Atlanta street survivor 535i

[atl530i]

Since I have been doing a lot of work on this 535i recently, I wanted to make a progress thread for it here.

As some of you may know, I was keeping a couple cars in a storage place with a bunch of much cooler cars. I was not looking for another car at the time but a friend of the building manager asked him if he know anyone that would like to buy a 1992 535i that had been sitting for almost two years. Small world really but the manager gave him my number and the rest was history. Some history on the car. It was a South East car for its entire life. It was a lease and then a gentleman in Alabama owned it for nearly 25 years and liked the car a lot. I found one of the shops that worked on it and found out that the owner at the time was pretty sad to see it go. The guy I bought it from had good intentions but unfortunately let the car sit. He mentioned that he had a few other cars to drive so I get it. When I bought it; it needed a battery, exhaust hangers, and the door latch repair which had been repaired once before. It also needed a ton of PDR and a good detail from sitting and age. Once I put another battery in it, the car fired right up and idled perfectly.

The car had a good life in Alabama. Within the last 10k miles, the car had the following:

A complete head gasket job that included an MLS head gasket along with a head job...etc, timing set, oil pan gasket (multiple times), and a cooling system refresh.
Complete clutch job with a new flywheel, clutch, and Turner shifter. The Turner shifter feels no different than the stock shifter.
Koni Adjustable struts/shocks
Tires

I didn't know any of this before committing to buying it. A mostly stock black/black cold weather M30 car was the selling point, the recent services are just bonuses.

How I found it in late November 2022.






I decided to have the car towed home because the door wouldn't close. We secured it with some rope and sent it.

End of December (week off from work), I found some time to mess with the car. The biggest things to fix were the door and exhaust. I also had to rewire the trunk light under the parcel shelf because the seller tried to jump it from that wire instead of the jump point in the engine bay . I didn't take any pics of the melted wire but I was able to isolate the wire going to that light and replace it all the way to the ground point next to the battery and then splice the +12vDC wire into the existing body harness close to the battery. Got lucky since it could have melted a lot more than just the one ground wire.

That Angry Ass Solutions jack adapter coming thru!! Another great product from an awesome company.


This was while I was fixing the door latch. I also had to realign the door because someone for some reason loosened it . Fairly dirty from sitting but a lot more dings than anything.


It's not normal for me to not do some wiring on the car.


Finished fixing the pressing issues to at least get it road worthy. Having a door that closes is one of those underappreciated things in life


Jan 18, 2023 - First drive to work.


Unlike past projects where cosmetics were the last thing on my mind, I decided to have it paint corrected and have the dings removed. The car was already a solid runner so yeah...detail and PDR

Feb 02, 2023 - Here we are testing a few different compounds to get the paint looking nice again.



Before pic of the rear driver door. The light doesn't hide the swirls and scratches.


The before and after pics are from the detailer. They did an awesome job. The PDR guy did an amazing job as well.


Feb 18, 2023 - After after. I also had the M Sport detailed at the same time. I wanted both cars there for the PDR guy since the red car had its fair share of dings on it too. I have some Schwartz I touch up for the rock chips on the front. Waiting on it to warm up a little more before I do that.






Also had the interior done.



I picked up some parts for it recently too. A friend was selling some cool M30 stuff so I decided buy a few things to try. The spare DME has a Dinan chip in it so I installed that first. Engine runs great, I cannot really tell a difference lol. Also got a Miller MAF kit with a modified DME and some Bosch Design III injectors that I can try out later. This stuff doesn't pop up often and it was cheap so it's good for spares. I also found some H&R springs to pair with the Koni adjustables to lower it a little. I decided against coilovers simply because of the Koni's on the car and I already have two other E34's with coilovers.




Basic E34 starter kit...Mpars and H&R's



I will most likely be taking this car to the Vintage in May but we'll see. I picked up an S52 for the touring unexpectedly so I have a little more work before I can drop it in.

[atl530i]

About two weeks after buying the car, the cluster decided it was done and went on permanent vacation. The cluster faces were pretty trashed for whatever reason so it was going to be replaced anyway. 734 miles of needles going everywhere

All the RPMs


Easy swap. Luckily the car has a blue back cluster so any late model cluster will work fine.

[dannyzabolotny]

Man, you barely needed to do anything to this one! What's your plan for the car, just a stock-ish daily driver?

[Old525i]

The red car next to the black E34 ruined my day.

[atl530i]

Man, you barely needed to do anything to this one! What's your plan for the car, just a stock-ish daily driver?

Plans are to make it a comfortable OEM+ car. Have a few oil leaks to fix but nothing major. The last few M50 cars needed suspension, intake reseals, or something that was burny and needed to be fixed. It's rare to come across a decently sorted E34 here that doesn't cost an arm and a leg nowadays so I got lucky with this one.

I daily drive the E36 since I'm trying to get it to 500k. Trying my best to not sell the stupid thing lol.

