'91 M5 #06091 resto thread

[Grim Reaper]

Great thread. Well played and hope you keep after it as your car just continues to get better and better.

My .02 on your current rotors... how about you get them sandblasted and then you can paint them yourself with high temp engine or grill paint. Maybe a friend with a pressure pot, beadblaster or cabinet could hook you up. Those rear rotors look to have some good life in them still.

[Neel]

I didnt know you bought Rolands car. Cant wait to see it again.

[BleedsBlue]

Got new tie rods, pitman arm, and front swaybar links in the mail, and GC camber plates on order. Need to button these parts on before the alignment, which I want done before autocross on 9/26. The wheels got many compliments at Cars and Coffee yesterday, but I do want them to tuck more (and want more neg. camber for the other benefits, anyway).

Awesome project and nice job on the restoration. I have a couple OZ center caps that should fit your wheels, but I'm certain at least one has a broken tab. PM me if you're interested.

PM incoming, thank you!

Just read over this thread. Awesome work.

I consider this high praise coming from you, Justin, as your threads have been a source of inspiration for me. My "restoration" has been small potatoes compared to your swaps and restos!

Great thread. Well played and hope you keep after it as your car just continues to get better and better.

My .02 on your current rotors... how about you get them sandblasted and then you can paint them yourself with high temp engine or grill paint. Maybe a friend with a pressure pot, beadblaster or cabinet could hook you up. Those rear rotors look to have some good life in them still.

The car has grown on me immensely in the past year, and I'd have trouble trading it for anything else of similar value at this point.

I appreciate the brake rotor idea, and that will be the easiest short-term solution to the ugliness, for sure. When I do get the BBK pieced together, it will have slotted rotors, and then I'd want slotted rotors for the rear.

I didnt know you bought Rolands car. Cant wait to see it again.

I bought it right after his heart transplant (and helped shoehorn the heart back in), and have taken the resto over from there. I still involve him on decisions, being the ex-parent that he is

[Neel]

I bought it right after his heart transplant (and helped shoehorn the heart back in), and have taken the resto over from there. I still involve him on decisions, being the ex-parent that he is

I wanted that car so badly, but didn't have the funds. I should've charged him storage fee's equivalent to what he wanted when it was sitting at my place LOL...

[BleedsBlue]

The Final Chapter*
*of the suspension restoration...for now, until coil overs.

I ended up too busy to get the car ready in time for autocross, unfortunately, so I used the time I could have been autocrossing to work on cars. I had to pick between re-indexing the 911's rear torsion bars, and installing the M5 parts. Since the 911 job was purely for aesthetics, I prioritized the M5. This was hugely symbolic and rewarding because the steering links were the final components of the suspension that needed replacement, since I bought the car needing literally every suspension part replaced. As always, components used are Lemforder or better (BMW, or in this case, Ground Control).



I have replaced all the things on 4 ton jackstands in my crappy apartment garage, in which there is 2-3ft on each side of the M5. While I'm getting sick of squirming around on my back, I make sure to keep things safe with redundant stands, locked jack, and wheels under the frame (though I might prefer death over crushing my Turbines...). I've also learned to really bump and push the car around (before getting under it) once it's settled on stands, to make sure poking around underneath won't unsettle it. Consider this a PSA, I guess. (The car is level, btw, I just took an angled photo while crouching)



The install went fairly smoothly, all things considered. It helps that all of the brake and strut hardware has been removed and reinstalled properly by yours truly in recent months--nothing is rusted, seized, or over-torqued. Surprisingly, the nuts for the swaybar links and all the steering links slipped off with a medium breaker bar after a light WD-40 coat. I had a blast getting a wrench on the pitman arm top bolt before removing this evil heat shield:



Replacing the shield and the 10mm bolts sure was fun... the second obstacle was the passenger Billie strut hex key stripping on me. I was VERY careful about torquing the top nut down to spec last time, so I'm confused how it stripped. Regardless, a trip to borrow my dad's impact had the strut nut off in no time. Reinstall was easy with some rubber-insulated vice grips on the strut shaft (I don't condone installing the top nut with an impact).

