New E86 owner

[Brad_B]

Hello, I’m Brad, haven’t joined a forum in about ten years lol but this one looks active so here we are.

Owned an E86 coupe for about a month, owned a few ridiculous cars beforehand, spent thousands building them for track with engine swaps etc and I’m too poor for that now so bought a cheap Z4.

I’ll mostly be doing minor mods and cosmetic bits and just trying to enjoy it really.

Here it is so far. I’ve so far put on a stubby aerial, black grills, darker badges all round and swapped the wheels for some blacked out type 32s. I like smaller wheels and meaty tyres.

I’ll be selling the CSL replicas that came off it at some point I guess.

Thanks for having me.

[Ole gits rule]

Hello and welcome the forum, stealth car there

[inkey$]

Welcome to the forum and have fun modding the coupe

[ZedsDeadbabyZedzdead]

Welcome Brad! You probably already know but this forum has a selling section for you to list the wheels you mentioned and for any other bits

[Calps]

Lovely looking coupe you have there, Brad.

And welcome to the forum, it's a great community who will be more than happy to help you with any queries you have.

(bonus points for pictures on your first post!)

[Brad_B]

Thanks guys I’m happy to be here, tbh I miss the old forum days, I prefer this style over more modern social media.

I’ll probably list the wheels here as well as fb marketplace etc when I sell them, in no rush for now.

As for the car, you can see I’m going for stealth/murdered out look, got a very small spoiler on order, may get some eibach springs down the line, ramair (for the noise of course, I’m not interested in performance debates, I’m a mechanic, I get it lol) and one or two small things I have not thought of yet.

I look forward to picking the brains of people more well versed in the BMW world, as I mainly worked on VW group or old jap stuff myself.

[Brad_B]

Also, to answer Zedsdeadbaby, (I can’t write replies to PMs yet it would seem) I bought it from Canvey in Essex, which is coincidentally where I’m from.
Unfortunately it’s not where I live, so had to train it from Salisbury to have a look at it.

It had FSH and all common e86 problems sorted minus the valvetronic gasket which I did myself immediately after purchasing.
It’s got 141k miles on it, doing the clutch next week but otherwise it’s a great example.

[ZedsDeadbabyZedzdead]

There’s not many black ones for sale recently!
I’d be interested to hear how you did the valve tronic thing you mentioned ( I don’t think you can reply to PM’s until you have made a certain amount of posts but could be wrong)

[Brad_B]

Disconnect battery, remove coils either side of the motor to get to it, undo motor bolts, wind motor out until it releases, remove gasket bolts, remove gasket.
Clean the area where it has leaked, then replace gasket and refit in reverse order.

The important part is lining up the gear when you put the motor back in, do not force it at all, and wind it in until you meet mild resistance. After this point I wound it back very slightly for peace of mind.
When you reconnect battery after, put ignition to position one for about 30 seconds and everything self adjusts, do this before you start it up.

I took a few photos, just for my records, unfortunately they’re not very helpful.
And it seems they upload in reverse order.

[Mr Tidy]

Hi and welcome to the forum Brad.

Just be warned, E86s can be addictive!

[Brad_B]

I already love it!