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Thread: Danny's Japan Rot 540i Touring Thread

  1. #851
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    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by dannyzabolotny View Post
    I only lowered it like an inch in the front with Dinan springs, should I have loosened and re-torqued the bushings? I've never heard of anyone needing to do that unless they were going super stance low.
    Agreed. Never heard they were that sensie before.
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  2. #852
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    Oh wow, it's been a few months since I last posted here. Time to fix that. Over the next few posts I'll be catching up on everything I've done to this car, from October to present day.

    ------------------------

    As I mentioned previously, my Lemforder thrust arm bushings had leaked. I bought a set of Meyle HD thrust arms from FCP Euro since they cost about the same as the Lemforder arms FCP Euro's lifetime warranty on the Lemforder arms means this replacement effectively cost me nothing when all was said and done.

    Old on the left and new on the right:



    You can see how much beefier the Meyle HD thrust arm bushing is:



    The install was pretty straightforward, especially since I've done this before. Having the right tools helps a lot! The Harbor Freight ball joint popper tool made easy work of the ball joints on the thrust arms. The new thrust arms were torqued at ride height on ramps. The handling definitely felt a lot more solid after the install, but the steering wheel shake was not really reduced— if anything it got worse. More on that later, as I just dealt with it for a while.

    With the new thrust arms installed, it was back to the quarter mile strip for some more brake & transmission abuse. My best run the previous time was 14.97s at 92.7mph, not too great considering the factory spec time is 14.2s. This time I ran a best time of 14.88s at 91.6mph.



    An improvement for sure but still a far cry from the factory spec time, especially considering that the factory spec times were achieved with the standard square 235's all around, meanwhile I had stickier 275's in the rear. I dunno, maybe the engine/transmission are getting weak. The drag strip I go to doesn't start the clock until the car crosses the line, so the reaction time makes no difference.

    While I didn't smash any records at the drag strip, my rear suspension took quite a beating. I had some new parts laying around for a long time, so I figured I would finally install them. I replaced the last remaining components of the rear suspension that were original, which were the upper control arms. While these usually don't get super worn out, the boots on the ball joints were all torn up so I figured it wasn't a bad idea to replace them. I also took the opportunity to remove the Koni shocks so I could cut the bump stops in half and decrease how much the rear end bottomed out on bumps.

    The job was pretty straightforward, though on the touring the air struts really block access, so I found it extremely helpful to deflate them by pulling their air connections on top. With the air struts all soft and pliable I was able to work around them much easier to access the rear upper control arms. I will say that you absolutely do need an alignment after replacing these, as they control the toe of the rear wheels (more on that later).

    Assuming the position:



    I did notice that the passenger side rear tire was quite a bit more worn than the driver's side tire. This was the side where I waited for a while to replace the lower ball joint, plus the camber might have been a bit off. I didn't realize it made such a big difference in tire wear, but there you go. Learn from my mistakes and don't be lazy about replacing everything when doing your suspension work.



    Old vs. new:



    Dead boot and a fairly loose ball joint:



    Same story with the other arms.





    Interestingly enough, none of the bushings looked all that bad, most of the wear appeared to be in the ball joints. Oh well, it's easier to just replace the whole arm, I don't even know if the bushings on these can be replaced on their own.

    Also, while I was in there, I also took the time to install the lowering links that I bought from loweringlinks.net (obvious name is obvious). I know I could technically adjust the rear ride height with INPA, but it's a rather fiddly process so I'd rather use the links to get everything fine-tuned.



    The rear suspension was starting to look real nice at this point with all the fresh suspension components.



    See if you can spot the idiot mistake in this one. I certainly didn't, and it came back to bite me shortly after.



    With everything back together, I put the car down and took it on a test drive to make sure everything felt right. Nothing felt out of place, though the rear ride still felt a bit harsh. This is how it sat with the lowering links. A bit lower than I was used to, but I figured I'd give it a shot.