The Ground Control camber plates replace the stock strut mounts. I REALLY like their quality, and ease of adjust-ability. I used this opportunity to remove the spring pads (though the M5 ones aren't exactly thick) and I have achieved another several precious mm of drop. I set the camber plates to the maximum possible negative camber, and booked an alignment at the local brake shop.

Gorgeous GC plates under a nasty strut tower:



The shop didn't touch the camber, as I wanted it maxed out, and got the other specs (just toe, really) where I wanted it for $60:



I'm over the moon after the alignment. I had unequal right and left play in the wheel (and was thinking about adjusting the steering box) and some very quiet, but still audible front end clunks and clinks. The steering tightened up considerably, with almost no on-center play (and now even side-to-side); the front end is now 100% clunk free; and perhaps due to a combo of new steering links and increased negative camber, the turn-in feels better than ever. I do hear the Mooseheads over rough pavement, but only with the windows down at low speed.

Crazy to think the suspension is "done" for now, and that the only thing I can really do going forward is upgrade (coil overs, sway bars). I want to go to a few autocrosses before buying any more parts, though. I need to remount the OZ Mitos and see how they fit with the added camber, and take some pictures.

Cosmetics and the driveshaft-related clunk are the "only" things left.

[BleedsBlue]

In this thread, no news is good news.

I've put a few thousand miles on the M5 since the alignment, and the car has run and driven perfectly since. I picked up a used set of Blizzak WS70s, and took a few trips to Breckenridge to take advantage of the great snow we've had already. My season pass is already paid for... side note, I saw the coolest damn thing at Breck the other week, on the last run of the day at 4:15p (the big lifts close at 4:00), right at the bottom of Peak 8, watching me, yipping, and then running off.



This winter has been colder than last, which is perfect (sarcasm) since I didn't switch to a thinner oil this time around, but kept 15w-50 in the car (due to lack of time). I have avoided most start-ups under ~25 degrees, which really get the oil pressure light on for more than a second . But annoyingly, the chassis just hates sub 20 degree weather. The trunk latch fails, the door locks I just serviced last year seize up, the blower motor chirps, etc. After having to sit on the trunk lid to get it latched one 15 degree night, the driver side license plate bulb also stopped coming on unless I hit the trunk near it. I've had it out, and can't figure out WTF this is, since the wiring is fine, grounds look good, etc. I had to completely re adjust the trunk lid hinges and latch mounting, but I just need a new latch that won't freeze up under 20 degrees.

I have been extra annoyed at these things because I've just spent so much on rehabbing the mechanicals, but then again, all of these parts have up to 230k miles on them, and the car has run well...

Until it died on Route 9 leaving Breckenridge. End of the snowboarding day, it started up perfectly, and drove entirely normally before dying completely on a two-lane, packed road.



I was able to coast/snow plow into the shoulder (the snow was up to our knees), but the thing just wouldn't start. Strong cranking, all electrical fine, etc, but no catching whatsoever. While my first thought was fuel delivery, turns out I have been missing an important component in my tool kit all along: a Philips screwdriver

Without which, I couldn't remove the spark plug cover, or the fuel pump cover. What a noob. But I really thought it was a bad fuel pump (the ONLY part of the fuel and ignition systems not replaced in the last 10k), and I doubted I could fine a replacement on a weekend in Frisco, CO.

Soooo, tow of shame time. MY FIRST TIME IN 8 YEARS OF PLAYING WITH HIGH MILEAGE VINTAGE GERMAN CARS. Damn.



The timing was, at least, perfect. My dad had just driven up in a separate car to join me on the slopes, so we were able to stay another day in the mountains for Keystone the next day, and have the M5 towed home without us. Which turned out to be extremely fortunate, since the tow truck broke down TWICE on the 90 mile trip home, and ended up being delivered during half time of the Super Bowl (go Broncos, btw).

Once home, I was able to check easy stuff such as spark, CPS wiring, and fuel pump actuation. With dizzythree's (Roland, the P.O.) help, I diagnosed the problem and came away with a dead fuel pump, since all the pump wiring checked out fine. I can turn wrenches with the best of them, but have little diagnosis experience, so Roland was a big help!

