[old grey steve]

Sure sign the longer brighter warmer days are just around the corner, like many animals that hibernate when the time is right these come out to play starting with this lovely low mileage E30 M3







This Dakar Yellow 840's going to be with us for a while for a ground up re build






This lovely Alpina B10 had some TLC over the past few days






Rounding off the golden oldie's is this E30 Cab

[Calluhan]

Beautiful motors Steve. It always surprises me how small the E30 looks compared to the modern 3 series. Love the B10, I nearly bought one once....

I'd love to scratch my 840/50 itch someday too. Is it in poor shape?

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Calluhan

Beautiful motors Steve. It always surprises me how small the E30 looks compared to the modern 3 series. Love the B10, I nearly bought one once....

I'd love to scratch my 840/50 itch someday too. Is it in poor shape?

The 840's not in bad shape like all these cars at this age they'll need some time and with it some money invested to bring the, back to fighting fit, this ones really no different to many we see it's being tacked by the owner to ensure once it's fine it's done and I'm really looking forward to seeing it progress and of course the finished result. Whether the non std wheels will be changed I don't know as they are visually the only non standard item that I can see I don't know.

But yep looking forward to seeing and driving the end result Forgot to take photos of a Z3M that arrived just before we closed another oldie regular we see and thus ones a beaut

As for the Alpina this ones a stunner so tidy and sounded lovely. As for the E30 M3 that was a real treat for me lovely to look at and see in the flesh and the E30 Csb again for us is an old friend again fur me these old cars are lovely to see/drive and I guess we are privileged to see them and be entrusted with looking after them

[old grey steve]

One of my all times fav'sE24 635i CSI Highline






Love these old skool E24's built like no BMW today feels so solid

[Ao1]

Well they say variety is the spice of life Steve and it looks like the workshop is getting very spicy. It must be great to get to work on these cars. Out of interest how hard is it to work on cars that pioneered the increasing reliance on electronics? Is technology redundancy making electronic problems difficult to deal with on vintage cars? I hear the phasing out of 2g will end connected drive capabilities on cars that are only a few years old, so how you deal with circuit boards and computers that are over 10 years old must be a challenge.

[AlanYoro35i]

Eye candies!

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by Ao1

Well they say variety is the spice of life Steve and it looks like the workshop is getting very spicy. It must be great to get to work on these cars. Out of interest how hard is it to work on cars that pioneered the increasing reliance on electronics? Is technology redundancy making electronic problems difficult to deal with on vintage cars? I hear the phasing out of 2g will end connected drive capabilities on cars that are only a few years old, so how you deal with circuit boards and computers that are over 10 years old must be a challenge.

To be fair Richard I deal with the aftermath not the actual work itself, but there not actually if that's the correct word that bad overall to work with, where it gets a little difficult is when a control unit (bare in mind they are fairly primitive on these) completely fail then you have potentual issues as you may find it harder than you'll think to find a replcement whether new from BMW or secondhand from another source.

Wiring is or is the centre of a lot of these older cars major problems Richard and with time a lot of cars get cured, but it is thst magic word "time" that you have to factor in.

Some older cars you can struggle to get a decent wiring diagrams (8 series screen wash wiper module springs to mind) where obtaining a full wiring diagram proved very entertaining to obtain and the older stuff as we've discovered can sometimes be challenging but as we've been running fir over 14 years we've luckily seen a lot of issuesin the past and in many cases we've seen certain issues plenty of times in the past. But occassionly you'll be challenged and as we've ended up discovering you sometimes have to think outside e box.

Newer cars are better caitered for in many ways, using the diagnostic set up we have on the genuine BMW ISTA system we get the required test procedures along with diagrams with pinpointed items to look for and the same goes for the Mercedes Star system diagnostic so it's in theory more straightforward but sometimes even with all this diagnostic kit you can get abut steer.

Interesting what you say re cars of a few years old being noted as a struggle further down the line........ I dare say in a good few years we'll be able to finally answer this question, but the distaste side and as I've seen the power of the manufacturer diagnostic set up seems to suggest that they are supporting certainly cars of 10-12 years of age as well as the 6 month old stuff as well can be expected ........ I hope

[Ao1]

The USA is discontinuing 2G technology, so cars up to 2013 will no longer have thematic support unless they come up with a retro fit, but even if they do it will not be cheap as the 2G capability is embed in the circuit board. Regardless of whether telematics is useful or not it got me think about technology redundancy and how this will impact cars that are becoming more and more like mobile computers. I can appreciate it is great to have diagnostic capability on a car, but the downside is the sensors, which more often than not are the problem and all the wiring that goes with it.

Anyway putting that to one side what are you going to be doing on the 840? Sounds like it’s going to be major work.

[old grey steve]

You wait for a LHD car and you get 2 land on your door step in 1 day






this Alpina B3's got everything intact direct from Germany KM speedo the lot, next another E30 M3 that was in for some TLC










where the heart is and perhaps on the finest NA powerplants



this was was one of the last 2.3's before the 2.5 came along

[paulf61]

thanks for sharing these steve.

Paul

[old grey steve]

Perfect summer car







a lovely Z3M with a good old fashioned S50 lump on board. Plus last week we had a rare old E21 in too for some work and another E30

[SteveC]

Beautiful old cars, several of which I've owned myself. In its time, the M3 was a revelation.....a car built purely for fun....and it delivered, in spades

An upcoming classic has got to be the Z4M....wonderful engine, CSL brakes, and a beautiful balance between high revving engine, chassis and M diff. The coupe is the most popular for its handling but I prefer the roadster, with the roof down, sport button depressed on an early morning, pushing along a quiet, winding, Yorkshire 'B' road

Yes, I love Summer, its my favourite day of the year

[MEGA]

Pornographic .. Thanks so much for sharing!

[old grey steve]

Originally Posted by SteveC

Beautiful old cars, several of which I've owned myself. In its time, the M3 was a revelation.....a car built purely for fun....and it delivered, in spades

An upcoming classic has got to be the Z4M....wonderful engine, CSL brakes, and a beautiful balance between high revving engine, chassis and M diff. The coupe is the most popular for its handling but I prefer the roadster, with the roof down, sport button depressed on an early morning, pushing along a quiet, winding, Yorkshire 'B' road

Yes, I love Summer, its my favourite day of the year

The daddy of the M3's seems so different now, sounds like a rattly old 4 pot to many but it's a pure old school mechanical sound that you are hearing apart from driving around the yard I haven't ventured on to the road yet in one but as both owners have said get the right road right conditions nothing touches the purity of the drive nothing.

Re the Z4M got a good few of these on our books, both roadsters and coupe's I prefer the coupe though to be honest (got an AC Schinzer one in on Monday funnily enough)and yep they are nice and I'm in no doubt that decent unmolested examples will I'm sure appreciate in value partly down to the fact that these are the last of the NA spec M cars that will ever come out of BMW's M division and these will be the models that the purist to keep hold of I'm sure, especially the coupe.

Originally Posted by MEGA

Pornographic .. Thanks so much for sharing!

No worries for me makes a change re talking about turbo's, clutches and flywheels and injectors

[old grey steve]

Yet another 8 Series and a regular with us this ones done just oer 50k from new






and if you know you old school E38's this rare non wheel base 750 was nice to see and drive






with double glazed windows, front and rear Nokia telephones, photochromatic exterior mirrors and much more in its day this was luxury and state of the art

[Somerset Jim]

I still love the lines of the E38. When I was a school boy my parents had a 740i and it was such a great place to be.