    More in the next installment!
    Last edited by dannyzabolotny; 01-13-2018 at 01:36 AM.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  3. #853
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    With the rear suspension completely overhauled, I turned my attention to the brakes which were completely fried after drag racing. The "check pad linings" message had come on, along with the red BRAKE light, so I knew it was time to address them. I first returned a whole bunch of unused stuff from my 750il and Range Rover (both long gone) to FCP Euro and got around $500 in store credit. Using that, I ordered Akebono pads + Zimmerman drilled rotors all around. I also got new brake pad sensors and new stainless steel brake lines.

    Of course, me being a legendary procrastinator (you should see me at work, the situations I get myself into are jaw-droppingly stupid), I waited to order the brake parts and the UPS Ground shipping took a while, since I wasn't about to pay a bunch for shipping (fast shipping on heavy brake rotors is $$$). The brake parts arrived two days before I was to leave on a 2000-mile road trip to San Francisco with my girlfriend. Overhauling the brakes right before a long trip? Sounds like something I'd do. I figured I would need the brakes with all the hills in San Francisco.

    It was time to assume the position again— gotta love jack stands. Note the stupidly bright lights I have set up on both sides. My neighborhood has almost no street lights so I just use these overpowered halogen ones for my nighttime driveway wrenching (which is most of my wrenching apparently).



    The old brake pads and rotors came off super easily without any issues. At most, the rotors just needed a light tap with a sledgehammer to come loose; keep a lug bolt in loosely so the rotor doesn't hit you when it pops off— they're quite heavy. The old rotors were pretty corroded and had no obvious branding or markings on them, so they probably weren't super high quality to begin with.



    I also realized at some point that one of the brake pad sensors had just crumbled to pieces, so my brake pads weren't completely dead. Oh well, those rotors were awful anyway so I feel it was still worth it to replace everything. The new stuff looked so nice:





    Drilled rotors are pretty pointless but man do they look nice. These Zimmerman coated rotors should also last quite a bit longer since they're painted/coated to minimize corrosion. I also had stainless steel brake lines that I intended to install, but I decided I would save those for another day, figuring that it wasn't a smart idea to mess with a perfectly functioning hydraulic system a day before a long trip.

    Putting the car back on the ground, I immediately noticed something was wrong with the way the brake pedal felt, plus the car felt heavier than usual, like a caliper was dragging. This was odd since I had specifically pressed the brake pistons in with a large C-clamp during the brake job. I tried going on a test drive but there was a horrible screeching noise, so I abandoned that idea and parked the car until I could figure out what was wrong.

    Initially I feared it was something catastrophic, like a hydraulic line failure, master cylinder failure, etc. Thankfully when my friend and I looked at it the next day, the problem was obvious. Sometimes it's good to get a second set of eyes on your work, and that's how we found that my caliper was scraping against the rotor. The caliper was mounted normally, it was the rotor that was the issue.



    We removed the new rotor and compared it to the old rotor— apparently the new rotor had a slightly wrong offset. FCP Euro didn't mention any compatibility issues on their site at the time of ordering, but later on I see they updated their Zimmerman rotors to show the production date split. E39's built before 4/2000 use one type of rotor offset, whereas cars built after 4/2000 use a different offset. I had unknowingly ordered the newer-style rotor. Moral of the story? Double check all rotor fitments when you're ordering them, don't just trust the store website.

    Thankfully I still had my old rotors so we just installed those. Hey, at least my rear brakes looked great, plus I still had new pads in the front. Good enough for me, considering the road trip was immediately the next day. Thankfully the rotor issue was just a minor nuisance thanks to FCP Euro's awesome unconditional return policy.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  4. #854
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    I just posted about this on another thread not a few days ago. You did get the rotors for the facelift 540's. The earlier carrier's don't have the 3mm offset where they mate up to the spindle like the newer ones do. I got the older rotors, and had the carriers off of an '02 540, so they scraped on the inside of the rotor. I hadn't understood this completely, sourced out the older carriers from a local 540 partout for $20. What sucks is, I had powdercoated the calipers and the newer carriers already, so now I have to do the new older carriers. Then the next rotor change, I'll just switch to the newer rotors. Actually, the older carriers are lighter than the newer ones. They have those square blocks on the outside edge of the carriers that the older ones don't have.
    Set the controls for the heart of the sun

