1995 e34 540i/6 *m60b44* - Return to Some Kind of Glory

[marshallnoise]

Every photo has been restored finally.

10/07/19
IMG_20191007_183454194 by Paul Abbott, on Flickr

03/17/17


TL;DR
Got this thing that was a DAPO (dumb-ass previous owner) basket case, found a head gasket that was bad after chasing it down for months, built an m60b44, and I am trying to make it a killer, nice looking road king.

Beginning of the story:
Judging from my signature, I have had a very spotty record on getting a build running and driving every day. Well, the Alta Vista project was successful, but found it's way to the wrecker via a US Marine that let it rot on Camp Pendleton. The CirrusBlau project just was too much work for me so I quit.

I wound up selling my motorcycle because I was tired of playing dodgeball with everyone on the freeways. This freed up some cash for a new DD. Fast-forward to a week and a half ago...

My buddy Josh1254 and I rolled up to Santa Ana to look at a 1995 540i/6 listed on craigslist. They were asking $1,200 and had next to no details listed in the advertisement. In fact, it was mostly in Spanish and I speak very little Spanish.

When we got there, were surprised about the condition of the car. At least the body work. Aside from dings here and there and couple pieces of cracked bumper trim, the car was very serviceable. Until we took it on the highway for a test drive and it had death shake at 55 that cleared up around 75-80. Looking at the rims, it was concluded that the non-hubcentric 18"s were likely causing the problem. Plus, it has 225K on the ticker. (Turns out its not 100% the wheels' fault, thrust arms are usually the issue.) The engine is throwing a 1213 code which means one of the cylinder banks is running lean.

Using this as leverage, I was able to hand him $900 bucks and get a clean title.

Proving that nothing comes easy, the upper radiator hose started to split once we made it about half way back to Oceanside. No one carried the hose in stock so we had to use the hose repair tape stuff. Its designed to just be a patch. Sure enough, as soon as we pulled it in my drive way, I hear a pop and the patch let go. Fortunately, Josh kept an eye on the temp gauge and never let it get too hot.

Anyway, here are a couple more pictures. Going to have a crap load of work to do to it before it's really road worthy. I'll eventually start a build thread in the normal spot. For some reason, I like the R3V community so even though I don't have an e30 anymore, I'm gonna stick it out.

09/23/2015


09/23/2015


09/23/2015


09/23/2015

[marshallnoise]

This past weekend I got started making the car roadworthy.

I crawled under the car and noticed that some idiot stripped out the oil pan plug and simply used JB Weld to seal up the oil plug. They needed to do this because the whole underside of the car is coated in a nice, thin layer of oil. Of course, this means the oil hadn't been changed in forever.

Went to the yard and found a pan off of a 95 530i/a and brought it home along with the front bumper and license plate delete from the same car. It also came with fogs; happy to have a spare set. Also got a new 5 speed sift knob off an e39 528i as well as a shifter weight. While at the yard, I managed to find three Style 5s (I think) that were factory for this car. I had a spare (not a Style 5) off the 735iL I parted and bam, I was back in business for normal BMW wheels. One of the Style 5s wheels will need to be stripped because another idiot decided to prime and paint these wheels black. Oh well. It was cheap and came with a tire.





While I had the pan off, I decided to look into the famed oil pump bolts in drain pan situation. To my surprise, I did not find any bolts in the pan. In fact, all of the bolts were tightened to spec and didn't need any attention. The only remnant I found in the bottom of the pan was a tiny piece of cam chain tensioner. Due to the design of the m60 vs subsequent m62s, I am not going to replace the tensioners. More on that later. I cleaned up one of the old gaskets and then used a thin layer of "The Right Stuff" to bolt on my patched oil pan. Dry, dry as can be.

Of course, a different retard at the junk yard couldn't be bothered to remove the drain plug on the 530i/a pan and just punched a hole in the bottom of it. At least the plug was not stripped. I decided to pound the hole (;)) back into shape and cut two pieces of sheet metal off and patch the hole with epoxy. It is now oil tight and ready to be put into service.

I then reached for the oil filter housing to replace the filter and tried my hardest to twist the cap off. Had to use a breaker bar and a 32mm socket to get the fooker off. Turns out the same idiot (probably) who JB Welded the oil plug also neglected to use an o-ring and just cranked on the oil filter cap. Fortunately, it wasn't cracked. Pulled the old filter out and replaced it with a new one and put in a new o-ring and tightened to spec. I filled it with 8 quarts of fresh Rotella T 15w-40.

I am waiting for a whole slew of new parts for the car to get it reliable and one of them is a new upper radiator hose. But in the interim, I decided to pull the hose off the same 530i/a at the yard that was in decent shape and throw it on the car. Here it is next to the old one.


When I got the car, the driver side window was off the tracks and all the way in the bottom of the door. No matter, I pulled the panel off the door and raised up. I am waiting on new clips for the regulators. I ordered enough for the whole car. Couldn't hurt.

