Free '97 528i

[95naSTA]

When I walked out to the car the other day I saw that there was a single tail light bulb stuck on, and must have been on all night. A mechanic buddy clued me in on the 12v bus and fuses under the passenger seat usually being corroded, so I started looking there. The passenger seat motors are tired and it took some extra finagling to get the seat unbolted and out of the way to take a look under it. Sure enough it was a mess down there.. And I ripped the soaked foam in the process of removing it.

For the water source, I'm banking on a sunroof drain issue. I've already resealed the vapor barriers. I'm going to take a look under the passenger cabin filter too.

I cleaned it all up, coated everything with dielectric grease, threw it back in and it didn't change the problem.. It probably fixed a future one though.

My buddy pulled the electrical diag up on Alldata and saw that the wire for that bulb goes directly to the light control module. Knowing this, if I unplugged that connector and the bulb goes out, I know that there's not a 12v short to that wire between the LKM and the bulb. It went out when I unplugged the respective LKM connector.

The other weird lighting things I have going on are the passenger high beam getting constant power and the PRNDL indicators staying on. I actually saw the high beam unplugged when I did the headlights and found that out then. I'm hoping a new LKM fixes both of these issues. I did find a post on here mentioning early E39 LKMs known for having failing single high beam transistors. I found a numbers matching one on ebay with a warranty for $45 shipped. For now the highbeam is unplugged and that one tail bulb is removed.

[amancuso]

When I walked out to the car the other day I saw that there was a single tail light bulb stuck on, and must have been on all night. A mechanic buddy clued me in on the 12v bus and fuses under the passenger seat usually being corroded, so I started looking there. The passenger seat motors are tired and it took some extra finagling to get the seat unbolted and out of the way to take a look under it. Sure enough it was a mess down there.. And I ripped the soaked foam in the process of removing it.

For the water source, I'm banking on a sunroof drain issue. I've already resealed the vapor barriers. I'm going to take a look under the passenger cabin filter too.

I cleaned it all up, coated everything with dielectric grease, threw it back in and it didn't change the problem.. It probably fixed a future one though.

My buddy pulled the electrical diag up on Alldata and saw that the wire for that bulb goes directly to the light control module. Knowing this, if I unplugged that connector and the bulb goes out, I know that there's not a 12v short to that wire between the LKM and the bulb. It went out when I unplugged the respective LKM connector.

The other weird lighting things I have going on are the passenger high beam getting constant power and the PRNDL indicators staying on. I actually saw the high beam unplugged when I did the headlights and found that out then. I'm hoping a new LKM fixes both of these issues. I did find a post on here mentioning early E39 LKMs known for having failing single high beam transistors. I found a numbers matching one on ebay with a warranty for $45 shipped. For now the highbeam is unplugged and that one tail bulb is removed.

OMG thats a nightmare. For comparison, here is what it looked like on my '99 528i last year when I did the heated seat retrofit.

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Holy Jeeezuz! That looks horrible!

[BMW540san]

Nice to see some love for 528. Many people talk about great 530 is and I agree but owning my 528 for 15+ years now, it's hands down most reliable BMW I've ever owned.
Sure, it's slower, has only 4 speed AT etc...but it has some advantages (at least IMO) over later 530:
M52 is more reliable than M54, there should be no argument there
I have original single Vanos and no issues with current 155k miles
French made 4 speed GM tranny is more reliable than ZF 5 speed and mine is original although I did few tranny flushes. Yes, it's not sophisticated as ZF but when put in Sport mode and combined with 3.91 Diff ratio, 528 is plenty quick for modern traffic.

I do agree the post 99 face lift looks better but you can make some nice upgrades as I did:
I went with OEM BMW front valance and it changes the front look dramatically.
For the back I sourced remus exhaust from Europe and cut the rear valance to tuck it up
The inside I changed it M Sport steering wheel which also makes it look better than 4 spoke IMO.
Anyway, keep up the good work saving the E39.

[amancuso]

Nice to see some love for 528. Many people talk about great 530 is and I agree but owning my 528 for 15+ years now, it's hands down most reliable BMW I've ever owned.
Sure, it's slower, has only 4 speed AT etc...but it has some advantages (at least IMO) over later 530:
M52 is more reliable than M54, there should be no argument there
I have original single Vanos and no issues with current 155k miles
French made 4 speed GM tranny is more reliable than ZF 5 speed and mine is original although I did few tranny flushes. Yes, it's not sophisticated as ZF but when put in Sport mode and combined with 3.91 Diff ratio, 528 is plenty quick for modern traffic.

I do agree the post 99 face lift looks better but you can make some nice upgrades as I did:
I went with OEM BMW front valance and it changes the front look dramatically.
For the back I sourced remus exhaust from Europe and cut the rear valance to tuck it up
The inside I changed it M Sport steering wheel which also makes it look better than 4 spoke IMO.
Anyway, keep up the good work saving the E39.

