Vass

Bummer about the axles. Luckily my 330 ones came out alright with a bit of bashing. Wanted to separate the 325 ones from the trailing arms for easier storage but both are absolutely seized in there. Might just end up scrapping them altogether. Good stuff on the driveshaft CV joint. The rear end of mine that I got with the manual conversion was pissing out grease so looked to do the same but upon closer look, the rubber boot had completely crumbled and cracked so no good to reuse. Bummer that you have to get the whole joint as a replacement, pretty spendy one that. You're probably all over it, but just to point out a few uncommon manual bits that often get left out of conversion kits: 223001222894 - 2 of the 4 E14 torx head bolts that connect the gearbox to the engine (the bottom 2) are longer on a manual gearbox than on automatic. My conversion didn't come with those so I had to order a couple off Schmiedmann. People have still used the shorted bolts and they probably work just fine but you don't get full thread engagement. 21521163894 - The rubber grommet for where the clutch hardline goes through the firewall into the engine bay. There's one grommet/sleeve that is attached to the hardline itself but then there's another one that sits in the chassis. 07147140849 - I think that's the right number, can check and confirm later on if needed - the blind plug that blocks out the hole for the old automatic gearshift cable. Can probably make due with whatever but in case you wanted to stick to genuine. 11141734019 - The backing plate that goes between the engine and gearbox. Manual one doesn't have an opening for the torque converter bolts, and another one just under the starter for some unknown purpose. You can just keep the automatic one with the rubber plug but it bugged me for whatever reason. Annoyingly, you can't seem to get these new from anywhere anymore. I got mine used from a fella called Paulo Tavares in Auckland recently. 17111436250 - Plastic plate for the radiator without the openings for the auto box oil cooler. Without it you'd have to crimp off some hoses and make a bit of a mess. 17111437359 - In addition to the previous point, a plug screw to the bottom of the radiator. Auto and manual ones are different length so a passage gets blocked further up on whichever one of them. 17117561757 - Electronic radiator fan to get rid of the clutch fan. Some might be pretty obvious but a few of those I got caught out on myself.

Hahah thanks, I should be fine. Got a pair and also fitted the sender unit (or whatever the second device is the other side of the fuel pump) with a new seal and lock ring so they're both nice and fresh. I did get that wand kit to go with the cavity wax. It is a right long schlong. The garage door was open at times but don't remember it being particularly windy. Seem to have gotten a better hang of it as the job's progressed and the latest welds are looking pretty decent. Made some more progress. Other side chassis rail plate got welded in along with the bottom beam plate and cylindrical bits, all primed and ready for the final plate to go on. I've been conveniently ignoring the rear seat floor area so far. Not too keen on tearing up more seam sealer and cutting up the floor but should really just get it done with, although the touring already has sort of a front beam by default so should be less prone to failures in that area. Also started assembling the front Bilstein B4 shocks with Eibach springs. Got done with the first one, then as I was tightening the top nut I realised I hadn't done the priming by compressing it 3 times... Silly goat. Not sure how much it matters but will take apart again and redo just to be safe.

Have been chipping away at it every evening after work with longer shifts over the weekend. The boot floor panel ended up coming out without much trouble. Got to the final spot weld under the bracket with a file belt sander and it separated pretty easily. Not the prettiest of cuts on the front edge but will tidy it up afterwards. T-shaped bumps cut along and flattened out. Had a bunch of trouble getting the welder to work properly. Not a high-end machine, without a digital display and not a lot of adjustment options so was hard to get it dialed in just right and struggled to get any sort of consistency going. One weld would come out textbook-worthy, next one would randomly start spitting and bubbling up. Wheel arches were the worst ones with bits of underseal being stuck between the two layers of sheet metal that were impossible to scrape out. Ended up switching from 0.8mm to 0.6mm wire which made the task a bit more manageable. Some of the welds definitely came out looking better than others but they all work and will get tidied up prior to paint. Underside welding taken care of, moved over to the topside but only got as far as getting one of the side panels mostly welded in when we ran out of wire, sure enough just 15 minutes after Bunnings' early Sunday night closing time. Also ran out of flappy grinding discs so called it a night. Great to have made some serious progress though, starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. Whilst the welding was going on, I kept myself busy by cleaning up the fuel tank and installing a new fuel pump and filter. Pump was still chugging along but at 20 years old was worth replacing, and a OE Continental/VDO one was reasonably cheap from Spareto. Annoying that it didn't come with an O-ring/seal which I had to get separately and stupidly cost about a quarter of the price of the pump... Also got a pair of new lock rings that were by contrast stupidly cheap. Managed to break off a couple of teeth on the old one when tightening it down the previous time with a screwdriver so used it as an excuse to get a pair of shiny ones. Also got a cheap tightening tool from Aliexpress that works well enough and makes the process a bit less crude. Also chipped away at assembling the new shocks and other new bits to go on. Should be an exciting week ahead, will try and get most of the welding sown up early on and get onto paint & finishing. Can't wait for reassembly.