  5. #855
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    JimLev is offline Artifically Aspirated Moderator
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    Back to post 852......
    You need to get your reaction time down.
    .952 seconds, were you sleeping at the wheel? LOL j/k

  6. #856
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    Quote Originally Posted by JimLev View Post
    Back to post 852......
    You need to get your reaction time down.
    .952 seconds, were you sleeping at the wheel? LOL j/k
    At these Test & Tune nights the clock only starts when you cross the line so the reaction time makes no difference to the ET. I do need to work on it though.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

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    Continuing the story, I hit the road the day before Thanksgiving, heading to San Francisco for a vacation with my girlfriend. On the way out of Phoenix, I got an alignment since I had done a bunch of suspension work on the car the week before. I let my girlfriend drive for a bit but I took over after about 3 hours because I don't like sitting around doing nothing. We made it to LA with no problems, making good time on the way there.

    I met up with an old high school friend for lunch, and after that we hit the road heading north up the Pacific Coast Highway. The views were incredibly scenic and the weather was perfect, it was like being in a painting. The sunset was gorgeous— I'm glad I drove up that route, even if it added a few hours to the drive.

    Everything was going fine until I saw a "self-leveling suspension inactive" warning on the cluster display. I pulled over and saw that the rear ride height sensor arm had broken off, along with the lower link. This was the idiot mistake I was referring to in a previous post; I had installed the lowering link the wrong way so it was being pressed on by both the lower control arm and the subframe. Eventually it just snapped off, leaving me with a broken sensor and a non-functioning self-leveling suspension in the rear. I've driven with a non-functioning self-leveling suspension for a while before so I didn't think much of it and pressed on with the drive. We got to San Luis Obispo at night and found a cheap motel to stay the night.

    The next morning we got back on the road, intending to make it San Francisco later that day. The drive was quite nice, with a mostly empty road and vineyards as far as the eye could see in any direction. Then I noticed the traction control light blinking really quick all of a sudden, followed by an increasing vibration in the rear. I had to keep turning the steering wheel left to keep the car going straight, so I pulled over as soon as I could. I initially thought that a suspension component had gotten loose, but as soon as I got out of the car I saw that the left rear tire was completely blown. Thankfully I had a matching spare with a good tire on it, so I installed it quickly on the roadside while my girlfriend watched, in awe of my abilities (she doesn't realize what goes into an engine rebuild but she thought me replacing the wheel was amazing).

    This is why I will always make sure my cars have spare tires, and I'll try to make the quad exhausts fit around the spare tire well if possible. I would never give up my spare tire for anything.



    Check out that blown tire with the super uneven wear. Looks like it was caused by bad toe, which I had specifically told the alignment shop to fix the previous day. Don't go to cheap alignment shops!



    I checked the tire on the other side and it was badly worn but not to the belts, so we pressed on, trying to make it to San Francisco. There weren't any tire shops open since it was Thanksgiving, and any that might have been open wouldn't have had my tire sizes in stock, so making it to SF was the only way to go. Thankfully we made it there with no further incidents. We actually ended up driving the car all around San Francisco, despite everybody telling us that it was a terrible place to drive. I'm from NYC, there is no worse place to drive than there, haha.

    We went to the San Francisco auto show since everything else was closed on Thanksgiving, where my girlfriend and I both agreed that the F80 M3 and G90 M5 both felt somewhat cheap inside. Mercedes is still doing a decent job with their interiors though, despite me not being a big fan of the design itself.

