Hey Gang, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself and E32

[MMMEAT]

My new white/Grey 740i is a carbon copy of the very first BMW I ever bought back in '98..a '93 740i. Car was on CarGurus.com for a long long time, and when I finally got ahold of the dealer in El Cerrito, CA he said "oh that car isn't even for sale, I've kind of forgotten about it over the last 15 years"..So it is crusty, I took a total gamble on it and offered him1500.00 and he agreed to 2k. So I got it delivered Friday night and started in on the cleaning and polishing over the weekend. The door handle surrounds just crumbled like moss when I scrubbed it down lol..

The paint actually has come out fairly well and I can find very little rust. Door bottoms are great. She runs rough and I'm getting a scan this week, soon. 121k miles, the last reported "real" miles was at 119k clear back in '03. So the dealer took it back I a bad finance deal and never got around to selling the car all these years. He said he replaced the rotors and pads back in '03 and it was really clean back then. The motor was replaced (probably with Nikasil again) in 1995 at 21k miles because of "rough head" issue. Carfax is clean and had a really good service record up till then. We'll see!

The interior needs just a new ashtray and cover (might be hard to find), leather looks quite good, actually. I dressed the back window faded parts with a ton of moisture over the weekend. There is slight pulling of the top seams.

Interestingly, the car does not have ASC (good, as far as I'm concerned) but also has no heated seats (bad, I love them). Another weird thing I notice is the back bumper trim (the horizontal piece right below the body line inside the chrome bumper trim) is BLACK, not white..and it has a slight seam between it and the chrome strip. Any idea what might be going on there? Is that piece adjustable if I take off the back bumper? Someone must have taken it out and replaced it or painted it. I suppose it'd be easy enough to get off and repaint, but I'm curious about this gap I see..

Otherwise I just need new door handle seals, a new inner passenger headlamp, a wiper blade, floor mats, and probably fuses as the interior lights are all dark. Oh, and of course fluid changes and hopefully just set of coils, spark plugs, and various filters..

After spending two hours on window polishing and then another 6-8 on coarse buffing, another several on hand scrubbing various joints/seams with Mothers Polish, and applying a ton of 303 to black parts, here we are.

I'm going to try to use her as my D. Driver. I've always regretted selling this car. IMG_0156.jpgIMG_0153.jpgIMG_0158.jpgIMG_0152.jpg

[S1L1SC]

Hmmm - back bumper might have been replaced and they didn't fully paint it? Easy mistake to make I guess.
The bumper is one piece - the only thing that can be removed are the chrome trim pieces.

Looks really nice though.

[e30luv318i]

Wow looks just like my car ! I think I have a few ash trays of you need one let me know

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[MMMEAT]

Wow looks just like my car ! I think I have a few ash trays of you need one let me know

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Well hey there Really nice.. and I love your wheels too, btw! I'm officially hereby letting you know! I'll PM ya thanks, B

[CroughtonE32]

Welcome to your new home. Always nice to see another E32 being cared for.

[MMMEAT]

Here's a shot that shows my rear bumper gap..

Thoughts?

IMG_0164 (2).jpg

[XAlt]

Wow looks just like my car ! I think I have a few ash trays of you need one let me know

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The smileys make it look smug. OP's car looks angry.

E32s have feelings, apparently.

[S1L1SC]

Here's a shot that shows my rear bumper gap..

Thoughts?

IMG_0164 (2).jpg

As I mentioned above, that looks like the bumper was not fully painted - possibly a replacement bumper.
The whole thing is a single piece, the only part that can be removed is the chrome trim - so if it was rear-ended or if they backed into something, cracking the black plastic, they would have had to replace the whole assembly.

[shogun]

Remove the bumper and check if all parts are there http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/302868
check item 22 if correctly in place, and make sure the slider # 5 is there, it often slips off and then the height is a bit different http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=51_0594
05 SLIDING PIECE 4 51111908065 https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...e/51111908065/
22 Guide 1 51128101952

[TheStigg]

Nice score, congrats!

http://www.nmia.com/~dgnrg/page_2.htm

[MMMEAT]

Remove the bumper and check if all parts are there http://www.bimmerboard.com/forums/posts/302868
check item 22 if correctly in place, and make sure the slider # 5 is there, it often slips off and then the height is a bit different http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=51_0594
05 SLIDING PIECE 4 51111908065 https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-...e/51111908065/
22 Guide 1 51128101952

I appreciate it, Shogun. I'm not seeing anything wrong with height at all..it's the gap between the black trim and the chrome trim that has me perplexed. There is a very evenly distributed gap of about 3/16" all the way along there, as you can see if you zoom on my picture. I just can't believe this is the correct design..but I also can't see how the chrome trim could be slid on there any other way..

