m42b32

131,050


Well, my time with this car has come to an end. What a wonderful car and one I’ll truly miss, but it was time. It sat nearly all summer and was just getting to be a pain to maintain on top of the truck, e30, and e91. It went to a local guy who was looking for a neat older car to learn to wrench on, so I think it’ll suit him well. It remains the quietest, most solidly built car I’ve ever owned, it was seriously a tank. Hung the tail out in the snow pretty impressively too.

Replaced the blower motor before I sold it, and sent two sets of wheels and most of my e34 spares along as well. I’m excited to have the space back, one less project, and to be able to focus more on the E91 and E30. I still have the MOMO Heritage 6’s and the m-systems, if anyone was wondering haha. MOMO’s will be listed as soon as I wash them, and the M-Systems will hopefully get their restoration completed once the e30 is back on the road. 
 
Farewell to the E34 club, it’s been a good ride!
 
 

Yup!!

Yup!!

I've been delinquent, sorry Chris! Chris hand delivered my gift the day before Christmas (in the dense fog no less), very appreciated and the gift is awesome!!

 
Super excited to get this hanging up in the house and the stickers will go very nicely on the workbench cabinets I'm putting up in the garage!

Update: looks like hit also weakened the front subframe.  The potholes in downtown MKE yesterday were enough to finish the job.  On the way home car started making unhappy noises, including the fan rubbing on the fan shroud. Turns out the front subframe is cracked and the passenger-side motor mount is now sitting on the steering rack. I think we are done.  😞

Project car for sale/parts time. I’ll post with details in a few days. 

Sorry guys I dropped my balls on this one. If I can jump in this I'd love to be involved.
Here's a picture of my daughter's BMW

Would everyone be ok with using DrawNames.com for secret Santa? It will make the picks for us and that way I get to have an anonymous grifter as well. We use this for our family and it works well. I can set up restrictions on not getting the same recipient as last year.
I could make a group and then when you draw a name you can send an anonymous message to your recipient via draw names to get their address.

Secret Santa Time !!! Assignments will be done on Tues 11/21/2022

PM/text me your address if you are interested in participating and you will be added to the list. 
General guideline for gifts is ~$20 or more if you choose. Gifts can be sent or opened at any time but it's more magical when the presents are opened or revealed on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Please reply in this thread with what you received! It's all part of the fun to see what others got and to verify gifts made it to their destination. 

PARTICIPANTATIONS:
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YoungCR JDesign WasntM3 m42b32 P_Roloff Patsbimmer1 Rampelsauce Rekpoint

Yeah, the cabin filter was something of a last resort if nothing else fixes it. I’ll definitely take you up on that, I’ve heard great things about those!

I’ve just been putting up with the dreaded musty smell from the HVAC vents in this car since the summertime and it hasn’t been getting any better, so I finally decided to do something about it. I’m pretty sure the issue came about when I turned on the recirc mode for a week or two when it was really hot to try to get slightly cooler temps out of it; I’ve now read that recirc mode should be used sparingly and you should walkways turn off the ac and run the fan for a few minutes before shutdown to air it all out.
After some product research, I decided the Nextzett Klima Cleaner would be my best bet:

I went with the method of removing the blower motor and spraying directly onto the evaporator; my first attempt I missed with the hose and didn’t get it all the way there. The second try, I got the hose sufficiently far over and hit the evaporator square; it foamed up nicely and drained thru the evap drain hoses along the trans tunnel. 
 
I waited 20ish minutes, put the blower back in (so much easier than the e30), and ran the fan on high for 10ish minutes to dry it all out. I’ll report back in a week or two on the results!
I also discovered a 12V power plug on the panel under/behind the glovebox door that I never knew I had, so that’s a win! I might need to enlist @Bassboy3313 to make me another of those printed inductive charger pads and run the power to it from this plug. 

Not BMW related but fun car stuff so figured I'd share. I took the Bronco for a day trip to Tigerton OHV park on Labor day and spent the day exploring the trails there.


=

 
Didn't take pics of any of the harder stuff but we got into some proper rock crawling in a few places where the skid plates and lockers came in handy. The only bummer of the day was that my wheels picked up a few scrape marks from some hidden rocks in a very avoidable (lol) mud hole... I'm considering switching them out to some steelies from a black diamond model so I don't need to worry about it as much next time. 10/10 though, would do it again.

Putting this on hold for a bit. Rust issues on the car are making me rethink how much more I want to put into it.   

Not a bad price for a cool Roundie 2002!

Im a weirdo and really want these LOL

 
 

I don't know if you've experienced these in person, but it is truly amazing.
I was in an Audi Q8 with some guys in Switzerland and I couldn't believe how well it cut the light out around street signs and cars.

It was the best random thing to slip into the COVID legislation.

Did a sorta-kinda triathlon this weekend near La Farge - paddled in lieu of the swim. Did about how I expected, 5/8 in my class and 71/138 overall. Considering I haven’t competed in anything similar ever, I feel pretty happy with it and definitely identified some spots for improvement. 
 
In addition, I did some backroad bombing and snagged some photos of the car while I was there. It played the role of camping rig beautifully, and had zero hiccups. The adaptive headlights are seriously incredible for driving after dark in the country, I wish all my cars had them.
 

