1991 Brokatrot Metallic 520i

[henfjel]

I'll see if there is! But I don't know if I would recommend it. When you scrape ice horizontally at the bottom of the windows the site of it hits the doors/hood/boodlid. So I'm stuck with scraping vertically, which isn't as practical as one might want it to be! #firstworldproblems

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And the scrape itself is useless. Buy this instead! http://www.ecstuning.com/BMW-E34-525...Snow/ES194649/
I know I will, next winter.

[henfjel]

Look, look! A package arrived today. What could it be? YES! It's the rubber floormats I ordered



Will take some pictures when they are all cleaned and installed

[henfjel]

No big news, but I've left to go up north for a couple of months so I gave her a good wash both inside and outside before I left! It'll be nice to come back to a clean car in march AND I may have gotten myself some black leather seats (comfort, not sport), doorcards with leather inserts and anthrazite wood trim AND the parts under the dash with matching wood (incl. glove box)!
They are of course heated (duh, in the winter, this car often run in temperatures as low as 5 fahrenheit!! BTW, my record is -16,6F. Thats right, negative 16), have armrests in the front and headrests in the back. And they are manual, so no weight gain or stupid electronics to go wrong. They looked mint in the pictures, so I'm hoping they are for real. My dad is checking them out tomorrow morning and are taking it with him to the garage the car is stored at if they are as good as it seems. Will post an update when I have something more to report!

Btw, sorry for the shitty picture quality. It was dark..

[henfjel]

Well, it's done!

Since I'm not there I couldn't get any pictures myself, but these are the one from the seller. The spots on the seats, door cards and glove box are just dirt and will wash off.



















Looking forward to getting back to the car and getting this interior mounted

[Sriufke]

That's one rare wood trim. Graphite bird's eye I assume?

By the way, when swapping a non-wood interior to one with wood trim, the glove box catch and carrier are different (The glove box won't close), as is the upper plastic cover, keep in mind when swapping them.

The parts I've mentioned are #8 and #13 in the diagram.
http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog/E3...rim/glove_box/

The interior will look awesome, though I am not a fan of Leather. (Ain't practical enough for me)

[Fredrik 90]

As I said at the Norwegian bimmerforum, lovely car and good work. I like that you keep the car completely orignial and attention to details. Keep up the good work

[henfjel]

@Sriufke: It is indeed graphite birds eye maple! I believe nr. 13 is the same for wood/no wood, but nr. 8 is different. But I have it covered! Leather isn't my final choice, but I'm so sick and tired of the ugly cloth interior I had. Eventually I'm going to get M-Cloth alcantara seats and door card inserts. But this will be nice in the mean time Also looks much better and I'm loving heated seats!

@Fredrik 90: Thanks!

[ajg60110]

New to the whole BMW thing. I've followed about three rebuild threads now and I'm very impressed with the dedication you show to keeping these wonderful automobiles alive. Great work and amazing attention to detail, well done.

[henfjel]

@ajg60110: Welcome to the "BMW thing"!
Thank you so much! It's nice to hear people appreciating what I do to the car. Really motivating me to keep up the work!

No interesting update for you guys, but I've been browsing the ETK today, and prepared some lists of parts I will be buying in the future! I've been thinking about buying a lot of cool stuff, extras and such, but I've decided to start with getting the mechanical things in order first. So I'll be starting with overhauling either front suspension/brakes or with clutch/driveline. I have a shimmy/vibration when breaking and some clunking in my front suspension so the front brakes will be replaced/overhauled and I'll be replacing bushings, various arms and what not while I'm under there. I will also be upgrading to a 25mm sway bar. The car rides very well, but I would like less "boat" feeling when cornering. Other than diving when doing heavy cornering it rides like a beauty.
When it comes to the clutch, you can barely feel where it takes when you let the clutch pedal out. And if I get into heavy traffic and there is a lot of sluring (is that the right word?) on first gear it starts to shake when it gets hot. I guess the throw out bearing is about to die. And it still has the original clutch, so it's about time for a new one! Driveline-wise I have a problem with clunking and "shaking" when I drive at low RPM's which I believe is caused by the driveline. I believe it to be either guibo or diff mount. Anyway, the whole driveline will be overhauled and the trans will get new seals and oil, and the shifter mechanism will get all new bushings and I'll treat myself with the E60 545i "short shift" conversion!

