Danny's Japan Rot 540i Touring Thread

[gmak]

Alright, ladies and gents, this is the update y'all have been waiting for:

I finished touching up the bumper earlier this week. My friend and I laid down some more base coat and two very good coats of clear. The paint looks fantastic after some quick wetsanding and buffing:


Considering how fubar'd the bumper was initially, this result exceeds all of my expectations. Yes, there is some orange peel, and yes, we got some minor contaminants in the clear coat, but considering that this was done in a garage shack with Home Depot-grade tools, I think we did very well

And now, for the grand reveal, my 540it takes its old prefacelift mask off...

*drumroll*

.
.
And that's why I went with a used OEM bumper, versus a brand new replica. I spent like 5 minutes installing the bumper and the fitment was pretty much spot-on!

The color match is pretty good too. It'll look even better once I wash the rest of the car to look as clean as the bumper. These pictures don't show it, but there's a pretty thick layer of dust all over the rest of the car.

I also took some pictures of it this morning when I rolled into work:
Overall, I'm extremely happy with how this all turned out!

Great job, Danny! You've got that OEM fit going - and the wet-sanding and buffing really brought out the japan red colour. Good match - at least in the pictures.

[purplecty]

Damn now that's some real plastic surgery! Looks amazing like night and day... Time for a butt lift now?

[dannyzabolotny]

Great job, Danny! You've got that OEM fit going - and the wet-sanding and buffing really brought out the japan red colour. Good match - at least in the pictures.

Thanks! I think my paint store did a pretty good job matching the color. There's a tiny difference in the colors in real life, but I'm sure that it's because the rest of my car is dirty. My paint gets like a shade or two lighter from all the fine dust that I get from driving every day.

Damn now that's some real plastic surgery! Looks amazing like night and day... Time for a butt lift now?

Yeah, it's pretty crazy to see the finished product, considering how wrecked the bumper was. And indeed, I'll be getting a rear M-Sport touring bumper at some point later this year. That'll be a walk in the park since I'll be using a new replica bumper for that. Unlike the front replicas, the rear replicas fit pretty well for the most part.

[TxDarth]

I was going to say great fitment and overall look is excellent but if it only took five minutes - no big deal!

[dannyzabolotny]

I was going to say great fitment and overall look is excellent but if it only took five minutes - no big deal!

Well the actual bolting-on only took 5 minutes... all the repair, prep, and paint work took many days. I'd say I have a solid 4 days worth of labor into this, and that's with someone helping me.

[StephenVA]

Great job!

[TxDarth]

Well the actual bolting-on only took 5 minutes... all the repair, prep, and paint work took many days. I'd say I have a solid 4 days worth of labor into this, and that's with someone helping me.

I was just kidding - have done several custom bumpers I am well aware of the work involved. I bought an e39 M5 style bumper about 10 years ago for my car that was supposed to be ready to paint and install. When it arrived I took one look and thru it away. Tried again about 5 years ago, different source, again ready to paint and install. I spent over 40 hours getting it ready for paint - it turned out pretty nice then. Lastly I spent about two weeks molding the Suby diffuser into my OEM bumper, I had to add about 4.5 inches to the center to make it wide enough to fit our exhaust locations. I find plastic even worse than fiber glass to work with.

[douglawrence42]

Looking good! You realize that after seeing your fitment half the guys on here have there bumpers off trying to figure how to close that last 1/8". How about you hang it crappy for us when you get the grille in, take some pressure off?


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[dannyzabolotny]

On Friday I headed out to Bimmerfest West, but before I headed out I changed my O2 sensors and made sure my spare tire was good. The O2 sensor replacement was a little disappointing— the old sensors looked fine and I haven't really picked up any more gas mileage. Oh well, at least now I know they're new.



Having a matching spare is awesome though. I made sure to reinstall my factory jack and tow hook, they were laying around my garage from a previous adventure.



I checked the oil/coolant/power steering fluid levels and once I verified those were good, I hit the road. I also double checked that all of my tires were inflated to around 34psi.

The drive to Bimmerfest was quite uneventful. I did 90mph most of the way there and averaged about 19.4mpg. Even though it was pretty hot outside, everybody in the car was quite cold, thanks to that wonderfully recharged AC system.

