New to me touring....intro, maintenance, and mod thread

[Luder94]

I'll probably have the shop go over the engine to see what needs replacing and/or clean up as well. Once that's done, it'll be time to down size what's on the driveway:

20170527_144528.jpg

Anyone interested or know of anyone interested in a clean title 2013 Toyota Tacoma with 80k miles on it?

[Luder94]

All components came in last Friday. I jacked the car up, got it on stands, and started work on front right suspension. Thankfully, first bolt gave me problems and sheared the head completely off....why 'thankfully', I would've hated to have gotten one or more corners started and then met with this problem. Rather the first one and then realize that I'm going to leave this overhaul on a 17 year old to the professionals at RCN Motors. Dropped the car off yesterday morning, near the end of the day, they had only the rear end done and were just getting started on the front. This was only supposed to take one day; they had a problem with EVERY bolt on the rear.

I should be picking up the car today; asked them to raise the car on the new suspension between .5" to .75" from what it was on when I brought it in (car was tucking both front and rears).

Also quick question, is there any value to current owners for me bringing home any/all of the control arms? Does anyone want the used set for aftermarket bushings? If so, which pieces? I also have a set of used NNR front coilovers and rear shock/spring combo. Current owners are welcome to any/all of those pieces.

[QtheGenius]

I know some people can press in new bushings, but that's typically a shop thing to do since the arm itself rarely rarely goes bad. That's my take.

Great wagon to get! (just read this thread). I'm in the process of buying a 540i myself to get back into the wagon scene. When are you planning on getting around to the manual swap?

[Luder94]

...I'm in the process of buying a 540i myself to get back into the wagon scene. When are you planning on getting around to the manual swap?

Hopefully soon. I've been scouring the Bimmer pages and trying to read through all the swap information out there, and the more I read, the more I get confused. I'm trying to find the best combination of OEM pieces to fit my 528 with a m54 swap already in it. So far, it looks like the best combo to go with is a ZF 6 speed from 330i/Z4, e46 front half driveshaft, 525 rear half driveshaft, 5 series pedal and clutch lines and cylinder assemblies, all while sticking with the stock rear end. Eventually, I would like to get an LSD, but not sure to look into an M5 rear end or find an aftermarket diff that fits the OEM housing.

If I can source all the parts, I'd like this to be an end of June timeframe project. I'm still unsure of what ECU flashes/settings need to occur nor does the shop that'd be doing the swap...still trying to research and read through all the stuff that's out there (and yes, I know of Blackknight's thread...that's where I started).

[Luder94]

Haven't updated this in a while, but here's where I'm at with my wagon. Bought and sold about 6 sets of OEM wheels because I couldn't decided where I wanted to be with wheels. Ended up with a total of 3 sets of M-parallels, 2 sets of style 65s, and one set of M3 CSL style wheels.

I sold off the e39 fitment mpars and kept the two sets of e38 mpars so that I can run a set of rears for the summer, and a set of fronts with blizzaks for the winter. I really liked the style 65's more than I thought I would after I mounted them...on the first week I had the pristine shadow chrome set mounted on the car, I got an offer for them by someone that I met at a street-light. I got an offer for $1200 (bought for $700), so off they went to a new owner. The other set is a badly refinished gunmetal gray that I'm going to sell off just make room. The CSLs were probably my favorite for the wagon; lightweight, stylish...but had to run a 20mm spacer up front and 15mm spacer on the rear to get the wheels to not look so tucked. Sold those for what I paid for them luckily.

About a month back, I had a full brake refresh. I bought a full brake refurb kit from FCP, bought front and rear set of calipers and new brake fluid. Had a shop do the work, and couldn't be happier. Same shop will be doing the 6 speed swap. I ran into some problems with the collecting of parts on the swap. I found and bought a moderately used ZF 6spd trans from a wrecker on Car-parts.com. Unfortunately, they sent me a 5spd. I sent it back...of course they are having problems refunding my money and want to try and replace the 5spd with a 6spd while making me eat the cost of freight back and forth and back again. Well, that's not happening...so I sent everything I got from them back (ate the shipping cost for that extra stuff), and filed a claim with my CC company.

If anyone has a lead on a GS6-37BZ, pedal cluster, clutch lines, etc., please let me know.

[QtheGenius]

All that should also be the same from an e39 540i sedan, 01-03. That's where my swap came from.