount, the other held up coming up but as soon as on ground and In disturbed it it broke. Have never seen so perished, and they have an ‘01 stamp on them so they have been there right from the start took for a wee drive around the block, its still a diesel so still a tiny hint of vibration, but huge improvement, and no vibration at all under boost any more, so a job well done! Milage update 313950 miles (505254km)

Possibly just experience with whos doing the work. This will be my 4th M52 swap. I havent done an M54 (and wouldnt have taken the job on if thats what was going in). Its hard enough navigating LVVTA certification, learning time is not billable time there is also 20 years of information out there on the M50/M52 swap, which were being put in e30s before the M54 was even launched Rather keep this thread on topic, but feel free to create another thread about it, or even google, im sure there is plenty out there arguing one way or the other.

Also have an M50d F15, picked it up a few months for a song. Have got it remapped by Pramod Parag. Night and day would apply if it wasnt for having all of the go to start with. have done the start stop mod, and remapped the trans at the same. i also have brought an aftermarket transmission pan that is alloy, accomodates an aux temp sensor, and an extra 1.5L of oil. Although the cooler is thermostat controlled, it will decrease the amount they rise if doing a pull up hill with 3 tonnes of trailer on the back, which is what they are made for! also replaced the front grills and mirror caps for black ones, the silver looks naff, like youve got mirrors from another car or something Only thing i dont like about it is the interior colour is tan, which is hard to keep clean with my lifestyle. I prefer black, but ill just have to get used to cleaning the inside more regularly! happy motoring

I remember the listing vividly, it was the same as my house deposit for my first home, and i thought long and hard. dont regret for a second my choice these days tho!

If that includes removal and reinstall, thats a great price. the other option is finding one at a wrecker in good shape (im out of stock). If its not black, VHT spray it, use 2x cans. Ive done that plenty of times tarting up repos and you cannot tell the difference.

Parked up for 3-4 weeks over christmas new year, drove it then for a few weeks. I am doing an M52 conversion on an E30 at the moment and had to drop some parts into the engineer anyway, so have finally got around to removing the driveshaft from thos, it is in with them now. CSB looked to be in decent shape when installed, but on removal did have a tear about 20 degrees around the edge. Quite cheap trade price , and bearing was solid on the DS, and would have been destroyed during replacement of UJs due to heat required. so will be all new going back in which will be nice. saw the collapsed transmission bushes i had forgotten about as well (have mentioned earlier in this thread) , the engine mounts being replaced removed virtually all of the vibration from the car, residual i just put down to being a “self clearanced” diesel, so will do those too when it all goes back in. Guibo looks like a reletively recent replacement (within the last 150,000km anyway!) and shows no sign of wear. will update when its all back in !

Not the worst out there by any means. Id be more than happy driving on those until they wear out if i were you.

just not a mazda diesel. M54 and N52 are both very good. but your little M47 is here waiting. I havent touched it for three weeks. we both know it will bump over first turn and take you all the way back to waipuk. something something devil you know.

ive seen and probably owned more E30s than anyone still on this forum. Unless this car was your great grandmothers hand me down with non-economic value to you, this car will never see the road again. new owner should take it for a $70 wheel alightment at thier corner tyre dealer note the front caster values, that will tell you everything you need to know. its a banana.

Christmas update ! Now at 314,000miles , 505,000km just keeps ticking them up, albeit a bit slower lately. If anyone is interested in being its next owner, im having thoughts about moving it on. I have 5 cars that remain in the fleet (19 BMWs in total at the moment) , probably should get the number down a bit. Needs an enthusiast owner that will keep putting the miles on! Can come on the m parallels with virtually brand new tyres, or on standard e46 wheels. Could do with either paint or a wrap. I havent got to rebuilding the driveshaft yet, but thats the only thing that needs to be done. I havent done it because i have a manual conversion here for it which is diesel specific and could go with it. oh too sevin 3079322

