ChrisO
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Posts posted by ChrisO
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Saw you on my way to Taco Bell today, car sounds awesome
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I’m interested but it’ll probably go before I have the cash flow 😬
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On 4/25/2019 at 9:20 AM, P_Roloff said:
I’m guessing that the door bottoms are torched after seeing all that rust?
The front doors might actually be rust free I’ll check them out, one of the rear doors has a massive dent
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Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, very busy with school and weather is just finally getting nice where I wanna be in my garage
I appreciate all the suggestions from everyone, I'm going to put some oil in the cylinders and re-run the compression test. I also visited home this past week and grabbed my borescope so I can check out the cylinder walls and pistons.
I can easily hook up pressurized air to the hose that came with my compression tester kit so I'll do that also if the compression numbers are still low
For now I've been pulling the car apart, I had a moment today in the garage as I was gutting it (easily lost 400lbs today) thinking how cool it would be to rebuild it, completely simplify the car, cage it, put some light bucket seats in it and use it, until the carpet came up and the skirts came off
I had a lot of fun getting this skirt off. A PO jacked on the fender seam and bent the fender/skirt up into the body of the car with the bolt holding the skirt on smashed inwards. When all this shit fell out after the skirt came off I knew it was no good
Yeah its bad up front. Extending beyond this hole towards the frame rails under the undercoating is completely soft. The metal has rusted away just leaving a sheet of just undercoating haha
Can see the hole to the front right of the jack point, although it looks mostly intact it's made up of multiple layers of metal and they are all swollen with rust in-between the layers.
Rear wheel well, same story as the floor pan, completely rusted through under the undercoating up about a solid 6in beyond what you can see
random firewall rust holes on the passenger side
Hard to tell but this is a hole into the rockers
Same story but worse on the passenger side
Mysterious rusty puncture hole in the battery area
Yeah so I've played this game before and I'm not going to again. I'm sure the inside of the rockers is horrifying
Funny thing is though, parts of this car are really rust free, the rear jack points, pan and rockers dont even have surface rust. No rust on the quarters, no rust on the rear trunk lip, fenders aren't rusted through. This was a texas car until 2002, The rust is probably from sitting uncared for in a wet environment with trapped water for 11 years and not salt. Shame
Making progress
Idk what I'm doing with everything, I want the shell gone and all the regular e34 parts gone. I'm just kinda gonna hang on to everything M5 specific for now
It sucks doing this to this car, it really does. I feel bad every time my garage opens and you see such a special car with nothing but a M5 badge left on the rear.
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11 minutes ago, m42b32 said:
That's a bummer.... but it makes sense to part out. Spending the money to rebuild the engine/etc just wouldn't make sense if the shell isn't in good shape. Swapping the M5 parts to another E34 would be pretty sweet though (M5 touring replica??)
Honestly whatever comes first a e34 touring or a 5 speed 535i!
The tourings seem next to impossible to find
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Well I got around to compression testing the motor this morning.
Test was dry and cold but
Cylinder #1 gave false hope, decent number for a cold motor?
Cylinder #2-4 crushed my dreams, I triple checked all of them and they were in the 60-70psi range
And back to a more normal number in cylinder #6...
I made sure to check each cylinder multiple times in different orders to make sure it wasn't user or equipment error
So yea thats bad.
So the car needs:
- Major engine work
- All new coolant hoses
- A gas tank
- A new battery
- A cam pulse sensor
- A intake boot
- New tires
- New brakes
- rear shocks
- every busing that is rubber in the car
I also found a hole by the battery under the rear seat where it looks like something punctured the body?? It's all rusty now
I'm still super happy with my purchase, but the amount of money and work it's going to need is gonna be too much. If the thing didn't have rusty jack points and holes in the pan I'd consider "bringing it back from the dead"
I know it's a rare car but it's a easy $7000 in parts, and even if this was driving I don't see anyone paying over $8k with the overall condition/ rust. Decent rust free ones with similar miles go for 11-15k it seems like
I still have my new M3 I'm trying to build, and my main focus is on that, not tearing down a s38 when I have no major engine work experience
Sorry guys but I'm gonna look for a decent 535i to throw some fun parts on and beat around in 😓
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22 hours ago, YoungCR said:
All good suggestions. I’d over prepare for the first start being a high tolerance motor. If you want to pull the tank, they are fairly simple on e34’s, just two tank straps to undo. The front strap bolts can be tricky if things are rusty though.
Really cool that this car still has its dealer tags on the keys. The keyless entry system is easy to reprogram too if everything is working.
The car has a new fuel pump and fuel lines, the previous owner just put the tank back in in the last two years
9 hours ago, jc43089 said:It sounds as though you have already cranked it, did the oil pressure light turn off? If not I typically remove the spark plugs before cranking a dormant engine so that there is no load on the bearings. Also adding a squirt of oil to the cylinders wouldn't hurt. A bore scope would be handy to look in the cylinders for rust but if you already cranked it over then you already are past that.