[marshallnoise]

The damn seat. This car came with sport seats which, as I understand it, is pretty rare on any e34. I believe all of the 540i/6 cars came with sport seats and a few of them had the M package seats (basically M5 with the m60). Mine are kind of rare in that they have the memory option too.

Mine was twisted all to hell. I didn't take very good pictures of how bad the seat back was twisted, but yeah, it was gnarly.




When riding in it with the seat installed, it sure as hell felt like the front of the seat wasn't attached to the floor at all. Sure enough...


The arms that rotate freely making the front of the seat go up when engaging the seat height motor were sheared off. There was freaking bailing wire attached to the bottom of the seat where the memory seat controller is mounted. Idiots!

I don't have any pictures, but I pulled the seat into the house to work on it on Monday night and have a go at getting it straight. I did the cable twist fix on all of the motors except one that already had it done. It is straight and aligned. The power seat control was just loosely sitting in the trim piece so I epoxied the shit out of it so it would never break apart ever again.

I ordered up a new Eastwood MIG 135 welder that should be here next week. I'll then weld the crap out of the arms and hopefully it will be functional again. I'll eventually get the whole seat redone in leather for durability sake.

[2mAn]

good start, I remember seeing that ad. I had a feeling there was going to be a LOT of DAPO "fixes" that would need to be dealt with. Glad to see it found its way into some good hands

[marshallnoise]

Parts on order are:

• URO Parts 10 Piece e34 Front Suspension Kit
• Valve Cover Gasket kit
• PCV Valve
• Intake manifold taskets
• Hoses for the whole damn thing
• Idler wheels
• Belts
• Rear suspension pitman arms (Lemfoerder)

Don't mock me for the URO Parts suspension stuff. The plan is to use it knowing some of the stuff is not overly durable. I will take the old parts and install new ball joints and bushings for when the URO Parts crap takes a dump. Then I will wash, rinse, repeat. I figure the hard parts are hard parts, its the ball joints and bushings that die. I have a 20 Ton press so I can do that stuff on the cheap.

[marshallnoise]

good start, I remember seeing that ad. I had a feeling there was going to be a LOT of DAPO "fixes" that would need to be dealt with. Glad to see it found its way into some good hands

DOOD, you know it!

It had no power steering fluid and it takes Pentosin. Of course it leaks.

I also cracked open the air filter housing and guess what was missing?

Fortunately, the car runs like a scalded dog anyway. I will do a compression test for giggles, but I have a good feeling about it. Its a legitimate Southern California car according to the carfax report. Had a bunch of owners, but surprisingly straight.

[slammin.e28]

Sport seat alert! How's the leather? Mine are all torn to hell....memory/heated as well.

Awesome pickup!

[marshallnoise]

Sport seat alert! How's the leather? Mine are all torn to hell....memory/heated as well.

Awesome pickup!

The leather is in great shape everywhere except the driver seat. I will take pics of the interior later this week. Steering wheel sucks too. Not sure what I am going to do there. Maybe strip it down and do a baseball bat grip wrap. That'd look cool.

[Porthos]

If you need a new steering wheel, tan dashboard, cup holder, or new Elipsoids hit me up.

[Nesset]

This reminds me way too much of my girlfriends old E34 540... It had black leather sport seats with the memory option and what not. Not a manual so I thought that was pretty odd... But low and behold it actually was an option apearantly according to the dealer window sticker. Makes me want one more and more... Sub'd! Love it.

[marshallnoise]

This reminds me way too much of my girlfriends old E34 540... It had black leather sport seats with the memory option and what not. Not a manual so I thought that was pretty odd... But low and behold it actually was an option apearantly according to the dealer window sticker. Makes me want one more and more... Sub'd! Love it.

Thanks for the encouragement! That's rad you had the original sticker! Would kill for that.

[marshallnoise]

Here are some interior shots. Not cleaned at all and some junk in the back seat. But you can see the good shape of the interior.









And the destroyed driver's sport seat. I already straightened it out at this point.




I epoxied the crap out of the power seat switch. The bottom tabs were broken anyway and if the seat goes out, I figure it will be easy to cut this out.


I pulled the switches out of the center console and cleaned the ever loving piss out of them. There must have been 3 cokes and 5 doughnuts plastered in there. No pics cause it's been done a million times before.

[Porthos]

After a good cleaning and some repairs you are going to have a sweet interior. Looks like you got a pretty good deal on this car.

[marshallnoise]

After a good cleaning and some repairs you are going to have a sweet interior. Looks like you got a pretty good deal on this car.

Thanks yeah! The guy hated the fact it was a manual transmission. His loss, my gain. I am looking forward to seeing how the paint comes out. I know I am going to have to spend a fair sum of cash to get the miscellaneous dents removed, but I think it will be worth it.

Would love some M5 throwing stars on this car. :p

[2mAn]

Would love some M5 throwing stars on this car. :p

they will cost more than the car!