Another project pt touring

[atl530i]

Back at it with another touring.

I sold my alpine white touring back in May and have pretty much had sellers remorse ever since. I got an awesome offer that I accepted so it made it better but not much. I ended up with an E39 525it as an "upgrade" that has been good but it's not my E34 wagon. I bought another 95 540i6 that I didn't do much with except drive it and fix a few minor things with it. Traded the 540i for a 525i with an M52/ZF/s3.23. The 525i came with a lot of cool stuff including a blown M52 and another good M52 with almost everything to reseal it sans the head gasket and a lot of other parts. Intentions were to swap in the good M52, clean up the engine bay, and eventually turbo it but plans change. This was my same goal with this car too.

A pretty cool 95 525it in calypso popped up on Facebook and within the hour, the deal was done. The night before I had ordered a lot of parts for the black 525 and thought that it would be cool do to this stuff to a wagon...worked out well I guess. It came with Open Road Tuning coilovers, M bumpers, a bunch of recent maintenance, and no wheels. It did have BBS RS wheels on it. I had some mpars with new tires so I decided to save a few bucks and put those on and let the seller keep his BBS wheels for his next project. So the plan is to now manual swap the wagon with the stuff from the 525i, OBD2 swap it, and eventually turbo this car instead. I thought about putting the M50 and slushbox back into the black 525i but I'm not sure I'll have the time (or motivation) for an automatic swap lol. I'm currently parting it so there's that too.

Only issue with the wagon is the rebuilt title. I found the auction listing online and it was totaled for a "minor dent" and "small scratches" per the listing. I usually do not buy rebuilt title cars but this was an exception since the total loss equated to probably less than $1500 worth of damage. Interestingly enough, the damage really isn't visible in the pics I do not plan on selling it anytime soon so it's whatever at this point.

The latest wagon.



Really cool having these two next to each other. Never had a calypso car before so this is a welcomed change.



Photos from the previous owner.





The engine bay in this is very clean. The engine had some work done to it and the valve cover is new. Props to the previous owner for giving a shit


The rear seat had some tears in it. Luckily I never throw anything away, it all ends up in my attic for some reason. When I swapped the interior to black in my alpine wagon, I kept the seat bottom and some other parchment items and stored them away. A little over three years later...


My E39 touring doing werk. The SLS worked wonderfully. Brought the M52 home in it and have it sitting to the side for now. A lot of the OBD2 swap stuff has already shown up including the M50manifold.com kit (I used this kit before and really like it), oil pump safety nut, SAP block off plates, and some more "while you're in there" parts.



tdlr wagon

[bigsixe34]

Man that looks great with the M Pars + M Tech stuff. Nice score! Lots of good wagons showing up.

[e34Croak]

Spicy. Looking forward to the progress.

I spy a good doggo.

[circuit.heart]

Will be following this - I've got an MS41 in hand and it really needs to go in sooner or later.

[atl530i]

Little update.

I've been working with limited space for a while, not an issue with one or two cars but it's an issue with five cars. I ended up taking my M Sport and E38 to a car lounge storage place so I can have a place to work at home. Self-storage is ridiculous especially for two cars that have to be inside so this was a much better and cheaper option. Finally have space with these out of the way.


With the M Sport and E38 gone, I pulled the 525i in and started taking stuff off it. The suspension was sold so it was gone first; seats and the front end also went. The seats went a week earlier so I had to get creative with moving the car with no seats.

My son modeling with the new seats


Tear down...


After work fun




Engine and transmission out.




It came with a red46 skid plate so I'm going to put it on the wagon.


Going to need to get a new transmission crossmember. This car was manual swapped as well but there have also been a few things that I have questioned about it.



More to come. Still have some stuff to remove and have to get rid of the shell.

[atl530i]

Small(ish) update.