I havent personally cranked it, but in the last two years the previous owner tried to get it to run on multiple occasions
I really appreciate the advice from everyone, I'm definitely going to put some oil down into the cylinders before I try to start it and put a quart through the motor. I'm probably going to pull the valve cover gasket to take a look at the sludge and make sure I see no obvious damage
For now, there isn't a chance I could have gotten it to run today. I went over the engine bay very thoroughly and found several different issues that would prevent the car from running.
The cam pulse sensor that surrounds a spark plug wire is destroyed. Unfortunately this is a $170 sensor, and is s38b36 specific and only available as a genuine BMW part. @straight6pwr you were right, it's already expensive
Next pretty much every vacuum line is bad. The one off the fuel pressure regulator is completely split in half
The intake boot post-maf is torn wideee open
The maf plug was half plugged in
So I need to order that cam sensor and a intake boot, and redo the vacuum lines. All pretty simple things, I'm going to pull the plenum off and redo all the vacuum lines while I wait for the sensor.
I did put power to the car today though, just to see if everything worked. All headlights, tail lights, turn signals all work. Blower motor works, windows work, all seat functions work. Radio turns on but nothing comes out of the speakers, assuming It's thanks to the hellish wiring and amp/sub set up in the trunk.
It was a good feeling to see the car come to life with power
Just under 192k miles
A lot for having sat the last 11 years, would probably be over 250k if it never stopped running
I spent most of the day just degreasing and cleaning inside the engine bay, it was really bad and now I have a pretty clean motor to work with
The itb throttle linkage was pretty gummed up, I really focused on that and it's much better now
Gave the car a wash on the outside the best I could without running water, I just wanted to make it look less like a abandoned car in the parking lot of my apartment haha
But yeah, no wonder the car wouldn't start... More to come
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28 minutes ago, straight6pwr said:
i don't mean to rain on the P.O.'s parade, but there's a perfectly good spark plug tool in that tool kit...yet there he was, grinding and grinding and grinding
Wow I didn't even notice that lmao, sweet
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Here’s just a few more pics of the car and some interesting things
PO gave me a bucket of stuff from the car and these diagnostic tools were in it, along with a custom ground down spark plug socket (s38’s have very narrow spark plug holes)
also in the bucket was a 12v adapter that plugs into where the glovebox flashlight goes
Car has all the keys it came with from the factory, I think. Also has full documentation from the dealer
Break in period sticker from when the car was new, assuming this is pretty damn rare to see
full size m system spare and a almost complete tool kit
Few interior shots
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20 hours ago, i_love_cars said:
That's $200 too much. You asked explicitly what we think about the wheel. So here we are. If you'd get off your lazy ass and make some decent M3 designs, you wouldn't have had to barter for a shitty steering wheel because I'd have paid you cash for multiples of good shirts and then you'd have money to pay a vendor for real performance parts.
Will u cum to one of my threads and roast me next
- suspenceful and patsbimmer1
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40 minutes ago, patsbimmer1 said:
I don't know if I read that correctly in context but how can you do a leak down or compression test if you can't crank the engine? At this point the only option I see is to disassemble the engine, clean it, reassemble and hope it starts. 10 years worth of oil not running will absorb moisture over time so milky color doesn't surprise me. There's not an effective way to clean that sludge without a running car and I wouldn't try to start the car seeing what's in that engine right now. Not an easy task but that would be the right way to do it.
Oh my bad, the car cranks, has spark, but no fuel. Of course the crank/pulse sensor wire is sheared in half. I was planning on wiring it up on Saturday and trying to figure out the no fuel issue. But really just the consistency of the sludge in the head is what concerns me and I was wondering if it could be possible from just moisture. I can’t make any assumptions based off coolant consumption/oil in the coolant/air in the coolant because it has none nor could I put some in it and bleed it as it won’t start.
I agree tho, it seems wrong to try and start it as it sits.
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Real promising start here, took me 3 seconds to see the crank position sensor wires are cut clean in half, not sure how or why that happened. Also I've noticed inside of the oil cap, the head has a nice creamy sludge pooled at the bottom off the head bellow the cams in those pockets. It's pretty thick gunk... I know moisture can cause stuff like this but it's pretty thick. PO told me he changed the oil last year when he tried to get it to run, and the oil in the pan looks perfect (although very thick). One observation I made is the oil is way overfilled. I wonder if the motor was filled with sludge that wouldn't drain completely when he added 8 quarts of fresh oil?