For under $200 from Pelican, a Bosch fuel pump arrived.



Surprisingly easy to replace, I swapped the pump and a new seal in 1.5 hours in my parking lot (including having to replace some hose clamps unexpectedly, which I should have expected), and presto, that was the problem!

Hindsight being 20/20, I now know I missed obvious signs the fuel pump was dying, namely:

• Loud buzzing/hissing noise around the rear of the car, louder to others than myself (due to drumming hearing loss, lol)
• Occasional (1 out of 5 times, if that) hesitation at WOT
• Harder and harder starting in really cold temperatures, which has been completely rectified

Since the M5 has been running so well (barring the fuel pump issue), I haven't done much to it, also being busy with fixing other family cars.

I bought a new, correct-style shift emblem for the lighted knob from Andrew on M5Board; the original emblem lit knob is NLA, so Andrew takes an unlit original style emblem, scrapes out the opaque part of the shift pattern, and then sells it at cost basically. It looks FAR better than the new-style, chromey-M emblem.



With the stock 8J M Systems up front and now -2 camber, I had some serious tuck, so I sourced another pair of 15mm spacers (running them all around now) to push the front wheels out. My only picture of it below; I'm really digging the stance (not in a stancebro way, but it looks good).



The body-colored lower trim is suddenly driving me crazy, and I'm going to rattle-can it black real soon as a stop-gap measure. I'll also fill in the lower door rust with some white Rustoleum or something, also as a stop-gap.

I've got a new PS hose waiting to go in to fix the single leak on the car (which causes the poop-stain on the driver side lower bumper), and a shift bushing kit in hand (w/ some delrin) to fix the side-to-side shifter play. Still a few months out, I need to hook up Greg's A/C compressor and get the system filled before summer. Though I've put up with it for two years, the drive shaft imbalance clunk is still present and should be addressed...

Oh and I sold the Brembo Lotus calipers to a 911 guy, since they don't fit Greg's brackets I have (and are inferior to the F50s). BBK (front at least) and projector headlights both from Greg are to come later in the year.

My OZ Mitos are up for sale (on Craigslist, in a quarter-azzed attempt); I'm not in love with the styling or weight, and want 18s for tire sizing in the future.

More than ever, it's tempting to get the car repainted (and "finish" the interior restoration); but my mind wanders all night into the frictionless slope of 911 parts...

[UnrulyGrace]

Love it! Looking forward to a road trip to CO this spring/summer, we will have to get together.

[BleedsBlue]

Added picture of the correct OE knob emblem.

Love it! Looking forward to a road trip to CO this spring/summer, we will have to get together.

Oh fo sho! Greg wants to get something going during that time, we'll keep you posted.

[93FIM5]

Looking great man! Yea we definitely need to get a meet setup!

-Greg

[fanboi]

I'll throw in a mention of the 4 Corners meet for a gathering in August. I'll be there, last year was nice.

http://drive4corners.com/d4c-2016-tentative-dates/

[BleedsBlue]

For sure, 4 Corners looks sweet. I was out of town for it last summer, but I want to go this year.

Funny enough, this car popped it's head gasket at 220k miles on the 4 Corners meet a few years ago, when Roland owned it

[Jackson42]

Here's BK06090, aka The Ground Pounder. I've been watching your progress on BK06091 with quiet admiration.

M5.jpg

[BleedsBlue]

Here's BK06090, aka The Ground Pounder. I've been watching your progress on BK06091 with quiet admiration.

M5.jpg

AWESOME!! Looks like assembly line twins! Silver-grey interior, too? Thank you for posting, this is super cool.

The Ground Pounder looks great, and helps reaffirm the decision to spray my lowers black. And also doesn't help with my current Throwing Star interest...

[Jackson42]

Actually, the lip of the chin spoiler is black, but the rest of the shadow trim is a dark metallic gray. I don't know if that's the original color or not, but it looks really good. Yes, it's silver-gray inside. I kinda got a buzz too when I realized these two rolled off the line in sequential order!

[BleedsBlue]

The lowers should be diamond-schwarz black on Alpine cars, but DS black is not that "dark," and can definitely have a dark metallic gray sheen in the right light. I'm just going for something at Lowes for now, since the entire car needs repainting anyway.

