NOR-CAL General Chat.

[Vivek]

Good evening all! Just picked up a 92' 525it. Any e34 gurus here local? I'm sure I'll have tons of quesions. Will post pics when I get a chance to take them. Either going to find a shop that'll rebuild an auto or just do a manual swap. It would be nice to leave it original though..

I daily’d a 1990 535i for 25k miles and have an ‘89 sitting around (for sale actually). What’s up with yours? Mine never had any of the little things but I did all the major maintenance on it

[newman8r]

I daily’d a 1990 535i for 25k miles and have an ‘89 sitting around (for sale actually). What’s up with yours? Mine never had any of the little things but I did all the major maintenance on it

Everything's good and really clean but the transmission slips. Need someone that has an m50nv 5spd e34 that I can just take all the swap parts. Other small this is the blower motor intermittently goes out, sunroof drain needs to be unclogged. But that's all I assessed in the 2hrs that I actually got to spend with it. This weather sucks :(. Car looks like a project now that it has a tarp over it and some spare tires on top :'(

[CarsonE30]

Everything's good and really clean but the transmission slips. Need someone that has an m50nv 5spd e34 that I can just take all the swap parts. Other small this is the blower motor intermittently goes out, sunroof drain needs to be unclogged. But that's all I assessed in the 2hrs that I actually got to spend with it. This weather sucks :(. Car looks like a project now that it has a tarp over it and some spare tires on top :'(

I have nothing but bad things to say about my old '95. Sunroof opened fine but didn't wanna close, (as I found out when I originally got it home), transmission was fine for about 600 miles and then started to slip, the hatch glass had a bad catch and never actually closed, the electronic release for the hatch was out, it went through brake light switches like no tomorrow, and the seats were uncomfortable. However, I did like the way it actually drove and looked. But that's not enough for me to want another one lol.

E38 update, it's still the best BMW I've ever had but I caught part of a tire on the way up to SF the other day that shattered my passenger side kidney and left a nice 3" dent and 20,000 hopefully repairable scratches in my hood.

[newman8r]

I have nothing but bad things to say about my old '95. Sunroof opened fine but didn't wanna close, (as I found out when I originally got it home), transmission was fine for about 600 miles and then started to slip, the hatch glass had a bad catch and never actually closed, the electronic release for the hatch was out, it went through brake light switches like no tomorrow, and the seats were uncomfortable. However, I did like the way it actually drove and looked. But that's not enough for me to want another one lol.

E38 update, it's still the best BMW I've ever had but I caught part of a tire on the way up to SF the other day that shattered my passenger side kidney and left a nice 3" dent and 20,000 hopefully repairable scratches in my hood.

Hopefully I dont have any problems with the sunroof, cleared the drains this morning. Cleaned all the debris out of the tracks and it functions like it should. Need to get down to the dmv and get that all taken care of.

In the market for A4s 270R/310R tranny for her. or 91-92 m50 5spd parts car :). If anyone is in the market for Borbet Type A's let me know. Need to free up some money.

[CarsonE30]

quoting for eventual regret

Roughly 2 weeks and 748.3 miles later, the regret has arrived. Driving home last night, behind 2 other cars in my neighborhood, I noticed that they had suddenly slammed their brakes and came to a stop so I obviously followed suit. (A tree had fallen in our lane). As soon as I came to a stop, my idle started to drop and fluctuate and I immediately got the "STOP! ENGINE OIL PRESSURE!" readout on my cluster. Seeing as I was only 2 blocks from my house, I slowly accelerated up to ~20mph, (very uncomfortably and with noises that should never come from a vehicle), and then shut the car off and coasted it home in neutral. It's been raining off and on all day here today so I didn't even go out and pop the hood to examine anything except the oil level, (which is perfectly fine), but after doing some reading, apparently on M62's, very hard braking can move the oil pump if one of the 3 bolts that holds it in place is loose but if one actually fell out, it's somewhere in my motor now. It honestly sounded like the motor had zero oil in it. From what I've seen today on YouTube, it sounds like timing chain guide failure but my TCG's were done only 9k miles ago at 162k. Now my issue is, a timing chain guide kit is ~$1500 and everywhere charges between 22 and 30 hours of labor for the job and I own none of the special tools needed to do the job, nor would I be comfortable attempting it after seeing the DIY write-ups on it. So I either find another non-TU M62 and potentially a 6 speed out of an E39 and do the swap or bite the bullet and fix my current situation for the same price of a new engine. I miss my Miata, I miss E30's, I miss my Jeep but I still really like the E38. Even as a lawn ornament.

[Vivek]

Well. This makes me want to do my oil pump rebuild/reinforcement ASAP...

[CarsonE30]

Well. This makes me want to do my oil pump rebuild/reinforcement ASAP...

I'm at 172k with full records and everything from the original owner and this, of all things, is what ruined it lol. I'm gonna pull some things apart on Tuesday and do some further examination and I'll update here.

[2mAn]

Roughly 2 weeks and 748.3 miles later, the regret has arrived.

Kronus was wrong, thats about 3-4 tanks?...

Shitty situation, I suggest pulling the motor to inspect it closer. Then find an E30 to put it in

[Vivek]

The manual 540 will actually do about 300 around town til the light comes on after about 15-16 gallons. Over 400 on the highway, and the e38 is apparently similar. It’s the v8 suv’s That burn gas like there’s a hole in the tank from what I’ve gathered

Is the 2002 model not considered the ‘msport’? I can’t figure out if it has an LSD or not

[wworm]

holy shit man that sucks. I'm with 2man on this one. Swaparooskie...

[mtech325]

The manual 540 will actually do about 300 around town til the light comes on after about 15-16 gallons. Over 400 on the highway, and the e38 is apparently similar. It’s the v8 suv’s That burn gas like there’s a hole in the tank from what I’ve gathered

Is the 2002 model not considered the ‘msport’? I can’t figure out if it has an LSD or not

An 02' e39 540 US car should be a 540 w/ the sport package (usually seen with the 17 inch style 32's or 66's wheels by that point), whereas the the actual M-Sport 540's are 03' cars. The M-Sport 540 cars are the ones with 18 M-Parallel wheels and the M5 style bumpers, but still single exhaust. The front bumper has the "T" slats in the opening, unlike the M5 with the mesh-looking opening.

As for the LSD, only the M5 came with the LSD in the 3.15 ratio from what I understand.

[CarsonE30]

E38 update -
Oil is fine, oil pump is fine, car is running with no oil pressure issues, misfire, or CEL but it is still making an awful noise, (I'll try to upload a video and post it here.) Sounds like bad timing chain guides to me, any idea how long the motor can run with bad guides?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgNA4l3lHuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcxzcaS9l1s

These video's were the 1st and 2nd starts today and I actually let the car just idle and recirculate the oil as much as possible. Oil is clean, no metal or anything in it, gaskets are all good. I'm assuming that the hard braking actually just sloshed the oil so hard that it lost pressure and it just needed to recirculate. The noise is however still concerning but the noise in the videos is much quieter now, but it isn't gone. Counting down to actual engine failure, saving money for M62/420G swap.

[CarsonE30]

Update - it'll last about 13 miles lol.

[wworm]

Aww jeez. Hopefully you invested in cybercurrency before that 13 mile drive otherwise I don't see how you could have saved enough for a manual swap in that much time lol

[McGyver]

Update - it'll last about 13 miles lol.

That blows. At least you got an artsy B&W snap out of it!