doesnt look to be a lot of interest in keeping this thread alive, never the less, it serves as a good build diary for me in the future, and prehaps the next own if it is ever sold ! had a quiet afternoon around march or so. had some black leather seats from an E53 parts car. The bolt pattern is identical across E38/E39/E46/E53 so spent the afternoon getting these installed. This 320d had poverty pack seats, was surprised to find it wasnt even prewired for electric or heated seats which they usually are. Not too fused about the heated seats, but had to run some wires to make the move/recline etc work, and also swap the seat buckles and pretensioners over I also got an E39 540i motorsport parts car in recently, which had a set of 18" M Parallels which were quickly pinched. The photos make them look tidier than they are, could do with a professional refurb, but look the business! Fitted brand new tyres to make them work (as the E39 tyres were much too big) as well as hubcentric spacers, due to the E39 center bore being slightly larger than all other Exx BMWs for some strange reason! The front work perfectly as is. The rear i had to roll the inner lips of the gaurds in, trim the wheel well liners a but, and delete the front most of the side brackets for the bumper. the rear shocks had visible corosion around the top near the upper mounts, so also replaced those. Sorry to the purists that only fit Bilstein etc, off the shelf items at BNT will do for this car. lowered back down and gave it a drive, no rubbing anywhere. over the past month has done a lot of miles loaded to the brim with gear for the shows Im doing for ACT, and no rubbing anywhere. Great result! forgot i had some BMW plates and found one day in the shed, so fitted those up as well. While it had a pitstop in Hastings last week, Greg at GH Automotive swapped the engine mounts for me. Left side easy peasy, right hand side a bit of a pain with a turbo tucked in there so you need to drop the frame to do it. Also discovered the vaccum hose to the wastegate was disconnected, and hooked that up. turbo whistle instantly sounded WAY better. as the EGR and DPF has been deleted many moons ago, its only the back box doing the heavy lifting. However, with that hooked up, the car would no longer go over 2500rpm. just to test, re-disconnected (is that a word?) and worked perfectly again. freeboosting isnt as much of a concern in diesels as it is petrols, providing the engine is healthy, so thats a good sign! I have ordered a new boost solenoid for it which should solve!

time for another update done 3 more bigger trips, once to Wairou and twice to Hastings, just takes it all in its stride! Second time in Hastings i popped in to see Greg, vibration starting to get pretty bad now and he had a hoist free so lifted it up and spun it up on the hoist, confirmed in the DS UJs, so thats good to know. also noticed the transmission mounts are buggered too so any vibration that is there is going straight into the cabin. Got home and looked up the part number for the driveshaft, it is 320d specific which seemed strange to me since the diff, trans and engine are all geometrically the same as any other automatic 4 cylinder BMW. Have a parts car E46 318i here so measured it up compared to the 320d, all looked the same so pulled it , and then realised the guibo on the 320d is the larger type. realised prefacelift 318i E46 have smaller output flange. thought oh well since my issues is in the rear half, i can just make one shaft up from two, however for whatever reason the slip/spline part is the other way around to the 320d one, so not possible. argh! so still to get that one solved, the easiest is probably to take the car off the road and get the current one rebuilt. another way is i could swap the output shaft on the transmission but not totally sure if that is possible or not, probably end up more hassle figuring it out than its worth! Previously mentioned the fuel gauge on the cluster is also not working right. yet to see a fuel level gauge on the cluster fail on these E46, the senders are much more common on this era BMWs. Brimmed the tank and ran it 500miles (about 800km) till i was satisfied the tank will be pretty much empty. the sender is located inside the tank and a really messy job to do if the tank is full. Removed the seat base, and removed the inspection cover, and right away found the problem! must have had a resident mouse above the fuel tank at some point as newspaper (there is always newspaper!!!) and the wires to the sender chewed. took a loom cutting from the parts car, spliced it into the car and connected up to the gauge, and hey presto gauge is back in business! Lol at doing 800km in the tank and still showing 2/5ths on the gauge! put cover and seat back in, took it round the conrner to brim the tank again, an gauge now is back all the way on full and has been there ever since (about 200km into this tank so far lol) Got a E90 parts car in a while back with the same E90 Motorsport wheels that are on it. all four tyres are different (and mostly bald), just so happens one of the good ones is an RE003 which matches the front on the 320d, so i have decided to break the set and use that wheel as a full size spare to replace the space saver. And finally, had a spare hour so made up and installed a hardwire kit for my Beltronic. really don't need it in this car tbh but a nice little addition so the cigarette lighter cord no longer hangs across the radio! just used the power for the makeup mirror light above the sunvisor. the switch inside the visor itself was buggered anyways, so the light never worked. have been looking out for one for a while, hard to find e46 non-motorsport (and therefore beige) but also high enough spec to actually have the feature. usually there are no lights at all, or its an Msport car with black. so just a cut and splice this time, not my usual way to do it as not easily reversable but im sure life will go on !

havent seen so many E30s for sale for a long time, its sorting out the actual enthusiasts from the speculators, which is well over due in my opinion!

got lifted a few weeks back. CSB is all good. could be the UJ's, so at some stage will pull that and have a look. Accidentally a M47 manual from Ashburton, so that might end up being the solution. cant think of a more fitting 500,000km present to liberate the car., about 8000km to go. no gaurentees it will actually make it into the car tho eh!