    San Francisco wasn't too hard to drive around in, and the traffic was pretty reasonable compared to what I'd encountered in LA. Parking wasn't super expensive either, with plenty of reasonably-priced parking garages downtown and ample parking elsewhere. I even got to do some extreme parallel parking on some steep hills:



    I drove down the crooked street, to the top of Twin Peaks, to the Golden Gate bridge, and countless other touristy places. The touring didn't miss a beat, despite having a questionable rear suspension/tire situation. I will say that paying for gas sucked, but I minimized the pain by mostly gassing up at Arco. For what it's worth, even though my air suspension was close to bottomed out in the rear, I never experienced any rubbing. So it's really not a bad system and it won't leave you stranded, contrary to what the naysayers might think. The air suspension breaking was more because of my stupidity, not because of any inherent flaws in the system itself.

    The next morning, I ordered new ride height sensor links from Peter Pan BMW, a new ride height sensor from Amazon Prime (delivered to an Amazon locker), and tires from Big O Tires. All of that stuff was ready by Saturday evening, so I set up shop in the hotel parking lot, using the widowmaker jack again. A police officer pulled up to me at some point and I assured them that I wasn't crazy, aside from owning a nearly-200k mile BMW.



    With the new ride height sensor and links installed, the rear end started to sit more normally. The next day I went to Big O Tires, where I paid a small fortune for 2 new Hankook Ventus V12's, installation, balancing, and an alignment. I'm definitely spoiled by Phoenix's super low labor rates, because there was definitely a bit of sticker shock when I had to pay for everything at the end. I could have gotten some cheaper tires but I figured I may as well get the exact tires I want, since I was planning to replace them anyway (the old Continentals were pretty out of round at that point). What's interesting is how messed up the alignment was, despite the fact that I had just gotten an alignment a few days prior:



    I guess that's what happens when you pay $80 for an alignment and have it done in like 25 minutes. At this point I've sent several angry emails to the Phoenix alignment place, and I'm never going there again. The proper alignment at Big O Tires cost $150 and took about an hour, but the car felt amazing afterwards. For once, the steering wheel was perfectly straight and the car tracked dead straight. It was honestly amazing and made my wallet feel a lot better about dropping that much cash on the tires and alignment.

    Later that day I went to go meet up with a fellow forum member, shwy. He was near San Jose which was a fun little drive. It was raining so everybody was doing like 50mph while I flew past at 80mph. New tires feel so good in the rain. I grew up driving bald all-seasons in NYC in the rain and snow so a bit of rain doesn't scare me in the slightest. Shwy was a cool dude, I'm glad we got to chat for a bit. We could have easily gone on for hours and hours, but my girlfriend was getting annoyed so we parted ways.

    The next day we headed back home, except this time we took the more direct route to Phoenix. It was a fun drive nonetheless, with plenty of mountainy roads. We only stopped once on the way back, for food & gas. I drove for the entire 11 hour drive, which was pleasantly uneventful. We even got great gas mileage somehow, averaging like 22mpg (calculated at the pump). Given that this 540it generally averages about 15-16mpg in mixed driving around town, 22mpg is almost impressive.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

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    I'll have to remember the Prime locker thing next time I'm on a road trip!
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  9. #859
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    Did the officer think you were stealing wheels? The crooked street is Lombard Street.
    Pretty colorful most of the year with all the flowers growing on both sides.

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    I used to live about 20 miles away in the East Bay, place called Walnut Creek. Miss that area and the roads. Great story Danny!
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  11. #861
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    Quote Originally Posted by computiNATEor View Post
    I'll have to remember the Prime locker thing next time I'm on a road trip!
    Yep! It's a lot better than ordering to the hotel and trying to explain that. Plus in a lot of cases it actually gets delivered faster to the Prime Locker.

    Quote Originally Posted by JimLev View Post
    Did the officer think you were stealing wheels? The crooked street is Lombard Street.
    Pretty colorful most of the year with all the flowers growing on both sides.
    Haha well the officer wanted to know what I was up to since it was nighttime and I was in the empty part of the lot working on my car. Wasn't anything too serious.

