Danny's White BMW (92 525i Thread)

[dannyzabolotny]

Time for some updates! The car's getting close to 274k miles, it's been lovely so far. All the new suspension parts are holding up excellently, and I've got a decent amount of hard driving on them.

First off was getting new front tires to replace the Toyo all-seasons that were starting to fall apart after all the heat cycles. I went with Yokohama Advan Apex V601's, as they're priced similarly to Firehawks but have really good reviews. They look great and the front grip is excellent now, as I found out when I started having a little bit of oversteer as opposing to plowing understeer.



Next up was fixing the door brake situation that looked like a crime scene... this is one of the worst ones I've seen.



Removing the busted door brake revealed this mess (this picture was taken after pounding the metal flat with a hammer for a while).



Using two reinforcement plates from Koala Motorsport, I was able to sandwich the metal and flatten it out to a decent point:



Exploded old door brake compared to the shiny new one:



Here's how I bent the inner reinforcement plate to sit nice, all mock-assembled with the new hardware I purchased for the project.



And the finished product:



I can't overstate how much of an improvement fixing the door brake is for daily usability... it was such a nuisance to always have the door hitting my leg and it made it really hard to get out of the car if my hands were full. I highly recommend fixing yours if it's broken... if it's not broken, replace your door brake anyways since they're known for blowing up and breaking stuff inside the door. Plus if you catch the door brake before it tears out the metal in the door, you only need one reinforcement plate on the outside.

While the door panel was off for the door brake job, I took the opportunity to replace the window regulator clips with new Genuine BMW clips, along with cleaning and greasing the slide rails for smooth operation. The window guide was a little bent from the door brake failure so I repaired that while I had the glass out as well. After that, I re-sealed the vapor barrier properly.



Since I had the door panel off, I figured I might as well swap it to the nice black door card I had laying around. I plan on doing the rest of the interior soon so this is a good start. I prepped the door panel by gluing on some missing clip holders, installing fresh OEM clips, and added the Angry Ass door clip foam pieces.



Carefully putting everything together, I was rewarded with this lovely result:



Not only does the black 95 door panel look fantastic, it also feels solid as a rock.

To celebrate the car continually getting better (and test the front tires), I went on a good mountain shred session with Dane. It was a very good time, I'm quite pleased with the suspension and tire setup on the car.



The other day, I accompanied Dane to another one of his impulse purchases. This one was in Tucson, a 1986 528e for a really good price. A manual Alpine White on black E28 for cheap? Heck yeah. The white 525i did beautifully on the way to and from Tucson, averaging 26mpg at 80-85.



Back at the shop, big brother and little brother:

[dannyzabolotny]

This past weekend, it was finally time to re-seal the 3.23 LSD that I had picked up previously. It wasn't actively leaking much, but I saw some seeping so I wanted to go through and freshen everything up.

Here's what I started with, after lots of power washing a few weeks back.



New parts ready to go:



First I drained the nasty black fluid and installed a shiny new drain plug.



Then I removed the back cover to inspect the internals— everything looks to be in good shape and I don't see any metal chunks or anything to be concerned about.



Next up were the side flanges, which were marked and taken apart to replace the side seals, o-rings, and circlips.







Side flange back together with cleaned hardware.



Finally, the rear cover was cleaned and reinstalled with a fresh gasket. The speed sensor got cleaned up and reinstalled with a new o-ring.







It's not perfect by any means, but it's a heck of a lot better than what it looked like before:



With the re-seal completed, the diff was filled with some very fancy Motul fluid, nice! Now it's ready to go into the car when I do the driveline refresh.

[moroza]

It'll be more likely to stay shiny and pretty longer with a new pinion seal, too...

[dannyzabolotny]

It'll be more likely to stay shiny and pretty longer with a new pinion seal, too...

I’m not going to mess with that, plus it wasn’t leaking at all from there. Only spot that was seeping was the passenger side seal.