I feel like I’ve missed a lot of events over the past few years (at least in an e30) so I’m trying to make it count ha

Ultimate BMW???
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2008913639484566/?mibextid=dXMIcH

Local autox last weekend. Took 1st in XSB and 3rd/69 total drivers, car was co-driven & did well
@Rekpoint was there too

 

Next up is USAIR lapping day

Sheesh, long overdue for an update here. 
 
I’ve been lagging on getting this done; the spring ended up being completely full (like, every single weekend from January to May) with water ski team maintenance stuff, and the season went until May to now. The team hasn’t had an official member dedicated to fleet main fence in a long time so the backlog was enormous. Like, waterlogged and rusting boat trailer bearings that haven’t been repacked in a decade, rotting trailer floor, and broken bilge pumps and blowers, enormous. 
 
I’m finally getting a chance to get back into cars though thankfully, and have made some good progress! It feels amazing to be finally getting somewhere.
Fuel tank is back in and the tank-adjacent stuff is plumbed in. I’m holding off on installing the fuel hardlines until the engine comes out and goes back in so I don’t accidentally damage them. My brake hardlines seem to fit nicely though, which is exciting!
 
And tonight, for the first time in something like 20 months, the car’s subframe and chassis were reunited. Big stuff! My only concern so far is that the fuel tank neck is contacting the subframe because of the subframe riser bushings; it doesn’t seem to be severe though, so I’m probably going to leave it. Don’t have much of a choice I guess.



Engine oil has been drained, PS hoses disconnected, a/c lines are unhooked, and all fuel/intake/other things have been disconnected in the bay other than the starter ground strap, oil cooler lines, coolant hoses, and the DME. The plan is to button up the rear end ASAP and get it back on four wheels so that I can reposition it, then yank the engine and get cracking on the swap stuff/timing belt. Also planning to get the HIKfab skidplate welded on by @rampelsauce while the engine is out, should make it a snap to weld and repaint. 
 
Hoping to make a lot of progress this fall. I’d love to get it done, but I’ve made promises like that before (look at how long it’s been sitting). It WILL get done before next summer; the ski team is doing an 80’s themed show and it’d be sacrilege to not have the quintessential 80’s car not running for it. 

Not BMW related but fun car stuff so figured I'd share. I took the Bronco for a day trip to Tigerton OHV park on Labor day and spent the day exploring the trails there.


=

 
Didn't take pics of any of the harder stuff but we got into some proper rock crawling in a few places where the skid plates and lockers came in handy. The only bummer of the day was that my wheels picked up a few scrape marks from some hidden rocks in a very avoidable (lol) mud hole... I'm considering switching them out to some steelies from a black diamond model so I don't need to worry about it as much next time. 10/10 though, would do it again.

Not BMW related but fun car stuff so figured I'd share. I took the Bronco for a day trip to Tigerton OHV park on Labor day and spent the day exploring the trails there.


=

 
Didn't take pics of any of the harder stuff but we got into some proper rock crawling in a few places where the skid plates and lockers came in handy. The only bummer of the day was that my wheels picked up a few scrape marks from some hidden rocks in a very avoidable (lol) mud hole... I'm considering switching them out to some steelies from a black diamond model so I don't need to worry about it as much next time. 10/10 though, would do it again.

Had a productive weekend despite the heat. Water Pump and Valley Pan done, new knock, crank and cam position sensors, billet throttle cable bushings, Intake w/ new PCV installed. I was going to do both the valve cover gaskets even though they didn't really need to be done but doing the right side turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. I think 4 of the studs backed out and 2 of them stripped going back in. The fun part is the studs are threaded into the CAM BEARING CAPS 🤔🙄 Not happy about that and haven't had this issue before on other M60's. I cleaned up the threads with a tap & die and hand tightened things as tight as I felt comfortable, the spec is only 10Nm and thankfully the lower back corner held tight. The center stud is barely hanging on though, Hopefully no leaks otherwise it'll be quite the job to properly fix that. Gonna leave the other side until it absolutely needs it. 

Engine bay is all back together besides the fan and intake. Just need to replace the battery and battery negative cable before startup. If all goes well and running issues solved it'll be onto swapping out the front doors and fender. 

Changed out the expansion tank/paired with the new cap - unfortunately I think I’ll need to wait until an HPDE to see if the issue is 100% resolved. 
 
Autox at Golden Sands last weekend. Fun site being a banked oval, even with limited course layout options 
took 1st in XSB (small class) and 4/34 total drivers 

Next weekend is the second local event, the site (fairgrounds) was repaved/made larger so will be interesting to see the layout 

Last Wednesday I took a drive down to Chicago and finally picked up the car!

The dyno tuning had been done a week and a half prior to that but they wanted to further dial it in on the street and work out any little drivability issues it had. As for power numbers, on pump gas it made 401 whp (not sure on torque numbers for that). As for E85 though, the numbers were a bit more shocking... in a good way

I did end up driving it back from Chicago and besides the 105 degree weather I baked in, it was a pretty enjoyable drive home. The car felt great and the engine didn't skip a beat. I will say though that the clutch is a little more difficult then it use to be. Especially when getting the car rolling in first gear. The one in there is technically only rated for like 480 lb ft torque so we'll see how far that gets me. There are a few things I wanna take care of on it like an oil change and address a few small things but other then that very excited to have the car back to enjoy the little bit of warm weather we have left.