    Yep, Lombard Street is the name, I forgot that for a minute. There was a surprisingly long line to get to it since it's a known tourist trap. Actually, a lot of the touristy parts were packed— the cable cars had an hour-long line to get on and were jam packed with people, Twin Peaks was full of people taking selfies in every direction, Lombard Street had a long line, Fisherman's Wharf was packed, etc. I was really happy to get back to Phoenix where I have my breathing room.

    Quote Originally Posted by BimmrMeUpSnotty View Post
    I used to live about 20 miles away in the East Bay, place called Walnut Creek. Miss that area and the roads. Great story Danny!
    Oh yeah, I know of that place. I could never live anywhere in the Bay Area though, everything's way too expensive. Eating there almost bankrupted me with how pricey everything was. I much prefer LA where the weather is nicer and things are cheaper. Or Phoenix, which is the cheapest and the warmest (those are my only two priorities— cost of living and temperatures).
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

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    great story Danny...
    "two wrongs don't make a right...only three lefts do...."
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  13. #863
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    Hell I'm impressed he got that POS factory jack to work. That thing is horrible


  14. #864
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    I've never had a problem using that jack the couple times I needed it on the side of the road. Only part that sucks is when you scrape your knuckles on the ground rotating the handle.
    Set the controls for the heart of the sun

  15. #865
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    Quote Originally Posted by adm750 View Post
    great story Danny...
    Thanks! I love posting my tales here on Bimmer Forums, especially since my girlfriend and co-workers are tired of hearing about them haha.

    Quote Originally Posted by jp5Touring View Post
    Hell I'm impressed he got that POS factory jack to work. That thing is horrible
    The trick is to make sure you're on relatively level ground and have the jack pad firmly inserted into the factory jack point. When used correctly, it's not the worst thing ever. The only thing that sucks is the effort needed, since that little handle doesn't give very much leverage.

    Quote Originally Posted by BimmrMeUpSnotty View Post
    I've never had a problem using that jack the couple times I needed it on the side of the road. Only part that sucks is when you scrape your knuckles on the ground rotating the handle.
    Same, I've used it a couple times around the garage when I needed a second jack. If you set it up correctly it's pretty usable. And yeah, that's why I had gloves with me when I used it, didn't want to scrape my knuckles.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

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    After coming back from the San Francisco road trip, the 540it was completely filthy, so I gave it a thorough wash. I went to a 24 hour car wash to finish detailing it since it has good lighting, and after I was done I took some pictures:

















    I can't wait to polish the paint at some point, it'll look even better!

    The interior looked pretty good too:



    And I waxed my door jambs because I'm crazy:

    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

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    Quote Originally Posted by dannyzabolotny View Post
    After coming back from the San Francisco road trip, the 540it was completely filthy, so I gave it a thorough wash. I went to a 24 hour car wash to finish detailing it since it has good lighting, and after I was done I took some pictures:

















    I can't wait to polish the paint at some point, it'll look even better!

    The interior looked pretty good too:



    And I waxed my door jambs because I'm crazy:

    Such a gorgeous color and unique wagon! Looks awesome!

    Sent from my SM-N910T3 using Tapatalk

  18. #868
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    A few days later, the transmission started acting up again. Same temperature sensor issue as before, with the transmission going into overheat mode upon cold start. The problem would go away after a few minutes of driving, but I was getting pretty annoyed with it. The new transmission wiring harness (with the temp sensor integrated) costs $120 or so, but to service it I would have to drain the transmission and drop the pan, meaning another $100+ in fluid. So instead of spending the $250 or so to fix the issue, I figured the most logical solution was a manual swap!

    I hopped on Craigslist and quickly found a suitable candidate in San Diego. It was a 2000 540i/6 that was listed with very little info and no pictures, so I took a chance and texted the seller. The seller gave me some pictures and information, and I felt pretty good about it so I headed out to San Diego the following weekend. I drove out there in the 540it with Graham (Bimmerbreaker) as my co-pilot. You can read about that whole adventure in this thread: https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...540i-6-Content

    To sum it up, I bought a $1500 2000 540i/6 in San Diego, fixed it on the spot, and successfully drove it home. The biggest hassle was filling up both cars with 91 in California, now that was pricey!



