F10 530d Manual: Replaced leaking clutch slave-cylinder.

At the end of 2018 when I replaced the clutch on the F10 I threw on a new slave-cylinder while I was there, but I used a cheap spurious part, not OEM. It has been leaking for a while but I’ve started to lose my pedal and the topping up is becoming frequent, so time has come to replace it again. This time I went for an OEM Febi slave-cyl.

The spurious part from 2018 cost just £18 and is made from cast aluminium. You can see it’s poorly made compared to the OEM part, which is made of high-quality plastic. The Febi part was £57 still in 2024, but you can clearly see the improvement in build-quality. For such a critical part as the slave-cylinder it’s worth just paying the extra and avoid having to redo a messy, fiddly job!

*GUIDE: Replacing / Clutch Slave-cylinder on F10/F11*

*GUIDE: Bleeding Clutch on F10/F11*

As you can see, the cast-alloy slave-cylinder does not have the same look of build quality that the OEM plastic one does. It lasted 5 years and only about 25k miles, but was still good value for the price!

*GUIDE: Clutch Slave-cylinder replacement and bleeding guide for E30 / E28 / early E34 and E34*

E30 318i: Replacement Speedometer/ Odometer

Had to bite the bullet and buy a replacement speedo / odometer for project E30 this week as after many different attempts to fix the original one [THIS POST], I had to declare it totally junked. These are not cheap and sit around the £65-70 region, but I got a deal on one for £59... still an unwanted cost but at least I no longer have to tape an old iPhone to the dash with a speedo app!

Now the question is, do I swap in the number row from my old odometer or leave the ones in from this one, some 100k miles less.... Hmmm.

As per the pics, the areas of concern on my old speedo are not problem on the replacement, with resistors, capacitors and other components all looking mint. There is also no charring to the back of the PCB, so no sign of this unit overheating in the past and the odometer gearing is perfect. This unit has still covered 154k miles over the last 35 years, but has clearly had an easier life than the one from my E30!

Showing the healthy resistor on the newer speedo on the left and the burnt out one to the right.