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Thread: Individual sterling silver 540i6 project

  1. #1
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    Individual sterling silver 540i6 project

    So I bought that sterling silver 540i6 that's been floating around North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia the last few years. It is apparently 1 of 3 1995 540i6's that were painted sterling silver and labeled individual from BMW. I like sterling silver (my wagon was sterling silver) and the price was right so it made perfect sense to scoop it up and start tinkering with it. It'll make the perfect driveway friend with my red M Sport and alpine wagon. I'll probably hold on to this one for a while but bets have already started to take place for some reason.

    I drove it home and it did fine. Pulled awesome but has the 55-60mph shimmy. With the stock 2.93, 6th gear was quite nice.

    It has a slight miss, I was told cylinder 7 is misfiring. It just needs a tune up and to be gone thru. At higher engine speeds it runs fine. You can feel it at idle. It looks like the spark plugs are close (or may be) to original just from looking at them. I swapped coils and it still had the miss so I'll move on to other diag. I have a pretty substantial M60 spare parts bin because of my M Sport so that's a good thing. It grinds going into 3rd but doesn't pop out of third, typical 420g. There are plenty local to me so I'll swap it later and go into 3rd only if needed. It kinda sucks because 3rd is a fun gear.

    A parts list is being made so nothing gets missed.

    Pics.





    It came with some Dinan bits. Should net me about 10whp if that



    Interior is in good shape. It needs a radio (I have many so that's not an issue) and the side bolster repair


    Paint tag which I thought was neat.


    My alpine wagon. I recently swapped the interior to black in it because tan sucks.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  2. #2
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    Rad!! That's cool it's an individual. All the f80 at my brothers job (where my individual 540 lives) are always blown away that BMW even offered individual in the 90s lol.
    - Hans - Mauritiusblau Metallic - Ultimate Klasse - Progress Thread: LINK



  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by staystackin View Post
    Rad!! That's cool it's an individual. All the f80 at my brothers job (where my individual 540 lives) are always blown away that BMW even offered individual in the 90s lol.
    I thought it was cool too. The tag is supposed to be upside down?

  4. #4
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    Awesome car ! More touring pix !!!!!!!!!
    Me E30 87/ 325i + F25 12/ M-Sport + E32 94/ 740i

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  5. #5
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  6. #6
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    Beautiful car, looks great!

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by atl530i View Post
    I thought it was cool too. The tag is supposed to be upside down?
    nah not as far as I know. Mine's on the driver's strut tower and it's definitely right side up.
    - Hans - Mauritiusblau Metallic - Ultimate Klasse - Progress Thread: LINK



  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by staystackin View Post
    nah not as far as I know. Mine's on the driver's strut tower and it's definitely right side up.
    Interesting. I ran the VIN and it's definitely an individual car. It's an 11/94 car so it's an early 540i6. I bet that was a Friday at 4:59pm deal.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  9. #9
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    Maybe the engine bay was detailed at one point and they took the sticker off? I noticed there's none of that old yellow wax in engine bay or on the strut tower. Mines an 89 and still has most of that wax left.

  10. #10
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    interesting that someone would pay the special paint money to get a color similar to one that's available. "Fueller Arktissilber" , so arctic silver base with sterling silver top coat, individual cars are interesting.
    Mike
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  11. #11
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  12. #12
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    So the last day and a half have been pretty amazing in terms if digging into this cars history. The rough idle is due to low compression on cylinder 7 from being money shifted by the guy that sold it to the guy I got it from (two owners ago). It has a bent valve most likely. Not really happy I have to rip this apart because I was looking forward to just driving it. I am glad I haven't put any money into this engine because it would have been a waste. The seller offered a spare b40 that came with this car originally so that's cool. The impatient side of me found another b40 with 150k verifiable miles on it (friend selling it) and bought it before the seller offered that other b40 to me. I plan on selling the extra b40 since I do not need two. This car is worth saving though, it is in good shape has a nice color combo. It it were another alpine white with tan interior car, I'd probably part it.

    The m60 fits into the rear of my wagon just fine also.


    Last edited by atl530i; 07-11-2018 at 11:24 PM.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  13. #13
    moroza's Avatar
    moroza is offline MORΩN ΛABIA BMW CCA Member
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    What's the suspension on the wagon?

    I'm confused about the color sticker. It shows two different silvers - "arctic" and "sterling". Is there anything Individual about it besides the paint? It looks like it's on 16's and the stock Sport suspension?

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by moroza View Post
    What's the suspension on the wagon?

