My 1995 530i 5 speed swap and story

[consti2tion]

I’ve had this car since 2012. My wife who was my girlfriend at the time gave me the money to buy it out of her tuition savings she had saved for nursing school (she is an RN now, no nurses careers were harmed in the purchase of this car) I needed a car because my Datsun 620 was giving me hell. Bought the car for 2100 from some shady used car lot in South Dallas. Drove the car for a year or so and decided I needed another truck, sold the car to my little brother. He had it for about a year and just doesn’t need to own a lowered car, ripped half of the front bumper off and wore out some bushings. Funny thing though when I bought it the right front fender was messed up I lucked out and found a Schwartz II fender in a salvage yard, my brother someone messed up that same fender during his ownership, well my father and I went down to Houston because they had an e34 m5 there that was black and I was hoping to score some goodies from but only thing I got was the fender and the condenser fan. Anyway back on track, I decided to buy it back from him because I missed the car and hated to see it in the condition it was in under his care. Throughout the last few years my wife has suggested me selling it because I have only put maybe 1200 miles on it, repaired a lot of typical m60 issues and lost steam on the project. She knows how much I love the car and how sentimental it is to me though so she didn’t push me too hard on getting rid of it and as I told her it is not worth shit to anyone but me.

On to the point though. I purchased most of a 5 speed for the car in 2014 from a guy on here, accumulated a few other odds and ends for it over the years as I would gain interest and lose it, mostly because of house projects and building a skoolie yada yada. Here we are now and we have just bought our third home in May. We did well enough on the sale of our previous homes that I was able to have a 35x50 shop built, my wife was kind enough to allow me some extra funds to install two 24k BTU mini split AC/Heat units (if you ever want a cheap and effective way to cool your work space that you can install yourself this is the way to go!!) this decision has really breathed life back in my beloved beemsie. I finally pulled the trigger and got on ecs and pelican parts last night and ordered what I “ think” is the remainder of parts for my 5 speed swap. Ordered a lightweight flywheel from TTV in the UK [emoji636] and got it within a week of ordering it! I know I will have forgotten some parts but damnit I am excited! I will do my best to document and add photos as I go through the process. Effing photo bucket has ruined most of the swap threads so hopefully this will help someone else as much as all of the info you guys out there has helped me! Here are a few pictures of my turd, need a new rear bumper cover and also I need to paint the car but that will have to wait until I get this swap done.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200809/c9aac612bcfb3e8ddd8d188d5f869069.jpg


Would love to find an b40 swap, will likely have to go m62 as m60b40 are not nearly as plentiful as they once were.

[Old525i]

Nice garage. Lift next?

[moroza]

I like that style. And yes, I see space for a lift. I built (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1227372-And-so-it-begins-the-E34-544iT-6-project) and drove (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?1486364-E34-in-the-Arctic-(56k-no-way)) an M62-powered E34 wagon (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?2371293-And-so-it-ends-the-544iT-is-for-sale) for eight years, and miss it more than I thought I would.

[a777fan]

Sweet shop setup. Very jealous.

Also loving the look. 5spd should be a lot more entertaining. Lookin forward to more.

[consti2tion]

Yes definitely a lift in the future. It will likely be end of this year or early next year before I can get one. It was either AC or a lift, I decided AC would be more important at the moment being in Texas.

I cant imagine selling this car at any point in the future. I would miss it much like yourself.

I’ve read through your build threads a few times Moroza. Tons of great information in those!

Here’s a pic of the shop showing how much room it has
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200809/36928c4aee1c59cb986878b265519480.jpg

The doors are 12x10 on the left and 12x11 on the right. Put the bigger door on the right to fit the school bus in.

[consti2tion]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200809/acdf8330bff0480b50fd62221f79b1d3.jpg
Here’s the shop with 4 vehicles with at least 4 feet between them. Finishing up some “fun home projects” with the wife today then I’ll be going out to work on some stuff on the car.

[consti2tion]

Update on the swap, almost finished with it. Ran into some hiccups or BMW standard issue nightmares. Once I got the auto and flywheel out I noticed what appeared to be a small coolant leak, thought no biggie I'll pull this cover with 17 bolts off the back of the engine. This is where the fun starts!! Two M6 bolts broke off inside of the block while removing this cover. With all of my effort and frustration I tried to drill these bolts out and use numerous eazeouts, to my dismay this was futile. Ended up having to drill out the bolt holes larger, broke a drill bit off in the block. Fast forward these bolt holes now have larger bolts in them, one of the top right ones is now in a hole on the outside of the block off plate. Pressure tested it with air and it is holding. Sealed the thing with " The Right Stuff " by permatex, kind of a ghetto repair but it will work for now. Sourced out an M60b40 short block locally so I will pick that up Thursday to start a new build for the poor thing.

