Eagle

Good point, they did the same to me to a degree or didn't specify currency, luckily DHL asked for confirmation in my case.

+1 NZAD. Never had any issues on all sorts of BMW and conditions +1 Micks garage if want branded items, probably cheaper

Good find, Eibachs arent cheap to land here. Most aftermarket bars are much bigger than stock especially when going from non msport, I went from a 22.5>27mm in the front and 13<18mm in rear with my Eibachs.

Id say timing chain if i had to guess but the video is a pretty poor regardless. As above it should be easy enough to pin point in person

Took around 30mins, half of that was probably cleaning. $150 at the local dealer here for the main cowl which is a good price and 75mm 2 jaw puller worked well to take the arms off

Finally got around to fitting my Sachs sport strut and ACS spring combo that i had pre-assembled with new hardware, makes the job much more relaxing. The drop is near bang on what i wanted which was said to be slightly lower than Msport springs based on info i could find. Haven't got a wheel alignment yet so no doubt the toe and camber are way out so can't speak for handling yet, I'll be booking one at the dealer since it still needs the airbags checked. Ride quality is much more compliant though coming from the Meyle's, they did handle well but had your typical high pressure gas characteristics. New windscreen cowl and side cowls finally done after 4 years too. Got some cooling system parts to refresh for piece then it will be mostly done mechanically

Sounds about right given the starting price is usually for 3.5-4L of mineral\semi synth and basic filter. They wouldn't get as good $ per L on the premium so its probably priced even higher. Changing oil\basic service is the easiest money around for workshops.

Ive never seen a E39 540i manual conversion kit in my life, you usually have to buy the whole car. Once you got the box you can adapt the rest, they do come up now and again or just import one like most do

Yes, straight forward and a fairly quick job on a hoist. While everything is off its usually a good idea to do rear engine seal, transmission seals and driveshaft parts if they need doing or are on their way out, saves money down the line if you are keeping the car for awhile.

Rebuild could be expensive but depends on what has actually failed and how far you rebuild it. A good second hand unit with new fluid\filter and probably a rebuilt torque converter is what id do. Jon @ Auto38 is recommended by many Wellington members here.

SCA been sh*t for ages, its the usual retail strat of starting off cheap and slowly ramp prices up. Repco is better and cheaper now for bits and pieces. I generally buy tools here in NZ as they arent too badly priced for common stuff and we get decent range. Car parts are the opposite.

Engagement point was just off the floor, clutch disc was starting to glaze at 10,000km from having to ride it to avoid stalling. I believe the taller E21 323i etc release bearing (15mm taller than std M20 one iirc) is the correct option to use to for correct pedal position. PO cut costs out\or was mislead and put a M20 setup in a E39 528i which is wrong on many levels, i just wanted the gearbox etc anyway. I sold the whole setup there was no way i was using a M20 clutch with M54 in a E39.

Problem with V1's is you can't disable certain frequency ranges within the bands like most of the good newer ones. Turning K band off (and X band which you probably have off anyway) will probably help since many assistance system run on that, you will loose camera van detection though. Different brands\model have better or worse filtering signals like these but given car manufacturers use all sort of frequencies so its hard to block them all. Given we only dealing a few radar frequencies and laser here in NZ its easiest just to only enable what bands\frequencies are required and disable everything else.

Depends on what required i suppose. My old M20 setup was fine apart from the installer using the wrong release bearing causing poor pedal engagement, i did want to put much more power thru it than the stock M52 2.8L it was on so i went with the E46 M3 dual mass and M54 clutch setup to support the 3L. Ive never had any chatter from BMW factory single mass flywheels on any car and the car drove way better than it does now as it didnt have a self adjusting clutch (which i cant wait to wear out)

All ZF's are essentialy the same. Both boxes can be used with any flywheel\clutch but i wouldnt use a std m20 clutch behind a 3.0l, m20 flywheel is only 220 vs 240 factory spec for M5x engines. ZF driveshaft is different, maybe the cross member I can't recall.

+1 Mosen Europarts

I switched to the Penrite 7 year stuff which Repco and SCA stock, has BMW approval and far better priced than the BMW stuff (least in Hamilton). You'd want to flush all the old BMW coolant out though.

Yeah there cant be many places it could go

Throttle body probably normal given its DBW, once its energized it probably changes. Earth likely onto a post around the coil secured by a nut or onto top of a bolt with threads in.

Could write an essay about all that but it would be preaching to the choir, DYOR and check yourself before you wreck yourself sums it up. If he's still on the original tank of petrol the car came with then fair enough. Good majority of hack jobs are done because the customers wants the car back ASAP and wants to spend as little of possible. Id say most mechanics like using new parts and its easier and less change of call backs. You get many uses out of them and they provide the right amount of feel with protection. They only really fail when they get ripped on sharp connector plugs, corners etc

Haha same as what i did with my M covers when i swapped them. I forgot i even did it until i was cleaning one day. I agree but having done least half a dozen sets using that method i still say f**k you Hella every time i do them. I wish the Xenons worked as well as they looked.

Reads like something he came up with in a dream. Never mind the fact that BMW produced a sh*t tonne of them. He should be buying, financing, selling assets and buying to buy all the M3's he can get his hands on. Tripling your money in 3 years, cant pass that up.

So just another baller on a budget special

Direct auto dismantlers in Rotorua had some a couple of months back if you get desperate. They were in reasonable condition but needed all seat adjusters repaired for twisting, wanted like $500 but i wasn't that desperate for them and cbf fixing them at the time.

Put your last 7 digits on your chassis number into http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog that will give you a list of part numbers required. Its probably easier and cheaper to buy a complete new head or maybe engine if you just want to fix it. They shouldn't be that expensive or hard to get (least they didn't used to be, i dont keep track of prices tbh) Given yours in an 1982 and the change over year you need to see if it was built before or after Sept '82 to verify the later heads are compatible. I dont know what if any difference there is in the earlier blocks and heads (<9.82) compared to later ones (>9.82) but others here probably know. All M20 engines are timing belt M20 based stuff is fairly interchangable and you can fix and match most the parts so you can upgrade the fuel injection to later motronic injection, put bigger engine 2.5 or 2.7L engine in etc etc, depends on how far you want to go and much you want to spend.