New Owner, 1995 540i 6-Speed

[dave12285]

Did some work over the last couple of days. Because Danny yelled at me (jk) I went ahead and replaced the throttle cable along with the small bushing that goes into the metal arm attached to the pedal. It was a painless procedure and the pedal feel is incredible. How I imagine it would be from the factory.

I also removed the climate control unit to try and figure out why the light intermittently goes out and, more importantly, why there is a buzzing sound from the fan vent after the car is off. I took everything apart, cleaned it up, and replaced the unit. The buzz is still there unfortunately. I haven't had enough time between replacing the unit and now to see if the light holds up better so TBD. At least it's clean now.

Speaking of cleaning, I gave her a nice wash last night. I was able to polish the hood this morning as well and rhe results were pretty darn nice. The car is looking good!

I received a quote for replacing the headliner and sunroof cover from a local shop who seems very experienced and definitely knew what they were talking about on the phone. He says $600-800 with European sourced matching gray material. The price range is if I remove the panels or they do.

Enjoy some photos!
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[BleedsBlue]

Not sure how I missed this thread, but caught up now - this car is getting some great love! Awesome job so far.

FWIW, that price range for nice material and headliner recovering seems pretty reasonable (especially for CA )

[dave12285]

Not sure how I missed this thread, but caught up now - this car is getting some great love! Awesome job so far.

FWIW, that price range for nice material and headliner recovering seems pretty reasonable (especially for CA )

Thank you for the kind words!

I completely agree about the headliner quote. Definitely excited to get it done.


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[m60power]

Holy cow that paint looks amazing!

Could you provide the name of the shop that's reupholstering your sunroof liner? The fabric on mine recently started coming apart and none of the local shops (in Florida) said they could refinish it. I even looked to try and get the fabric myself from multiple suppliers and all of them came up dry. One shop said they could get something similar but only in black, not pergament (parchment or tan)

According to the local upholstery shops I showed the sunroof cartridge to, the makeup of the material on that liner is "completely impossible" to source anymore. It looks to be a 3-layer sandwich made up of a very thin outer layer fabric which is the pergament (tan) color of the headliner, then a very very very very thin foam core in the middle layer, then a super thin inner layer backer fabric that appears to be woven silk or very thin woven cotton. There are also some thicker nylon or polyester fabric strips that are sewn onto the back of the 3-layer fabric 'sandwich' which wrap around (and are glued to) the lateral cross bars of the sunroof cartridge to support the sunroof liner on the mid-span.

[dave12285]

Holy cow that paint looks amazing!

Could you provide the name of the shop that's reupholstering your sunroof liner? The fabric on mine recently started coming apart and none of the local shops (in Florida) said they could refinish it. I even looked to try and get the fabric myself from multiple suppliers and all of them came up dry. One shop said they could get something similar but only in black, not pergament (parchment or tan)

According to the local upholstery shops I showed the sunroof cartridge to, the makeup of the material on that liner is "completely impossible" to source anymore. It looks to be a 3-layer sandwich made up of a very thin outer layer fabric which is the pergament (tan) color of the headliner, then a very very very very thin foam core in the middle layer, then a super thin inner layer backer fabric that appears to be woven silk or very thin woven cotton. There are also some thicker nylon or polyester fabric strips that are sewn onto the back of the 3-layer fabric 'sandwich' which wrap around (and are glued to) the lateral cross bars of the sunroof cartridge to support the sunroof liner on the mid-span.

No problem! The shop is called Bernie's Auto Upholstery in Santee, CA. Number is 619-972-5606. They are very experienced with BMW's. The guy I spoke to knew many of the chassis codes and seemed to be very credible on the phone. I'd imagine he could give you a lead on the material. I think he said they get it from a shop in Los Angeles that stocks it.


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[dave12285]

I dropped her off on Monday at a friend's shop to fix the AC tensioner bolt I broke off. They ended up having to drop the subframe to get clearance. While getting the subframe out, they encountered some additional rusty bolts on the passenger side and one of the subframe bolts broke off as well. Turns out that the leaky valve cover gaskets allowed for the preservation of the driver side bolts. The good news is that we put in new motor mounts, new subframe bolts, and the AC is back in commission. There was also a bit of surface rust on the subframe that they cleaned up and painted for me. Expensive lesson to learn but I will forever replace questionable bolts moving foraward and save myself the headache.

I'll update this post when I get finished photos. Here are all of the issues that were addressed.

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[BleedsBlue]

Strategic oil leaks keeping those bolts alive - love it! I know what you mean, too, about only having to learn this lesson once. BTDT.

[Michael97528i]

Strategic oil leaks keeping those bolts alive - love it! I know what you mean, too, about only having to learn this lesson once. BTDT.

