1990 E34 525i

[Conki]

Harbor freight is your friend for E-Torx sockets.

Put my order in, I'm getting a torque wrench as well, which shall be kind of important during reassembly:)

Another positive update:
I bought a battery, hooked it up, and all windows and lights work, as well as the central locking system, the wipers, the instrument cluster, so I'm pretty happy.

[Conki]

So I kinda got stuck with the exhaust bolts. How do you guys apply force to the wrench? I can barely reach in there to put the socket on the bolt, there is no way I could pull/push hard enough on the wrench to loosen those bolts.

Any tips/tricks?

[StereoInstaller1]

You are not trying to get the manifold off the head right? You pull the head with both intake and exhaust manifolds on it, put it on the same way.

[Danny]

Impact wrench.

[Conki]

You are not trying to get the manifold off the head right? You pull the head with both intake and exhaust manifolds on it, put it on the same way.

Yes, that's my plan, but I have to unbolt the exhaust manifolds from the exhaust pipes.

[Conki]

Impact wrench.

That's one solution if I can fit it in there. And if I find someone who has one.

[Danny]

Or, put a torque tube over the ratchet.

[Conki]

Or, put a torque tube over the ratchet.

There is barely any space for the ratchet itself to move, that is my problem here.

[Danny]

Extensions + u joints.

[Conki]

Extensions + u joints.

I've been wrestling with those bolts using all kinds of stuff. I haven't found my WD40 tho, so I'll have to buy another can, that might help a little.

[StereoInstaller1]

Nice score, bud. We know how much we all love the E30, but seriously, in most every way the E34 is a better car. The E30 has that "tossability", but if you have driven an even half ass (shock, struts, springs, wheels/tires) well set up E34, they are amazing.

I will say this: I believe the E34 stock kicks the living shit out of a stock E30 any damn day. The E30 is far far "sportier" but E34s feel gooood.

Here is the one I got for free:



Body damage:



but a new trunklid and stuff... and rebuild the top end of the motor, suspension, interior, detail, wheels and tires, alarm and stereo (the E34 box I did for CorvallisBMW kicks ass, I am doing more soon) so I am gonna have a pile of time and money into a "free" car, but it should be nice.

Here is a pic of a headliner I did, it drooped horribly and had stains, etc before:



I did the rear deck to match, along with the A,B & C pillars and sunroof.



These cars are so damn nice to work with. Wait until you have to pull your headliner, E34 kicks the shit out of E30 for interior design. Electrical nightmare compared to the E30, but also unbelievably solid design and components...again, kicks the crap out of the E30, even with the complexity.

Anyway, freaking great score. 3 pedals is freaking baller. I have worked on hundreds of E34s, they were my bread and butter for 3 or 4 years when they were new. I was at the dealer picking or dropping off a car sometime 2 or 3 times a day, often E34 after E34.

I have never personally seen a cloth interior. The whole time I did all that dealer work, I rarely ever saw a 5 speed, like only 4 or 5. That car is a score.

Luke

[Conki]

Nice score, bud. We know how much we all love the E30, but seriously, in most every way the E34 is a better car. The E30 has that "tossability", but if you have driven an even half ass (shock, struts, springs, wheels/tires) well set up E34, they are amazing.

I will say this: I believe the E34 stock kicks the living shit out of a stock E30 any damn day. The E30 is far far "sportier" but E34s feel gooood.

These cars are so damn nice to work with. Wait until you have to pull your headliner, E34 kicks the shit out of E30 for interior design. Electrical nightmare compared to the E30, but also unbelievably solid design and components...again, kicks the crap out of the E30, even with the complexity.

Anyway, freaking great score. 3 pedals is freaking baller. I have worked on hundreds of E34s, they were my bread and butter for 3 or 4 years when they were new. I was at the dealer picking or dropping off a car sometime 2 or 3 times a day, often E34 after E34.

I have never personally seen a cloth interior. The whole time I did all that dealer work, I rarely ever saw a 5 speed, like only 4 or 5. That car is a score.

Luke

Thanks for the addition to the topic, you just made me feel 1000x better about my purchase:)
I was actually 9 years old when I told my father I'm going to have an E34 one day. I always loved them, and almost bought one before I bought my E30. I'm glad it turned out this way, because I can't get enough of my E30, I love driving it, and now I have both. I just want to fix the 5er as soon as possible.
I'm really leaning towards keeping it, but then I won't have any money to put into either of them.
Wait a minute... I might get an internship for 12 months starting in January. If that were the case, oh my, do I have plans for both of them:)

[StereoInstaller1]

Sweet, man. I would have jumped on that in a heartbeat.

Hang on to the E30 too, make it the weekend toy it deserves to be.

[Acehye559]

Good luck with her

[Conki]

I haven't had much time because of school, but by the end of this week the load seemed to decrease, so I started working on her.
Took the head off, and it doesn't look too bad.
There is a lot of carbon deposit, but the exhaust valves didn't cause serious damage to the pistons:



Yesterday I headed off to Pick-N-Pull. There were 2 e30s with M10s and 3 with M20s. Unfortunately all three were etas. But then I found 1990 525i, score!! Started taking it apart, I worked on it for about an hour. Then I took off the valve cover to unbolt the head from the block, when I saw that it had normal head bolts instead of Torx. Weird, I thought, then I proceeded to take the bolts out when something interesting caught my attention. It had a 4 journal bearing cam!! WTF?
Did e34s come with M20B27s as well?
Or what's going on here? I'm confused, HELP ME!!! :D