gjm

Removed the window regulator from the rear nearside door of the 320d. Having listed it for sale, the regulator has decided enough is enough. Several little pieces of white plastic which have broken away from the regulator, a wire that doesn't wind properly, and a window that won't close on it's own. <sigh> Oh well. Something else to add to the very long list of tasks completed!

Very nice!

I'm much more a fan of Koni than of Bilstein, but Bilstein are very good too. OE used to be Sachs - don't know if they still are. What is the intended use? Koni produce a kit specifically aimed at road-going drivers who might do a trackday once in a while - the Koni/H&R trackday kit: p/n 1250-1004 Koni.H&R trackday kit.pdf

I can see the guibo on the E36 Ti. WoF'd a couple of days ago, and noted that while OK now it will probably need replacing for the next WoF.

The future really could be electric. For drag racing, at least. A drag race that nobody expected. Watch The Grand Tour now. PrimeVideo.com∕GT.mp4

Aye... The Powerflex kit is good, but race-use bushes aren't want I'm after. Everything seems to be red or yellow (depending on manufacturer or hardness). Still, if we had Japanese cars, the bushes would probably be lime green or purple...

Polybushes. Why are they in such bright colours? What's wrong with black?

WoF'd the E36 318Ti.

I was surprised at the $500k comment too - but have no knowledge of them in the NZ market. Before moving to NZ I was a regular visitor to the Techno Classica at Essen (classic car enthusiasts dream holiday). Z8s there, and this was 7+ years ago, were ticketed at €100k+.

I'll get details of a 318i 4-door auto, if it might be of interest? Not my car, and no affiliation (or benefit to me) but I saw it could be for sale. Edit: Just reviewed your post on Facebook. @Jibs05 has already posted on there - it's his car I was thinking of.

I'll re-read the thread, but what are you doing for EMS? Michael's suggestion of an electric pump, cutting the engine in the event of low oil flow or pressure (pressure ain't everything!) would work.

Probably means no translation was available from the original source. S925A is a 'Dispatch Protection Package' - I suspect this is something (perhaps the white film you sometimes see on new cars on a transporter?) that was applied to the car in order to protect on it's journey from the manufacturing plant to it's destination, which would normally be the first place of registration.

Thanks Nathan. Apologies - interior pics will be tomorrow. (But it is now WoF'd and rego'd.)

I have some spares which will go with the car. Oil filters (I bulk-bought!), trans filter, gasket and bolts (this could be genuine BMW), and... Well, I'll check the E46 320d shelf in the garage.

We're perhaps getting a little better than you are - typically over 600 miles (UK import) before the low fuel light comes on. Stopped checking after a while, but high 5s, low 6s. Bear in mind I do very little sitting in the city driving (although sitting on SH1 is going to have the same effect). The 500SE may go up for sale, but that's not the plan. Yet. Lol ! Once or twice.

I'll sort interior pics tomorrow. Automatic, with tiptronic (I think that's the correct terminology - I'll check). We tracked the cause of non-running to water passing a bulkhead grommet, and collecting on the fuse/relay board. Only found this after removing the dash, suspecting a failed heater element. The heater element was found to be perfect and not leaking at all (I have a new, genuine BMW element in the garage...)

Trip meter reached 875.2km before I put fuel in. And the low fuel light hadn't come on. Bump.

We've made an offer on a house, and probably won't have space for the 4 BMWs and 2 Mercedes in the drive, and the E30 in the garage. (The Cordobarot E36 318i saloon is already for sale.) The 320d has been used very little over the last 12 months - that's why there's been nothing by way of updates on my thread about it. It passed WoF this morning (1st December) so has 12 months WoF, and I have added 3 months rego - now expires 4th Feb 2018. It does have some reasonable mileage under it's wheels - just over 300000 miles. A tiny bit under 500000km. Everything works. I'll check, but I think even the aircon is cold. It is virtually completely stock, as it left the factory. Only changes are that the front downpipe has had the cat removed (by Sinco, in Hamilton - superb piece of work), and a towbar was fitted at some point prior to our ownership - it wasn't there when we bought he car. Original rims, original spare wheel, even the original load bay roller blind / cover. The only thing I'd plan to do, if keeping it, would be to tidy the paint. It does have chips across the leading edge of the bonnet, and there are some other areas which would benefit from attention. No dents or similar. Comes with possibly the biggest pile of history you'll see on a car of this type. Massive detail, going back to before it was imported to NZ from the UK. Tyres are all good condition Michelins. I can continue with more details, but it's all been covered in my project thread: Just to keep things above board, here's a pic: Price... Always tricky. $4000

Hmm. Some aren't great, and some are bad, but... https://thegarage.jalopnik.com/bmw-engines-are-gigantic-pieces-of-sh*t-1784684330 Sensational headline, much?

It's a great colour - more 'interesting than most. That little bit of green in the grey looks good. Good news about the pads. The height at the back is fine, but the Eibach springs may bring it down a little. Pads should help address that.