I wouldn't have thought sequential twins would be the same color combo, very interesting! Gotta meet up somehow, sometime, to swap keys and see how different/similar they are

[BleedsBlue]

The 911 is at an alignment shop for...an alignment, after I re-worked the stance, so it's a good time to pull the M5 into the bay for a quick and dirty cosmetic touch-up.

Targets:

• Get the rear wheel/tire combo to fit (rubbing slightly since I added 15mm spacers, actual offset ET7)
• Re-spray those nasty body-colored lower trim pieces
• Address the door bottom rust spots
• Fix the huge C pillar scratch that is showing surface rust

Upholding my standard of terrible pictures of a dirty car, here's the rear fitment with the Mito + RS3 v2, now with 15mm spacer (this combo actually tucked too much without a spacer). The offset is perfect now, IMO, but I do have a very slight rub under compression.



I hadn't seen how damn thick the rear E34 fender lip is! So much for the baseball bat method (all of my paint is sh1te), but I was able to mallet the edge of the lip further inward without doing any damage, which should be enough clearance without rolling that 1/4" thick lip flat. If needed, I'll get the lips rolled flat professionally, because I don't want to compromise on fitment (especially if I go bigger later).

Good news is the camber plates help tuck the front wheel and tire better, an advantage I was counting on beyond the crisper turn-in.



No more Civic poke... remember? Before:



But now I just want coil overs for more dorp and camber. The E34 really fits that wide combo (about 10" total) up front with proper spacing, and I could even drop a few mm off the spacer if needed. I need to get the thing out on the autocross course to see how I like square 255s, before moving onto phase 2 (maybe 275 square on 18s, or 265/285).

And now that I've had the Mitos on a for a few days, I like 'em again and took the ad down. I can't decide on these wheels.

Below, the big C pillar scratch has only gotten uglier as rust set in (the rear sits lower, but had just been lowered off the jack):



I'm surgically sanding that scratch as well as the little rust spots on the bottoms of the doors. I'm just going to retouch the spots with some white Rustoleum for now. The C pillar scratch goes through the chrome trim (real deep), but I have a replacement trim piece. Probably won't replace it until the respray, and I want the trim black anyway.

I started sanding one of the side skirts' lower half, and under some chipped paint was surprised to find what looked suspiciously like Diamond-Schwarz! I picked around the lower trim on the front bumper, and found the same! With that knowledge, I "pivoted" from the plan of thoroughly sanding the lower trim and spray painting, to Plan B: a light surface sand and Plasti Dip. I know the underlying DS paint will be impossible to restore, but I didn't want to add a third layer of paint to the lower trim for the body shop to remove when I get the car repainted.

I've achieved good results with Plasti Dip in the past, and last night used the rest of the black Dip I had in my garage on one side skirt. Pictures to come, but I think it will do just fine and hold me over until the respray. I've been focusing on some debt reduction, but am feeling more and more like giving the car a proper factory re-spray. After that, I'd just need to tidy up the interior to consider the car fully restored.

[93FIM5]

I'll throw in a mention of the 4 Corners meet for a gathering in August. I'll be there, last year was nice. http://drive4corners.com/d4c-2016-tentative-dates/

Grr lol

[93FIM5]

I'll throw in a mention of the 4 Corners meet for a gathering in August. I'll be there, last year was nice. http://drive4corners.com/d4c-2016-tentative-dates/

I have no intention of going to that circle jerk.

We can definitely throw a good get together guys, you guys want a separate thread?

-Greg

[BleedsBlue]

Sounds good Greg. Let's get another thread going when we're ready.

[93FIM5]

The 911 is at an alignment shop for...an alignment, after I re-worked the stance, so it's a good time to pull the M5 into the bay for a quick and dirty cosmetic touch-up.

Targets:

• Get the rear wheel/tire combo to fit (rubbing slightly since I added 15mm spacers, actual offset ET7)
• Re-spray those nasty body-colored lower trim pieces
• Address the door bottom rust spots
• Fix the huge C pillar scratch that is showing surface rust

Upholding my standard of terrible pictures of a dirty car, here's the rear fitment with the Mito + RS3 v2, now with 15mm spacer (this combo actually tucked too much without a spacer). The offset is perfect now, IMO, but I do have a very slight rub under compression.



