Eagle

Flap disc take it back to clean metal, probably need a die grinder, dremel and\or a finger sander for the blower motor area. If its too thin or gone through in areas then get someone to weld some patches in. Brush on 2k epoxy primer, seam sealer where needed. 1k base coat matched to body colour if you dont want to spend on a 2k base coat, probably get away with it since that area is not subject to much wear and UV. Cavity wax back sides of any areas you cant paint if especially if welding. Should be around a few hundred in paint and supplies then whatever welding costs are if needed (maybe a local member etc can do it for cheap).

8-10k sounds about the right for a decent one, they are maintenance money pits. Top one sold recently so someone is flipping it after fixing it. "It's the main thing that really causes concern with this model..."

Installed a Gauge S by Sorek (as seen on M539 restorations awhile back). Originally for the E30 and E36 instrument cluster but he progressed to E46\E39 and now E9X chassis. Pretty handy device which is quite capable of many things like data logging and is very customizable. Best of all it still has the OEM look, doesn't get it the way of anything and is reasonably priced. Pretty quick and easy to install as it just taps into instrument cluster wiring, only complaint was the supplied wires were too short which was a bit annoying and i had to lengthen them (RHD thing maybe). Also Installed and wired in Bosch PST oil pressure\temperature sensor using a modified M14x1.5 banjo bolt. This was much more involved as i had to have factory looking install into existing looms, no wiring cut using home made tee adaptors and all crimped OE terminals\plugs. Wasted a bit time\money finding out how i wanted to do it. but shouldnt even have to touch it again. Sorek has the tables\coded done for this sensor using the extra analog connector so its just a matter of copy pasting some code into the memory. Very cheap way to get this data compared to analog gauges. Thanks to @Vass for sending me a OBD port cover which is required to display K-line data when closed. Im sure he will do a proper write up one day as forgot to take detailed photos of most of it. Pretty straight forward regardless.

Redid the M52>M54 exhaust joins with some E36 M52B28 pipes i spotted at pick a part. E36's pipe uses sightly different bends for one bank and is 1.6mm thick vs 1.2mm cost cutted E46 piping, not ideal again with some filler rod needed in spots but much cleaner and higher quality so than before.

Assuming they would even know (which they very likely would not), I doubt they could deny the claim unless it was caused by something directly related to the swap, much the no WOF situation. Most inspectors wouldn't have a clue if its converted or not and the ones who do dont care as long as everything is OE parts. Stupid technicality which 99% of people dont care about. If you plan on doing other modifications that need a cert then it makes more sense to include it.

If you can remove all the rust down to shiny clean metal then a 2k epoxy and top coat(brush on) is going to give the best long term results. You'd probably need a die grinder etc for those tight spots though.

Not worth 7.5k imo, id say it would have to be priced in the 5-6k region to sell location dependent.

Likely the 228mm. The DMF flywheels are all 240mm so you can go bigger in the unlikely event you need to. Bit hard to tell from the photos but has gone right thru?

Interesting. BMW sure created confusion making multiple different configurations, not sure why they switched they spline count etc for the 5 speeds. Are you going for a 228mm or 240mm clutch? Appears you could have to use a 6 speed 22 spline clutch kit on a 5 speed flywheel to if you want a 240mm.

If thats right then yeah it should work. Not sure how great the clutch flywheel setup is though, not a fan of 'HD' stuff for normal usage.

Hella brand. Probably not as good as Varta, but tend to last longer than your typical Century battery etc.

You can get adaptors to allow you to use a 5 speed flywheel, but 22 spline clutch options are quite limited last time i looked. Probably cheaper to buy another box than a flywheel\clutch combo?, they were about $~500-700 not along ago. The M20 flywheel is going to better and cheaper than most aftermarket options imo. I had mine lightened and balanced with the crank when i rebuilt my old M20B25, it was great with no noticeable added noise.

Yep wrong box, thats late model E46 22 spline. Have to get the common 10 spline one.

Used to be that you would run an M20 clutch kit with the taller E21 323i throw out bearing. Might be other options these days idk. Diff ratio is the same as range the E36\Z3 manual cars, 2.93-3.45. A ~3.15 188 medium case out of a Z3 is a nice ratio and is just about plug and play with maybe some output flange swapping, maybe a bit hard to find one. Otherwise you have to swap gearsets etc over from another 188 diff. Not sure how smaller axles on the 320i hold up behind the M52. 325i used beefier ones.

