What have you done to your car today?

[Scott Naylor]

Progress update on my E89, should be getting it back tomorrow.

Front end refresh, 74k miles takes it’s toll in terms of stonechips and as much as I love ‘correcting’ paint you can’t polish chips away.

Bonnet striped fully back to bare metal, plus front bumper, genuine new badges from BMW. Going to leave the model designation off and just stick with the three roundels on the front… just had a couple of ‘flatting/polishing’ stage pics come through…. Really looking forward to tomorrow now.

If PPF wasn’t so bloody expensive I’d definitely get it done… have to mull it over.

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Wow, mate you are seriously good at this detailing malarkey.

This is my friends work, I’ve built up a decent skill set with paint correction and detailing…. But I’d be a liability with a paint gun and an oven.

He’s taken all the paint off of the bonnet back to bare metal, before painting, to get the best possible finish… it was a little disconcerting seeing ‘stage one’ naked metal

Totally agree, and all that blue dust

[Dave1971]

Good work, did you tie it down and conceal it? I plan to do this over the winter.

I've had 2 of my previous cars done by the famous Durham Dave and I was going to take this one to him as well but thought I'd have a go myself. I definitely wasn't as quick as Dave but he's had a lot more practice than me. I'm happy with the results though SAM_0120.JPG

That is a very neat looking job, well done.
Just checking, did you cut away a little of the trim and the parcel shelf support?
If not then it is possible to pinch the pipes when it all goes back together. I cut a section out and as added insurance I usually use a piece of the original insulation to wedge between the pipes and the plastic edges too.

Yes I trimmed a a grap for the pipes. Good suggestion about the original insulation, cheers.

[True-Blue]

Wow, mate you are seriously good at this detailing malarkey.

This is my friends work, I’ve built up a decent skill set with paint correction and detailing…. But I’d be a liability with a paint gun and an oven.

He’s taken all the paint off of the bonnet back to bare metal, before painting, to get the best possible finish… it was a little disconcerting seeing ‘stage one’ naked metal

Totally agree, and all that blue dust

Yep, ….a lot of dust

[TheDan]

Completed our road trip to Italy and back through some amazing roads and scenery (and less amazing roads and scenery - looking at you French tolls). Will post more pics and discussion on my thread in the next few days.

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[Griffo46]

Completed our road trip to Italy and back through some amazing roads and scenery (and less amazing roads and scenery - looking at you French tolls). Will post more pics and discussion on my thread in the next few days.

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Looking forward to reading about this, on my bucket list to do with my Zed next year or year after!

[ponchi101]

Planning my first road trip in the Z around S. America.
I guess I will be kidnapped between Bogota and Medellin, so...
I envy you guys.

[AndyJ1]

Finished off replacing my offside rear wheel bearing. Took about 9 hours all in including have to do a round trip of 90 miles to get a hydraulic puller from work to push out the drive shaft. Needed heat and the puller to shift it. Later found out the BMW use adhesive on these when they originally assembled the car. No wonder it was difficult to get out. Here’s a couple of pic’s
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One major mishap I had was somehow dislodging the handbrake cable at the handbrake end when re installing the brake shoes
Does anyone know if the cables can be accessed from inside the car? Don’t fancy taking the exhaust and prop shaft out to get to the mechanism below.

Good news is that the noise I could hear was the wheel bearing and not the diff. Nice and quiet now.

Which bearings did you replace with? How is the car feeling now? I'll be doing the same job soon...

Hi James,
I fitted a Merle bearing kit with the circlip and nut purchased from Autodoc.
The noise had been getting louder over a period of about 500 miles, yet no play in bearing. On removal the bearing felt ok and the grease still looked clean. Thought I had been wasting my time until I drove the car. Can now hear the exhaust again instead of the drone of the bearing.
When the bearing arrived I noticed it was identical in spec to one I already had that I had purchased for my E87 but hadn’t used because that issue had been the diff!

Here are some of the tools I had needed to change the bearing over.

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As stated above, the most difficult part of the job was getting the driveshaft out of the hub. Couldn’t have done it without the hydraulic puller.

[True-Blue]

Inspected the paintwork in daylight after getting the car back in the dark last night…. Very, very, nice work (hard to appreciate from this photo)

need to detail the Grey looking black grills and make the plastics look black again. Also need to clean the compound out from the front parking sensors…

Can’t decide on whether to keep the 325m’s, stick on the set of 295’s I’ve picked up or do something completely different. If the 325’s stay they’ll be refurbished back to sparkle silver week after next

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[Robster68]

Having tested positive for Covid on Monday,
Off work so decided to tackle one of those jobs bugging me,drilling out rusty exhaust manifold studs.

Finally finished,very satisfying job done ,now every time I’m under the car I see this instead of this.
Total cost of parts €10 for gaskets,nuts and bolts and exhaust paste I already had,
If I used all oem bmw,gaskets €50,bolts +nuts €68.shocking.

[Jahmez]

Car polished up, new headlight bulbs fitted and boot filled. Off to York and then Durham before meeting up for a Borders run on Sunday with Craig 3.2 and hopefully quite a few others.... Happy days

[Spriteracer]

Looking at the exhaust joints on Robster68's photo above - mine doesn't have the additional straps between the two pipes. My indy did the bolts originally a few years ago and didn't put any back if they were there in the first place. I've had the exhaust off a couple of times since to renew prop centre bearing and guibo etc. No obvious damage anywhere and easy to make some if really needed but does anyone know how necessary they actually are? Thanks.

[Robster68]

Looking at the exhaust joints on Robster68's photo above - mine doesn't have the additional straps between the two pipes. My indy did the bolts originally a few years ago and didn't put any back if they were there in the first place. I've had the exhaust off a couple of times since to renew prop centre bearing and guibo etc. No obvious damage anywhere and easy to make some if really needed but does anyone know how necessary they actually are? Thanks.

In the first photo they weren’t doing very much,thé nuts holding them on were pretty much disintegrated,now they act like a washers and hold the two flanges together rigidly,these rusty flange bolts are a common problem on z4s I think as my old 2.2 had the same condition. Not sure if you need them though.

[Spriteracer]

Thanks for that. Since posting I looked at Realoem and they show only one on the diagram. My pipes seem quite rigid without them, but I might put one on next time I have access just to be safe. It did occur that they may prevent / reduce vibration further up the manifolds. Cracking there wouldn't be fun....

[Robster68]

Thanks for that. Since posting I looked at Realoem and they show only one on the diagram. My pipes seem quite rigid without them, but I might put one on next time I have access just to be safe. It did occur that they may prevent / reduce vibration further up the manifolds. Cracking there wouldn't be fun....

It’s officially called a flange steady,make of that what you will

[MikeyH]

Washed and waxed the car, hoovered the boot and cabin, hoovered and washed the roof, gave the engine compartment and wheels a good clean up. Ready now for the weekend trip to Beaulieu. No doubt it will rain before then and I will need to do it all again.