Vass

Not an awful lot to report on of late, spent a few weekends fixing up my Swift Sport daily and the missus' Outback so have only tinkered with a few cosmetic bits here and there. Got the AC system degassed, removed the tensioner and cleaned up the mess from the blown up compressor clutch. The AC belt and tensioner didn't look great at first but luckily all the gunk came off by just scraping away at it with a fingernail, the rest just came away mostly in bigger chunks. Will do a refresh on the whole AC system at some point down the line, not before sorting out the subframe and suspension though. Got myself a 3D printed roof rail delete kit from Huggins Racing. Don't see myself putting on a roof box any time soon and just wanted to see what it'd look like without the rails. Does make the car look that wee bit sleeker so will stick with it. Have a spare set of inserts as well that I'm happy to let go if anyone's after one. The state of the paintwork is really starting to eat away at me, the front end being especially horrific. Can't wait to get all the mechanics sorted and start putting money aside for a respray. Noticed a bit of a rarity browsing the interwebs one day - a manual coupe at Pick-A-Part. Not as exciting as it could have been as it came in with the majority of the important bits already stripped off but figured I'd go for a wander anyway, if nothing else then just to see how much more wiring I can cull to get closer to a factory manual. Only manual bits that were left was the hard clutch line running behind the heater core and the pedals - the car had sustained major front end impact and the shell had folded in so much that it basically pinched the pedal box in place. Neither were really worth the hassle of digging them out. What was left behind though was the cluster so I was happy to come away with that. Back when I switched over from a coupe, I did notice the cluster on the sedans and wagons looking a bit dull but took me a while to figure out what the difference was exactly, can really see it side by side. I needed to take the cluster apart again anyway to adjust the needles as mentioned in a previous post so used it as an excuse to switch out the backing plate once again. Meaningless little details but pretty pleased with the new look. Then finally got back to tackling something substantial this week. Ever since the rebuild I've been getting an annoying tick for the first second of a cold start that I couldn't quite pinpoint. Recruited a more knowledgeable mate to have a listen who figured it sounded like lifter tick - likely just a couple not sealing properly, draining out overnight and causing a tick until the oil pressure pumps them back up again. That's one theory anyway. New lifters were already on my to-do list so just bumped it up on the priority list. Actually came out cheaper than what I thought they'd be - a set of 24 OE INA ones came out to under $300 from Spareto. I only remembered them being US$11 on FCP so thought it'd be closer to $600 all up, which put me off at the time. Hoping these fix the issue, otherwise I'll be left with more gremlins to chase. Took the cover off earlier in preparation and it's quite a nice sight to be greeted with.

So timeless! Some awesome shots in there. Both of you present really well

Yeah been watching that but repairing one that's crash damaged to one that's supposedly been in a flood are completely different realms really. Probably not so much hard as stupidly expensive in either case.

Bit of a special one this. Can't see any signs of water ingress and apparently engine still runs as well, wonder what's up with it. https://www.turners.co.nz/Damaged-Vehicles/Damaged-Cars-for-Sale/porsche/911/23509542 And a wee oldie-goldie. https://www.turners.co.nz/Damaged-Vehicles/Damaged-Cars-for-Sale/fiat/850/23500821

Hahah they must be lurking on here, original M3 wheels back on in all the photos.

That vert is back up for sale, through a dealer this time, with some absolute garbage wheels chucked on. Jeezus bloody christ... https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/4060397331?utm_source=tmm-savedsearch&utm_medium=email&bof=efZImCum

With rod bearings and subframe sorted as well, looks well good value. Those front indicators look all sorts of wrong though. I've never noticed it before but was there no M-version of convertible seats? Those look like regular Msport ones.

Yeah it is pretty insane. Could get a perfectly road legal and running M3 for the money just a few years ago. How times have changed...

I remember seeing this video of a one lady owner auto 318i touring being prepped for a conversion that turned out to have cracks and failed spot welds through the floor. Can never really know with these models unfortunately.

The M3 ended up going for $18,700. Is that... good value for money, considering how submerged it looked to have been? The B5 went for "just" $7,200".

I don't think it's particularly clever using a brass plug there. Different materials, different thermal expansion rates and all that. Switched mine over for a stock plastic one from the brass one that came on the car, haven't had any issues in that area.

Ahh my bad, disregard my ramblings. Didn't realise it was that different. Cheers

Wasn't a water pump stupid expensive on these things? That and the HPFP?

Yeah was contemplating a cheeky bid but not unexpectedly it's already gone way beyond what I'd have been comfortable paying. Keen to see what it ends up going for.

On Spareto, when you're on the shopping cart page (after you've entered your shipping details) and click on the shipping price it'll give you a breakdown of shipping price per item. Bigger bulkier stuff will naturally be more expensive to ship but if something looks disproportionally out of whack then you can always shoot them a message and have it rechecked. $500 for shipping does sound a bit ridiculous. Spareto's prices are usually really good but when it comes to bulkier items it might be worth looking at other suppliers, I think FCP for example cap their shipping cost at US$100 or something, so even if the items themselves are a bit more expensive, it might come out cheaper overall. Demon Tweeks is also worth checking out, I ordered some of my stuff from there. As an example, I got 2 rear shocks and one front one (for some reason the price of the front left shock was twice that of a front right one so ordered that one from FCP instead) + Eibach springs, came out to $590 + $265 shipping.

So the dude manual converted it and is now parting it out less than a year later? Wonder what's happened there

Sure did, at $12k already. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/m3/listing/4023486610

Think this was the thread for it. What do you do with a car that you couldn't shift for $40k? Take shittier photos of it and chuck it up for $100k. Brilliant.

Only one way to find out mate 😄 Go for gold

Impressive that they successfully went through the whole compliance process in Germany, they're supposedly notoriously difficult to please over there with any sort of vehicle modifications.

Not sure on the buzzing noise but I'd take care of the steering wheel alignment first, then see if the issue persists. You need to have the steering wheel perfectly straight, then recalibrate the steering angle sensor with INPA/PA Soft, then drive it for a while. I'm only saying that because I had exactly the same lights pop up just recently and the steering wheel misalignment was the cause of the issue. Only happened because I had the steering rack out of the car during an engine swap but in your case it sounds like there might be something bent or misaligned. Sure enough you might be right on the ABS pump being bad but even if you fix that and the steering wheel is still off center then you'll still have those lights popping up.

There's a few other culprits that can set those 3 lights off as well. Is your steering wheel pointing perfectly straight when cruising in a straight line? Mine was offset by just a fraction and those lights kept on popping up intermittently until I got the steering linkage alignment just right. Are you using just a generic scanner? I've got a few specialist softwares set up on my laptop, happy to do a scan for you, might help pinpoint the issue more accurately.

Yeah saw those two, absolute bummer. I know the previous owner of the Alpina, he's pretty bummed, was a very well taken care of car and only sold it a few months ago. Looks to have been well submerged, looks a total loss. Wonder what money the M3 might go for and what of it is salvageable. Could be a good project.

Hot damn, so glad you chucked this on here. I flicked through the channel and stumbled upon my old 325ci! So weird seeing it again, video would have been made not even 2 months after I'd sold it. Loved that thing 🤤

Yeah was a bit toasty that. Had to dry the seat out when I got home...