[xcastaway]

You wouldn't think such a seemingly inconsequential thing like a door brake would make such a difference, but having just now finished installing one in my drivers door, it sure does make the car more user friendly. Unfortunately, I'll have to order the door reinforcement plates and do it again. I didn't know there were such things until your write up. An inch square bit of the door that goes around the upper bolt fell out when I pulled out the pieces of the old brake. It's holding well for the time being, but it will fatigue the rest of the metal if I leave it as is. Sigh.

I am glad I read back thru your thread again, since I have already ordered the throttle cable you previously convinced me I needed. I didn't note at the time your mentioning that yanking the heater control valve out of the way made installing it much easier. I have a rebuilt control valve and am planning on replacing the whole cooling system except the heater core in the spring, so I'll plan on adding installing the cable to that project. Next up, clutch master/slave/ UUC clutch line, should we get a couple dry, warmish days in a row. The weather forecast says no. I do envy those of you with shops and lifts!

Your car is coming right along. You've caught up to me and passed me by in the short time you have had it, and I had an 9 year head start. No money to spend on it, but I have had mine a while now. I look forward to seeing where you go with it from here.

Thanks for the informative write ups, even though they often seem to cost me money!

[dannyzabolotny]

You wouldn't think such a seemingly inconsequential thing like a door brake would make such a difference, but having just now finished installing one in my drivers door, it sure does make the car more user friendly. Unfortunately, I'll have to order the door reinforcement plates and do it again. I didn't know there were such things until your write up. An inch square bit of the door that goes around the upper bolt fell out when I pulled out the pieces of the old brake. It's holding well for the time being, but it will fatigue the rest of the metal if I leave it as is. Sigh.

I am glad I read back thru your thread again, since I have already ordered the throttle cable you previously convinced me I needed. I didn't note at the time your mentioning that yanking the heater control valve out of the way made installing it much easier. I have a rebuilt control valve and am planning on replacing the whole cooling system except the heater core in the spring, so I'll plan on adding installing the cable to that project. Next up, clutch master/slave/ UUC clutch line, should we get a couple dry, warmish days in a row. The weather forecast says no. I do envy those of you with shops and lifts!

Your car is coming right along. You've caught up to me and passed me by in the short time you have had it, and I had an 9 year head start. No money to spend on it, but I have had mine a while now. I look forward to seeing where you go with it from here.

Thanks for the informative write ups, even though they often seem to cost me money!

Yep, the reinforcement plates are worth every penny. They're like $15 each, so not super expensive either. Order two and do both front doors for peace of mind.

When you do your throttle cable, consider also replacing your throttle pedal bushings and grommet (if you haven't already done them).

As for the master cylinder replacement, a pro tip is to buy a cheap 11mm wrench and cut it in half, as that will make it much easier to undo the hard line at the master cylinder from underneath the car— clearance is quite tight and using a full-size wrench means a billion tiny little turns.

Having a shop is nice for sure, that's how I've been able to get so much done in a relatively short time. I've spent a lot of time wrenching in driveways in the Arizona heat, so I've certainly paid my dues, haha. The shop is a bit of a double-edged sword though, because it being my day job means that I'm often too busy to do things to my own car. So I have to make time to work on my car, either on weekends or at night after customer work.

[Cactuar]

Yes, a new throttle cable makes the throttle pedal so much smoother. New pedal bushings help too. On my E32 I replaced the tired cable with a Gemo unit from FCP. Not sure if it's the OE but it works perfectly.

One thing to note. After replacing my cable, bushings and springs I can hear a metallic squeak coming from the throttle pedal. It's only when I modulate my speed using small movements. So maybe it's a good idea to apply a heavy grease on the spring to reduce the likelihood of noises? I need to remove my lower dash panel and take a look in the Spring (ha).

[dannyzabolotny]

Yes, a new throttle cable makes the throttle pedal so much smoother. New pedal bushings help too. On my E32 I replaced the tired cable with a Gemo unit from FCP. Not sure if it's the OE but it works perfectly.

One thing to note. After replacing my cable, bushings and springs I can hear a metallic squeak coming from the throttle pedal. It's only when I modulate my speed using small movements. So maybe it's a good idea to apply a heavy grease on the spring to reduce the likelihood of noises? I need to remove my lower dash panel and take a look in the Spring (ha).

