Harper

Karbonius

Sold? Man these don't hang around long.

11 hours ago, Navin said:

Beautiful example. That 'start up noise' would not be cheap to rectify I'd imagine

Supposedly a pretty normal S62 thing, just the timing chain tensioner. Probably not too expensive if that's all it is. 

@balancerider 2005 M3! Not many around. 

Vin says SMG maybe was converted.

These are super tempting. I've thought about just grabbing one and immediately doing the bearings diy. It's not that expensive and not that complex of a job. There's no other car you can get with a 5L V10 for that money.

It's a trashy colour too. Why spend all that money to downgrade it from it's factory titanium silver?

Yeah these don't come up often. Seems a reasonable price as well. Won't last long I'm guessing.

38 minutes ago, KwS said:

sh*t i wouldnt go that far. They sound/look good but dont set the world on fire for performance.

In saying that, i enjoyed mine too, despite sinking a bunch of money into it, having it strand me, and then ending up scrapped due to rust.

Bought mine for under $1000, rust free. Owned by an elderly woman for the last 10 years and full service history for that period. Bought some GTA wheels for cheap. Went to a scrapyard where there were a few 156s and came away with bilstein shocks and an aftermarket exhaust for $200. It's treated me very well for what I'm in on it. One day I'll look at dropping a 3L in it in place of the 2.5 but for now it does the job well. 

3 minutes ago, BozzaFC said:

Fantastic work! 
 

Is that 156 yours too?

Good eye. Sure is. Was using it as a daily driver when I had to commute pre-lockdown. V6 Manual, cool little thing and bought it for jelly beans too because they seem to be worth nothing. 

Some cool stuff to add here. New alcantara wheel. Went with royal steering wheels from the UK over someone like Cobywheel cause I don't like the way they just wrap over an original. I wanted to retain OEM thickness etc. The other option was one of the European guys on ebay but half of them can't use the stock grey 9002 alcantara and use 9040 which is much darker. I already have 9002 on the gear/handbrake levers and boots, so matching was important. Not to mention the ebay guys are significantly more expensive. Went with black stitching instead of the tri-colour. Not my thing, and I have black stitching everywhere else. Overall fairly impressed given the price. There is some slight bunching at 9 and 3 on the wheel but pretty good. 

This section in particularly is rough on the cobywheel and was the reason I was looking elsewhere. The cobywheels have loose material hanging off here because they are just wraps. 

Other than that over the last few weeks I have rebuilt some sedan sliders and mounted the recaros on those instead of coupe sliders. Significantly more travel on the passenger side and makes rear seat access better. Unfortunately I fried my phone and lost the photos but I just cleaned them down and painted them gloss black. I also decided I would have a go regluing my A and C pillars which were sagging (again lost the before photos). I had seen people suggest using a glue stick. I was sceptical but figured if it didn't work I would just replace them anyway. To my surprise, it worked super well and they are still holding pretty firm a few weeks later. We will see if they survive the summer. 

Replaced the headlight lenses and removed the angel eyes. Photos don't do justice how much of a difference fresh lenses make. 

Before:

After:

Replaced all the window seals for fresh ones since the old ones were dry and disintegrated, and a fresh center hood grill as well (lost the before shots but they were knackered).

In a happy place with the car for now. Time for a breather. 

10 minutes ago, AlexB said:

Interesting, ill have to find a place that can do the test.

Tbh probably not 100% necessary. Just a decent health check if you already have a k+dcan cable and want to suffer through bad youtube videos on how to use navigate DIS. 

19 minutes ago, AlexB said:

any kind of break in procedure you are aware of for vanos? 

No break in. Just drive the tits off it. 

The beisan instructions are pretty comprehensive, follow them and you should be sweet as. You don't actually need to replace the exhuast hub given yours hasn't critically failed and the tabs are intact. Once the oil pump disc has the new drilled holes there should be no slop between them, but there's no harm in doing it. Given you are replacing the oil pump disc instead of re-drilling your existing one, do the ISTA/DIS test and pressure test as well since the tolerance between the inner surface of the pump disc and shaft are fairly critical in the oil pressure produced. I think that was a problem with the early beisan discs and likely fine by now though. As for the s62 diaphragm springs, I think the idea is that they slightly reduce axial play in the shaft but I wouldn't bother. I used my stock springs and my vanos unit is silent, seems like beisan doesn't even sell them anymore. The bulk of the power loss will have just been from the flattened seals on the vanos pistons, will feel like a new car when you're done. Fresh seals make a big difference to the low end pick up. 