When I arrived at Bimmerfest, I parked near some other E39 tourings:



I saw two nice Imola Red M5's, too bad neither had the stock wheels.





The best M6 (and the only real M6 in my opinion).



Really clean Laguna Seca Blue M3 that Justin and I drooled over:



Two Z3 M-Coupes. I saw far less of these than last year.



Three generations of Dakar Yellow M3's:



I saw Trevor's (007008) S62-swapped E38. It looked like a factory job with how clean it was, and he drove it all the way in from South Carolina.





Normally I'm not a big E60 fan, but this E61 535i wagon was pretty sweet. Lowered just right, has a 6-speed swap, xDrive was removed, and is tuned to like 600hp.



An unrestored BMW M1:



An ESS supercharged E90 M3 with a pretty crazy wrap. I see this one at the car shows in Arizona a lot:



There were also a few rad-looking 328d tourings that BMW brought. I can't say I'm a fan of their tiny engines, but at least the colors were pretty cool:







There were a lot of E31's, which I was pretty stoked about...



... including this awesome red 850csi. I talked to the owner of it, he's a super nice guy and loves the car.



The interior of it looked and felt amazing. I love the extra bits of wood trim that the 850csi got.



Later in the day I found where all the wagons were. Aquila's Imola Red 525it is in the foreground there, followed by three S62-swapped tourings, two of which were built by M5Jed.





Overall, it was a great time and I really enjoyed it. I do wish there were more E39s though, it seemed like the vast majority of the cars there were E30s/E46s/E92s. I met Aquila, M5Jed, Dking, Justinca540i, Cazal740i, Freethrowdunk, and a bunch of other cool people.

After Bimmerfest was over on Sunday, I drove up north to Glendora Mountain Road. I had heard that it was an awesome driving road, so I gave it a shot. It was mildly terrifying in some parts, but I had a lot of fun. The road was mostly empty so I got to really push the touring. I did keep the stability control on because I'm not that good of a driver yet.

Of course I couldn't miss the chance to take more pictures of my touring:











The views up there were gorgeous too:







After that, I ate and hit the road to go back home to Phoenix. I gassed up right before leaving and I made it home on the same tank of gas which was pretty rad. I kept going at around 80mph instead of 90mph and that gave me an average of 20.4mpg. I rolled over 191k miles on my way home, which is pretty crazy considering I had just hit 190k a week earlier.

[Jason5driver]

Awesome / amazing pictures!
Thank you!
Wish I could have been there...
There was also a local car meet a couple of months ago that the local BMW car club was sponsoring.
My E39 was the only E39 there, which I thought was pretty sad.

[justinca540i]

I want an LSB M3. End of story.

[sreten]

Awesome pictures and details. Really wish I was in Cali for this.

[dannyzabolotny]

Awesome / amazing pictures!
Thank you!
Wish I could have been there...
There was also a local car meet a couple of months ago that the local BMW car club was sponsoring.
My E39 was the only E39 there, which I thought was pretty sad.

Thanks! I like taking pictures, it's awesome to look back on these threads years down the line, like a journal of sorts.

I go to a meet almost every Saturday here in Scottsdale, and I'm often the only E39. It's just not as popular of a car with the younger generation— all the kids are running around with 335i's because they can tune them to be fast.

I want an LSB M3. End of story.

There ya go. Now stick to it.

Awesome pictures and details. Really wish I was in Cali for this.

Thanks! No worries, at least in Germany you can drive on the Autobahn, meanwhile if I try to drive over 100mph I get in trouble real quick.

[philly98540]

Really great photos! Thanks for posting!

[computiNATEor]

Next time you're in SoCal in the summer-ish time, run the full length of Angeles Crest Highway. It's better suited to our larger sedans than GMR is, as GMR is way, way tighter (better suited to an E30 or Honda S2000). ACH is fast, sweeping, and smooth.