So I'll be starting with either of those, and then continuing with rear suspension, powerflex in subframe, thicker sway bar and so on. THEN I'll be out for extras

But first things first! I'm away from the car until march 20th, but when I get back I'll be doing some leather cleaning and care before installing the new interior in my car! I'm really looking forward to that. It will be a great visual and comfort upgrade. Aaaah, them heated leather seats with armrests in the front
I will also try to get the cruise control parts I bought installed and working. That would be great for long drives.

Another thing I've been considering is a differential with either 2.93 ratio or the more extreme 2.64 ratio. I'm looking for some loooow cruising RPM's in fifth gear on the highway. I've taken into account that the car will accelerate slower, but I don't care about that. This car is for comfort and cruising anyway and I don't intend for it to be a fast car as there is no way it could be with just a 2.0 anyway. Fuel economy and comfort is much more important to me. I haven't decided which ratio to go with yet, and I think I'll just have to try different ones to find one I really like. I guess 2.64 might be to high for the little B20 engine but the 3.46 thats in there now is way too high. I'm currently at 3250 RPM's at 70 mph, and not only is the fuel economy shit when driving for an hour and a half at this speed, but the engine is also quite noisy with a RPM that high for so long. From my calculations I'll be doing about 2450 RPM's at 70 mph with a 2.64 ratio diff. That would be perfect, so I just have to see if the car actually accelerates at all with that high gearing. I'm hoping it won't be too bad, taking into account the high cruising RPM I have now and the fact that first gear is basically useless. Might as well pull away in second, the gearing being this low. I'll be a process of trying and failing, but it shall be fun!

Ending this endless post with my favorite picture of her!

[henfjel]

Looks like there will be some work done with my dads 525i M20 this weekend! It's in a little rough shape, so there is alot to take care of.

The most critical thing for now is a fuel-leak that recently occured. It's near the left rear wheel, so I'm guessing that rust has killed one of the fuel lines. We have reserved a lift for tomorrow so we can inspect and fix the leak. But while we're there we are also going to take care of a few other things. Among them replacing both control arms, and the four CV joint boots as two of them as cracked.

Next in line after that is a big job we've been looking forward to! We have a bad oil leak from the rear crank seal, so we figured we might as well install a new clutch kit, replace all seals and oil in trans, all bushings in shifter mechanism, guibo, driveshaft support, trans mounts, seals and banjo bolts for leaky steering box and the seals for boths sides of the diff. It isn't leaking, but it is a bit of moisture from both sides. Might as well replace them.

Here are some pictures! Parts day is a good day!








I'll remember to take alot of pictures during the weekend!

Today I gave it a good wash, both inside and outside. It's dry weather, so it seemed like a good time to do it. Hopefully it'll stay clean a while if the weather remain stable!

While looking through some boxes the other day I found an old container (early 2000's) of Turtle Wax Super Wash. It said it would wash AND polish the car so I thought I'd give it a go. And it worked! When I rinsed it of the water was in little drops all over the car. Like it had been polished. Good shit. Then dried it of with microfiber towels to avoid drop-marks when it dries and to avoid water turning into ice when going outside again..
On the inside the mats were degreased and washed, the carpets and seats were vacuumed and the vinyl on dash, center console and door cards were treated with a very old spray can of interior cleaner. From the look of the lable I'd say it's from the early-mid nineties o.O Worked like a charm! Didn't take any pictures of the inside as I had two morons in the car as you can see in the pictures






It's actually a good looking car this. But it has quite some rust under all the doors, and some in the rocker panels that needs to be taken care of. Also has some paint damages on the rear bumper (someone have been careless with a trailer here..) and that spot on the right of the bootlid is from a huge dent we had pulled out. Filler was used but when we were painting it we realized we had got the wrong clear paint and we never got around finishing it. Now degreaser have gone through the thin layer of spray-paint. Will also be taken care of eventually!

