Project Big Six-y: 1991 BMW 535i/5

[JustinG]

should have used more zipties

[Jake]

Gah, it's always something.

Spent most of Saturday replacing the front control arms (both upper and lower) as part of my "eliminate the deathly wobble" mission. Thank you Peter for the use of your pickle forks - DJ had a set but getting to Peter's place was a bit quicker.

Everything with the replacement went relatively fine, just took a while because things were good and stuck. One bolt (of course) on the drivers' side had some bad threads, so we ended up using a Dremel to hack it off. Got everything together and it's way smoother now.

Which brings me to today at lunch.

Joey and I drive it over to Moe's for their super-great $5 burrito deal. Upon consuming said burritos, we get back in this fine old German machine to get back to work. Recall my push-button ignition mod/fix from this summer. Turn key to Run, press button, and POW. All electrics cut out. 30-45 seconds go by and they come back. So I try again. Same thing. It happens as soon as I push the button to run the starter.

We pulled the button and just tried crossing the wires. Still a no-go.

Finally the electrics came back (each time they do, it's like you removed the battery... clock and radio reset, whole enchilada). We pushed it to the side parking lot and Joey and some old dude give me the heave-ho so I can pop the clutch and start it. First gear, pop clutch, car lurches and Joey goes a-tumbling as the 4,000 pounds he was putting all of his body weight on suddenly disappears from beneath his hands.

So I now have a car with questionable starting abilities and a (thankfully forgiving) roommate with a messed up hand and bruised knee. Sigh.

There's a "fusible link" -- an 80 Amp fuse in line with the battery wiring -- that might be starting to crack and do funny electrical things. It's $4 to replace so not a problem. I'm gonna run outside and check that now. I'm hoping it's either that or the wiring job that we did over the summer starting to go bad.

Update: Not the 80 Amp fuse. It looks fine. I think it's the wiring for the ignition, or maybe the starter.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Just to let you know, pop start in second will help the poor souls behind you not eat shit. It also seems to be much smoother in getting the car running.

[Goodspeed]

Sorry to hear my crack-wisin' was a premonition

[Ken]

First gear, pop clutch, car lurches and Joey goes a-tumbling as the 4,000 pounds he was putting all of his body weight on suddenly disappears from beneath his hands.

So mad i missed witnessing this.

[SlimKlim]

First gear, pop clutch, car lurches and Joey goes a-tumbling as the 4,000 pounds he was putting all of his body weight on suddenly disappears from beneath his hands.

So mad i missed witnessing this.

I know you are buddy. Hell if I coulda filmed it I would, I know how much that kind of stuff means to you. :bootyshake:

[Jake]

Moar updates!

I wired in the new ignition switch this past Tuesday. I had to solder it to the old connector because I screwed up in removing the "new" switch from the parts car and snipped wires. Oops. My soldering skills are marginal, but I managed to get everything together. It's nice (and kind of weird) to start the car with a key again.

It did the "kill all electrics" game again on Saturday morning. Just once and haven't had the problem again. I think it's a bad ground somewhere, but who knows where.

Driving home from my friend's place last night and the dashboard chimed and informed me of "Owner's Manual Brake Linings" ÔÇô┬áalways something on this car. Sigh. So I wiggled my hands through the wheel spokes this morning and felt things out. Front pads still had a decent amount of meat on them, rears were close to being toast. I guess the sensor and dash weren't kidding.

New pads from AutoZone were $34 and came with a new wear sensor. Pretty simple install and (thankfully) didn't give me too much trouble other than figuring out the right size for the allen key. Oh, and plugging the new sensor in was kind of tough. But the brakes are good now and the dash shut up.

Now how about we just stop spending money on this thing, okay? Okay.

[ViPER1313]

I know it sounds stupid but check your battery terminals if you haven't already. My moms old geo would do the same BS every once in a while (turn the key and all the electrics worlds die.) Turns out one of the terminals had tons of corrosion all over it - cleaned it up and everything was fine (with the exception it was still a geo.) If not, the wiggle test is the best way to track down electrical issues.

Sent from my SGH-T959V using Tapatalk

[Jake]

I took advantage of the nice weather yesterday to tackle a small project. The trunk lid that came with the car had, at some point, had the latch mechanism re-welded in, for reasons of which I am not sure.



Regardless of the reason, I had my trunk latch precision-adjusted with a 5 Gum package and a Post-It note. It took several slams of the trunk to get it to latch.



One (particularly hungover) morning, I found myself in Alexandria pulling parts from another 1991, that was conveniently painted black. I took the trunk lid as it was non-janky:



In my hungover-ness, I didn't really want to un-clip all the pesky wiring from the connectors. So, I just cut the harness and took it all with me. This presented a challenge yesterday, as I had to exercise more precision in removing my car's wiring from the old lid. Not a problem, there were holes cut out to give you wiring access with little challenge. Got things somewhat apart:



And, surprisingly for this car, everything came apart and went back together with very little issue. The new lid is debadged, so there is no "535" on the trunk to clue people in as to the meaning of my license plate. Oh well.

I did consider leaving the car as an E34amino:



A little spray-in bedliner and we'd have been in business!

I did swap the key lock to the new trunk lid. Was actually very easy to do -- two rods move when you turn the key, so you disconnect those and use a small (8 mm?) ratchet to undo the two bolts holding the lock cylinder in. Simple.

Anyway, it's nice to have the trunk shut on the first time, every time.

[Jake]

Boom, sold.

She went to a good home and Chris, her new owner, has big plans for a down-the-road sort of mini-restoration and pimping-out. I'll be pointing him to this thread, so hopefully he'll post some progress when it takes place.

The red M3 isn't mine... but there is something of similar size headed my way shortly. Watch for that project thread in oh, a week or so. And keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't catastrophically snow in the meantime, since I'm DDing the Miata to work for a week.

[BLINGMW]

hm, didn't know you were selling it. Sadness.

[ScottyB]

She went to a good home and Chris, her new owner, has big plans for a down-the-road sort of mini-restoration and pimping-out.

glad to see it went to someone who will appreciate the pimp factor. so, is something German replacing it or did you learn your lesson? :lol:

[Jake]

She went to a good home and Chris, her new owner, has big plans for a down-the-road sort of mini-restoration and pimping-out.

glad to see it went to someone who will appreciate the pimp factor. so, is something German replacing it or did you learn your lesson? :lol:

I don't think I'll ever learn, Scott.

[V1GiLaNtE]

^ Nope.. Looking forward to a new project thread :crosses fingers: !?

[Jake]

^ Nope.. Looking forward to a new project thread :crosses fingers: !?

Hopefully next Monday-ish.

[V1GiLaNtE]

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

[Kaan]

where is the money shot pic?

[Steve85]

where is the money shot pic?

Hopefully he is working with DJ (Dinan sale) to go 3D...it's all the rage.

[Jake]

where is the money shot pic?

Oh shit, I forgot. I still have the cash so... expect that shortly.