OMG I have same taste in cars.
1999 528iA
2004 X5 4.8iS
2003 M5

[95naSTA]

@amancuso Holy crap that's clean compared to the mess I was dealing with. My buddy said the fuse box in the E46 vert he messed with had terminals that actually fell apart it was so bad. So, there's worse than what I had.

@BMW540san Very cool insight to the 528i. I only know what I've read and retained about them in the past couple months.

Your '97 looks show-room inside and out. That front valance definitely makes a bid difference.

[AusE39er]

Holey dooley, those terminals.

Pre facelift headlights and tail lamps look great with clear indicator lenses.

[geargrinder]

I was gonna say "that's not the worst under seat fuse rot I've seen"... but... on closer look yeah I do believe it takes the cake.

This was my previous favorite, his splices had completely disintegrated (did you check the splices that are further back from the fusebox BTW?) but your actual fuse box looks worse:

[bimmer7410]

When I walked out to the car the other day I saw that there was a single tail light bulb stuck on, and must have been on all night. A mechanic buddy clued me in on the 12v bus and fuses under the passenger seat usually being corroded, so I started looking there. The passenger seat motors are tired and it took some extra finagling to get the seat unbolted and out of the way to take a look under it. Sure enough it was a mess down there.. And I ripped the soaked foam in the process of removing it.

For the water source, I'm banking on a sunroof drain issue. I've already resealed the vapor barriers. I'm going to take a look under the passenger cabin filter too.

I cleaned it all up, coated everything with dielectric grease, threw it back in and it didn't change the problem.. It probably fixed a future one though.

My buddy pulled the electrical diag up on Alldata and saw that the wire for that bulb goes directly to the light control module. Knowing this, if I unplugged that connector and the bulb goes out, I know that there's not a 12v short to that wire between the LKM and the bulb. It went out when I unplugged the respective LKM connector.

The other weird lighting things I have going on are the passenger high beam getting constant power and the PRNDL indicators staying on. I actually saw the high beam unplugged when I did the headlights and found that out then. I'm hoping a new LKM fixes both of these issues. I did find a post on here mentioning early E39 LKMs known for having failing single high beam transistors. I found a numbers matching one on ebay with a warranty for $45 shipped. For now the highbeam is unplugged and that one tail bulb is removed.

LOL, yup. I picked up my 540i not running for 1500 bucks cause the owner wasnt aware of this issue. Clued in by funny voltages going to the fuel pump. Replaced the box and it fired right up. Good times

[95naSTA]

I was gonna say "that's not the worst under seat fuse rot I've seen"... but... on closer look yeah I do believe it takes the cake.

This was my previous favorite, his splices had completely disintegrated (did you check the splices that are further back from the fusebox BTW?) but your actual fuse box looks worse:

Half of the one you posted looked worse than mine. All of my connections were salvageable. The ground connections aft and connections fwd of the fuse box could probably use some cleaning up but didn't look anything like the fuse box.

[Jason5driver]

Nice to see some love for 528. Many people talk about great 530 is and I agree but owning my 528 for 15+ years now, it's hands down most reliable BMW I've ever owned.
Sure, it's slower, has only 4 speed AT etc...but it has some advantages (at least IMO) over later 530:
M52 is more reliable than M54, there should be no argument there
I have original single Vanos and no issues with current 155k miles
French made 4 speed GM tranny is more reliable than ZF 5 speed and mine is original although I did few tranny flushes. Yes, it's not sophisticated as ZF but when put in Sport mode and combined with 3.91 Diff ratio, 528 is plenty quick for modern traffic.

I do agree the post 99 face lift looks better but you can make some nice upgrades as I did:
I went with OEM BMW front valance and it changes the front look dramatically.
For the back I sourced remus exhaust from Europe and cut the rear valance to tuck it up
The inside I changed it M Sport steering wheel which also makes it look better than 4 spoke IMO.
Anyway, keep up the good work saving the E39.

Man, that is a sweet car !
Looks soooo good !
Love it !

[95naSTA]

I've been putting a bit more work into this thing recently.

Whoever messed with the audio system in this thing replaced the amp, all the speakers, added a CD changer and twist and taped everything.. Considering the vintage of the Amp, (like 00ish, Alpine MRV-F407) the audio work was probably done 18 years ago. Listening to the radio was like playing speaker roulette. At some points I would be down to one speaker. A bunch of the twisted connections came loose and some of the wires actually broke.. I went through and soldered/epoxy lined shrink tubed everything at the speakers and from the stock harness to the amp.. it was a mess. But it all works now! I actually ditched the CD changer since I'll never use it and used the Peripheral adapter for an aux in.

