Hey R3V, Manny here.
I recently acquired this 1984 BMW Alpina B6 2.8/1. This is my first father/son project, and knowing how excited Pops was when I told him about this car, I'm looking forward to this one. He used to have an E21 320i 1.8 with the head worked back in the 80's in NYC NY, supposedly there was a shop that used to do all the engine work for the 2.0's boring, head work, including webers.
Now about this car, 4 Years ago i had a friend that mentioned something about "E30", and "Alpina". The two never mixed in my head because it was followed with "sitting forever", "not running" and "grandfathers garage". Then to now, my thoughts towards buying a non running E30 are a bit more engaging since I've had a fair amount of time spent wrenching on these boxes.
So about two weekends ago i saw the car listed, and contacted my friend to ask if this was actually happening. Not only was I not the first to check it out, But there was already a line ahead of me to see the car. I was granted the opportunity to check the car out ahead of time, and was able to strike a deal that Friday night.
This is Chassis Number 0042 / 0259
Now, as I was driving home, I was thinking to myself.
This is an Alpina.. This is a car that would definitely need a bit more knowledge then your typical E30 [ replacement parts mech/cosmetic, general info ], so i ended up spending the next 48 hours doing nothing but research. As much as I hate to say, there's nothing on these cars that contain solid, consistent information. It's not too reassuring spending 4 digits on a blindfold.
Insert Raul To The Rescue
-On a side note. There's one thing i love about this community, if you don't take the time to lurk and learn and simply ask dumb questions [ or don't care to search ] you will be roasted. By pulling aside the right members, you most always will helped, and with this case I could say that 10x. This man spend 2 1/2 days replying to me as if I was a lost sheep, as well as forwarded me to Frank. It really gave the final push to be 100% comfortable taking on this project. Can't say thank you guys enough!! :)
Anyway, we agreed to meet back up on Sunday morning, and with great anticipation, all I could think was what it'd be like to own, and drive a piece of history. Yes E30 M3's are "Gods Chariot", and would absolutely love to have one. Not quite sure where an Alpina would amount up to in this category, But hey runner up is better than nothing ;D
Alas, here we are. A Genuine Alpina B6, the owner stated the car sat for 14 YEARS!!!
Tires were flat from sitting ofc, but surprisingly held air! Brakes were seized, with the help of a golf cart, human bodies, and rope, we were able to pull it out to get a view of the entire car.
I'd say the exterior of the car is a solid 6-7/10, diver window won't roll up, door has a nice little dent, as well as the under the door. But the car looks to be in decent shape.. Other then ya know, the 5 layers of dust.
The interior is.. Pretty darn nice. This video doesn't give justice since everything is quiet dirty and needs a full detail, nothing is ripped, torn, smeared, honestly the steering wheel has the most amount of wear on the inside of this car. Oh, did i mention she has 43,xxx original miles on the clock?
We wanted to make sure the engine at least turned over. Then had the idea of seeing if she'd fire up. Unplugged fuel pump fuse, pulled a vac line, and sprayed away.
14 years of sitting, this thing won't start... Will it?
Things that were noticed, the car didn't smoke, and nothing leaking.
Now, this right here is a rear mounted A/C system. No it's not OEM, but it was added before the car was EPA tested and federalized in the states at 1900 miles. So either it was added right before being shipped to the states, or right after it rolled off the boat. But No A/C in Florida is haunting, we'll see how this goes.
Get back to the shop and immediately gave a nice hose down. Cleaned up nice.
Monday. Was an exciting day to say the least, the only thing I wanted to hear was the idle of this baby purring,
but as we've all seen the posts on FB about E30's catching on fire over a $20 hose
First things first, fuel tank. She was full. And i mean past "F", so we had to drain the 2001 5% ethanol 93 oct that turned a shade yellow
And had a look inside:
For a 31 year old car, this thing looks pretty good, likely due to the tank having a loaded tank all this time. Rust on this car is at a bare minimum to say the least.
Checked the brakes as they were seized, also the condition of rims.
14 Year old oil was drained
Brake lines were flushed, calipers lubed to where they were engaging properly.
Pads/Rotors looked decent enough.
Slave was leaking, changed that out as well
New new
Had a chance to check out the rims, all genuine 16x7
What the A/C system looks like
Changed out the fuel filter too
That night gave the car a few chances to start with some spray again.
Fuel pumping ended up coming alive at the end of that video, so we ran the car for a bit to hear how everything sounded.
Next day, trans, diff, and plugs
Macro FTW!
Starting after plugs
Trans/Diff were sludge, but everything looked good so i took her on a test drive
After that tease of a drive, I notice the brake fluid is low in the reservoir
Low and behold
Bokeh FTW!
While all this happened, I went ahead and fixed the daily, 1998 E36 M3
Pretty safe to say don't track your daily, cooling fan blade, fan clutch fan shroud, PS pump, PS return line, left motor/trans mount, and intake boot.
Oh, and driver side window is fixed, somwhere in there, no pics. I tore down the door card only to realize the switch was bad
The Current:
Edit: Holy 4 hour OP, 7am hope everything shows up fine :yawn:
Dbl Edit: Somehow source of all pics were deleted.. Individually, and chronologically added each photo back with a higher res from Flickr. Hope they work out better, update in a few hours as this just took up all my time.
