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

[marshallnoise]

they will cost more than the car!

Ouch! Never mind then. Ha! :(

[2mAn]

Yea just get the 17" style 5s and it will look great

[marshallnoise]

Yea just get the 17" style 5s and it will look great

I agree, those will look killer. I wonder how much the ride will be affected by going from 15" to 17" wheels. I know the sidewall will dramatically decrease. I will google away...

[marshallnoise]

Headed to the yard for a few things. Got all I wanted too. I went for a 95 Ford Taurus electric fan, a Volvo relay for the fan, and a new to me driver's seat (if one was in good shape).

Talked to my buddy Josh about the booty from the yard and he said I didn't need the Taurus fan setup. He figures we can just use the right coolant temperature sender for the aux fan in the front and it will kick on the aux fan earlier. Seems to make sense, so I will give that a shot at first. I will eventually set up the Taurus fan and Volvo relay anyway.

The seat! Holy crap. It was such a pain in the arse getting it out because the 540i/a I pulled it out of had all the three other doors locked. Car was actually REALLY clean, but it smelled like something died in it. Not really like that actually. Like tons of cigars, used pizza (seriously) and potato chip remnants.

But it was seriously nice was the seat is a full power seat along with memory. That means parts. And a template to make my sport seat right again.








Got it installed after dousing it with isopropyl alcohol, twice. The smell was better. Come to find out that the seat suffers from the dreaded twist. I'll sort that out soon.

And other parts are piling up.

[marshallnoise]

Yesterday I headed over to Josh's to try out the 80/88 coolant temp sensor just to find out my aux fan isn't working. Awesome. I will plan on figuring out that situation at some point. Right now the clutch fan works fine so long as I am not chilling in traffic for long amounts of time.

I will stick with my original plan of installing the Taurus 2 speed fan with Volvo relay setup. This shows a great thread on it. I only need a fuse from the power block to the Volvo relay. The cool part about doing it this way is that it is an isolated circuit letting the coolant temp sensor determine when it engages.

Next weekend will also encompass new sliders in all the window regulators, de-tint of windows and polishing out the driver side window hoping the scratch marks will come out. I doubt I will be that lucky on the latter.

Today I picked up another black comfort seat. The wife didn't like the sport seat. I will eventually ditch the sport seats or hang them up in the attic should I decide to sell the car one day.

But I wrestled with the cable set up on the seats. Both the driver's side and passenger side I just bought had cable problems. FOOK. Most folks suggest pulling the sleeve off, cutting a bit off the sheath and then slide the sleeve back on. When you do that, the sheath gets so gooey it won't stay on. I didn't try the other option which involves sectioning the sheath and pushing a fuel hose with hose clamps over it effectively shortening the sheath.

As mentioned above, I had problems with getting the sleeve to stay on once I cut the end off and tried to slide it back on to the sheath. I eventually tried epoxy. That failed. The sheath is too rubbery for the epoxy to work right. Found that out once I put it back together and tried to power up the seat. Also didn't help that I crossed up the cables in one of the motors.

My solution was chucking up the sleeve in my power drill and "screwed" it on the shortened sheath. Worked like a freaking charm. Rock solid. The other weird thing is that everyone says you need only a 1/2" or so sticking out of the end. Dumb, the motor will accept WAY more than 1/2". I made it a full inch sticking out past the sleeve.

The whole seat debacle took me 5 hours to get done. Mainly through inexperience, trial and error and it being hot. Oh, and the Chargers self destructed. What else is new?

I had a hell of a time getting the driver comfort seat back out so I could fix it's cable too. I decided to give up and take a shower. Watched a bit of the blood moon tonight then gave it one more try. It popped out pretty easy. Fixed the one bad cable in 15 minutes.

Experience. Makes all the difference.

[xxx-Lost-Soul-xxx]

Nice score!

[marshallnoise]

nice score!

:)

[marshallnoise]

This post is an online to-do list

Need to mark down what the heck I need to do to the car in one place.

• Find and fix power-steering leak
• Reseal the whole intake system, PCV, etc
• Valve cover gaskets
• Install 10 piece front suspension nonsense
• Install rear suspension pitman arms
• Replace all window regulator clip rail thingies
• Install Taurus Fan set up
• Claybar and wax the paint
• Remove ugly ass tint
• Fix lower dash piece (loose)
• Diagnose heater not working
• 17" Style 5s
• Install a stereo

Moved to original post.

[CorvallisBMW]

psshhh, that's a tiny list. You'll have it done in, what... a day?

J/K, you never know what you're getting with a $900 V8 German sedan. I'm glad you're bringing it back to life, e34 540i/6's are too rare to let rot!

[marshallnoise]

Thanks Corvallis, much appreciated. Yeah, lots to do. I drove it to work today though. It did great considering it is a jalopy at this point.

My aux fan is definitely not working right now. I tried jumpering the coolant temp sensor wires and got nothing from the aux fan. Also turned on the a/c button with it running and got nothing. The fuses are good. My bet is the resistor is shot. That's another thing to address.

[Dj Buttchug]

more e34 builds popping up. I enjoy

[econti]

You cannot even fathom how jealous I am that you can get one for that cheap.
We got 70 (!) 540i/6s in the country when they were new. Usual price now is 10k

[marshallnoise]

You cannot even fathom how jealous I am that you can get one for that cheap.
We got 70 (!) 540i/6s in the country when they were new. Usual price now is 10k

I know how lucky I am in general. I think that this is a $2,500 car here as is. I was just lucky the guy didn't want it and had no idea how rare it is. Value is so subjective.

[marshallnoise]

I tried to start the Taurus fan swap yesterday after ruling out the auxiliary fan is dead as a door knob. Really surprised the lack of space on the m60 fan compared to the m30. I couldn't get my adjustable wrench in there regardless of how thin it is where I could on the m30.

Instead, I wanted to see how the paint would look after a claybar and bit of wax. Overall, I think the car will shine up pretty good. I did a small section on the driver's side just up from the windshield and then the far side of the hood on the drivers side.

[marshallnoise]

Boo.

I tried to remove the fan clutch with a 32mm wrench I bought so I could install the Taurus fan setup. I tried heat. I tried Liquid Wrench. I tried whacking the shit out of it. Nothing I could do would make it budge. So I tried to take off the fan from the clutch itself to get more room on the nut. But no, it comes off the clutch and goes towards the engine.

Then I get smart. I think that if I take off the four nuts that hold the pulley to the water pump, the whole clutch assembly will come off with it. No. The clutch bolts to the water pump itself.

Fuuuuuu!!!!

I had to get the car off the street and now I had a bunch of loose front end engine parts and since I live on a hill, there is no way I can push the car into the drive way so as to avoid a street sweeping ticket.

I did what any old redneck would do. Busted out a sawzall and went to town. At least then I could remove the fan and cut the belt off and a bunch of crap wouldn't rattle around in the front of the motor while I pull it into the driveway. Of course, I knew I would lose the alternator but didn't think about the power steering. Yikes, no PS delete on this car. No freaking way.

At any rate, dumb ass current owner moves are complete for the evening. Going to have to add a water pump and thermostat to my to do list since I am pretty sure that nut is seized on there. Probably a good thing long term.



EDIT: I may try and grab hold of the pulley mount with some pliers and then break that fucker free. The water pump is practically new. Gonna try and salvage it. Regardless, I still need a pulley as the plastic is so hard and brittle, it's stupid.