Cavity wax is a great shout. Just called Spraystore, they've got the 3M stuff in stock, will pop by and pick some up today. Kept tinkering away at it last night, peeled back the sound deadening & seam sealer in the boot floor, luckily looks like that panel ends in front of that bracket and doesn't sneak under it. One annoying thing is that there's a spot weld right under the bracket overhang but I might be able to drill it out through one of the openings in the top of it. Back into it tonight, weld-in-beam mission is all go.

Awesome advice. I have revisited your thread several times to get a grasp of what I'm in for. Ended up going down a somewhat different route though. Asked a few collision repair centers for advice on suppliers, ended up at Spraystore. Laid out what I'm doing, showed photos and told the fella what I'm after. Since it was clear that I'm an absolute novice when it comes to paint and wasn't going to be using a spray gun, he recommended a different solution, so this is what I ended up with. So after welding, 2 coats of this 1K primer, 3M polyurethane seam sealer where it needs it and 2-3 coats of satin enamel brushed on over top. Decided against underseal and will just try add some texture with the seam sealer as you had suggested. Got the enamel top coat mixed to the following code, which seemed a close enough match to the greenish-grey that BMW used from factory so should blend in well enough. Could have definitely gone more hardcore with 2K stuff as you & Eagle had but should do the job still. Would have loved to also go over and redo the whole underside and wheel arches but am getting pressured to vacate the hoist so won't have the time to go all out this time around, will just stick to the affected areas.

Kicked off the subframe reinforcement mission. Jumped at an opening in the rally season to occupy my mate's hoist for a wee while, which makes the task that much easier, although still a bit of a hellish undertaking. Props to all you brave souls that tackle this on jackstands, absolute troopers. A lot more stuff had to come off than I'd anticipated, the whole fuel system seemed like a spider web with endless hoses going everywhere, each one more annoying to get off than the last. Nevertheless, got the underside prepped for welding - plate locations stripped down to bare metal and treated with weld-through primer. Wheel arch joins and RTAB pocket stitch weld areas also cleared from underseal. All looked to have been in good nick, no cracks that I could find in all the usual suspect areas, a few spot welds that looked a bit suspect but none that had obviously popped. Well worth addressing preventatively regardless. A solid weekend's worth of work. One thing I'm undecided on still is how far to go with the topside reinforcing. I did get the weld-in beam to put in but might stop at the chassis rail plates by themselves. The touring boot floor has an extra bracket that makes removing the necessary sheet metal that much less straight forward. Torn between taking the whole bracket out as well or pulling back in scope a bit. During the engine rebuild, I'd been taking every rusty and grimy bolt I got my hands on to the wire wheel on the bench grinder and making them all clean & shiny. Unbeknownst to me, along with the grime and rust I'd also been taking off whatever protective coating they had left so after all of a few months back on the road all of the bolts were now rustier than they had been. I still had a few cans of caliper paint left so have been running a small OCD mission alongside the bigger stuff and tidying up the bolt heads & nuts as well. Can't have any rusty bolts being an eyesore.

Oops

She back! Front seats look standard alcantara though with a rip in the usual place. https://www.trademe.co.nz/4336896479

Yeah hoping to make a start on that possibly next week already. Should be able to occupy a mate's hoist for a few weeks, drop the subframe, weld it all up and throw all new stuff on. Will be racing to get it all done during October - parents are coming over for a visit from Europe in November so would be great to have the car ready in time to take them on a few road trips. Need to still do some product research and find the best place to source a bunch of supplies - weld through primer, seam sealer, paint, underseal spray etc...

Rear subframe and trailing arms mostly sorted, bushes & bearings all pressed in. Solid aluminium subframe mounts from CMP Auto Engineering. Lemförder front diff bushes & Meyle HD rear diff bush. CMP trailing arm spherical ball joints. Lemförder ball joint top & bottoms. F.A.G. wheel bearings.

