Vard66

Jaw dropping, yes. But only in order to let the vomit exit.

They also... look oddly good on the 420. Far less out of place than they did on the BMW, anyway.

Feck does it go. Currently she's smoking on startup, whistling oddly - a noise I initially diagnosed as a knackered tensioner bearing while we were out giving the car a bit of a shakedown earlier - and hunting/hitching at idle. Ian did his thing again this evening and diagnosed the leak to the PCV by poking his fingers into various gaps in the engine. PCV being changed over tomorrow, worst case it's a new one, but changing them over tomorrow may well solve the issue.

Fair enough, imma bin that off then unless you actually do want it back. :-P Little update; the BMW is pretty much finished! She was off the ramps on Saturday... only to go back up on the ramps for us to investigate why the gear linkage was making contact with the prop-shaft - something I suspected quietly when I reassembled it, because I couldn't remember, but I was fairly sure it shouldn't have been just clearing the prop by about 2mm... Also because the new hydraulic clutch arrangement was somewhat... bodgetastic, the union in the slave cylinder having been slathered in Wurths chemical metal in an effort to seal it for good. So now, one fresh piece of copper pipe flanged and fitted, and after some doubts and irritation, finally bloody sealed. No. More. Brake fluid. I cannot state those words clearly enough - if I never feel brake fluid on the back of my hands again, I will be a happy, happy man. So now, she is off the ramps, WITH a clutch, WITH the gear linkage fixed, and going like an absolute train. Also, by complete coincidence, we have managed to remove the odd, transverse roof bars. It turns out I could have had them off months ago, if I had been a fidgety, fiddling redneck type. Like Ian. While idly standing around waiting while I had a piss, before I moved the BMW out of the way so he could move Alex's Vitesse Coupé to where the BMW was standing, Ian decided he had a key in his hand, he should find something to poke it into, so he tried one of the locks on the roof bars, because one of the rubber covers wasn't on it properly. And it worked. Turns out you can use a Rover 800 key to unlock the locks on a 5er's roof bars. No, I wouldn't have tried it myself either, and I was equally gobsmacked when he showed me. Yer man Vard is a happy fella.

Nah, his throttle was probably stuck.

Unsettling, but thanks. ... I think. It's because of all the opportunity we have given for the law of sod to rear its ugly head - and also because neither of us knows the car inside out, we weren't perfectly sure we wouldn't need to do some kind of electronic black-witchcraft to get the ECU matched to the clocks or foglight switch or... whatnot.

Not kidding! I was fully expecting it to be a ballache to start, no idea how pleased I was when it just fired up after cranking over a few times. Another job for tomorrow, the coolant - I don't seem to quite have enough PAS fluid in it atm - and that's before doing the SLS also, so I need to pick a little more up. By the way Joe, I have your axle stand here, do you want me to just hang onto it for the moment, until next we meet?

Quick update - she runs! As of about twenty minutes ago, she started first turn of the key... and ran like a bag of spanners. Then she ran beautifully after being switched off and started again, once the other bank had fuel. It appears I do need to wait for the 4.0 airbox to arrive before she'll run perfectly, as the difference in airflow past the MAF really does seem to feck with the running. Only niggle now is that the clutch isn't returning for some reason. Haven't lost any fluid from the system so it can't be lack of fluid. *Edit* According to the Bentley Manuals, the 5er, much like the 800s, shares the brake fluid with the clutch slave cylinder. So once I have topped up and bled the brakes, we should have the clutch back too. Job for tomorrow though, hell with trying to do that this evening!

Minor update - the bonnet is back on! We deemed it a crucial move lest it should snow again, so more or less as soon as we didn't need the bonnet out of the way, we hoiked it back on this afternoon. Coolant system, all the electricals, fuel lines and induction/vac lines are all reconnected. Now it's just prop bolts, two nuts on the slave cylinder, three brackets on the SLS line around the sump, exhaust manifold --> cat section bolts, lateral gear linkage, torque the viscous properly once I can put it in gear, and then fluids - fill and bleed. We have discovered however that the 4.0 MAF is a different external diameter than the 3.0, so it turns out we actually need either a 4.0 airbox, or a 4.0 airbox cover, in order to make it fit; which is rather irritating. Alex has just vacated Chez Vard, headed back for Devon, much to his chagrin, as he really wanted to stay to hear her fired up the first time. I'd like to say I will refrain from starting the BM until he returns on the 17th, but I'm pretty sure it'd be lying. Same goes for stripping the old 3.0 V8 block down to complete nuts and bolts - I'm fairly sure I'll not be able to stop myself doing that in the next few days if I'm honest. Also worthy of note is that I have reviewed stocks here, and in the last week we seem to have drunk our way through six pints of milk, two kilograms of sugar and about a thousand of PG Tips' finest.