On to the next round! While waiting for the permatex to dry I moved on to the 3.15 LSD, swapped output shafts, output shaft seals and rear cover from my open diff, filled with Mobile 1 LSD 75/90 gear oil practically had to chest press it up into place and used a piece of 10 AWG electrically wire to hold it in place while I installed the front bolt, rest of it went on without a hitch. Resealed the 5 speed transmission put it in with little effort really thanks to the help of a friend of mine, installed the driveshaft with a new carrier bearing and new output CV, new guibo. Installed the pedal assembly, with the clutch master on the pedals as well as the hard line and soft line. I sourced the hard lines from rockauto for literally like 3 bucks a piece from a 197x something VW Beetle brake lines as suggested by the TheStigg many moon ago. Softline bought from UUC 6 years ago. The slave cylinder I also bought around the same time, it was a Febi unit. Went to bleed the clutch and to my dismay I guess I over-extended the rod of the slave and pushed it past the seal luckily it didn't break the boot and shoot brake fluid inside of the transmission. New slave will be here today and I will finish the damned swap!

On a positive note the car started right up! No trans program error no CEL. Followed the numerous swap threads on this site and cobbled together what works definitively for a late build 95. I grounded the wire on the 12 PIN connector at the old auto shifter. Cut and spliced the two black and yellow wires as the EWSII harness connector. While I had the cluster out I finally replaced the bulb in my odometer, just stole the bulb out of the display for the automatic gear indicator.

Last things to do now are install the new slave cylinder, bleed clutch hydraulic system, figure out which wires I need to connect the reverse light pigtail to, install the exhaust and test drive!

[moroza]

Oyoyoy, that sounds like a fiasco with the rear cover. Yours is the first case I've heard of it actually leaking, but not the first of trouble with those bolts (I broke one too back when). PB Blaster, gentle impact - not an oxymoron - and antiseize to prevent it from recurring. I'd wonder about upgrading the bolts as well; I don't think they're even 8.8.

BTW, I suspect Right Stuff has changed their formulation in the last year or two. I used to swear by it, but lately I've had a series of seal failures where it was used.

Ifnwhen you want cruise control working again, see here, posts 22/23. (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?2413674-Cruise-control-with-manual-swap)

[consti2tion]

I will probably upgrade the bolts on whatever engine I get to replace the 3.0 for sure. It’s a temporary power plant now.

Thanks for the link, cruise control hasn’t worked since I bought the car, just something I’ve gotten used to. I’m sure I can re-solder whatever wire broke in the module behind the drivers headlight but I just haven’t cared enough to do it I guess.

Finished the swap yesterday and went and enjoyed the car! It feels like a completely different car. The tag was missing on my diff when I got it years ago, was told it was a 3.15 LSD but I’m not so sure about that. 80 MPH = 4k+ RPM. In any event it’s fun as hell to drive and lots of shifting. Need to get a shift surround and boot.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200820/7c8f2d3a2b133f90118890a76a56abe0.jpg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[consti2tion]

Oyoyoy, that sounds like a fiasco with the rear cover. Yours is the first case I've heard of it actually leaking, but not the first of trouble with those bolts (I broke one too back when). PB Blaster, gentle impact - not an oxymoron - and antiseize to prevent it from recurring. I'd wonder about upgrading the bolts as well; I don't think they're even 8.8.

BTW, I suspect Right Stuff has changed their formulation in the last year or two. I used to swear by it, but lately I've had a series of seal failures where it was used.

Ifnwhen you want cruise control working again, see here, posts 22/23. (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?2413674-Cruise-control-with-manual-swap)


I re-read that link you posted, I did do the EWSII jumper the two black wires with yellow stripes while I had the steering column out, so should be good to go when I do repair the other pieces of the cruise control. Thanks for your help Moroza!

[KillianE34]

So I’m very new to the forums and I’m not sure how to write a new post so maybe someone here can help me. I’m tearing down my m60 en go me due to blowing the head gasket and I need someone to help me out on how I would go about resetting the timing tensioner since all of mine are still in very good shape and I’d rather not spend a good chunk on new ones if I don’t have to please someone help me I’m newer to BMW my E34 is my very first Beamer I now on others there’s usually a little valve you can open and close with a hex key but the BMW one doesn’t seems to have anything like that?

[moroza]

Hello and welcome!

You could start by reading the Forum FAQ (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/faq.php) that appears near the top of the main forum listing page, as well as the thread (https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?938227-gt-gt-gt-E34-FAQ-lt-lt-lt-**PLEASE**-READ-HERE-Before-Posting-Questions) at the very top of the E34 section that implores you to please read it before posting questions.

"Beamer" is for motorcycles. "Bimmer" is for cars. Note that this isn't Beamerforums.com.

Yours is the third case of a blown M60 headgasket I've ever heard of. It's not a common occurence... what happened?

IIRC (if I recall correctly), the M60 chain tensioner is both spring-loaded and oil pressure-based, and the way to reset it is simply to bleed down the pressure by sustained force. A vise is useful.