    I'm confused about the color sticker. It shows two different silvers - "arctic" and "sterling". Is there anything Individual about it besides the paint? It looks like it's on 16's and the stock Sport suspension?
    Wagon is on Bilstein B8's and Eibachs. It has arctic as a base coat and sterling on top of it. Mottati mentioned that.
    It has E38 16" wheels on it and the suspension is the stock sport suspension afaik. Someone mentioned that the wheels were put on by the dealer when the car was new but I have no way of verifying that because all of the documents that had that information are gone.
    Last edited by atl530i; 07-12-2018 at 10:09 AM.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  15. #15
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    What size of tire you got on those wheels? Got same wheels waiting to be put..

  16. #16
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    225/55/16

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  17. #17
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    Very cool.

    How did you get the engine in the back of the touring? Was the crane arm just very tight against the top of the engine?
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by TGreene View Post
    Very cool.

    How did you get the engine in the back of the touring? Was the crane arm just very tight against the top of the engine?
    Hoist and guided it in. Once the oil pan was in the car, we slid the engine on the cardboard in the rest of the way.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  19. #19
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    cars clearly in good hands. you're like the grounds keeper for e34's.
    - Hans - Mauritiusblau Metallic - Ultimate Klasse - Progress Thread: LINK



  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by staystackin View Post
    cars clearly in good hands. you're like the grounds keeper for e34's.
    Thanks. I like these cars a lot as you can probably tell lol. This car is worth saving. Just a little bummed about the engine. I was looking for another driver and not another project. All good though.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  21. #21
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    Would love to see it side by side with a regular Sterling Silver. To my eye it's a slightly darker/deeper color?

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by atl530i View Post
    I thought it was cool too. The tag is supposed to be upside down?
    Quote Originally Posted by staystackin View Post
    nah not as far as I know. Mine's on the driver's strut tower and it's definitely right side up.

    An inverted individual label is not uncommon, so there is no correct orientation:

    5rbt.jpg


    Paint label of the same chassis oriented normally:

    5rbu.jpg


    What does this mean? Absolutely nothing.

  23. #23
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    Update. Finally got some time and motivation to work on this

    I started working on this car last week and into the weekend. I picked up a new transmission over the weekend as well so I could get everything done at once and be done with it. I was going to run the old transmission and just shift into 3rd when needed until I found another 420g locally. Someone was looking out and asked if I still needed a transmission which was cool. This will be nice and running properly soon. I plan on ordering a few more parts this week and cleaning the engine bay so there is not a lot of grease and grime left over.

    I finished cleaning and resealing the engine last night (9/16/2018). The valve cover gaskets were done by the previous owner so I'll paint them later and replace the gaskets then. People say it's a hard job but I've never found it to be a difficult job. I really want to get the car running so I can give it a proper shake down at this point. There was some questionable half-assed stuff on the old engine that I'll show later.

    New transmission from an E39. Lucky score.


    Getting started



    Pardon the mess


    Old engine harness had a repair done to it at some point. Whoever repaired it did a good job but I thankfully the new engine came with a new harness. The old harness had one of the O2 sensor wires hit an exhaust down pipe at some point.


    During. I bought a 12x12 canopy since I had to have a tree removed due to it raising my driveway for shade. It worked really well for the rain also.



    New engine. I still need to give it a final cleaning. I plan on finding a new top cover since someone painted the silver parts black.


    Old engine stuff. Whoever resealed the intake on the old engine did some crappy things. They used some sort of sealant and most likely did not get a new rear intake gasket. The PCV plate was not genuine as well. Whoever did the intake job ran out of proper hardware so they used a sheet metal screw for one of the bolts and ruined the intake manifold. I put a flashlight where the brass fitting was supposed to be and you can see light thru it.




    More sealant for the rear coolant manifold.


    The flywheel was resurfaced to where there was no raised area for the clutch disc. The clutch would slip if I started the car in gear and did not make any effort to lunge forward like a car with a regular flywheel.


    The new engine came with everything needed so the messed up parts were discarded.

    The hardest part of the job so far was replacing the radio and one of the pins that holds the bottom seat frame to the top seat frame on the driver seat

    How it currently sits. Looks like it's in one piece to the neighborhood lol. I took the evening off tonight.
    Last edited by atl530i; 09-18-2018 at 12:49 AM.

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

  24. #24
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    Looking good, Justin! This reminds me, I need to make a thread for our new calypso touring.


    What's the plan for this one?

  25. #25
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    Try not to sell or trade it when I get done with it. ��

    95 540i6 M Sport - 95 525it S52/OBD2 - 433k E36 328i5 - X5D that hit a pothole - IG: @justinmurray95

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