The red car next to the black E34 ruined my day.

My bad

[BleedsBlue]

Wow, what a find. Also have been missing some Justin updates in these parts

I picked up a cosmetically similar but polar opposite condition '88 almost... a year ago? Also black/black and very straight/dry, with easily restored paint - just need to paint the bumpers, since the tops faded. That's where the similarity ends, though. It's auto so I will swap it, and I expect I'll be doing a full mechanical on it due to general neglect - although it is not trashed, thankfully.

I'd like to put sport seats, an LSD etc in, and experience a fresh (well, 108k mile) 535i "sport". I'll start a thread when I get to it.

[circuit.heart]

I only wish I could get my black paint to look that nice.

Btw as far as OEM+ goes, I'm sure you've heard of the Chrysler FPR mod for M30's. Potential fuel economy gains aside, it does perk up the M30's throttle response without needing to do any further chip of flywheel fuckery.

[atl530i]

I only wish I could get my black paint to look that nice.

Btw as far as OEM+ goes, I'm sure you've heard of the Chrysler FPR mod for M30's. Potential fuel economy gains aside, it does perk up the M30's throttle response without needing to do any further chip of flywheel fuckery.

I have not heard of this mod. Fairly new to messing with M30's which is crazy lol

[atl530i]

Wow, what a find. Also have been missing some Justin updates in these parts

I picked up a cosmetically similar but polar opposite condition '88 almost... a year ago? Also black/black and very straight/dry, with easily restored paint - just need to paint the bumpers, since the tops faded. That's where the similarity ends, though. It's auto so I will swap it, and I expect I'll be doing a full mechanical on it due to general neglect - although it is not trashed, thankfully.

I'd like to put sport seats, an LSD etc in, and experience a fresh (well, 108k mile) 535i "sport". I'll start a thread when I get to it.

I'd love to have a sorted E28 but those are getting harder to find at a decent price.

I've been busy! Between moving, getting settled in the new place, and tearing into the wagon; I haven't done much to the 535i except store it until recently. I thought about sport seats for this but I'm okay with the comforts. I have a pair of sport seats still that I thought about getting recovered but I am not sure...

[dannyzabolotny]

Sport seats look cool and are good for E34 clout points, but they're not actually all that comfortable, especially if you want to drive the car a lot.

[BleedsBlue]

I'd love to have a sorted E28 but those are getting harder to find at a decent price.

I've been busy! Between moving, getting settled in the new place, and tearing into the wagon; I haven't done much to the 535i except store it until recently. I thought about sport seats for this but I'm okay with the comforts. I have a pair of sport seats still that I thought about getting recovered but I am not sure...

Sorry, I should have been clear - it is an E34. Maybe it's an '89 built in '88; clearly I've been distracted. I've only stored mine, too! We've been fixing up the house and then having a baby 7-8 weeks ago.

The E34 still has my heart, though.

Sport seats look cool and are good for E34 clout points, but they're not actually all that comfortable, especially if you want to drive the car a lot.

I fully disagree - I despise comforts in every metric. Manual Sports especially are the most comfortable and best looking to me. I expect this is a subjective thing, though. Everyone has their own ass

[circuit.heart]

Sport seats look cool and are good for E34 clout points, but they're not actually all that comfortable, especially if you want to drive the car a lot.

I find them comfortable, but the bolsters feel delicate and easy to flatten. At least comfort seats are harder to kill haha.

[dannyzabolotny]

I mean you and Dane are both rather thin individuals, so perhaps that's why y'all find the sport seats comfortable. To me, they're too narrow so I kinda feel like I'm sitting on them and not in them. The comfort seats fit me perfectly, and it's a fairly snug fit so I don't move around all that much even when driving aggressively.

[ross1]

Congratulations on giving this one the love it deserves. It reminds me very much of my very first E34.
Oh, like the license plate too

[atl530i]

535i update. We are planning to take this to the Vintage so I took a break from the touring to get some stuff done on the 535i. I bought a new set of tires and had them mounted at Discount Tire close to the house. The guy at Discount was happy to see me because I bought two sets that day (the other set for my E36). I installed the H&R springs and wheels on it on a Sunday afternoon in record time. I do have some Racing Dynamics RGR 17x8.5 et15 wheels that will eventually end up on it but they need to be refinished first. The Mpars will do for a while, they are actually in pretty good shape given the age.

[circuit.heart]

Any thoughts to removing all the rubber spring pads in the rear? That rear ride height almost looks like it has more minimum gap than the front, it's quite raked.

[atl530i]

Any thoughts to removing all the rubber spring pads in the rear? That rear ride height almost looks like it has more minimum gap than the front, it's quite raked.

I'm actually thinking of swapping the springs for the Vogtlands that I had on my M Sport. I told myself I wouldn't but I do like how the M Sport sat with them.