Yeah, it's recommended to grease the spring and bushings for smooth operation. It appears that there's grease there from the factory, at least that's what I've seen with every E34 and E34 that I've owned.

[dannyzabolotny]

Earlier today I got to complete some work that I've been really looking forward to— refreshing the driveline.

The parts were a combination of OEM and Turner Motorsport. I went with OEM for the giubo, CSB, shifter cup bushing, exhaust gaskets, and hangers. As for upgrades, I went with a new E60 545i shifter, ZHP knob, Turner rear shifter carrier, and Turner teflon front shifter carrier bushings. It was a rather expensive parts haul!



The exhaust came out without much drama— in fact, it was a little easier than usual because it was missing the rubber hangers in the middle. After that, the driveshaft came out, followed by the shifter linkage. Nothing was in terrible shape, just quite worn out from age and mileage.





The first thing I replaced was the selector rod joint. For whatever reason nobody ever replaces these, likely due to the cost of the part (it was $44).



After some cleaning, the other new parts were assembled and prepped for install:



Installed:



With the shifter components all refreshed, it was time to tackle the diff replacement. Out came the old 3.23 open diff:



The freshly re-sealed 3.23 LSD going in. Having a transmission jack makes this a very easy one-person job.



Fully installed, with axles torqued:



The final thing to address was the driveshaft— the CSB was in rather poor shape, made obvious by the telltale thump-thump-thump when taking off from a stop.



Normally I remove the CSB off in my press, but this ZF driveshaft has the CSB mounted on the front half of the driveshaft instead of the rear like on the Getrag driveshafts I'm more familiar with, meaning it was too long for my press. Out came the 3-jaw puller:



The new CSB was tapped onto the driveshaft and the driveshaft halves were bolted back together— I marked the halves before disassembly so they went back together properly. The driveshaft was reinstalled into the car with a new CV gasket at the rear and a new giubo (flex disc) in the front. I also cleaned the transmission crossmember because why not?



I also remembered that I hadn't done the middle transmission mounts in my last round of work, so I replaced them. I'm glad I did, because one of them was completely split apart and the other was close to splitting— they were both from 91!





The last step was bolting up the exhaust, with fresh gaskets at the header flanges, new hangers in the middle, and new hangers at the rear.

For the finishing touch, the tired wooden knob was replaced with a brand new ZHP knob.





Initial thoughts:

The new shifter setup feels excellent! There's zero slop, the throws are significantly shorter, and the car feels significantly tighter. The fresh CSB means I can start driving the car aggressively again, without the driveshaft thumping around. The LSD is a total gamechanger— burnouts and donuts are so much fun now, and U-turns are chock full of sideways stupidity. I'm sure I'll notice the difference in other types of driving as well, I'm pretty stoked.

[moroza]

Good stuff. I wish BMW had stayed with the single-round-bushing shifter carrier setup like you have, not the double- like some 420G and newer (my 37BZ). What're you using for transmission oil?

[dannyzabolotny]

Good stuff. I wish BMW had stayed with the single-round-bushing shifter carrier setup like you have, not the double- like some 420G and newer (my 37BZ). What're you using for transmission oil?

Yeah, I’ve worked on and replaced bushings on the newer style carriers and I’m not a fan of them.

I haven’t changed the transmission fluid yet, ran out of time to do that and it still feels fine. Since it’s a ZF 310z and the sticker calls for ATF, I’ll probably use Redline D4. I’ve used it in the past in E36 M3’s and in a bunch of E34 535i’s that also called for ATF, and it’s been pretty good.

[BleedsBlue]

Good stuff, Dan-boy!

[xcastaway]

"As for the master cylinder replacement, a pro tip is to buy a cheap 11mm wrench and cut it in half, as that will make it much easier to undo the hard line at the master cylinder from underneath the car— clearance is quite tight and using a full-size wrench means a billion tiny little turns."