After a month of off and on disassembly on my parts car, I finally got it out of the garage and off to its new life as a washing machine. I've caught some crap about leaving the doors, trunk, and some other small parts but after making a few part out posts and having no bites...it all went with the car. No room to store doors and other body parts at my house and even if I had room, those items would have gone with the car anyway. They take up too much room. I did manage to get the back glass since that seems to be hard to find now. The front glass had way to much glue so I wasn't able to get the trim off along with the window, saddening since the trim is NLA now. You can see that there was some anger relief on the windshield in one of the pics

I got the important stuff so it's whatever at this point.

The headliner was recovered so this came out and will end up in the M Sport since the headliner in that is starting to sag in the back. 26 years will do that I guess...


The carcass



The wagon inside finally. Still needed to clean the garage up but progress.


So I learned a valuable lesson buying a rebuilt title car from South Carolina. This has nothing to do with the seller but with how South Carolina brands rebuilt title cars that come into their state. This car was declared a loss in California (2019), rebuilt in Pennsylvania (2020), passed in Pennsylvania, and then brought to GA at some point in 2020. It may of even had an inspection when it came to GA and passed. It was sold to a friend in late 2021 who brought it to South Carolina from GA. I bought it and it is now in GA...again. South Carolina will brand a title SALVAGE - REBUILT even though it is no longer considered a salvage vehicle. GA took notice and told me I had to get it reinspected when I went to tag it. This is possibly the third time it has now had to be inspected. It blows my mind that in this day and age; states cannot get on the same page but why would they bother when it's more revenue for them.

Regardless of the damage, I do not plan on buying another rebuilt title car. Too much of a hassle.

After sitting since October; I cleaned the car up some and replaced a few things that I found broken that could have caused the car to fail such as a cracked tail light and a couple bulbs that were burnt out. Luckily I have a few sets of touring tail lights so it wasn't a huge deal. Went for a couple of test drives...all was well. Whatever I could find that was broken and could cause an issue was fixed. I was fretting a little over a few things after the inspector emailed me what they check. They check vehicle measurements, windshield damage, lights, ABS, airbags, tires, wheels, brakes, etc... They obviously look at what caused the car to get branded as well. The part that got me was the fact that the car was lowered significantly, has tint on the friggin windshield, not original wheels, not original bumpers, and I did not have a trailer to take it to the inspection office. So I decided to go full send and drive it nearly 100 miles away to an inspection station that was a stones throw from Tennessee. I have never had to go thru this process before sooooooooooooooooo what could possibly go wrong??


Fast forward to Saturday...

Here is it driven to the inspectors station in their parking lot. I pulled in and there were a few other people getting inspections done who had driven their car there too. The nervousness subsided a little. One guy brought a car there that was different colors, not even sure if he passed but there was no yelling or anything so I assume he passed?? No longer that nervous.

My turn. I pulled it in, left the window down, and start shooting the sh!t with the inspector and his friend. He asked if I knew the history of the car and I told him what I thought was done (the light tap on the rear left) and that I had bought it this way from a friend in South Carolina. He turns the car on, messes with the lights, checks the ABS, checks the airbags, inspects the rear left of the car (where the damage was), and looks under the hood for any damage (there was none since it was not damaged in the front). Never bothered to put it on the lift (the Jeep before me was on the lift, I guess the level of damage severity determines if it goes on the lift), messed with a few other things, and passed the car. Never mentioned anything about the windshield tint or lowered suspension. Ended up worrying about those things for nothing because they were both non-issues. I am relieved.

Tonight...the modding begins with what little light I have. I swapped the school bus steering wheel and radio. These were in my parts car. The 95MY 525i's used a different slipring than previous model years so I couldn't use the earlier model E36 M3 wheel that I have. The biggest thing incase the inspection becomes an issue again is that the SRS system continues to work properly so swapping in an Mtech2 wheel is not an option. The Mtech3 wheel works great and looks good in this. I also ditched the Continental radio in favor for one of my older Clarion pro audio decks. It sounds better, still has Bluetooth, variable LEDs, and I'm able to use my lifetime Sirius tuner with it. Simple enough and it starts to get the ball rolling with the car since it's no longer an issue with the inspection process.



