Right, so you know that luck I was talking about earlier?
Well the lad who bought the lowering springs wanted them for his 318iS so we got chatting about my plans for the car as I think he knew of the previous owner. Anyway, he called me the next day to ask if he could pass my number on to a mate of his who might be interested in the M42 if it was available, and as I wasn't in any rush to even try and hook it out until I'd sold the E36 and had the cash to fork out for a new motor it was, of course, very available. Despite the rocker box full of chocolate pudding it still ran and sounded bang on and he's a mechanic so knew what he was getting into. A deal was struck, and it turned out that he worked at the garage at the bottom of my road and had a tow rope in the boot. Time to get it up on the ramp then, no crawling around on the floor. That's my kind of spannering. Luxury spannering, if you will.
A Saturday morning cuppa and bacon roll later and we were done, easy as that.
As good an excuse as ever, and to minimise the likelihood of being stopped by the law on the way back up to mine we threw a silver wing on and took advantage of the workshop's power washer and generous supply of degreaser, then dragged her back up the hill. I'd forgotten what they were like to drive (I use the term fairly loosely, what with the lack of engine) and it all came flooding back to me as I suddenly felt as if I was sitting a bit high up and nearly fell asleep endlessly feeding the steering wheel around the first corner, but I don't think I've made a mistake by any stretch as much as I was gutted to have to part with the E36 to make some progress on the E30. With cash in my pocket, I saw an ad placed for a Z3 rack locally which as it turned out belonged to somebody I know. Cash exchanged, steering problem hopefully solved. Going to pair that up with the Corsa C steering linkage mod as he had one of those spare as well.
So, engines... I know someone over here who's built an S50 E30 touring and an M62 E30 coupe and was hoping to convince him to part with the touring a while back, but he's pretty set on keeping both. Can you blame him? I can't. The hunt for either an M60 or M62 over here has come up with nothing despite plenty of wanted ads and sticking notes under windscreen wipers and all of the engines over in the UK have intergalactic starship mileages on them compared to what we're used to over here which worries me even though it probably shouldn't.
Having possibly set my sights a little too high at first given that we don't have a great deal of donor cars to choose from kicking about over here and fragging a decent one is also pretty hard no thanks to high postage costs to the UK I've just picked up another 328i Sport to hack around in but it didn't take long to decide it'd be put to better use laying the groundwork for an S54 at a later date by dropping in the M52 and ZF 'box in for now. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get the E30 on the road and the much needed space back in the garage, as much as I'm not adverse to cycling everywhere.
The donor is tatty on the outside but mechanically sound with 84k on the clock and new discs, pads and bearings all round so they can come off for a 5-stud conversion at the same time. Plus it's a 1996 so the spare LSD could come in handy one day.
