1990 E34 525i

[Conki]

OK so this project was on the back burner till a couple weeks ago when I crashed my eta. Not having a car was a good motivator, so I jumped back into the project.

I stripped down the new head and took it to a machine shop for cleaning and surfacing.
Replaced the valve stem seals, ground the valves/seats, and started putting it back together:










I was ready to drop it back on the block tonight after work, but my friend surprised me with these awesome pics a couple hours ago:





The trees that fell over the fence were on a property across the street. It is a business center, and I already talked to them on the phone. Now I'm waiting for a call back...

[Brezzi]

WHY:hitler:

[timofeylbelarus]

holy cheese nipples

[ScHpAnKy]

holy cheese nipples

this^

[dothadance]

shitty..

[drutt23]

You've got to be kiddin me......that's ridiculous.....sorry to see those.... :(

[kts]

Oh man that sucks! :( Sorry to see those photos.

[Acehye559]

Damn sorry man, its really windy today. A huge branch fell and scratched my dads car.

[Conki]

Damn sorry man, its really windy today. A huge branch fell and scratched my dads car.

I know man my friends are telling me about it. I'm at work in Reedley and everything is nice and calm.
Here's a pic I just received of the damage.
It looks like the car should be drivable, but the reason I bought this car was the pristine exterior condition...

[Bimmerista]

WTF?! Seems random for that tree to fall the way it did.

[Conki]

After sitting for 2 years with a broken timing belt, with 2 year old gas and a year old battery in it, it started up after 5 seconds of cranking yesterday! I wasn't too confident it would, but it did, and now I'm really happy! I just need to buy a couple things for it, need to hook up a couple vacuum hoses, the cooling system still needs to go in, and I have to fit the rear exhaust manifold on somehow that I wasn't able to line up with the head (fuu has that been frustrating), and then it'll be ready to get smogged!

I'm pretty stoked right now, this was the deepest I've dug into an engine so far, and it's not a complete failure:)

[Nick_S]

Wow congrats on getting it back together. Serious bummer about the tree falling on it. You planning on fixing the roof?

[Conki]

Wow congrats on getting it back together. Serious bummer about the tree falling on it. You planning on fixing the roof?

It depends on a couple things. I just noticed that when closed, the driver's door isn't flush with the body, so there could be other damage too.
I certainly wouldn't spend the $4500 I was quoted for the repair. I already accepted that the car won't be as perfect as it was prior to the accident, so now I'm thinking about a couple possible fun projects. A friend suggested I should go for a CF roof, but I also have other ideas.
Regardless of what I'll decide to do, I'll have to have another DD for this to be a project again.
Until then, I'll just drive it as is. I'd probably have to seal the gap around the moon roof for now though haha.

[TimKninja]

What the fuck? The company wont pay for the damages????

[Jean]

wtf man, thats some bad luck :(