I recently acquired this 1984 BMW Alpina B6 2.8/1. This is my first father/son project, and knowing how excited Pops was when I told him about this car, I'm looking forward to this one. He used to have an E21 320i 1.8 with the head worked back in the 80's in NYC NY, supposedly there was a shop that used to do all the engine work for the 2.0's boring, head work, including webers.
Now about this car, 4 Years ago i had a friend that mentioned something about "E30", and "Alpina". The two never mixed in my head because it was followed with "sitting forever", "not running" and "grandfathers garage". Then to now, my thoughts towards buying a non running E30 are a bit more engaging since I've had a fair amount of time spent wrenching on these boxes.
So about two weekends ago i saw the car listed, and contacted my friend to ask if this was actually happening. Not only was I not the first to check it out, But there was already a line ahead of me to see the car. I was granted the opportunity to check the car out ahead of time, and was able to strike a deal that Friday night.
This is Chassis Number 0042 / 0259
Now, as I was driving home, I was thinking to myself.
This is an Alpina.. This is a car that would definitely need a bit more knowledge then your typical E30 [ replacement parts mech/cosmetic, general info ], so i ended up spending the next 48 hours doing nothing but research. As much as I hate to say, there's nothing on these cars that contain solid, consistent information. It's not too reassuring spending 4 digits on a blindfold.
Insert Raul To The Rescue
-On a side note. There's one thing i love about this community, if you don't take the time to lurk and learn and simply ask dumb questions [ or don't care to search ] you will be roasted. By pulling aside the right members, you most always will helped, and with this case I could say that 10x. This man spend 2 1/2 days replying to me as if I was a lost sheep, as well as forwarded me to Frank. It really gave the final push to be 100% comfortable taking on this project. Can't say thank you guys enough!! :)
Anyway, we agreed to meet back up on Sunday morning, and with great anticipation, all I could think was what it'd be like to own, and drive a piece of history. Yes E30 M3's are "Gods Chariot", and would absolutely love to have one. Not quite sure where an Alpina would amount up to in this category, But hey runner up is better than nothing ;D
Alas, here we are. A Genuine Alpina B6, the owner stated the car sat for 14 YEARS!!!
Tires were flat from sitting ofc, but surprisingly held air! Brakes were seized, with the help of a golf cart, human bodies, and rope, we were able to pull it out to get a view of the entire car.
I'd say the exterior of the car is a solid 6-7/10, diver window won't roll up, door has a nice little dent, as well as the under the door. But the car looks to be in decent shape.. Other then ya know, the 5 layers of dust.
The interior is.. Pretty darn nice. This video doesn't give justice since everything is quiet dirty and needs a full detail, nothing is ripped, torn, smeared, honestly the steering wheel has the most amount of wear on the inside of this car. Oh, did i mention she has 43,xxx original miles on the clock?
We wanted to make sure the engine at least turned over. Then had the idea of seeing if she'd fire up. Unplugged fuel pump fuse, pulled a vac line, and sprayed away.
14 years of sitting, this thing won't start... Will it?
Things that were noticed, the car didn't smoke, and nothing leaking.
Now, this right here is a rear mounted A/C system. No it's not OEM, but it was added before the car was EPA tested and federalized in the states at 1900 miles. So either it was added right before being shipped to the states, or right after it rolled off the boat. But No A/C in Florida is haunting, we'll see how this goes.
Get back to the shop and immediately gave a nice hose down. Cleaned up nice.
Monday. Was an exciting day to say the least, the only thing I wanted to hear was the idle of this baby purring,
but as we've all seen the posts on FB about E30's catching on fire over a $20 hose
First things first, fuel tank. She was full. And i mean past "F", so we had to drain the 2001 5% ethanol 93 oct that turned a shade yellow
And had a look inside:
For a 31 year old car, this thing looks pretty good, likely due to the tank having a loaded tank all this time. Rust on this car is at a bare minimum to say the least.
Checked the brakes as they were seized, also the condition of rims.
14 Year old oil was drained
Brake lines were flushed, calipers lubed to where they were engaging properly.
Pads/Rotors looked decent enough.
Slave was leaking, changed that out as well
New new
Had a chance to check out the rims, all genuine 16x7
What the A/C system looks like
Changed out the fuel filter too
That night gave the car a few chances to start with some spray again.
Fuel pumping ended up coming alive at the end of that video, so we ran the car for a bit to hear how everything sounded.
Next day, trans, diff, and plugs
Macro FTW!
Starting after plugs
Trans/Diff were sludge, but everything looked good so i took her on a test drive
After that tease of a drive, I notice the brake fluid is low in the reservoir
Low and behold
Bokeh FTW!
While all this happened, I went ahead and fixed the daily, 1998 E36 M3
Pretty safe to say don't track your daily, cooling fan blade, fan clutch fan shroud, PS pump, PS return line, left motor/trans mount, and intake boot.
Oh, and driver side window is fixed, somwhere in there, no pics. I tore down the door card only to realize the switch was bad
The Current:
Edit: Holy 4 hour OP, 7am hope everything shows up fine :yawn:
Dbl Edit: Somehow source of all pics were deleted.. Individually, and chronologically added each photo back with a higher res from Flickr. Hope they work out better, update in a few hours as this just took up all my time.
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