Things have moved fast over the weekend. On some advice from Andy Eccles I instructed eBay to notify me of any new items matching a search ‘E30 M3 LSD’. Saturday afternoon, eBay email me with a fresh item.

I made contact with the vendor, agreed a buy it now price, and collected the differential on Sunday morning. It’s actually from a Z3M, and as such is a 3.15:1, slightly higher ratio than the car’s standard 3.25:1 (but not as silly rev-happy as the open 3.64:1 diff I’ve been running!).

The UK BMW world being a small one, Simon Stevinson knows the vendor, and confirms that it was removed to allow that chap to track prep his car, and is a good condition 45K mile old unit.

Sunday lunchtime I swap it in.

The results? Perfect! A completely silent, smooth and solid drive. The slightly higher gearing isn’t really noticeable, and while I realise it means it’s ever so slightly less track suited, it is more suited to real world driving – something I intend to give it quite a bit of now that, for the first time since I bought it, I consider it to be 100%.

Of course, there’s always a downside, and while fitting the diff in the lovely sunshine I noticed another spot of rust on the boot floor, and that some exhaust mounts and the rear drop links are badly perished. Plenty still left to do then, but really getting there now.