Weird one that, looked up the kit for the fronts you mentioned on Schmiedmann, says it's ATE in the description but has NK listed as the brand. Not sure what that's about. Almost as if it's saying it's meant for ATE calipers, not that the kit itself is ATE? I used Dupli-Color Sating Black Caliper Paint, on sale from Supercheap. Don't rush into it though, I did have a bit of a mishap with it. About 2 days after paint when putting the seals in, I sprayed the inside of one caliper with brake cleaner that ran out of the bleed nipple opening and dissolved some of the paint on the backside of the caliper... Only a tiny spot so didn't bother me enough to repaint but found it a bit concerning that brake caliper paint wouldn't stand up to brake cleaner. Might be due to the paint not being fully cured yet, the temperatures were in the low 10's overnight around that time so could just be that. I was careful with the rest of them, only spraying cleaner on a rag and cleaning out the insides that way so only the one that got a blemish, but I'll hopefully be able to say more on the paint's longevity in a month's time or so. I'll be sure to report back after the first wash.

Nah couldn't justify coughing up that much for a pile of rubber either. At the time I couldn't find ATE ones anywhere at all so that's one thing I cheaper out on. Got 2 sets each of Topran and A.B.S. brand for around $5 USD each from either RockAuto or Spareto. That would have been well over a year ago now, haven't checked what the prices and availability are at the moment. Topran ones looked dogshit with the outer seal not even having a solid metal backing at the base of it. The A.B.S. ones felt alright so threw those on. Will see how they hold up. Not ideal not being OE but will monitor them and reseal with some better quality parts if they end up causing trouble.

Sorry to keep hijacking your thread, but bloody hell what is going on!? Another one, and this time with a 3L already in it... but with a Getrag behind it by the sounds of it. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/4324282721?utm_source=tmm-savedsearch&utm_medium=email&bof=bpQ8jCuP

Haven't got around to getting one yet. I did get one of those vacuum bleeders but that turned out to be dogshit. Bled the clutch and brakes the old fashion two person way last time around. A set of these is what I got. Look pretty promising, will hopefully live up to it too.

Got onto the 330i brake refurb. All disassembled, I had them vapour blasted by a fellow bimmerhead I'd met, saved a good number of hours on the wire wheel. Gave them an additional scrub and 3 coats of satin black caliper paint. Then threw on new seals, guide pins, rattle clips, OE rubber hoses and a set of speed bleeder valves, as well as Akebono pads (sorry @Olaf, I'll be careful). All tidied up and set aside. Also scrubbed down and major rust off the subframe and control arms, gave it a few coats of rust converter primer and the same satin black paint. Will get onto pressing in the new bushes and bearings next. Front hubs are also now disassembled and awaiting a tidy up.

Well done dude, that's a mighty good effort, nice and quick turnaround. Get a lot of hate these engines but should he a good runner for someone for a good while now that the major weak points got addressed.

Must be something in the air... A factory manual 325ti? Get out of here. NZ new too. That front lip looks pretty sus tho. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/compact/listing/4321158011?bof=6OvHNJsC

The "gets X km to a tank" crowd makes my blood boil. Or, its increasingly popular variant - "rear". Other notable pet peeves are "sort after" and "Manuel" [sic]. Must be a Mexican import. Scary amount of people out there that should have their high school certificates revoked.

Most cost effective way to source a full engine setup I've found is to keep tracking Turners and Manheim damaged car auctions for a suitable one to pop up locally. That way you can be sure you get absolutely everything you need to get it running and neglected is fine since you're rebuilding everything anyway. Take what you need, part out the rest and you might end up with a free engine and a slight profit on top. Some extra hassle for sure but if you're not in an awful hurry then might be worth it. That's how I went about it anyway. Here's a local M54B30 for you. Might not be an ideal candidate with being AWD (I think?) but keep looking and something will pop up. https://manheim.co.nz/damaged-vehicles/000000000006743627/2005-bmw-x3-touring?referringPage=SearchResults

Is that so? Or just not as well documented due to lower popularity and lack of 3L+ engines from factory?

Yeah my bad, keep getting them mixed up. Somehow doesn't look right with the sedan front end, the front and rear just don't match. Actually prefer the bug eyes to go with the shorter rear. Yeah hard to price it I imagine. A lot of work has gone in no doubt but $15k seems a bit optimistic given that you can pick up a manual coupe for roughly the same money. Happened to sit at the lights next to a near identical white 316ti Msport today. Did look pretty sharp, apart from the sagging front bumper. Actually tempted to buy it if I ever see it come up for sale 😁

Here's one for inspiration, built by HellBM some years ago if I'm not mistaken. Looks all sorts of wrong though.. https://www.trademe.co.nz/4316428545 They had a series of videos on this build on youtube as well. Can dig it up if that'd be of any help.

f**k all new cars in general. Soulless crapbuckets.

HPR 5 5w-40 5L $48.49 @ SCA https://www.supercheapauto.co.nz/p/penrite-penrite-hpr-5-engine-oil---5w-40-5-litre/14911.html?cgid=SCN01070403

Wait... what!? 😯