My New Barge

[Jon_Bmw]

Mike I expect 16mpg out of the first fuel tank is probably realistic Hoping for a bit better than that once the novelty of the v8 has worn off.

Rog, that french DCI scrap is good for 70mpg, meaning bristol and back is less than a tenner! I'll try and bring the BMW next time to show you what a proper touring is all about

Trev, the touring is good, but to be honest the load space it has is, well, typically BMW I guess. Fairly intrusive side cubby holes that cover the wheels meaning a lack of room when you compare it to my dads '54 Mundano. That pixel repair isn't too bad, I found a guide for DIY, but not for the electronically faint hearted I suspect! I may try and convince my brother to have a go at some point as I am less than useless with electronics whereas he is not too shabby. I have been banging on about getting one on 'da zone' for a while, expecting to find a miley e34 manual in saloon and then this came up fairly close. I did have to make 3 100 mile round trips, but it was definatly worth it. I haven't tried the ultra comfort seats out yet, if yours has them, i'll have a look on wednesday.

Off to adjust my handbrake now, same as am e30 in principle...I hope.

[B7]

That pixel repair isn't too bad, I found a guide for DIY, but not for the electronically faint hearted I suspect! I may try and convince my brother to have a go at some point as I am less than useless with electronics whereas he is not too shabby.

I haven't tried the ultra comfort seats out yet, if yours has them, i'll have a look on wednesday.

I've looked into the pixel repair (my 3 year old 523 had to have a new dash under BMW gratuity) and DIY don't sound like a good idea.......unless you are a top notch electronics engineer. The problem is if you f*ck it up, it's a new dash full stop. And then it has to be coded to the car. You won't find many clock sets in the distant futures "E39zone's for sale section" as each dash is coded to chassis number.

I've got sports seats as well. I did test drive a ropey 528 with the memory electric comfort pack and despite the mileage and obvious lack of love, they just cosseted you and made you feel special (not special needs). They have the unusual combination of the support of a sports seat but with maximum comfort built in. I advise anyone who sees a set with the door open, jump in and enjoy.

[78dude]

Welcome to the V8 club dude!

A very nice motor

[Ziggy]

IOBC display pixels are slightly shot(usual e39 thing)

http://www.m5board.com/e39m5/Pixel-repair-v05.pdf

Or there's a bloke in Southampton who does it for £80 & comes well recommended...

[Jon_Bmw]

Nice one Jon, I was supposed to be to digging that link out for Winx! It's already in my favourites.

£80 sounds good for a hassle free job though...

First tankful returned a proper 21mpg, which considering I spent most of the time flat out, as its novel, is not too shabby.

[Jon_Bmw]

Right i've sorted most of the gremlins. I now have:

- a working 6 cd changer
- new rear discs and handbrake shoes
- Mended the fuel sender
- Repaired the bumper to an acceptable level and re hung it.

Only thing left to sort is the pixels on the dash, but seeing as the OBC information can be replicated on the radio display, i doubt i'll bother for a while...

I got a bit anal, i think 4/5 years with the misses is turning me I cleaned the engine bay from 10 years of grime. It looks lovely now. After that gayness, it only got worse. I got a claybar through the post and actually enjoyed doing the car. The paintwork is now like glass, but being silver it doesn't look dramatically better. The clar bar was brilliant at pulling the little rubber/tar? dots off the paintwork.

I was always rather suspect of how good claybar could actually be, but it really is very, very good. I got a kit off ebay for £13 delivered although the claybar itself is quite small...

I'll try and get some pictures soon.

The best bit? I worked out the PROPER mpg it achieved from the first full tankful...

27.4 mpg.

[DanThe]

E39's are a bit wrong, but it does look quite nice

27.4 is a pi55 take! I cant get that out of my 525i FFS

Will have to do an engine conversion I think

[Jon_Bmw]

Update a year on:

Car is still pretty good, went straight through its MOT in August.

Had to replace the hedgehog as per most e39s of this age. Went with a Genuine one due to the warrenty it comes with, even if it was tewnty odd quid more.

Santa Pod: 14.67 with terrible wheelspin/tramp all day, I don't 'get' drag racing. Well and truely served by much lighter cars.

Also did the rad. It was loosing a small amount of coolant from the top rad hose, went to tweek it up a small amount with a screwdriver and it snapped it clean off. Thankfully it snapped on the ramp at work rather than out on the road Another common failure on these. Replaced the Rad and the rear heater matrix pipe on Everetts advice. The old one was welded on there.

We had a dyno day at work yesterday and I chucked the 540i on. I have heard manual '40s always put out good numbers, it didn't disappoint.

257bhp at the wheels, nice. Perhaps thats why the Aston in France didn't make it look totally retarded. If only I could trim it down from its lardy 1850kilos it might actually be fast!

Danny boy above has sent me a link for a part LPG kit for an m62, which I am tempted with. Time will tell. I suspect i'll stupidly pass this time as I am not doing the mileage to warrent it ATM. That and it is about the same price as an ARDS test.

[Morat]

You are a lucky man, those cars are fantastic - I just wish BMW had sold more of them and we hadn't lost ours so soon. Six months was too short! The E46 330i isn't as good.

[bss325i]

Good news Jon! A relatively cheap year then with no major dramas.

[Jon_Bmw]

Yeah, fingers crossed for another.