I did get great news last night, as I had a buddy who is a BMW tech (and is a huge E34 enthusiast) come out with a scanner. He found the car to be very healthy and the fuel in the tank actually looked very good! The fuel pump needs replacement (we had to whack it with a rubber mallet while cranking to get it to start) and the rough idle and poor running was likely just a result of the car being started and run for very short stints at low rpm so many times. He referred me to the owners manual where it suggests after a lot of city driving, to go over 3,000 rpms for an extended period to "reset" things. He just revved the crap out of it for a while and voiola, it was really running great after that! We went through a bunch of relays and tested them all, got the interior and trunk lights working (man they are nice compared to the E34) and the battery bought by the seller is a nice big one. It was a bit of a retrofit to re-clamp the hold down.

The AC needs a charge and we need to flush the brake fluid and we'll be rolling. A couple nights ago I ended up wet sanding the entire roof and hood and re-polishing and it's back to beautiful and smooth again.

Bottom line seems to be the car was a great buy. Whew..

[S1L1SC]

The chrome trim is attached with several tabs that clip into place - the two side pieces slide in with hooks, then the long straight piece slides in and "locks" the side pieces in.
Looks for flat tabs in the small gap - you would use a flat blade screwdriver to push down the locking tabs, then the long straight piece slides out towards the back of the car.
Based on your picture this looks correct.

[MMMEAT]

The chrome trim is attached with several tabs that clip into place - the two side pieces slide in with hooks, then the long straight piece slides in and "locks" the side pieces in.
Looks for flat tabs in the small gap - you would use a flat blade screwdriver to push down the locking tabs, then the long straight piece slides out towards the back of the car.
Based on your picture this looks correct.

So you're saying the gap that is there is correct? I can see all of those tabs. I guess I'd figured there would be a cleaner line here from the factory..thanks!

[S1L1SC]

Yes, the gap should be correct. See here (remove spaces, link is blocked from posting):
www. bmw forum s .info/7-series-guides/16523-bmw-e32-rear-bumper-removal-guide.html

[MMMEAT]

Yes, the gap should be correct. See here (remove spaces, link is blocked from posting):
www. bmw forum s .info/7-series-guides/16523-bmw-e32-rear-bumper-removal-guide.html

Ding ding..the light is now on, haha..thanks for your patience with me..great stuff. When the time comes that I'm totally bored and up to date with everything else on this car, I'll take this sucker off and head on over to the paint shop

[Peter Coomarasw]

Hi Brian, welcome from Austin TX! I think there are more e9 owners down here than e32 so wish some of you guys were closer. I recently bought an e32 (1988 735i) and it needed some little things like tires and a few switches and bulbs. It is a relatively low mile car 130K, but by far one of the nicest riding cars I have ever owned and when cornering, the rear doors seem to disappear, it settles into the turns and really feels like a luxury sports coupe. I have an e9, Porsche Twin Turbo 996 and a Shelby Mustang and this car is by far my favorite- it might be because I'm getting old but what a hoot, I feel like freggin James Bond driving this thing around and it is probably one of the finest builds in terms of quality of any BMW I have owned.
The only mods to the car-that I can tell are 235/60/15's in place of 225's and KONI shocks. The color is black and it's aged but still shines up pretty nice- I don't want to re-paint it because I love originality so I'll be keeping the wax companies in business for a while :-)

Remember he who dies with the most miles on their car wins!

Peter

[chef423]

Welcome! Great car!

[TonyPa]

Welcome aboard...very nice!!!

[Viktoriis1]

Hello all I am new to this site and I have found nothing that says “send a post”. Or anything like that other then send a message and I have to have someone to send it to please help.

[shogun]

New? Join Date: May 2014 , but only 3 posts so far.
click here https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/f...5-E66-F01-F02) select the forum you want to post, probably E38 forum as your car is an E38, then you are here
https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/f...995-2001-(E38)
on the top left you see POST NEW Thread" , click there and a new window will open where you can post you new thread.
As you have less than 10 posts, it will take a while that the new thread will show up, as a moderator has to manually approve the thread/post of newbies, forum spam-o-matic