Under no circumstances does it seem normal to me, but I might be mistaken? the car did sit with the same oil in it for 10 years... I can't run most of the blown headgasket tests thanks to the car being a no start, and the cooling system being completely dry/ probably not holding pressure due to old hoses. I can do a leak down and compression test. Opinions? When I have more time I'm going to pull the valve cover gasket to better get a look at the inside of the head.
also I discovered some subs and a amp under all the garbage in the trunk 😂
Looks like it has some kind of custom box for e34's, if anyone wants it all for super cheap let me know haha
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21 minutes ago, Jdesign said:
SO MUCH YES!! I assume you got a killer deal on it since its been sitting for so long and needs so much work.
CONGRATS!!
I feel pretty good about it, my expenses are just over what you had him at. I just really wanted the full aero and wheels, no matter what direction this goes I'm holding on to them!
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Well I ended up putting in a offer on the 93 M5 @Jdesign had found last year and yesterday after class I went to pick it up
the drive was about 2 1/2 hours from Eau Claire, I rented a U-Haul pickup and trailer and it was a perfect day for the drive down. It was my first time towing anything ever and it was super easy, even with a 4000lb car on the back. Everything felt very planted. It was a great deal I thought at $220 for the 24 hours and 300 miles I had it.
Everywhere south of Arcadia, WI had some pretty impressive roads, hills and bluffs, especially closer to the Mississippi River. I’m definitely driving down that way this summer.
The seller was a great dude and was a huge help getting the car on the trailer
Its a 93, Schwartz II with a less desirable dove type interior. The only option it has is power seats, everything else is standard. The car is dead, but has around 190k miles on it
The full rig
I got back to Eau Claire around 9pm and unloaded the car, it then took my roommate and I two hours to push it 8 feet into my garage because the entire parking lot was ice. It was horrible, zero traction to push
secured in the garage
I haven’t even had the chance to look at it yet, this afternoon after class I’m going to dig in. A few things I’ve noticed so far, the car has no severe rust except for a area up front by the driver fender in the floor pan, a hole about the size of a ping pong ball. It’s surprisingly clean, rust wise. Honestly tho the car is beat to shit. It’s been sitting for 11 years, it last ran in 2008. The coolant reservoir is empty, and the oil almost seems sticky... maybe it’s just 20w50 in 19° weather? Just about every rubber line and hose in the engine bay is dried out.
This car/thread could go a few different ways
1. The motor hasn’t suffered some kind of catastrophic failure and I get it to run and drive and enjoy it
2. The motor has suffered catastrophic failure and a s50 gets swapped in or something (eh)
3. I part the car out, keep the wheels, mirrors, bumpers, skirts and rear trunk panel to put on a 530i/540i that I’ll daily (this is probably going to be the winning option)
Im pretty much looking to replace my Passat as my daily driver. Either way I want it to be a e34. For now I’ll post me messing around with the m5 and all my findings
- Boris3, P_Roloff, DrLeadFoot and 4 others
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2 hours ago, Jdesign said:
CONGRATS!!!
Please share once you pick it up!
Will do! Fingers crossed, I'm really hoping I can get it to run so I can daily it this summer! Chances are the motor is damaged though, will be exploring other options... I don't exactly want to take this one off the road for good
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15 hours ago, patsbimmer1 said:
Unless its a WIbimmers member then figure a 2-5 year swap...
At the rate of how slow I do things on my car, building something like this would probably take me 25 years 😐
also, I worked out a deal on that e34 M5 and will be picking it up sometime next week!
- Rekpoint, patsbimmer1, Jdesign and 3 others
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On 3/1/2019 at 9:53 AM, m42b32 said:
Lots of amazing cars on BaT recently
It's at $31k with 5 days left... Is this really going to sell for upwards of $40,000?? Come on... doesn't it just start to not make sense?
Let's pretend the cumulative value of all of the parts swapped over is worth the going rate of a nice, well maintained e39 M5 ($16-17k?).
So it's at $31,000 (currently), If this thing was a stock 540it M-sport with 105k miles and accident history it would be going for $15k with 5 days left at auction already...
I can''t wait to see someone pay $45,000 for this
ps: sick car tho
@SteelBlue If only you wouldn't have scrapped the m3 shell, check out the going rate of ones with watermelon sized rust holes in the quarters and floor pans in Chicago
https://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/for/d/plano-e36-m3-sedan-rolling-shell/6831510421.html
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51 minutes ago, Jdesign said:
It’s pretty far away and is one of those all in, or all out situations. You could make some easy money on it, but it’s hard to part out a car that could be fixed and made drivable fairly easy.
True, I was already assuming the worst with the s38 😂, definitely money to be made either way I think, or kept and appreciated as is for super cheap
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Official-look-what-i-found-thread (craigslist, other-forums, etc)
in Cars For Sale & Wanted
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