I hadn't seen how damn thick the rear E34 fender lip is! So much for the baseball bat method (all of my paint is sh1te), but I was able to mallet the edge of the lip further inward without doing any damage, which should be enough clearance without rolling that 1/4" thick lip flat. If needed, I'll get the lips rolled flat professionally, because I don't want to compromise on fitment (especially if I go bigger later).

Good news is the camber plates help tuck the front wheel and tire better, an advantage I was counting on beyond the crisper turn-in.



No more Civic poke... remember? Before:



But now I just want coil overs for more dorp and camber. The E34 really fits that wide combo (about 10" total) up front with proper spacing, and I could even drop a few mm off the spacer if needed. I need to get the thing out on the autocross course to see how I like square 255s, before moving onto phase 2 (maybe 275 square on 18s, or 265/285).

And now that I've had the Mitos on a for a few days, I like 'em again and took the ad down. I can't decide on these wheels.

Below, the big C pillar scratch has only gotten uglier as rust set in (the rear sits lower, but had just been lowered off the jack):



I'm surgically sanding that scratch as well as the little rust spots on the bottoms of the doors. I'm just going to retouch the spots with some white Rustoleum for now. The C pillar scratch goes through the chrome trim (real deep), but I have a replacement trim piece. Probably won't replace it until the respray, and I want the trim black anyway.

I started sanding one of the side skirts' lower half, and under some chipped paint was surprised to find what looked suspiciously like Diamond-Schwarz! I picked around the lower trim on the front bumper, and found the same! With that knowledge, I "pivoted" from the plan of thoroughly sanding the lower trim and spray painting, to Plan B: a light surface sand and Plasti Dip. I know the underlying DS paint will be impossible to restore, but I didn't want to add a third layer of paint to the lower trim for the body shop to remove when I get the car repainted.

I've achieved good results with Plasti Dip in the past, and last night used the rest of the black Dip I had in my garage on one side skirt. Pictures to come, but I think it will do just fine and hold me over until the respray. I've been focusing on some debt reduction, but am feeling more and more like giving the car a proper factory re-spray. After that, I'd just need to tidy up the interior to consider the car fully restored.

Great progress man, have you had a chance to remove the bottom door trims and clean things up? If not I would when you're ready for a respray, definitely worth doing and applying body wax while you're in there.

-Greg

[BleedsBlue]

Great progress man, have you had a chance to remove the bottom door trims and clean things up? If not I would when you're ready for a respray, definitely worth doing and applying body wax while you're in there.

-Greg

Yessir, I have inspected those and they are part of my stop-gap Rustoleum solution at this point. The rust is still only surface-level, and has not rotted the inner door/bottom yet, and I should have just stopped the creep. I sanded all the rust and got Rustoleum along the inner and outer door bottoms with a tiny brush (and thanks to the trims not sitting perfectly). White Rustoleum almost matches some of the off-white tones on this car LOL.

I did replace one cracked door trim when I first got the car, but the new one still doesn't sit right, so I'm not going to pull the others without new replacements ready to go on. At the body shop during the respray it will get done, for sure, and I'll make sure extra rust-proofing/wax etc is applied. It's such an Achilles heel of these cars, every damn Craigslist car has rust there

[BleedsBlue]

Unprecedented access granted into the BleedsBlue "clean room," in which the latest Leo-approved professional paint application methods and equipment are employed:



Ms. BleedsBlue meanwhile fears to even light a candle in the house, but agrees that Alpine M5s should have black lowers and off-white on white > rust on white.

[ZenitramNaes]

Nice man, glad you got the fuel pump figured out!

[BleedsBlue]

^Thanks again for the offer, man!

Pictures to come, just finished all the lower trim. It looks better/more M5-like, for sure. Also just ordered the correct PS hose, a new reservoir, and smartened up and bought Febi CH11S @ $13/liter shipped rather than Pentosin CH202 @ $20/liter.

[TougeM540]

Jelly