If you're ever going through LA towards Bakersfield/San Francisco/Sacramento, Lake Hughes Road (east of I5) and CA Hwy 33 (west of I5) are the ONLY ways to go through the Santa Monica mountains

[justinca540i]

I should try to buy my M3 in LA and take advantage of all those roads, ACH, GMR and PCH (that's more just scenic right?)

[dannyzabolotny]

Next time you're in SoCal in the summer-ish time, run the full length of Angeles Crest Highway. It's better suited to our larger sedans than GMR is, as GMR is way, way tighter (better suited to an E30 or Honda S2000). ACH is fast, sweeping, and smooth.

If you're ever going through LA towards Bakersfield/San Francisco/Sacramento, Lake Hughes Road (east of I5) and CA Hwy 33 (west of I5) are the ONLY ways to go through the Santa Monica mountains

It was still a lot of fun, actually. Once I get the rest of my suspension sorted out I'd love to do more tight roads. Who needs an E30 when you have an E39 touring and minimal regard for personal safety? Haha.

[computiNATEor]

I should try to buy my M3 in LA and take advantage of all those roads, ACH, GMR and PCH (that's more just scenic right?)

PCH isn't all that scenic, but it is the closest road to the ocean. PCH is only really scenic once you get to Malibu, but otherwise you'll see a lot of Southern California's beach-y areas.

There are a ton of great roads around Angeles National Forest, Malibu and Los Padres National Forest. I've driven pretty much every single paved road there, and even a few that aren't. Each region can take a full day. I recommend:

Angeles National Forest:
CA-39 (aka San Gabriel Canyon Road) from Azusa to Crystal Lake (where it ends)
Glendora Mountain Road -> Glendora Ridge Road -> Mt. Baldy Rd.
Angeles Crest Highway from La Cañada Flintridge to Big Pines/Wrightwood, with a loop of Upper Big Tujunga Canyon/Angeles Forest Highway.
Big Pines Highway (this one is one of my favorites) across the backside of the Angeles National Forest over to Angeles Forest Highway, without going up to Angeles Crest.
Little Tujunga Canyon/Sand Canyon Rd (likely closed for a long time, unfortunately, because of a big fire last year)

In the Malibu area (very tight roads):
Tuna Canyon
Los Flores Canyon
Old Topanga Canyon
Piuma
Mulholland Hwy (of course)
Latigo Canyon
Decker (Hwy 23)
Yerba Buena

Los Padres National Forest:
East of the 5:
Bouquet Canyon Road (go easy; moderate residential traffic)
San Francisquito Canyon Road (go easy; moderate residential traffic)
Lake Hughes Road (while you're here, take a short detour up "Old Ridge Route", the old way to cross the mountains)
Use Pine Canyon Road to cross over to the backside of Hwy 33
West of the 5:
Frazier Mountain Park Rd -> Lockwood Valley Rd -> Hwy 33
Hwy 33 is the best kept secret road. Very light traffic, fast, open, zero enforcement. Good turnouts.
Head towards Santa Barbara using Hwy 150.
Behind Santa Barbara is a network of roads that splinter off "Camino Cielo." Gorgeous views of the ocean, twisty roads with light traffic.
There's a cool old place called "Knapp's Castle" that is an easy five minute walk down a dirt road.

[dannyzabolotny]

Awesome, thanks for that list! I'm not going out to LA for a while though, I want to explore Arizona a bit more. We have a lot of mountains here as well, so plenty of fun roads within an hour's drive from me. I want to go to Jerome, it's a bit north of Phoenix and has a pretty fun road to get there. I'm also going camping in Joshua Tree National Park later this month, hopefully I can take the X5 there and attempt to do a bit of mild off-roading.

[computiNATEor]

Hey, I'll "race" you to 200k mi. I'm just past 191k on my 530i5 that I should have back from the body shop in a few days!

[dannyzabolotny]

Hey, I'll "race" you to 200k mi. I'm just past 191k on my 530i5 that I should have back from the body shop in a few days!

Yeah but didn't you buy your 530i/5 with higher mileage? I bought my 540it with 174k miles and it's now at 192k.

