Vass

Yeah makes sense. Definitely on the shopping list. I also went all Lemförder for the bushes and shock mounts and got limiters for the RTAB's. The driveshaft guibo is the one Meyle HD bit I've got. Today's progress report. Managed to get the headers off in the end, some bolts had better access from underneath. A whole bunch of repetitive strain but off they are, annoyingly tedious process that. Arthritis is fun. Bot manifolds now off as well as the VANOS. Just the camshafts and a few coolant pipes left to tackle tomorrow. Might even have time left to retrofit some steering wheel controls on the daily.

Yeah you might be right actually. Was kinda looking for something more pronounced but can make out a wee kink if you look for it. Remember seeing a ShopLifeTV video on it and there the whole tower looked like the surface of the moon. Left side tower actually looks a bit worse. Not sure if it's at a level I should start beomg concerned about. I assume reinforcement plates will settle them out a wee bit?

Yeah they look pretty straight, can't note any deformations. But yeah doesn't sit quite flush. Would be great news if that's the reinforcement plates in there. Nearly tacked a set onto one of the orders but stopped short as it would have taken it over $1k and didn't want to risk duties. Aye cheers, will need to dig into that. Msport height is probably as low as I'd want to go anyway. Did a bit of digging for springs just now but struggling to find any that are specifically Touring ones, and especially Msport as well. RealOEM wouldn't give me proper part numbers either for some reason. Problem for another day. Intake manifold is now off but really struggling for access on the exhaust side, and the bolts I can get to seem pretty stubborn and are at weird angles, so I'm a bit afraid of stripping or breaking the studs. Plus the steering rack and engine mounts are in the way so getting the headers off would have been an exercise in gymnastics anyway. Original plan was to lift the head with the engine still in, just to get it to the machine shop quicker, but don't want to risk any damage so might just go ahead and drop the engine-transmission and take the head off then. Bit more effort but would have to be done eventually anyway. One thing I'm really hoping to avoid is disconnecting the AC system. Probably should have planned ahead and have it drained of gas prior but ohh well. Will have to come up with a way to suspend the compressor and condenser to one side somehow. Really hoping it's doable. Guess I'll find out.

Thanks mate! Would be keen to hear your thoughts on those suspension setups. That's one aspect I haven't touched upon yet but will need a refresh further down the line. Current setup is a bit random, Bilstein B6 on the front with Monroe shocks on the back on what I'm assuming are stock springs. Will see what state those are in once I drop the subframes. Ride quality wasn't great but a whole bunch of bushes were shot as well, original control arms and all so is a combination of factors. Something dodgy going on with the strut mounts too with them not sitting quite flush up against the tower and the dimples broken off for some reason. Already have brand new ones and will be putting on new control arms as well so will see. The donor car also came on a set of Vogtland lowering springs that I might try out at some point. Not sure if how much different the sedan version would be from the touring? Hahah nice, have just made it my soundtrack for the next hour or so of wrenching. Funnily enough, that cover photo also bears an uncanny resemblance to the current state of the paintwork in places.. 🥲

