95 540i M Sport rescue project

Another E34, this time a 540i M Sport.  I currently own a swapped 6 speed version so I thought it would be nice to have the automatic version.  A friend owned it and asked if I knew anyone interested in it.  I ended up buying it because cheap M Sports don't come up often.  The car runs/shifts great but needs work cosmetically.  The EDC is blown in the front but the SLS works great.  I plan on swapping it for a conventional setup that I have on the shelf until I can get the EDC and SLS stuff rebuilt.  I plan on having it painted in the spring or summer when funds permit (I'm doing house related projects currently).  

First thing was to fix the SLS.  Since the rear sway bar was replaced with a larger sway bar, the u bolt that goes to the SLS regulator does not fit which makes it sit like that.  Easily fixed with some #10 threaded rod.

Fixed the SLS and cleaned it.  

As you can see, the paint has seen better days.  The car has been resprayed once due to a top front hit (hood, grill, lights, and core support are not original) but everything else is the same.  Pretty sure if this was a much worse impact, the car would have been parted long before I got it.  The hood will end up being replaced with another before it is repainted because it looks like someone dropped something pretty heavy on it.  

Cool car, and definitely in capable hands.

Questions:

EDC?

SLS?

what are these things?

In reply to AngryCorvair :

EDC is electronic dampening control.  There are two modes, sport and performance.  Performance stiffens the shocks up more than sport.  

SLS is self leveling system which is hydraulic based and levels out the rear of the car under load or if something heavy is in the trunk.  

Both are not cheap to rebuild so many have swapped these out for regular shocks and springs.  I plan on having them rebuilt when funds permit.  There is a place in Poland that does the rebuilds and no one else I know of.  

One of my all-time favorite car shapes, no 5 series has looked as good since.  

YECH

man, what a beauty.  

Made some progress the past couple weekends.  I decided to remove the EDC for now until I can afford to have it rebuilt.  It's about $2k USD to have it rebuilt to brand new condition which includes shipping to and from as well as customs fees.  For now it sits in my garage waiting for that time.  Having cores is half the battle because they do not come up or sale often.  I did install some low mileage Bilstein Sports and B&G springs on the car that I originally had on my M52 OBD2 E34 in 2015.  They probably have around 7-8k on them.  I bypassed the SLS and removed the accumulators from the car.  No need in having those on the car when they are not being used.  All associated hardware was placed in bags and boxes so nothing is lost.  The car rides a lot better over bumps but will need control arms in the near future.  I'm pleased with how it sits also, low enough but still comfortable to drive.  

I also pressure washed around the engine (keeping away from electrical parts and places where water could collect), under the car, wheel wells, behind the bumpers, and anywhere else that I could clean while under the car.  The car has been sitting for a year a friends house and for who knows how long at a shop in North Carolina.  A lot of nastiness and a few neighbors and my wife are questioning my sanity.  A clean car is an easier car to work on...just saying.  

Engine looks a lot better than when I bought it.  I found more caps for the cover also, just not pictured.

Spare style 21 wheel that looks like it was never used.

Bumper cleaning.  I needed to replace a few pieces of broken trim and there was a lot of nasty crap that fell on the ground.  Signs that the car had been sitting for a long time.  I cleaned the back side of the bumpers also, removing a lot sand from the rear bumper and grime.

I've been driving it around for the past week now and took it to Caffeine and Octane in Atlanta on Sunday (02/11/2018) and got a lot of positive reactions from my M Sport rescue project.  A lot of people asked when I was going to 6 speed swap it.  No one mentioned paint lol.  Probably will happen but I really do not want to because having one lazy car has been nice over the past week.

Looks great! I miss the hell out of my '91 535i/5. Maybe I need another E34 to daily drive...

For an enthusiast at a C&C event, not surprising that the manual swap question would come up.  Everything is secondary to having a manual trans in a car like this.

In reply to onemanarmy :

This is true.  I'm fortunate enough to have the 6 speed version of this car already (swapped too).  

Nice to see this rescued. I had a  540i/6 for a few years that was a great commuter! Engine bay was a bit tight for easy service, but it was so nice to drive. I had a friend with a 3.6 M5 and he thought my car was better in every way.

What a gorgeous sedan. Hard to decide which is prettier - the e34 or e39. I lean towards the e34!

That's the #1 question I get regarding my 2000 540it— "when are you manual swapping it?"