    On the way back, the 540it rolled over 200k miles! I had Graham take a picture of the odometer when it happened since he was driving the 540it and I was driving the 540i/6.



    As many say, it's just getting warmed up! I'm looking forward to the next 100k miles. Given that I've gone from 174k to 200k in a bit over a year, I think the next 100k will come rather quickly.

    In less happy news, a bit of road debris broke a chunk out of the M5 bumper. It's not a huge chunk and it doesn't affect the structural stability of the bumper, but it was a bit of a bummer with how much work I put into it. I don't have any specific pictures of the damage but you'll see it in newer pictures. I do plan on fixing it and repainting the whole bumper properly since both me and Jeremy (the guy I painted the bumper with) have learned a ton about body work since we originally worked on the bumper.

    In the weeks that followed, I swapped the wheels around between the two cars to try and chase down some vibration issues I've been dealing with. Here's the car with style 32's, which is interesting because this is what the car would have come with from the factory:



    After that, I tried a square set of 18" wheels from my friend's 540i. I wasn't a huge fan of them on my car because of how dark the finish was, along with being square fitment. Staggered looks way better in my opinion. Plus having a deep lip is an absolute must as far as wheels go.

    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  19. #869
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    More recently, I took the 540it down to Tucson with some friends and we went up Mt. Lemmon. It's a fantastic drive, I would highly recommend it to anybody in Arizona. The roads are twisty but not super tight, and there are plenty of places to pull over and take pictures, which is exactly what I did.





    You can see the damaged bumper pretty well here (almost looks like it's missing a tooth).



    I had a blast driving the 540it up that road, it really does handle like a car that weighs far less. My suspension may not be 100% perfect, but man did it feel great on the mountain roads. Body roll was pretty minimal and it cornered really nicely. My friend Andrea got some really good rolling shots of me zipping up and down a section of road.





    And a cool (short) video:



    After that, we got to the top of the mountain, to the village of Summerhaven. It went from being a desert mountain to a forest in no time, which was pretty awesome.





    Back in town, I snapped a pic of the 540it around sunset. Those M-Pars look so good from that angle, mmmmm.



    Sorry about all the shameless pics of my car, but that's what this thread is about, haha. I'm still amazed at how much I love this car, usually it's pretty hard to keep my interest in a specific car but this one has done it for sure.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  20. #870
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    That's what ya gotta do man !! Post shameless pics !!
    Awesome car - great thread - love the pictures - love the roads and the scenery - happy that you have a girl that hooks a brutha up with some drive-by shots too !!!

    I really enjoy touring in my 'touring much like you do....it's fun, it feels right, and it's a bit of a sleeper. Some people just flat-@$$ can't drive, but no one really ever expects you to walk them in the twisties in a wagon....hahaha.

    Keep the shameless stuff coming Danny !!!
    "two wrongs don't make a right...only three lefts do...."
    '79 Euro 635csi - gone and regretting it...
    '89 gsxr-750 - former traffic knife
    '97 528i sedan - holding on strong...(just sold after 16 years of ownership - sad day)
    '03 Euro 525it - something about a famous dolphin.....

    '06 Mercury Grand Marquis (don't ask....it gets the job done....)
    '84 Specialized Allez - full Campagnolo Super Record
    '99-ish Cannondale CAAD4
    "Stinky" - Kona Stinky Five
    '86 528e
    2008 E70 X5 3.0


  21. #871
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    IL
    Posts
    13,581
    My Cars
    2000 740i sport
    Hey Danny! What kind of head unit do you have installed?

    Sent from my SM-N910T3 using Tapatalk

  22. #872
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    Tempe, AZ
    Posts
    7,657
    My Cars
    1995 525i/5
    Quote Originally Posted by adm750 View Post
    That's what ya gotta do man !! Post shameless pics !!
    Awesome car - great thread - love the pictures - love the roads and the scenery - happy that you have a girl that hooks a brutha up with some drive-by shots too !!!