Progress should speed up a little more now that I have the paperwork pretty much done with the GADMV. I was not about to start putting in work that could have possibly been a waste. Apologies for the long post but hope you all enjoy.

Vintage 2022 prep has officially begun!!!!

[HE53]

Can't wait to see this car come together.

[Pink120]

This thing looks very very good, almost makes me want to keep the wide grilles on mine. Keep the updates coming.

[atl530i]

Haven't made an update in a while. For shame for shame! I know...

So I haven't really done much to the car except drive it and fix a few things on it. I've been busy so most of what I've been doing has been acquiring parts that I'll use at some point. I did get the new motor resealed and rid myself of the blown M52 from my parts car. It's ready to drop in and hook up when the time comes.

February 2022 Caffeine and Octane in Atlanta.


Both engines next to each other. Basically resealed the new M52, moved all of the E34 bits over, oil pump safety nut, and some minor things. Did some minor cleaning as well. When I get ready to drop it in, I'll clean it some more. February 2022.


Hopefully I did this right. I did buy two of these for some reason lol...



Next to the M Sport. I'll admit, I'm a bit spoiled with a fully functioning automatic in one of these...maybe that's where some of the procrastination is coming from


I found that when the M5 bumper was installed, the touring specific gasket was missing. I ordered one and installed it. It was also a good time to survey what damage there was to this area of the car. Looks like there was none below the bumper line. Good enough for me.



Drove to South Carolina for the BMW CCA MX1 Experience. Totally worth the drive since the E31 M8 Prototype was there.



Vintage 2022. I originally wanted to have this swap done before the Vintage but yeahhhhh that didn't happen.



E34 crew. That's Logan taking in his first Vintage experience.




Blue Ridge Parkway.



Logan passed out from a long weekend...face first.


Soooo my original plan for boost was a turbo but this kinda just landed in my garage. It's a V3 Si that needs a little TLC. I do need a charge pipe for an M50 car so if anyone has a lead on one, let me know. If not, I'll have to get one made. Also need some injectors and a tune. Not sure on what injectors I'll need so I could use some advice on that too.

[moroza]

Wow, that looks clean! Has it been repainted?

Logan isn't quite tall enough yet, but before too long he'd be wanting for rear headrests.

[atl530i]

Wow, that looks clean! Has it been repainted?

Logan isn't quite tall enough yet, but before too long he'd be wanting for rear headrests.

Thanks. Everything except the roof (for some reason) has been repainted. It'll be redone at some point. I have some parchment touring rear headrests that I bought for my Alpine wagon to install in this.

[Jcbe34]

Looking great! You definitely should never have sold that white touring, and I definitely wish I would have bought it... but we all make mistakes! I stopped into the Vintage for a minute, pretty sure I walked by your touring and it looked fantastic! I didn't look super closely but the paint looked good to me, surprised to hear it was a respray.

[atl530i]

Looking great! You definitely should never have sold that white touring, and I definitely wish I would have bought it... but we all make mistakes! I stopped into the Vintage for a minute, pretty sure I walked by your touring and it looked fantastic! I didn't look super closely but the paint looked good to me, surprised to hear it was a respray.

Thanks! I saw your post about your old Cirrus 535, it's awesome to see that it come back home.

So sad/funny story of Vintage 2022 regarding my alpine wagon. I was coming out of the Clarion Saturday night and saw my old wagon taking off. Naturally I chased (haphazardly...) after it and didn't make it. That exhaust still sounds good btw. Two friends saw the whole thing and how sad I looked after I didn't make it and offered their condolences to me. "Sorry for your loss man" "You sold it with those wheels?!?"