Down to the use case of the car and budget. From all the dynos ive seen it works well and provides good gains when done along side other breathing mods (ie cams, exhaust, TB's etc) and tuning. Slapping it on a stock engine without tuning results in low-mid range torque loss\flat spot with a minor hp gain in the upper rpm ranges. Personally it think E30's go pretty well with the stock M52 and the money is better spent else where( eg rear adjustable toe\camber) if you dont have an open cheque book.

Probably, not sure who else sells them. They sell the cut down sockets as well if you dont want to make your own. Should be a big metal pipe under the intake which routes a lot of coolant pipes, parts diagram show it whole layout reasonably well. CCV attached to the manifold and has off it 3 pipes - one from valve cover to CCV, one from CCV to oil dipstick for drain, one vacuum line from CCV to FPR. Factory CCV setup should last the life of the car at this point provided decent parts are used and is set and forget. To me a catch can is more hassle in many ways and i never liked the aftermarket look and layout of most setups i see. Preference thing really

Vanos seals are fairly easy with engine on the stand, there's a way do to it by leaving the gear on the cam so no need for timing tools. New CCV valve and pipes couldn't hurt since its all apart.

$1 reserve\low reserve on trademe is the way to go these days, they tend to always fetch a fair price and drum up interest, especially on something better more special. The average car is overpriced for the market, plenty of buyers out there for the right price. Lots of delusional people still trying to sell cars with covid era pricing. Ive seen 3x average 130i auto's sell in a quick time frame for 4-4.5k.

Whoever it was seemed like he really wanted it. Me and @hqstu looked at it along with 2 other people before us according to the seller, buyer was probably one of those. We reckoned you'd spend at least 10k to get it back to a decent standard, namely cosmetics. Shame he left the thing outside for 10 years without care, cost himself lots of money in lost value.

Wasting all the money on a 6k car in a few years is a great way to become the license plate, Ill give him credit for that.

Its just mainly a firmware update isnt it? Probably could do it yourself for way cheaper or find the relevant one on Aliexpress with some work Seems to be a lots of places selling them though. Here's a few i found: https://www.djwwautodiagnostics.co.uk/product/bmw-k-dcan-lead-switch-enhanced-firmware-bimmergeeks-protool-07---23 https://www.bimmertuningtools.com/product/btt-cable/ https://www.chaoscalibrations.com/store/CHAOS-BMW-K-DCAN-INPA-OBD2-USB-Cable-p410327542

Yep. ZF's recommends 80-100,000 or 8 years for normal use, which ever comes first. First drain and fill you drop the pan, inspect, clean magnets etc and change filter and gasket. Depending on how bad the fluid looks you typically do 1-2 more drain and fills to get most of the old fluid out. Buying a 20L container of suitable ATF (eg Penrite ATF FS) is the cheapest way to go.

Transmissions are real weak point in my opinion - Cost of a rebuild is ~5k if it fails bad enough, they can fail suddenly too. They were all the 'lifetime' fluid those days so most didnt get serviced which contributed to the weaknesses. Plenty online about them. Rest is the usual wear and tear and old car problems namely plastics and electrical failures. ABS module is probably the biggest electrical $ item to sort, other stuff isnt usually too bad.

Preventative measure is usually doing the chain tensioner. Its nice having piece of mind with new guides but they can last along time (or not) So nany variables to their longevity which are hard to truly know most of the time. The Non vanos M62 guides seems to hold up better as they ran a cooler t-stat, less cats and no vanos probably help to some degree, smaller sample size though compared to vanos so not going to see\hear about them as much if they fail. Id replace the tensioner and run it. You get plenty of warning when they start to go.

As is id take the M44 over the B20 for sure. Id rather do a M50\M52 conversion on a M20B20, i love the B25 but engine prices seem ridiculous to me for what you are getting. M44 vs M20B25 is a hard choice for me because they got their both strong points. M44 is probably the cheaper option with less maintenance. IMO they are more fun to wind out (in stock'ish form at least) with a light weight flywheel, more modern EFI, DOHC and decent factory headers. Modding support for M20 is greater but both can be made into N\A screamers if you want to dump money into them. Drive a few different ones and im sure you will a better idea though.