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Thread: My 540i/6 project thread

  1. #1
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    My 540i/6 project thread

    I picked up a 540i/6 more than a year and a half ago, the original intention was to use it as a donor car for me and my brother's 540i that has been swapped to 5 speed but is pretty much bog standard other than that. But I fell in love with the car and decided to rather fix it up. Have done a lot of work on the car already and hope to post it all here with time for those that are interested.
    I will start off with some pics that I took shorty after I got it: (Yup it needs a lot of work)















    (Yeah I know one of the wheel covers is wrong)
    Some more info, it is oxford green metallic with a black nappa leather. Mileage at the time of purchased was 339000km (around 212 000 miles). This closely resembles the M-sport 540i/6's in the US.....though it lacks some things like the damper control and m-sport mirrors.
    Locally all 6 speed 540i's are individuals or 540iM they are all came with:
    -M-tech body kit
    -car phone
    -Sport springs and shocks
    -3.6l M5 anti-roll bars
    -M system II wheels
    -ASC
    -sports seats
    -birds-eye maple trim
    -smaller diameter four spoke steering wheel with M colour stitching
    -6 speed manual gearbox (obviously )
    Locally only 72 of these were made so they are pretty special.....partly the reason behind me wanting to fix it up.

    Will kick off with the first work I did on the car when I got it was an oil, filter and plug change (something it would seem was just to much trouble for the PO)
    Some general oil leaks:






    One side's coil packs...sigh


    Oh yes this is what a oil filter should look like:




    Will post up more later

    Thanks for watching.

  2. #2
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    Car looks clean... well, except for the oil around the spark plugs.
    Good luck. Glad you decided not to part it out.

    Gone but not forgotten:
    '95 540i/6 M-Sport. GA65474. Alpineweiss/Parchment.
    Supercharger project

  3. #3
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    Looks nice, off to a good start. G'luck with it!

    Leo
    Current
    2005 E55 AMG
    1998 Silverado K1500
    1964 Impala
    ​1964 Chevelle 496ci


    Past

    2000 Avus M5
    1988 Suburban K1500
    1987 Suburban K2500
    2007 Suburban
    1999 K2500 Suburban
    2000 MGM
    1999 K2500 Suburban
    2001 Stratus 740i Msport
    1990 750iL
    1995 540i/6
    1996 MGM

  4. #4
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    Yep, needs some work, but so do all of our cars lol. I'm jealous of those bumpers. It is time to change those valve cover gaskets

  5. #5
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    Wow...that oil filter scares me. It looks like a couple of rapid-fire oil changes are in order - I'd do the next couple changes at between 1200 to 1500 miles each, to help get all the crud out of the engine. Think of it as a slow, gentle flush of the system - preferable over using an actual chemical flush. I've never been too fond of those...but other than that, it does seem like a nice catch - even with the mileage, it looks like it'll be quite decent for a while yet. Take good care of and enjoy it - they are fun...

    Fox


  6. #6
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    Which part of SA you located? Beautiful 540. Glad to see you're maintaining it and keeping it on the road.


  7. #7
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    Nice car. Time to do valve cover gaskets and maybe repaint the covers while your at it.

  8. #8
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    I like that all that have commented so far are 540/6 owners
    Current
    2005 E55 AMG
    1998 Silverado K1500
    1964 Impala
    ​1964 Chevelle 496ci


    Past

    2000 Avus M5
    1988 Suburban K1500
    1987 Suburban K2500
    2007 Suburban
    1999 K2500 Suburban
    2000 MGM
    1999 K2500 Suburban
    2001 Stratus 740i Msport
    1990 750iL
    1995 540i/6
    1996 MGM

  9. #9
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    E34 540i, E39 M5
    M Sport mirrors are over-rated so don't feel left out lol. Can't see anything out of them unless you have what I think is the European mirror glass with the convex area.

    Looks good
    '95 540i - Cosmos on Black
    '01 M5 - TiAg

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by gixxerboy63 View Post
    Car looks clean... well, except for the oil around the spark plugs.
    Good luck. Glad you decided not to part it out.
    Thank you, I actually had a read through your whole thread a couple of weeks ago, really inspirational work you have done.

    Quote Originally Posted by Leonator134 View Post
    Looks nice, off to a good start. G'luck with it!

    Leo
    Thank you.

    Quote Originally Posted by thatonedood View Post
    Yep, needs some work, but so do all of our cars lol. I'm jealous of those bumpers. It is time to change those valve cover gaskets
    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Z View Post
    Nice car. Time to do valve cover gaskets and maybe repaint the covers while your at it.
    Thank you, yes a change of the valve cover gaskets is planned (well it has been planned for a while now) my plan is also to repaint the covers matte black....something to match the intake manifold and the coil pack covers.