The calypso wagon makes up for it though. It's a different color so that makes it cool with me.

[atl530i]

Wow, that looks clean! Has it been repainted?

Logan isn't quite tall enough yet, but before too long he'd be wanting for rear headrests.

I have some that I've been lazy about installing lol. I finally got around to installing some smilies on it that I've had sitting around for 6 months

[KitTheRam]

I think this maybe the first touring I have seen without rear headrests. Is there a reason this car does not have them?!

[moroza]

In the US market, only M5 had rear headrests. They weren't legally required then (I don't know if that's changed), so BMW followed unscrupulous capitalism and simply omitted a basic safety and comfort feature from a $40k+ car.

[mcw323is]

I swapped the school bus steering wheel and radio. These were in my parts car. The 95MY 525i's used a different slipring than previous model years so I couldn't use the earlier model E36 M3 wheel that I have. The biggest thing incase the inspection becomes an issue again is that the SRS system continues to work properly so swapping in an Mtech2 wheel is not an option. The Mtech3 wheel works great and looks good in this.

I don't know how I missed this back when you initially posted it, but so it sounds like you can confidently confirm that the Mtech3 is a direct swap in a 95? I have one sitting that when I bought it came with the slip ring from the M3 it came out of...so did you use your existing slip ring?

[atl530i]

I don't know how I missed this back when you initially posted it, but so it sounds like you can confidently confirm that the Mtech3 is a direct swap in a 95? I have one sitting that when I bought it came with the slip ring from the M3 it came out of...so did you use your existing slip ring?

I was able to swap it in without issue. The horn still works and the airbag is connected the way it should be. The slip ring on the steering wheel is identical to the one I took out of my wagon. My 95 M Sport has a different slip ring which I thought was weird.

[atl530i]

Small update for the wagon. Been nice outside so I've actually been compelled to work on the wagon, Olympic car, and 535i over the past few weekends.

First thing I wanted to do was swap out the US spec headlights for some Euro Depo headlights. These came off a parts car and are basically free so yeahhhh. Since light output sucks regardless of whether or not these are Hella or Depo branded, I decided to do something similar to what I did in my M Sport. A friend designed and 3d printed some adapters that are similar to the SquarD adapters I have on my M Sport but use Acme BiXenon projectors instead. I did this same setup on my Alpine Touring and liked it a lot, only difference was I had pitted Hella housings instead. One thing I did do was retain the 9005 high beams because they work a lot better than the H1 high beams. A simple twist on the hardware that holds the light housing to the frame and they drop right out. Going to leave the ambers on. They look really good with this color. If anyone wants some pics, I can upload some. I didn't take pics of the adapters.

Anyway, these look nicer and light output is improved a lot. This is nice since the windshield has tint on it, night driving doesn't suck as much.



The next thing was the stereo. It sounded like crap like they all do and all of the tweeters were blown. I decided to do the "blau bypass" on an older factory amp that utilizes a passive crossover network. The later E34's use an amp that has an active crossover network and different plugs.

Getting ready to start working. I didn't do the blau bypass on it yet.


During. I spliced in the connected from an older E34 into the 95 harness. I didn't modify the passive amp yet because I wanted to make sure that it all worked after I installed it. I pre-ran all of my RCAs and whatnot when I installed satellite radio a few months ago. This cut down on a lot of time.

The mayhem Notice my toner probe. Wasn't getting signal on the tweeters so wanted to make sure the wiring wasn't messed up also. I thought about repinning the connectors but one was completely different. Splicing it is...


During the install...


So this was what I ended up with, I wasn't happy with the install. The amp is a marine JL 700/5 that I fixed but it still continued to have issues with the RCAs and ground loop noise. Filters are a bandaid so I opted to go another route. This is probably because the boat I removed it from was in salt water for a while.