I put on the new fenders I got and unfortunately, they're a shade off from the doors.. They're in better shape the the rusted ones that were on there so I'll just deal with it. I took effduration's advice and picked up smoked corner markers and tails. Those went on this past week.

When I originally went to look at the car it had a bad cabin water leak (re: fuse box in previous post). Reading here, one of the major culprits is the door vapor barriers. So I re-did all of the separated ones (3/4) with plastic and butyl tape. That didn't do the trick so I moved onto the sunroof drains. The front passenger side, where the majority of the water is, was completely disconnected. All the others were almost pulled off. I pushed them all back on and sinched them down with zip-ties what have a metal tab in them. I ran it through the car wash and the carpet stayed dry. I guess we'll see. There's tons more suggestions on here otherwise.

The only other plans I have for the car is loosing the old tint, fitting a nicer front bumper and cleaning up the interior once it gets nice out.

[geargrinder]

Ha. Hang in there man. Good effort.

Obv that car has either had door swaps, or a front end paint... Looks more like front clip paint to me...

What I really want to see is pix of the last 2 bikes in your signature!

[effduration]

Glad you tried the replacement headlight covers, tail lights, and side lights. You generally have a choice between white, clear and smoked. Either way, getting the yellow off the car really improves the look IMO.

[95naSTA]

I think majority of the car might have been re-sprayed and the replacement parts are OEM paint. When I popped the side marker out of the one fender that came with the car, there was a little paint on it from it being masked off.

Here's the DS7 before and after I got it. I picked it up for $150. The frame is de-tabbed and powdercoated, the oil tank is hidden under the seat, it's running a powerdynamo with no battery and I polished the forks.. that took a min.





Here's the IT175. Believe it or not, it's registered/insured/plated. I picked this up at Vintage Motorcycle days at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course for $500 and ripped it around all weekend. It worked but it had no front brake, a base gasket leak and the jetting was off. Either way smile per dollar is high. I've got the plastics off to polish, it needs tires and the stock front end. This thing actually has a Suzuki PE175 front wheel and forks.

[wagons ho]

Your color mismatch is simply that 97-98 use aspen silver and the new parts are off a 99-2000 which is titan silver

[amancuso]

Your color mismatch is simply that 97-98 use ARCTIC silver and the new parts are off a 99-2000 which is titan silver

See above.

[wagons ho]

Yeah, brain fade. I originally typed arctic silver then corrected it. I see the difference every day. 20190313_081629.jpg

[Santaclaus4]

I think majority of the car might have been re-sprayed and the replacement parts are OEM paint. When I popped the side marker out of the one fender that came with the car, there was a little paint on it from it being masked off.

Here's the DS7 before and after I got it. I picked it up for $150. The frame is de-tabbed and powdercoated, the oil tank is hidden under the seat, it's running a powerdynamo with no battery and I polished the forks.. that took a min.





Here's the IT175. Believe it or not, it's registered/insured/plated. I picked this up at Vintage Motorcycle days at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course for $500 and ripped it around all weekend. It worked but it had no front brake, a base gasket leak and the jetting was off. Either way smile per dollar is high. I've got the plastics off to polish, it needs tires and the stock front end. This thing actually has a Suzuki PE175 front wheel and forks.

I remember those bikes. That generation IT had the first "rising rate" mono-shock which replaced their earlier generation "falling rate" mono-shock suspension. I got my motorcycle endorsement on a 1971 Yamaha DT250. I love 2-strokes. I have 5 motorcycles in my garage and 4 of them are 2-strokes. I love the smell of premix (except when I'm running errands and smell like 2-stroke exhaust when I get there).

[95naSTA]

See above.

Well F me then on the paint code screw up. Looks like I'll be looking for different fenders. The hood was tough to tell the color difference with.

I remember those bikes. That generation IT had the first "rising rate" mono-shock which replaced their earlier generation "falling rate" mono-shock suspension. I got my motorcycle endorsement on a 1971 Yamaha DT250. I love 2-strokes. I have 5 motorcycles in my garage and 4 of them are 2-strokes. I love the smell of premix (except when I'm running errands and smell like 2-stroke exhaust when I get there).

2-stokes are a blast. The more pipey the better for me. Riding them on the street is hilarious. You either get a look of complete disgust over the noise or a look of jealously for those who know what riding one is like.

I had a '74 DT175 for a couple years and replaced it with the IT. I actually rode the DT 40 miles one way into NJ to a vintage dirt track once. I would have made it back had I not unknowingly lost my pod filter on the way home. There's a whole mess of people in my area that either had or have DTs. In most cases it's the gateway 2-stroke bike.

[95naSTA]

Small update.