About time I told you something I guess. The 330i daily got its WoF with just a few minor hiccups - one number plate light was dangling off and both the horns were shot so switched those out with replacements from Pick-A-Part and she flew right through. With that sorted, I then proceeded to spend a good few weekends getting her up to standard. Replaced the oil pan, oil filter housing and valve cover gaskets, as well as the noisy alternator and blown engine mounts, and did an electric fan conversion. The interior got a thorough clean too, seats out and all, shampooed the carpets, rubbed off the scratched up rubberized finish on the plastics and cleaned & conditioned the leather seats. Pretty happy she doesn't feel the need to take a huge piss in the middle of the driveway every time you park her up for the night anymore... The garage also got a big cleanup, put in some additional shelving so that all the various parts scattered across the floor are neatly tucked away and you can actually fit a car in to be worked on. Gave the lighting a bit of a spruce up with the sad old pair of halogen bulbs getting replaced with a couple of neat LED light strips so it feels less like a bloody cave. Being able to actually see what the hell you're doing does come in pretty handy. Much better place to be and work in now. With those tangents out the way, finally got to concentrate on good ol' Barbara. Haven't been having much luck trying to find a new cylinder head since the one off the donor engine turned out to be too soft to use. Had a few leads I was chasing that ended up not materialising for various reasons, so finally decided to box on with the head off the current engine. That's been just about the only agenda item this past week. Having stood there for a few weeks since the last drive, Barbara had seemingly gone into hibernation and refused to start up at all now. Endless cranking without any go, so had to call a few mates around to push her up a slight incline into the garage and started digging in. The fatal issue became apparent straight away... Bingo! The coil on cylinder 3, the one that the codes suggested had been misfiring, came out all sorts of discoloured compared to the rest of them, suggesting that had been the culprit. Normally, I'd have been inclined to throw on a brand new set of coils I've already got sitting on the shelf and get her going again, but we're past that point now. Otherwise, all seemed in decent nick. A few minor oil leaks from seemingly the oil pan gasket and rear main seal, the expansion tank had somehow managed to drain itself of coolant at some point, the ICV had gunked itself up completely but overall, nothing catastrophic. Also, seemingly found the cause of an annoying metal rattle I'd been experiencing occasionally. Exhaust is now off, although it was a struggle at times. Managed to squash a few of my fingers trying to overcome a few stubborn studs. 2/4 ain't bad I guess. I've had a few gripes with some of the PO's handiwork but credit where credit is due - that is one bloody clean engine. Out of the 4 M54's I've worked on, this is the highest mileage one, yet is by far the tidiest. Mightily impressed. Almost a shame pulling it apart. Bit OTT on the RTV though. That's about as far as I've gotten to up to now. Most of the auxiliaries are now off, both manifolds are ready to come off, then onto the VANOS, camshafts and the head itself. Plan is to get it into the machine shop early next week, then can continue with dropping the rest of the engine and gearbox and concentrate on a few other tasks. Have received my big packages from Spareto and earlier today from FCP, still waiting on Schmiedmann and RockAuto to come through, as well as a few bits from BMParts, but have most the bits necessary to start reassembling the engine once the head's been given the all clear from the shop guys. Will try and ramp the pace up a bit now. The boxes of shiny new parts are a good motivation.

Ohh deary me 😍 https://www.trademe.co.nz/3663590575

Fun day scavenging at Pick-A-Part today. Pretty chuffed with the boot liner especially, didn't know that was an option for sedans.

Really? Didn't think it was serviceable. Or are those diaphragms now available from somewhere?

Pretty sure the wiring loom and coils are the same as any newer M54 ones, anything after September 2002 I believe. Both my current E46's have the new style plug in coils. You could easily just snip those from Pick-A-Part no issues.

There's currently this slightly crusty one on eBay that looks to be willing to ship to NZ that'd run you around $700. Should still clean up well. Or they're available new from FCP, ECS and Schmiedmann, with the latter being the cheapest at around $1,700 shipped. That's without the plastic covers too so would leave the coils a bit more exposed and look a bit suss. Not something I'm considering dropping that sort of money on any time soon, with far too many other issues in need of addressing first. Cheaper to replace the whole CCV (PCV?) every year or two. But would be interesting to see someone have a go at it.

Also interested. Have low-key been stalking on eBay but haven't come across one that wasn't stupidly expensive. Alternatively, I'm considering getting one of these. Doesn't get rid of the CCV but at least it's a bit more solid being aluminium instead of plastic.

Check out Hyperdrive, they often have some good deals going. PS4's seem to be the top of the range go-to, in terms of value tho not sure if they're the best bang for buck. I'm trying out Dunlop Sport Maxx 50+'s on my 18" set. Haven't gone on the car yet but judging by reviews, seem to be good value, especially at 40% off.

J.Lo in the back, Judith Collins up front

That goddamn front end. f**king why!?

Continued tidying up the daily by making the interior somewhat habitable. Stripped out the seats and gave the carpets and floor mats a good clean with some drill brushes and a Bissell spot cleaner. Some real nasty spills and stains on both but cleaned up rather well. Also gave the leather seats a wee refresh with a deep clean and some moisturiser cream to bring them back to life a bit, as well as ripping out the remnants of some dodgy old aftermarket alarm system that wasn't working anyway. Will get onto destroying my fingertips through stripping the rubberised finish off all the scratched up centre console plastic bits next.