    Quote Originally Posted by K Fox View Post
    Wow...that oil filter scares me. It looks like a couple of rapid-fire oil changes are in order - I'd do the next couple changes at between 1200 to 1500 miles each, to help get all the crud out of the engine. Think of it as a slow, gentle flush of the system - preferable over using an actual chemical flush. I've never been too fond of those...but other than that, it does seem like a nice catch - even with the mileage, it looks like it'll be quite decent for a while yet. Take good care of and enjoy it - they are fun...

    Fox
    Thanks this is what I am trying at the moment, it is now coming up to the third time I will drain the oil in the 4k or so miles I have driven it. I also add some ATF a couple of hundred miles before I drain the oil as it has some pretty good detergent properties.
    I really enjoy the car....it is the type of car that I would just get in at 9 or 10 o'clock on a weekday evening at take it for a drive, just for the sake of driving.

    Quote Originally Posted by prash View Post
    Which part of SA you located? Beautiful 540. Glad to see you're maintaining it and keeping it on the road.
    Thank you. I am Gauteng province in Pretoria.

    Quote Originally Posted by Costa Mellios View Post
    M Sport mirrors are over-rated so don't feel left out lol. Can't see anything out of them unless you have what I think is the European mirror glass with the convex area.

    Looks good
    Honestly I only noticed the mirrors when I started looking at some of the M-sport 540i's on this forum.....then had a bit of a search around, but I would need to find ones with the RHD glass and that came of a car with memory seats, so it will be a bit of a mission to find. So I pretty much gave up on that.



    After this initial work I drove the car for a bit, but it then stood parked at my work for a couple of months.......yeah I don't really know why....guess it was case of "I will just park it at work for a bit to make space at home" and weeks turned into months. When I took it home again it was just cranking, but no start.....luckily had dealt with this kind of issue before, so I swapped the crank pickup from my other 540i and it started fine for me to take it home. Picked up new pick up (that just sounds weird) from the dealers, but it also needed a spacer else it will be touching the timing wheel, but there is no sign of a part for this from BMW, well not what I could see. So I made my own, cut out of a 0.2mm stainless sheet:






    Not perfect but did what it was supposed to.
    I also picked some of the CHf11.S stuff from the dealers as it had grinding like noise from the power steering pump, topped up and it was fine. (It is leaking on the pipes but not too badly so this is also something that will tackle with time)

    Just out of interest sake this is what it looked like when I got it home




    And after washing it two times:




    Thanks for watching

  11. #11
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    Next up was new shocks, springs and rear shock mounts, the springs are H&R, 35mm lower in the front and 10mm in the rear, the shocks are a local brand.......that are well....cheap, yes lets call them cheap :P




    Some after pics, though it might not be to everyone's taste I feel this is the good look for the e34, as the removes that reverse-rake that most older e34's suffer from.










    Some might also noted that the tow hook was removed. While cleaning the boot I found the key and luckily it was the OEM system so it has the retainer in the boot to hold the tow hook when it is removed, now I just need a cover to go over the hole.

    Thanks for watching, more to come.
    Last edited by Sankekur; 10-21-2013 at 03:01 PM.

  12. #12
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    Next I had a bit of an issue with the car stalling from time to time when pushing in the clutch when coming to a stop. The easiest thing to try was to give the ICV a clean.
    Don't have any before pics, but this is what the stuff looked like that I cleaned off:


    And clean:




    Everything cleaned and waiting to dry out before replacing:


    Intake without the ICV:


    Fitted just to test that it was still working:


    Everything refitted:


    This seems to have solved the stalling for the most part....though the RPM does still dip sometimes when pushing in the clutch.

    Also had a peek inside the intake while I had the ICV out:

    Would seem that this is the early M62 intake....or at least the intake that was also used on the early M62


    Thanks for watching.
    Last edited by Sankekur; 10-23-2013 at 07:17 AM.

  13. #13
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    Next up gave the seats a good clean and condition, some pics of after:


















  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sankekur View Post
    Next I had a bit of an issue with the car stalling from time to time when pushing in the clutch when coming to a stop. The easiest thing to try was to give the ICV a clean.

    This seems to have solved the stalling for the most part....though the RPM does still dip sometimes when pushing in the clutch.
    You mentioned it was stalling more frequently before you swapped the crank sensor. It seems strange to me that you had to retrofit a spacer for it though. I'm not at all certain about this, but I'm wondering if that's contributing to the dips in RPM/stalling. Hopefully someone more knowledgable will chime in on that.

    BTW, the car is looking great! Nice work on the interior.
    Last edited by thatonedood; 10-24-2013 at 12:56 PM.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by thatonedood View Post
    You mentioned it was stalling more frequently before you swapped the crank sensor. It seems strange to me that you had to retrofit a spacer for it though. I'm not at all certain about this, but I'm wondering if that's contributing to the dips in RPM/stalling. Hopefully someone more knowledgable will chime in on that.