So, it's a 27 year old car. What does it need? To be used, very little. To be right... Well, the list is not quite endless, but there are many things to be attended to. When we picked it up the service indicator wasn't showing. It came on soon after, but being so far from home and suitable tools meant squashing my oil change OCD and living with the indicator on the dash. The Friday morning in Wellington saw us at chez Andy @_ethrty-Andy_ who despite having a busy morning preparing parts for transport to Taupo, somehow found time to change the oil for us (I was hopelessly incorrectly dressed for under-car crawling). What came out was black - definitely time for a change. Sadly, that well-known mechanic Edward Gorillahands had fitted the oil filter and it proved impossible to change that too. Still, clean oil and an old filter is better than old oil and an old filter. The drive to Taupo via Mana, Palmy and Waiouru wasn't as much fun as the South Island trip had been. Rain. Lots of it... (The weather in the previous 4 days had been beautiful, brilliant sunshine!) What I did notice was that there seemed to be a lack of get-up-and-go: this is a 2.5 litre six - surely it should pull up hills better? OK, it's an automatic, but all the same... Suggestion is that the fuel filter could be blocked (see here) and I just happened to have a genuine BMW filter in the garage (saved from many years ago when we had an E30 320i ) so that was raised towards the top of the to-do list. Once home, another oil change. Removing the filter was a mission... Damn - that had been put on tight! The oil that came out this time wasn't quite as bad, but still pretty black. We'll give it a couple thousand kms and do it again. Power steering felt a bit... Off. Change the fluid in there, too... Once again pretty yuck - a silver-grey colour fluid was replaced by some that is red. On to less maintenance-related items: The rear seat has a split in the top: The drivers seat has the usual outside bolster wear: There's numoerous minor scratches, but most significantly, the passenger door is a different colour: The PO advised that a HiLux had backed into the door, and he'd replaced it with one which was "the same colour"... Close, but not quite. The car is 'Dolphin', and (I'm fairly sure) the door is 'Delphin Grau'. Translation aside, the name and intent is the same but the colours are slightly different. That'll be stripped back and sorted. The rear part of the roof has been replaced (and the rear screen is crystal clear) but doesn't quite meet the front part of the roof. There's no leak, but the two parts don't meet as seamlessly as they should. The clips fastening the rear hood to the roof are secured by aluminium rivets. these are weak and if you over-adjust the clips the rivets break. (Yeah - guess how I know?) I have replaced these with cut-down 4mm pan head bolts, secured with nylock nuts. Modifications? There will be very, very few. I have a set of Eibach springs for an E30 325i coupe that will probably be fitted, but as much for aesthetics as anything else. The front does sit quite high, and it'd be nice to gain a better 'wheel in arch' fit. At the moment it's a little on tip-toes. (Can I get different thicknesses of spring pads? I'll have to check.)

Turns out we have a fairly high-spec car. Being ex-SA it's harder to decode the VIN for options, but things we know: Air conditioning Leather seats 13 button OBC Cruise Control LSD Front foglights Reading some Baur history suggests this is unusual - because of the high cost of having Baur convert a coupe, many were pretty low spec and had cloth seats (for example).

The SA cars are genuine Baurs. ?

Some of y'all will know, others will have seen, but our recent trip to the South Island was to collect a car for Mrs M. A mid-1990 ex-South Africa Baur 325i. We'd had it checked over by a friend in Dunedin and while certainly not perfect, it was substantially a good car, so we flew down and were met at a very sunny Dunedin Airport by the seller. My chance to drive and check over, find a few more things that need sorting, pay some money and start our trip towards home. First stop - Oamaru. On the way up I noticed a quite pronounced shake through the steering wheel, and Beaurepairs in Oamaru found one wheel was 50g (!) out of balance. That'll do it. They also noticed that while we had a matching set of tyres in terms of manufacturer and model, the fronts were a different profile to the rears. While in Oamaru I checked the toolkit: There's something you don't see every day. From Oamaru to Lake Brunner via some scenic roads: And an overnight stop at Moana. Awesome place to stop. Not cheap, but great hospitality, location, food, wine... Aldamere Lodge. After that, it all gets to be a bit of a blur. Lake Brunner to east of Picton via Greymouth, stopping in Greymouth to replace the front tyres with some that were the correct size. Made a noticeable difference. North up the coast towards Westport, stopping at Pancake Rocks, then across south of Nelson to Waikawa Bay where we stayed at the Buccaneer Lodge. Cheap, cheerful, and would go back. Nice scenery for dinner, too. The following day we had a quick tour 'round some wineries and got the boat to Wellington where we stayed with friends, before joining Andy and the southern convoy heading for Taupo and the E30 Megameet.

Changed the fuel filter on Mrs M's car. What a PITA! You can see it, but you can't reach it. It's under the brake fluid reservoir, and the PS reservoir. From underneath, there's only room for one hand, making it difficult to undo Jubilee clips. Having backed off all the clips, and slid them out of the way, then comes the remove the hoses challenge. Top one came off because I could get one hand to the filter, hold the hose and push the filter with two fingers. (It is a one-handed exercise because of space.) The bottom connection is another matter as it's more difficult to get a grip on anything. Having fiddled things around, I was able to work the filter out of the bottom of the car (at which point petrol is pouring out of the filter). Get hold of the hose and "Come on!" "No!" "Come on!" "No!" "Come ON!" "No!" "COME ON!" "NO!... Oh, all right. Have a face full of petrol. " <sigh> Unusually, it's easier to put everything back together than to take apart.