On Sunday I went up north to check out this town called Jerome. It's an old mining town that's literally built on the side of a mountain at around a mile above sea level. Despite the relatively high altitude my 540it did just fine the whole way. There were some really fun twisty roads on the way to Jerome on highway 89A, but my girlfriend made me go kinda slow because she was scared. I still had lots of fun though! Aside from the awesome scenery, I found some cool cars in Jerome too.

Main Street in Jerome. It was surprisingly crowded and parking was quite hard to find, likely due to all the tourists. I ate at the Mile High Grill, pretty good food there.



The whole town is on the side of a mountain so there are steps and steep roads everywhere.



The tallest building is the 5-story Jerome Grand Hotel. It started out as a hospital when it was built in 1926 and then it closed down in 1950, after which it stood empty until it became a hotel in 1994. It also has one of the oldest elevators around that's still in operation, which is pretty cool.



You can see how the town is laid out when looking at it from the hotel:





I spotted a 2002 Z3 M-Roadster (S54 engine) in Alpine White. I was a little surprised to see it there of all places. I also saw a white 750il parked in a driveway (no pics of that).



I also found a pretty clean International Scout pickup truck. These are pretty uncommon to see in running condition, largely due to their poor initial build quality. Most of these actually came from the factory with rust thanks to using the cheapest metals.



There's a semi-abandoned mine town about a mile away from Jerome that I visited, they have a pretty cool collection of old trucks that are just sitting around. If I lived there I would love to get some of those back into working order. I could totally see an episode of Roadkill happening there.











This Jeep truck actually had current registration and plates which means it's still in running condition.



And would it really be my thread if I didn't have gratuitous pics of my touring?





You can't see it too much in the pics but my touring really needs a wash. It's just too hot to do that right now— water evaporates almost instantly in this heat, leaving ugly water spots everywhere. The only way I can really wash it is by doing it at night, so I'll have to do that one of these days.

[itsbrokeagain]

Danny, that E61 535 wagon has a build thread going on at another forum I visit....you should see the work he did, guy was meticulous with everything. Even has the E60 M5 brake lines and DSC setup re-routed into the lower fenderwell to ensure a cleaner setup in the engine bay.

Car is spotless top to bottom, inside and out.

[dannyzabolotny]

Danny, that E61 535 wagon has a build thread going on at another forum I visit....you should see the work he did, guy was meticulous with everything. Even has the E60 M5 brake lines and DSC setup re-routed into the lower fenderwell to ensure a cleaner setup in the engine bay.

Car is spotless top to bottom, inside and out.

Mind giving me a link? I love a good build thread, even if the E61 isn't my thing. I wonder how hard the E61 manual swap was with all the extra computer stuff going on.

[dannyzabolotny]

And here is where the next exciting chapter of my touring's life begins. Over the weekend, me and BimmerBreaker found a 2001 540i touring (silver over black) to use as a parts car. It has something like 190k miles and the chain guides went quite violently so it was being sold at a very deep discount. We picked it up on Monday and towed it to my backyard where I promptly started gutting the interior, with the intent of swapping it into my touring.

Here it is on our trailer, with the rear end sagging down due to very leaky rear air struts:



The interior is dirty but in decent shape overall. Given the rarity of the black touring interiors, I'm not complaining.



I've been doing the part-out mostly at night because it's too hot in the daytime (like 110º). Bright halogen lamps make it pretty easy.



I started out by stripping off the hatch trims. Everything came apart easily.



Then came the taillights. I plan to retrofit these into my touring, as soon as I figure out what I'll need to do with the LCM.



The parts pile begins.



And it keeps growing...



And growing...



This is how it sits now:



Last night I got another set of lights, no more fumbling around with a flashlight.



The rear door cards were a bit of a challenge, since these have the window shades. I had to pop out the quarter window shades and remove two extra screws behind the wood trim to get everything free.





I'm hoping to have the rest of the interior out by the end of the week. After that I'll store the interior for a bit while me and BimmerBreaker part out the rest of the car. Once the shell is scrapped I'll pull my 540it into the backyard and begin the interior swap. I'm excited, I've wanted a black interior for a pretty long time now.

[cnsorial]

Nice. Should look good. I think you just need an LCM IIIB or newer. I bought one along with OEM Celis tails to retrofit into my sedan once I have some free time.


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