    BTW, the car is looking great! Nice work on the interior.
    Thank you.

    Hmmm maybe I misspoke, when the crank position sensor was gone the car would just crank and not start at all. I am not sure about the spacer on the sensor, my other 540i has one as well, and when I fitted this one it was touching/almost touching the timing wheel, and the old one wasn't, strange really, can only think that they changed the offset somewhat on later parts.
    The dip might be cause by a number of things, maybe a vacuum leak, dodgy injectors, dodgy coils.....all I can say is look at the picture of the filter again....almost everything on the car has been neglected in this way


    Will post more about a different no start issue that I struggled with.

  16. #16
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    So another no start problem I had, and I would be interested to hear if anyone hear has had/solved this kind of issue. So what happens is when the car is driven so that the engine bay is heat-soaked, ie driving in town or driving in traffic, once you turn the car off it can turn back on, ie lights all come on, but it doesn't crank. You can say drive a 100 miles on the highway and it will be fine to turn it off and then start it straight away, but once it has been standing a couple of minute it won't crank. It is definitely not battery related as you can just leave the car to cool down and it will crank and start fine.....a battery doesn't just recharge itself like that.
    So I set off the find this problem, the PO actually told me that the car has a starter problem and that the starter will need to be replaced at some point, but I wanted to make sure. I started off by putting on a test point on the solenoid input on the starter, as far as I could tell the solenoid input serves the purpose to both push the starter gear into the ringgear on the flywheel and also as a physical interlock to for motor itself.
    The wiring for the starter looks like this:


    I measured the voltage here:

    So measuring when the car started, it would just to around 10V, though not easy to tell as the car starts pretty quickly, now in the case where the car is hot and doesn't want to start I measured 7.5V. So it could either be a problem with the wiring leading to the starter where the resistance is getting close to the that of the starter solenoid, or it could be the other way round that the resistance of the starter solenoid is getting close to that of the wiring, either leading to a voltage drop being seen at the starter. It could also be a problem with the EWS, or at least the EWS relay, though I doubted this as the EWS is under the dash and doesn't really get that much hotter while driving than it would do when the car is just standing in the sun.
    This is what the wiring around the EWS looks like:


    I stripped the small cubby hole next to the steering wheel to get to the EWS, and measure the voltage like so:

    This is to measure the voltage going into and out of the relay on the EWS at the same time so see if I can see the voltage drop I see to the starter over the EWS relay.
    So this is what I measured going in and coming out of the relay when the car could crank (I unplugged the crank position sensor to get the car to crank without staring to get a good voltage reading)


    This is when it cranks and starts (not easy to get a good reading)


    This is the reading when it hot and does not what to crank:


    So it would seem that the voltage drop that I am seeing at the starter is not happening at the EWS relay.

    Next I patched in a switch like this:

    In essence bypassing the key barrel switch the EWS and the wring in the engine bay, turn the car on with the key but start by pressing the switch:

    I drove the car like this for some time, also using it to share with daily drive duties and it worked perfectly all the time, it never once wouldn't crank when hot, so was pretty sure it was a wiring issue.

    To further test this I wired up an additional wire to run in parallel with the one that goes from the EWS through the engine bay to the starter (also kept the previously fitted switch in place, just in case), on the wiring it looks something like this:
    EWS end:


    starter end:


    So now I have the switch from before in place as I know I can start the car like that but I also shorted out the wiring that is suspect that should allow me to start the car with the key as normal. I again drove the car like this for a while again daily duties and it cranked as it should every time.....so from this I am pretty sure that I have a wiring issue.
    Just a video to demonstrate:


    Though I have found the problem I haven't solved it as such as it would require tacking the wiring, and haven't had the stomach for it yet.
    Out of interest, the wire from the EWS to the starter goes through the firewall to the big connector on the driver's side of the motor, runs the full length along the motor, then goes back again to the rubber tube in the center of the motor to the other side of the motor, then goes to the front of the motor where it leaves the plastic holder, goes to a connector on the front of the motor and from there it runs back along the motor to the starter. If you will excuse the dirty engine bay here are some pics:




    So at some point I will either have to go through the wiring to find the problem or put my mod to the wiring in more permanently.


    So pics I took while the car was standing waiting for the engine bay to soak:




    I also managed to burn my tips white with some spirited driving, though not sure how as we don't have leaded fuel from the pumps and most certainly didn't put any leaded fuel in (leaded is available as racing fuel).

  17. #17
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    Awesome progress so far.