Oh Lawd, but I remember every one of those billion tiny turns, from my initial 5 speed swap. I have a stubby 11mm and a short 7/16. I got an eighth of a turn with the 11, and a 16th of a turn with the 7/16th, just enough to enable me to get the 11 back on for another tiny turn. All left handed, since I badly dislocated my right shoulder and trapped a nerve under my shoulder blade, putting the exhaust system back into place. Not one of my favorite mechanical experiences! I'm not looking forward to revisiting this task, but need to do it before I get too old to consider attempting it. I'm trying to get every major repair I can done to her while I still physically can, and one or the other cylinder is failing. I have no idea if they were original to my 93 parts car or not. Once I replace them, I'll know.

Another major leap forwards for you, great stuff!

[moroza]

On my 544iT, I replaced the main clutch line with a single braided hose. Attached first to the master, then snaked the hose through the firewall when installing the master to the bracket. Much easier.

[a777fan]

Its too bad that bimmerforums doesn't have 'likes', for those times where you don't have much more to say than 'well done!'

nice note about the shifter linkage... I hadn't realized they were that different between models.

[dannyzabolotny]

Thanks y'all! I know it's not exactly the most riveting thread, but I'm glad I'm not just talking to myself all the time, haha.

Earlier today I rolled over 274k miles, woo~

And in other sorta fun news, my E34 will now have covered parking, as my girlfriend and I have purchased a townhouse. I still plan on doing all my work to it at the shop, but it'll be nice to be able to wash my car at home on a day off.



It rained a few days ago and even snowed in some places, so that made for some cool pictures at the end of my usual mountain driving road.





The sticky tires + LSD + sway bar setup is truly excellent, and with the refreshed driveline and shifter it really made the car feel proper. Now I don't have to think as much about the car and can just focus on driving properly. I'm super stoked to take it to the track next month.

[fo3]

I'm still reading it even if I say nothing. Stuck in a rut myself but it's still great to see others making progress, so keep up with the updates.

[BleedsBlue]

Nonsense anyway, this car has gone from zero to maintenance and performance hero! That is always a riveting story to me.

Congrats on the purchase, I've sacrificed some automotive dreams for real estate but it always makes more sense in the end

[dannyzabolotny]

It's been less than two weeks since my last post and I've added another thousand miles to the odometer— just rolled over 275k. At this rate I'll be at 300k in no time!

I changed my oil at ~274,400 miles, which was a little pointless since I've been having to add 1 quart every 1000 miles over the last 6000 miles in this oil interval. So in theory, not much of the original oil remained. I'll probably switch to running the Walmart Supertech 20W50 since the engine doesn't retain the more expensive synthetic Mobil 1 15W50 oil long enough for it to have any benefits. In any case, the oil change is a good excuse to change the oil filter and do a bolt check on the suspension/driveline while the car is up on the lift.





Everything looked pretty good, and the diff is staying nice and dry despite me thrashing on it quite a bit. The engine is pretty dry underneath, however I've noticed that the power steering hoses have started seeping a bit. I'll add those to the list, but I think the clutch might be a higher priority, as it's started to occasionally slip and makes some not-so-fun noises. I'll probably go with the Valeo single mass kit— it's cost effective and I was very pleased with it in Kurtis' car.

One other thing I addressed while underneath the car was the fuel filter, which looked fairly old. I couldn't find a date stamp on it, but that Mann logo is a fairly old one so this filter can't be any less than 5-10 years old.



This past Sunday, me and the guys went up to Prescott, figuring it would be a good time for some recreational driving while most of the US was obsessing over the Super Bowl (which I've never watched, lol). It was an excellent drive, with lots of lovely scenery and twisty mountain roads. Averaged 21mpg in that gas tank, which is pretty solid considering how much of the drive I spent at WOT going up and down mountains.



Earlier today I noticed my engine was idling a little weird and was intermittently throwing a 1222 CEL, so I busted out the smoke tester and found that the brake booster non-return valve was leaking. It always looked a little suspicious with the electrical tape on it, so I figured it would need replacing sooner or later. Thankfully I had a new valve laying around at the shop, so I installed it along with some new hoses and some rather bulky hose clamps. It ain't pretty but it does work!





That fixed the problem entirely— idle is nice and steady with no more CEL. Job done!

