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/// The Stig's 1992 535i M Spec

Reaper

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Should fix your auto problem. I like the wheels too. Would look great in shadow chrome.
 

50LTRv8

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Love it, at least your pixels work :). So you did all that work on the auto then went manual?
 

thestig

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Love it, at least your pixels work :). So you did all that work on the auto then went manual?

These cars are getting hard to find, at least in Australia. If I had it my way, I probably would have gone manual from the start. But as the universe would have it, this opportunity only arose after I had decided to 'bite the bullet' on the valve body rebuild.

Having said that though, I did enjoy the process and learnt a thing or two along the way.
 
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thestig

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Canabalism

Yesterday I pulled the front struts out of both the donor car and the project. Disassembled all four, picked the best bits of everything and reassembled both sets. After a thorough clean, the best set turned out to be more than a half decent approximation of new.

There was a lot of work, and no money spent. Definitely worth it, out on the road there is a world of difference. More precise steering, reduced under-steer, improved ride quality and far less suspension travel noise.

I have limited photos as the work was far too messy to have the DSLR involved.

Thanks to my brother who selflessly donated his time and effort to the enterprise.

uc
 
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thestig

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Change of style

As anyone who has been following this thread knows the wheels on this car have been somewhat of a bug bear. So I thought I would try the alloys from the donor, clean them up and test fit them.

First up when I took the wheels off I decided to get a photo of yesterday's finished product.

uc


Having test fit the wheels it became obvious pretty quickly that aestheticaly I was onto a winner. Consultation with some fellow JC folk confirmed this.

During the test drive however it was pretty obvious that they didn't really fit. The front was the problem. The wheels are 8½" wide whereas the old wheels where only 8". To make matters worse, the offset is ET13 instead of the original ET20, and finally the tyres are 245/40/R18 as opposed to 225/40/R18. This all adds up to rubbing, and although it can be considered "racing", it doesn't sit too well on a BMW.

So I called in the cavalry, and within an hour my brother had arrived with his trusty guard roller.

uc


uc


uc


After a quick roll here and there it seemed like we had enough room. I'm pretty happy, here is the finished product.

uc
 
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thestig

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It's all just little bits of data....

So after getting a bit sick of the Tom Tom GPS looking less then OEM sticking out of the console just above the ashtray, I decided it might be time for the E34 to enter the digital age.

Centralfield Technology in Frankston are currently selling Nexus 7 (3G, 32GB) referbs with 12 month ASUS warranty for $199.00.

So I snapped one up and plan a permanent install. I will most likely perform the bulk of the work on that at the same time I install the Getrag 260 5 Speed out of the donor car. Seems logical as I will be changing the center console auto paneling at that time. I'm thinking a subtle integration with a single piece of curved polished timber surrounding both the shifter and the Nexus screen, power and volume switches wired to OEM style buttons off to the driver's side of the screen.

Image below is a temporary test fit for proof of concept. Plan to run a VMware platform in the boot that I can remote into from the Nexus for work purposes (I'm in I.T.) and some largish USB external storage. I will stream BT audio to the Pioneer head unit and install a small standalone amp and speakers for the Nexus to run independently of whatever's coming out of the Pioneer at the time. That should give me enough flexibility to keep me happy in any config audio-wise. I may even look into a small wireless IP camera for reverse, but that's unlikely to be as integrated as I would like.

Been doing quite a bit of driving and software testing over the weekend. Sygic is the name of the game when it comes to Nav. Front end is provided by Ultra Car Home. MortPlayer won the Audio playback race, whilst MXPlayer is hands down the best for Video, although you do need to "fernangle" the config a bit for best results.

uc
 
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Hoska91

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Hoska91

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Just in case there are murderers? Anyhow.. Done!

Just incase of BMW theives and jealousy :p, probably should have mentioned in the last post but nice car mate! all these bimmers on here are tempting me to get euro :)
 
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