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/m3/listing/3353717177?bof=wv9CbNEb

One of the new mtexture jap imports. I'm guessing he doesn't have the original drivers seat. "It has the CSL competition partial leather and cloth option" lol

3 minutes ago, JBM3 said:

I’m about to sell mine with 220,000km on the clock, I don’t know if it’s going to sell quickly or if the KMs mean that much to a buyer, full service history 05 NZ New M3

 

About to find out!

Yours will be an exciting auction. Not many 05's in NZ. 

Saw this, nice honest stock example. I like topaz but yeah typically not sought after. The spec is meh, sunroof, prefacelift, headlight washers etc. The problem with stock M3s like this is that none of the major issues will have been addressed. Nice car but 80k is getting into 997 C2S money...

^ They are very popular wheels. Lightweight, even their non-forged line are strong and popular for track use. I would probably buy directly from apex if I was getting a set though. 

https://www.apexraceparts.com/

8 hours ago, qube said:

Is it okay to have non folding seats in a coupe?

Depends what you mean by okay haha. Needs to have the rear seat removed to get a cert because rear seat access is probably too difficult to pass. Although imo it's not that bad. 

8 hours ago, qube said:

also whats the deal with no stereo? haha

A previous owner had an aftermarket stereo in it and it was ugly. I pulled it out but the loom had been hacked up. It's fixable and I have a clean oem headunit but I don't often listen to anything when I'm driving so for now there's a factory delete panel. 

Today was a good day...

Seat brackets showed up unexpectedly despite it looking pretty grim yesterday. No tracking updates and they were meant to hold them aside for me when they found them so I could pick them up. Except I noticed a box at my door at about 12 and sure enough...

Everything needs a good clean and a wipe down after installing them but I was too excited and was running out of daylight. Thinking I might build out a small plate to cover the ugly parts of the exposed slider on the side, could help make it look a bit nicer. Have the rear seats and remaining trim pieces all ready to go in tomorrow followed by a good vacuum and clean. 

Driving impressions are unbelievable. By far the biggest improvement so far. The stock seats are horrendous. I found them uncomfortable and not supportive at all. The recaros couldn't be further on the opposite side of the spectrum. Way more comfortable, like I'm bolted to the car. Rear seat is still accessible but definitely not quite as easy as a folding seat. 

Been waiting on my seat brackets for months. Finally available and get shipped, only to get lost by nzcourier on arrival in NZ.

Got told over the phone this morning that as of right now, no one knows where the package is... Nice one

1 minute ago, JohnM575 said:

Who have you used for shipping and what was the approx. shipping cost? Have been thinking about doing the same in order to run 4S's on the standard 18's. 

Tirerack can ship internationally. Email them for a quote. From memory for my PS4S's their shipping was pretty fair, about ~200USD for the set. 

https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/bmw/listing/3290841497?bof=8JeSyhFD

Kickass car. Don't see many E36 wagons around, especially not with the bigger motor. Any guesses on what it will sell for?

Love that interior

There is a big build thread for this car on one of the M5 forums. He's been working on it for a couple years I believe. 

@paulo bunch of m texture cars being imported recently. Seem to be a few of them showing up for sale on the Japanese auction sites.

I imagine more and more M3s will start to get imported as more of them pass the 20 year mark. Hopefully some nicely specced ones.

Get any photos of the interior?

31 minutes ago, m325i said:

I have a mint OEM sunglass tray that I took out 7 years ago to replace with cupholders. Are they worth money? 

The sunglass tray is about 85NZD plus shipping. It's the bottom section that runs at a higher price. Anywhere between 160 - 290NZD. Going off prices from schmiedmann as they seem to be the cheapest for RHD specific parts.