That's why old Land Rovers are so easy to work on.


Thank you for posting the info about the shop that's doing your headliner. I'm very interested to see how it turns out as mine needs to be done sometime in the near future as well. I've often looked at that fabric and wondered if there was any chance of it still being available since it didn't look like standard headliner material. Glad to see that it is from at least one place (somewhat) close by.

[dave12285]

Just an update for everyone. I got the car back today and it feels great! The motor mounts made a huge difference. AC is blowing cold and everything is working well. More updates coming soon including the headliner and maybe even an exhaust.


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[Jcbe34]

Awesome, good to see threads like this still going on here. Starting with a good example and chipping away at making it excellent is the way to go. How often are you driving this thing? Is it a "daily it when you want to" kinda car?

[dave12285]

Awesome, good to see threads like this still going on here. Starting with a good example and chipping away at making it excellent is the way to go. How often are you driving this thing? Is it a "daily it when you want to" kinda car?

Glad you're enjoying the thread. It's my only car currently but I work from home so it's not a commuter. I do drive it everyday to take my dog to the park and run simple errands around town. On the weekends, or when we have tickets to the baseball game, it's the car of choice.


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[dave12285]

Hey all! Quick update for everyone. It was a nice overcast day here in San Diego and a perfect time for a wash. I cleaned her up and took her out for a drive. Here's a nice shot looking shiny in the parking lot. Cheers!




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[m60power]

Wowzers! It looks stunning!

[dave12285]

Wowzers! It looks stunning!

Thank you!


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[dave12285]

Hey guys! It has been a while and progress has been slow with that whole life thing getting in the way. But, this weekend I was able to wash her up, remove a few scratches, and take care of some misc cosmetic items like painting the headlight grills. Hope you enjoy!





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[a777fan]

Nice! Amazing how that really freshens ip the whole front end.

[Michael97528i]

Looks great! What paint did you use for the headlight grilles?

[dave12285]

Looks great! What paint did you use for the headlight grilles?

Well that's an interesting story. I went out of my way to get the SEM Trim Black. Unfortunately the nozzle was broken and I didn't have any laying around that would fit. Because the grilles were off and prepped and partly painted, I went ahead and finished them with some Rustoleum flat black I already had. I was surprised how well it turned out and matched the other trim.


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[dave12285]

Nice! Amazing how that really freshens ip the whole front end.

Thanks! Couldn't agree more. Still want to get a new metal trim piece for the grilles but I may as well get the front end painted at that point. If only I had unlimited money and time haha.


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[dave12285]

Hey hey, guys! A happy belated New Year to everyone.

I'm in the process of trying to replace the rear suspension on the car, as I'm chasing a ticking noise coming from the rear shock mount (I think) and am having issues figuring out what parts are the correct parts. The car has the M-Sport suspension option. RealOEM lists the rear shocks as a single part number for my production date (03/95) which leads me to believe either all 95's came with the Sport suspension or there is no difference in the rear shock between Sport and standard. This is the PN 33521092278. For springs, I can't seem to find a part number at all, let alone the difference between Sport vs standard.
For the front suspension, there is a unique number for the strut insert which is 31321138833 vs 31321092284 (non-sport). Again, no spring number.

I was planning on replacing with Bilstein touring, front and rear, but want to make sure that works with the factory springs from a travel/valving perspective. Same with the springs, if I wanted to replace, FCP offers two spring numbers for the rear from Lesjofors 4208430 and 4208413.

I've attached the rear diagram where it show the spring part grayed out. When I click on the spring portion in the drill down menus it says no parts are available for your car.

Any help would be appreciated. Searching was not fruitful and simply returned a lot of speculation on shock and spring parts.

Update- I called BMW and this is what they gave me based on the VIN

Front Strut- 31321092284
Front Spring- 31331090795
Rear Strut- 33521092278
Rear Spring - 33531133340

So, for the front, they list standard struts vs the Sport option. For the rear, the number is the same since there is only one option, on RealOEM.
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[dave12285]

Okie dokie. I'm going to forge ahead with the touring shocks and hope for the best.


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[dave12285]

Been a while. Just wanted to say hi.
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[dannyzabolotny]

Looking good still, what's the mileage at?

[dave12285]

I'm around 99,500 these days. Started daily driving it to work about 3 months ago. Been running great.


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[dave12285]

Howdy guys. Back with another update. Went in yesterday and replaced the dog bones, shocks, shock mounts, bump stops, springs, spring pads etc. The car is riding great!

As you can see, the dog bones had seen better days. The springs either must have been a different part number or completely lost their structural integrity because the new springs were much taller. In fact, I didn't have to use a spring compressor to remove the old ones and had to compress the new springs quite a bit (normal to other suspensions I've done) to get the mounts on.









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