Vass

Yeah I got all paranoid about threads pulling out of the block reading all the forum posts on the topic but from personal, anecdotal experience, the issue might be a bit overblown. The engine I rebuilt turned out to be overheated at some point, to the extent that the head had gone too soft to use. Even still, the replacement head torqued down just fine and all seems to be ticking over alright a year or so on. I even asked the machine shop whether it's worth timeserting the block preventatively just to play it safe, to which the machinist told me to stop being silly. From what I gather, the safer and less involved preventative solution to the issue would be to use head studs instead of timeserting anyway, but there aren't any budget options out there on that front, M54-specific kits seem to be $400+ US. I guess when the threads pull then the person is more likely to go on a forum to talk about it and look for a solution, whereas for every one time that happens there's 10 that torque down fine and go unreported so you end up with a skewed perception going by the number of forum posts alone. There's always a risk though so I do get your logic, these sorts of projects do have a tendency of snowballing out of control as it is. To add to the anecdotes, I pulled the pistons out of the old B25 block the other week out of curiosity. The engine had 227k km's on it and was known to burn oil with the yellow oil light popping up every few months. Wasn't a pretty sight.

It's getting the pistons back in through the underside that'd be the issue. No even surface to seat the piston ring compressor onto so you'd likely end up doing damage to the rings. Easy enough to mess it up even seating them from the topside.

I'm assuming it's these wee fellas you're talking about? I have a few spare ones, obviously stocked up at some point after that one mishap. Can chuck one in the mail for you tomorrow if you need ✌️

Awesome effort, love the attention to detail. I've had that battery tensioner thing snap on me before as well, remedied by getting a spare one from Pick-A-Part. If I understand correctly which bolt you're talking about, and also if that part is the same on an M3 as a non-M, then you can just get the bolt thing by itself and not the whole cable as you seem to insinuate? I should still have another spare one as well. Post a photo of the exact part that broke, happy to send it your way if that's the one I'm thinking.

Yeah already gone, dropped it off at Pick-A-Part on Wednesday. Hardly anything useful left on it, managed to keep hold of the wheels as well. Rims were well kerbed up and tyres were shot but will try my hand at restoring those at some point.

Just before Christmas I suddenly remembered Barbara wasn't the only BMW I owned... I bought a green 320i parts car well over a year ago and it had been sitting in my mate's paddock ever since. Out of sight, out of mind so I managed to completely forget it existed until finally getting around to putting it out of its misery over the break. Whilst scavenging for parts, I decided to also try my hand at some jobs that I hadn't done before, from smaller stuff like taking off door handles to removing the heater core and the front carpet without cutting it. Naturally, things escalated and I embarked on a learning exercise of removing all of the body loom in one piece - from the boot to the headlights and everything inbetween. I've got a weird idea of "fun"... Anyway, I've not got all the spare bolts, nuts, clips, grommets and brackets I could ever need, as well as snagging a few more bits for ol' Barbara. The rubber surround on the driver's door was ripped and perished in a few places, something I didn't notice straight away but had been annoying me ever since I did. Brand new ones cost stupid money and most used ones will be similarly shagged by this point. Unsurprisingly, the driver's side one on the parts car was no different, but the passenger door one, obviously not getting as much use, was in much better nick. Luckily, both front ones are the same so fit perfectly. Another surprising find was the rear seat sound deadening. The one I had was long perished and only had a few random chunks left of it in a few places. The one in the parts car though - immaculate, all in one piece, no rips or cracks, the fuel pump cutout tabs still intact, as if the rear seat had never been lifted. Gave it a quick wipe and threw it in. Doubt it will make any sort of noticeable difference but does look legit. For the time being anyway.

Is that sales as in number of cars sold or amount of money made? If the latter then not at all surprising with the ballooning prices.

Totally. That's why we should slam big red STOP 3 WATERS stickers all over the backs of our Ford Rangers and continue to let cows sh*t directly into the rivers...

Bloody christ dude, of all the things to whinge about... "the youths are showering too much"!? 😂 Get a grip, seriously.

^ I did. For $48 a jug. Buyah.

It boils my piss how short-sighted and surface level the whole "sustainability" discourse is nowadays. All blame and finger-pointing at the out-group without any deep and systematic analysis. Both sides in this anecdote look to be misdirecting their frustration and missing the greater point. The old fella in this article accusing the youths of hypocrisy, due to them supposedly "demanding" and not being able to live without all these products and services that were introduced to market whilst these youths were literal children and had no influence on anything. The young cashier is misguided in seemingly believing that purely consumer decisions have the power to change anything. As if "green capitalism" is, ever was or ever will be, a thing. If every single person in society owned a tote bag and drank slurpies through a metal straw instead of plastic, we would still be not even an inch further from being completely and utterly f**ked. Bottom line is - the capitalist system is built upon ever-increasing consumption. More consumption = economic growth = good. Less consumption = recession = BAD. You cannot produce anything without creating waste and pollution. By gearing everything towards higher consumption and economic growth the system literally fuels pollution. To at the same time preach any notion of sustainability is extremely disingenuous. So long as the economy needs infinite growth to function, any notion of sustainability is pie in the sky. Either work towards fundamentally changing the fabric of society and decouple the economy from its cancerous addiction to infinite growth, or shut the f**k up about sustainability. You can't have both.