Although I did forget one more expense. £60 for an sp30, at least I made the most of it, 79 in a 60, doh.

Will probably return to Le mans with it as well, au revior £160 of fuel.

[Ziggy]

I'm taking the E30 to LM this year - so my economy will be worse than yours!

[Jesus325iTouring]

Good to see the Luxo barge is still happy Jon,stop in for a cuppa next time your passing,i'm working from home quite a lot now.

[DanThe]

Good to see its been fairly trouble free motoring but its crying out for some propane rightness, that £1.20 a litre just aint funny with this displacement!

[Jon_Bmw]

I was hoping you were going to take the red beast Jon. Good work, no bikes this year then?
I should acheive slightly better MPG with the lazy 6th, with the cost hopefully being split 4 ways as well! I've not quite got the classic looks in my old man touring though...

Rog, yes I will pop in whenever I pass, unfortunately it is rather few and far between these days Incidently I am going to Bristol tonight to watch Saints win against Rovers...hopefully, but I am travelling with my uncle and on the a36! Will have to sort out a meet at some point, perhaps at my workplace.

Dan, stop tempting me!

[Ziggy]

I'll prob fit a bike in. Who's in your car? Can I steal a passenger?! Dan coming? Not looking forward to the drive down on my lonesome tbh!

It's going to be painful to pay for petrol for the E30 when I'm used to a 4pot on LPG!

[Jesus325iTouring]

I was hoping you were going to take the red beast Jon. Good work, no bikes this year then?
I should acheive slightly better MPG with the lazy 6th, with the cost hopefully being split 4 ways as well! I've not quite got the classic looks in my old man touring though...

Rog, yes I will pop in whenever I pass, unfortunately it is rather few and far between these days Incidently I am going to Bristol tonight to watch Saints win against Rovers...hopefully, but I am travelling with my uncle and on the a36! Will have to sort out a meet at some point, perhaps at my workplace.

Dan, stop tempting me!

Where do you work now Jon?

[Jon_Bmw]

Moi, my brother, probably Yiangou and possibly Dan if he comes(he usually does!). So yeah, you can have him! Is Mark bringing the Spit on a trailer? We could probably tow it faster.

Rog, Janspeed squire.

[Ziggy]

Cools cools. Have you heard from Dan recently? Bring my sunnies!

The Spit would probably go in your boot.

[Jon_Bmw]

2500 Miles covered round Europe. Lots of Alpine Passes in Switzerland, Italy and Austria. 140+mph down the autobahns, a lap of the nurburgring, loaded up and absolutly no dramas.

What a european cruiser. I have kept all the fuel reciepts, I have just haven't had time to work add them all up /cough\

A few random pictures:


The straightest road we would probably see on the whole trip:























I wonder what this is coming up:











IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v57/J ... GP5132.jpg[/IMG]









I wish I had some more money and time off work to do it all over again!

[Jhonno]

[Jhonno]

Looks an awesome trip.. Nice pics!

[Jon_Bmw]

'twas good fun. I was pretty nackered after the 9 days as I did all the driving. The views in places were epic. I can only imagine the disgust that Europeans who come over to England when they realise that the views of Slough and Coventry are fairly typical on our motorway network!

[Ziggy]

Looks like a reet good trip!

[Felix79]

Some of those roads look stunning , must have been nice doing it in such luxery.

[oguz327]

Great trip and pictures there Jon

[DanThe]

Looks like a nice drive that does
Is there a prize for guessing your fuel bill? I will go for £650

[Jon_Bmw]

Dan that is what I estimated it probably would be, but unless I subconsiously hid a load of reciepts I thought I worked it out at around £520 (I just looked at the litres used and multiplied by 1.4 as there were a few different currencies.


I think a recount is required.

Brilliant trip though, and worth the effort. Being able to do it over 20 days is what would really make it great. Then there would be time to properly explore places rather than dash through them.

[B7]

With rear box delete, that must have sounded the tits on the overun down that road!

I still recall blipping this in Guildford and everyone looking round to see what it was. They totally disregarded the unsuspecting dirty nine parked up outside Homebase! Excellent!

[Jon_Bmw]

Trev, sadly it was getting awfully boring. So the standard exhaust got put back on, mainly for the trip. 2500miles of that droning away would have been frightful, although very enjoyable through the 'hills.'

In my council days, on the way back from Le man 2010 I might have opened it up on the dover-dunkerque ferry whilst waiting to depart after some plums in turbo charged 4 pots thought their cars sounded nice in an enclosed ferry. I shit you not, I have never seen so many mugs looking around too see what it was... I departed quietly with a smirk. What a wrong'un I was.

[DanThe]

You need one of those exhaust flap things, Yanks had them on some production cars, warbler I think its called, either way its for V8's or above

[Jon_Bmw]

For sale now due to a potential rare BMW purchase with a 'motorsport' engine.

12 months MOT and currently sat at 121k miles. PM me if interested.

[spook]

Nice pics Jon, gonna have to do another trip next year myself

[Jon_Bmw]

I would love to go again. It was mega fun.

This rather excellent vehicle is now listed here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3220744.htm

[gareth]

Nice

What passes were those?

We dud the Susten pass, Grimsel pass and Furka pass again a few weeks back:
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=206305

Driving in the UK is such crap in comparison!