    The colour combo on this works surprisingly well.
    E34 540i/6 Sedan | E34 540i/6 Touring | E34 520i Sedan | E32 740iA | E24 635CSi | E24 628CSi

  18. #18
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    Thank you kind sir.


    Bought a top and bottom gasket set (excluding the head gaskets) and some suspension parts.











    Though not in the pics I also got new thrust arms and lower control arms (got the aluminium lower control arms from the M5)

    Thus far I have fitted the two new tie rods, the drag link, a new bush for the idler arm, the thrust arms, the lower control arms and the front anti-roll bar links. All of this together with the new springs and shocks and the car is now feeling more like one with 100k+ miles that one with 200k+ miles.

    The rear suspension parts are yet to be fitted as I have not yet built up enough courage to take on the rear suspension.

  19. #19
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    Next up I changed the exhaust, luckily has some old boxes around that came off my brothers M5 so just had a shop stitch them together for me. The exhaust ended up costing me the equivalent of $60.
    What it looks like:








    Painted the rear muffler with this stuff just to hide it a bit:


    Video of the exhaust sound: (doesn't really capture the sound...)



    Pic I took later on when I removed the exhaust for other work:

  20. #20
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    are rusting away



    You can junk these now or wait 5000 km for them to fail.
    Live slow, die whenever

  21. #21
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    yup......rear stuff not fitted yet so looking at other (more long-lived) options for the rear, seeing as it will be so much trouble to replace. Thinking of going for poly bushes for the rear...or will just get OEM from the dealers.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Up next was an oil service, in an attempt to clean the engine a bit I am servicing it at very regular intervals. As part of this I also decided that I needed to drop the sump to put all the oil pump bolts back, and to make sure they don't come out unless I want them to come out.

    So I drained the oil en dropped the sump (or the inspection sump at least):

    And who would have guessed it, loose bolts....
    This is the 3rd e34 540i that I have seen with the sump off and all had loose bolts.
    Though I am pretty sure someone had been here before me as I cannot believe that there would be only two bolts in the sump after more the 200k miles.

    And this is what the inside of the motor looks like








    This was a very sorry sight indeed, the only good thing was that it seemed like everything that moving was at least clean.
    Apart from the two loose bolts all the other bolts that hold the to parts of the pump casting together were only finger tight, the bolts/nuts that hold the pump to the block where still tight. It seems like someone replaced the nuts with self locking nuts similar to what it found on shock mounts. I also found that the pump chain drive wasn't tensioned at all so I re-tensioned it.

    So next was my plan to make sure that the bolts would stay in....at least until I want them to be out. This was to use tab washers that I cut out of a 1mm aluminium sheet:


    The washers are then fitted like this:

    The idea being that it mechanically locks to the bolt head so the bolt can only turn if the washer turns, and the washer can't turn as it is fastened in two positions.
    I think they used to use to use this method for securing nuts/bolts on older cars, or so I have heard. I have only seen this done on old Rolls Royces.

    Did the same to all the bolts and nuts:














    I changed the method a little bit on he bolts/nuts that hold the pump to the block as the it wasn't possible to fasten it to another bolt, so instead I secured it against the casting of the pump.

    After I cleaned the mating surfaces on the sump and on the inspection sump and replaced the gasket with the new one from my gasket set:




    I am pretty sure that the oil pump bolts should now stay where they are.
    Last edited by Sankekur; 10-31-2013 at 12:25 PM.

  22. #22
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    My 540 probably needs all of this... it's gonna be a long winter of work for me.

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sankekur View Post
    ...I also found that the pump chain drive wasn't tensioned at all so I re-tensioned it.
    Do be careful with the tension of the pump chain - there is a rather hard to find spec for the slack needed in it. I believe it was 10mm (I want to say it's less, but last time I did that I was corrected) - try searching around the forum and you might find it in a thread. But you don't want the chain totally snug - it needs some slack to accommodate temperature changes.

    Fox


  24. #24
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    10mm sounds right, though I'm going from memory as well. +1 on this though. It'd be easy to think the chain should have no slack, and it becomes one of those ill-concieved facepalm fixes

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by K Fox View Post
    Do be careful with the tension of the pump chain - there is a rather hard to find spec for the slack needed in it. I believe it was 10mm (I want to say it's less, but last time I did that I was corrected) - try searching around the forum and you might find it in a thread. But you don't want the chain totally snug - it needs some slack to accommodate temperature changes.

    Fox
    Quote Originally Posted by thatonedood View Post
    10mm sounds right, though I'm going from memory as well. +1 on this though. It'd be easy to think the chain should have no slack, and it becomes one of those ill-concieved facepalm fixes

    Thanks guys. I did actually search before doing the work, and I did leave some slack. If I am not mistaken it should something like 10mm +-2mm (or 1mm). I just tried to get it as close to this as I could.

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