Probably about ready then lol

Rubber support

Made it to Hamilton for Fieldays! Trip up from Wellington absolutely flawless, cluster now showing 54.3mpg which is 5.2L/100km in our money. can’t complain with that , and now that it’s had a big outing like that I feel very confident in the car ! Always a bit of a risk after sitting for that amount of time ! Only issue that will need some attention sooner rather than later is I think the center support bearing in driveshaft wants replacement, usual feeling from right where that is, not a very common issue on low power e46 but can happen on higher power and of course manual ones, and ones with nearly 500,000km on the clock !

Down to 47.8 mpg, about 5.5L/100km, pretty good given it’s been on the commuter duty Hutt to Wellington for the last few weeks ! Will be having its first big adventure in 4 years on Monday, driving through to Hamilton. great news that the fuel level sensor appears to be the same part number as both petrol and sedan, despite the tank itself being specific, so should be able to swap it out with one I have here from another e46.

Time for another update , I have far too many cars to keep build diaries for all of them , but since this one has so much history I will make a point of keeping this one up to date ! a beautiful spring day today in the Hutt valley, so off with the passengers front door card and in with a brand new replica. I will be honest I grit my teeth and brought a Chinese knockoff but since it’s the passenger side I’ll take the risk. The kit came more complete than the “quality” ones I have brought in the past for other vehicles , take from that what you will, however I did need to reuse the original motor. Given its rarely the motor that actually packs up on these, I’ll see how this one goes, might be the way forwards on other projects too! Didn’t take pics , all classic BMW owners know how to change a reg these days, as they are a common failure point from the dawn of electric window BMWs to today. i was up at pick a part a few weeks ago to grab some bits for another car, and spotted this MINT windscreen trim up there. Haven’t seen one this mint fitted to a car ever, must have been replaced recently , as the paint was had it, so not a garage kept car. Rubber nice and supple still so I grabbed that for just $9, beats over $300 new! Fitted it up and looking much better ! also while I was up there I found an E90 Motorsport spec with a pair of brand new Firestone Firehawk Sport 01, which is identical to the Bridgestone RE003 of yesteryear. I’m sure I’m on record here saying they are the best bang for buck tyre and I still stand by that, so snatched those up. Only catch was the wheels were painted black. Fitted them up to the front because turn in in a deisel are important things. and painted another good pair with Pirelli all seasons I had here to match. Some may hate the black but I’m frankly indifferent at the best of times , especially on what will be a hack. while the car was in the air, time for an oil change. 4 years since it’s last one. The black as the ace of spades oil would have me worried if it was a petrol, but that’s just another day in the office for a diesel powered vehicle. Afterward I let the pan sit for an hour, and then very slowly drained off the top, to see if there was any contamination in the oil. Not a single metal flake or anything . Blows my mind this car has the Kms it does !! Then fitted new filter and the cabin filter, and filled her up. Never mind the 5L bottle in the photo, I know they take more, topped it up with another jug I opened last week for another job. often forgotten part is reset the service interval, all done. While up in the air I noticed the sump guard as standard on all e46 was missing, so pulled one off another e46 parts car I have here and fitted that, and then dropped the car. The car has also had a knock (not engine related) just on initial start and shut down. I noticed the exhaust (which is basically straight pipe from the turbo back to the rear muffler) was touching what used to be the catalitic converter or DPF support bracket, so removed the bracket and all is well. In ideal world it probably adds 0.01% chassis regitidty if this car was on Forza. In the real world it will make no difference having this fitted or not. next on the job list will be a transmission and diff service. Both are still cherry but would be great to get this car back to a zero base again. Now at 490800 km. (Writing on my phone so photos may be out of order?)

some mixed success today... needed petrol for the mower already, and no parts cars with gas in at the moment. So filled the 320d as well, got 12L in which is pretty crazy for over 300km already on this tank! So leak is ruled out, must be the sender that is faulty. scanned the gauge cluster and turns out there is a sender code there already so there we go! will need further investigation once i do a LOT of kms to burn thru all this diesel! Hopefully not deisel and/or touring specific! and I brought a trade in ladder today, so sent it on its first "job" (never ming the bird dirt on the bumper, an impressive hit i must say)