    I really enjoy touring in my 'touring much like you do....it's fun, it feels right, and it's a bit of a sleeper. Some people just flat-@$$ can't drive, but no one really ever expects you to walk them in the twisties in a wagon....hahaha.

    Keep the shameless stuff coming Danny !!!
    Thanks! The girl who took some of those pics is just a friend, she's dating one of my best friends. Nothing wrong with that, I'm more than happy with my girlfriend, even if she chooses not to come along on car adventures.

    The sleeper factor of a V8 wagon is awesome. Granted, it's slightly less of a sleeper since it has a muffler delete, but it's still pretty subtle unless I'm hammering on it.

    Quote Originally Posted by purplecty View Post
    Hey Danny! What kind of head unit do you have installed?
    It's a Dynavin N6. It's fantastic, does everything I need and makes the E39 feel like a modern car. Bluetooth audio streaming, phone integration, iPod integration, good navigation software, and it all looks/feels OEM.
    1995 525i 5-speed - Thread

  23. #873
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    North OC, CA
    Posts
    3,327
    My Cars
    01 M5 TiAg/M1SW
    Love it! Sorry about the bumper, that must sting a little.
    Nate J.

    (oOO\ (|||)º(|||) /OOo)
    Titanium Silver/Black Nappa Full 07-18-2001 E39 M5 Heritage (BZ99672). 198,000mi+. Increasing daily. Engine rebuild thread.
    (eŌō\ (||||)º(||||) / ōŌe)
    Alpineweiss III/Black Merino Full 03-26-2007 E60 M5 Manual (CX08265). 157,000+. Dead starter -_-

    RIP, Seabiscuit. Black Sapphire/Schwarz 03-11-2003 530iA Sport (CK39185). T-boned 03-01-2017 at 155,861mi.
    Take 2 "Otto" - Toledo Blue/Sandbeige 04-25-2002 530iA Sport (CH98032). Sold 11-10-2017 at 147,743mi.
    Take 3 "Manuel" - Toledo Blue/Grau 10-29-2001 530i5 Sport (CE92358). Sold 02-01-2019 at 217,600mi. I regret that. Build Log
    Reliable P.O.S. - Green/gray 1995 Camry V6 LE. 270k mi. Sold for space.

  24. #874
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    North OC, CA
    Posts
    3,327
    My Cars
    01 M5 TiAg/M1SW
    I disagree on square vs. staggered, as handling trumps looks, IMO, but hey.

    Are you using any spacers on the front?
    Nate J.

    (oOO\ (|||)º(|||) /OOo)
    Titanium Silver/Black Nappa Full 07-18-2001 E39 M5 Heritage (BZ99672). 198,000mi+. Increasing daily. Engine rebuild thread.
    (eŌō\ (||||)º(||||) / ōŌe)
    Alpineweiss III/Black Merino Full 03-26-2007 E60 M5 Manual (CX08265). 157,000+. Dead starter -_-

    RIP, Seabiscuit. Black Sapphire/Schwarz 03-11-2003 530iA Sport (CK39185). T-boned 03-01-2017 at 155,861mi.
    Take 2 "Otto" - Toledo Blue/Sandbeige 04-25-2002 530iA Sport (CH98032). Sold 11-10-2017 at 147,743mi.
    Take 3 "Manuel" - Toledo Blue/Grau 10-29-2001 530i5 Sport (CE92358). Sold 02-01-2019 at 217,600mi. I regret that. Build Log
    Reliable P.O.S. - Green/gray 1995 Camry V6 LE. 270k mi. Sold for space.

  25. #875
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Alexandria, VA
    Posts
    9,049
    My Cars
    ‘01 540’00 528T’03 525T
    Wow man, your car is actually really clean despite having gone 200,000 miles!
    Set the controls for the heart of the sun

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