Colton's 740iL Maintenance Thread

[ColtonBH]

I've had the car for a good month now, so I figure it's time to start a thread on this one. The car is a 1998 740iL that was purchased for around 2 grand.

Google Doc of Maintenance

The bad:
I have an issue where the throttle will sometimes drop every few seconds on steady driving and light acceleration, always between 1500-2000 rpm, in every gear.
Paint is terrible, looks like a cheap Macco job.
Driver seat power adjustments have a short somewhere, blows fuses all the time.
True mileage is unknown, dash says 133,752 at the moment, but the orange dot is there
DSC light is on
Headliner is falling in the rear
Has a good amount of door dings, the car lived in downtown Chicago so I expected this.
Front leather is in rough condition
Stereo sounds AWFUL, blown speakers, and it's already not a particularly good sound system, even with dsp

The good:
Motor and trans both have 60k on them, and the company that pulled them both warrenties them up to 100k
Newer driveshaft.









Plans:
Fix rpm issue
Remove the terrible headlight tint
Replace PO's white LED lights with OEM yellow
New timing chain tensioner
Repair a couple rust spots
Exhaust Cutouts (dat German V8 sound!!!)
Full aftermarket stereo
Replace brittle wiring and hoses
Refinish the wheels on the 525iT in my sig and slap on some new rubber
Suspension/steering overhaul
Coilovers or bags (not likely, too expensive)

[dannyzabolotny]

Remove the terrible taillight tint too, it looks so tacky on an E38. Get some new lower door moldings, you're missing three out of four. For the throttle issue, check your throttle cable, maybe it's snagging somewhere. Your 1998 is pre-Vanos if I'm not mistaken, so it has the mechanical throttle body which should be pretty easy to troubleshoot. As for the paint, maybe try giving it a good paint correction to see if that helps? Post some interior pics!

[ColtonBH]

Remove the terrible taillight tint too, it looks so tacky on an E38. Get some new lower door moldings, you're missing three out of four. For the throttle issue, check your throttle cable, maybe it's snagging somewhere. Your 1998 is pre-Vanos if I'm not mistaken, so it has the mechanical throttle body which should be pretty easy to troubleshoot. As for the paint, maybe try giving it a good paint correction to see if that helps? Post some interior pics!

I have one more door moulding in back. The bumper, rockers, and fenders need paint the worse, the rest looks like it is still original paint. Will take taillight tint off too, throttle cable is not good, I should probably just buy a new one, and it is a pre-vanos

[ColtonBH]

My throttle issues probably have something to do with this:

[ColtonBH]

I have 250 miles on my oil change with seafoam so far and it has quieted down the engine immensely!

[blackknight530i]

This car sounds a bit like my first e38. It was a 97 740il with about 160k miles on it and I bought it for similar money as it didn't run. Turns out it needed one coil pack and a set of spark plugs and ran great. It needed a full suspension overhaul, but I ended up selling it 3 weeks after I bought it and made a small profit. I did a bunch of work on it before the buyer took delivery of it, which he paid for the parts. He kept it going for about another 50k miles of daily driving it before the engine lost compression on one cylinder. Then his buddy's shop replaced the engine and I guess the replacement engine had too small of a ground wire (was corroded and undersized) and it was also left disconnected, which caused weird issues. Anyways, it ended up frying a bunch of small ground wires, including the o2 sensor grounds. Kind of a mess, but it did him well for a good 50k, so he was happy.

Good luck with this one Colton. For the throttle cable looseness, you might want to look into the aluminum adjusters that someone was selling way back when. I put them on and they worked great. They were inexpensive too, like under $10 or so.

Also, if you plan to put those wheels from your wagon on it, you'll need hub rings to adapt the center bores to the e38, since they are 72.56mm and not 74.1mm like the e39. You will also need new tires, because the e39 tires are way too small for the e38.

Enjoy!

[ColtonBH]

The wheels need severely to be refinished as well, and tires are bald all around so I need new ones anyway. I will probably run the current tires until they are gone and then worry about it

[ColtonBH]

I honestly forgot about this thread, but I need to make a list of things that I need/want to get done before car show season

Need:
New wheels/refinish my wheels
Tires mounted
Spacers sized and bought
Install rear coils
Polish headlights/new glass
Replace trans fluid so it stops being a whiny little b!tch
Do some surgery on the wheel well liners so they dont rub on the tires
Replace engine knock sensor (bank 1?)
Find and replace bad wheel speed sensor
I think guibo time is coming up
Pretty sure CSB was replaced when PO installed new driveshaft, but I wouldnt put it past them to not have changed it so I will check it out as well
Fix the rattle in my exhaust (welded an exhaust leak, Im pretty sure a smidge of flux got up there and is rattling around because the rattle started shortly after)
Replace pass. sway bar end links

I'm sure theres more that I forgot.

[Ruskii]

Did you ever get the exhaust cutouts installed?

[ColtonBH]

Did you ever get the exhaust cutouts installed?

I did a muffler delete, and I liked the sound quite a bit so I decided against it. But at plans are a but, uh, delayed


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[Ruskii]

Oh shit... looks like you got a rear-window-delete mod too! I assume you made out okay?

[ColtonBH]

Oh shit... looks like you got a rear-window-delete mod too! I assume you made out okay?

Wasn't injured at all, thanks for asking, but the car is unfortunately beyond repair

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