I had a hard start issue that ended up being the fuel pump check valve not holding pressure after priming. I swapped out the fuel pump today and it was one of the easiest jobs I've ever done.. My Ducati's fuel pump was more annoying.. The pump had already been replaced before and whoever did it was sloppy. They had a zip-tie holding the tube to the top cover and twisted the connections to the aftermarket leads.. I didn't have any fuel resistant shrink tubing to go over the stripped wires so I went with couple of sections of fuel hose just to ensure they won't make contact.






After a set of brakes and some a/c diag, this car is actually going back to the previous owner to hopefully be a reliable ride for them for a while.

The bigger update is I bought an '03 M5 out in Cali last week.. I'll make a thread for it eventually. 110k on the clock but a very clean car.

[95naSTA]

The brakes are in with fluid flushed. Power Stop Z32s up front and Power Sports in the back.




During the brake break in I noticed a low speed (dependent) vibration from the tunnel area that gets worse with load. I think driving the car more aggressive than usual aggravated something. The guibo coupling and CSB are likely original at 169k. So, I'll shotgun those to try and fix it.

When diagnosing the a/c, I started with the ambient air temp sensor since I'm reading -40* at the dash. Apparently I got the wrong sensor since it still sees -40 with it wired and plugged in. I get +3.5v and ground at the leads and when I jump the wires the dash goes to 122*. That tells me the wiring is good. I ended up putting a 2.x Kohm resister in parallel with a jumper to get the dash to read 120 just to try and temporarily take it out of the equation. I vac/charged the system, it held pressure and the compressor clutch engaged but the compressor wasn't compressing. Both sides were the same pressure and it was blowing hot air. I used my buddies recovery machine and pulled the charge back out. It looks like a compressor should do it.

[95naSTA]

I did some more reading on the ambient air temp sensor and found out it takes a while for it to start reading correctly. That was the case for me too. It took about 20 mins.

The tunnel vibrations were definitely the center shaft support. The rubber connecting the bearing the bracket was completely ripped and disconnected. That and the giubo coupling were replaced today without issue. It was actually pretty easy.

https://youtu.be/6VmikORWRvQ




The a/c compressor install was a total PITA. It was out in about 10 mins since the lower air dam is missing. Everything from there was uphill admittedly because I bought the cheapest compressor I could get my hands on. The connector was missing with an open crimp in it's place. Easy enough to crimp in the old connector. Then I noticed the clutch wire shielding was ripped and would likey ground on the case. Fixed that. The compressor said it was pre-filled but there was some oil in the packaging so I added some with UV die in it. When I went to mount the compressor the pressure relief port on the bottom that's c-clipped in place was leaking the UV oil. I pulled it out to find a torn o-ring and one completely missing on the bottom. After I replaced and added as necessary, the leak stopped. I went to replace the o-rings on the lines and found out that the top/center port had the alignment pin in the wrong location and the port hole was about a mm too big.. This port is on a plate that's removable so I swapped the old one in while the compressor was in the car. After that mess, I was able to pull a vacuum, I checked to see if it'll hold for 10 mins and I put in between 3 and 4 12oz cans in. I was borrowing gauges and they weren't in the best shape, so I couldn't get accurate readings after filling. The A/C seemed to work well after filling with no visible UV leaks. The compressor clutch engaged without issue. I let the car sit for a while and when I went to go home it took about 5 mins or so for the a/c to start blowing cold again. After I got home I let it sit again but lost patience about a few mins of it not blowing cold.

Clifs - my cheap compressor solution ended up taking up a bunch of time and might not be working.




I ordered a set of gauges with no plastic bits and I'll check the pressures next week.

[mattmar1]

when changing the ambient temp sensor, disconnect the battery B- cable for a moment then reconnect, itll read correctly then. another buffered signal courtesy of BMW.

[95naSTA]

Ahh. Good info on the reset.

A/C gauges showed that my charge seemed good ~125psi but the compressor was only slightly compressing at idle. The low side would only drop to 70psi and the high would get up to maybe 200psi. However, if I drove the car around, the compressor saw more RPMs and the pressures would get to where they needed to be. Basically a weak compressor.

I ended up getting a new Denso compressor. It didn't need any soldering, port swapping or other b.s. The other good thing is I was able to swap the compressor at a dealership with a buddy that works there. This allowed me to use a recovery machine that recycles refrigerant, saving me that added cost. With the new compressor and a proper charge, the A/C is now freeeezing.

While there, I was also able to get a quick alignment on a newer Hunter rack. I've done about a dozen alignments on an older rack and this rack was an absolute dream. The setup took about 10 mins and it even guided you with pictures and tools required to make adjustments.

I may be passing this car on in a few weeks now that it's pretty well sorted. I might do a couple other small fixes but this could be it. It's come a long way and I learned a low while working on it. Hopefully it holds up.