hunter

The Obligatory 'Ring lap,

The BMW Car Club Trip up North was fantastic, with many new twisties to explore at pace. all in all ~18 cars all up. A fair amount of roadwork too, meant that the stones in the hub issue returned twice. I also have some metallic rattle & a grind coming from somewhere on the bottom of the car when it's warm and I'm turning hard left or right and moving slowly (that's when I can hear it) eg pulling into my garage. Jacking the car up yesterday and removing the front wheels I thought I'd solved at least part of the issue when I found 2 tar clad stones stuck between the spring pad ( and right beneath the lowest coil) and the shock in the front suspension, this would account for the grinding noise when manoeuvring, sure enough, removing these and a heap of other stones, mean the grinding noise has gone but the metallic rattle remains. sounds like it's near the back of the engine, but hard to tell with sound bouncing around the garage. Kerry Mosen is going to put it up on his hoist next week and have a decent look for me. ***update*** removing the undertray yesterday revealed not only were ~5 of the 8 or so screws not properly fastened but one of the larger brackets the tray attaches to was about to fall off due to a loose screw. This was repositioned and tightened. the tray was fully installed with all fasteners done up and additional metallic rattles are now gone. However, I will have a small click when steering when the car is hot (well up to temp) and at low speeds can hear what sounds like fragments of something rattling in a cylinde, around the wheel. think stone in an empty tin can if you rolled it slowly on the ground. I suspect stone fragments or something else in the back of the brake hat/hub from where several stones were stuck in there. removing the wheel shows nothing obvious. ***Update 2*** Noise was determined to be a wheel bearing, drivers side failing. Have ordered 2 fronts from https://www.schmiedmann.com/

Car has been very stable after last round of maintenance. a great trip to tokaanu for the BMW car club annual meet up at Braxmere. Aside for a stone that was lodged in the back of the rotor hat for half the trip all was performing perfectly. Off up North this week for the Autumn fling again with the BMW car club. 3 days of northland B road bliss. In project news I’m on the hunt for a single style 66 front wheel.

I am looking for 1 style 66 front wheel from an E39 m sport. 8x17" Et 20 no tire wanted, just the rim does anyone have a spare lying around that is surplus?

try vmr wheels in the states

got one of these in my 530i - lovely wheel

Cheers Martin. i'm really on the fence about 2nd hand ones and doing more polishing but will take a look. wary of hairline cracks and pitting that cant be removed...

New cap working well, car no longer makes odd sucking sounds (now i know what it was) Flush at Coombes was successful and showed no sings of wierd stuff in the coolant. Also purchased some new spot lights, OE quality but not genuine (they are just holders for nice bulbs arefterall) got a pair for 190 ish NZD shipped from Aussie. These replace the pitted and very old exisitng ones, one being non standard and not fitting correctly. Next up maintenance , maintenance maintenance and Xenon Headlights later in the year - considering buying new unless anyone has some very good condition E39 Xenons

Wondering why my car was losing a bit of coolant each month. Not a huge amount but enough to notice a slight drop in the level. Had a peek in the filler tank today with a light, hello o ring what are you doing down there. Lol. New Genuine radiator cap acquired. I can see by comparing the 2 caps my original was actually breaking down, with missing prices of plastic from the lower section. This is how that little o ring fell off. I guess the plastic fragments from the cap are somewhere in the cooling system, or have been flushed when I got a new radiator last year. 🤷‍♂️ to be in the safe side will do a coolant replacement this week.

Got some bits from FCP last week among them is Trans filter kit and new center consol cubby, with roller door. The original roller door fell in to many peices one day when i opened it. Ordering a new OE spec one was easy enough, however when it arrived it was not quite black and had a rubberised coating, different from the original. Thankfully these items are a 3 eice design (chassis, bucket, roller door) and i was able to use the new roller door and buket with the original chassis for a new cubby that doesnt look out of place - some times it's the small wins. and i've some how slighty curbed one of my polished lips, barely noticable, but i know it's there 😐

Looking at these. Seem like fun little cars albeit with some labour heavy maintenance items due to compact design. who has one /had one. What’s good / bad about them. cheers.

Good advice mate. Trade price would be great. Pm me the details. 👍

Cheers mate. have you done the rebuild, what’d it cost? what are symptoms you’ve experienced cat shifts fine most of the time. At times it feels jerky into and out of 3rd. Particularly after the abs module triggering trans fail safe. Not that I drove it far in that mode maybe 2kms to home.

I’m looking at a trans service. Does anyone know of this will fit my car. 2001 530i https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/bmw-auto-trans-filter-kit-zf-24152333915 real OEM points to this part number but the reference to 5hp-19 has me question comparability. 🤔 also what trans oil is best for a car that done 165kms

Todays BMW NZ Car club run was a real goodie. Hamilton to Cambridge the loooong way round.