I think this car has a lot of potential. It would definitively look good with an M5 filler plate, some Genuine BMW chrome tips for the muffler as I have on the 520i and new license plates! Hopefully not a too distant dream!

[The Night Rider]

Your car and your dads both look great. I think I said this before but I really like the look of a clean original looking E34. Good luck with the work, its always fun to have a whole lot of brand new parts.
Also is that a precision bass I see on the floor in the background?

[S61Dan]

I enjoyed this thread. Nice work.

[henfjel]

Your car and your dads both look great. I think I said this before but I really like the look of a clean original looking E34. Good luck with the work, its always fun to have a whole lot of brand new parts.
Also is that a precision bass I see on the floor in the background?

Thanks!
It sure is. But it is not a Fender. I've built it using body and neck from Warmoth, Fender hardware and EMG active pickups.
Looks like this:

I enjoyed this thread. Nice work.

Thanks man!

[The Night Rider]

That looks pretty cool. I play the guitar myself but enjoy playing my friends bass when I can.

[henfjel]

Nice!

[henfjel]

Took care of the fuel-leak yesterday and today we sorted out the shot control arms! We sourced the leak to just above the rear left trailing arm. It was inside the clip that holds the fuel lines that go through there. Last year, we had to remove some rust from the brake lines to get through the inspection thats every two years. And while we removed the rust from the brake lines we also brushed down the fuel lines and covered everything up with zinc base paint and then some protective paint. What we didn't do was remove the clip, so it rusted inside and finally the preassure from the fuel pump broke through the rust. We couldn't get new fuel lines on such short notice so we solved it by removing the part of the clip where the leak was, splitting 10cm of fuel hose and wrapping it around the fuel line with some instant gasket sealant inside. Then clamped the whole thing using three hose clamps to make sure it won't leak any more. Obviously this is just a temporary fix. We've decided to replace all the fuel and brake lines, and while we are doing that we are also replacing all bushings in the rear suspension. That way we can remove the whole rear subframe to easily get to the fuel lines and at the same time replace all the bushings while it's out.

Here is a picture of our beautifull fix.. Note that the rust-red on the fuel lines is zinc primer, and not rust.


And then we went on to replace the control arms! We've been suffering from knocking from the front suspension and knocking when breaking hard and suddenly. Forgot to take a picture of the old shot arms, but they were totally ruined. New ones are now in place and all knocking is gone! Feels great.

[henfjel]

Started working on some 15" Style 5s for my dads 525i yesterday. Since he bought it in 1997 it's been running on some ugly ass 15" Fondmetals. And last year it rode on the ugly wheels my 520i came with when I bought it, because I found new wheels and they still had some good thread left on them. But last summer I found these, and they are gonna look sweet on the 525i.

These are pictures of two different wheels, but they started out like this. All of them need a good polish, new tires and new stickers for the center-caps. And I've found how much it sucks to get to all the parts of the wheel..


Loads of brake dust and grime.


Muuuuch better!


But there is still some crap inside the rim and in all the "hard to reach" areas..


Comparison.


Getting there!

[E38740iMD]

going to polish them?

[henfjel]

What I mean by polishing is give the paint a good shine. Not stripping down the paint on the edges and polish the aluminium!

[henfjel]

A little taste of what I've been doing today!


More pictures coming tomorrow when I get all the door cards and the center console on

[Steve547i]

I still love that color a lot and you've done some good work on it

[henfjel]

Thanks man!

[E38740iMD]

I'm really liking this bumper nozzles. I may have to get a set for looks. (Not function)

[henfjel]

I like them too. I'm going to look into retrofiting it to my car as well. Could use some headlight washers in the winter here, with salted roads and everything. Right now my whole car is gray from all the spray from other cars..

I am of course useless when it comes to taking pictures. But I chose not to take any more before I have all the door cards and under dash-wood trim in place.

[E38740iMD]

i will just either glue on a set or drill a hole and mount em. it gives it attitude