Later in the day I went and found a new twisty road to drive on— I drove it 4 times, so much fun! One of the perks of being self-employed is being able to go drive my car on fun roads in the middle of the day when everybody else is at work.



Speaking of work, I'm working on some pretty cool stuff at the shop lately. I've got a 1987 BMW L6 that needs a few things to be roadworthy after sitting for a couple years, an all-original 1985 535i with 110k miles that got a cooling system and is in the middle of diagnosing a faulty ABS system, along with a 1995 540i/6 M-Sport getting a new cylinder head. Never a dull moment at Heritage Motorworks!

[Singing6]

What brand is the new check valve? It would not happen to be viaco would it? I'm looking to replace mine as preventative work (being one of the few rubber components in the engine bay that I have not changed over the past 4 years of maintenance/upgrades) but really would like to find a decent oem supplier for it.

Great work here!

[dannyzabolotny]

What brand is the new check valve? It would not happen to be viaco would it? I'm looking to replace mine as preventative work (being one of the few rubber components in the engine bay that I have not changed over the past 4 years of maintenance/upgrades) but really would like to find a decent oem supplier for it.

Great work here!

Yep, it's Vaico. Pretty much the only non-Genuine option we have left. The way I see it, a check valve is a check valve, so as long as it works I'm happy. I ran the same valves on my last two E34's, no complaints.

And thanks! I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but I'm still pretty pleased with how the car is doing, given its age and mileage. That stubborn M50 non-vanos just refuses to quit, but I'll start prepping the S50 pretty soon since I've got a decent list of things I want to do to it for longevity (and style)— new timing chains, chain guides, paint the block, clean all the timing covers, zinc coat all the hardware, powder coat the valve cover, install the SLG upgraded 4-bolt oil pump & pump chain tensioner, every single gasket, rebuild the Vanos, etc.

[Singing6]

Yep, it's Vaico. Pretty much the only non-Genuine option we have left. The way I see it, a check valve is a check valve, so as long as it works I'm happy. I ran the same valves on my last two E34's, no complaints.

And thanks! I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but I'm still pretty pleased with how the car is doing, given its age and mileage. That stubborn M50 non-vanos just refuses to quit, but I'll start prepping the S50 pretty soon since I've got a decent list of things I want to do to it for longevity (and style)— new timing chains, chain guides, paint the block, clean all the timing covers, zinc coat all the hardware, powder coat the valve cover, install the SLG upgraded 4-bolt oil pump & pump chain tensioner, every single gasket, rebuild the Vanos, etc.

Good to hear about the Vaico part holding up.

Take it from someone that has done both ways: just buy the valve cover new from the dealer. I got my vanos m50 cover for $230. If you go the powdercoating route, you will be +$100 in the whole and still are likely to have studs that lift out of that weak factory casting. Add to that the variable of quality with the powdercoat and it is just not worth it IMO.

[dannyzabolotny]

Good to hear about the Vaico part holding up.

Take it from someone that has done both ways: just buy the valve cover new from the dealer. I got my vanos m50 cover for $230. If you go the powdercoating route, you will be +$100 in the whole and still are likely to have studs that lift out of that weak factory casting. Add to that the variable of quality with the powdercoat and it is just not worth it IMO.

Yeah, I’ve thought about the new valve cover route, but I want mine to be red as a fun accent color. White over black is cool and all but I’ve always wanted a third color as an accent. I figure I’ll have a red valve cover, red brake calipers, and red seat belts eventually. Might not be to everyone’s taste but it is what it is.

[a777fan]

Take it from someone that has done both ways: just buy the valve cover new from the dealer. I got my vanos m50 cover for $230. If you go the powdercoating route, you will be +$100 in the whole and still are likely to have studs that lift out of that weak factory casting. Add to that the variable of quality with the powdercoat and it is just not worth it IMO.

Yeah... exactly what led me to just close my eyes and hand the credit card over to the dealer.

[Mless5]

How do those Mevotech control arms look? I know it's too early to tell if they are any good, but even initial quality may (or may not) be an indicator.