Another new member and a pic of my E34

[jrobbo]

Hi all,

I was talking to BigKris over at Eurocca a couple of days ago and he told me about this place, so i've wandered over to say hi.

I'm the proud owner of an E34 M5, it's one of the original OZ delivered cars. I've had it for nearly 8 years now, it had 92,000 kms on it when I bought it, and today I clocked over 199,000kms. The car had an engine rebuild at 107,000kms.

The car has a few mods to it, including:


EAT (Mark D'Sylva) Chip
SLS rear suspension replaced with Eibach springs and Bilstein shocks
Front shocks are Koni Adjustables, stock springs, but with E30 spring isolators
18" M Parallel wheels
UUC Short shift kit with new gear linkages
Racing Dyamics strut brace


I've just bought clear corners and Xenon lights for it as well, which I will fit in the next few days.

I've been pretty keen on detailing lately, and spend far too much time on it. At the moment, it's looking better than it ever has, I've removed just about all of the microscratches in the paintwork, and it's really shining, I love it!

Here's a couple of pics:

http://www.jrobbo.com/M5/Detailing/images/image006.jpg
http://www.jrobbo.com/M5/Detailing/images/image008.jpg

i've had a look around this forum, and there's some great looking E34's here, so i'm looking forward to hanging out and chatting about our favorite cars!.

Regards

John

[Rob]

Welcome to the board, John.

Very nice E34 there, love the wheels. Clear corner wil also improve the look. :)

I'm Robert, by the way. :)

Enjoy the stay.

[kev535i]

nice car welcome the more aussies the better

[31Hertz]

Howdy, John! That is a fine looking M5, especially with the wheels. ME LIKEY! An engine rebuild at 107k km's? Whew!

I have only been a member for a short while, but if i may: Welcome, sir...

[BigKriss]

Welcome aboard John, what are E30 "spring isolators"?

[ILoveMPower]

I can't express in words the beauty of your car! Perfection!

EDIT: Is it Daytona violet?

[genphreak]

Hey John, thanks for posting a set of damn-near showroom pics to shame us! That looks like a fine piece of work- a labour of love from factory to 2006, I bet that car has it better than most, though I've no doubt that most of us e34 owners love their car as much... but she is a tribute to a great amount of effort, well done. Puts my paint to shame for sure, but one day I'll get to that. I always needed an M car too but I make do with Freida, she is my babe... but she's a tad older and she's a little cranky with me this year, I think she's telling me I've still got a lot of work to do....

Can you let us know how much a set of those M-Parallels would cost in Oz, are they hard to get? Since we don't ahve M5s we can live with replicas of course. YOu should come up to Terrigal with us, we're all going to be driving up- meeting at Thornleigh I believe... do come along, you'd be very welcome. But yes no racing en Convoy, I think I know who'd win :D :) Nick

[Anthony (M5 in Calgary)]

Welcome John. Your car looks great.

You should know that I partially blame your M5 Springboard website for my purchase and subsequent 5+ years of ear-to ear grin motoring in my M5. :D

My SLS is going under the knife shortly to get some new bombs. Shocks are OK but the back suspension is very jiggly and now that I've got the blown Koni (lasted 2 months) replaced the rear ride is bugging me.

This site is still the best E34 reference on the web.

[dacoyote]

Nice Car...

[angrypancake]

EDIT: Is it Daytona violet?

I think it's just so clean it can almost appear purple?

Post more pics! That's an amazing beast, sir.

[Scott H]

it has the bumper cover for the tow bar....have you ever towed with it?

[Speeder 553]

That is the coolest lic plate I've ever seen on a Beemer. :D

[SC David]

That is jawdroppingly clean! VERY nice car. I'm jealous.

[Alan_525i]

Very very nice looking car. Welcome to the board.

[jrobbo]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the very warm welcome! It's great to have found a place where people appreciate the timeless shape of the E34 (one of the best looking bimmers ever IMHO)

To answer some of the questions:


E30 Spring Isolators are the small rubber things that sit on top of the springs, between the spring and the spring mount. The E34 units are 9mm think, but the E30 units are only 3mm thick, and are a direct replacement. Cheap and easy way to lower the front of the car by 6mm
The colour is called "Macau Blue". It is in fact a very dark purple, it almost looks black in the shade. Take a look at some of the pics on the links below and you'll see it's true colours
The M Parallels that I have on the car at the moment are only cheap replicas. They seem OK, but they wouldn't be as light as the original pieces. They only cost me $300 locally (PM me if you want to know wher I got them in Melbourne) as opposed to trying to import some originals for many many times that price. I'm still on the lookout for some originals though, at the right price...
Anthony, thanks for the memory :) For those that don't know, I used to run a website many years ago called the M5 Springboard. It was a pretty crappy website, but had a lot of good info on it. When I first got my car, I found it really hard to find any info on it on the web, so I created the website to share whatever info I could find. Most of that info now lives on the E34 M5 FAQ, over at http://www.bmwe34m5.net
I used to have a little 6x4 trailer that I used to tow around when we were landscaping our garden, but I don't have the trailer anymore
I should point out that the paintwork on my car is far from perfect, the pics flatter it a little. every panel has some sort of imperfection, be it a scratch or small ding. I'd love to get it completely resprayed, and I had a quote for $7000 to get it done, but my wife won't let me spend the money :( One day...


Here are some pics of it:

This was just after I put the wheels on it:
http://www.jrobbo.com/M5/HalfMoonBay

A friend of mine has (had) a Techno Violet 540i LE 6 speed, and we took both cars down to Green Point at sunset and took some pics:
http://www.jrobbo.com/M5/ShadesOfPurple

A few more pics after my last bout of detailing
http://www.jrobbo.com/M5/Detailing

Thanks again guys, I'm looking forward to meeting up with you and seeing some of your cars next time there is a meet near me.

Regards

John