Actually, the last time I was messing with mine, I thought I messed up the tacho needle. It would just flop down seemingly not attached to anything. Not being as well versed in coding it had me quite panicked as I thought I'd messed up the original cluster core and was dreading having to learn to virginise and recode the cluster somehow. Luckily, having I think seen Sreten do something similar in one of the episodes, all I did was take the needle off and give the rod a slight tap or two with a tiny rubber mallet that magically fixed it. Was a bit close for comfort though. Actually, looking at yours again, I think the rings might be aftermarket ones that someone had fitted at some point before you. The ones I've seen have have all been almost flat silver with little to no shine. Yours almost look chrome. Either that or there's several different variants of originals, in which case disregard my ramblings.

Yeah the needles are a pain. Not sure if luck or being super careful but out of about 15-20 I've removed I think only one time I managed to pull one out with the rod attached to it, and that was a sacrificial cluster anyway. Didn't know the whole motors were easy enough to remove though, well done. Aligning the needles is a pain as well. I've had to go back and forth a few times and adjust them, one time had idle RPM's sitting at 500... Your kph needle seems to be sitting a bit low. Although knowing your skillset you can probably just program it to be correct without messing with the physical needle again. Did you actually pry the 330 cluster rings out of the casing? All I did was just use the whole front face of the cluster casing when doing mine. They're all identical anyway so is a straight swap without having to risk braking anything and getting glue involved.

Yeah ran into the same issue, took me a while to figure out what the deal was. Noticed it only happened with larger images but anything up to 2 MB went through without issues so that seems to be the cutoff. I've just been downsizing the resolution prior to posting.

Not to push you into further scope creep, but I'd be tempted to do a full facelift conversion 😏 Shouldn't be too involved, just straight swapping parts unless the headlights are different type (halogen vs xenon). Can get a good quality brand new corner light + fender indicator set from Spareto for roughly $50...

It'll fit but I don't think it'll clip in properly. I had an Msport euro plinth on another car, it also had two clips in behind the front surface that went up into the bumper. Then I had a donor car with a stock bumper euro plinth and that didn't have those extra clips, only clipped into the front and somehow it didn't go in deep enough and didn't feel securely attached. I assumed the stock and Msport plinths are different but could just have been some anecdotal.

I'll dig out what I've got left but that kit looks pretty decent as well. Not sure what that one shaped seal is, I obviously didn't replace it. Could be keen on a few bits, thanks! I'll pm you. Cheers

Ahh nice! An Msport touring parts car is an epic find, especially in the same colour. Will need to snap one up myself if I ever see one but haven't come across any for a few years now despite constantly keeping a lookout. Never seen a touring at the local Pick-A-Part either. Some of the touring-specific bits like the plastic boot trims, hatch surrounds and rear seats could be worth keeping as they're damn hard to come by. The shadowline trims are absolute unobtanium. LF-20's have a tendency of shearing the shaft but LF-30's are supposedly pretty robust. I took mine apart, went to a local seal supplier, sized up all the necessary O-rings, cleaned and resealed it. Not as daunting a task as I originally thought it might be, I think there was 6-7 different O-rings in there. I still have a whole heap left over, I would have gotten several of each size and several size options for each O-ring just to be sure so should be enough for another reseal. You're welcome to grab them on your way back down if you wish.

You drove all the way to Auckland for that? Gotta admire the effort 😄 Looks well good! Don't forget to trim off the bottom edge of the rego plate holder, will tidy it right up, especially on a silver car. Bit jelly of those vents... Mine are all shagged and held together with zip ties. Tempted to get a whole new set along with the arch liners when I've got a good few hundy burning a hole in my pocket. Bloody hard to find used Msport ones in good condition.

Ohh there's this one too that I actually used to own a few years ago: Doesn't seem to tick any of the boxes and has a broken PS pump, apparently. I've got a spare one of those and could help with it if needed. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/888339542901697/?mibextid=dXMIcH

Don't see many e46 tourings going around. There's this one in Christchurch: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3554124221533238/?mibextid=dXMIcH

https://weitzindustries.com/collections/e30/products/e30-front-cut?variant=30288115793995

Is it? Haven't looked at e30's too closely but looks a bit more involved that e46's where it's just held in with a few bolts. Is it riveted/welded/seam sealed in place?

Installed a clutch stop the other day. Tiny little mod but makes gearshifts quicker and less vague. Screwed it all the way in until it bottomed out and didn't need any adjustment beyond that, ended up pretty much spot on. The clutch now starts to engage as soon as you let off the pedal. Good stuff.

Don't see these on there too often. NZ new, later model and looks very tidy apart from the front end damage. Will probably fetch a pretty penny still. Parts car anyone? https://www.turners.co.nz/Damaged-Vehicles/Damaged-Cars-for-Sale/bmw/m325i2/23222393