No. You were asked if they were the same, and said yes, so Alex THEN told you to put the one that looked better on, which happened to be the cleaner 4.0 one - from a salooooooon. You have failed. Accept it and move on. :-P

Progress is precious little tbh. Getting everything aligned in the car is being a massive ballache. Manifolds are back on and the lump is basically sitting more or less on the engine mounts - it's just jiggling it about to try to get it onto the mounts, and it's being a right pain. After that's done, we have to remove and swap the PAS pump, because when asked if the pumps were the same, Joe said 'yes', so we currently have a PAS pump on the car without a takeoff for the SLS line. Yaaay.

The rest of January has been really mild, how the hell were we to know?!?

Why, Mrs. A? Just pure shitty luck tbh. We booked the time off about a month ago, and couldn't have known what it was going to be like - only that it had remained pretty mild for the last few weeks.

Au Contraire! I think both do - both more than the 32s. Today we're gonna pop off and pick up 7.5l of derv oil for the BM, and put the O/S bank's exhaust manifolds on, then later when Ian comes over with the N/S bank's pipes, freshly de-studded, we'll bang those on and drop the engine - always assuming that by this point we can feel our fingers. Mightn't be a bad thought to pick up some fingerless gloves in Swinnun, so at least we can feel the tools in our palms, even if we do lose feeling in our fingers. *Edit* Oh yes, I know what I meant to say - Joe, James (618ireland on RT) sends his regards.

Nope, sorry, that's a difference of opinion right there - I do like the 32s, but the word 'Eew' cannot be justifiably applied to the stars IMO. We were also looking at M Parallels last night...

See, now we've spent some time on the net again, we're looking at 17" Throwing Stars...

Update! Day of good progress, after that godforsaken blasted DMF came off yesterday. Munky looking (presumably in a satisfied fashion?) at the DMF on the new M60B40. ... Finally. Joe having a crack at getting the gearbox on; it took a fair bit of jiggling to get the splines to mate. Gearbox on, loom on, inlet manifold on, coolant rail swapped over, stat housing changed for the new item we bought for the M60B30 - no sense not using the new item - keeping the old M60B40 item as a spare. Lifting it into position to drop it back into the bay; Issues with supplied equipment? Perhaps just a minor one. Joe manoeuvering the new lump into place, Alex looking happy for the first time in three. fucking. days. Absurd angle to lower the lump in, required us repositioning the straps twice at various points of progress. Engine pretty much slotted into the bay, with much heaving and shoving to try to squeeze it between the aircon pipework and the ABS module. As I speak, the engine stands supported by the crane, with a jack under the gearbox drain plug. Tomorrow we will refit the new downpipes and then lower the lump onto the engine mounts and prop shaft. After that point, really it's just a case of plugging things back in, doing a few securing bolts back up, banging in the new 4.0 DME and off we go. Bloody pleased with today's progress, after the mind bogglingly frustrating three day stall thanks to the DMF.

Well, that compressor/gun didn't do the job. In the end, Ian did get the bolts undone for us - but it took him taking it to T. H. White and using an inch drive, nearly 1000lb-ft gun - the sort of thing they use to assemble motorway crash barriers, but they came straight off. Apparently we need to buy tools built to work on tractors. The custom tool also survived nearly a thousand foot-pounds of torque going through it too. And this, this fucking heavy, fucking annoying, fucking awkward pile of crap, is what's been holding us up for three fucking days. Bastard fucking goddamn dual mass flywheel. Was NOT expecting to find a DMF on a 1993 car, so this is doubly frustrating.

Turns out Ian has access to a 25hp compressor at work - if that doesn't do it, nothing ever will, but thanks Sphinx.

Do I recall, someone in Wiltshire on this forum being a mobile mechanic? K9d perhaps? Let me rephrase that. Is there anyone in Wiltshire with a f**k off compressor they could bring over?

Possibly Morgan, and thanks for the thoughts gentlemen; but we're sorted now. Whilst standing at the parts counter at Dick Lovett Swindon this morning, we decided to get them to run up the official BMW part just to see if a) they could get them in, and how much they'd be. Turns out they're £13.somethingity-something each, and they can get them by 1pm today, so we're going to voyage back into Swinnun later to pick two up.

Draper T50 x 100mm (55665). It's the answer to my problems! But can I find anyone with one in stock around Swindon? Not yet, and that's four listed Draper stockists I've rung since 09:00...

Obligatory update. Too tired and fed up to do a proper update. Loom off. Engine out. Empty engine bay. Choice of new powerplants, though all likely to die in the traces. Early start tomorrow chasing down a specific tool for removing the bastard goddamn dual mass flywheel, which requires a long T50 Torx bit with a cylindrical shaft, something we tried to create earlier. Bed.

Today - not very productive, as predicted. Still hungover at this point in time if I'm honest - to the point where I feel like I still want to throw up. :-P Progress today was slow to get going, and then short lived. We've hit a snag, because we didn't think it through properly, and have now encountered the fact that leaving the gearbox on the car has resulted in the manifolds catching on the bell housing, preventing the lump from being lifted out. Tomorrow we will remove the box and extricate it, and hopefully, proceed as though nothing went wrong. :-P Looking rather disheartened and demotivated; Then Ian showed up... ... and managed to get us enthused again for half an hour