So I decided to rip it out and start over. I wasn't happy with the wiring (it's presentable now) so some new wire was used. I also snagged a new amp from work. It's an Arc Audio zdi850.5. I plan on engraving a new plate that goes in the middle of the amp with the BMW logo on it or something. We use these in many different installs and they have been great to us and haven't given us much problems. The crossover networks in these are designed by Robert Zeff so they are pretty nice amps. Zeff is synonymous with the old school Zapco amps. Since the new amp is a bit longer, I had to swap the Sirius tuner out. I have a few of these lifetime Sirius tuners that are compatible with early to mid-2000's Clarion ProAudio decks. These radios are great since they have rear aux (I can connect a Bluetooth dongle to the aux input), variable LEDs, and a mostly black faceplate with many buttons so it doesn't look terribly out of place in the E34s dash.

Decent looking install. Anchor Marine 4ga wire so when the car sinks, the wire will still be good


My cheap little Kicker sub and basic enclosure. I made it to where it's removable so stuff can still be hauled. I have some nicer OG JL10W6's but didn't want to use that in this. If something slides into the box and ruins the sub, I'll get another cheap sub. This sub came from another touring I parted in 2019 lol. That's my sedan trunk mat, doesn't quite fit right but it helps protect that nice floor under it.


For a simple system that uses the factory Nokia components, 10ch crossover network, and some cheaper equipment; it sounds a million times better than before. The idea was the retain the 3way stage up front so the crossover network makes sense.

Hopefully the next post has a pic of the engine out of the car. We are currently in the process of packing and moving so not really wanting to drag a car to the new place.

[atl530i]

In my last post, I mentioned that the next one would have pics of the engine out of the car. After putting my swap off for over a year, I finally started tearing into the wagon. It's nice having space to work inside

Getting started.


If I end up not selling the M50, I'll probably save it for something else like an E30 or something


Not terribly disgusting.



Nice area for stuff. Cleaned up the floor and left it at that for now.



Project is moving forward now. I have been typically working on this after work and a little on weekends. Goal is to have it running way before Vintage.

[circuit.heart]

Man that's clean. I'm ready to make an offer when you decide to sell it :p

[BleedsBlue]

I missed the last few updates on this one - a classic high quality build thread from you, sir

Man that's clean. I'm ready to make an offer when you decide to sell it :p

Agreed. I need another E34T in my life before long. The cheap ones are all gone, though.

[atl530i]

Finally!! making some progress on the touring. I have a 532iT 5 speed now. I've been slammed so the touring has been low on the priority list. I started to wire up the engine and will start buttoning up everything in the engine bay as time permits.




A proper shifter!

[atl530i]

Spent a good portion of the weekend messing with the wagon. I finally got it running today Still a lot of things to do but at least it is running and idling fine. Still a few things to button up in the engine bay but now it's on to the driveshaft, diff, and exhaust system. It still needs a good cleaning from sitting in my garage the past six months.

[atl530i]

Small update. Having a long weekend means I can put some more time into the touring. All that was needed to get the car going was to install the diff, driveshaft, and bleed the clutch hydraulics. I didn't take any pics of the diff but yeah...it's heavy. Logan and I got the diff and driveshaft installed on Monday morning and were cruising up and down the street by early afternoon. The car did great so the hood and bumper went back on. I still need to figure out why the reverse lights no longer work and finish a few minor things in the engine bay. The engine pulled great thru the rev range and gears.

Pics

Getting started


First test drive. Got some strange looks but it's all good.


Pesky ABS light that I need to deal with. Already went thru the schematics for the MS41.1 and silver label 413 DMEs so it's a matter of me getting it all wired together and working right (hopefully).


Going thru the engine bay still.


Got the front end back together. Now it's just loud.



Quite dusty. It'll get a bath sometime this week.


Most of the interior is back together. Still messing with the center console.


I need to wire this into my OBD2 harness so the ABS system can get the data it needs from the DME. I have the other side of the plug so I can make it look as OEM as possible. Should be fun...