Sir Anthony Regents-Park

Walker stuff is junk. Ditto TiMax, Bosal etc. I fitted a genuine system to mine 12 years ago and it's still 100%. Genuine BMW or S/S.

A lot of this repro BMW stuff isn't very good tbh - it's not the same as the original, apart from the price of course.

Most M10's without AC have it. All the 518i's I ever had did anyway. The bits are available new except the bowden cable but you can get a suitable cable elsewhere. All M20/30 cars have the electro heater valve as do M10's with AC.

Parts needed are: Valve 64211368650 Cable 64111367698 Control 64111373938 About two hours work, and it'll never go wrong again.

I gave up with these years ago. They're just crap. The last one I had was a 525e, and I just fitted a 518/518i mechanical heater valve - you need the valve and the heater control panel with the bowden cable. Exotic it isn't, reliable it is.

The guards are there to channel cool air to the brakes. I'd fit new ones that are suitable for the bigger discs.

There are two different fuel pump relays, Siemens and Bosch and iirc, they have different terminal layouts and cannot be interchanged. To bypass a dead relay you connect terminals 30, 87 and 87b to power the fuel pump and the injectors.

The rear lights are almost identical to the latest A4.

The current 3 Series is a nice drive but it will age very quickly. The styling just doesn't work.

Indeed they were. The rads BMW buy and the ones you buy from ECP are not the same, but you get what you pay for. I'm sure Hella/Behr aftermarket rads have improved over the last few years. They had to!

I answered this at length the other day.

Nissens every time, I wouldn't touch Behr/Hella unless it came from a BMW dealer. E34's with proper hose clip type fittings are less prone to leaks than the later push fit hoses. Nissens are probably the best regarded aftermarket rads in the motor trade. I might even have a nearly new E34 V8 rad. edit: I'd check the small bore pipe running from the expansion tank down to the top corner of the rad - if this blocks it causes overheating as the rad cannot vent.

I despair at the own goals BMW seem to inflict on themselves. That 8 Series could have been a real exotic, something BMW haven't made for a long time. The Z4 isn't selling and the Active Tourer is a dodo. None of these will be replaced when their time is up and BMW will be slimming down their model range by 2025 - Mercedes also. G30 and 4 Series Coupe apart they seem to have forgotten how to make a pretty car. I bet that new 1 Series will sell by the million though. I don't mind an Audi but they have major reliability issues of their own. An AA bloke told me recently that they recover more of these than anything else by a long way.

Have you pulled/damaged/not refitted correctly the Lambda probes?

Make sure you have enough coolant in it. A mate had a 1993 E30 318i that always ran hot. We fitted a new viscous fan, still no better. Went to replace the stat, and I loosened the rad bleed screw at which point the coolant level in the expansion tank dropped like a stone. I added 2 litres of coolant and it was cured. Top hose hot - I'd be looking at the radiator but it could be a water pump. Aftermarket Behr/Hella stuff isn't very good tbh. I've used Circoli water pumps with success, pressed steel impellers. The BMW plastic ones are fine and last a long time but they are properly made. Bear in mind in cold weather, the bottom hose will be cooler than the top hose.