Just got done with the wrenching marathon that was changing the oil pan gasket and some other bits on the daily. What an absolute PITA of a job! Kicked it off Sunday morning, finished 1am that day, continued Monday after work until finally having her back on her wheels at 3am... Even with the subframe dropped down, so little space with all the power steering and trans cooler lines in the way. Quite a few hiccups along the way. The most annoying one being getting the dipstick back in. Cleaned up the oil pan, got the new gasket on, RTV'd the joins on the underside, struggled wiggling the pan in place, started it on a few bolts and then spent half an hour trying to get the right angle for the dipstick to slide into the oil pan with no luck, just too much crap in the way on top. Ended up giving up and dropping the sump back down, cleaning everything up and starting over with the dipstick in place. Bloody frustrating game of tetris. Also changed out the valve cover gasket, oil filter housing gasket, engine mounts and alternator. Probably spent half the time cleaning up all the oil that had caked everything up. Not a perfect job but near impossible to get to everything without taking off the intake, which would have gone well beyond the scope of this mission. After a good 4 hours sleep, set off for work in the morning. Car started up fine but got the ABS and brake lights go off on the dash, as they sometimes do with the wheels off the ground for a while. Drove out onto the street, parked up and tried turning the car off and on only for it not to start again... Flat battery. Ran back home to grab the spare, got her running but from the voltage saw that the alternator wasn't kicking in. Figured the new one must have been faulty. Dammit. Pulled into the driveway and started pulling the intake back apart to put the old noisy one back in, only to discover I'd forgotten to plug the alternator cable back in... Classic 3am brain fog. Hopelessly late, finally set off for work only to hear a clunking noise coming from the front. It then hit me I'd also forgotten to tighten the wheel nuts after I'd dropped the car down from the jack stands... Bloody hell After catching up on lost sleep, tidied up some of the loose ends today so hopefully that's the end of my oil leak dramas for a wee while at least. Thank f**k that's over and done with.

What a stunner! Would love one, maybe in a good 10 years time though. Out of interest, what does the sport mode do, with it being a manual? GLWS

Yeah my bad. All of my e46's have been black so it all just blends together, somehow somehow never noticed that it's just bare shell there. Good effort that, cleaned up really well, must have been a hell of a scrub with years worth of road grime ey.

Came close to widening the garage door whilst almost wrecking the sedan today. Tried to drive the front onto the ramps to give it a quick check-over before going for WoF on Thursday. Decided to chuck some planks under the rear wheels as well to make it a bit easier to slide the jack in. Stupidly, put the planks long ways along the car, so when the wheels hit them, they jumped up and got wedged between the wheels and the backs of the side skirts. Stupidly, tried to get out of the situation by giving it a bit more gas. Even more stupidly, did it with the left foot whilst being halfway out the car to see how far up the ramps I was. So of course the car lurched forward, overshot the ramps and ended up with the nose inside the garage. Luckily, through a combination of hitting the brakes a split second later and by then being beached on top of the ramps, managed to stop just in time before breaking my shin in half. Just a wee dent on the driver's door from hitting the frame and a wee bruise to show for it. Got out only to realise what a lucky bastard I am. Could have been absolute disaster had the wheels been facing even a fraction more to the right. Barely 5mm between the door frame and the fender. Just absolute stupidity on my part all around. Lesson learned with just some minor damage and a wee fright. The paint marks on the door hand polished out quite easily and the door itself was already a bit banged up since before I got the car so an extra wee dent doesn't detract much from the aesthetics anyway. On a positive note, switched out the faulty, crusty old washer pump so she should be all set for WoF. Winning.

Token bimmer at the Canterbury Rally. Ya little beauty.

Are you missing all the fender liners or just took them off for cleaning?

Ahh you beauty! I remember I saw it in Addington some months back, thought I must have seen the badge wrong or something, had to go back and re-check. Glad I wasn't tripping Looked mint.

227,8XXkm Well, looks like Barbara's on her last legs. Showed no signs of trouble coming to work yesterday, on the way home however, the engine felt really rough and sputtery right from the go. Sure enough the yellow engine light soon lit up. Somehow managed to limp home without having to get a tow truck but car is essentially undriveable in its current state and it doesn't seem like a quick & easy fix either. Suspected her to have a vacuum leak somewhere, but now with fuel cutting off as well, it could instead be a fault with the injectors/fuel pump or any number of other issues. With the new engine in the process of being built, it doesn't look like chasing down the issue is worth the hassle, so might be time to park her up and start prepping for the engine swap. Was fun while it lasted. Managed to squeeze a whopping 13,000km out of her in my ownership so far. What a solid return on investment. f**k me. I've been guilty of taking dragging this project along at an overly relaxed pace up to now, was honestly due a good kick up the ass. Unfortunately, a few weeks back I we decided to use up all of my remaining budget on some silly, childish endeavour of getting all the windows double-glazed at home. Something about the cats being cold in the winter and whatnot. Ridiculous. Still a few weeks out now before I can order in the rest of the parts on my shopping list, but do have quite a bit to sort out in the meantime anyway. Long weekend will be fun. Just hoping the new 330i won't need much for its WoF this month, otherwise I'll be left with my pushbike...

Yes.

Damn! That is one clean box. Was just going wild with a brass brush on mine earlier today, 20 years worth of road grime and oil doesn't want to come off too easily. Is this the way you got it or what did you use to clean it? Pressure washer or something?